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Thousands Of Duffle Coats Flung Onto Beds As Cold Snap Kicks In
BY SHENGAS MCGLUMPHIE
Residents across Tyrone last night were prompted into getting heavy coats out and putting them onto beds as the temperature plummeted to as low as minus 4 degrees Centigrade in some parts of the County.
Donkey jackets, duffle coats, boiler suits, dressing gowns, overcoats, monkey hats and other outerwear were all hurriedly thrown onto beds, as faulty electric blankets were dug out of attics and hastily re-wired.
Local housewife and serial complainer Alison Brennan from Mountfield said,
“Jays, it was baltic. I don’t know how many blankets and coats we had on the bed but I could have survived a gunshot. You’ve no idea how cold this house is. I went out to the sales this morning and bought 14 more duffle coats for the beds. My husband told me to sit by the fire, but there’s not much point in that unless he’s going to light the feckin’ thing. Tight-fisted eejit”.
Brennan continued,
“I knew we were going to be in trouble when I was in Greencastle last night to get some wheaten, and the young lasses were out in what they call their ‘overcoats’. Or to give it its proper name, glitter spray”.
Others were faced with the prospect of having to have the central heating on all day.
“Have you seen the price of oil?” complained a man from Trillick, who preferred to remain anonymous. “We’re racing through the stuff. Christ, it was only the end of November since I siphoned 500 gallons of it from them ‘uns down the road. Now I’m going to have to do it all over again. It’s beyond a joke, it really is”.
Elsewhere, the roads were causing driving difficulties. Local PSNI Chief Inspector John Quinn said,
“The roads are like a bottle. People shouldn’t be out driving in this weather, and if they are they need to act responsibly. We were in Tesco car park last night trying to doing doughnuts in the panda car and it was almost impossible. Car was sliding all over the place. People should stay in”.
It has also been reported that 44 youngsters have been clipped around the ear over the holidays for leaving the immersion on for more than three hours after the water was used.
The cold weather continues.
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.
Panic Buying in Eglish As Christmas Selection Boxes Go On Sale
Eglish, yesterday
BY SHENGAS MCGLUMPHIE
Local PSNI were swiftly despatched to Costcutter’s in Eglish yesterday morning before a near-riot developed in Main Street, after nearly 3,000 people turned up to start their Christmas shopping early.
A rumour, started on Twitter, that Costcutter’s was selling Cadbury Christmas selection boxes for £1.99, rapidly went viral as the news spread like wildfire throughout the county.
One policeman, Patrick Quinn, who attended the disturbance, panted:
“I’ve not seen anything like it in Eglish since Plunkett Donaghy was rumoured to be swimming bare-torsoed in the Blackwater in 1986. I nearly had to make a couple of arrests. Grown adults acting like eejits trying to get themselves noticed by shop staff for the sake of a buckin’ selection box, shouting and screaming. I couldn’t be doing with it. It really hurt my throat. I managed to get one of the ones with the ‘Make Your Own Santa Mask’ on the back. Class”.
Anne Callaghan, a 49 year old coal miner from Mountfield, told us:
“You can’t be too careful. It’s only 110 shopping days until Christmas. I still remember the Teletubbies fiasco a year ago. I ordered Tinky Winky for my little lad and it never arrived in time. He’s now 26 and still hasn’t forgiven me. I’m not going through that again”.
A spokesperson for the Omagh-based lobbying group ‘No Christmas Until Christmas’ which is continuing to gather support under its website, http://www.its-not-even-december-yet-for-fecks-sake.com, said,
“It’s this sort of behaviour that puts the ‘Jesus Christ’ into Christmas, and I don’t mean in a good way. Summer’s barely over and people are mad for Christmas already. And these shops aren’t helping. I don’t want to be walking round Asda with my shorts on, listening to buckin’ Jingle Bells. This is all Joe Brolly’s fault. Probably”.
Costcutter’s have release a statement telling people not to panic, and that there will be ample selection boxes available for sale over the next three months.
“Aye, right”, said a despondent John Joe Slane, a 60 year old egg-boiler from Aughabrack. “Try telling that to my three nephews. All they’ve got to look forward to is two packets of Fishermen’s Friends and some Lockets. That’s all they had left by the time I got there. It’s dung. Maybe they’ll all have really bad colds by Christmas”, he added hopefully.
Minor skirmishes were also reported in a Centra shop in Cabragh, following rumours that it had started selling Easter eggs.
Cookstown Writer ‘Certain’ That Next James Bond Movie Will Be Filmed In Tyrone
Bond for Cookstown?
BY SHENGAS MCGLUMPHIE
A self-styled scriptwriter from Tyrone has confirmed that he has received an ‘almost definite yes’ from Hollywood that the next James Bond film will be based in and around Tyrone.
“I finished the script last week and sent if off”, declared a proud Daragh McGee, from Cookstown. “And I’ve had a letter back thanking me for it. It’s a done deal as far as I’m concerned. Bond is coming to Tyrone!” He went on, “See, lots of ‘Skyfall’ got filmed in London, so we’ll do the same in Tyrone. We’ll showcase the county. Imagine doing some of it in Greencastle. That’d be deadly. And they can use special effects to get rid of all the weird-looking ones in the final cut. Some boost for the area and the revenue could be spent on free drink or something for the locals”.
McGee was coy about revealing too much of the story, and then promptly told us the entire plot.
“Bond becomes embroiled in this conspiracy all about dirty diesel. He flies helicopters, shoots stuff, kills people, and gives a few deadly-lookin’ wemin plenty of hammer along the way”, said the writer. He admitted, “It might need a bit more work but them Hollywood boys can sort it out. I’ve done the hard bit. And the movie ends in this lethal fight to the death between Bond and the villain in the middle of Ballygawley roundabout with lorries and tractors whizzin’ by. Imagine that. Class”.
McGee as yet is undecided on a title but says he is toying with the idea of ‘From Cappagh with Love’, or ‘Quantum of Diffing’.
The Cookstown man has always had a deep fondness for the Bond movies.
“Nobody knows the James Bond films like me”, he asserted. “I know them inside out and back to front. As the current Bond, I’d say Pierce Brosnan is definitely the best. He was deadly in ‘The Spies Who Loved Them’. Some film”.
The scriptwriter confirmed that he has already commenced auditioning for the part of the beautiful Bond girl, and also for other parts.
“For the evil villain I wanted someone that looks tara scary and grotesque, like Gollum out of ‘Lord of The Rings’ only worser and uglier. I auditioned down in Mountfield last Friday night and there was that many I was fighting them off with a stick. I’m not even sure some of them were there for the evil villain audition. They were just hanging around. At least we’d save on the prosthetic make-up”. McGee went on to add, “Come to think of it, some of the wemin who turned up for the Bond girl could probably have auditioned for it”.
McGee concluded, “Thon Alfred Hitchcock was some boy to have written all those James Bond books. I hope to be able to tell him that in person if he comes over for the filming and stuff. He can stay at my aunt’s in Donaghmore. She’s got a spare settee and sleeping bag”.
Benburb Man Caught Drink Driving On Tractor Lawnmower
Jordan in happier times
Benburb erotic fiction writer, Jack Jordan, was fined £20 and warned about his future conduct after he was caught ‘zig-zagging all over the place’ and ‘singing his head off’ on his Mountfield 1430M Lawn Tractor yesterday evening on the Clonfeacle Road.
Jordan, 44, has also been enrolled on a 6-week drink-awareness programme in the Moy in order to curb the desire to commit the same offence again. Strawberry pickers in an adjacent field alerted the police after they witnessed an inebriated man revving his lawnmower ‘a wee bit more than normal’. Sarah Mullan told us:
“I was picking away when I heard a loud engine sound flashing up the Clonfeacle Road. He must’ve been doing, say, 7mph like. Then the terrible truth was laid bare when I saw Jack, full out of his head on brandy probably, slurring his way through ‘The Black Velvet Band’ at the wheel of his Mountfield 1430M. I was at my wits end thinking of the damage he could do on that. Mrs Glackin up the road has a lovely bed of daisies outside her front hedge. Jack was capable of obliterating the whole lot in this form so I phoned the cops who arrived before any carnage was committed.”
Initially, Jordan defended the accusations vehemently, insisting that Mrs Hughes had just given him ‘a nip of the craytur’ for mowing her bushes in her back field. The breathalyser indicated he was 20 times over the tractor lawnmower limit after which he admitted he’d downed a bottle of Bush as well as a few ‘glasses of stout’ whilst making a hames of Hughes’ field.
“I was only making the short half a mile journey home sure on the Mountfield. All these bloody do-gooders in Benburb would sicken your happiness. That Mullan girl never liked my singing.”
Jordan will attend the lawn-mower drink-awareness programme after Easter and is at present the only person enrolled.
Tyrone Tribulations 