My (ten-minute) older brother is losing his blog-grip as events in the real world catch up on him. He might have finally cottoned on to the fact that when you undertake a Ph.D, a certain amount of scientific research is involved and expected. So Ph.D is no longer Ph(eelin) (D)eadly, its Ph(uck) D(is). His last few days have been spent braving the stanley knife gauntlet of Limerick in order to make a fifteen minute presentation on peanut-flavoured poogasms to leading lights in the field of poo, including Dr Schitzenpoopen, Dr Braun, and Dr Bauwelbusten.
The news today reported that Limerick escorts are refusing to visit hotel rooms because of a surplus of beardy profs requesting poopoo-style activities... "come to my room; bring sweet corn, 20 bags of peanuts and laxatives". As y'can see, Ciaran's academic cronies are big fans of snickers-knickers. This in no way implies that Ciaran is a shit-fetishist. But he will be, he will be.
Currently running on Network 2 is the Des Bishop work experience in which our hero Des (previously famous for his 'hard-hitting' comedy raps about irish politics on don't feed the gondolas) tries his hand at various minumum wage jobs around Ireland. I wanted to hate this. I have some deep set issues with Mr Bishop. First,he's just not funny as a comic. Second, he always struck me as one of those bogus wannabe-Irish yanks who can be found making a lot empty noise in an NUI college canteen near you.
Yet....halfway through the first show, I realised that I was watching really good TV. And, not for the first time, ate my words. I eat them a lot. I find my words go well with soy sauce, and a bit of olive oil (to stop me from choking on them). In the first show the enthusiastic Des took a job in Abrekestab-ya. Abrekababra (stab-ya) is an Irish fast-food outlet which is primarily famous for being beyond awful. It is simply the single-most rancid place in which a casual visitor to Ireland will ever eat. The food is so bad that eating it is like scraping the bottom of the food barrel - then ripping the bottom off the barrel to allow a coagulated mess of lamb-fat, mucus, and renegade beard hairs to drip into an even shittier barrel - then heating it (if yer lucky) - then serving it on a cold, spongy bap - in the wan light of dawn.
Abrekabra kills in two ways (a) quick and violent- you've just been stabbed by the other customer! (b) slow and painful - death due to massive organ failure because the ratshit in your chili bap has developed a bionic strain of ebola. Hey, in Abra, they like to serve food at just above room temperature because they have ethical problems with the murder of germs. Give those little dudes a chance, yo.
To get back to Bishop's show - after viewing it, I figured maybe Abra is doing us a service by giving half the country food poisoning. The disturbingly ignorant and racist behaviour displayed by the patrons genuinely made me wonder about the cultural health of Ireland. The show threw a very candid light on some festering issues in Ireland that have not yet been given much treatment on TV, at least not unpatronisingly. Most of the co-workers were Chinese and they powered away at the filthy grills until 6am, doing a job that a lot of customers firmly believed had been 'robbed' from Joe Irish. Seriously. There were swaying, thick-tongued muckers trying to articulate (at 4am) that the Chinese person, who had spent a week earning the average Wexford Friday night blue WKD outlay, was stealing a job. I can think of a four letter word, and it begins with C.
The show cleverly made it clear that there are gradations of hard work involved in minimum wage jobs, and necessity typically leads to a more permanent, less fun job. To illustrate the point, Des's next job was at the Aquadome. Here, he could doss around waterslides, slurp diet coke, and check out girls' asses with UCD students 'slogging' for the summer. Indeed in this fun job all his coworkers were Irish. Why? Probably because a job in Aquadome is splashy craic with a social upside, whereas a job in Abrakebabra means serving up satan-spunk fries to drunken mouth-breathers in the 7th circle of hell (to clarify: hell is a county town).
The first program in this series won on two levels. The second way in which it won, probably inadvertantly, was in how it captured to ugly flavour of your typical Irish night out. There's no old men sipping guinness in rustic snugs in Waterford it appears. At least not until you get past a parade of sexually frustrated meatheads desperately looking for a way to vent the pent up madness bulging out of their Levis 501s. Thanks to Des Bishop's services to anthropology, we now know this involves hurling racist abuse at immigrant workers, groping the nearest tit, defecating in public, and/or swaying backwards and forwards on a stool like a brain damaged zoo animal whilst repetitively smearing chilli-burger all over your face - mingling it with silvery vomit trails that threaten your brand nu Kangol shirt.
The first program in this series won on two levels. The second way in which it won, probably inadvertantly, was in how it captured to ugly flavour of your typical Irish night out. There's no old men sipping guinness in rustic snugs in Waterford it appears. At least not until you get past a parade of sexually frustrated meatheads desperately looking for a way to vent the pent up madness bulging out of their Levis 501s. Thanks to Des Bishop's services to anthropology, we now know this involves hurling racist abuse at immigrant workers, groping the nearest tit, defecating in public, and/or swaying backwards and forwards on a stool like a brain damaged zoo animal whilst repetitively smearing chilli-burger all over your face - mingling it with silvery vomit trails that threaten your brand nu Kangol shirt.
On Sunday morning the people in Bishop's clever documentary will wake up convinced of how great Saturday night was. They'll switch gears for the slow synapse-shattering slog that is a Sunday booze-up, and the world will turn. But it will turn differently for a select few; the few that Bishop and company filmed. he (half) accidentally made an excellent documentary about an ugly side of Ireland. Fair fucks Mr Bishop, I've revised an opinion.
But yo Des. You're still not that funny.
