It is understood that the Inland Revenue, having heard of the success of a similar scheme in southern
Drumming up the Revenue
Funny Old World
A Farewell to Legs
In a long career of processing Business Start-Up applications, Sheila had never before handled one like this. The client contended that he was proposing to serve a long-neglected and highly put-upon section of the community, the persistent drunkard.
Independence Revoked!
Be advised that by decree of H M Government at
She’s a humpy one!
There was a time when most weddings of these parts were
arranged and success depended mainly on the size of the dowry. Love matches then on’y had a chance if the young couple became ‘runaways’. But that’s another story.
There was a match made and the oul’ fella was going to give one hundred pounds of a dowry with his daughter!
One hundred pounds!!
Now that’s when one hundred pounds WAS one hundred pounds, I can tell ye!
But anyway, he says,
‘When you see her, you might not like her!’
‘And for why?’ says yer man.
‘Why do you think I wouldn’t like her?’
‘Well,’ he says, slowing down a bit,
‘I’m giving you one hundred pounds, along with her,
for she’s got a wee bit of a hump on her!’
‘Tell me’, says yer man,
‘You wouldn’t have one wi’ two humps on her, would ye?’
I’ll put horns on ye!
There was a man one time these parts, be the name of Sheepman. This was on account of he’s working for sheepmen in Camlough.
Sure he was all over the country and when he got home he was all the time drunk. The priest came up to him one night,
‘How about going home to yer wife and family?’ he shouted.
‘The next time I see you in this condition, I’ll put horns on ye!’
‘Ah sure, now Father, that wouldn’t do at all, at all.’ The Sheepman said.
‘The work would never be done!
Sure every time I’d pass, I’d be tearing the ar*e out of yer trousers!’
Rat on a string!
Even to this day, people in nationalist areas react to a passing foot patrol of soldiers (or police) by ignoring its existence. No reaction. If a patrol member attempts to draw attention by calling out, or passing the time of day, he receives no response. Even if there are ‘wolf-whistles’ directed at young females, the reaction is studied non-reaction.
Follow the fishes’ FARTs
Talking of Brannon’s Ghost that was known for breaking ‘wine’, I read the other day of the results of a scientific study in Vancouver into the utilization of this bodily gas expulsion by shoals of fish for communication purposes.
‘It sounds like a high-pitched raspberry!’ Ben Wilson told a convention of aquatic scientists, ‘And is caused by bubbles coming out of a herring’s anus.
For decades we’ve wondered how shoals of fish kept together at night and now we know,’ he concluded triumphantly.
‘They emit a Fast and Repetitive Tick which enables them to communicate after dark. This is useful in commercial as well as scientific research for now fishermen should be able to locate shoals of herring at night simply by tracking their FaRTs.’
Dennis Higgs of the University of Windsor in Ontario commented,
‘I’d not have thought it, but fish do very strange and diverse things’.
I was tempted to tell him of this friend of mine (well, acquaintance!) who, after six pints of Guinness, could render a full verse of ‘White Christmas’.
But I didn’t wish to encourage him.
Well, either of them actually!!
Fumbling Robbers
The restaurant clientele was naturally fearful and concerned when three armed and masked men appeared at the door, intent on robbery. When the robbers failed to gain entry, people inside became puzzled.
Customers had entered easily. The large notice said [SLIDE] so they simply slid the reinforced glass door to one side. These guys tried pushing – then pulling. Then they put their collective shoulders to the door.
Geese for the Cooking?
These two neighbour men were forever falling out over a right of way. The problem was that one had to get through the other’s fields to get to his own. The thing was resolved in a peculiar way!
He put he’s coat and boots on and walked to town. In the lawyer’s office he stated his case and gave his name and address and that of his neighbour and rival. When he heared all the in’s and out’s of it,
‘Man!’, he says, ‘Begor, och aye, but ye have the great case there entirely! Shure we’ll win that aisy!’
(That’s the way them soliciting men talk. Didn’t ye know?)
He agreed till take the case and the man walked home to Fathom.
Meanwhile didn’t yer other man, not to be outdone, walk into Newry too to get he’s own lawyer.
Hell’th o me sowl, if he didn’t pick the self same lawyer as the first man, who was now back working he’s farm. When he’d heared all the in’s and out’s of it and was given the same names and addresses as before, why, even the lawyer man caught on it was the same case.
Well, that left he’em wi’ a dilemma for he couldn’t fight the same case for the two of them. He thought a wee while about it.
‘Man!’, he says,
‘Begor, och aye, but ye have the great case there entirely!
Shure you”ll win that aisy!
The on’y thing is, I’ll that busy I can’t take yer case.
BUT …
I’ll give ye a letter to take till another lawyer.
Besides meself, he’s the best lawyer in Newry.
He’ll fight it fir you.’
Hell’th o me sowl, but if yer man, no sooner than he got outa that office, didn’t he open the letter in a yard nearby and read it.
‘I’ve got a hoult of two fat geese from the country’,
it read,
‘You pluck this one and I’ll pluck t’other!’
Divil the step did he make for the other lawyer’s office at all but made a bee-line home an’ up to his neighbour’s farm.
The neighbours and former friends settled the trouble between them then and there, shook hands and never the cross word after.
An’ isn’t it a tarrib’ pity the young married wans couldn’t settle their differences the same way instead o’ making them soliciting men even fatter and richer?