Kevin and I (and an uninvited guest)

When I started thi...

Hello! Mind if I join you?

For God's sake, what is it you want now? Look, I'm busy writing a blog. So shoo off.

Is it about Kevin Myers?

Well, yes, it is actually, but that's none of your business. Now go on, make yourself scarce.


Now where was I? Ah yes. (clears throat) When I started this blog, I decided that it would be best to leave Kevin Myers out of it.

I would just stay here on the high moral ground and refrain from lowering myself to his level. But, try as I might, I can't ignore him. If he were a stripey yellow insect he would be the wasp rather than the bee. The wasp has no respect for the long-established and mutually beneficial 'I'll ignore you, if ignore me' deal that we have with the bees. As much as I'd like to imagine he'd just go away if I petended he wasn't there, the man seriously bothers me.

Ah, you see, you're talking about him though! That's the mark of a good journalist. And he has such a way with words....you're just jealous!

I am not! Who invited you into this blog anyhow?

If Myers isn't making heroes out of O Duffy's blue-shirts and attacking veterans of the International Brigade for defending the Spanish republic against the fascists, he's waxing lyrical over the creation of the PDs and describing Haughey as the most capable and dynamic figure ever to grace Irish politics. And we need not mention the whole SOBs thing.

It's not fair of you to bring that up! It was so unlike Kevin. I think he may have spent a little too much time in the sun, or perhaps someone had slipped something into his wine, or....

Have you quite finished? Good. Now stop interrupting.

Today, he turned his venemous pen on the unions, more or less repeating the mantra of Delaney and the other free-marketeers (scroll down a couple of entries for more on that). He compares the trade unions to the coelacanth, an ancient type of fish rediscovered after it was long thought to be extinct.

Oh, what a delightfuly clever fellow! He reminds me of some kind of distinguished Victorian gentleman. So frightfuly witty. And so well-rounded in his knowledge. I imagine he has many fascinating interests! Arcaheology, botany, marine biology....

I'm sure he does. Please stop trying to engage me in conversation. If you feel like talking, go bother someone else's blog.

Now, if you can keep quiet for a moment I'll continue. The reason Myers believes that the trade union movement is comparable to an extinct fish is because as far as he is concerned class no longer exists. Now we are all in this together.

Hurrah for team Ireland!

He writes that, "the one lesson we have learned in the past 15 years of unbroken growth is that labour is a commodity that is totally subject to market forces. Only in the protected world of the state sector, where siptucanths still rule, is it possible to pretend that labour is immune to market forces. For the rest of us, market forces really do decide what we do and how much we earn for doing it."

Well, we do have to change with the times you know. Get with the programme!

"We". "Us". How convenient to lump himself in along with everyone else and pretend that he is in just as much danger of getting a pay cut or losing his job as an Irish Ferries' worker, or any other minimum wage employee in Ireland. Myers knows that his tired old opinion columns with their stable formula of bigotry/historical revisionism/slander will keep him well paid and comfortable till the day he retires. It is a far cry from the lack of job security and poor work conditions he and the rest of the crawthumpers would have most of the country toil under.

You cad! Where would this country be without Kevin? Who would we turn to for moral sustenance? He will never retire till his work is done! Never I tell you!

Well he won't as long as eejits like me keep talking about him, that's for sure.

Now either be off with you or fetch me my pipe.