Another addled weekend beckons and their’s nothing I can do about it. Wrinkly Joe insists. Jimbo wants to go. Cursing Jack will provide the accommodation. What the fuck? We have to go.

Last year wasn’t great, now, I have to tell you. Not great at all, at least in terms of the accommodation. (Which was a cheap tent that leaked and destroyed my €700 camera, but we won’t talk about that too much). A tent that leaked and a sleeping bag that froze me. A sleepless, wet, cold night and a long snooze in some Mullingar pub.

A decision. Go Home!

Two decisions. Don’t!

As a result, a sublime moment before the superlative Lambchop. And therefore all the hardship made worth it, in spite of the dear beer and the bad food and the having to wake up from drink in the middle of the day.

What’s the line-up this time? Let me check.

Saturday:

Christy Moore
Kris Kristofferson
Steve Earle
The Waterboys
Aimee Mann
Richard Thompson
Mundy
Ricky Skaggs & Kentucky Thunder
Anjani
The Hillbilly All-Stars
Tom Russell
Allison Moorer
Niall Toner
Prison Love
Jim Lauderdale

Sunday:

Glen Campbell
Paul Brady
José González
Gillian Welch
The Be Good Tanyas
Blind Boys Of Alabama
Hothouse Flowers
The Hillbilly All-Stars
Bray Vista
Sunny Sweeney
Luan Parle
Richmond Fontain

Yeah. I can live with that. Better call Cursing Jack.

===============================

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But no.

Bertenstein just won’t go away, will he?

What sort of bollocks is he talking now? What sort of shit is this about the latest bundle of money? Does he think we’re all completely stupid?

Well, come to think of it, maybe we are all completely stupid, having re-elected this crowd of corrupt, inept gobshites over and over again, despite all the revelations about their crookedness and their incompetence. We deserve them.

The latest horse-shit has me in a knot though. No – seriously, I mean my brain is knotted up trying to figure it all out. In fact, I got so knotted up that I had to do one of my simplified chronologies to fit it into my rather inflexible brain.

This is more a stream of consciousness than a posting tonight, so feel free to drift away any time it starts to get on your nerves.

Here’s what I have so far, but maybe some of the People will help to fill in the gaps or correct whatever I got wrong. A sort of Bocollaboration. I’ve converted all the amounts from Britpounds and old Irish punts to Euros for simplicity).

1993 Bertie, Minister for Finance, gets €28,000 from his friends, who are:

Paddy Reilly, Des Richardson, Padraic O’Connor, Jim Nugent, David McKenna, Fintan Gunne, Mick Collins and Charlie Chawke

1993 Bertie, Minister for Finance had saved €50,000 in cash, despite ruinous marital separation. As his bank account was in joint names, he kept all the money in cash. It isn’t clear why he couldn’t just open an account in his own name.

1994 Bertie, Minister for Finance gets €20,000 from his friends, who are:

Joe Burke, Dermot Carew, Barry English and Paddy Reilly

Of these gifts, €25,000 went to his daughters’ education according to Bertie, leaving a balance of €23,000.

1994 Bertie, Minister for Finance, attends a function in Manchester attended by businessmen and engages in a spontaneous question and answer session. The businessmen spontaneously collect €8,000 for him because they know he’s having a messy separation from his wife. Mick Wall, a millionaire businessman, is present but doesn’t attend the function. He’s only a bus-driver (a millionaire bus-driver) and he waits outside.

1994 According to his police driver, Bertie, Minister for Finance, travels to Manchester with a suitcase full of cash.

1994 Bertie rents house from Mick Wall, millionaire bus-driver. House value is €190,000. Monthly rent €600. Cost of house to Mick Wall at prevailing interest rates, about €2,000 per month.

Dec 1994 Mick Wall, millionaire bus-driver, gives €40,000 in cash to Celia Ahern, Bertie’s partner at the time. (Obviously, this has nothing to do with the money Bertie is alleged to have taken to Manchester earlier in the year.)

Bertie explains this week: Any money that Ms Larkin received was a stamp duty issue and it was towards refurbishing the house

Tenants are not liable for stamp duty and €40,000 seems like a lot of money to refurbish a brand new house.

1995 Mick Wall changes his will, leaving the house to Bertie, Minister for Finance.

1994 – 1997 Bertie and Celia live in the house, paying about a third of what it would cost for a mortgage. The rent they pay in the three years is about half of the €40,000 Mick Wall is said to have spent on the refurbishment. Obviously, Mick didn’t get a great return on his investment.

1997 Bertie buys the house for €220,000. Not a bad deal for a Dublin house in that location. Not bad at all.

Bertie sees nothing wrong with a Minister for Finance receiving such gifts and favours, even when the people giving money have extensive property interests, and might benefit significantly from certain tweaking of various Finance Acts. Something a Minister for Finance might be in a position to do, in the National Interest.

Take, for instance, Des Richardson, one of Bertie’s generous friends in 1993. Richardson’s company, Berraway, had what was termed a “strategic consultancy” with Rohan Holdings, who paid the company €1.08 million in fees between 1996 and 2000. Now, it just so happens, purely by coincidence, that Bertie introduced a tax break in 1994 which, astonishingly, had only one beneficiary: Rohan Holdings. As a result of the tax break, Rohan immediately saved €2 million in tax, and a further €200,000 every year from then on. But of course, this is purely coincidence.

Am I just plain stupid here?

What do you think?

================

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It’s what the drug-dealing murdering scumbags in our jails use to run their operations while they’re locked up. And what they occasionally use to call in to radio phone-ins as happened yesterday when one particularly vicious retard phoned Liveline. He called to threaten another swaggering retard, who had also phoned Liveline, incredibly.

There’s mayhem over the whole incident. Our Minister for Justice is apoplectic with rage. He wants an inquiry to find out how the scumbag in jail got the phone. I have news for him. Somebody brought it in in pieces shoved up their arse, the same way all the heroin gets into our jails.

Instead of worrying about how the scumbag got his phone, why doesn’t the Minister jam all phone signals in our prisons, and make the question irrelevant? And while he’s at it, why doesn’t he start building a reliable, professional police force that can take on those scumbags who happen to be out of jail? By professional, I mean, of course, a police force that isn’t obsessed with building and renting houses, eating free doughnuts, harassing law-abiding citizens, raiding pubs for after-hours drinking, framing innocent suspects and hiding from confrontation with genuine criminals.

As you know, when our ancestors came out of Africa and arrived in Western Europe forty thousand years ago, they found it already inhabited by another human species. Imagine how pissed off they were.

Up to now, scientists had speculated that the two species didn’t interbreed, but their basis for making this assumption was suspect to say the least. The argument went that, as the Neanderthals were much stockier than us, with receding foreheads and prominent jaws, the Homo Sapiens wouldn’t be attracted to them. They’d find them physically repulsive and therefore no interbreeding would ever take place. And therefore, modern humans couldn’t possibly have any attributes of the Neanderthal.

Look, Gronk! There’s a big hairy smelly ape-like thing at our watering hole.

Yes, Urk, but it isn’t an ape. See! It’s carrying a primitive hand-tool and wearing animal skins for protection against the elements. Also, let me draw to your attention that it seems to be wearing a necklace of bone.

Why, so it is, Gronk. My goodness, isn’t it ugly!

Indeed, Urk. Let’s hurry back to the cave and warn the others.

Yeah. Right. The new humans wouldn’t mate with the old humans because they found them too ugly. Like that’s a fundamental characteristic of humans: they won’t have sex with ugly creatures.

Really?

I have only one answer to that: night-clubs.

And sheep.

Two. Two answers.

I think the good Dr Trinkaus may have stumbled on something of greater significance than he realises. Stone-age beer.

Bertie

Sure, grunted Bullet.

So I called Grown-up Daughter. I was thinking of maybe having a bit of a barbecue. What do you think?

Sounds good. But I’ll have to fuck off straight away.

GrownupDaughter is studying some shit, and anyway daughters are a pain in the arse, so I said Fine.

I lit up the barbie and made a pile of things that go with barbies. I opened up a bottle of wine for me, but not for Bullet cos he’s too young. GrownupDaughter is far from too young. GrownupDaughter would drink you (and me} under the table but luckily GrownupDaughter has the car outside and therefore can’t drink. How things have changed. Would a pile of drink in my belly have stopped me driving when I was GrownupDaughter’s age?

[Answer: No]

We had a nice dinner. GrownupDaughter fucked off and Bullet wandered off to tickle away at his electric guitar plus small practice amp. Nice. I lit a fire outside and put on a CD.

Come on, I said to Bullet. We’ll listen to a few songs outside.

OK, agreed Bullet.

So we sat back, in the glow of the fire, and these are the things we listened to:

Neil Young, Freedom
Guy Clark, Old No 1
Tom Russell, The Long Way Around

How bad?

You sit out the back with your son, in the dark, with the fire glowing, listening to music and it’s good for you and it works for him.

How bad is that?

I know – all right? I know I’m repeating myself. I know I said all this yesterday, but there’s an election coming up, which is a thing we don’t see every day. In fact, if the government had their way, you wouldn’t see one at all.

Let’s get it absolutely clear.

This government gave €1.2 billion to the religious orders because Bertie used to work in the Mater hospital and they have some hold on him. They paid one thousand two hundred million euros of your money to cover the claims against the rapist clergy, instead of making them sell their extensive land banks.

Why?

Because the nuns have some hold over Bertie.

This government decided to locate the new national Children’s Hospital in the Mater because Bertie used to work there, and they have some hold on him. They put it in the wrong place for the sick children and their families, but that doesn’t matter when the nuns have you by the bollocks.

Why?

Because the nuns have some hold over Bertie.

This government gave National Toll Roads (Roadstone) a gigantic pile of money for the bridge that they used to rob Irish people on the M50 for 20 years because National Toll Roads are buddies of this government.

Why?

Because Roadstone have some hold over Bertie.

This government failed to tax second and third homes, because it would inconvenience their builder pals, allowing the property market to inflate to such an extent that our children will never afford a house.

Why?

Because the builders have some hold over Bertie.

This government handed a national resource free to Shell Oil because the crook Ray Burke was in charge of the deal. Ray Burke, the convicted fraud, handled the transfer of our national wealth to Shell and nobody is asking what’s going on. There are 200 police in Rossport beating the local teachers, farmers and and lifeboat crew off the roads because Ray Burke, the crook, gave our national resources free to a company that has killed many people across the world. Free! This crook! This fraud!! This gangster in charge of giving away what belongs to you and me!!!

Why?

Because Big Oil has some hold over . . .

ah, work it out for yourself. I hope you’re angry.

Great. Time to start torturing those political reptiles that call to your door once every four years. After all, even if you didn’t disagree with their policies, it’s very hard to like a heavily-sweating man in a bad suit with a gigantic belly and highly-suspect hair.

I hate these people, but I don’t – obviously – expect you to be so vehement. Obviously. Did I mention that I hate these fuckers? Yes. However, you don’t need to be anywhere near as vehement. Just ask them a few questions when they come to your door, and while I think of it, may I just enter a small caveat? Thanks.

Caveat: This is a completely non-party site. This site hates all political parties equally, naturally, because they are all equally power-grabbing scum-sucking cynical parochial arse-licking morality-free fuckheads. All of them. Including the Greens, the Browns, the Greys, the Socialists, the Socialites, the Luddites, the Lignites, the Meteorites, the Bentonites and of course, the Gelignites. Not to mention Hurricane Johnny and the Jets. The whole dishonest, shit-eating lot of them.

That is Bock’s view on politicians, both established and incipient. A crowd of wankers. Tosspots.

However, as only one party has been in power in this benighted little country for a generation, unfortunately it’s going to look as if I have adopted some kind of party-political stance, when in fact it’s simply that there isn’t anyone else to attack. I mean, the only people who have fucked up in recent memory are the government parties. OK? That makes sense.

Here’s my suggestion. I’ll make a list of hard questions. You can paste them on the inside of your front door and then, instead of listening to the nauseating shite you know they’re going to throw at you, simply say

Hold on a minute. I have a couple of questions.

What do you think? Is this revolutionary or what? People with real questions challenging real stupid politicians.

Now here’s a problem. Because this is Ireland, a small tiny little country on the periphery of just about everything, there are certain things I can’t recommend to you. For example, I can’t suggest you say

Why did you invade Iraq, you murdering fucker?

Of course not. We didn’t invade Iraq.

You could, however, ask something along the lines of

Why did you give Shannon Airport for the use of the US military to invade Iraq, you murdering- by-proxy fucker?

Or you could try something more parochial. For example, you could ask

Why did you give €1,200,000,000 of my money to bail out the religious orders who raped and abused Irish children? For clarity, that would be one thousand two hundred million euros. Could you explain that please? Thanks.

And if you draw a blank on that, maybe you could ask them the following:

How much of the profits from the Corrib gas field go to the Irish citizen?

[Hint 1: The answer is not a penny]

[Hint 2. This is where the Government has sent 200 police to beat the local protesters off the roads while real criminals walk around unhindered everywhere else.]

[Hint 3 This was the deal signed by the convicted fraudster and crook Ray Burke when he was Minister for Energy.]

You might add another supplementary question if you feel sufficently splenetic:

When he gave away this valuable national asset to Shell, how much did Ray Burke make out of the deal?

[Hint: No problem, Ray. Sue me.]

And as this is a Limerick-based site here’s a local one.

Limerick is a much smaller town than Dublin. It only has a population of about 120,000 people in the greater area, compared to the 1.2 million of Dublin. Therefore the most we could expect is a tenth of whatever Dublin gets, per head of population. For instance, as the Luas tram system in Dublin cost €800 million, wouldn’t it seem reasonable that we could have €80 million spent on a tram system for Limerick? A tenth, in other words.

That way, it would be less annoying to see all our tax money spent on a city we don’t live in.

Fine. Here’s the question:

When will the government spend as much per head of population on Limerick’s public transport as they did in Dublin?

[Note: Substitute Cork, Galway, Waterford, Sligo or wherever else you prefer.]

Isn’t it great? And we’re only starting on these bastards.

============================

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Any suggestions?

Almost, Bock? Why not every single second?

Oh, that’s simple. I can answer that in one word: Bono.

Was there ever such a pretentious, self-obsessed, insincere twat as Bono? Is there a single word this man can say that isn’t rehearsed? Look at him. Look at the preening, self-satisfied holier-than-thou gobshite and tell me you’re not looking at a fraud. Christ all-fucking-mighty, I just cannot look at that man without wanting to commit mass murder. Or mass shopping. One or the other. I can never tell the difference.

I mean, listen to that ludicrous mid-Atlantic accent. Where the fuck did he get that growing up in north Dublin? What a knob-head. There he is, in the Cohen movie, standing in the shadows, sharing his ridiculous opinions while wearing sunglasses. In the dark!! Question for you: what are sunglasses for? Correct. they’re for sun. So why does that fool Bono need sunglasses in the dark? Answer: he’s a knob-head.

Nick Cave, meanwhile, came across as a guy who hadn’t given a second’s thought to his answers, and do you know what? I believed every word he said. Unlike Bono, who looked like he’d spent twelve hours in front of a mirror, getting it right.

I have always loved the music and writing of Leonard Cohen. I’m a true believer, and I loved this movie, apart from the random intrusions of Bono’s vacuous twitterings. Watching the film develop, with all these wonderful singers covering his songs, it seemed that the right thing would be if Lenny finished it himself, by singing Tower of Song, and that’s exactly what happened. Imagine my horror, then to discover that he had U2 as his backing band. Oh Noooooooo!

To his credit, Leonard looked both embarrassed and in pain.

Bono is a self-important, unlettered twit. Leonard Cohen, by contrast, is a humble genius, and I thought I might bring you a little evidence of this. His book, Beautiful Losers, was translated into Chinese in 1999, much to Lenny’s surprise, and this is the foreword he wrote to his new Chinese readers. For people familiar with him, it confirms what they already know, and for new arrivals, it’s as good an introduction as any to the kind of man he is.

Here we go:

Dear Reader,

Thank you for coming to this book. It is an honor, and a surprise, to have the frenzied thoughts of my youth expressed in Chinese characters. I sincerely appreciate the efforts of the translator and the publishers in bringing this curious work to your attention. I hope you will find it useful or amusing.

When I was young, my friends and I read and admired the old Chinese poets. Our ideas of love and friendship, of wine and distance, of poetry itself, were much affected by those ancient songs. Much later, during the years when I practiced as a Zen monk under the guidance of my teacher Kyozan Joshu Roshi, the thrilling sermons of Lin Chi (Rinzai) were studied every day. So you can understand, Dear Reader, how privileged I feel to be able to graze, even for a moment, and with such meager credentials, on the outskirts of your tradition.

This is a difficult book, even in English, if it is taken too seriously. May I suggest that you skip over the parts you don’t like? Dip into it here and there. Perhaps there will be a passage, or even a page, that resonates with your curiosity. After a while, if you are sufficiently bored or unemployed, you may want to read it from cover to cover. In any case, I thank you for your interest in this odd collection of jazz riffs, pop-art jokes, religious kitsch and muffled prayer æ an interest which indicates, to my thinking, a rather reckless, though very touching, generosity on your part.

Beautiful Losers was written outside, on a table set among the rocks, weeds and daisies, behind my house on Hydra, an island in the Aegean Sea. I lived there many years ago. It was a blazing hot summer. I never covered my head. What you have in your hands is more of a sunstroke than a book.

Dear Reader, please forgive me if I have wasted your time.

Los Angeles, February 27, 2000

Leonard Cohen