WEPT FOR ST.PADDIO, GOT FRISKY IN THE BAR-O

The Night before Paddy's day I had a dream, I dreamt St. Patrick himself came to me, and said "Jaysus, your dreams are pretty fucking boring if you're dreaming about me..." He then prattled on for a little bit, but it was so boring that I don't really remember what it was about.

Who's this? He came to Ireland circa 432 and rid the island of its snakes, he systematically united all of Ireland's warring tribes through Christianity, and he went from place to place, everywhere leaving miracles in his wake. That's right - it was Bono. He's done pretty much everything. 1798? 1916? The guy who first accidentally tasted a black industrial effluent and decided that it should be bottled as the worlds finest stout-cum-emulsifying agent? All Bono. No wonder he wears orthopedic trousers (aka leather pants), he must be fucking knackered.

On Patrick's day itself I was a foreigner enjoying Paddy's day. I went with some Johnny foreigners (none of whom, strangely, were named Johnny) to Croke park, in order to misinform them about the rules of Gaelic football. "Why does he sometimes bounce and sometimes kick it into his hands?" the Portuguese girl asked me "Well", says I "ye see, the ref is given them all points for style, it's like Pop Idol you see, that's why they call it 'soloing'." Then: "Why does he kick it OVER the bar and not under?"... "Ah well ya see, see yer man up there in the crowd? last week he sneaked into HIS field and fisted HIS sheep, so now he's trying to give him a concussion"... "Why are they beating the shit out of each other?"... "Again, it's points for style, think of it as the most psychopathically violent ballet in the entire world" - "Is that why that person is wearing a tutu?"... "Eh no, that's RTE sport correspondent Colm Murray... that's what he ALWAYS wears, under his desk."

Then on into The Porterhouse to meet two divine Estonians (word to the wise, if you ever want to enjoy Patrick's day to the full, surround yourself with lovely foreigners, they think you're brilliant just cause your Irish - the ONLY time of the year that happens to me!) It was packed more than a tin of sardines with tight trousers and giganticism. There was plenty of Irish dancing and I tried a bit of my 4th class-educated 'one-two-threes', but there was only room for 'halves'. The merriment was put in peril however, when one of the bouncers assumed I was having some sort of fit, and pinned me to a surprisingly painful set of exposed nails. Upon realisation that my manic jogging on the spot was in fact my interpretation of 'The Irish Rover' I was released, with a caution. I mentioned the name of Michael Flatley however, and he became somehow more understanding and less critical. I convinced The two Estonians, Butterfly and Evie (their requested pseudonyms) that it was all an Irish tradition and it was all part of the dance. Strangely, they accepted this violent fiasco as an Irish tradition, and continued with their celebratory antics (which was having a boogie while I minded the bags).

Then onto a party in UCD, after Evie and I got Butterfly onto a bus and prevented her from stealing a map of Dublin (honestly, for most people it's beer glasses or ashtrays!). There I celebrated the death of the holiest man in Ireland (apart from Bono) by numbing myself to the world with Cognac, red wine and Estonian Vodka, listening to an yet another Estonian girl tell me how sexy Irish men were. I left that night in high spirits after being physically threatened by her hugely discontented and extremely blonde boyfriend. And then I dreamt of St Patrick again, this time surrounded by a harem of Estonian beauties who were all complimenting him on the size of his crook. "Not so boring NOW are you?" I called over to him, as he begins to use the anology of the shamrock to infer a threesome.
And I watched.

DINNER, DINNER FLOGMAN

Met my old buddies Hayman and Crapman at the weekend, a crime fighting threesome in the least sexual sense of the word. We arranged to meet at the Market Bar (tm) off George's Street (Hayman wanted the George, this seemed a happy go-between) in order to establish our own super-hero-style justice league, knowing that the bar itself was actually the underground lair of one of our arch-nemeses. At least judging by the decor, I was expecting either to be leapt upon by a degenerate, some cross-eyed morlock type of whom society has entirely washed its hands, or to be sold a pair of shoes.

The whole plan fell apart anyway, when we quickly recalled we weren't super-heroes at all and we didn't actually have any arch-nemeses. Hayman had some hiberno-virgins in tow, two exquisite yanks who had scarcely ever dipped their toes in the international sea. Not that I'm surpised, when you come from the States the international sea is freezing and full of jellyfish. Steve and Nadia you brave souls! (especially Nadia) Hopefully our paths will cross again soon in this crazy world.

Crapman, Steve, Nadia and I did try to ditch Hayman a couple of times, though the opposite side of the Bar was not a very imaginative hiding place. The success of our cover relied too heavily on our victim's inabilty to turn his head more than 100 degrees. Nevertheless, our clandestine sub-gathering seemed very promising at first, but our sense of victory was short lived when we realised that Hayman didn't really give a bollocks where we were.

We joined forces again for some piggy-back wars - Crapman was my horse and Steve was Nadia's. Hayman was atop some blonde girl coming out of Hogan's, but I really don't think she was playing. Anyway, flush with recent successes in Afghanisatn and Iraq, The Americans won again, and I was knocked from my horse, quickly protesting vehemently that I didn't have any WMD in the first place. Then I let rip and that blew my cover.
And my pants.

To compensate for our dejected sense of defeat, we forced the Americans to eat Iranian food, and we sat there eating our meal while reading aloud passages from the Koran. Zaytoon pumped us full of enough mysterious tastes to last us the Nite-link home; which was Portmarnock via the outskirts of Galway (or so it felt) . I went to bed that night with heavy eyes and a heavier bowel. Needless to say I awoke the next morning with my arsehole in tatters, realising with a start that we did have an arch-nemesis, and he cooked food in Zaytoon.

FLOGESIS

WELCOME!

In the Beginning, there was nothing. Then God created the sun, the moon, the stars and saw that it was good, and then He made the Earth and He saw that it was only alright, but ye know it'll do 'til we get someone in to fix it.

Then He created oceans and all the little animals, except giraffes, He gave those as a job to people on work experience and they seriously f**ked up royal.

Then He created Man, and saw that it was good. Then He created Woman and saw that she was naked. Then He created the sexy lingerie industry because He felt that nakedness was too obvious, and the real excitement lay in what you couldn't quite see.

Then He created Flash, and He realised that the whole thing had got out of hand, and that the project had diverted from His original vision, so He washed His hands of it, and is now running a small sports shoe sweatshop in Malaysia.