The Gulag

Well now, wasnt that a lovely break we had for Christmas. Is everyone a stone heavier from eating way too much. The way too much you said that you would abstain from this year. Now that you have that way too much in your god like self you are now promising yourself you will go to the gym, you know, the one you cant afford.

Their Life
David: "Yeah Jessica I ate way to much this Christmas. I think I gained about a stone but Im going to start going to that super mega awesome gym that opened just down the road."
Jessica: "I know David. I too ate too much. That gym is a great idea I have already paid for it and Im heading this Wednesday for my first session."
David: "I may join you."

REAL LIFE
David: "Jesus Jessica I ate like a starved, diseased, toothless pig this Christmas. I must now weigh the same as a small boat. Im going to start going to that gym that that guy opened up in his shed 30 miles away."
Jessica: "I know David. I ate 7 boxes of chocolates, 3 boxes of biscuits, 8 trays of candy bacon, a small trailer worth of gone off chocolate decorations and a member of my family. I know the shed you are talking about. I have already paid the extraordinary entrance fees and I promised I would go on Wednesday but thats never going to happen."
David: "You fat bitch."

Now that we are all happy and back to work. We can all start dreaming about our futures again. For me my future for the time being seems to be based around my home town. Well its not really my home place. I grew up in a small and beautiful village called Holycross where there was not much to do as a child except swim in the local river or throw small cans out onto the road to watch them get crushed by cars and the like. The local town, my local town, is where I learned to throw bigger cans on the road.

Thurles
Dotted in the middle of Tipperary's landscape is the small, dirty, knacker filled town called Thurles. Its like a jail for the sociably unaccepted (perhaps me being included) and I have christened it "The Gulag" I spent the bulk of my teenage years here and it wasnt all bad. First drink, first smoke, first kiss and all of that malark. What i didn't like is that in the 11 years I have been hanging around this town nothing has changed bar a new set of traffic lights and a slightly bigger itinerant population.

Imagine being stuck in a town where nothing happens....ever and any time something does finally happen its immediately destroyed by drugged up hoodies driving around in their shitty starlets drinking Smirnoff fucking ice and listening to freaking crappy dance music. It is a town that holds some of my dearest friends and thats probably he best thing about it. I imagine that 300 years ago or so when the town was built that the guys laying the place out were all like "hey man this place looks pretty nice we should built a fort town here with cool walls n' shit." Now the only wall they would see is the graffiti riddled one out the back of a tesco and a river full of shopping trolleys, bin liners and the odd 3 eyed fish or two.

Im sure this is a reality for many an Irish young folk. We all make the best of it. In fact I remember me and my lawyer shimming up a tree to hide from a lady who's house was suddenly and mysteriously TP'd by someone who was defiantly not Conor, Alan and I. Enough said about that.

Redman