Lives of the Philosophers
It all reminds me of a conversation I had many years ago with philosopher of science Karl Popper, over coffee at a pavement café in Vienna.
You know, Michael, he said, I wonder about this psychoanalysis ...
What, I asked, you mean you still imagine that you didn't want to kill your father and sleep with your mother ... ?!?
It's not falsifiable, he said ... every bit of evidence, including people denying that they are motivated by unconscious wishes, is taken as further proof that psychoanalysis is valid ...
And? I asked.
Statements about the unconscious can't be tested, he continued, because there is no imaginable evidence that could show them to be false ... ! So, psychoanalysis isn't a science, it's based on unfalsfiable hypotheses, and can't give us knowledge in the way a real science can. I mean, it's conceivable that you might prove Einstein wrong, but not this phallic Blackpool Tower stuff ...
So thanks to Popper, and the Nobel Laureate, of course – via Subterranean Homesick Blues – we’ve nailed it.
The case against Protestantism
I was a passable Catholic until I met Jean.
I hadn't known her long, though, when she made a suggestion. Instead of losing out on a good lie-in on Sunday mornings, she said, I should start going to the early Saturday evening Mass. I don't know if this was linked to her fondness for getting me to take her out later on a Saturday night for a skin full of drink. For then, with no Mass on the Sunday morning, we could have a lie in and she could sleep it off.
Then it was paedophile priests. I wasn't happy about that business, but you could overreact to it, and the way I saw it was, let's say there's 100 million priests in the world, and even as many as 10% are paedophile, that's still only 10 million paedophile priests, so let's keep it in perspective, like.
And it wasn't only children! she exclaimed.
She persuaded me to read some books by a man called John Broderick. They were all about priests humping their housekeepers, and never a thought for the nippers who were born as a result, and had to be sent to Australia to slave on sheep farms.
But that's fiction, I said.
Tell that to Eamonn Casey, the dirty oul halion ... ! she exclaimed. God, they've made a real moron out of you! Can't you see you'll never be free of that shite until the last Pope has been strangled by the entrails of the last priest ... ?!?
When you're in love you view things differently. I began to think that maybe she was right; maybe I had been conned.
If you really loved me, Jean said, you'd go to a decent church ...
We ended up at a plain, unadorned Free Presbyterian one. I sat there with wild eyed country bumpkins and their grim, ferocious looking wives, and little Duelling Banjos type children. Staring at me with deep suspicion, from underneath terrible haircuts.
The huge, dark, glowering minister frothed and foamed about homosexuals, Fenians, sluts, gamblers, drinkers, and homos again ... Spitting all over us, he was.
I came home, sick at heart and empty, determined to embrace Catholicism again. I knelt to pray. But after the first Pater Noster I knew something was wrong. There was a terrifying void inside me. I had lost the capacity to believe any of it ... ! Jean's shenanigans had turned me into an atheist ... !!!
Bertha Mason: my part in her downfall
My older sister 'did' Jane Eyre for A-level. A couple of GAhAh inbred, culchie retards at St Colman's College caught me reading her copy in the Junior handball alley one lunchtime, and called me a fruit. But it was worth it for this kind of stuff:
‘I am no bird; and no net ensnares me: I am a free human being with an independent will;
I would always rather be happy than dignified;
Life appears to me too short to be spent in nursing animosity or registering wrongs;
I do not think, sir, you have any right to command me, merely because you are older than I, or because you have seen more of the world than I have; your claim to superiority depends on the use you have made of your time and experience;
If all the world hated you and believed you wicked, while your own conscience approved of you and absolved you from guilt, you would not be without friends.’
However, a while ago I heard black historian David Olusoga confess that while he could see some merit in Jane Austen's novels, he had serious reservations about her abject failure to confront and denounce slavery and racism in them. For him therefore, whether or not to read her was, at the very least, seriously problematic.
Food for thought there. And before long it occurred to me that nowhere in Jane Eyre is the Great Famine in Ireland called out for the blatant genocide that it was, perpetrated by a shower of evil English bastards. And adding two and two together, I think it fair to conclude that, had it been written in the 1980s, the H-Block Hunger Strikers wouldn't have got a look-in either, and that oul bag Thatcher let off scot-free.
We have to take a stand, because there's never been an age as right about everything as ours is. So I don't know about you, but I for one will not be picking up my copy of Jane Eyre ever again, until I feel like reading it again, which I will since it's an absolute cracker of a book.
Happy birthday recently to Charlotte Bronte (1816 - 1855). What a gal ... ! Pay your respects to her, Mrs Dorothy Parker et al ... she helped make it possible for yis ... !
The case against Protestantism (2)
I was great in bed until I met Jean. If it's consensual non-monogamy and emotionless casual sex you want, I'm your man.
But it wasn't long before Jean said to me, Look, stop crying, size doesn't really matter that much ...
On another occasion she remarked, It's a case of not being able to see the tree for the woods ...
Her permanent version of the three favourite words we all like to hear after sex, turned out to be, Is that all ... ?!?
I joined the local Premature Ejaculators Anonymous group. I arrived for a meeting on the Tuesday, but it was actually scheduled for Wednesday.
If you really loved me, she persisted, you'd learn how to treat a woman.
It's 2023, I snapped in exasperation, and there's absolutely nothing wrong with always going Dutch when we're out ... !
Turns out though she meant 'in the bedroom'. Jesus, Mary and Josef K ...
The Pol Pot diaries (cont'd)
25/04/23
At the clinic to pick up a prescription this morning, and, ever watchful for the main chance, I made a fly move. Asked for a sample bottle ... even though I didn't need one ... ! Which leaves me well ahead of the field, should I need one sometime ...
Furthermore, turns out I'd bagged a brace smart dodges, for the receptionist said it was the last one, and, because of a failed delivery, there'd be no more 'til tomorrow lunchtime. A delightful thought occurred to me: some ancient codger like myself might urgently need a sample analysed before that, but be told there was no bottle to put it in, and therefore have to go home and just kick the bucket, because, without a lab analysis of his No. 1s, nobody would know what the Hell was wrong with the oul blurt anyway. Wizard ... !
His bad luck, I said to Jean, I don't care; being sly is all part of being evil.
They can check a sample in any kind of container, she answered, so he'll be ok.
Even if she's correct, though, the initial, wilfully malicious thought was in my head ... so I'm still evil all right ...
Positively Jim Goad Street
Possibly a gross faux pas with my cycling group this morning. We'd done the business, and were having the requisite café snack afterwards. Some were having tea so the waitress brought out a big teapot.
Shall I be Mum? said Martin, and picked it up.
On the double I came back with, Oh no ... you should have said, Shall I be birth-giving person ... ?!?
And I sat back, well pleased with my edgy, topical wisecrack. Lenny Bruce, Mort Sahl, Woody Allen, Auberon Waugh, me ...
Laugh? Well, I thought they'd never start ... And they didn't.
Martin ignored me, and poured tea. The others looked away and talked among themselves.
A horrific possibility beckoned ... might they all be woke ... ?!?
But the damage was done. I noticed, when it finally arrived, that my toasted soda wasn't anywhere near as well toasted as Paddy's, and he got a big ramekin of jam, whereas I merely got one of those nasty little mass produced capsules (blackcurrant, with a measly 25g of fruit per 100g of jam).
Had the serving staff also overheard me being a transphobic concentration camp guard ... ?!?
Table talk chez Praetorius
You know that road from Keady over to Long Nancy's ... ? I asked Jean.
No, she replied.
Well, anyway, I said, if you did you'd realise it's ideal for the bike. I was out yesterday on it. Perfect surface, sun shining, wee breeze behind me, I was flying.
And who's Nancy then ... ? she asked.
It's a pub, I said.
Mind you, I went on, all Taig out there, every house along it had these mini Culchie-Football posts, and, with the teachers' strike, all the kiddies were out in their O'Neills gear, with the hurls, and the sliothars, like ... It's funny, though ... that's exactly what you Prods didn't reckon on during your 60 year Reign of Terror ...
We didn't reckon on what ... ? she asked.
That we'd get the better of you and your Hun chums, I said, simply by having a rake of children, giving them dire, unpronounceable Irish names, and getting out the high grade polyester, wrap-the-Green-Flag-round-me gear. Up for the match. Rose of Tralee. Weeping statues. Jaffas hate all that. My mother, God rest her, loved it.
God rest her, she laughed, says the atheist ... !
Yes, I said, but apparently that still works - Perpetual Light shines upon her and the rest of the Faithful Departed - whether or not I believe it. Like Richard Feynman and the lucky horseshoe over his door ...
Hats off to the Bold Conor O'Donohoe and his band, Wild Youth ... !!
Sensitive, caring and inclusive as he is, a few days ago all Conor was endeavouring to do was show kindness to that vulnerable community of knife wielding, violent male rapists who, for the times that are in it, now claim to be adult human females. It may not have occurred to him that bona fide adult human females may feel they'd be a lot better off without kindness of that sort.
Alas, this heroically right-on stance has met with much criticism, and not just from those bolshie adult human females. Consequently, woke martyr Conor, who the other day had so much to preach and teach us about trans inclusiveness, finds himself currently with nothing to say except that he's going all out to win Eurovision for Padraig Pearse. In other words, the band's spin doctors have told him to shut the fuck up before he does any more damage.
J K Rowling (may God protect and preserve her) has entered the fray with an eloquence, perception and intelligence that escapes our brave wee soldier:
'The so-called kindness and inclusivity of Wild Youth is preening, self-satisfied misogyny. For those confused as to why Ian Banham was fired and publicly lambasted by [Conor O'Donohoe] ... His [Banham's] crime is standing against the insanity of pretending knife-wielding rapists are women if they say they are.'
No-one hates the Harry Potter crap more than I do. But if this goes on, I will be forced to buy all the books, several times over, just so as I contribute to J K's coffers. As long as she is rich and influential, wankers like Conor the Gormless Gobshite can't touch her.
Mind you, I still won't read them ...
On the road again
At 6 30 yesterday morning Miss Lotte Lenya and I walked the lane. As we set out I reminded her that Plato was a fascist and elitist. I'm a Philosophy graduate, so I never get a minute's peace from this kind of stuff.
Anyway, on the way we had ewes with their lambs to the left, and cows on the right. The cows eyed Lotte warily. She ignored them. The sheep ignored her, because they know by now that she's afraid of sheep.
Back at the house I watched our wood pigeon pair perform some sort of (mating?) ritual on the back garden fence. One sat on the fence, while the other tried to sit beside it. The sitter would chase the other off; then, close together, they'd fly upwards quickly, pecking at each other - almost as if fighting, then separate, and the sitter would return alone to the fence. Repeat several times. Better than Pornhub ... !
For the past 30 years there's been at least one wood pigeon pair nesting in the trees behind the house, their hollow, husky 'hoo-hroo' our daily soundtrack.
Dear God ... What are we to make of all this ... ? Sheep, cows, pigeons, Miss Lotte Lenya, and I. All descended from monkeys.
Jesus, Mary and Josef K ...
The case against Protestantism (3)
I was a good librarian until I met Jean. I worked night and day to disseminate information in an even-handed, disinterested fashion.
I was reading a book when we first met, The Orange State by Michael Farrell. I thought it an accurate and devastating dissection of the Failed Statelet. Jean saw it and demanded, What the Hell are you reading shite like that for ... ?!?
She handed me a copy of The Faithful Tribe by Ruth Dudley Edwards.
If you really want to know the truth, read this ... ! she shouted.
I was responsible for the Library Service's Irish collection. Jean would often visit when I was there, and over the months she cajoled me into removing from the shelves every book that echoed Michael Farrell's scathing analysis of all that he alleged was corrupt and rotten about the Six Counties.
If you really loved me, she'd say, you'd get rid of that lying filth by Coogan and the other bastards who glorify Fenian terrorism.
So I did. And plenty of other authors too. Pretty soon we had nothing on the shelves but stuff by the likes of Kate Hoey and Paul Bew and Roy Foster, the general gist of which is that Taigs were actually on the pig's back, living in the lap of luxury, and dreamt up the whole Civil Rights thing because they had nothing better to do with the copious amounts of leisure time they enjoyed, thanks to the largesse of the fairly and democratically elected, rigorously impartial Stormont Unionist government.
Why did I let it happen? Love is visually impaired.
Anyway, disgruntled Farrellites banded together and made a formal complaint to the Chief Librarian, in which they called my Irish collection 'the most prejudiced, blinkered, partisan, bigoted, uninformedly revisionist reference library in Europe'.
The boss, himself a Unionist, asked me, I mean, seriously, do you really believe a cod like Roy Foster knows what he's talking about ... ?
And he transferred me to a post where all I did was shelve Mills and Boon romances; a task much more in keeping with my actual level of competence, he claimed.
Smarmy bastard
The statement 'When I hear the word culture, I reach for my gun', variously misattributed to Heinrich Himmler, Joseph Goebbels and Hermann Göring, is, in fact, a corrupted version of a line in Hanns Johst's play, Schlageter.
Even if you had a gun, of course, you shouldn't shoot people. I certainly wouldn't. Except Colin Murray.
He has wrecked Countdown. He lets you know that he has 'lots of sevens there', or whatever. Usually gets the numbers, and simply must (clunkily) hint that he has.
He is perkily bumptious throughout. Oozing bonhomie. Chronically hale and hearty. Striving to be interesting. In his duff crew neck jumpers. Flashing bleached teeth.
And, worst of all, he is 'matey'. Go ahead, mate, he says. Let's hear it, my friend, he urges. He's 10, relentlessly laddish, running the school playground clique; therefore all must have matey hypocoristics (a pet name or diminutive form of a name). Susie Dent becomes Suze; Rachel Riley is Rach; guest in Dictionary Corner - Steve Cram - turns out to be Crammy; contestant Florence inevitably Flo ... And so on.
What a fucking retard ...
The case against Protestantism (4)
I was witty until I met Jean.
I asked her once if she'd heard about the Australian gay who left his wife and went back to Sydney.
Homophobia is an unappealing trait, she replied.
She overheard me saying to my son, Listen, do you think you'll get married, or would you rather be happy ... ?
Jean appeared from the kitchen, her face set in granite, and said, I don't hear anyone else laughing.
We went to a concert. Among the performers were that singing trio, The Priests. Afterwards I said, They were the best, they show the stole*...
What age are you ... ? she asked. 7 or what ... ?
Telling her about the time I had my very first drink, I happened to remark that the man next to me at the bar had said, You strike me as a complete waste of space who'll never amount to anything ... !
That's terrible, she said. What did you do ... ?
Well, I replied, I said thanks for the drink anyway, Dad ...
She was making a little bird house from a kit she got online. Looking at its doorway, she said, That hole is much too small to let even a little one in ...
As the Bishop said to the chorister ... ! I exclaimed.
Now we watch the Antiques Roadshow.
[*for the Protestants: a stole is a priest's silk vestment worn over the shoulders and hanging down to the knee or below]
Me and Ralph McTell
You should be writing your own songs, said a woman.
Oh dear, I thought, let me take you by the hand and lead you through the streets of Belfast's young buskers: I'll show you something to make you change your mind.
Even though it's very important to recognise that every generation has something new to say, it's wise to remember there's nothing new under the sun. Consider:
Good morning, Mr. Railroad Man,
what time do your trains roll by?
'At 9:16 and 2:44 and 25 minutes 'till 5.'
'At 9:16 and 2:44 and 25 minutes 'till 5 ... ?
Thank you, Mr. Railroad Man,
I want to watch your trains go by'.
Standing on a platform, smoking a cheap cigar,
and waiting for an old freight train that carries an empty car.
Well, I pulled my hat down over my eyes,
and I walked across the tracks.
I caught me the end of an old freight train,
and I never did come back.
I sat down in a gambling game,
but I could not play my hand.
I was thinkin' about the woman I loved,
run away with another man.
Run away with another man, poor boy,
run away with another man;
I was thinking about that woman I loved,
run away with another man.
Thus we already have a song which tells the true story of everything that is to be said about life's rich pageant of social media, self-realisation and pornhub: railway timetables; hard times; never coming back; gambling; fly women; broken hearted poor boys; and, most importantly, trains.
The case against Protestantism (5)
I was happy until I met Jean. Top of the morning to you ... ! I'd call to greet my neighbour. Even though it wasn't always morning when I met him. And, breaking off from whatever he was doing that day to annoy me, he would doff his manly Mickey Harte baseball cap in a show of deferential affection.
On my way I'd gaily go, singing a happy song:
Come run, jump, Skip-a-Long Sam,
a very happy man I am.
To know you are well and you're doing fine,
kind-of puts at rest my mind.
How's your brush and your lady fair?
Not to mention your stained glass stair.
Flower pot on a window sill
on top of honeycomb hill ...
The little children sometimes pranced and danced along behind, and I regularly had to convince the PSNI I had no sinister intent.
In fact, even if the darkest clouds were in the sky I didn't sigh and I didn't cry; I spread a little happiness as I went by.
One evening though, Jean said, I think you have to be a simpleton to be happy.
I thought nothing of this at the time. But she persisted over the months: life's a bitch, then you die; to be is to suffer; the universe is a cruel, malign, vicious, random Hell of numbing despair and meaninglessness; humans are rotten to the core, squalid, gross, grotesque, wicked, selfish brutes intent on abuse and exploitation; the earth is one vast torture chamber, an infinite dungeon of agony and screaming and terror ...
If you really loved me, she said one day, you'd accept that everything is absolutely awful and we'll all die bawling, and you'd never be happy again ...
So it was lose Jean and be happy; or keep Jean and become a miserable, whinging, peevish old sod.
Compline
He lived at a little distance from his body, regarding his own acts with doubtful side-glances. He had an odd autobiographical habit which led him to compose in his mind from time to time a short sentence about himself containing a subject in the third person and a verb in the past tense - James Joyce, Dubliners⏩Michael Praetorius spent his working life in education and libraries. Now retired, he does a little busking in Belfast . . . when he can get a pitch. He is TPQ's fortnightly Wednesday columnist.
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