Sharon and myself are no longer an item.

She took it very badly and of course there were tears and recriminations.  I told her it was nothing she did, or for that matter it was nothing I did.  I told her it was a simply matter of my not being able to see her any more.

She begged me to think again.  She pleaded with me to give her another chance, but I pointed out that it wasn’t up to either of us.  What finally broke us apart was the news itself.  I told her I could no longer watch the news as it was too fucking depressing. 

I told her that for a long time now the joy of seeing her had been overshadowed by the depressing shit she was pouring out every evening.  All those murders, tax hikes, strikes and redundancies had finally taken their toll and I just couldn’t take it any more. 

She pleaded on bended knees [and very fetching knees they are – I’ll miss them] and swore she would only read happy news from now on, but I had to point out to the poor girl that it wasn’t up to her.  The news is the news and she would just have to accept that life is pretty miserable at the moment.

I admit I will miss her.  I’ll miss that little secret smile she used to give me at the end of each bulletin.  Life will be depressing without her, but it would be a lot more depressing if I continued to see her.   A classic example of the devil and the deep blue sea.

So if you catch sight of a little tear trickling down her cheek as she reads the news. you’ll know the reason.

She’s just another victim of the miserable times we live in.

I very much doubt that many people do, as to witness the launch you would have had to have had a television and very few did.  They were bulky and expensive yokes, costing several weeks wages, and seeing as there were only two other channels [BBC and ITV] people didn’t bother.  Also the signals from the UK channels were very weak so you would have to have added the cost of a massive great aerial to the cost of the set.  Television was the preserve of the wealthy.

It was another six or seven years before we got our own television.  It was a far cry from the sets that litter virtually every home these days.  No colour, a huge box with a small screen and six buttons to select the channels.  Changing channels or adjusting the volume had to be done at the set as there was no such thing as a remote control.  As well as the volume, chances were you’d have to regularly adjust the horizontal and vertical holds as the picture frequently broke up and would start to scroll or become a mess of horizontal lines.  Every time a car went past outside the picture would disappear in a mass of screeching black and white spots.

Things have come along a bit since those days.  Colour, flat screens, remote controls and satellite dishes have seen to that.

I have a choice of around seven hundred channels now, all with perfect reception and no interference.  Nearly every single one of them is pure unadulterated crap.  Of all those hundreds of stations I probably tune into about ten in all.

Fifty years of massive technological progress and all I get is fucking Jedward.

*sigh*

I have probably written to you on this subject before as it is something close to my heart.  If I did, you chose to ignore my message which is not a good thing for either of us.  If I didn’t then here are a few tips for you to improve your sales and for me to retain my sanity.

If you are trying to sell perfume or cosmetics then don’t show sexy young things.  It is false advertising.  I know because I tried one of the products on Herself once and she still looked the same after.  That was Not Good.

What is it with you lot and cartoons or animations?  Just because you have done a night course in computer animation doesn’t mean you have to use it.  Trying to sell to an adult by using cute cartoon characters or talking animals is condescending and doesn’t work.  After a few years of babysitting the Grandchildren, I am off cartoons for life.  And sticking a pair of arms and legs on your product is not cute nor funny and is guaranteed to make me avoid that product for life.  In particular I find those characters with long pointy noses very irritating and faintly nauseous.

Why do you insist on using the expression “must have”?  Only I know what I must have and you have fuck all chance of convincing me otherwise.  The same goes for “perfect day”.  Chances are my perfect day will not include any of the shit you are trying to convince me to buy.  So fuck off with those two expressions.  Capiche?

Trying to sell a chat line by showing a slapper in her underwear and rubbing her tits is more than misleading.  I know that I am more likely to end up chatting to some pox ridden skanger in Tallaght who is just trying to supplement her Unemployment Benefit.  I appreciate that showing some middle aged bag wearing trainers and a dirty tracksuit is unlikely to promote your product, but that’s your problem and not mine.

I do not understand this obsession with America.  Am I really supposed to be so in awe of all things American that I will buy something because you film the advertisement in New York or stick “American style” onto the product?  You once showed an advertisement that showed a tosser swimming the Atlantic to enjoy a pint in a New York pub.  It put me off Guinness for nearly a week, it was so fucking ridiculous.

I am not in the habit of driving along Alpine roads.  If you are trying to sell me a car, at least have the decency to show it being driven on potholed roads or stuck in a permanent traffic jam.  Even better, show it in a car park being battered to death by supermarket trollies.

These are just a few pointers.  I would ask you to take heed and then maybe – just maybe – I might show a passing interest in your products.

Alternatively you can all bugger off and leave me in peace.

Now that would be a “perfect day”.

Yours etc,

Grandad

Dame Enda is going to explain to us that we are in a “difficult situation” – as if we didn’t know – and how he is going to try to extract the last drop of blood from an already bloodless society in the budget tomorrow.  It’s somewhat akin to a torturer explaining to his victim that it’s for his own good, as he racks the voltage up by another ten thousand volts.

There is a problem though.

If our Great Leader expects an undivided audience, he is going to be disappointed.  He has to compete with the X-Factor on another channel.

It’s a tough choice.

Do we sit and listen to all the pathetic reasons why we have to be buggered yet again, or do we switch over to that Valium for the terminally brain dead?

I know what I am going to do.

I’m going to paint the back lobby.

I shall then sit and watch the paint dry, while inserting needles up under my fingernails.

It’s preferable to the other two.

Bugger!

I saw the first mention of Christmas on television while we were in France, which was a little odd.  Since then things have been relatively quiet.

Last night however, someone seemed to open the sluice gates and there they all were – all those ho ho ho happy happy tacky fucking advertisements trying to part us from our money in the spirit of Christmas.

I always mute the sound during the ad-breaks, so they don’t bother me that much.  I avoid all that fucking jangly Jingle Bells type fucking ‘music’ which sounds so cheap and false.  Unfortunately I still have to keep an eye on the screen so I can unmute when the break is over, so I’m still bombarded with fucking snowmen, Christmas trees and all the other shite which apparently is essential to the day.

One thing that amuses me is how each advertiser has to convince us that Christmas wouldn’t be purrrrfect without whatever junk it is they are trying to offload on us.  It’s all very well for most companies but suppose you are in the business of pumping septic tanks?  They then somehow have to convince us that we have to have our tanks emptied in order to have the purrrrfect day, which comes across as a little odd.  Not that it stops them from trying.

Only another seven and a bit weeks before the whole circus packs up for another year.

The longest seven weeks of the year.

Bah fucking humbug.

I have complained about you a few times in the past, but I think the time has come for a face-to-face.  I am writing to clarify a few points with you in order that you can continue to make reasonable advertisements and I can retain what little sanity I have left.

That advertisement with the hilarious joke does not work.  It may have been a riot when you were making your presentation to the client, but a joke repeated ad nauseum is not funny.

Cute little talking animals, fluffy bunnies, meercats and talking dogs are for children.  Got that? If your target audience is in the five to eight year range, then that’s fine, but I’m in my sixties and I’m not in my second fucking childhood.  Yet.

The same goes for the overuse of primary colours.

Advertising a massive couch that has been reduced in price from €4,000 to €50 is all very well but it would cost an extra €100,000 to build an extension to take the fucking thing.  Do you people never think things out?

Computer generated graphics are old hat.  OK, so you can draw fancy lights all over the screen.  So what?  I’m not impressed.

When advertising cars, could you please show them being driven in a ten mile tailback on the M50 where they are most likely to end up.  Not all of us are in the habit of driving on twisty roads in the Alps.  And while I am on the subject, stop trying to flog cars on the basis that they will turn heads.  We don’t all have small dicks and most couldn’t give a raw shite what the next door neighbour thinks.

Where did you get the idea that sticking some z-listed “celebrity” on the screen is going to impress me?  I haven’t a clue who most of them are so that trick doesn’t work.  Now I have heard of Craig Doyle.  I don’t know what his claim to fame is, but get him off my fucking screen.  I am sick of the sight of him.

Do you really think women are so shallow and fickle that they swoon over the smell of someone’s front room, or are gagging to know how their bestest pal keeps her figure?  On second thoughts, you might be right there.  Forget I mentioned that one.

Stop trying to sell me something that I am already stuck with.  Promoting electricity is a bit pointless as I have to be using the fucking stuff to run the television.  You really don’t think things out do you?

Where in the name of all that’s holy did you get the idea that we are all so fucking impressed with America?  I am utterly baffled as to why you think that an Irish product should be sold to Irish people using American accents or locations.  In particular, when it comes to cosmetics, you seem to go out of your way to find the female with the harshest, most nasal, most irritating American accent on the fucking planet.

I will leave you with that little list for the moment.  I’m sure I can come up with a few dozen extra pointers and will be in touch again.

If you take heed of the above, I’m sure you will make better advertisements, and I won’t smash up so many televisions.

Yours in hope,

Grandad

A couple of nights ago I was down having a pint or three and Stony bet me a few notes that I wouldn’t watch that song contest thingy.  So I had to watch.

From previous disasters I have learned that it is well to be very prepared before watching that epic display of kitsch and utter bad taste, so I opened a new bottle of whiskey and stoked the pipe with my best Home Grown.

It was, as I expected an endless blur of forgettable songs.  There wasn’t a single one that lit my candle and the only way I could keep track of them was by keeping an eye on Dick Puddlecote’s running commentary.  Thanks Dick.

I would love to give a blow by blow account of the entire travesty, but for self preservation purposes I somewhat overdid the whiskey and the Home Grown, so last night is a bit of a hazy memory, not that I think that sobriety would have improved things, but at least I am still relatively sane today.

I vaguely remember some weird apparition cycling around the stage on a monocycle with a fucking great cone on its head, but that may just have been the Home Grown.  In retrospect it must have been the Home Grown as even the Eurasian Song Contest wouldn’t sink that low.

I remember going for a dump as soon as they announced Ireland’s entry, which I thought it the time was a very fitting and appropriate gesture.

I also have hazy memories of one of the most cringe-worthy bunch of presenters, but I do distinctly remember that one of them was quite shaggable.  She was blonde, I think.  I also remember thinking that I wouldn’t kick the German lass out of bed for eating biscuits, but that is about as far as it goes.

By the time the voting came around I was pretty well anaesthetised so I don’t remember any of that.  I had to check the papers this morning to see who had won what.  So Ireland didn’t win, which is surprising as it was certainly bad enough to be up there.  I’m delighted as it only would have encouraged that insufferable pair of twins. Maybe they will shut the fuck up and go back to kindergarten now and leave us alone?  Unfortunately, I doubt it.

Apparently Azerbaijan won.  The only things I know about that country are that it’s one of those backward countries that have mysteriously appeared from nowhere in the last few years, and that it’s not in Europe.  So I don’t know what the fuck it was doing in a European thing.

Leastwise, they are stuck with the job of hosting the circus next year which should nicely bankrupt them.

Do they even have electricity in Azerbaijan?

Our latest world class expertise is the ability to humiliate ourselves in public.

However, if you think our performance in Europe was good, where we went with a begging bowl in one hand and our ankles in the other, then you ain’t seen nothing yet.  We are about to play our ace card.

Tonight is the second semi-final of the Eurovision Song Contest, and Ireland is up there with its entry -

Jedward!

For those of you who are fortunate enough never to have heard of Jedward then let me enlighten you.

The Grimes twins are a pair who were ceremoniously voted out of the X-Factor.  They didn’t win, probably because they are utterly talentless even by X-Factor standards.  Their only claim to uniqueness is their hair which they comb so that they look like a pair of ice-cream cornets.  That hair is just begging to be attacked with a pair of scissors.  Or a chainsaw.

Tonight they will be singing a song called [I think] Lipstick.  I have heard the ‘song’ a couple of times and somehow I have survived with my sanity intact, or reasonably so.  It is basically a meaningless, trite tuneless thumping beat which means it stands a good chance of winning.  It has the unfortunate effect of lingering in your head after hearing it, so you have been warned.  It is about as infectious and irritating as a dose of herpes.

There has been some debate about the boys’ sexuality.  I have nothing against homosexuality [and I mean that literally as well as figuratively] but I do draw the line at screaming queens on television, and boy do those two scream!  They claim they aren’t ‘gay’ and I believe them.  I also believe that Graham Norton And Boy George are up there with Arnold Schwarzenegger and Chuck Norris.

Unfortunately they appear the odd time on television, and that is quite an endurance test.  They tend to screech in a monotonous monotone, and like every like second like word like is like.  Like. They also preface every sentence with ‘Oh My Gawd’ and also frequently throw in a ‘coowel’ [‘cool’ to you and me]. In other words, they have almost reached cult status as parodies of modern yoof.

Of course, that’s just my opinion.

I won’t be watching tonight.

However I have placed a large bet on them winning.

Either way I’ll be happy.

It was a comedy channel off the satellite, and Yer Man Jack Dee was on.  I like Jack Dee – we share the same sunny disposition and life attitude.

During the advertisement breaks I noticed something strange.  Just as the break was starting, the screen flickered.  It did it before every break and I assumed it was some glitch in their computer system.

This glitch started to annoy me so just to satisfy my curiosity, I stopped the programme and rewound back to the point of the glitch.  That’s one of the advantages of digital television – pausing and rewinding is a doddle.

What I saw surprised me.

It was a screen full of text that didn’t make much sense.  It was all about bus drivers.  The majority of the text was white on red, but six words were in black – “Breed with caution. Time to panic”.  What in the name of fuck was that about?

I did a search on the Interwebby and found that a few other people had discovered it too.  One resourceful bloke had even captured the messages and edited them onto You Tube…..

I am not a great believer in conspiracy theories, and am firmly convinced that they are all spawned by a race of aliens who live on the planet Zorg.  I have a funny feeling though that this is just going to breed a rake more theories.

There must be a purpose behind it all.  It is obviously deliberate.

Fucking weird.