Too lazy to even poke fun properly

Excuse my recent apathy. I wish I had a good excuse – but the truth is that (a) I decided that I cannot be bothered with ‘serious’ topics any more and (b) nothing much in the Manx news or even accounts of international religious idiocy has tickled my ribs recently.
The thing is, I once believed the local newspaper (and possibly even regional radio) could hold up a mirror to the community, chronicling its ups and downs, shining a vital light on dark doings and so on.
I now accept that this is no longer possible - at least in the Isle of Man. The local media is nothing but a nonsense box, reduced to reproducing the inanities of those who feed it most. So from now on I intend to leave ‘real’ journalism to those who live in delusions of a real world, and concentrate instead on surreally reporting the odd, the hilarious and the genuinely interesting.
However, the first details of one of the most cringeworthy weekends in the annual Manx leisure calendar have just been released (see http://www.isleofman.com/News/article.aspx?article=44436) and I cannot resist a quick smirk.
Oh dear!
Pardon my hilarity, but there is just something about the upper middle classes trying (and failing) so desperately to be hip that brings out the old Class War punk in me. I must have worked with more than my fair share of Tarquins and Gemimas in the Finance Sector over the last decade or so, and the funniest thing about them is their deluded leisure hour dabblings in everything from alternative therapy to world music.
Ahhh! Bless their cotton-wool brains. Where would the Manx New Age be without so many over privileged halfwits to keep it rolling around like an (upper) crusty full of bargain bin scrumpy?
I would poke fun – relentlessly – but by the oddest coincidence the Daily Mash has been taking aim at a similar target (see http://www.thedailymash.co.uk/news/society/new-festival-aimed-directly-at-twats-201203285064/ ), so I can just go and do something else instead.

Stamping out crime around schools

According to this story (see http://www.isleofman.com/News/article.aspx?article=34804 ) the Department of Miseducation and Child Abuse want to stamp out anti-social behaviour on school property outside of normal school hours.
Well, that’s good news, so being a socially minded person perhaps I can tip them off to a few of the worst culprits.
They could start with Ramsey’s infant school, where judging from screams which can be heard on the adjoining estate each Sunday morning, some awful form of mental abuse is going on. I know no-one brave enough to look in and identify the torturers or their methodology. All I can say is that a random collection of individuals with glazed eyes are seen to emerge soon after. Thankfully, I hear from another source that, having emptied the purses of most gullible victims to the extent that weekly takings are smaller than the petrol costs, the torturers may be calling it a day and concentrating on victims closer to their home base in Douglas.
I hear similar stories from workmates living close to two Douglas primary schools, and have also heard of teachers being approached by what they suspected were devotees of a sinister cult which is known to prey on substance abusers, the elderly, and the housebound in the Port St. Mary area.
Jurby is another deprived community reporting a cult making dummy runs at gaining Sunday access to the school. There it was even suggested a keyholder helped them, and that one culprit has been seen regularly entering the prison a few hundred metres away from the school. It wasn’t clear whether he smuggles illicit materials in or out of that particular institution, but the most worrying factor ought to be his well established links with the Department of Home Affairs, a shady organisation responsible for most (if not all) of the island’s worst crime.
Having been offered this information, maybe the police can now get some of the island’s most despicable characters off the streets, so respectable folk can go safely about their business.
Or is that too much to ask?

Once upon a time in the Western Isles

Living on a small, rainlashed, windswept, and bible-bashed island, it’s easy (especially on days when all three persist at once) to forget you are not the only one with such problems, and not even on the only island where they exist.
I was touched by a letter in this week’s National Secular Society Newsline from one Elma MacLeod. She’s a wee bit stressed, and I can’t blame her.
I thought the least I could do is reprint her letter, in the hope someone might send her a helicopter hidden in a bible…or something!
Elma writes:

"Finally – The Western Isles has appeared in Newsline. I had a telephone conversation with you last year about the local council here and its Sunday policies.
Now Caledonian MacBrayne is being attacked by the local hooligans from the Lords Day Observance Society. You told me that you could help with some publicity to expose the intolerable situation that goes on in these islands regarding the religious stronghold of a very vocal, aggressive and quite frankly bonkers minority. Please, please help us now. This needs to be told to the whole country.
British soldiers have died in the Middle East while trying to liberate a people from intolerance and religious fanaticism. We, here in the Western Isles of Scotland, are not allowed to swim in the local pool on Sundays, we are not allowed to play golf on our local golf course on Sundays, the cinema is closed on Sundays and we are not allowed to travel to another town across the minch for a day out with the family on Sundays. An official from the local Lord's Day Observance Society, the Rev I D Campbell said last week "no one has the right to come and go off this island as they please". This is not right. We need help. All we ask is a few basic leisurely pursuits.
The Western Isles Council behaves more like the Vatican than a local authority in a small island town. The councillors have lost sight of their actual role. Instead of being public servants, they behave like public masters. The council has its own laws and makes up its own commandments. The 11th commandment actually originated in Lewis and it is "thou shalt not take thy children to any of the local council run green areas on the Sabbath otherwise one of the local councillors will come out and cut thy football with a knife." Is there anything you can do? Please help – it's nearly Sunday Arrghh!!"

Poor woman. Living on the Western Isles sounds like being trapped in a lift with George Bush and Billy Graham - forever.