Niamh Walsh’s Manifesto
Viewers see red over ‘fat shaming’ of Santa Claus
I’M just gonna go ahead and say it. Santa Claus is overweight. Father Christmas? Father Fatty more like. There’s really no getting round this issue; Santa Claus is an ipso facto Santa Chubby-Chubster. But really, what did he expect ?
Apart from December 24 he doesn’t do a day’s work from one end of the year to the other. Mrs. Claus faffs around him and tends to his every need.
He also does exactly zero exercise. Instead he gets chauffeured around from one chimney to the
next by a team of reindeer. He binge eats and gorges on mince piece, munchies and beer and eats none of his greens.
But pointing out the fact Santa is carrying serious poundage in a tongue-in-cheek section of Good Morning Britain landed Professor Emer Shelly in hot water.
Professor Shelley, dean of the Faculty of Public Health Medicine at the Royal College of Physicians of Ireland, explained that Father Christmas had undergone a serious risk assessment over his obesity due to the coronavirus pandemic.
He would be ‘at risk of being admitted to intensive care’.
The mock report was met with unbridled anger by the usual snowflakes. One asked: ‘Have I seriously just heard a doctor on GMB fat shaming Santa Claus?’
Given that the perpetually offended brigade are, for the most part joy-averse, they may not be au fait with the centuries-old Christmas rhyme where there is unrefuted eyewitness evidence that, yes, Santa of Claus is a fat dude.
As it is written by someone who sighted Santa: ‘He had a broad face And a round little belly That shook when he laughed Like a bowl full of jelly He was chubby and plump A right jolly old elf.’ So Santa, if you’re reading, I have a very, very long list of naughty nuisance boys and girls who see offence where none exists.
Child victims need respect
THIS week’s Court of Appeal ruling preventing the publication of anything that could identify a deceased child victim of an offence is the ‘canary in a coalmine moment’ for Irish law.
The court ruled that it was not possible to interpret Section 252 of the Children’s Act ‘as not including a deceased person who was a child at the time of death’. The appeal centred on an order preventing the media from naming a mother who had smothered her child to protect the dead child’s identity.
Child victims have all too often been unseen and unheard while alive, so to deny them a voice in death is another indignity.
They have already been robbed of their lives but are now being stripped of their identity by legislators, thanks to this ill-thought-out section of the Act.
Worse, laws such as Holly’s Law and Meghan’s Law, which were born of a child’s murder but saved the lives of so many other children, would never have been possible under this absurdity. As one woman whose children were murdered put it, these children are being stripped of their legacy.
America facing a Hobson’s Choice
ELECTIONS are by their very nature contentious given they are a duel of divergent ideologies. But the US presidential election has descended into an unedifying war pitting whack-a-doodle against yawn-a-long.
That this remains the single most important and defining election in decades cannot not be understated given that democracy, global stability, human life and the promise of prosperity are all on the ballot. So with so much at stake I am dumbfounded at the calibre of the candidates. Really, in a country of Yale and Harvard, are Trump and Biden the two best men that America can come up with?
It really is a Hobson’s Choice for voters as, regardless of who is the victor on Tuesday, America is poised for four more years of suffering. America is on the brink of the abyss and they are looking to either Donald ‘Doolally’ Trump or Joe ‘Boring’ Biden. One of Biden’s campaign slogans is ‘Battle for the Soul of the Nation’ – well God bless the US if Biden is their only hope.
While there is no doubt he is an honourable man his endless ennui may just well tip America into the dullest of doldrums.
While Trump’s faults are too many to list, he’s never dull. And even through the litany of deranged, unhinged, maniacal years of his administrations there were many moments of delightful delirium that at least kept people awake.
Sinn Féin can take this lesson to bank
SO the Shinners have gone from Populist to Unpopular and all it took was €30,000 in business grants for Covid-19 that the party was given in error. Heck there are plenty who would have pledged that and more to that particular political cause. It’s Bag-a-Belfast-Bargain.
And yes, I know they didn’t actually solicit the money and I am legally obliged to state they didn’t steal it. They explained it was just really ‘resting in the Sinn Féin Party’ coffers.
But let’s also face it, Mary Lou’s colleagues weren’t exactly banging down the bank’s door to hand the money back. It was only when some righteous soul ratted them out that they fessed up and handed back their unsolicited gains.
So the moral of this story is there really is no such thing as free money. It should also serve as a cautionary tale that history regularly repeats itself as Sinn Féin has found to its detriment that even in peacetime snitches be snitching.
I’m f irst Written Word Artiste ever
I HAPPENED upon an article where someone was referred to as a ‘written word artist’. So, slightly flummoxed, a quick Google search informed me that a Spoken Word Artist is a person who reads poetry aloud. So a performer or a poet?
But taking that idea and running with it I shall now refer to myself in the third person and describe myself as a Written Word Artiste. Placing art after my name lends a greater cachet than common or garden reporter. As a woman I am also graced with some gender goodwill. And as the first and foremost and only Written Word Artiste I am furthermore a protected species. So henceforth I shall now be known as Niamhie da Vinci de Dublinia.