Picnic in Gortin yesterday

    BY SHENGAS MCGLUMPHIE

Findings by the Institute of Ulster has discovered that nearly half of all Tyrone men have a genetic aversion to summer picnics.

The report published earlier this week, confirmed a fact which many in the county already suspected, which is that men have a hypersensitivity to sitting in middle of a dunged field eating scotch eggs and cheese and onion sandwiches.

Researcher Wolfgang O’Neill explained,

“These are very unusual findings. Show a Dungannon man a tartan rug and he’s likely to break into a sweat and start muttering about having to clean the gutter or paint the garage. Under laboratory conditions we tested over a dozen men from Fintona, and every single one of them started shouting, ‘the rain’s on its way’, every time we showed them a vacuum flask. Bizarre”.

The study also showed that when the Tyrone men are placed within an al fresco picnic environment, the symptoms of the allergy begin to intensify. These vary, but can include fidgeting, sighing extremely loudly, and looking at watches, to extreme irritability, yelling at children, and and getting blind drunk.

“Aye, that sounds about right”, said chronic picnic allergy sufferer Padraig Kershaw from Omagh. “My wife’s mad for the picnics, so she is. First glimpse of sunshine and she’s got the feckin’ windbreak out. Where’s the joy in sitting in the middle of Dungannon Park surrounded by midges, watching the clouds rolling in, eating tomato sandwiches?”

Another, 52-year old Patsy McGurk from Aughabrack, said,

“Al fresco? Don’t know him. Don’t want to. Know what I hate most about picnics? No back support. It’s worse than sitting on a bloody beach. We’re built for barbeques. If I’m going to get chronic food poisoning, I’d rather have it in my own garden, not some damn field miles from anywhere. At least at home you can have a decent bowel movement in comfort. I’m too old for squatting over a bloody clump of thistles”.

Extreme sufferers of the condition were found to have other symptoms in common, including involuntary shouting, ‘we’d best be getting back’, every time they saw a Tupperware box.