"the cheque is in the post"
“Please accept our escuses Sir, only doing our duty like, Official Secrets Act To Protect And To Serve and all, all is fair in love and war essetera. Now should you ever open your trap about it though, be warned that you will be hit with a 4.23 alinea 666 for breach of injunction as defined by the Code of Practice, Cassius Clay Casus Belli, under terms of extreme circumstances Security of the State property left in vehicles at their owner's sole responsibility Ma’s the word We Know What’s Best For You, is that understood? Right-so. Now off you go, ya Munich Rag -unless of course you wish to stay over in situ on national territory until such time and instigate charges of Misunderstood Necessary Police Physicality via the recorded registering of a deposition that will take –now let me see- probably forty-eight hours to eighty-six process properly are you with me?" sniffed the Guard and he adjusted his splendid cap to the correct angle. There.
"As for you Miss, I will have to detain you under the provision of Wanton Destruction of Public Goods and National Heritage -Wait till you meet the director of the Library, you're in for a severe roasting young lady! Wanton Destruction I say, as well as Uncivil Demeanour and Provocative Behaviour, what’s this haircut about eh, just who do you think you are, going round smashing windows ruining everyone’s hearing and anyway I only liked your cover version of Prince, the rest’s doing me head in!"
Sounding all grown-up and decisive, the defender of the peace tried to stare the sensitive songstress down. Failed. He dropped a heavy hand on Sinead's delicate shoulder –oh but the boys watching must be pissing daggers with jealousy he reckoned, and his nascent ‘tache he’d been working on for the last fortnight twitched with excitement ever so slightly.
"Come down gently now, nice and easy, the whole world's witnessed your callous act of vandalism, your parents must be really proud, what kind of an example etc. so don’t make no trouble now –or else it's a long ride in the van with Bluto, Razo and their German shepherds, they haven’t been fed for two days. What will it be then?"
To be fair, Sinead’s head was all over the shop. She felt both stunned and triumphant, knackered and exhilarated, and most certainly in no mood to start another brawl.
She turned towards Roy for guidance. She found Roy strangely looking the other way. Hiking up his breeches, your man finally mumbled:
“Right then ahem... guess I gottogo now, have a plane to catch don’t I, so well done our kid, that was sterling work that, ‘talk to you later -Gizza a bell eh? Let's do lunch sometime. Cheerio!" And off he went.
Sinead let out a gasp of incredulity: why you rotten scoundrel, scampering away like that?? Typical man leaving her in the lurch! And who was gonna foot the glassware bill again huh? Who was up for another hefty fine? Not to mention more public opprobrium coming her way along the lines of "Sinead SINS Again! OUTRAGE as she viciously DESTROYS public PROPERTY! We ask our readers: SHOULD the HARPY be allowed to stay any longer or shouldn't she be DEPORTED along with the Nigerians and Romanians who PLAGUE our once BEAUTIFUL land that now finds itself in total DISARRAY as they OVERRUN our already OVERSTRETCHED social services and HOOK our golden youth on HARD DRUGS! Call 456888 for "YES", (456999 for "no") -Calls only cost 68 cents a minute, terms and conditions apply, make sure to talk to our operators first before confirming your choice."
Sinead was unable to repress a long sigh: "Ttsssssssssssssssshhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh.............................. "
Oh well, if that was the way it was supposed to be... what can you possibly do. Accept it, don’t fight it. It certainly looked like Jah's children were destined to find themselves on the wrong end of the Law no matter happened: the forces of Good, the forces of Evil, it was all so confusing... (and here another sigh followed) Seriously though, she needed to make some dough to pay for the repairs -and quickly too. A plan, she needed to come up with a plan.
Frogmarched by your man to the Guardamobile, Sinead reflected on her options. What a shame, she would probably need to record another album of hit covers in order to meet the expenses (and put off her sonic mystical experiments for a while)… But then she brightened at the thought. Actually, why not go the full Enya and release it for Christmas? Why not have a laugh in the process? Ah sure it could work, she would just need to ask a few friends around to lend her a hand. All she’d have to do is fix them a quick broccoli and spinach quiche, lay on the drinks, skin up a roach or two, and away we go! Straight in the studio for a quickie! Only one-takes, only bona fide hits, in and out for a quick buck, safe -ssssorted. Maybe she could hook up with, ah well let's see...
Liz Frasier, David Sylvian, Robert Wyatt, Kate Bush, Brendan Perry, Bryan Ferry, Stuart Blaise, Angela McCluskey, Stina Nordenstam, Caroline Crawley, Kurt Wagner, Mark Hollis –Oh, I say, (said she) that sounded like a plan! Sinead handed her finely shaped wrists to the beastly brute’s 'cuffs. It was all taking shape in her head, now what they’d also need would be, y’know… some actual musos to bang the tunes. Now then, who was always available for birthday parties and Bar-Mitzvahs? She knew who! She would ask Dave Gilmour (on guitar), Diblo Dibala (also on guitar), Andy Kamen (drums), Mick Karn (bass), J Mascis (guitar), Courtney Pine (clarinet), Pino Dallagio (bass), Jean-Luc Capozzo (trumpet), Toots Thielemans (harmonica), Astor Piazzolla (accordion), Steve Jansen (drums), Jean-Jacques Burnel (bass), Stewart Copeland (drums), Jools Holland (piano), Steve Albini (guitar), Terminator X (keyboards mixing ).
With that lot laying the foundations behind her vocalists, it could only result in a smash-hit monster! Kerching alleluia! Sinead could already see it: "The Collective -name to be confirmed, huh- Covers All Your Blockbustah DanceFloor Favourites!" Move over, all you J-Los, Robbies and other Price Girls! The charts was for her to take!
Her new band would hit them hard with, huh, a cover of "The Unacceptable Face Of Freedom" by Test Department, "Big Log" by Robert Plant, "You Will Be Loved Again" by the great and tragic Mary Margaret O'Hara, Martin Dupont "I Met The Beast", the Would-Be's "I'm Hardly Ever Wrong", The Young Gods "Summer Eyes", Smog either "The Only Mother" or “To Be Of Use”, Nena "Ich Häng Immer Noch An Dir (So Sehr)", The Fall "Bill Is Dead", the Virgin Prunes "Ukanalakulot", Charlélie Couture "Aime-moi encore un peu", Diamanda Galas "The Mask Of The Red Plague", Bashung "Madame Rêve", Neil Young "Cortez The Killer", Fun-Da-Mental "You've Never Ever Ever Ever Ever Ever Ever EVER Seen The Wrath Of The Black Man (Black Man)", Unsane "Bath", Billie Holiday "Strange Fruits", Roger Waters “Whatever Happened To The Post-War Dream”, and Barbara "l'Aigle noir".
And that was just for starters, a second volume could always follow to celebrate the 30th of April.
Ignoring the officer’s after-shave that filled up the interior of the car worse than the thighs of an American seated next to you on a plane, Sinead allowed herself an interior smile. Things would work just fine, that was some proper surefire she had on her hands and no mistake; she could already feel it, the excitement speeding through her veins like skewlkids down the corridor despite being told for the thousandth time NO FECKING RUNNING YOUS HEAR, it could only be massive! It was gonna be deadly! She felt blessed. She felt a great sense of relief. The Ultimate Note had visited her today, and in its strange way had shown her the way to get back onto her commercially viable feet -thank you Ultimate Note! With the proceeds of that record, she would surely be able to pay for the damage –and then some.
Led away by Captain Bollix under the jubilant flashes of the mobile phones and the whir of the cameras -that may or may not have included the one from TV3, home of husky Jo-Anne Cantwell on "Sports Results" at eleven- Sinead reckoned that, all in all, this had not been too bad a day. She still needed to have a word with Elzebaiah though. Oh yes, they needed to work something out for the school, some dog-ate-his-homework yoke, something was definitely up with this young man and she didn't know what. In a funny way, her wake-up call had been exactly that. (A wake-up call, that is.)
The more she thought about it, the more bizarre his recent behaviour appeared to have become: he had been acting all strange recently had he not... a case of the old hormones kicking up already? And she suddenly wondered: what if her son had turned out to become... another Keano! Normal person by day, secret super-agent by night and during pesky P.E. lessons!!
And Sinead gasped in horror: as if the world needed yet another geniously gifted yet utterly intempestive loose cannon with no respect for conventions nor decorum!
Sinead broke into a smile. Exit left, curtain draw.
Epilogue
-later that day…
The Beast reclined in its seat upholstered with human skin tanned into simili cow-hide. It produced one of its miracle cigars from a cranium shaped box and lit it with a click of its tongue (Tsshhhh...).
These cigars emitted a special kind of smoke that didn't set alarms off –wasn’t it amazing what science could come up with these days! The Beast stretched its hind legs and deposited them on top of the mantelpiece at the other side of the office, its tail playfully wrapping itself around the red hot poker, all in a day's work eh...
The smoke looped in swastika spirals and painted whimsical tableaux in the air, re-enacting picturesque battles complete with blinded horses and gored soldiers crying for their mothers, axes chopped off heads and bayonets went in like butter, empires fell and rose again up to the tented ceiling. Tee hee, little had these innocents known, they sure got their wires badly crossed! Wanna play with the big boys and be the hero? Be my guest! They had found their match so they had and the beauty was, the beauty was they hadn’t even realised what was going on! What was what, who was who. Arse about face, yeah. Stick out foot, aim bazooka. …
The smoke now brought up swarms of mosquitoes, Fox News presenters. It took the shape of sweat-shop workers, lynch mobs frothing at the mouth. Chick grinding machines and waterboarding apologists. Foie gras producers. What a day it had been… Don't they say that the road to hell is paved with good intentions? Little did they know!
The Beast chuckled to itself and opened the mahogany desk’s top drawer, ruffled through the contracts signed with the Chinese. It finally found what it was looking for, under the invitation to Tony Blair’s hunting safari. The Beast fished out a well-thumbed notebook. On page whatever was a list of names crossed out:
-The Elzechiabars, 5699 BC
-the Electropoids, 2128 BC (what a royal pain that lot had been, it had taken a worldwide nuclear blast to erase them all),
-Mary-Magdalen 5 AD
-the Chinese Alchemidoists, 245 BC
-the Cathars, 540 AD
-the Tibetans, 632 AD
-Nostradamus, 651 AD
-The Spanish Inquisition, 756 AD
-David Icke, 1986 AD
-the Millennium Bug, 2000 AD
-As Yet Unidentified, 2005 AD.
Phew! So much for the latest episode, it had been a close one to be fair, you could have almost tasted the barber's breath, but now everything was fine, everything looked just Dandy. The figures in the air rearranged themselves into bearded suicide bombers, Goldman Sachs confidential print-outs, synthetic chocolate bars.
The Beast clapped shut the notebook and threw it back in the drawer. The notebook made a splosh sound as it landed in a puddle of alcohol-free beer and the autographed portrait of Richard Littlejohn sagged under its surprisingly deceptive weight.
The Beast breathed deeply and savoured the fire drag of the smoke speeding down its throat. Its enjoyment was doubled by the knowledge that nobody else in the country was able to do so, oh the pathetic creatures. It aspired the smoke right down the bottom of its furnace lungs and let it simmer there -Ain’t it good to survive another millennium! They’d have to come up with a better class of would-be avengers next time! Wide-eyed Sunday school heroes, that edition... Numpties.
The Beast let its gaze wander outside the heavily curtained window and its forked tongue idly caught a ray of fading sunshine bathing its office in a golden brown tint. All was quiet and back to normal at Leinster House.
The
End
(Any
resemblance with any living person is purely accidental -and fortuitous too,oh
yes don’t forget fortuitous.)
Afterword
The author is much indebted to the staff of the National Library Of Ireland; I can't possibly start to name names because A) there are too many of them who've been simply smashing and B) if I forget anyone, I will be struck off Christmas card lists. This being said, I'd still like to say "hi" to Colette O'Daly and Noel Stapleton. Thank you to everyone else who tolerated my ramblings during my tenure there, you might just recognise yourself as a "reward".
Now for the serious bit: the author wants to make very clear that no NLI window gives onto Leinster House, I have deliberately played around with topology so as to debunk verisimilitude / credibility in what is, first and foremost, A NOVEL -I repeat: A NOVEL. Nothing more, nothing less. Just a bit of fun, tossed off in a couple of weekends, not to be taken seriously under any circumstance. Observant readers will have noted, for instance, that I have refrained from using the names of the protagonists' genuine children. The way I see it, these are not public knowledge, they are irrelevant, and therefore should remain private matter. Oh, and Bertie is not the Devil either. (As much as I can judge.)
Seriously though, there seems to be an ever-growing danger of over-analysing works of art when some of these are primarily only meant to be -I'll repeat myself once more here- just a bit of fun. So, if you seriously imagine that Roy Keane moonlights as a globe-trotting super-hero and that Sinead O'Connor goes battling supernatural evil with him, let me suggest that you have a problem. And what about the Kildare Street scene: as if our glorious Garda would ever beat up protesters?!! (Even those at the Reclaim The Street parade...) This is -you will agree- simply preposterous. So no, if anyone can't grasp the concept of "fiction", they have no right to criticise. (Bang, so there.)
I am glad to report that "No Histrionics Please" has been a pleasure to write, especially when compared to other projects of mine, everything falling into place more or less as smoothly as can be. I have enjoyed consigning this little joke to paper and I hope you have enjoyed reading it to.
Salutations / credits / Loig’s life 2004-2005 in short:
Jim Grice and family; Paul Delaye and family; Olympique Lyonnais; the Guinness product; J** S*** gym; Laser DVDs shop; the Tram and Frasier's pubs; the Sean Moncrieff show; Mark and Lard; the Reading Film Theatre; François Gentil. John Peel RIP (his loss is upsetting beyond words). This work may or may not include very brief quotes from Nicholas Cave; Lewis Reed; Robert Mould; Stephen Patrick Morrissey; Neil Young; Willie Doyle; The Book Of Revelations; Rage Against The Machine.
Now then. (Please be aware that the following words were written in April 2005.) And now for our next episode, in which Roy flies off to Glasgow to sort out in one smooth swoop this Celtic / Rangers sectarian war thingy. Surely another piece of cake...? "There's still crime in the city, but it's good to be free."
Nietszche:
"life wouldn't be worth living without music"
mainly Interpol "Antics"; Cocteau Twins various ("Carolyn's Fingers" forever!); Daft Kunt; Keane "Everybody's Changing"; Death In June "Come Before Christ And Murder Of Love"; Faithless ("no roots, no home, no family"); the Cookie Collective "I've got the key, I've got the secret"; TelePopMuzik "Another Day"; Silver Jews (the one about "she loved another"); Pink Floyd "whatever happened to the post-war dream"; the bloody marvellous Tindersticks ("there's trouble everyday"); Carmel "I'm not afraid of you" ("why do you grow / from something warm / into something cold?"); Nina Simone; Charlélie Couture "Cindy fait semblant" "solo boy"; Rammstein "amour amour"; Debussy "Nocturnes"; Public Enemy "Fight The Power" "By The Time I Get To Alabama"; Consolidated "Friendly Fascism"; Coldplay "Don't panic"; Husker Du "in your bed / late at night / don't give up / don't give in / in your bed / late at night / don't give in / don't give up" "Broken Home, Broken Heart"; No Doubt "Running"; Barbara; La Souris Déglinguée "que sont-ils devenus" "parti de la jeunesse"; Starshooter "pas fatigué"; Psychedelic Furs; PWEI "England's Finest” (“here we are / by request / here we give you / England's finest"); remix of "the revolution will be televised" artist unknown on Giles Peterson's label; Mahler's fifth; Rothko; Mogwai; Rage Against The Machine "they're rounding up the families, pockets full of shell" (I know that their heart is in the right place, but I still maintain that the sleeve of their first album is unacceptable); Wedding Present "never let you out of my sight" "and if we have to be honest, we might as well be brief"; Smog "there are some terrible gossips in this town / you are my dearest friend / and I will protect you / until the end" "Knock Knock" album; Georges Delerue "le mépris"; Danny Elfman "Edward Cissorhands"; Hans Zimmer "The Thin Red Line"; Chuck D. "You Can Call Me Mister Chuck"; Lambchop "There's Something Going On"; Solomon Burke "Take A Chance On Me"; Frankie Knuckles "Your Love"; Unsane; Neil Young "Cortez The Killer” “Over And Over Again” “Crime In The City"; the Yeah Yeah Yeahs "Maps"; Laptop "EndCredits"; This Mortal Coil; Sigur Ros; Pet Shop Boys "Being Boring"; The Human League "Louise"; the Dead Kennedys "Take This Job And Shove It".
As
ever, thank you for reading.
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