Waterford Whispers News

by Colm Williamson

  The newly-awarded star could well prove a boost to business as customers flock to sample the menu Michelin called ‘sumptuous – a divine descent to pastures of pleasure not felt since the opulence of the Roman Empire’. High praise indeed.

  While Supermac’s have no immediate plans to hike up their prices in light of the award, some regulars to the fast-food outlets have their doubts.

  ‘I’ve been backing them since day one. Day one, son. If they even think about raising the price of the Mighty Mac Burger I’ll be spitting fire,’ shared a worried Tommy Doyle, lifelong Supermac’s customer.

  ‘They better not be getting fucking fancy with it,’ offered Linda Burke, another restaurant regular. ‘If they stop me going in there in my pyjamas, that star will find itself up someone’s hole.’

  Desperately Seeking

  USELESS MUSCLEMAN would like to meet the kind of woman who could oil this big boy up. Squats twice his body weight and can cook stuff, but not complicated stuff. Do you like stuff too? ☎085-702-####

  TINY BABE craves a muscle-bound man who can pick her up and dominate in the bedroom. Sexy and curvy in all the required places. Has a bit of baby fat but this will be gone in the coming months due to imminent stomach reduction. No smokers. ☎086-345-####

  Lifestyle

  Foreign nightclub toilet attendant declared ‘pure sound’ by drunk

  Part-time toilet attendant and civil engineering student Jeta Iroegbu is ‘pure sound’ according to one patron of Pontificate nightclub in Burkle, County Leitrim.

  The declaration by Danny McHannard came after a lengthy interaction in the popular venue on Saturday 8 February, during which the unemployed souse treated Mr Iroegbu to a stirring rendition of ‘Reach for the Sky’ by S Club 7 while helping himself from a bowl of Chupa Chups.

  ‘See that Nigerian lad in the jacks, hey,’ announced Mr McHannard while consuming a garlic cheese chip at a taxi rank later that night. ‘He’s … he’s one pure sound hoor. I do have the craic with him, he’s some lad.

  ‘Some of them Nigerians wouldn’t talk to you at all but this lad is pure sound. The odd night he does turn a blind eye to me sneaking in a lassie and getting my ashes hauled in the cubicles. Some of them Nigerians would throw you out for that. Some of them aren’t sound, but Sheamie is. That’s what I call him, Sheamie. He has some qware Nigerian name I can’t pronounce, so that’s what I christened him. He thinks it’s gas!’

  Eager to congratulate Mr Iroegbu, we caught up with him at closing time, as he swept up broken bottles in the empty nightclub.

  ‘Do not talk of that man to me,’ exclaimed Jeta, who is actually from Cameroon. ‘I am trying to work so that I can make money to help pay for my studies. He comes in drunk, sprays Joop all over himself and then insists that they should sell Lynx Africa in Africa.

  ‘Or he stands there using half a tub of Brylcreem and asks me if Barack Obama could win a fight with Wesley Snipes. Then he walks out patting his pockets telling me he’ll “look after me later” because he has no change. As he says this, I can hear the change jingle in his pocket! Next time you see him, tell him he is barred!’

  WATERFORD LAD

  ‘Some fucking slap off them new bangers floating around the town’

  Waterford city young fella, Jamie Lonergan, has warned his peers today about the strength of a new batch of Ecstasy tablet being distributed around the town, stating, ‘there is some fucking slap off them’.

  Mr Lonergan made the claim following a massive session over the weekend and urged anyone buying the new pills not to ‘double-drop’.

  ‘I got a rake of them off a lad in Larchville on Friday cause I was meant to be going to a christening over the weekend,’ explained the 22½-year-old. ‘I made the mistake of neckin’ two of them as I was about to head out and just ended up chewing the jaw off meself on the couch for the night.’

  The unemployed pharmacist told WWN that he had no recollection of the night’s events and could only briefly describe the tablet.

  ‘They were green with little speckles in them and had a ghost or something printed on them,’ he said. ‘I’d take them again now but I wouldn’t be fucking that many into me.’

  Sources close to Mr Lonergan said he was in an ‘awful hoop’ at the weekend and kept speaking to people who weren’t even there.

  ‘He was mad out of it so he was,’ said friend and confidant Jayo Morgan. ‘He looked like Sloth from The Goonies at one stage and started talking to the fridge and then hugging it.’

  It is widely speculated in the drug-user community that green or blue pills have a higher MDMA level than most other pills, and are extremely sought after when available.

  ‘I’d gladly pay €7 a pop for them things,’ added Lonergan. ‘There’s a nice clean bang off them and you’d be up for hours on the yokes.’

  Grown man insists on dressing up as a footballer every weekend

  Thirty-two-year-old father-of-two Daniel Corcoran once again donned his full Liverpool strip in some bizarre retreat into an adolescent mindset this weekend.

  His wife Ciara was yet again left dumbfounded when her usually intelligent, bright and self-deprecating husband chose to dress up as a footballer on Saturday afternoon.

  Daniel, a self-confessed ‘lifelong Liverpool fan’, has apparently been dressing up as a footballer every weekend for all his adult life and can now be found in full Liverpool kit on some Tuesdays and Wednesdays.

  ‘I wondered for a while whether he was developing some sort of psychosis,’ admitted Ciara to WWN. ‘But outside of this strange routine he manages to hold down his job and is an engaged and loving person.’

  Ciara went on to explain that she often found Daniel would be withdrawn while wearing the red jersey, lacking any investment in conversation, and instead choosing to shout at the TV as if he was somehow able to effect change in the game unfolding before his eyes.

  ‘It got to the point where if I saw him wearing the jersey and shorts I would cancel any visitors to the house. I just didn’t want them judging Daniel, like – he is so grounded and normal the rest of the week,’ Ciara said before beginning to cry.

  ‘What am I supposed to do? Go to the doctor and tell him my husband dresses up as Steven Gerrard, a 34-year-old man he has never met but inexplicably worships? I’m at a complete loss about how to deal with this.’

  Diary of a JobBridge intern

  WEEK 9

  Monday

  Maureen’s gone to Lourdes with her son. Paddy told me she was let go because of all the work she is missing and it was up to me to man reception full-time. Not actual ‘full-time’ though, still on JobBridge but I think something good will come out of it. Was messing about with the calculator on my phone – based on my average 75-hour week, I’m making 3 euro an hour. When I told Mam she said, ‘What’s your point? Are ye afraid of a bit of hard work then?’

  Wednesday

  Paddy said he needed me tomorrow in his office and to bring a notepad and a pen. I think it might be happening, I think they might send me out to do some reporting. I know I’ve moaned a bit, God, we’re such a country of moaners, but JobBridge has worked out well, all in all. No more reception, no more lunch orders, no more cleaning shit off the floor in the men’s toilets. Finally kicking on. Mam says if I was half as good as I think I am I would have been made full-time ages ago.

  Thursday

  Paddy said he needed me to take notes for his next few meetings. First meeting was with Ciara Canning. She was two years behind me in DCU but don’t think she recognised me ’cos she didn’t correct Paddy when he called me ‘Trev’. She’d been working in promotions but was trying to get back into journalism. The meeting started to sound more like an interview. Paddy asked Ciara a few basics but got a bit more specific when he asked her what she thought was appropriate office attire. He was quite thorough, went through every conceivable piece of female clothing.

  Issue 7

  WEATHER FORECAST

  Sunny conditions may encourage
tossers to drop the roof on their convertibles.

  Pope’s first year in charge marked with an absolutely cracking Mass

  A PACKED St Peter’s Basilica bore witness this morning to what many have called one of the topten Masses of all time.

  Pope Francis, celebrating his first year in charge as pontiff and leader of the Catholic Church, said Mass in front of an enraptured audience made up of rich and poor alike.

  The Mass, described by the Irish Catholic newspaper as ‘a belter’, saw the Pope enter through a cloud of smoke and soundtracked by disco hit ‘Heaven Must be Missing an Angel’ by Tavares.

  Departing slightly from his understated reign thus far, the Pope was full of the showmanship more often found at the best and brightest Las Vegas shows.

  Reading from the Old Testament, Pope Francis occasionally looked up to wink playfully at members of the congregation. He later ran down the centre isle of the Basilica high-fiving all in attendance.

  ‘While it goes against all we know of him to date, I did think the throwing of Communion into followers’ mouths from varying distances was a nice touch,’ shared the Irish Independent’s religious affairs correspondent June Kenny.

  ‘I defy anyone to cite a more electrifying delivery of the Eucharistic Prayer,’ offered Archbishop of Dublin Diarmuid Martin.

  The highlight of an absolutely cracking Mass was, for many, the sign of peace, which saw the Pope take to the skies with the help of stunt wires. He hovered over the crowd for several minutes before shaking hands with a homeless man who had attended the Mass.

  Cries of ‘one more Mass, one more Mass’ were heard for ten minutes after the Pope’s departure from the altar but like any true showman Pope Francis knew to keep the crowd wanting more.

  ALSO IN THE NEWS

  Irish men pretending to like NFL just in time for the Super Bowl

  Garda inquiry as bestiality ring infiltrate ploughing championships

  Death of young woman made even more tragic by the fact that she was ‘a fine thing’

  Fears grow for ‘Lourdes Girl’ following shocking viral video

  A VIDEO of a woman receiving Communion up to ten times at a single Mass while on a pilgrimage to Lourdes has sparked outrage after it went viral yesterday. The woman, believed to be Irish, had no idea she was being filmed at the time and fears are growing for her safety following yesterday’s media frenzy.

  One of the world’s most popular pilgrimage sites among Catholics aged 50 to dead, Lourdes has long been associated with apparitions of Our Lady and the miraculous healing powers of the water in the grotto. Millions of Catholics flock to the site all year round, and attend the hourly Masses in the many basilicas and churches that adorn the sacred site. It is in one of these churches, believed to be the Church of St Bernadette, that the four-minute video, posted on Facebook yesterday, was shot.

  In the clip, which has since been taken down by Facebook, a woman in her fifties can be seen going up to a priest for Communion before taking her place at the back of the queue and going up again. As the video progresses, she receives Communion at least ten times. Dubbed ‘Lourdes Girl’ by the media, the woman was yesterday subjected to vile taunts by online commentators as well as blanket media coverage by tabloid newspapers with nothing else to report on.

  ‘I think it’s a disgrace, how can she do sumfin like this?’ asked one Twitter user, echoing the views of thousands more – ‘Religious people make me sik, she shouldn’t be doin this!!’

  Further tweets suggested that the woman may have been tricked into going for Communion so many times, or that she may have been under the influence of too much holiness.

  As the family of the woman rally around her in this difficult time, questions are being asked about the behaviour of pilgrims to Lourdes, whose town motto is ‘What happens in Lourdes, goes with you for life with the blessing of Our Lady’. Many Twitter users last night sprung to the defence of the woman, claiming that the media were just looking for someone they could shame in order to write lurid headlines and sell papers.

  ‘Look, she was in Lourdes so she knew what she was doing,’ tweeted one Lourdes Girl supporter, using the hash tag #IMWITH-LOURDESGIRL.

  ‘If she wanted to get Communion ten times, that’s her business. Nobody is asking questions about the guy who filmed her, or the priest who gave her the Communion. Y is it always the girl’s fault? #DUALSTANDARDS.’

  In an exclusive interview with all major news outlets, Cardinal Gustav Vasquez, head of security in Lourdes, spoke of the incident and how it should not deter others from making the trip to the holy site.

  ‘Some people just can’t handle Lourdes,’ said Vasquez during the nine-hour press conference. ‘We get a lot of sick and elderly people coming here, and they are all here for the same thing – to celebrate their Catholic faith. Sometimes they go for too much Communion, sometimes they bless themselves too often. If someone makes a secret recording and posts it online, it will shock people sitting at home. But the people in Lourdes? They have made a decision to come here and act this way, so it is nobody’s business but theirs.’

  WNN FACT OF THE DAY

  Dáithí Ó Sé has been responsible for the invention of all new Irish words since 2009. ‘An Facebook’, ‘Twittereacht’, ‘Fuck-chairde’ and ‘Snapchatalainn’ are among some of the words he has added to the lexicon.

  Man illegally downloading movie for first time keeps looking over shoulder

  GALWAY NATIVE Stephen O’Brien is on the run from police following his decision last night to download a movie illegally using his laptop and the power of the Internet.

  O’Brien, a 26-year-old secondary school teacher, who had toyed with the idea of illegal downloading for several years without ever taking the plunge, now finds himself a fugitive.

  A night of nervously looking over his shoulder finally resulted in O’Brien turning to a life of crime as he left-clicked his mouse, changing his life forever.

  ‘I shouldn’t even be talking to you right now,’ a rather dishevelled O’Brien shared with WWN. ‘I never should have, bloody downloaded the thing. You know the way you just get the feeling somebody’s watching you? The guards obviously had, my Internet tapped or something. I knew they had me caught red-handed. This is all my mate Dave’s fault. If that fecker hadn’t showed me how to do it I’d be an innocent man.’

  While O’Brien – now hiding out behind some bushes – contemplated a life on the run, we spoke to his friend, the downloading mastermind known only as ‘Dave’.

  ‘Yeah, I download the odd thing,’ the twisted criminal admitted to WWN.

  ‘Oh Stephen? Yeah he said he couldn’t get Charlie’s Angels: Full Throttle anywhere, so I showed him a site.’

  WWN contacted local Gardaí who said that while they couldn’t comment on an ongoing investigation, they could confirm that they had set up a special task force to deal with a Charlie’s Angels-related matter.

  Garda bugging contains over 400 hours of calls to takeaways

  ALTHOUGH THE NATION is still trying to wrap its head around recent revelations of Garda bugging, further details are now emerging.

  We now know that, unbeknownst to the government and general public, ingoing and outgoing calls in the vast majority of Garda stations have been secretly recorded. The bugging system was upgraded to a digital one in 2008.

  WWN can now exclusively reveal that of the 2,500 tapes on record, some 400 hours are filled with Gardaí placing orders with local takeaways for breakfast, brunch, lunch, that little meal before dinner, dinner, second dinner, supper, late-night snack, midnight snack and late/early breakfast.

  There is widespread speculation that Gardaí spent 40 per cent more time talking about what they were going to eat than talking about crime but the figure cannot be confirmed by WWN at this time.

  While it is still unclear who exactly made the decision to forgo the constitutional rights of the Nation’s citizens in order to secretly record calls, we can now conclusively prove that the Garda�
�’s spend on takeaways every year is close to the net income of a small African republic.

  The most popular item ordered by Gardaí seems to be the ‘Battered Burger’. However, the precise figure is not known as the audio quality on some of tapes heard by WWN was quite poor. It often sounded like individual Gardaí were ordering as many as four burgers for themselves at one time, which would of course be a fatal batter dose.

  Takeaway owner Mario Duffy admitted to the media that, while he appreciated the business, he felt the sixty-minute-long orders took their toll on him over time. ‘In another world I could say this is harassment, an obsession, but I felt I needed to stay quiet for my own safety,’ shared the troubled takeaway owner.

  What this latest bit of emerging information means for the impending investigation is still unclear.

  Bad behaviour in kids linked to being ‘spoilt little shits’, finds study

  EARLY SIGNS of bad behaviour in children are said to be directly linked to them being ‘spoiled little shits’. In contrast, children who are not ‘spoilt rotten’ by their parents and extended family are less likely to create publicly embarrassing situations during childhood.

  The study suggests that traditional notions of ‘discipline’ and ‘not giving children everything they ask for’ have a solid scientific basis.

  Psychologists at Oxford University who carried out the study, also suggest their findings could help explain the origins of Little Shit Syndrome (LSS), with lazy, fat-arse types who are too selfish to care about their children’s wellbeing being more likely to ignore the basic rules of parenting, thereby causing LSS to develop in their children.