Ragtag Giggagon

An Early Childhood Chapter 26 Part 4: A Visit to Middlesex An Early Childhood by Paddy Flanagan is a mock surreal autobiography, narrated by a fictional Irish war hero, champion bodhran player, and television presenter. Its first chapter is here . It parodies misery memoirs (such as Angela’s Ashes by the late great Frank McCourt), as well as time travel adventure, pop culture, and literature of various kinds. Continued from Chapter 26 Part 3 .                 Dyll pulled me close as we left the club, and she spotted a child-sized cocoon entirely comprising scab-like material, that was pulsing rhythmically.                 “What’s that?” she asked, pointing to it in disgust.                 “A healing child, lovey!” I replied. “He’s ointmented himself up an...

One time I was in a pub that served pub food. After scanning the menu, I ordered a dish called Saucisse con Faglia . It sounded tasty. The waiter returned a few minutes later with a plate of three supermarket sausages and baked beans. I looked at the plate as it was placed before me. "Is this some kind of a joke?" I asked him incredulously. "No!" he replied. * Sister Agnes didn't know what to do when the convent closed down. She wandered into a pub where there was a Help Wanted sign. The manager gave her a job, and she soon learned that she had a natural talent for mixing drinks.   Before long, she was winning cocktail-mixing contests, and she was the most popular employee in the pub, and - indeed - all of the other pubs, for miles around. In fact, she was the best bar nun. * A horse with a genetically modified brain and surgically altered vocal cords walks into a bar. The barman says: "Why the long face?" The horse says: "I'm a horse!"...

Book Review: Thick and Thin by Sarah Harte There was a suggestion that the suicide clause in the just-passed government bill in Ireland would lead to women feigning thoughts of suicide so that they could have a termination. It caused some offence. Should it be part of any debate on gender, or on women's health? Whether women in general are less mendacious and sneaky than men, or as sneaky, or more, ought not be the point. The suicide clause itself is flawed. It's unfair that a woman or girl who is not suicidal might go through with an unwanted pregnancy, where someone else who feigns suidical thoughts will have a termination. But that's irrelevant too. The clause is flawed. Whether it's better out than in, I dunno. But i t shouldn't be an issue at all. The old philosophical chestnut: If you're legislating against theft, and a starving man steals a loaf of bread from the grocery store, how hungry does he have to have been before factors are "mitigating"...

Finally, check out the BBC for further evidence ...

Ever notice how everyone is called Bob on the News, all around the world? L et's round up the evidence... NBC Nightly News with Brian Williams - sitting in for Brian Williams is Nimrock Lellilloo. Nimrock is on assignment in Afghanistan , so here's Brian, back in the studio . He f ollow s a report from Nimrock with a masterful link before he starts ta lking with an expert . For further evidence, see the Irish news s e gment featuring a Bob in our next link ...

The current ridge of high pressure over the British Isles is set to be fully exploited by Coronation Street staff writers this week, with a tornado tearing up the cobbles. It's not the first time a soap has used natural disasters or accidents to write out, axe or introduce characters. The last major incident to occur on Corrie was the tram accident that killed off Ashley and Molly. That storyline featured a live episode to mark the soap's fiftieth anniversary. According to insiders, a new family of five characters will be blown onto the cobbles when their car is whipped up into the weather phenonenon in Kent. The family patriarch - grandfather Jerrick Jeffers - will die on arrival, but the rest of the family will find solace in the ale at the Rover's. A brash bad boy - Chase Tyler - is also set to move onto the street as the love interest of newcomer Odessa Jeffers. The foundations of the house in which Chase lives are shifted by the tornado, and he finds himself living on...

New legislation pertaining to women's health is to be debated shortly in the Irish houses of parliament. The new regulations, which have been drawn up by An Taoiseach Inda Kinny and the novelist Alan Shatter, are designed to prevent women from harming themselves, while being promoted by the leading party in government as an explicit articulation of its policy. Although civil legislation in Ireland had considered the behaviour of many women to be a health risk, it is hoped that introducing the new laws will cover all eventualities, although Justice Minister Shatter is sensitive about speaking about women with a lack of chauvinism. "I do have to be very careful," said Mr. Shatter. "We have an insight into the mindset of these people, on how what's occurred has affected every individual in the country, and the country's finances. They had no particular insight into how their behaviour would affect the country as a whole. Huge volumes of material - a lot of which...

Do you like New Girl and Scrubs? Except you're thinking, "I want to see another show along those lines, except maybe a lot more up its own arse?" Then, why not watch Happy Endings? Hipster racism, hipster homophobia, it's all there, folks! The fat gay fella is very funny. He's not even fat, folks. Sure, he's probably GAY fat, but he's not even Matt LeBlanc fat - and Matt was the handsome totty. Speaking of weigh-ins, this show even has a ninth-generation Wayans in it! In Living Color, I'm Gonna Git You Sucka! Hurray! Hipster dipsters! * Grundy Television should make an a n all female Australian cop drama called Blue Sheilas. When an Australian calls somebody a wog, that's proper racism right there. They do things earnestly over there when it comes to race, it's Bad Dad humour rather than postmodern, don't you know, and they don't appreciate irony. But if Jimmy Carr is cracking quips, or Turk on Scrubs is telling JD to compliment a black...

First off, there's an Irish competition run by Penguin and RTE. Details are on novelist Louise Phillips' site here: http://blog.louise-phillips.com/2013/06/rte-guidepenguin-short-story.html The top 60 or so writers get to have a day at a seminar-type thing, with some great talks from industry peeps and published scribes. Details of another free to enter contest below. A story appeared in the Best New Writing 2012 anthology. You can submit a story for potential publication in the annually published book from the site , and you're also in the running for a grand prize, the Eric Hoffer Award . Here are some of the beauties of this contest in a six point list: (a) it's free to enter (b) your work may get acknowledged in some form - if it progesses beyond what the judges regard as the top 20 percent or so of all entries (c) if you're lucky enough to get through first round judging processes, it is likely to be edited by people who know what they're doing. (For the r...