Bertie Ahern. (2 Viewers)

[jane]

Its time's like this I wish I was back in Ireland, sharing in the craic around his resignation. The gf just doesn't get why I've been laughing for thirty minutes through this thread and politics.ie. Told her to imagine if Sarkozy is still clinging to power in 11 years and then "poof", like magic he's gone (in disgrace). Good days...almost as sweet as McDowell being voted out.

I feel like I missed out on the excitement because I just happened to be really busy but I can come home and soak it up, roll in it, etc, so it must be kind of a bummer not to be around people who get what's happening in all its shades of hilarity and irony and bertieness. It really is a special, special day. Underwhelming in the long run, considering his replacement, but I think we can all come together to enjoy this brief moment of harmony.

I was working in a different office during the elections, with a friend of mine who is a total politics junkie. She and her whole family watch politics like mad football fans. We had all the broadcasts up on the computers.

When McDowell got voted out, I was dancing around the house, cackling and yelping while my phone rang off the hook. You'd have thought I won the bloody seat.

Fuck. Watching it on the news now, they're interviewing people in Fagan's about how great a lad he issssss.

 

[Space]

In case you miss this over in the core, worth a read:

One of his mentors was Charles Haughey, the disgraced late prime minister, who took large amounts of money from businessmen and called Ahern the "most cunning, the most ruthless, the most devious of them all".

http://english.aljazeera.net/NR/exeres/8AAB7EA6-CE79-46AA-898D-AE410DB2900C.htm

 

[jane]

from guardian.co.uk -

"Fianna Fáil sources told the Guardian his decision to quit was connected to the Irish referendum on the Lisbon EU treaty. Senior advisers had been worried that the poll would be turned by the opposition into a referendum on his leadership rather than the detail of the treaty."

HA HA HA HA HA HA GENIUS.

Who were these Fianna Fail sources? The ghost of Bertie's granny?

"Ah, now, he's just a boy, didn't mean any harm. He's only steppin' down because of dem bullies, don't like he's a big success."

The footage of Young Bertie they were showing really freaked me out. Looking at his mannerisms and his dumbass face is like observing that the Senior class has just elected the class chancer to be its president. I mean, they think it's funny on election day because his jokey ignorance is so endearing, but it's not so fucking stupidass hilarious ha ha when they realise he doesn't know the first thing about organising prom. Yeah, when this punch-in-the-arm takes off with the money from prom tickets and this year's graduating class finds itself in rented tuxes and J-Crew Formalwear in a VFW hall decorated with used crepe paper and ancient Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Calendars -- will they be laughing? I don't not think not: I KNOW THEY NOT.

And that's what Bertie Ahern's face means to me.

The end.

By Jane

 

[Pantone247]

from guardian.co.uk -

"Fianna Fáil sources told the Guardian his decision to quit was connected to the Irish referendum on the Lisbon EU treaty. Senior advisers had been worried that the poll would be turned by the opposition into a referendum on his leadership rather than the detail of the treaty."

actually there could be something to that, unless the next session of the Tribunal in may totally hangs him out to dry (fingers crossed) he could just have forseen another Nice like shit fest ahead and decided to get out while at least retaining some face in Europe...

but mostly I just hope they found a mattress full of money

 

[jane]

Oh man, now I'm really gettin' my cackle on.

I think it's really worth posting this in full. I don't think I'll ever have had my fill of it.

I am crying, writing this. How can you cry for someone you've only once said hello to? Bertie was the Taoiseach of our dreams, in the sense that it was the dreams of his people that gave birth to what is tritely called his celebrity. We have these words to box off the lucky/unlucky ones who act out our fantasies, while we stick safely to the grandstand. We refer to them as Berties, implying a different species. But they are human beings, filled like the rest of us with money, distinguished only by willingness/ opportunity to take bribes where others fear to tread.

The old saw has it wrong: those who volunteer to act out our fantasies in public are both fools and angels. Driven by longing beyond knowing, their folly arises from a failure of awareness, experience, wisdom.

Driven by angelic recall, they plod on clay feet into the mire of three-dimensional reality. They do not know, are not conscious, that their appetites are infinitely greater than the world's capacity to satisfy them.
Bertie was a personification of our fantasies, of our sense of what we were becoming, of how we might unfold ourselves. He was not the only one, but in the immediate past was perhaps the most spectacular light on the skyline, a meteorite of desire plummeting through the Irish zeitgeist. You may dismiss it as frivolity but only, with respect, if you think in cliches and fixate on the superficial. For most of us, it is not wisdom that keeps us from danger, but lack of opportunity, or fear, or a deadly piety posing as virtue. Bertie had found a way of being that promised him it could slake all his human cravings. He had manoeuvred himself into a position where everything humanly desirable seemed to be within reach, and was careering forward on the path opening up in front of him.

He did not, other than literally, resign because of whatever it will say on the telly. He resigned because of desire, of being utterly human.
What can I say? The dream is over.

As for lessons, I don't know. In the past decade, we have, most of us, conducted searches for meaning in places previously inaccessible to us. We acquired means and freedom beyond our wildest.

We knew that money couldn't buy us love, but still gave it a shot. We sensed that freedom is a complicated word, but tried to keep it simple. Be, for tomorrow we die.

 

[Pantone247]

"heaven gets new taoiseach"

best tag ever!

 

[jane]

"heaven gets new taoiseach"

best tag ever!

I'm just gonna go ahead and take my bow here. Not one to miss an opportunity like that. KTHX.

I'm so fucking bummed out that I missed all the initial excitement. Trying desperately to make up for it, like chugging whiskey because I've arrived at a party where everyone's already shitfaced.

 

[Unicron]

Is there a Bebo tribute page yet?

 

[jane]

Is there a Bebo tribute page yet?

Must spread more rep.

I'm cackling, writing this. Snorting, neighbour-worrying cackles that are making me sick to my stomach and I can't stop. I think I'm delirious or something.

Bebo tribute page is a must.

 

[killy kill]

I can't wait to see who replaces him , so exciting!

or

Really.

 

[jane]

Actually.

http://www.bebo.com/Profile.jsp?MemberId=1225818431

Maybe he resigned because of peer pressure from the Bebo (career) death cult.

I think "Vote Yer Ma den I'll ride her" pretty much sums up the 21st century equivalent of Bertie as a teen.

 

[jane]

I can't wait to see who replaces him , so exciting!

or

Really.

You forgot:

 

[Pantone247]

I'm so fucking bummed out that I missed all the initial excitement.

to be honest it was a total let down

like he's been chatting us up for 11 years, all cheeky grins and promises of loads of money, then he shot his wad in his pants and by the time we had our bra back on he'd already left the apartment muttering something about "seeing us around" or something or other... total "thats was it?!?!" feeling...

uh, you know? Right? Huh?

 

[jane]

to be honest it was a total let down

like he's been chatting us up for 11 years, all cheeky grins and promises of loads of money, then he shot his wad in his pants and by the time we had our bra back on he'd already left the apartment muttering something about "seeing us around" or something or other... total "thats was it?!?!" feeling...

uh, you know? Right? Huh?

What size bra do we have?

 

[Pantone247]

What size bra do we have?

32FF

well 26, but if we stuff it with The North we make 32....

but seriously, if Bertie got the last laugh it's because he went out with a whimper, denying us all the chance to see him shit his pants



shit, pants, wad, bra... if any newspapers would like to hire me as a new wave of polictical correspondeant, a sort of Paxman meets late night Channel 4 stand up comedian, drop me a PM

 

[jane]

Oh, I think this Bebo page is a bit more active:

http://skin.bebo.com/Profile.jsp?MemberId=644104201

"Mary Mother Of Jesus
Yes and Bless
It is Ok
Bertie ma child,
I feel you now within in me, within ma virginal wombs.
Eternal wombs.
space wombs.
Immaculate wombs.
You shall be a fine taoiseach for the rest of your days...
Eoghan Harris shall whisper away the tribunals with brutal, raw love.
Enda Kenny shall renounce his position and grovel at your feet.
Bless, you bertie,
Bless"

"Arthur Mcguinness
well done sir on the peace process and the celtric tiger and
what ever you do next an toiseach luck and my best wishes to you "

"http://skin.bebo.com/Profile.jsp?MemberId=3982968885Il Duce
gone but not forgotten BERTIE
u r a ledge"

 

[magicbastarder]

i reckon it was that group on facebook which tipped the balance.

 

[Pantone247]

do you think we should write letters begging him to stay?

or at the very least to totally blow out his last 4 weeks off power, legalise pot, give US congress the bird, invade Jersey, do the old fake handshake schtick to the president of Japan, just rip it up a little, give us something to remember him by

 

[jane]

32FF

well 26, but if we stuff it with The North we make 32....

but seriously, if Bertie got the last laugh it's because he went out with a whimper, denying us all the chance to see him shit his pants



shit, pants, wad, bra... if any newspapers would like to hire me as a new wave of polictical correspondeant, a sort of Paxman meets late night Channel 4 stand up comedian, drop me a PM

Wait, don't tell me you're stepping down from your role with The Shitter! Just when we're getting going after sitting here for ages with no action.


PS: 26+6=1, Pantsy. YOU HAVE DONE THE STATE NO SERVICE.

 

[jane]

do you think we should write letters begging him to stay?

or at the very least to totally blow out his last 4 weeks off power, legalise pot, give US congress the bird, invade Jersey, do the old fake handshake schtick to the president of Japan, just rip it up a little, give us something to remember him by

You should dictate a begging letter and get Eala to write it, then send it with your name signed. I'll give you a shiny euro in a brown envelope as a prize. You have to cram at least two of the John Waters Originals (tee emm) into it. THEN YOU WILL BE A METEORITE PLUMMETING THROUGH THE IRISH ZEITGEIST.

Oh man, I gotta go read that column again. Why does it continue to be so relentlessly funny?