Advice On Why We Should Vote "Yes To Lisbon" - From The Edge And A Soccer Player

By Charley Brady

He was obviously another member of the amnesiac party, Fianna Fail.

Talking of which, here's my favourite text of the week:

"Fianna Failed obituary. The Soldiers of Disaster - formerly known as the Soldiers of Destiny (1926-2009). Savaged to death at local and European elections. Sadly missed by builders, developers, cowboys and bankers. Remains reposing in large tent at Galway Racecourse. Remains reposing in the Church of St. Bertie the Chancer. No flowers by request. Only money in brown envelopes accepted."

Except that, like another bunch of gangsters, they haven't gone away, you know. Okay, I'm the first one to admit when I've said something wrong.

So to all of the people who have little better to do than to celebrate Bloomsday by dressing up in straw boaters (God help us) then can I just say that I'm truly sorry for having included James Joyce as one of my favourite bores in last week's column.

I didn't know that you characters who have undoubtedly never even attempted the first twenty pages of "Ulysses" were so touchy. Tell you what: try reading his rather steamy letters to Nora instead. Now they're much more interesting.

As it turns out you are quite correct, much to my horror, because I loved John Huston's final film, his adaptation of Joyce's "The Dead", a few years back. It was wonderful; and the sublime Anjelica Huston's performance was truly haunting.

There is a soliloquy by her at the end of the film that is just simply astonishing, especially with that closing shot. It just seems to sum up all the grief and sense of loss and regret that any one of us has felt at one time or another.

So forgive me. I was wrong. As for the rest of Joyce's stuff, no apologies.

Ditto Sam Beckett. Philistine that I am, I never understood a damned word the man said. And now that the first two volumes of his early letters are out and he unequivocally says that he didn't understand what the hell he was on about either, I feel... oh, vindicated.

Liked his boxing, though, as well as his lifestyle.

And neither he nor Joyce could wait to get out of Ireland. The way things are at the moment, as life goes full circle, I can't say that I blame them.

Continuing on from last week: after I had posted my copy of the article in which I talked about the cockroaches in Northern Ireland who had driven 114 Romanians from their homes there, they attacked the church in which the Romas had been given sanctuary, breaking windows - which is all that louts know how to do.

What wonderful additions to the human race you are; and now you must be so proud that all but two of the Romas have gone home. So I guess that the bully-boy tactics of unreconstructed cretins do work after all.

Especially as there has been a conspicuous silence about this.

So since they were driven out by low-lives like you neo- Nazi, swastika waving rat-bags because "they were taking our jobs" you will no doubt be applying for those same jobs. Yeah, in a sow's ear you will. That might actually entail... oh, what's the word I'm looking for... oh yes - work - one of the few four-letter words that you have never come across. Congratulations: they got what they deserved, didn't they? You drove them out.

But the neutering of the press in Ireland goes on and on. As I have said in previous articles there is an insidious clawing away at the freedom of journalists to write as they wish to write. Any idiot knows that we have to pull our claws in occasionally but this week's finding that the "Evening Herald" must pay €1. 8 million for the defamation of the character of Monica Leech is so disproptionate as to have entered the realms of a John Grisham novel.

She was called a "pretty PR woman", but this was somehow blown up, because of her boss Minister Martin Cullen and slippery wording from her very bright law team to mean something else entirely

Tell you what, for that amount of loot they could call me worse than I even call myself - and that's not pretty.

And at this point I'm going to digress a little.

There is a daily newspaper here that seems to draw so much antipathy for reasons that I simply don't understand. It is called "The Irish Daily Mail" and it is the one newspaper that you can depend on to get a good, factual read from. They have solid journalists like Richard Waghorne, Philip Nolan, the great Mary Ellen Synon, Mary Carr and Brenda Power, none of them bowing down to the consensus and often opinionated to a degree that would enrage you.

There are more, but that is just a flavour of the work that this despised paper produces.

Why it is hated so much by journalists from other papers is a mystery to me; and it's not just here.

I recall a couple of years ago doing a travel piece in the beautiful Carcassone region of France. Some English journalists and Your Humble Narrator were meeting up afterwards to relax. (Well, you know how we hideously underpaid and overworked dudes like to relax). To the abject horror of the others I was caught reading the English version of "The Mail".

Same reaction as you would get here. I just don't get their thinking. Maybe, like Mr. Joyce's work, they've never actually read it?

It's a hell of a lot more satisfying than establishment papers like the "Irish Times", that's for sure. Hell, that might as well be the propaganda arm of the government. But like Mr. Joyce I am doing a digression within a digression.

So in returning to Monica Leech, please permit me to quote from veteran reporter Paul Drury: "On Wednesday evening, a High Court jury awarded Monica Leech €1,872,000 in her libel case against the 'Evening Herald'. It was, by any standards, a bad result for Irish newspapers - by far the largest such award ever made, twice the previous record, and proof positive that, under current legislation Irish judges are unable to suggest a scale of awards to libel juries, the system is no better than a lottery.

"Yet this newspaper was the only national daily to devote an editorial yesterday morning to the obscenity of this award - ten times, as we pointed out, what Miss Leech would have got if she had lost both her legs in a car crash. We were the only paper to show any solidarity whatsoever with the Herald. Some of our rivals, like the Irish Independent and the Examiner, even managed to give the impression that it wasn't terribly important. Even worse, if you read the 'Daily Star' or the 'Irish Times', you would be forgiven for thinking that they thought the award was GOOD news."

I couldn't agree more and since I was one of only three journalists to speak against the witch-hunt for Kevin Myers several months ago, I feel it's legitimate to comment on the increasing territorial attitude of journalists.

Sure, everyone is competitive and that's no bad thing. I can't count the number of times that I've had something written only to find that someone else has gotten in with a similar view first. You probably heard my curses in New York as I had to re-write.

We all get inspiration from each other, but one thing that I do and always will do is to acknowledge the original source. Yes, once you have printed something then it is in the public domain, but to me it is just common courtesy to say where you got the idea from.

How far that is from Paul Drury rightly saying: "[I edited the "Herald" for five years but our relationship] has grown colder in recent years... as the "Herald" frequently plagiarises The "Irish Daily Mail" stories even on occasion our headlines; yet they never miss an opportunity to sneer at us in the most disparaging terms..."

Again, I've noticed this and may I just add that I have no affiliation whatsoever with these newspapers. I just like a good factual read and a sense of fair play.

The ludicrous finding for the amount of money to be given to Miss Leech is yet another increasingly concentrated attempt to halt free speech.

Meanwhile, back in Wonderland, the government is continuing to desperately bring out the guns on the second Lisbon Treaty. Of course, we expected Saint The Edge of the Danish band U2 to tell us that we had to vote "Yes" this time. Like his mate, Bono, he is everywhere and all things to all men; but to have Robbie Keane, a soccer player who doesn't even live here and certainly doesn't have the brains that he was born with, lecture us and tell us to get our act together and to vote "Yes"... Well, this is the moment that you think that you have gone completely insane.

Read the Treaty have you, Robbie? I mean, I hear that you're a really deep political thinker.

I was going to add a few words on the hysterical reaction to the death of Michael Jackson. But do you know what? I can't really be bothered.

Hope to see you all next week.

Same bat-time!

Same bat-channel!

You can reach Charley at chasbrady7@eircom.net