Tuesday 22 February 2011

WE ARE SO, SO SORRY!

Big words:  Papa P Hotel
Pictures: AP/Reuters/Templar

What follows is a categorical and unequivocal apology by the board of The Templar Times for the emergence of a prevailing undertone of subversion and slander against various institutions and personalities upon the Irish political landscape. It appears that articles published under the auspices of The Templar Times have consistently and covertly smeared the glowing and impeccable reputations of our political and financial elite.

We, the board of directors, would now like to apologise without reserve for the implication that Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael are a self-serving pyramid sales scheme, intent upon the accumulation of private wealth for their senior members at the direct expense of those further down the political ladder.

Furthermore, we would like to add our sincerest remorse at the suggestion that the leaders and high command of both these parties are earning even more money in these straitened times than at the height of the preceding, artificial, economic boom and are able to finance these inflated salaries by cutting much needed and grossly insufficient welfare payments to those most at need.
 


Can we trust this serial killer?
 
Erect with anticipation
It was never our intention that Richard Bruton should come across as an arrogant, craven and self-serving skeleton, whose spit-speckled lips positively quiver in anticipation at kissing the ring of his master in a subservient gesture of remorse and desire for the offices of power. In the very same breath we must beg forgiveness if Enda Kenny has been suggested to be a spineless incompetent, cowed like a whipped cur by a heave from his old lieutenant but incapable of remonstrating effectively with him for fear of a fat lip and of soiling his white cotton undies. Indeed, we are sorry too if by extension of this implication it was inferred that Kenny originally took leave from his classroom because he could not muster the authority to control the raucous young boys who flicked ink at his back and called him The Ginger Whinger.

Those piercing eyes, so, dishy

It was never our wish that Leo Varadkar should be construed as a waxy-faced, perma-tanned rat, whose highhanded sneering and goading approach to debate should be so reminiscent of Berlusconi, Gadaffi or Goebbels.


It is with heavy heart that we apologise if Bertie Ahern should be portrayed as a crooked, Bass-swilling, jerrymandering, panty-chaser whose fiscal largesse and thundering incompetence led this country to the brink of collapse.



He screwed yiz all but yiz still love him
Remember him?  We sure as fuck do
Nor was it in any way our wish that his cosy bed-fellow and comrade in arms, Charlie McCreevy should be painted as a souless, tri-sexual pervert whose blue-black teeth were pulled from the head of a Congolese schoolboy and implanted into McCreevy’s slavering jaws during a black magic right of initiation into the most secret and miscreant of Europe’s clandestine brotherhoods.

This man can have you shot
The only woman on this list
Never was it our desire that the doting maternal banality of Mary O’Rourke should be tarnished by the suggestion that she is a sadomasochistic dominatrix whose wilful pleasure it is to grind the scrotal sacks of Fianna Fáil front-benchers beneath her great, reinforced, orthopaedic boot heel before offering a weeping milky tit to each of her obedient nephews, the Lenihans, upon which they can suckle to soporific sleep.



At no time did we expect that, from our articles, Willie O’Dea would be seen as a moustachioed, perjuring gangster for whom intimidation and duplicity are an acceptable means to an end in his pursuit of dominion over the decent, working people of Limerick.

Had absolutely no ties with Fianna Fáil before 26th January 2011

It is furthermore a  matter of greatest regret to us if our articles gave rise to the belief that Mícheál Mairtín’s birth was the result of the fleeting but hot-blooded union of an unusually amorous coconut and a gaelgóir donkey’s vagina. We are sure we did not mean for him to be seen as a twisting, conniving weasel, in whom the narrow, undemocratic scheming of old Dev finds a paltry and insidious imitation.



We are heartily sorry if this impression has been instilled in any of our readers or indeed filtered into the wider public domain as a result of articles published within The Templar Times.

Wednesday 2 February 2011

Archie Gets Political!

Dublin:

Spotted on Adelaide Road
It has been less than 24 hours since the posters began appearing.

Once again the grey, windswept landscape of our fair city has become the playground of the established political classes as they tag every available lamp-post with their smug, posturing visages; their lust for power barely concealed by their pointless slogans that would make even a hardened marketing exec wince in embarrassment.  Promises to you and me that they will make a difference; that they are the ones who will bring about the Great Change; that they care.

But wait, what's this?  From out of the cynical gloom comes a ray of hope.  A group of arty farty malcontents actually have the audacity to start a backlash that will rival the politicians tagging frenzy; a poster campaign of their very own!

It is the UpStart Initiative.

Artists far and near were offered the chance to contribute to a project that would see the lamp-posts of Dublin littered with 1,000 images from the creative minds of 500 individuals.

Now we could be on a par with the politicians and scar the landscape with our own belched out creations of what we considered art or worth a second glance.

Outside Ukiyo, Exchequer Street
For my contribution the message had to be simple.  Something as mundane and obvious as the tripe the politicians were littering their shite posters with, but something that spoke to everyone of this tiny little island nation.

"Who can we trust?"

Right now, tucked up a lamp-post on the South side of Dublin alongside hundreds of other works of art is this poster below just begging to have a moustache drawn on it.

So next time you look up to see some politician whose face you'd love to smash in and are about to inadvertently knock down a pedestrian, look a little to the left or to the right of that street and you may just see something just a little different, something a little more real.

Happy voting yiz feckers!

http://www.upstart.ie
http://www.facebook.com/UpStartpromotingtheimportanceofcreativityinIreland

http://www.upstart.ie
http://www.facebook.com/UpStartpromotingtheimportanceofcreativityinIreland

http://www.flickr.com/photos/boomingback/5428822294/in/photostream/
http://www.flickr.com/photos/boomingback/5421299683/in/photostream/