Waterford Whispers News

by Colm Williamson

  ‘She seems sound enough. She only ever looks for two euros,’ said one pensioner, who admitted to regularly giving her money. ‘I wouldn’t blame her for not thumbing a lift home; there are some dodgy people out there these days.’

  One man speculated that Ms Harris may not actually be saving the money for her bus fare at all, but might be spending it on ‘her love for spoons’ instead.

  ‘I spotted her in a café asking for spoons last week,’ he recalled. ‘I bet she is one of those hoarders who spends all her time and money collecting spoons. The poor dear.’

  If you would like to make a donation to Ms Harris, she can be located at any car park paystation in Waterford city.

  Future serial killer beginning to tire of her parents’ bullshit

  FUTURE SERIAL KILLER Rachel O’Dowd is really starting to tire of her parents’ bullshit.

  Rachel, aged six, is struggling with the basic concept of empathy and she’s not being helped in the slightest by her parents’ implementation of ‘rules’, ‘showing respect’ and ‘bedtime’. In the end, it was the whole ‘play nice’ concept that finally sealed her parents’ fate.

  While Rachel’s drawings, show a growing fascination with the maiming of her father, she is still not entirely sure who to kill first. She is, however, quite sure that if she isn’t allowed ice cream before her dinner this, evening she will begin looking for a good place to bury the bodies.

  Rachel’s parents have been continually belittling her in front of other people, often bringing up details of her, personal life she doesn’t want shared.

  ‘Well, yeah, she is still wetting the bed, poor girl,’ Rachel’s mother was overheard saying on the phone to God-knows-who.

  The final straw for Rachel was being told to go to bed at 8 p.m. as ‘mummy and daddy have to go to bed too’ but as she lay in bed she could clearly hear her parents watching all the Iron Man movies back-to-back.

  Lifestyle

  How to get the Marty Whelan look

  Do you desire the attention of young single women while also craving the acceptance and admiration of your fellow man? Well then look no further than WWN’s latest fashion instalment which seeks to bring you closer to the wanton glamour and devil-may-care bosom of RTÉ legend Marty Whelan.

  It goes without saying that any urban female between the ages of 16 and 79 has had impure thoughts about the Nation’s sexiest piece of man meat, Marty Whelan. But, if you can’t be with Marty (sorry ladies, he’s spoken for) why not be him? That’s right, Waterford Whispers News has all the ‘deets’ on how to look like Ireland’s greatest walking wet dream, the Big M, aka Marty Whelan.

  Marty – or Dr Love as he is commonly known – is believed to shop in a variety of pricey boutiques in Dublin, chief among them Dunnes Stores and Marks and Spencer.

  Yes, to best resemble Big M you’re going to have to splash out but any price is a worthy price when the results could see you bed a woman after several months of courting and a concrete proposal of marriage.

  Shoes

  Slip-on shoes are Marty’s choice du jour – you’ll feel like you’re walking on air but really it’s just generic cotton from the heart of a Bangladeshi sweatshop. Marty wears a size 5 but you should of course go with whatever feels comfortable for you. Dunnes, €19.99.

  Trousers

  Or ‘slacks’ as Big M calls them. Beige corduroy is your only man if that man is Marty Whelan. Old, reliable, beige slacks have never let Marty down. Yes, they stand no chance against red wine but they provide generous shadowing on the crotch area, thus providing the perfect conversation piece. The salesperson will try to talk you out of buying the ‘slim fit’ option. Don’t listen – Marty didn’t and just look at him. Marks and Spencer, €34.99.

  Shirt

  Stripes prove slimming for many people but in Marty’s case they have the additional function of drawing your eye away from his third ear. You hadn’t noticed that, had you? Stripes really work and Marty’s preferred stripe colour is baby blue. This shirt says, ‘Why yes, it is business time but should I choose, at a moment’s notice, to jump in a taxi and go cruising the car parks of the coast road I would not appear out of place.’ There is simply no better shirt. It is the Everest of shirts and if that sounds too dramatic for you, simply choose a less dramatic mountain peak, such as the Sugar Loaf. Marks and Spencer, €31.

  Socks

  Marty’s customised ‘MW’ initialled socks are under lock and key but if your name is something like Michael Ward or Meabh Watkins and you own your own pair of initialled socks, they will serve as a suitable substitute.

  Hair/moustache

  While Marty has vowed never to reveal his moustache secrets, WWN’s spies have the inside track on the hirsute Hercules’ regime. To foster growth and thickness Big M smothers his lip-warmer in pig’s fat and ensures that the room he sleeps in is at a cool 13 degrees. We cannot stress enough the importance of the temperature. Black market pig’s fat usually retails at €12.99 per kilo.

  Additional

  To complete the look, there is one final thing any self-respecting Whelanite must do: Marty sets five minutes aside each night to recite, directly into a mirror, the inspiring and very appropriate ‘If’ by literary great Rudyard Kipling.

  If you can follow the advice above you will almost certainly achieve as much as 16 per cent of the life success of Marty Whelan.

  Facebook to launch ‘Hide X Factor posts’ setting

  Facebook has announced that it will introduce a brand new setting that will allow users to automatically hide friends’ X Factor-related comments and posts, turning the social network into a more desirable destination on the web.

  Founder Mark Zuckerberg announced the new setting as part of Facebook’s ‘Stamping Out Stupidity’ campaign at the company’s annual conference on 21 September.

  Zuckerberg is expected to expand on the new feature in the coming months, introducing other categories such as, ‘Man United fan posts on Sundays’, ‘Hangover posts’, ‘I’ve been to the gym today posts’ and the ‘I’m drunk on my own in the house so I’ll post my favourite YouTube music videos for the best part of the early morning’ posts.

  Sources say Facebook’s 750 million users will also be able to automatically hide drunken or misspelled posts from friends and family members. This new filter will no doubt be a driving force in the regeneration of the written language.

  While the world’s most popular social network has stated that it wants users to have complete control of their news feeds, Zuckerberg emphasises that the best way to totally erase idiocy from your Facebook is to delete your idiot friends.

  ‘There is only so much we can do about stupidity. We can give you the tools, but it’s really up to users to choose their friends carefully. The new settings will only hide specific posts and comments related to a certain subject. It will not hide plain stupidity,’ he said at the conference. ‘However, we are working on that one here in the USA, where we have plenty of test subjects to choose from.’

  Diary of a JobBridge intern

  WEEK 15

  Monday

  Finally got my cast off. Haven’t had the time to pop into the hospital. When I rang them today the nurse laughed and said I probably should have had it taken off weeks ago. Everyone in the office had a go at breaking it off, it was gas. Have a bit of a limp from their kicks. Will be back to normal in no time.

  Friday

  Ciara organised an office party for the launch of the new business supplement – Wolf of Wall Street theme. Not sure she ‘got’ the movie but anyway, there’s one part in it where they throw a midget dressed as a dart at a target. Ciara told me to dress up as the dart.

  Really didn’t want to but everyone told me to be a good sport. First couple of throws were funny, but Niall isn’t that coordinated so ended up throwing me into the printer, by accident I think. Limp’s getting worse now. Asked if I could have the day off tomorrow but Richard said someone needed to clean up all the evidence of cocaine use.
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  Sunday

  Leg is sore. Took a swig from Terry’s alcohol stash, seemed to ease the pain as I was cleaning. Looked up slave labour again on Wikipedia, finding myself more interested in it, dunno why. Had another cry in the toilets, probably just the lack of sleep getting to me.

  Issue 10

  WEATHER FORECAST

  Top temperatures of who gives a fuck?

  Unemployed man is refused raise by social welfare department for third time in six years

  UNEMPLOYED sports critic Alan Deegan has been refused a ‘raise’ by the Social Welfare Department, even though he has been with them for six whole years.

  The 27-year-old said this was the third time he had been turned down by the group, since signing up with them in 2008.

  Mr Deegan claimed that he was laughed at by a supervisor when he made his first request in 2010: ‘At that stage I was already with them two years. I thought it would be a good time to ask, like!

  ‘I never missed one signing-on day. I always dropped in whatever forms they needed. There shouldn’t have been a problem with me getting an extra few quid.

  ‘But when I told the supervisor what I wanted he just laughed and told me to get out of his fucking office. I have never been so humiliated in all my life,’ said the emotional father-of-one.

  The County Kilkenny man said he could not even face his missus with the bad news. ‘I just went straight to the pub. What else could I do? I couldn’t bear to tell her.’

  Minister for Social Protection Joan Burton said the Social Welfare Department could not give ‘a raise’ to the long-term unemployed, and that the idea of rewarding people for not being in work is ludicrous.

  Mr Deegan later retaliated by saying: ‘Unemployed people need incentives to keep them signing on every month.

  ‘It’s time unemployed people stood up to the social welfare system and threatened strike action,’ he added.

  ALSO IN THE NEWS

  Last resort – Bono to broker Israel/Palestine peace deal

  Met Éireann issue sticky scrotum warning for remainder of this week

  Some cunt in tractor set to purposely ruin every motorist’s day today

  Bullied First Years must ‘shut the hell up, or else,’ says bully

  RATTING OUT to teachers about ongoing physical or mental abuse within the school grounds has been branded as ‘entirely unacceptable’ by repeat Leaving Cert student Barry ‘Mucky’ Dunne.

  And he urged anyone who felt they had been harassed, bullied or abused to ‘shut the hell up, or else’.

  Dunne, who addressed the local school bus this morning, also said that he fully supported the concept of accepting donations from younger, weaker kids in exchange for protection.

  The 20-year-old son of a single mother referred to the publication of a recent school notice that indicated growing reports of widespread harassment of First Year students in the school.

  A study last year by former Leaving Cert student Thomas Piper found that 28 out of the 30 First Years interrogated up the back lane would gladly pay protection money or cigarettes to stop being bullied or harassed. Of those, 12 would gladly use their bicycles or scooters as a form of barter for protection.

  Dunne has recently set up a board to review how senior students in the school deal with allegations of bullying and harassment.

  This board is looking at current procedures for dealing with snitching, crying in class and non-payment of protection monies.

  Dunne raised the issue at a daily First Year beatdown at the back of the science lab building today.

  ‘This is what happens to mammies’ boys who go crying to the teacher because they got punched in the kidneys.’

  Holding a First Year in a headlock he added, ‘Everyone hates a telltale. Rats are rats and deserve what they get.’

  He said he wanted to emphasise the policy guidelines on interpersonal relations and the procedures for little shits who didn’t obey his law.

  ‘It’s simple. If you’re a telltale, you get a public wedgie in the yard. I won’t tolerate any excuses. We can do it the easy way or the “hard underwear friction up the crack” way.’

  Complaints about bullying cannot be made to any teacher or parent, he told them.

  ‘You pay your way, you survive the day. Otherwise you’ll be running home to ask mammy to rub Sudocrem on your bum-bum.’

  Dunne decided to repeat the Leaving Cert after he failed to get the 245 points for a forestry course in Athlone.

  Taxi driver forgets to complain about government to passenger

  IT SHOULD have been his time to shine, but unfortunately for taxi driver Alan Williams, forgetting to complain about the government to a passenger is one mistake he will never forgive himself for.

  The 56-year-old Larchville man was still in shock as he explained the extraordinary turn of events leading up to the fare.

  ‘I was reading the Sun newspaper, like I always do. Then, out of nowhere, some black fucker in a Toyota Corolla pulls out in front of me. He left me no option but to hit the brakes. So I beeped the cunt out of it, and do ya know what he did? He waved his hand at me as if to say “shoo, go away”.

  ‘The cheeky bastard probably got the car for nothin’ off the health board. Coming over here, raping the system and robbing our women.

  ‘And don’t get me started on those Romanians.’

  The traumatised taxi driver said he was left bewildered by the incident and vaguely remembers picking up his next fare.

  ‘I was gobsmacked. I picked up your wan outside Ardkeen hospital. She sat in the back and said she wanted to go to Superquinn. I don’t really remember much but I think I was mumbling to meself the whole way in. Giving out to that eejit in me head, like.

  ‘Before I knew it, she handed me a fiver and got out of the car.’

  After realising his mistake, Mr Williams tried to call the passenger back to briefly inform her about the state of the current government.

  ‘She was gone. I parked the car and ran, into the supermarket, but I couldn’t find her.’

  The father-of-nine admits it was his own fault for allowing himself to get so ‘overwhelmed’ by the previous situation.

  ‘It won’t happen again, I tell ya. My job is to inform the ignorant and illeducated people of this country about our corrupt government.

  ‘And to drive them around, of course,’ he added.

  WNN FACT OF THE DAY

  During the three-to-four working days it takes for a cheque to clear in a bank, couples are drafted in to make love on the money for good luck. The act is called a service charge and can be seen on your statement.

  Multi-billion-euro Ugg boot industry pushing wild Ugg to brink of extinction

  YESTERDAY’S SEIZURE by Gardai in Cork of €1.5 million worth of fake Ugg boots draws into sharp focus our continued and insatiable desire for the comfortable fleece-lined footwear.

  The slipper-like boot was popularised by American celebrities at the end of the 1990s, with a single ‘genuine’ pair retailing at anything from €60 to €100. The boots are now a €1 billion worldwide industry.

  What is largely ignored, however, is the devastating impact this industry is now having on the dwindling population of wild Ugg.

  The Ugg is a small, shaggy-haired species of mountain goat found mostly in the highlands of New Zealand’s North Island. Gentle and curious by nature, the Ugg was easy prey for the white settlers who discovered the creature in the 1920s.

  Venerated and protected by generations of indigenous natives – Ugg means ‘Fluffy Ghost’ in Maori – the Ugg herds had no fear of the white settlers who soon learned that the animal’s cotton-wool skin could easily be fashioned into ‘casual’ boots.

  As Ugg boots became part of Australian surf culture in the 1960s and 1970s, the price for Ugg fleeces increased exponentially, with hundreds of poachers descending on North Island each summer to ‘slug an Ugg’.

  By the 1990s, the Wellington government was forced to enforce strict measures to
control the dwindling Ugg population and built vast Ugg farms upon which 90 per cent of all Uggs now live.

  The life of the captive Ugg is short and unusually cruel. For reasons not yet fully understood, intense emotional distress causes rapid and lustrous fleece growth. As such, most young Uggs are torn from their mothers when they are three months and forcefed razor-sharp ‘noodle-glass’ until their fleece adopts that familiar ‘comfy and cosy’ feeling that modern women so selfishly desire.

  Wild Ugg, however, possess a rough, knotted fleece – producing a more rugged and long-lasting slipper boot – which has now become a fashion sensation in China.

  With prices for wild Ugg fleeces sky-rocketing in recent months, China has this week persuaded the New Zealand government (for an undisclosed fee) to allow ‘wholesale kill-fleecing’ of wild Ugg exclusively for the Chinese market.

  As wild Ugg now number in the low thousands, it seems we might well be only a matter of months away from the total disappearance of this wise and gracious creature.

  ‘There’s an old tale among us Maori,’ said High Chief Muramtan Egowawaw, in a telephone interview this morning. ‘When the great big mountains be empty of Ugg so too will the great big world be empty of men.’

  The mountains of New Zealand will soon be empty of wild Ugg. What then for the fate of wild man?

  Family furious as Danish zoo puts down ageing keeper

  A DANISH FAMILY was said to be ‘furious’ today after a Copenhagen zoo, which employed keeper Aaron Federsen for over thirty years, decided to put the father-of-four down, due to his age. He was 65.

  The zoo says it ‘had to euthanise’ Mr Federsen after he failed on numerous occasions to perform daily work routines. The man’s family claims the decision was not for his employers to take, and said he still had ‘another good twenty years left in him’.