Do Celtic Androids Dream Of Celtic Sheep?

"We were walking and talking across a grassy Brown County plain on a moonlit night during that last period of knowing each other well. I can recall his answer better than the words that prompted it.

"But I think I remarked that this was a night when our Old Folk might have gathered for some festivity or some battle, and of how I felt permeated by some mood emanating from that far-off age of theirs.

"Bob stopped still. I knew from his face that he was sharing the mood.

"'Yes,' he said, 'the last Celt should have died a thousand years ago.'"
- from Harold Preece's memories of Texan writer Robert Ervin Howard

By Charley Brady

Howard didn't mean it as an insult. In fact, he felt a deep affinity with the Celtic races. But like myself he must have often wondered at how the years had taken their toll on a race of people who wouldn't back down, who had stood against the strength of one of the mightiest Empires that this world has ever known, in the shape of the Romans; and in between had managed to create some wonderful art in the form of their story-telling.

What he would have made of today's race of Celtic android sheep I don't know; but I can guess.

I'm pretty sure that he would have been appalled to see the Band from Clog Land taking over the entire city of Dublin for three days just because they had some concerts with the self- important name of 360 Degrees to perform.

He would have been as angry as a lot of other people were to see their blacked-out limos obstructing traffic as they cut a swathe through Joe and Jane Q. Public who were struggling to get to work without the police escorts that the Dutch band were lucky enough to have.

And just to put the icing on the cake Croke Park was damned lucky to able to host their matches on Sunday after the state that Bono and Creeps Inc. left it in.

Even one of my best friends (and with so few it's easy to keep count) couldn't turn down the chance of a Corporate pass to the VIP section in order to see a band that she doesn't even like. Despite her being one of the most honourable people I know, I have to say that I was disappointed.

What is this with Corporate passes, anyway? All they seem to me to achieve is to take a ticket away from a genuine fan that might not have had the shekels to see their inexplicably favourite band.

Even our supposedly hard- strapped national broadcaster - yes, that bunch of useless back-stabbers who are demanding 10% per cent cuts from their staff while keeping their own greedy snouts stuck deeply in the trough - saw fit to run up a bill of €45,000 looking after their own selected group of freeloaders and chancers who probably couldn't even spell a U2 song if you put a gun to their collective heads.

But still the Celtic sheep turned out in their baa-ing droves in order to hear a self- important group drone on for a couple of hours. As Kevin Walsh of the terrific IRISH band Deja Vu put it last night: "the band with a front man who is the Charles J. Haughey of the music world."

Oh, and by the way, I didn't go myself. I was re-arranging the sock drawer that night. Or was it washing my hair? It was something important, anyway.

What would Howard have made of the Finance Monster Brian "The Wig" Lenihan who this week manipulated himself (quite masterfully, it has to be said) into such a position that he is now virtually untouchable.

He can even give himself new powers at will, so to cut through the nonsense he's actually the most important dude in the country. Brian Clown, take a look at yourself and since your Finance Minister has already put the word on you once keep a close eye on your back.

With that big swivel head on you, that shouldn't be too hard.

The National Assets Management Agency is launched this week, courtesy of the Man with the Revolving Wig. NAMA is just another way to screw the taxpayer who is at his wit's end anyway and give extraordinary rights to yet another bunch of chancers.

There's even a gagging clause that will stop financial experts from talking about ANY ASPECT of the €90 billion project. And like the poor clueless and spineless sheep we are, we let them do this to us again and again.

As if I'm not cheesed off enough already, I get back from holiday to find that President McAleese has actually signed into legislation the ludicrous Blasphemy Bill.

Minister for Justice Dermot Ahern obviously has nothing better to do, like locking up and throwing away the key for the various rapists, murderers, drug-dealing pond life and all- around scumbags that we let out on bail every day of the week so that they can make life a misery for people who just wish to get on with things.

Instead we get: "A person who publishes or utters blasphemous matter shall be guilty of an offence and shall be liable upon conviction on indictment to a fine not exceeding €25,000." That's big of them.

Since we are so heavily taxed these days that we don't have a pot to piss in or a window to throw it out of it would seem to be jail then. But come to think of it, this might be good for me. Jail seems to be pretty cosy these days and I could do with a break from worrying about money and eating three square meals a day so here goes: I think that you're all as deranged as a bag of rattlesnakes, but I have a particular fondness for mad Muslims; catatonic Catholics who think it makes sense to kneel before the image of a mutilated man; ponsy Protestants who don't (understandably) buy into the transubstantiation rubbish but go along with just about everything else; moody Methodists; flag-waving Bible Belters; Jehovah's Witnesses (what do you get when you cross a Jehovah's Witness with an atheist? Someone who calls to your door for no reason at all); Mormons (words fail me) and if there's anyone that I've left out, don't worry, you are in my thoughts.

Of course, you can say that what I believe is just as barmy, but the difference is that I would defend your right to look down on me.

Was that enough, Officer? Do you have the handcuffs ready?

Oh, and thanks to Barack and to Brian Clown: we're just waiting with baited breath to receive your two Guantanamo Bay detainees. Send us more.

This is Ireland of the welcomes after all. As the previous old Popey put it so succinctly when he was encouraging overpopulated countries never to use - shudder at the horror of it! - condoms: "There can never be too many guests at God's table.

Now, if you don't mind, I have to make my confession and then take Communion where I'll eat some of the miraculously transformed flesh of a butchered man.

But if I'm not struck by a bolt of lightning or Mel Gibson in the meantime then I hope to see you all next week.

Same bat-time!

Same bat-channel!

You can reach Charley at chasbrady7@eircom.net