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Irish
Novelists, Poets Go On Strike
Sources described as 'tense' a meeting between SNUB
representatives and the government yesterday
SNUB
(Struggling Novelists Unite Because...), the union representing the nation's
blocked writers is threatening all-out industrial action if the government
does not up their dole immediately.
"I get my weekly book advance from my publishers on Sherriff Street
every Thursday," Sean O'hUanrachaiin-MacOgach-Byrne told the Gerald
today, "and it barely sees me through the weekend." He complained
that the government had singularly failed to do anything about the "shockin'"
price of second-hand tweed jackets and Sampson rolling tobacco, with only
those with rich parents able to afford the more upmarket Cutter's Choice.
"And
another thing," he added, "How the fuck am I supposed to write
a seminal novel of unparallelled breadth of vision if I can't even afford
to get drunk or take dangerous amounts of cocaine?"
Further worries were raised this afternoon when Dublin's -and, more surprisingly,
Carlow's - poets issued the following coded warning:
"O!
Lonergan's ghost would think it meet
When faced with stingy stately foe
To block the roads and bleat all day
To Charlie on the Six-One show
So
heed our pregnant wheedle-verse
enemies of adequate recompense
Give us what we want or we'll bust
The head off ye, yiz bollixes yiz."
A
caller to the Evil Gerald offices using a painfully pretentious code word,
Spycatcher or something, we can't remember, also made the following threats:
"If it wasn't for us youse wouldn't be able to rhyme at all. Whaddya
think about tha'? An wha' abou' tha' Shambo Heeeny fella? If it wasn't
for him no-one would even know who the Wolverine IS. D'ya know wha' I'm
sayin? It was us poets what started all this Celtic Toiger ting in the
first place annyway. Toiger Toiger/Up all night/What a load a bleedin
--." at which point the call was ended.
The
Winding Stair bookshop is likely to be badly hit as there will be no backup
service of badly-read, incoherent free-verse. Radio Anna Livia has plans
to axe half its schedule if the poets take action. "We'll be absolutely
fucked if they won't waffle for us," said a fevered station manager
SNUB is to picket at least twelve pretentious cafes in the city centre
from noon to six tomorrow. The areas worst hit will be around Parliament
Street and Temple Bar. Gardai have warned the public to steer clear of
the Irish Film centre as there is a high risk of dirty looks.
Charlie McCreevy just told everyone to go and feck off.
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