Category Archives: Carnteel
Trillick ‘Antiques Roadshow’ Episode Cancelled Due To ‘Excessive Amounts Of Junk’
BY SHENGAS MCGLUMPHIE
The BBC confirmed this morning that they have decided not air an episode of Antiques Roadshow due to the ‘staggering amounts of garbage’ that people produced.
Producers of the show, which was based on a field just outside Trillick, were said to have become exasperated at some of the articles presented by locals for valuation, which included: a half-used tube of Peter Canavan’s hair gel from 1982; a digital clock that the owner insisted was from the Tudor period; a Tyrone GAA air freshener; a parking ticket issued in Coalisland High Street, believed to the only one of its kind in existence.
Presenter Fiona Bruce was reported to have said,
“I don’t mean to be rude or disrespectful to the wonderful people of Tyrone, but the stuff they brought in was shit. It was like some of them had just rummaged around in the back of the cupboard to see what they could find just so they could get on the BBC.”
This was hotly disputed by local organiser Terence Kerr, who fumed,
“How dare she accuse us of that sort of behaviour just to get on telly? It might be junk to them but it’s priceless to us. I myself have a genuine St Brigid’s cross made by none other St Patrick himself when he was passing through Carnteel in the sixth century, one of only four originals he made. Of course it’s of enormous sentimental value to me and I would never even think of parting with it. Not for less than twenty quid at any rate”.
Another attendee, 54-year old Bernie Duggan from Annaghmore, argued,
“To be honest, I just had a wee rummage in the back of the cupboard to see what I could find, so’s I could maybe get on the TV. And to my surprise I discovered what I’m sure is an un-released recording of Hugo Duncan doing a cover version of Motorhead’s ‘Ace of Spades’ when he was letting his hair down one night in Kelly’s Bar in 1978. I’ve no idea how it got there, but it’s got to be worth a few quid”.
The show was abandoned after five hours, when the most expensive item valued was a packet of Opal Fruits, circa 1982, still in its original wrapping, which was valued at 50 pence.
Portglenone Rate Top Tyrone Attractions
By Fr Riddle Lynn (guest journalist from portglenone.wordpress.com)
As a result of the unpleasantness which inevitably arises in the Portglenone area, at the very mention of the topic of Antrim and Derry, we decided to ask our readers to tell us what they felt were the 20 most influential things ever to have come out of County Tyrone.
We received literally some replies, most of which were either unprintable or illegal and one involving a goat which, quite frankly, was not even physically possible. Our Pointless Statistics Team once more got on the job but when they were finished, they put together this table of results in offending order;
20. West Tyrone Constituency Boundary: The relatively new parliamentary area has been cleverly passing itself off as France for some time now resulting in its attracting thousands of tourists expecting to see Eurodisney and The Eiffel Tower. The disappointed pilgrims are forced to make do with an electricity pylon in Urney and Eurospar, Omagh.
19. Cranagh: The village adjudged by National Geographic Magazine as ‘the furthest you can go out of the way before you start coming out the other side’.
18. Paul Brady: The curly, surly ginger, singer/songwriter and professional ‘Bosco’ impersonator who brought us the classic refrain;
I wanna take you to Coalisland
And count the off-licences per man
And in the evening when the sun goes down
We’d rip the ATM from the local filling station
17. Making Pat Spillane Puke: A classic reversal of the normal pattern of Pat Spillane making everyone else hurl their fadge.
16. The Place Name ‘Sandholes’: Deriving from the Old French ‘Sans Houlles’, meaning ‘Without Arse”, the area is credited as the home of the design of cheap supermarket denim which reduces ‘buttock protrusion’ in male wearers over 35 years of age.
15. Splash: The popular Saturday night, light entertainment programme where fading celebrities imitate their own careers by falling unceremoniously from a great height without being touched in an attempt to garner advantage which is scarcely deserved. The format is based on the career of Brian Dooher. (Apart from the great height bit obviously)
14. The Carnteel Road: By an amazing freak of geography, motorists travelling directly from Aughnacloy to Dungannon will pass the end of the Carnteel Road on no less than 14 occasions.
13. The Place Name ‘Orritor’: For the sheer joy of positioning a district which sounds like a body cavity in close proximity to another called ‘Sandholes’.
12. Sir James Cricket: A comedian who has sustained a 40 year career with an act based entirely on a humorous tea-towel which my mother brought back from Westport in 1972. Don’t come here.
11. Benburb Sunday: A day where children up to the age of 12 were rounded up by monks and made to pay to slide down a hill on a carpet of rough hardboard resulting in semi-permanent scarring of skin tissue on the thigh and elbow.
10. Dennis Taylor’s Wiggly Index Finger: Widely regarded as being amongst the finest of the gargantuan-spectacle wearing ball potter’s eleven fingers.
9. Penfold from Dangermouse: No list would be complete without the pint-sized, sidekick, cartoon-moaner and his hilarious catchphrase; “Carrickmore Gaelic Fudball Club”.
8. The Amazing Disappearing Letters ‘T’& ‘W’: Used to such wonderful effect in the pronunciation of places such as ‘Cookson” ‘Stewarson’ and ‘Twincamton’.
7. Eugene McMenamin’s Unfeasibly Black Eyebrows: The Strabane based MLA holds the distinction of having been balancing two ‘Granny Grey Beard’ caterpillars on his forehead since 1984.
6. The Red Hand of Ulster: Yeah, thanks a bunch for that!
5. The Carland Bypass: The wonderful decision to remove the one corner which broke the utter monotony of driving between Cookstown and Dungannon.
4. Eponymously Titled Products which are now Defunct: Tyrone Brick, Tyrone Crystal, Tyrone Power, Tyrone Moderate Alcohol Consumers.
3. Consilio et Prudentia: Although also the names of two Late (possibly ex) (possibly Latex) Nuns from Loretto convent in Omagh, this is actually the irony valve straining motto of the county translating as…wait for it…no I’m serious….”Wisdom & Prudence”.
2. The Untimely Demise of Tyrone Tom’s Red Shorts: The ill-thought out decision to use the Greencastle man’s iconic shorts as an agreed alternative to the Union flag on Belfast City Hall.
And of course topping the list
1. Ballyronan
‘Strictly’ Fever Has Taken Tyrone Men By Storm
Cabragh man dancing deadly
BY SHENGAS MCGLUMPHIE
The success of the the BBC’s recent series of Celebrity Come Dancing has kick-started a ballroom dancing revolution amongst men across the County.
Barny Patton, a farmer from Carnteel, admitted that the dancing bug had got a hold of him.
“I’ve always been forward thinking when it comes to technology. I see myself as a bit of a Fred Astaire and having no sense of rhythm whatsoever isn’t going to stop me. And neither is a club foot. Dancing’s class. There’s nothing I like more than slipping into my tailcoats and top hat after I’ve finished rounding up the cattle.”
Asked for his expert view to help make sense out of the phenomenon, Russian-born former top ballroom dancer Demitri Vladovic addedd,
“Them Tyrone boyos are mad hoors for the ballroom. It’s all high kicks and suchlike any time you see a group of men round Dungannon Square. They can’t get enough of it. Walk into Paddy Power in Scotch Street and it’s like Riverdance ”.
“They do the zumba in Killeeshil Community Centre every Monday night, and I reckoned they’d go wild for the ballroom”, admitted dance enthusiast Gareth McAvoy, a 42-year old mechanic from Cabragh . “So I walked straight in and grabbed this big redhead by the waist and leaned her backwards like in thon picters of returning American GIs, until her head was nearly on the floor. Classy? You’d think so, but she didn’t. And neither did the police. £300 fine and an injunction from going within 500 yards of the community centre for the next two years. Tara”.
Sources confirmed that many hen sheds across the County have secretly been converted into make-shift ballrooms.
“I didn’t think much of it to begin with”, said wife Sheila Cunningham. “Why shouldn’t my husband install a 3-foot wide glitterball hanging down from the roof? I just thought it was there to cheer them poor wee chickens up. But when I saw him execute a perfect cross-body lead with reverse turn whilst scooping three dead hens up off the floor, I started to have a few suspicions”.
Other men confirmed that they struggled to find an outlet for their passion.
“I went to Mantis Night Club in Omagh on Saturday”, explained 23-year old slaughterhouse worker Frankie Cush from Drumquin. “I thought it would be the perfect location to throw a few of my new ballroom moves, but it was a fiasco. You try doing the pasa doble to ‘Smack My Bitch Up’ by the Prodigy. I ended up having to switch to the rhumba. I was mortified”.
Meanwhile, the influence of reality television shows continues unabated following reports of a surge in menfolk banning wives from kitchens whilst they have a ‘mad try at the baking’.
Ugly Scenes As Two Carnteel Pensioners Battle To Pay For Tea And Scones
BY SHENGAS MCGLUMPHIE
Two women pensioners attended Omagh County Court yesterday after they were involved in a heated debate over who was paying for tea.
The incident occurred on the 20th July, when both women insisted on paying the £3.60 bill for a pot of tea and two fruit scones. The women, Rose Coyle and Bernie Gallen, both 78 and from Carnteel, got into an unseemly tussle, with threats of pulling and dragging gathering momentum.
Cafe owner Bridie McDuff’s court statement pulled no punches:
“It was tara. I put the bill on their table and a few minutes later all I heard was Rose Coyle shouting, ‘It’s Tuesday. I always pay on a Tuesday. Put it away, put it away. Let me’. She was trying to shove Mrs Gallen’s purse back into her handbag, and then it all spilt out all over the floor. Jaysus, the smell of Just Musk nearly knocked me out. The PSNI should think about using that stuff instead of tear gas. My eyes are still waterin.”
The argument worsened when Gallen picked up a teaspoon to remonstrate with Coyle, but then promptly put it back down again saying she was a slave to her arthritis and that her knuckles would be the death of her, and then gave a lengthy diagnosis of her piles. Coyle subsequently waved an almond slice in Gallen’s general direction before accidentally knocking over a whole plate of French fancies and cherry bakewells from the counter. Both were left flustered by the episode.
When asked whether she would maintain her friendship with Coyle, Bernie Gallen said,
“Eh?”
Gallen was charged with breach of the peace, and for acting in a threatening manner with a packet of cola cubes. She was fined £10, and banned from talking about her piles anywhere close to Carnteel. Coyle was fined £5 and told that she would not be allowed within a 100 yard radius of an almond slice for the next 12 months.
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Donaghmore ‘Mortified’ That It Looks Fat On Google Earth
BY SHENGAS MCGLUMPHIE
The Parish, looking bloated
The Parish of Donaghmore today voiced concerns that it was unhappy about how it appears in the recently updated Google Maps satellite images published by the internet giant.
“Look at me!” exclaimed the parish. “I’m enormous! I didn’t even know the photograph was getting taken. I look huge compared even to Kildress. And look at Pomeroy. It’s the same size as me but it’s deliberately covered itself with trees so that you can hardly see it. And Aghaloo deliberately went and made itself smaller or something”.
Donaghmore admitted that it has grown in size over the past 3 million years as it was so unhappy with its shape, and confessed it had eaten into parts of Killeeshil and Drumglass when no-one was looking.
“It’s not the point. If I had known in advance a photo was going to get taken, I could at least have smartened the area near Galbally or given myself a tidy up round the Bush. That might have helped. To be honest it’s just a bad photo. I never look my best in the spring. And the satellite was far too close when it took the picture. Still, at least I’m not the the size of Cappagh”, snorted Donaghmore. “It’s big enough to have its own feckin’ postcode!” before realising that all parishes do.
In a controversial move, the parish has agreed to an extreme make-over in the form of extensive quarrying around Granville which is expected to remove 3 million tonnes of rock and sand from the area, as well as having 500 hectares of forestry removed. “Oooh, I can’t wait”, said Donaghmore excitedly, “It’ll be like a new me”.
Meanwhile, the parish has since stopped talking to Carnteel which it says should have warned it the photograph was getting taken.
Tyrone Tribulations 