Tommy Tiernan
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“Kate Middleton is a beauty, isn’t she? I’d say if she was Irish she’d be from Louth”
The Pope is coming soon and fair play to him, though he’ll hardly do a million in the Phoenix Park this time. A couple of nights in Whelan’s, perhaps — maybe even Vicar St, if the country people come up. He’ll have to do some promotional work, I’d say. He could do The Late Late, squeezed between an item on teenage riding and a chat with one of Amanda Brunker’s breasts.
One of the main reasons the Church has for not allowing women priests is because all the apostles were men. Well, if you’re going to do things exactly as He did, I presume when Francis comes, he’ll be travelling around on foot, hanging out with whores and speaking in parables. He’ll be well marshalled during his time here. Security everywhere. If the Catholic Church had been in charge of Jesus, he would have had bodyguards. He’d never have been crucified at all, which would gone against the whole purpose of his visit.
I’m fond of the Pope, but I feel sorry for him in the sense that I think he’s a kind of wizard, but one that can’t do any magic. Maybe Keith Barry could teach him a trick or two, so that when he goes on The Late
Late he can guess people’s Pin numbers. My wife says that she can moonwalk and would be delighted to teach him that — although we’ve seen her in action, and it looks more like someone with artificial knees doing the wiping-shite-off-your-shoe dance.
I think we should have our own Pope. The English do, and his name is Elizabeth II and he’s the head of the Church over there. Now I’ve never met the Queen, but I did shake hands with Prince Charles once, and I have to say that as hands go, they were disappointingly ordinary.
Practically human
I was expecting something odd, something webbed, or very pale with no veins. They were practically human. He’s not the most handsome man in the world, Charles, but by Christ, his two sons are the embodiment of looks and virility. You’d wonder did Diana just have them by herself. Did she self-will those boys into being by listening to a Paul McKenna CD
called I Can Make You Pregnant By Yourself. He has a new book out, by the way, titled You Can Make Me Rich.
Kate Middleton is a beauty, isn’t she? I’d say if she was Irish, she’d be from Louth. She has that kind of cheeky, sneery smirk on her face the whole time, like she’s only pretending to be posh and could just as easy be drinking Harp from a bucket on a farm in Cooley, or strolling round the town, driving all the boys demented.
“I think she’s wearing a thong, lads.”
“Jaysus! I’m just going to hit me head off the wall here for twenty minutes. It’d be easier than thinking about that.”
Our own Pope would be a representative for every living thing on the island. A non-denominational interspecies Pope, who’d live in the hills near Thurles. And when he spoke, it’d be with cattle and trees in mind as well as people. There is precedence for it; the Dalai Lama is also an actual lama who speaks on behalf of all lamas, human and otherwise.
Did you get any use out of Advent at all? I had great notions at the start, but it just kind of ran away from me in the end, so I headed into Lent with great vigour. Did you give up anything? I did. I gave up hope. I just collapsed at the bottom of the stairs on Ash Wednesday and said no more.
It was a liberating feeling. No more trying, no more ambition, no more dreaming about a bright future. From now on, it’s just a gormless idiocy smiling to itself because it has no idea what’s happening now or in the future.
I’m hanging out with the dog an awful lot. The two of us take to the kitchen floor and sigh. The kids might join me one day, and the wife, too.
You could call around to the house and see the six of us in a heap near the fridge, flat down on the lino, at peace at last without a hope in the world.