Monthly Archives: November 2013
Eskra Man To Make Millions Selling Brown Paper Bags With Faces On Them
BagFace ‘upset’ mode
An Eskra entrepreneur has told friends that he’ll probably be the richest man in Ireland this time next year after revealing plans to launch his new business venture called ‘BagFace’. Tommy McNabb (56) will open the doors of his showroom to the public on Monday morning in the village and has told customers to expect long queues:
“I got the idea from watching my wife play Scrabble on the computer. She got a good word, ‘trunks’ I think, and someone sent her a smiley face back. Emoticons you call them. Instead of writing well done, you expressed yourself through this face thing. I thought, Jaysus sure that could work in the real world. So I made 5000 different faces on brown paper bags with every emotion possible from ‘happy’ to ‘slightly nervous’. BagFace is the future, boys.”
McNabb went on to explain when you could use these paper bags:
“Anywhere! I wouldn’t be a deadly boy for smiling at all and at weddings I get told off by the wife and photographers. Now I can whip out a happy BagFace, stick it on, and everyone’s a winner. Funerals – maybe you feel alright but now you can stick on a weepy face. During boring speeches – stick on an ‘interested’ BagFace or ‘intellectual’ BagFace and all the while you’re sleeping your head off underneath.”
Rather than rest on his laurels, McNabb has plans to expand his empire:
“If BagFace makes millions early on, I’ll move into the dating scene. Say, for example, a woman is a bit bored with her husband. Maybe he’s not shaving and developing wrinkles and a belly. Now, she can stick a celebrity BagFace onto him so that when they’re kissing or other stuff, she can pretend it’s George Clooney or Brad Pitt. Or whatever takes your fancy, even Stephen Nolan. This could save marriages. I can make these on demand. I am also thinking of regional BagFaces, so maybe you want your partner to look like someone from Ardboe…hey presto.”
Bags are priced at £39.99 with dearer ones such as ‘mildly amused but secretly fuming’ costing £49.99.
Brocagh Turkeys Rebel Against Christmas
Rumours of a fowl rebellion in Brocagh was confirmed this morning after police admitted a potential full scale turkey revolt was probably beyond their level of expertise. After initial skepticism, Chief Inspector Gary O’Neill said this was not simply a case of Brocagh ones ‘imagining things again’, having experienced the riotous behaviour of a sizable gang of Ballybay turkeys at first hand:
“Yes, it is true – these boyos are out of control. When we got word in the station of reported animal upheavel in Brocagh we all rolled our eyes as the Brocagh ones have a habit of going a bit mad with animal and bird conspiracies. Don’t forget in 1989 they filed a complaint against the way Rod Hull was treating Emu. But this time they have a case. These turkeys are bucking mental.”
Inspector O’Neill confirmed espisodes of turkeys ‘going to the toilet’ on precious items such as Brocagh GAA bags, pecking and nipping at clergy and pretending to be swans when the butcher man came around.
“That shows a high level of intelligence. These turkeys know Christmas is approaching at that it’s time they met their maker. We’ve already received complaints of turkeys making the ‘slit throat’ sign to farmers, intimating that they’re going to turn the tables on the farmers this year.”
Brocagh Farmer Johnny Davidson admitted he hasn’t slept a wink in four weeks:
“I’m going out of my mind with fear. My wife says she saw a turkey winking at her through the bedroom window a few days ago in the middle of the night. What next eh? Drive by shootings or kidnappings? If the Derrylaughan turkeys get wind of this I fear for all munchies down here. This could be worse than the lignite threat in the 80s.”
Police have identified Terry the Turkey as a ringleader, describing him as ‘two-legged and feathered with a big ugly neck’.
Carland Man Confirms That He’s Definitely Thinking About Taking Exercise
BY SHENGAS MCGLUMPHIE
A man from Carland told several members of his family that he has made a life-changing decision and decided to give some thought to taking exercise.
Pearse Donnelly, a 33-year old gong-sounder from the Cookstown Road, said that it was something that he had in fact started doing several weeks ago.
“Yep”, said a determined Pearse. “I didn’t tell anyone about it because sometimes you don’t know how it’s going to go, see? But that’s nearly a month I’ve spent on it, and I’m as determined as ever to think about doing some sport”.
He went on,
“I used to as fit as a butcher’s dog at school. Only 11 stone. You should have seen me. Never off the football field. But to be honest I’m carrying a little holiday weight after the summer, and I’m up to 23 stone. So it’s time to think about change”.
Donnelly says there is no shortage of opportunities.
“I still have an old pair of running shoes in the attic or garage or somewhere. Or I could lift weights at that new gym in Coalisland. The community centre’s always doing fitness classes, so there’s no end of stuff I could be doing. All definitely worth considering. So all them ones who are scoffing and saying I can’t do it don’t know the score”.
Donnelly said that he had in fact already started doing some modest exercise one night watching television.
“The remote was broken, and I was eating a big bag of Kettle crisps, so I had to keep getting off the couch to turn the sound up because the crunching was so loud. Them crisps is deadly. And then I had this sort of epiphany. What if I just kept up the exercise? It’s like looking at things in a whole new way. I might switch to Pringles to start off though. Get into it by building up”.
His family remain sceptical.
“Lifting weights?”, asked his sister Jacinta. “The only heavy weight Pearse carries round is his own lazy arse. Send him down that gym and the first machine they’ll put him on is the respirator. He’s not wise. He needs to stop thinking and start doing”.
Donnelly remains adamant. “There’s also a skipping rope at the back of the shed. I could take that up as well”.
Sinister New Group ‘IDLA’ Form In West Tyrone To Oppose Benefit Cuts
Government officials are said to be on high alert after a shadowy phone-call from a group calling themselves the West Tyrone Independent Disability Living Allowance (IDLA) announced they will resist a tightening on fraudulent payouts by whatever means necessary.
The news that benefits in some cases are to be reassessed came after a Strabane man, who was claiming incapacity benefit for a sore back, was caught moonlighting as a bare-knuckle cage boxer in the lucrative underground fighting ring in Clady. Jon McElhinna defended his position:
“I never said I was incapacitated at night. The cold air seems to work wonders on the muscles. I’m only incapacitated during the day and I’m not giving up my £300 a week. No siree.”
IDLA have also sworn to stand up for any benefit cuts, including the case against Donemana’s Mary McClean who had failed to declare her life-long partner and executive banker, Cyron, as a resident. Hurson defended her position by declaring:
“No he doesn’t live here. Yes, he arrives at 7am for breakfast and yes I make him his lunch-time salad. And yes, he does kiss me at the door as he leaves and yes returns at 6pm for a bit of lunch and tells me about his day before putting the children to bed and yes falling asleep on the TV whilst watching cooking programmes. But he doesn’t live here. Anyway, I’m bisexual.”
The IDLA say they’ll let the tyres down on anyone who looks like someone from Belfast carrying a clipboard walking up driveways.
Meanwhile Barry McElduff has endorsed a Christmas single to be released by the balaclava-ed IDLA called ‘Keep er Lit’, a direct attack on the proposed cuts being made to households who earn over £100’000 per annum and who claim for heating allowance.
Councillors ‘Deadly Embarrassed’ As Council Debt Spirals To £20 Million
BY SHENGAS MCGLUMPHIE
Total council debt in Tyrone has spiralled to £19.8m, it has been revealed, with Omagh’s local authority accounting for £10.3m, and Dungannon & South Tyrone Borough’s standing at £5.2m. Magherafelt is the only local authority which is currently debt-free.
Commenting on Omagh’s £10.3m debt with only the flimsiest grasp of the scale of the problem, Councillor Enda McMann said,
“Over £10 million? Jaysus. That’s unbelievable isn’t it? Although to be honest it was a mighty night out”, he said sheepishly. “We were all in Tally’s and the hard stuff was flowing. I didn’t think we spent that much, but I suppose thon flaming sambuca yolks don’t pay for themselves, do they? £10 million. Eff me pink. We shouldn’t have ordered all them sandwiches. That can’t have helped”.
McMann spent all day Wednesday ‘doing his bit for the people’ to re-coup some of Omagh’s portion of the loss, by looking for spare change down the back of all the chairs and seats in the Council building, and investigating whether refunds can still be obtained at newsagents on empty bottles of pop.
In the event that these measures fail to recover the loss, Omagh Council last night called an emergency general meeting and produced a number of hare-brained, half-baked, ill-considered, knee-jerk solutions to be put into place from 1st December, including: –
• Parking charges for all cattle. Standing in any one part of a field – first 20 minutes free, then 50 pence for every hour, or part thereof. Discounts on Sundays and Bank Holidays.
• Auctioning off every Dungannon Swifts player. Reserve price £200 each, or £250 with extended warranty.
• Renting the Garvaghey Complex to Manchester United as a spare training ground.
• Controversial ‘Tayto Tax’. Charge of £100 on any member of the public eating crisps during daylight hours in an open space. £125 for grab bags.
• Privatising Hugo Duncan. Again.
• Sightseeing tours of the new Newell’s store in Coalisland.
In the meantime Omagh Council has ordered an investigation into how the debt could have spiralled out of control. It will be undertaken by an independent analyst, and is likely to cost £300,000.
Coalisland Man Destroys Kiwi Fruit Stall After New Zealand Defeat
Kiwis, before the kicking
Coalisland poet Roy Sherry has admitted to completely decimating a local supermarket’s fruit section, and in particular the kiwis, in a fit of temper after the heartbreaking Irish loss to New Zealand in the World Cup at the weekend. Sherry, the town’s only rugby fanatic, was described as possessing ‘mad eyes on him’ as he rampaged his way through Newell Stores half an hour after the game.
Shelf operator Kitty McGlone described:
“He was fit to be tied. I knew he was fierce passionate about Ireland rugby but this was frightening. He kept shouting ‘where are the buckin kiwis?’ but we’d have plenty of people shouting things like that every day so no one batted an eyelid. I saw him run straight at the fruit section like an Olympic sprinter and do a two-footed mid-air sliding tackle on the kiwi punnets.”
Eyewitnesses described him jumping up and down on the kiwis shouting, ‘how do yiz like this haka, yiz hoors’ and other similar phrases. Shop manager Mary Newell (49) intervened when a crowd began to gather to encourage the stamping session:
“By the time I got there, men were goading him into destroying any product with all-black packaging on it. As soon as I saw him pull down his trouser zip I rugby tackled him before things escalated. Sherry remarked that I could show Johnny Sexton a lesson or two, which I was secretly chuffed about.”
This was the second successive week Sherry has been caught taking a sport defeat badly. Seven days ago he was evicted from two pubs in the town after the Greece win over Ireland in the soccer, for firing his pint glass through both pubs’ TV screens for showing an advert for Greek yoghurts.
PSNI officials let Sherry off with a final warning
Dr Who Might Film Future Episodes In Benburb And Greencastle
To coincide with the present furore over the Dr Who 50th anniversary, BBC producers have revealed they are considering basing a couple of episodes during the next series in the heart of Tyrone. The time travelling alien humanoid is set to roam the ramparts of Benburb searching for intelligent life before ending up raking about Greencastle in the future to prevent Daleks from Kildress kidnapping the Sperrin Ladies Football team.
Mixed reaction to the news has dampened the initial excitement after this morning’s announcement. Benburb historian Paddy Jordan admitted he wasn’t sure if this was a good thing at all:
“The last thing Benburb needs is another doctor with dubious qualifications. There was an American boy here a few years ago and called himself a doctor. We built him a surgery and all and sure he never cured one person. No matter what ailment you had, he’d rub a docken leaf over it. Even for tonsillitis, dizziness or piles. Turns out he was no more a doctor than Paisley was.”
Greencastle Dr Who fanatic Diarmuid Elvin has welcomed the news but told the new doctor to heed his warning:
“This can only be a good thing for Kildress. We’ll probably not be around when the Kildress Daleks come for our Ladies team in 3o11 so if the good doctor can put a spanner in their works we’ll take him in. But he needs to realise that the Kildress Daleks will probably be like nothing he has met before. Them boys’ll be savage, probably biting and giving deadly slagging out to him. He’ll need to be thick-skinned.”
‘The Search For Intelligent Life In Benburb’ begins filming in the Spring. The BBC have respectfully asked residents not to be annoying the Doctor with the worn-out ‘Knock Knock….Who’s There?… Dr….Dr Who….How did you know?….’ joke routine.
Celebrities Fight To Turn On First Ardboe Christmas Lights
Clooney for Ardboe?
Following the news that Ardboe is to have its first outside Christmas tree, a series of unseemly public brawls have littered American televisions with top celebrities vying for the honour of turning them on. George Clooney, Clint Eastwood, Madonna and Kiera Knightly are all said to be offering their services for free with Adam Sandler promising to do a celebrity eel-gutting extravaganza thrown in if he gets the nod.
Ardboe Christmas Lights chief organiser, Pa Forbes, admitted he wasn’t all that overwhelmed by the interest:
“To be fair, I sorta knew there’d be a deadly rush for the job as soon as it appeared in the Tyrone Times. Liam Neeson was on the mobile by that afternoon, joking ‘I don’t know who you are, I don’t know where you live, but when I find you, I will light them’. I didn’t like his tone so I put the phone down.”
Tom Cruise was another caller but Forbes again turned him down as they’d need a digger to lift him to the light switch.
“Yes, it would look cat with the digger and all. Jennifer Aniston was a favourite of mine but she was was being all prima-donna about it and asked for a big warm coat and a free drink at the Battery. No chance says I.”
Forbes has since created an online poll as to who the locals think should turn them on. Presently it sits as follows:
- Rod Stewart 11%
- Victoria Beckham 3%
- Brad Pitt 16%
- Messi 10%
- Lynette Fay 39%
- Malachi Cush 21%
Of the above, only Fay and Cush have yet to express an interest.
Forbes added that this is a time for cool heads. Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie have been asked to quit the slagging and mudslinging after Jolie accused Pitt of calling Ardboe ‘Arboe’, telling CNN “Ghost-oh, he’s some clift.”
Glenelly Man Confident About Selling Painting Of Sausages For £100 Million
BY SHENGAS MCGLUMPHIE
A man from Glenelly yesterday announced that a painting he drew at the weekend will go to auction with a reserve price of £100 million.
The announcement comes only days after a painting by Irish-born painter Francis Bacon was sold for a record-breaking £89m just last week.
“Them Dubliners have always been a bunch of chancers”, declared Malkie McArdle, an unemployed rain maker, who only took up painting at the beginning of October. “He painted this half-arsed picter of a man or a spoon or a tree or something. I’m a bit fuzzy on the details. A bit like that fecker’s painting in fact. Anyway, he stuck a hefty price on it and some eedjit went and paid it. I thought to myself, I could do that. So I have done”.
His piece of art, entitled, ‘Sausages At Rest’, depicts a value-pack of a dozen Cookstown sausages which he found at the back of the fridge.
“There was this boy years ago who done a picter of tomato soup or baked beans or something, and he got a lock of pounds for it too”, said McArdle. “So why not sausages? This is a one-off. Them sausages is all
eaten up so it can never be re-created. That’s why it’s so expensive”.
The painting was created using a mixture of engine oil, crayons, mud, and some Tayto crisps which accidentally fell onto the canvass.
“The famous artists like Rembrandt and Van Gogh and the one that was the policeman were always using oils and the like, so I did the same”, said a proud McArdle. “I had a wee can of two-stroke sitting in the shed that I use for the lawnmower. It all went a bit runny and if I’m being honest the whole yolk looks a bit shit, but that’s not the point. Some boy in Florida or Paris or Americay or somewhere’ll pay big money for that. I’m just sitting back and waiting for the call. Deadly”.
McArdle is adamant that the £100 million asking price is firmly non- negotiable, although he has said privately that he would consider settling for £5 or another pack of sausages.
FBI Swamp Stewartstown For Kennedy Anniversary
Stewartstown locals have admitted they are slightly unnerved by the ‘rakes of boys talking down their sleeves in American accents’ walking about the town this week in the run up the anniversary of JFK’s assassination in 1963. Stewartstown has been on everyone’s lips across the world this week due to their home-town boy and Special Agent William Robert Greer who joined the Secret Service in 1945 having served in the US Navy during the war. He was a trusted servant and acted as a personal bodyguard to both Presidents Truman and Eisenhower before being chosen to drive John F Kennedy through Dallas on 22 November 1963.
The FBI appear to have not just reopened the case against Greer, but are actively pursuing the theory that Stewartstown may have been central to many international incidents over the last century. Some of these include:
- Wall Street Crash
- Faked Moon Landing
- Nazism
- Cuban Missile Crisis
- Elvis Presley
- Watergate Scandal
- Smallpox
- In the buff Sammy Wilson’s holiday pictures
An FBI official confirmed they’re taking a ‘no-crap’ stance with Stewartstonians:
“Greer may be an innocent man but the more we learn about his homeplace, the more we’re sure that this may just be the dastardliest place on planet Earth. Just yesterday I heard a man outside the Credit Union saying the whole Kennedy stuff was going to be ‘deadly’. What did he mean? What are these monsters going to carry out? Make no mistake – Stewartstonians are capable of anything in our book.”
So far, the FBI have raided 60 homes looking for incriminating evidence on PCs and under beds. Unfortunately only one computer has been found and it was a Commodore 64 from 1986 in full working order. They’ve also confiscated 120 books, 90 of them a pamphlet on the history of the Stewartstown Pipe Band. The other 30 were Fifty Shades of Grey.
SF councillor Jackie Logan fumed:
“They’re a tarra nuisance with their ‘hey men’ and ‘got any candy lady?’. They’ll find nothing here”
concluded Logan with a wink and a gap-toothed smile.
‘Ross Kemp: In Galbally’ To Be Filmed Next Year
Ross Kemp, the award winning investigative journalist famous for “Ross Kemp: In Afghanistan” and “Ross Kemp: The Middle East” has admitted he faces his toughest assignment yet when he attempts to infiltrate the Galbally underworld of diesel and poitin.
Kemp made it clear that he expects a frosty reception but is determined to crack what he calls ‘the most dangerous place in Europe’ or something like that.
“Listen, I’ve done all the war torn areas on this planet but wherever I went people would always mock me and ask why I haven’t been to Galbally. Even one of the Taliban boys had a picture of the Galbally football team in his car. It’s an itch I need to scratch and it’s happening next year. Galbally, I’m coming for you.”
In a show of defiance, three Galbally boys sitting on a stone wall ‘keeping watch’ told us where they think Kemp can jump:
“If a boy from Eastenders thinks he can come over here and clean up the place, he’s going to be sorry lad heading back over the Irish Sea, probably with a bottle of strawberry poitin in his back pocket.”
Another added:
“This is just David Attenborough all over again. He came over here in the 80s to study us for the BBC. He ended up in Tally’s the whole week on the pure stuff and driving around on the ‘home-brew fuel’ as we call it. The program was never made. It’ll be the same with this Grant Mitchell boy- we’ll have him slamming down the craytur and shouting ‘yahooooo’ at Cappagh wemen by midweek. I hope he brings his ma Peggy for the craic.”
Meanwhile Cappagh brothers Brian and Mark Hurl have released their song aiming for an Ireland Christmas No.1 called ‘These Are A Few Of My Hatefulist Things’, made famous by Julie Andrews but with a Cappagh slant. As a teaser, they have released their opening lines:
Checkpoints on corners with long diesel dippers
Cleaning the clubhouse and using paint strippers
Wemen on tables when Gareth Brooks sings
These are a few of my hatefulist things
Paddy Power is offering 1000-1.
Tension Mounts In Loughmacrory Household As Dishwasher Sits Unemptied For Third Day
Frosty at the ‘Lough
BY SHENGAS MCGLUMPHIE
Tensions increased further between a husband and wife in Loughmacrory yesterday as the dishwasher lay unemptied for the third consecutive day.
Paul and Dymphna Clarke of Ballybrack Road in Loughmacrory have not emptied the dishwasher since Thursday night, with each placing the responsibility on the other to do so. Sources close to the couple say that the rationale presented by both parties for their ongoing intransigence is that ‘it’s not my feckin’ turn’.
It is believed the dispute was sparked by ‘thon big casserole dish’ used to make Thursday’s shepherd’s pie, which, despite its cycle in the dishwasher, still needs scoured by somebody for at least five minutes with a brillo pad to get all the scrapey burnt bits off.
With no end in sight to the stand-off, sanctions came into force last night, with Paul withdrawing conjugal services by refusing to take his Viagra, no longer taking the ashes out to the garage, and ignoring his wife’s requests to Sky-Plus Cash In The Attic as she doesn’t know how to work the machine.
This morning Dymphna responded with measures of her own, by intentionally putting too much milk in Paul’s tea, deliberately over-boiling his eggs so that they’re no longer ‘deadly soft the way he likes them’ and refusing to shave his back. The row now looks close to crisis point, with both parties having run out of dishes and cutlery.
“For feck’s sake, it’s gone beyond a joke”, said an irritated Dymphna. “Last night I ended up having spuds off an old Frisbee I found in the attic, and I saw that eejit eating toast off a hub cap for breakfast yesterday. Still. I’m not emptying it. It’s his turn, the bollox”.
Her husband was equally belligerent.
“She needs to wise up. I ended up using the remote control as a spoon for my cereal this morning. Can you imagine? And I caught her eating her yoghurt with a shoe horn. Enough’s enough. It’s her turn though. I’m not doing it”.
“He’ll see sense soon enough”, maintained Dymphna. “I can watch Cash In The Attic at my sisters, and Viagra? Is he having a laugh? He only ever takes it to stop him rolling out of bed, the clift”.
A resolution any time soon appears unlikely.
Irish Government Leak Plans To Quarry ‘Whole Of Tyrone’
Tyrone in 2016?
Tyrone Tourism Officer Candy McClean has urged his office to drop the ‘Amongst The Bushes’ county slogan after a leaked document from Dublin revealed plans to immediately quarry the whole of Tyrone as soon as they have the authority to do so. The controversial plans, code-named ‘Dig Her Up 2016’, will see the entire population of Tyrone relocated to Fermanagh, Armagh, Donegal and Monaghan. Dissenters will be threatened with a move to Derry.
McClean admitted:
“Aye, it’s a bit of a disaster alright. Like, what do they expect to find in the east of the county? That’s just swampland. We’ll have to change our famous slogan as there’ll be no bushes at all in the new Tyrone. Maybe ‘Tyrone – It’s a Great Big Hole’. I used to be all on for a United Ireland til I heard this. Them Dublin ones are ruthless.”
Not all locals were completely against the potential digging session. Harry Askew from Eskra remained unfazed by the plans:
“My message to the rest of the county is dry yer eyes. Up here in Eskra they’ve been quarrying the dung outta us for years and sure we still won the Intermediate Championship. It’s been like this for us as well as Carrickmore, Drumnakilly, Mountfield, Greencastle, Mullaslin, Altamuskin and Altcloughfin for as long as we can remember. You get used to the vibration, dust, stoor, drilling sounds and all after a while.”
Askew denied that he was turning a blind eye to the mass upheaval because he owns the world’s largest quarrying equipment business.
Quarrying is expected to begin within days of a political handover. Senior Unionist politicians have privately admitted they’d reconsider their allegiance to the crown if it meant Tyrone and, in particularly McElduff, were totally excavated.
Spontaneous Re-Enactment Of Scene From ‘Ghost’ Leaves Urney Wife Unimpressed
Ghost Oh!
BY SHENGAS MCGLUMPHIE
A husband’s efforts to romantically create a famous scene from a famous movie went largely unappreciated by his wife.
Sean McAleer, a 58 year old mechanic from Urney, returned home from work on Tuesday to find his wife Anne preparing the evening meal, and decided upon an impromptu homage to ‘Ghost’, the award-winning 1990 movie featuring Patrick Swayze and Whoopi Goldberg.
“Well, I had had a couple of swift ones after work, see”, he explained. “I got home and I thought Anne would like a wee thrill while she was making my tea. We’ve a big tub of Swarfega heavy duty hand-cleaner that sits in the larder, so I lubed up the hands and went straight in for a wee cuddle singing the song from the ‘Ghost’ fillum. Anne was kneading dough for the apple crumble and I knew she’d like a wee thrill”.
His wife however had a somewhat different perspective of events.
“The bollix was pished. He could hardly walk. These big manky hands appeared round my waist and he started singing, ‘You’ve Lost That Loving Feeling’. Jaysus, there was a powerful smell of the drink off him. And it’s not even the right song, the eejit. I ended up with apple peelings all down my jumper”.
Sean said he was inspired both by the smash hit movie ‘Ghost’ and by a recent show him and his wife attended at the Banter Theatre in Dungannon, where producer Oliver Carr sold out 7 nights with his Tyrone adaptation of the movie, called ‘Ghost Oh’.
“I’ve always loved that ‘Ghost’ movie”, said McAleer. “Patrick Swayze was class with all the deadly dancin and high kicks and suchlike. ‘Ghost Oh’ was even better though. It’s about these dead eels that haunt Irish Dancers in Moortown”.
In a separate incident last week, McAleer was questioned by police after trying to re-create the Mylie Cyrus ‘Wrecking Ball’ video in the middle of Dungannon Park, using an old space hopper, a claw hammer, and some blue rope.
Dr Brian Cox Can’t Explain Concept Of Time In Stewartstown
A Stewartstown taxi-driver
After five days of intensive observation, housewife eye-candy Dr Brian Cox has headed back to England ‘despondent and bewildered’ after failing to explain how time has developed completely different dimensions in Stewartstown compared to everywhere else in the world.
Speaking from his laboratory in London, Cox revealed a few of the unsolvable conundrums which have left him a broken man:
“They kept this from us at the College of Physics I went to. For example, on the first night I went for a pint in the Roadside Tavern and the bartender said he’s be with me ‘in a minute’. I timed him and he returned to me in 4 mins 33 seconds. In that period he had checked the horse racing and spoke to another punter about Logan and the Under 21s. I just couldn’t work out if I’d just witnessed time travel or not. I couldn’t sleep that night.”
As Cox collected more evidence of a parallel universe in Stewartstown he explained another phenomenon which confirmed that time had different properties in mid-Ulster.
“I wanted to go to Cookstown to buy jeans in the world-famous market and asked a local if I needed to get a bus to there. He said it was ‘only down the road’ and that it was only ‘a locka minutes’. TWO HOURS it took walking and I was near wrote off on the Poplar Hill Road by a boy from Lissan in an Escort. That confirmed to me that ‘time’ as we know it has bypassed Stewartstown.”
Cox is also investigating the possibility that time is also standing still since the 80s after discovering the following telltale signs:
- 80% of 40 year olds are still wearing A-Team sweatshirts
- Every night closing time in pubs is signalled by the playing of ‘The Final Countdown’ by Europe
- Many parents collected their children from school on space-hoppers
- ‘I Shot JR’ is spray-painted on most gable walls.
- ‘Big Hair and Mullet’ combo sales in local barbers.
Tullyhogue Priest Irritated At Number of Parishioners Leaving Mass Early
BY SHENGAS MCGLUMPHIE
A parish priest has made an impassioned plea to parishioners to stop trying to duck out early from Sunday mass, after a man in his 40s was caught dressing up as a 3-year old child so that he could sit in the crying chapel and leave early.
“Matters have gone beyond a joke”, complained Father Sean O’Leary of The Church of St Thomas, in Tullyhogue. “The most dangerous place in Tyrone is thon chapel car park after mass on a Sunday morning. I’ve seen pensioners sprinting for their cars who thirty minutes before could scarcely get their arses up off the pew to come up for communion. What’s the world coming to? Sunday’s sermon was one of the best I’ve done, all about Christian existentialism and the undecidability of faith. I totally nailed it, so people can’t complain that it wasn’t a riveting listen. And if they think I’m going to do all the exciting stuff on ecumenical theology, they can think on”.
Local man Eugene Moody, a 42-year old bird’s nest maker, admitted trying to pass himself off as a toddler.
“It’s all very well for Father O’Leary to go bangin’ on about the mystery of God and sucklike, but I had a slurry tank to clean. I thought the easiest way was to go into the crying chapel and then nip out early. What’s wrong with that? It was all goin’ fine, except I had had a skinful the night before at Tally’s in Galbally and my stomach was like one of thon lava lamps yolks from the 70s.By the time I came back from communion I was sweating like a horse and so help me God I vomited all over my romper suit. Jaysus, you should have seen the looks I was getting. At least I caught most of it in my bonnet. And then five minutes later did this weean next to me not go and do exactly the same thing, and nobody batted an eyelid. Explain that”.
Father O’Leary has since promised those parishioners who stay until the end of next Sunday’s mass that he will ‘have a wee word with the Lord about a lock of extra salvation’.
New Antifreeze For Cattle Not Selling Well Says Brocagh Entrepreneur
Brocagh cattle today
A new farming product on the local market has failed to sell even one unit after its release in most East Tyrone shops over the weekend. Brocagh inventor, Seamus Davidson (44), was said to be perplexed at the lack of sales and has asked shops to give it a week before burning their stock.
The product, “Coul Cows”, is an industrial antifreeze which is put into cattle feed in order to thaw them out in winter mornings, making them more productive for hard-up farmers across the county. It can also be injected straight into their rectum. Davidson explains:
“I was thinking that if it works for cars it’ll work for cattle. I just don’t understand why it’s not selling. These scaremongering scientists are saying that the chemical additive is pure poison and will kill within seconds but sure didn’t they say that smoking was OK years ago. People need to loosen up. The cattle will be in far better form and mooing away contently knowing they’ve digested their version of thermal underwear.”
Davidson is said to be most annoyed about the protest held outside Brocagh Stores, led by his own mother Frances Davidson:
“Our Seamus is a buck eejit. He has always treated cattle like motors. Years ago he was near arrested in Moortown for trying to insert a petrol nozzle into a cow’s backside at the fuel pumps. He’s always oiling their joints too with Gastrol GTX and bringing them into drive-thru car washes. Do not buy this product.”
Davidson has applied to appear on Dragons’ Den although animal rights activists have promised to wreck the BBC if he is given any air-time at all.
Golden Wedding Couple Offer Advice To Youngsters
The Happy Couple
Drumquin couple John and Mary Kane celebrated their 50th wedding anniversary yesterday with a word of warning for young people starting out on a marriage today. The happy couple, both aged 71, revealed some of their ups and downs since they were married in 1963 on a cold and frosty morning at the foot of Dooish Mountain.
Mary, an ex-vetinary surgeon, was first to offer her pearls of wisdom:
“It’s not easy, like. Familiarity breeds contempt so you’re best to decide early on that you’re going to annoy this person as often as possible for the rest of your life. If you succeed, reward yourself with a brandy or new lipstick. Little tricks included using the sport section of the Irish News for lighting the fire on a Monday morning before he has read it. It used to drive him to total despair, wrecking the house. I’d be full by midday.”
John, a fighter pilot by trade, also dipped into his treasure box of experience:
“I agree with Mary. The magic goes after three years. Then she becomes an enemy. My war experience helped here. I remember a great piece of advice my father gave me: ‘Marriage is like a game of cards. Starts with two hearts and a diamond and ends with clubs and a spade’. We’ve been metaphorically clubbing at each other for 47 years now. It’s neck and neck for who’ll be left holding the spade.”
John listed selective hearing, secretly hiding the remote when the racing is on and putting empty cartons and packets back in the fridge as key tactics in the long war. Mary added her best manoeuvres as hiding the toilet roll, walking slowly in front of the TV during big matches and leaving no petrol in his car.
John and Mary will celebrate again today with a good old-fashioned argument about the wrong wheaten bread be bought last week.
Dungannon Council Propose A Rescheduling Of Christmas
In what has been described as a ‘brave and completely nonsensical’ proposal, Dungannon Council have tabled a bid to the central County Authority to postpone Christmas this year until next February or so. The bold idea was drawn up this morning in an alleyway in Scotch Street with all six members of the powerful council agreeing to put back the holiday in a straight swap for Valentine’s Day, blaming the mild weather for the change.
Seamus McAliskey, a 30 year old steam train driver from the lowlands, reckons there’s a dark secret they’re not telling us:
“Listen, I was in Germany last week driving a train and all these Germans were asking me if it was true that Dungannon spent all its money on dud sparklers and bangers from Nutt’s Corner. Apparently that’s all the talk on the continent. I reckon the buggers have no money for lights and stuff til the new budget comes through in January.”
Dungannon Lord Mayor Hilary McGettican refutes the allegations:
“Whilst I acknowledge the mistake we made with the Algerian sparklers, we still have money left. We are proposing having Christmas on the 25th of February for many reasons. I am now going to talk in bullet points…”
- There’s no money in the country at this time for builders, gardeners and farmers
- There’s usually far more snow in February
- We can raid shops in other counties for half price stock-clearance Christmas stuff in the week after Christmas
- It’s far too close to Boxing Day and the New Year
- We won’t have to listen to Slade or Mariah Carey on the radio”
Under the new conditions, if passed, Valentine’s Day will be sandwiched between Christmas Eve and St Stephen’s Day.
The central council will debate the proposal on Tuesday straight after they deal with the 10th Tattyreagh bid for city status.
In other news, Coalisland’s Olly Kerr has reminded people his threat from last year still stands – Click here . He has added to his hit list anyone who posts “It’s beginning to look a lot like Christmas” on their facebook status.
Tyrone Tribulations 