The Midnight Court

Well, the Taoiseach “resigned”. Check out the inverted commas. He probably didn’t expect it himself. It was the councillors from Louth what done it. Running their mouths off - only to be followed by their champion who, ameliorating their language, managed to inject vastly more menace into his tone, prompting a Mexican wave of nervous collar pulling in constituency offices and council chambers across the land. If Mr. Cowen hadn’t yet spotted the disembodied finger doodling on the walls of Government Buildings, he can’t have ignored in his troglodytic lair the Bat-phone, ringing off the hook with the craven pleas of the citizens – save us please. Better act now before they start calling someone else. Someone from Louth say.

The Taoiseach was having a nice morning. A bit of tactical success at the Tribunal, the headline of the Indo bolstering a sense of statesmanlike storm weathering. He’d had a bad weekend, but now he was looking forward to the airy corridors of the Department of the Taoiseach – all tall ceilings, blonde oak and white marble floors on which you can produce a satisfyingly business-like clickety-clack - and a nice chat with the ladies while getting his make-up done for the cameras in the Dáil. And then it happened – “The Minister for Finance wants a word, Taoiseach”.

Fuck.

In comes Biffo, fingering the hilt of the dagger hanging from his doublet and hose. “I’ll get me coat, Brian”.

Bertie Ahern is a vain man and this is a blow to him. All he ever wanted was to be Taoiseach. His interest in the post is practically apolitical. He has no intellectual life outside the job, nothing philosophical or ideological – good or bad - informed his exercise of power beyond whether or not it kept him in office. He rolled with the punches, was never bold, he did what he was told by the man from Castlemartin, he neutered the Dáil – with a little help from the Labour Party – he was a socialist one minute, a friend of “serious people” in the business community the next.

It didn’t matter. He loved being Taoiseach. Loved it. And now he isn’t. That’s going to hurt. Worse, it all got a bit Ides of March at the end and he looks weak, a streak of venality – long denied – embarrassingly exposed. The eyes of Europe’s elite are drawn to internet screens which say “Irish Premier resigns over irregular private finances”. They thank God for call screening. Bertie looks askance at the backbenches. Four years sitting up there? With those eejits? You must be mad.

Lisbon now belongs to Mr. Cowen. The lad’s done well. He timed it perfectly and he was absolutely ruthless. The association with the Taoiseach stopped being profitable this weekend. Within a year, the anointment by Bertie as his successor would be a leper’s stigma. We’d end up with another Ahern in the panelled office overlooking the huddle of yards behind Merrion Row. Couldn’t have that. The Lenihan and Andrews dynasties have rowed in behind him. The Hanafins have let it be known by pretending to keep their cards close to their chests that they can be reasonable in all the circumstances. The party is relieved. Councillors now have a chance of getting through the long grass unscathed.

Credulous journalists are already being invited to believe that Mr. Cowen, the Taoiseach and their advisors acted with regret and in the best interests of a country which has a constitutional amendment to make. Lisbon is an abstraction, or at least it seems that way, and Fianna Fáil don’t do abstractions. Bertie didn’t. What’s Lisbon to him now the Presidency of Europe is well out of his grasp - as useless as tits on a Mullingar heifer; or the saggy manbreasts on a big ugly fucker from Laoighis and Offaly.

Watched some of the Late Late Show. A few observations.

1. The Partridge Moment: A wildlife photographer was setting out for Pat the details of an encounter he’d had with a wild bear. Realising that if (as advised by the how-to manuals) he faced the beast down while waving his arms about menacingly, his diminutive Paddy physique was unlikely to convince the grizzly that here was another of its own kind not lightly to be contended with. Sensibly, he legged it into the woods.

“He might have thought you were a female bear” mused Pat with, it must be owned, a disturbing wistfulness.

“Well, even worse” said the photographer.

“And what delights awaited then!” countered Pat, quite insanely.

Raped.

By a Bear.

…what delights indeed!

2. Teenage Kicks: There was no mention that the teenage gazillionaire entrepreneurs were from Limerick. I seem to remember Pat journeyed to Limerick previously to meet teenage entrepreneurs who were engaged in a somewhat different sector of the economy so it would have been nice if he’d taken the opportunity to make some balancing points in favour of that Urbs Antiqua Fuit Studiisque Asperrima Belli.*

3. The Three Wise Men: I wondered as I watched the Magi (Dunphy, Harris and John “I feel it in me” Waters) in what way exceedingly well remunerated high political office didn’t constitute a personal gain on the part of the then-Minister for Finance, especially when it was achieved in a country where even badly remunerated lowly jobs were impossible to come by. And to have everyone thinking what a smashing guy you were; especially “serious” people, as you might characterise them yourself.

Musha, what very bliss.

* i.e. - don’t fuck with us, bi-atch

Post-script - one of my favourite things ever is the “discussion” page on Pat’s wiki entry, the first comment of which delightfully reads:

This article needs to be checked by someone who is more familar with Pat Kenny. I am not sure he is actually a scientologist. Also calling him a “Prick” is hardly NPOV (neutral point of view).

Ooer, missus, a post from this blogly backwater has been shortlisted among the most humorous outpourings of the hibernosphere. I’d like to thank my mom.

Whether or not we survive the cull to ten is unlikely to keep us as awake at night as our forthcoming “assessments” in criminal and civil advocacy, negotiation, consultation and the drafting of pleadings.

I witnessed down the four goldmines today just how badly heedless drafting can fuck-up your day when a barrister of - I imagine - fairly recent call stood up to ask for the deletion from the pleadings of an unhelpful reply to particulars requested from the plaintiff.

Having asked for a “narrative” of the incident alleged against the client, said barrister was informed that the details had been captured for posterity by a passing home-movie enthusiast and, not to worry for same would be forthcoming in the fullness of time. In an attempt to wish this news out of existence, our learned friend bustled in to court to ask the judge to help pretend it had never come to light.

The judge thought this was saucy stuff indeed and we all had a good laugh at his One Foot in the Grave Impression (he didn’t believe it). Especially when there came - bold as brass - a request for the costs of this highly improbable application!

Now that was funny.

Thoughts for today -

a) Belief in progress is an obstacle to progress since people who believe in progress tend to not to believe that history has anything to teach them. And those who refuse to learn the lessons of history tend to find it hard to make progress, what with repeating the mistakes of the past and all.

b) Occidentals seeking enlightenment among Oriental religions tend not to find it. Westerners don’t seek enlightenment, they seek revelation – the definitive answer, the unified theory, (the Secret™) that squares everything away. The wisdom of the east seems more about learning to cope with the hat-stand absurdity of a half-baked animal sentience which is incapable of rationalising the random infinity of our celestial habitat.

c) These points are related. People who believe in progress have no sense of the absurd.

d) Neither do people who believe in the Secret.

e) Or blood for oil.

f) Or democracy down the barrel of a gun.

When the words “Messiah on Crack” pop up on your feed reader, you click that bitch. Via Alex Ross blog, the Rest is Noise, is one of the funniest things I’ve heard in a long time. I’ve been “cracking” up at this all night. It gets funnier and funnier and funnier still with every fresh listen.

The audience reaction is the best bit.  Nothing is more eloquent than stunned silence.

I think Fústar’s mam - like my dad, a keen choirsperson - would appreciate it.

Having heard of them often, it just popped into my head to have a go at a googlewhack.  It took two goes to conjure this bad boy.  I’m delighted with myself.

Something tells me the Sunday Independent will conspicuously fail to cover itself in glory this weekend.  In fact, I think it may offer us a hypocritical, disgusting and degraded spectacle the likes of which we may not have seen hithertofore.  And that will be saying something.

If I’m wrong, I’ll put my hands up.  I won’t be tuning in to find out for myself though.

Graham Linehan posts an instructive YouTube video at Why, That’s Delightful. I don’t usually give props to the Man, but I noted with approval recently that our new Justice Minister, Mr. Brian Lenihan, had quietly dropped his predecessor’s proposal to legislate for armed vigilantism in the wake of the shooting by Padraig Nally of John Ward in Mayo.

As the Pasadena incident demonstrates (for it is an incident in Pasadena, Texas which is featured in the clip), legislating as proposed would lead to an unhelpful confusion about various legal matters not the least of which are who should exercise judicial functions, where exactly the burden of proof lies and to what level it should be discharged and what is the appropriate sentence for burglary of an empty house.

After the Texan legislature created a law in the image of that proposed by Mr. McDowell and his erstwhile tribesmen on the Fine Gael benches, area man John Horn saw fit to pass capital sentence on the men who appeared to have robbed his neighbour’s house. After they’d concluded their business.

The 911 dispatcher told Mr. Horn that he could get shot if he embarked on his proposed course of action, but I think he might more usefully have impressed on him that he might be about to commit murder.

Mr. Horn now regrets his actions.

A grand jury has been convened to decide whether or not Mr. Horn as a neighbour can take advantage of a statute-based Nally defence.   It’s not a question that should even have to be asked in these circumstances.

In an effort to flex dormant blogging muscles and because I am forced to watch the annual car crash of the Late Late Toy Show, I intend to live blog the whole affair.

9.30 - Pat is out of his tree; his magic tree, from which he has emerged, via Lap Land (could have been lap dancing land though going on the three Swedish blondes who were waving him off in a faintly lewd manner).

9.35 - Some kid is doing an impression of Sean Penn in Sweet and Lowdown.

9.40 - Sony ball thing initially kewl, but then quite annoying.

9.45 - Pat has just kicked a lifelike baby doll up the hole to the plaintive cry of a little girl who pleaded “don’t kick the baby”.

9.55 - the toys are already grinding to a halt.

9.55 - OMG! Jerry Seinfeld is here. And Pat is interacting woodenly with one of the all-time comic greats. Noooooooo…. Pat has sucked all the life out of the encounter. Jerry looks stricken. Pat keeps calling him Seinfield. Jerry thinking “who is this cabbage?”

10.00 - what a waste! Jerry looks nonplussed by Pat’s hawky present. Obviously has significantly more awesome Superman collectibles at home. Leaves looking shell-shocked.

10.01 - The Oisíns of Ireland are heavily represented.

10.06 - Apparently this is taking place inside an enchanted forest.

10.08 - The car competition seems to be based on trans-sexual sex-change punk epic Hedwig and the Angry Inch.

10.09 - Oh. Herself informs me that there is someone in Harry Potarse called Hedwig.

10.10 - This is not the Sugababes finest hour. The mics could be rendering more sterling service.

10.19 - Jesus Christ, they have a bunch of 3 year olds doing the “forbidden dance”. They must be this guy’s kids. Remember, impossible is nothing.

10.21 - A child has been wheeled into the studio in a four-poster Barbie bed.

10.28 - A little something for the Dads, the older sisters have been rolled out to jive.

10.31 - Another child has crashed his 4×4 gas-guzzler.

10.32 - the wheelie bike is fab, bit of wood, two wheels, awesome. Kid on the hand pedal bike looks manically delighted Kid in the electric BMW looks haughty and bored.

10. 38 - Ok, that transformer toy is a little bit more special than the League of the Transformable alternative. Toy Show very middle-class thus far. We need to see a few Manky Toys to redress the balance.

10.43 - It’s all gone Pete Tong. None of the machines is obeying orders. There’s too many robots for comfort. And Pat is being a total James Blunt. Oh, wait - that’s actually James Blunt.

10.52 - Meant to say at start that all the toys are wearing crowns. Even that dog.

10.55 - The animatronic parrots are showing Pat a thing or two about comic timing.

10.59 - They have books on.  That book is so not called The Golden Compass. It’s the Northern bloody Lights. Welcome to the 51st State of the Union peeps.

11.00 - Books are for nerds. More robots!

11.03 - What is this trite, off-key horror? Bring back James Blunt!

11.04 - Loads of horrible teenagers are lepping about like Up With People on acid singing about togetherness and unstoppableness.

11.09 - One of the kids has let the dirty secret of the Toy Show slip. They make them “practice” with the toys all week. Not “play”. “Back to the salt mines, urchins” sez Pats, punting another baby doll into hyperspace with a swift kick up the hole.

11.14 - What is the point of this bland, insipid rehearsal of Somewhere Over the Rainbow? Surely James Blunt is still in the Green Room with the teenage jive dancers. Soon every kid in Ireland will hate music forever. And Pat’s work here will have been done.

11.20 - Another animatronic character. A great chance to see how natural Pat is with robots. In contrast, not so great with people.

11.23 - Pogo stick amazing! At last a genuinely lethal toy which every child will want. Would be genius if that dude pogo’d into the ceiling and his kicking legs were sticking out in slapstick hilarity.

11.25 - Avert yere eyes. The Wii is on BUT SANTA HAS RUN OUT!

11.27 - A montage! This is for the kids who weren’t good enough to get into the studio. The crap kids.

11.33 - A precocious Billy Barry type of child is doing karaoke. Oh Christ, it’s a duet with Pat. Fucked Up! Pat is bent double and bouncing mildly up and down.

11.37 - No, no, no, no, no! How can they have a child dressed up as Michael Jackson! Do they not read The Sun?!

11.38 - Kid is called Bella Pluto and he does a mean Pavarotti impression. This must all sound unbelievable to a person reading this but not seeing it with their own eyes.

11.40 - And so it ends with a reasonably efficient children’s choir. No working class children this year. No wooden toys. One educational toy - a microscope that didn’t work, to put the final boot in.

11.43 - And so we out. I imagine the four or five hundred robots that were on have gone Westworld on Pat’s ass as their Asimov routines finally short circuit under the studio lights.

There’s a thread on the show at politics dot ie. Shane Hegarty shared some remarkably prescient predictions at Present Tense.

The first ad after the show was for prostate check-ups.

Conclusion: It really has to be said, Pat left down the entire country in front of Jerry Seinfield. Thanks for that, Pat. He left the studio with enough material for another nine season hit sit-com. I look forward to our national humiliation.

Update - Fústar points out in comments that the legendary Evel “every bone in his body” Kneivel has finally made it to the other side of the Grand Canyon of life. There wasn’t one toy on tonight’s Late Late that came close to this bad boy.

Ar dheis Dé go raibh a anam dílis.

A few hours short of one week to my next horrendous set of exams and I have finally started to study. As I try to absorb the intricate details of passing off - in between tidying the house, chopping veg for the dinner and folding the towels from the dryer (a bizarre form of escapism given my general lack of enthusiasm and facility for domestic chores), the thought occurs that there couldn’t be a better time to post to the tumble-weed quiet Midnight Court. I’m obviously wrong about that but no matter.

Passing-off (a greivous wrong to traders) is all about us. Fústar, for example, has got much mileage from his manky toys, some of which could well be supposed to represent an attempt, if not to deliberately mislead the public into believing they are the merchandise or product of another, then certainly to take advantage of a market or demand created by another’s marketing. The two-step test being a) was there a likelihood of confusion among casual, unwary and typical consumers of the product or service and b) was there a likelihood of pecuniary damage to the holder of the goodwill who trades in the original, copied good or service.

This doesn’t mean, for example, that the holder of the copyright in the Transformers range of toys, comics, cartoons and, filmtastrophes, having spotted or even initiated a fashion for transformable toy robots can, by an action in passing off, establish an exclusive right to exploit the resultant public hunger for manipulable multiform cybernetic playthings. On the other hand, the manufacturers of League of the Transformable might find a stimulating read the comments of Henchy J in Adidas v Charles O’Neill & Co. to the effect that a trader in such circs might well get a right of action where his rival “puts forth goods for sale bearing that distinctive indictation or a colourable imitation thereof”.

Imaginary Racers, however, are fooling no one. And while admittedly “mankified”, surely these colourful racers of the imagination represent what is ultimately (your Honour) a far from ignoble attempt to filter some of the evervessant magic of the Power Ranger craze down to the children of the poor who, believe it or not, actually do continue to exist and whose parents, horror of horrors, actually can’t afford the “real” ones.

If, however, the courts require as part of their test that the consumer to be fooled, then a question mark, I ween, must hang over the decision in Gabicci v Dunnes Stores. According to Carroll J, Dunnes was not simply following a trend and giving good value, it was selling sweaters which, to all intents and purposes, were “the plaintiff’s sweaters” albeit with the St. Bernard trademark on the tag inside.

I have no doubt that the sweaters were designed to appear to the casual observer as if the wearer was swanking about in the latest Gabicci, fresh from the catwalks of Milan. But it seems highly unlikely that Dunnes’ customers were fooled. Dunnes is an own-brand retailer and rather than being duped or misled, I would have argued (were I defending the action) that in fact, my customers had entered into the spirit of the conspiracy with me, seeking at a knock-down price, the social cachet of being decked out in the latest Italian threads. Thus, test part A not met, m’Lud.

I remember in the spring passing through Tralee where I saw boxes of those wheelie shoes that all the children glide around on stacked up (the boxes not the children). Emblazoned on them was the hysterical legend “The original and ONLY Wheelies. DO NOT BUY OTHER PRODUCTS PRETENDING TO BE LIKE THIS ONE!”. Outside the shopping centre, small impoverished children were gliding and whizzing about but not on the original Wheelies. Strapped to their heels like stirrups were sets of small wheels which, while not built into the soles of their shoes, seemed to create with admirable verisimilitude the effect of their more expensive antecedents.

Whether an action in passing off had taken place or was advised against I don’t know, but there is probably something to be said for avoiding expensive legal action and going the advertising route instead. Anyone who has grown up in the age of advertising knows how important “cachet” is. Not even the densest parent will be able to ignore the frosty and contemptuous reception given the Action Dan they’ve just pressed into junior’s hands with the words “I’ve bought you an Action Man”. You have in your fuck, Mum, the little angel would surely say were his inner sailor given tongue.

Only today, I was powerless to resist the corporate programming to which I’ve been subjected on a daily basis since my own childhood.

Unable to leave the house for the next two weeks, I took the single opportunity available to me this morning to replace my broken phone charger. In the official Vodaphone shop, the charger cost 25 quid. Directly across the Swan Centre mall a generic version of the same charger retailed for 19 of the self same quid. An insistent voice in the back of my head overwhelmed my rational self. What if it is somehow “wrong”, it said. You can’t come back for two weeks. You’ll be cut off from civilisation. What if it’s manky?!
So I’m six quid worse off because of stupid capitalist “cachet” and am forced to confront the fact that I actually do believe on some level that in paying this six quid I have insured myself against consumer disaster. Which, having bought many name-brand products in my short, but dazzling lifetime, I know to be complete and utter bollocks.

This indefinable “cachet” is why the only explanation of their bizarre, inflated pricing you will receive from customer services at a certain corporation when you compare and contrast them with those of another provider is “But we’re Eircom”.

And so say all of us.