DISTANT VOICES, STEEL LIVES

IT MAY come as some surprise to my devoted readers that Sam Snort is a student of history. (I can’t imagine why – Ed). It occurred to me about six months ago that a few things had happened in this world before the invention of rock’n’roll which might be of some vague interest.

Not much, mind. Not much.

But sufficient to stimulate the Snortian mind. (I was getting worried for a moment there – Ed), and to inspire the sensitive analyst to revise and re-consider the public image of certain notorious personages.

I was intrigued, for example, to read about the intervention of the Black And Tans at a pivotal point of Irish history.

Now, the Tans have got a very bad press over the years, being described as thugs and hooligans from the arsehole of England, who strutted around Ireland causing mayhem and bad craziness.

On reflection, Sam Snort takes a somewhat different view, and it goes like this: When you consider what those Black And Tans were up against, they were men of steel!

So they burned Cork to the ground. So fucking what! I’m sure that at the time, burning Cork to the ground seemed like the easiest, yes, and the most efficacious way to encourage a bit of badly needed and long overdue urban renewal.

The place was full of fucking Catholics and craw thumpers and G.A.A. supporters, and men by the name of Billa. Fuck them! Burn the bastards out! Teach them a bit of manners.

GOOD HEAD

In honouring the gallant Black And Tans, I must also put in a good word for the much-maligned Oliver Cromwell. My extensive readings have led me to take the view that Oliver was a fundamentally decent man faced with impossible odds, and that, eventually, he did the right thing. He massacred Catholics.

There is a certain stage at which Sam Snort tires of the Catholic ethos, usually when the motherfuckers open their mouths to speak. I hate fucking Catholics, man, and I hate fucking them, on the bizarre occasions when they offer their cobwebbed love-canyons to me Snortian pecker, having first mumbled a few prayers for forgiveness.

The Lawd may forgive them, but Sam Snort will not. He’ll fuck them and he’ll forget them. But they will not forget him, or his truncheon of leurve.

Thus, I can deeply sympathise with the world view of my good buddy Oliver Cromwell. The Blessed Oliver Cromwell, if you like. When you consider what he was up against, he was a man of steel!

There is another Blessed Oliver, the Blessed Oliver Plunkett, whose head can be found in a church in Drogheda, as a kind of monument to the indomitable bad taste of Catholics everywhere.

If they had presented his pecker, there might be some excuse. I am sure that in 400 years time, the porksword of Sam Snort will be displayed in some sort of tabernacle and worshippers will kneel in adoration, speechless and in awe of a time when men were men, and eighteen inches was something to be venerated. Queue here for a rub of the relic!

With Plunkett, you just have his head. He gives good head. But only after they chopped it off for the perfectly good reason that he was an extremely irritating Catholic sonofabitch. I salute them, and admire their no-nonsense attitude.

Oliver Cromwell, by contrast, took one look at Drogheda and torched the fucking place to a cinder. Good call, Olly! Another fine mess you gotten them into. And rightly so.

GOOD TIME

Continuing on this summary of Sam Snort’s Civilisation, soon to be a 24-part BBC2 documentary, I couldn’t help but notice the bad reviews that Rasputin has been getting for his perfectly reasonable efforts to fuck everyone in Russia, and eat their remains.

The Mad Monk, they called him.

Well, your common-or-garden monk spends his life living in extremely anti-social conditions where babes are barred, in the company of a load of other monks making honey and digging the garden and milking cows and pulling their wires.

Ra-Ra-Rasputin thought that he could better fulfill his monkly duties by drinking a lot of absinthe and having the Empress sit on his face.

So you tell me who is the fucking Mad One here. It ain’t my man Rasputin, soul brother, solid sender.

When you consider what he was up against, he was a man of steel!

Then there’s Caligula, regarded by historians as a bad piece of work, just because he fucked a lot of people who were related to him, and made his horse a Senator. Jesus Christ, it sure beats making Donie Cassidy a Senator.

In all of the knee-jerk condemnations of the behaviour of this lively character, I see nothing described that, say, my good buddy, Elvis wouldn’t have contemplated during his late period, or that Jimbo Morrison wouldn’t have willingly and enthusiastically done if the fucking pigs weren’t hassling him.

Other Roman Emperors were responsible for human slaughter on an unbelievable scale. They were racist, sexist, and they stole from the poor. And yet, the ones who get all the flak are my man Caligula and the underestimated Nero, who just wanted to have a good time.

When you consider what they were up against, they were men of steel!

Sam Snort knows this, and can recognise steel throughout the centuries, when it is displayed.

They say that the Snortian pecker is made of steel, but they are wrong. It is harder. It will live for a thousand years.

• Your Ever Lovin’ Rev. Samuel J. Snort S.J.