‘When we first noticed him, he was going totally crazy, ripping off branches from the trees in that garden, tearing up the lawn and roaring something terrible. Then he just s*a* right out there in the open view of everyone.
Fun Stuff
Agnes: Toilet Etiquette
Dear Agnes,
Please don’t laugh at my problem like everyone else does!
It’s to do with the correct way to hang the toilet roll in its holder.
I recognise that there may be more weighty affairs in the world (indeed, I missed an episode of Coronation Street this week!) but this thing is beginning to threaten our marriage.
You see, I am left-handed and the roll-holder is screwed to the toilet wall to my right when I’m sitting there. If I try to tear off a strip of appropriate length when my wife has hung it loose end out, the whole roll unravels onto the floor.
I cannot re-position it one-handed and it’s most indecorous to be mooning about in that position to do the job.
I’m getting on in years and sometimes forget to close or lock the bathroom door and one time, our neighbour Mrs Patton screamed to see me as she walked down the hall to join my wife in the sun-lounge.
No matter how often I reverse them, my wife has the toilet rolls in all three bathrooms hung trailing end out in a jiffy.
What is the correct etiquette here?
I’m relying on you.
Godfrey Browning
Dear Godfrey,
Your underlying problem is that you’re a cornaptious, ignorant oul’ git and your wife would be well shot of you should the marriage end over this (t)issue.
My sympathy goes out not just to your long-suffering angelic wife but also to the unfortunate Mrs Patton who had to suffer the spectacle of an ageing Lothario with his trousers round his ankles doing pirouettes in the bathroom.
So you have three bathrooms and a sun-lounge!! And how subtly you inserted that gem of information!!
Get a life, you dirty old man!!
Agnes Dayee
P.S. Your wife was right, of course, as are women inevitably when it comes to matters of fashion, etiquette and style – three things, doubtless, you know nothing of!!
Agnes: Sleeplessness
Dear Agnes,
I must write to ask how you go about getting a good night’s sleep.
I have tried everything from counting sheep to decorating the house. I even transformed the garden but despite these strenuous activities I cannot find sleep.
I am under the attention of my G.P. who diagnosed me as an insomniac. Flattered as I am that she thinks me so intelligent, it doesn’t help my rest.
Now as I lie awake when all around me are snoring their heads off, marvelling at how clever I am, I wonder will I ever again need to sleep at all? Or is this just a phase I’m going through?
Yours desperately
Drooping Eyelids.
__
Dear Sir or Madam (your nom-de-plume doesn’t determine which!)
I’m not confident that Drooping anything is the real problem here! Indeed I was slightly alarmed to read that ‘in the middle of the night, all around you were snoring their heads off!’. Just how many people are you sleeping with at the one time?? Is this a harem of yours that you refer to as ‘sheep’?
And in the night hours you still find time to decorate the house and transform the garden? You want to take yourself in hand!
No, on second thoughts, that’s not a good idea! Perhaps you can get someone else to do just that!
I was glad to learn you were under the doctor! I advise you to stay right there. She may provide the physical exercise required to induce sweet slumber.
That’s what works for oul’ Dayee and me! Not the doctor, of course, but the bedroom exercises. Despite his name – like the Tory leader Michael Howard – he has ‘something of the night’ in him. And thank heavens for it!
Agnes
Agnes: Legal Aid Required
Dear Agnes,
I’m hoping you are an expert in the law as in so much else.
My problem is I don’t know who to sue for injuries I sustained a week ago while stripping unwanted lead piping and wood furnishing from an abandoned mansion in the Windsor Hill area of Newry.
I know you will be familiar with the house in question – next to McManus Court – as it has featured in one of your articles on Newry Journal.
In fact there is another ‘preserved’ building recently wrecked in Sugar House Quay and my friends and I would be interested to investigate the possibilities there too, but we need to know where we stand.. you know what I mean?
Yours truly,
Jemmy Crowbar
Dear Jemmy,
It’s an interesting question but I don’t have an answer.
Provided you fulfil the criteria, you may be entitled to legal aid on the matter. The town’s full of solicitors offering legal aid. The worst that can happen is that the public will become aware of just who is responsible for leaving unguarded that eyesore and death-trap.
You are a very public-spirited gentleman!
You may wish to forewarn the ambulance authorities before your next venture, just to ensure your early delivery to hospital should you sustain a second accident.
(Agony) Agnes Dayee
Agnes: Betrayed
Dear Agnes,
Forgive my presumption but I know the signs.
I’ve been there and done that, read the book of the film and suffered the temper tantrums.
I’ll swear you are a classic case of a woman suffering from ‘the change of life’.
Despite what you may have heard about it, I thoroughly recommend you try HRT (Hormone Replacement Treatment).
I could not have come through these past few years without it. Now my health is restored and my gentle temperament has returned.
You too could be like me if you really tried.
Yours truly,
Trudi Lopez
____________________________________
Hi Angela
Thought you’d fooled me there, didn’t you?
Couldn’t you have picked a less obvious alias than one derived from the name of your mother’s favourite singer?
It’s the dread that I might morph to become like you that drives me out of the house to work every morning!
I ought to warn you, you most ungrateful child, you have already been written out of my Will, and indeed of your father’s too, so your little plan will fail!
So where did you hear that HRT increases the risk of early death from contracting fatal conditions such as cancer and heart problems?
You surely didn’t read it. Never could master the reading, eh dear??
And don’t think I haven’t noticed that lickspittle you employ hanging round my house with her loaded syringe ever ready to plunge into me!
But the police have been informed and will blame you, no matter who wields the murder weapon.
Be a good girl and stop interrupting mummy while she’s at work!
There, now. Go away!! Annoy your dad instead.
Your darling Mum!
(Editor’s note: Since this last entry, Agnes Dayee has been taken ill and will be temporarily indisposed! How temporary will depend on the authority’s interpretation of the Fair Employment Law; that law which requires that we take our quota of ‘people like that’ on to our Staff!!)
Agnes: Terrorists Incensed!
Dear Agnes,
I think I’ve finally got your measure and that’s the reason I’m seeking your support and advice.
Don’t you just wholeheartedly agree with the Government Report of last week that our people are much too self-indulgent? Our nation is frankly obese with over-eating; spaced-out on banned drugs; permanently drunk with bingeing on alcohol; rampant with sexually-transmitted diseases; and determined to infect us innocents with their carcinogenic secondary smoke from their endless chain-smoking in public arenas.
It is good that H.M. Government has finally woken up. But we would like your aid too.
I am the Secretary of the newly-formed CHASTE group (Catholic Heroines Against Sex, Tippling and Excess). We hold our weekly meeting in our local Church Hall, where we light candles for the depraved and burn incense to exorcise evil spirits.
Then we pray for all lost souls. Wouldn’t you like to join us?
Yours truly,
Winifred Snow.
………..
Dear Winnie,
B——- Off, you whining, whinnying weasel.
Come anywhere near Newry Journal again, and you will be CHASTE!
That Tastes Like Cats’ ****
It was an innocent enough idea to begin with. Indeed it may have begun with an attempt on the part of Governor Jed Bush to distract from the Florida authorities’ continued disenfranchisement of blacks and Hispanic and any others who might be tempted to vote for Kerry in the upcoming Presidential elections.
‘Florida has been ravaged recently by hurricanes, infestation, poverty and crime. Why don’t the media consult their readership on the ideal adjective to describe Florida? I suggest ‘ravished’, he concluded.
As it happened, the top ten suggestions were unprintable! Most were preceded by an expletive, with qualifying adjectives suggesting widespread corruption. ‘Ravished’ did indeed come in at number eleven. A straw poll of those who agreed with Bush’s word indicated that this was how they felt as victims of rape, violent crime and disenfranchisement. Jeb soon dropped the hot potato!
Meanwhile the U.S. Secretary of Labor was praising the beneficial effect on the strained job market of the Iraq war.
‘More than 135,000 U.S. citizens are gainfully employed as military personnel in Iraq alone,’ she boasted. ‘The war there is keeping these young men and women out of the unemployment lines and also teaching them such valuable skills as operating radar equipment, driving battle tanks and filling body bags.
Most troops won’t need to seek new work for another four to seven years. Then there’s Afghanistan still, Iran, Syria, North Korea. An emergency draft might even return the country to full employment.’
Not the literal truth, but the underlying message was there.
On a lighter vein we learned this week of an Australian woman who allegedly suffered from ‘sleep sex’. Apparently she left her house at night and had sex with total strangers without waking up.
How, I wondered, did she learn this? How did she meet them, did they proposition her or vice versa? Was there no foreplay? Did neither feel anything? Will Peter at the Pearly Gates accept her story? Does any of this matter? What is her address?
Kopi luwak coffee, I learned this week, at
Referee over-reacts!
Congratulations to the Irish team which comprehensively defeated the Aussies today in the International Rules Series to win both the game and the series. Admittedly there were a few dubious decisions by the Irish referee, especially in the second quarter, that penalised the Australian team. There were lots of incidents, including many’s the lively row on-field but the referee escaped public censure.
The outcome was not so satisfactory in Eastern Cape, South Africa when Ekithumpi met Soarnoseni. The South Africa Football Association was quick to issue a statement after that game, to deny any responsibility for its after-effects.
‘Some of the Soarnoseni players objected when the referee gave one of them a yellow card. A row broke out and some of the Ekithumpi supporters stormed the field.
The referee was quick to pull a pistol and immediately began shooting at them. He shot the Ekithumpi coach dead and seriously wounded two of their players. He ran off the field shouting, ‘I am the master of the Universe’. He has not been seen since.
We are unanimously agreed that the referee over-reacted in this instance.’
A later statement was issued when all the facts became known.
‘The referee that officiated at this match was not a properly qualified official registered with Safa. He was one of the spectators asked by the organisers to handle the match. Safa passes its condolences to the family of the coach and of the injured players.
If any of our referees feel it necessary to arm themselves before a game, we do not recommend a loaded pistol’, the statement concluded.
…Except Us Chickens
The police were in hot pursuit of the bank robbers who sought refuge in Rio de Janeiro zoo. The gang spread out to make their detection more difficult. They had to be careful not to secrete themselves in dangerous animals’ enclosures.
Some thieves elected to hide in the enclosure for deer and tapir. Police thought they might buck the trend by kidnapping Bambi or some other such hind. They were eventually captured.
It was a dear mistake. They were additionally charged with trespass and criminal damage to municipal property.
Those who chose the exotic fowl enclosure found that their hidey-hole was dark and cavernous. Still when they arrived, the cops shone their torches into it for some time to check if anybody was hiding inside.
Eventually this croaky voice emerged from the coop at the back..
‘There’s nobody in here, except us chickens!’
…
Sorry! I know you heard it before! But it still creases me up!