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See that left eye of his?

See those repetitive twitches?

The way his eyes keep rolling around in their sockets?

Two years since he smashed his front teeth out, and still ne'er a dentist appointment or a cosmetic bridge. Val's very poor, his farm is a tiny strip of bog and he has only the three cows and one cat. Not very good at what he does, especially nowadays when his star has risen and he spends most of his day making videos about his thoughts on this and that.

When his stroke hits, I just hope he's not standing next to the slurry pit.

Or The Shitting Ditch.
 
Used to buy those from the Spar shop on Dame St/Sth Gt George's St. Buy them three at a time, eat one and put the other two into the fridge for late-night suppers after work. The fresh baguette still warm, the portions always spilling over the crust, hot meats and cold vegetables had a lovely contrast. I used to eat Parisian style buying a baguette, cheese, and wine for outdoor supper up on Montmarte.

But the Irish breakfast roll is, like Guinness and like the standard Irish breakfast fry-up, a monster creation that harks more to American diets than it did to Irish diets back then. Of course, more than half the Irish population are obese fuckers who shovel food down their necks without even chewing it. Mouth breathers, another terror on the Irish restaurant experience. They make me want to throw something pointy at them. No knife, just a fork handled like a soup spoon, pile it all on and then slurp it into your fat gob and start that kind of chewing action where the food's too hot but you can't stop filling your trap.

Then the mouth-breathing to cool down what's in the gob - oblivious to everyone around them.

There was a sandwich bar just two or three doors down from The Temple Bar who did huge rolls, except most of the additions were of a more exotic nature: spicy sausages from Germany, smoked meats, smoked fish, all sorts of goodies and it'd easily feed two non-obese people a fine supper when the day is done. Up here the simple sandwich is usually on rye bread, a slice of Finnish cheese, a few cucumber slices, a dash of salt and of you go.

Not me though: I build my sandwiches according to the basic rules of ancient architecture: pile it up high and use a knife and fork for most of it.

Nam-nam.
 
I'd say Val loves to wolf down a breakfast roll or two before milking the cows.
 
Val doesn't even eat his sandwiches - he drinks them down in one gulp.

Even his animals have better table manners than he does.

Imagine being seated at the same table as the Martin family?
 
Belching, farting, arse scratching and talking with your mouth full is the done thing at Cavan dinner tables.
 
Belching, farting, arse scratching and talking with your mouth full is the done thing at Cavan dinner tables.

....with one finger wiggling in his left ear, his eyes are twitching like the clappers, he has another finger up his nose and he's talking with his mouth full.

And this is when the parish priest comes to visit.

Imagine the cunt when he's alone in the lower barn with time on his hands?
 
'Now. Isn't that great information? For you? From Real True Education.. ..not.. ..fake.. ..news'.

'Y'see the problem RTE and the BBC and the whole lot of them are poor when it comes to international finance and international law is because they don't have cows. S
ays our Val. 'D'ya see the reason that the BBBC and your RTE are useless is because.. .. ..they don't have cows. They're not with cows, at, all, now. Y'see cows teach you things. They teach you to count. One, two, three-four-five, six, and seven, and yer auld eight-nine-ten as well. D'ya see? If you're not with cows, you'll never learn to count like me. I count every.. ..passing.. ..day. Every day. Everyday! See, now?'

(I'm not making this up)



What's your favourite humming sound?
 
Mm. Through the vastness of space they came, across the endless aeons, having developed the ability to accelerate to the edge of the speed of light and then fold space. Just to shine a torch up Val's arse on some country road late at night in Cavan.

You'd have to admire the effort all the same.
 
If I was a member of a high tech alien race with Faster than Light technology I think I'd find better things to do than stare at some shovel-prop with a shit haircut on earth. I mean. I'm on the same planet as these arseholes who assume aliens are fascinated with their rectal passages and I don't even want to be in the same region as them. Ever.
 
Proctology isn't just a funny word - it's a strange occupation.

I often wondered why some people choose a career in dentistry. I mean, spending the day poking around in people's mouths, their manky tongues, tonsils hanging like old man's testicles, throats full of phlegm? It'd give me nightmares.

Then you have others who choose gynecology: shining lights up old women's fannies? Surely it takes all the pleasure out of sex with the wife later that day? Even the fannies of younger wans, some of whom have vaginas like burst sofas.

Urologists: goddamn that has to be revolting.

Even tits can end up giving you nightmares, depending on whether they go south whether she's standing or lying down.
 
It's because of people like Val that the rest of the world views the Irish as thick gobshites.
 
It's because of people like Val that the rest of the world views the Irish as thick gobshites.

Yet Val Martin is the living embodiment of the cute hoor. Between the benefits he collects for being a farmer, the fines he omits to pay for dumping slurry into fresh water streams and rivers, the smell of the cheap fucker, the rotten and missing teeth in his face, the manky clothing and filthy hovel he calls his campaign headquarters, the shirt and tie combo he wore to the wedding in Italy:



In my own case, I'm frequently asked if mine is a typical primary to third level Irish standard of education, my answer is always the same: I went to industrial quality schools where I was battered violently by both lay and secular teachers into learning all sorts of bullshit that would never enhance my potential, rather I was educated enough to know I'd be better off educating myself - which is precisely what I did. I took an à la carte approach to what the schools offered me and from I filled in the blanks myself by reading vociferously and constantly as well as hanging out with people at least twice my age.

My experience of many third level students I knew at the time in Dublin was that they were mostly just lazy and spoiled brats who didn't give a fuck about learning and preferred to party their third level years away. Not me: I started earning money before I was ten years old, selling crisps, selling Action Man parts and outfits, honest stuff too: lounge-boy, making art pieces to order, newspaper rounds, grass cutting, delivering coal and logs off the back of a horse and cart with Peter Caffrey (a hard man, but a loyal one too) house painting, etc. I knew the value of money and I was pretty good at handling it so that I had professional level equiptment under me before I turned fifteen. Nobody helped me with that, not school, not the state, and not welfare either. Hard graft and smart and innovative thinking, with grace under pressure.

I left home at age eighteen and moved into my first bedsit. I claimed the dole and set it up that as soon as they paid me, I put that money directly into my bank account (to the penny) to cover the rent and energy bills and used the cash money I earned to spend on whatever I liked. Travel, InterRail tickets, drums, music gear in general, nights out, nice mountain bikes (because I swore I'd never learn to drive) clothes, shoes, ladies, drink, partying, my weed, and feeding and generally entertaining myself. Then I registered as self employed to reduce my tax bills and continued to do the same thing with any cheques or direct transfers of cash money: keep the legal stuff on the books and pocket the rest. Fuck the taxman. Fuck Ireland. Fuck the whole fucking rat's den. As soon as I could afford to move easily between Dublin and Paris/Amsterdam, I was out and off the books before I turned twenty-two.

Haven't looked back since, but that doesn't mean I can't still smell the bang off Val Martin and co.
 
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