Waterford Whispers News

by Colm Williamson

  The 29-year-old carpenter texted several friends explaining his fears only to be accused of making an off-colour, non-PC joke at the expense of Ebola sufferers around the world.

  ‘I’m not, boi,’ explained Denis to WWN. ‘I looked up the symptoms and everything. I have the diarrhoea, the nausea and vomiting. Not bleeding from me eyes but you know, they are very bloodshot. Too blood-shot, you might say.’

  Denis made sure to cordon off his bedroom this morning, insisting his wife and three children ‘save themselves’ by leaving the house immediately for the rest of the day, and asking them to be careful not to slam any doors or cupboards as they left.

  Using the internet to check his symptoms, Denis was able to ‘confirm’ that he had contracted Ebola, despite recent efforts from medical practitioners to make ‘diagnosis via Google’ illegal.

  ‘I’m not sure I’ll make it through the day,’ shared Denis, who had by now moved the quarantine area to the couch in front of the TV and PlayStation 3.

  ‘I had so much I wanted to do,’ Denis said, crying into a tub of Ben & Jerry’s Cookie Dough ice cream. ‘I was going to try Nandos next time I was up in Dublin. So many regrets, so little living left to do,’ Denis shouted through his tears, seeming to forget all about his life-threatening symptoms for a moment.

  Storm sees Ireland blown 2.4km closer to Britain

  THE PEOPLE of Ireland are all too familiar with the sight of a fallen tree lying across a road or a river about to burst its banks following a series of unrelenting storms.

  The latest storm to descend on Ireland was extremely ferocious, resulting in millions of euros worth of damages. The Electricity Supply Board is working round the clock to restore power to nearly two hundred thousand homes left in darkness.

  However, the most worrying news to come out of this recent spate of bad weather is that Ireland has been pushed as much as 2.4km closer to Britain as a result of sustained winds measuring over 100kph.

  Met Éireann has provided regular updates on the severe weather conditions facing the country but has little in the way of answers as to why Ireland has moved closer to Britain.

  ‘In all my years at Met Éireann I’ve seen nothing like it. It’s terrifying to think that if this weather keeps up we could essentially be on a collision course with Britain’s west coast at some time in 2015,’ shared head of Met Éireann Liam Campbell.

  The government has yet to address the issue, which has left many members of the general public frustrated. While no contingency plan seems to be in place, a number of conspiracy theory enthusiasts have voiced their opinion on the bad weather.

  ‘It’s obvious that Britain attached some sort of pulling cable to Ireland’s east coast, hoping we wouldn’t notice. They are using the bad weather as cover but no one is willing to see the truth of the matter,’ said conspiracy buff Damo Hughes, before he trailed off while talking about chemtrails.

  Taoiseach Enda Kenny has rejected calls for Ireland to have a dedicated Minister for Weather as ‘that sounds a bit ridiculous’.

  Exclusive interview: ‘People walking around park think I’m well hard,’ says topless young fella with gold chain

  A YOUNG TOPLESS MAN wearing a gold chain around his neck and grey tracksuit pants said people walking around the park in Waterford today thought he was ‘well hard’ and he vowed to remain bare-chested for as long as the sun shines.

  The 23-year-old unemployed man, named locally as Patrick ‘Patch’ Hollihan, said nothing made him feel better than intimidating people who were ‘just out for a stroll’.

  ‘I do be starin’ them out of it, boi! Most of them pretend to look at their phones or the ground or something. I does get some fuckin buzz off it, boi!

  ‘Then ya get the wankers with the sunglasses on. You wouldn’t know what way they’re looking. So I fucking ask the cunts, “Whatcha ya fucking looking at four eyes?”

  ‘They nearly shit themselves, ha ha ha ha … fuckin’ clowns, boi!’

  Patch told WWN that he used to work as an apprentice block layer during the boom years but was laid off when the contractor he was working for was arrested for fraud and tax evasion.

  ‘I’m happy out now. I don’t have to get up early in the mornings. I’m me own man now. The fuckin’ dole is great sure.

  ‘If it’s a nice day, all I does is walk around the town with the lads, shoot some pool or just head to the park with a few cans of Dutch.’

  Patch went on to talk about how jealous some of his friends are of his physique.

  ‘The lads do be always slagging me about me muscles, callin’ me Schwarzenegger and tha’! I put in about four days a week trainin’. You’d need to be doin’ somethin’, boi!’

  During the interview Patch spotted a small group of boys in school uniform and walked over towards them. As he walked, I noticed that his feet seemed to push out to the side and his hands flailed outwards in a very intimidating fashion. It seemed as though he was trying to make himself look bigger. Like some kind of strange bird fluffing its feathers.

  He stopped in front of the boys and said something inaudible from where I was sitting. The boys bowed their heads and he suddenly gestured forward in a fighting stance. The boys ran off.

  Patch, chuffed with himself, returned to the bench where I continued to interview him.

  I asked him what he had said to the young boys.

  He replied: ‘Fucking young fellas these days, boi! I asked them if they were looking for a bit of shmoke and they said they didn’t touch the stuff.

  ‘But it was the way they said it, like they were looking down on me or somethin’. So I told them to get out of my park before I broke their fucking faces … ha ha ha.’

  Even Patch’s laugh was intimidating.

  He later claimed he was always the ‘hard man’ of the group and that he would regularly get into fights outside fast food takeaways and pubs.

  ‘I’m mad, I am. You should see me when I get going, boi! I’m an animal!’

  The young man went on to pity the people in the park who were afraid of him. He reflected on how it must ‘suck being such a pussy all the time’, walking around in fear like a ‘molested budgie’, hiding behind sunglasses so no one could see ‘their stupid eyes’.

  All the while, he was punching his left hand with his right fist.

  ‘I fucking hate them stuck-up bitches with their posh tracksuits and their designer shades. You know the deadly lookin’ ones you see jogging around with the pants painted on them. I’d love to …’ he then made pelvic gyrating motions.

  ‘If only they could see the real me. I’m not all that bad, boi!’ he added.

  As the day began to cloud over, Patch put on his tracksuit top and said he had to be home at six for his supper.

  He ended the interview with: ‘Better go, otherwise the mother will kill me, boi!’

  Lifestyle

  Wanker couple planning to let children run around pub for a bit this weekend

  A wanker couple say they are planning to let their three young children run around a Waterford pub this coming weekend, while they completely ignore them and skull a few pints.

  Parents Thomas and Jessica Morris told WWN that they will probably head out around 1 p.m. on Sunday afternoon to watch some football, and will let their children do whatever they damn well please while they’re there.

  ‘They loves it now so they does,’ said Ms Morris (24). ‘We’ll grab some chips and sausages for them and a bottle of fizzy orange – be grand.’

  The Morris children, Damo (4), Peggy (7) and Fintan (9) said they can’t wait to play Hide and Go Seek in the busy pub and run around like absolute fucking lunatics.

  ‘I loves scobbing at people eating their dinners,’ said Fintan. ‘Sometimes I pee on the plants in the beer garden,’ he added.

  The Morris family are expected to stay out for most of the day, before ringing a random relative to mind their children.

  ‘Sure the kids do be wrecked from all that running around so we’d
usually call someone to take them for the evening while we head into town,’ said Mr Morris. ‘Thanks to that stupid “no children past 9 p.m.” law we can’t bring them with us.’

  The unemployed couple said that they cannot afford a babysitter to mind their kids on the weekend.

  ‘We’re hardly going to send them to a créche after those abuse scandals now, are we?’ Mr Morris concluded.

  Reeling in the Years: Flanagan’s Internet café, 1934

  Due to his crackpot ideas, Thomas Flanagan was regarded as a madman in 1930s Waterford.

  His ‘Internet Cafe’ venture was so ahead of its time, it made absolutely no sense to the local people.

  Thomas spent hours trying to explain to people that one day a global system of interconnected computer networks would use a standard Internet Protocol Suite (TCP/IP) to serve billions of users worldwide.

  He struggled to describe it as a network of networks that would consist of millions of private, public, academic, business, and government networks, of local to global scope, that would one day be linked by a broad array of electronic, wireless and optical networking technologies.

  After four long weeks of ‘cold calling’ potential clients and pitching ‘bizarre photocopying tariffs’ to local businessmen, Mr Flanagan was finally arrested for harassment and sent to the local mental institution for an evaluation.

  He was the first Internet café owner in the whole world, as well as the first frontal lobotomy patient ever to be treated in Europe.

  WHATS ON

  TV PICK OF THE WEEK

  Martin King’s Favourite King

  Documentary: Thursday, 17.05 – TV3

  For no reason other than the fact his surname is King, TV3’s Martin King is asked to reveal his favourite ruler from a variety of royal families.

  Videos You’ve Already Watched on the Internet

  Humour: Friday, 19.30 – 3e

  3e’s new social media Twitter hashtag YouTube LOL-tastic offering shows videos that viewers have already seen on their Facebook feeds.

  Mass

  Religious: Sunday, 11.00 – RTÉ1

  Enjoy Mass live, since no one has ever thought to write to RTÉ to say, ‘Why the fuck are you showing Mass – put on a repeat of Knight Rider instead please’.

  Guy not sure if he deleted Internet history before leaving girlfriend in flat this morning

  A County Waterford man said he couldn’t be sure if he deleted his Internet browsing history before leaving his girlfriend in the flat this morning.

  Peter Dunne told WWN today that he is ‘very worried’ about what his new missus may find among the history of websites he’s visited on his laptop, especially since that history spans at least a five-day period.

  ‘FUCK!’ he said. ‘I didn’t think of it. I was late for work. She stayed over for the night and the laptop didn’t even cross my mind! I’m such an idiot!’

  Dunne believes his daily visits to porn websites AsianGloryHoles.com and Sluts-with-slugs.com may jeopardise his future relationship with new girlfriend Jenny Connolly.

  ‘Oh Christ! Me friend Damo stayed over last week and God only knows what shite he was looking at when I went to bed.

  ‘Fuck, fuck, fuck!! He’s into all that fisting granny shit!’ added the very stressed 34-year-old.

  Mr Dunne said he arrived into work at 9 o’clock this morning without a care in the world, but it wasn’t until he started deleting the cache on his work computer that he realised his mistake.

  ‘We had such a great night last night. She even asked me if I had looked at porn since we met.

  ‘Of course, I said no!’

  The Ferrybank man admits he religiously deletes his Internet history any time his girlfriend comes over to stay.

  ‘You have ta! Lacks are always snooping around the place when you’re not there. Sock drawers, under the bed, computers, you name it boy!’

  Diary of a JobBridge intern

  WEEK 28

  Tuesday

  Haven’t been writing this lately, just finding it a bit tough. Mainly doing my crying in the stationery closet. More privacy in there.

  Thursday

  Johnny Ryan barged into the office today. He was talking at me for a good while but I kind of glazed over, still trying to process that Mam is gone. He kept saying, ‘we’ll have to look after one another now she’s gone’. Must think WWN has given me the same treatment he got but I’m not sure. Still hasn’t got around to buying those pants. Paddy has been treating me a little better since Mam died. He’s stopped putting me on so many sixteen-hour shifts and I asked for a day off next month and he said he would think about it. Going to head up to Dublin I think.

  Saturday

  Result! Got a day off lined up for the end of the month. Think I might go up to Dublin in the end, maybe get a tour of Leinster House. Mad to think I haven’t been in it yet and I was up in DCU for four years. Toilets were clogged up today, had to put in a lot of effort to get it cleared, suit absolutely ruined though. Think I’ll look up where Joan Burton’s constituency office is for when I’m up in Dublin. Have a few JobBridge questions.

  Issue 16

  WEATHER FORECAST

  You wouldn’t put a fucking dog out in it.

  Sinn Féin promise to build Nation’s first nuclear warhead

  FOLLOWING positive results in the local and European elections Sinn Féin’s senior party members have already set their sights on the next general election.

  Revealing a number of new policies, Sinn Féin leader Gerry Adams took the bold but unsurprising decision to promise the Nation what it has always craved, a nuclear warhead.

  ‘For too long now,’ Gerry Adams said in that familiar voice you are now instructed to keep in mind as you continue reading, ‘the people of Ireland have been denied the chance to own a nuclear weapon. We at Sinn Féin want to change that. Look at Israel, sure nobody trusts those mad bastards but they have a few bombs so we should be all right with having at least one nuclear bomb.’

  Adams could not speak to any experiences with such devices but said ‘he knew a guy’ and may or may not have him on speed dial.

  While political correspondents rushed to condemn such a move, they also took the time to admit how awesome it would be to have nuclear capability.

  ‘Ah yeah imagine the craic we’d have pointing it at everything and making threats. We’ve never really had that option,’ Irish Times columnist Fintan O’Toole shared.

  ‘Even if we feck it up and it explodes by accident somewhere in Ireland, preferably Donegal, we would end up with a few superheroes from the fallout. It would be deadly in fairness,’ added Fionnan Sheehan of the Irish Independent.

  Sinn Féin’s election promise prompted discussion of where any nuclear codes would be stored and with whom.

  ‘We think the general consensus would be to leave them with Gay Byrne but in the event of his death they would be passed to the Nation’s mother, Anne Doyle. Failing that a random citizen would be chosen via lottery,’ a Sinn Féin spokesperson confirmed.

  Policy experts have dismissed the view that placing the codes in the hands of RTÉ stalwarts could see the nuclear weapons being used in future pay disputes.

  Adams has also denied claims that Sinn Féin would pre-program GPS coordinates on any missile with default instructions to aim for Buckingham Palace in London.

  ALSO IN THE NEWS

  Dáil enters its twelfth day debating ‘Ireland’s favourite colour’

  Stock market crash – 12 injured

  Latest Iona Institute research reveals homosexuals are the reason you’re late for work

  Knock pumps up security ahead of ‘rowdy’ pilgrimage

  THE ANNUAL pilgrimage to the town of Knock, in Mayo, sees as many as 150,000 people descend on the holy site where witnesses are said to have seen the most holy apparitions of Mary and Saint Joseph.

  While organisers are keen to welcome visitors with open arms for the nine-day pilgrimage, they have also released details of new,
stricter security for this year’s event.

  ‘Pilgrims have an awful tendency to get very competitive about seeing the apparitions,’ explained Carmel Doyle, one of the organisers. ‘One minute someone is pointing at Mary in the sky, the next some rowdy fucker is claiming to see Jesus on top of a unicorn having a sword fight with Napoleon.’

  Security measures will see those who attend checked for knives and other weapons, as well as non-regulation candles. The new checks are largely a response to an incident that occurred last year, when a member of the public smuggled in a cross for all attending priests to sign.

  ‘Last year’s event had only been under way an hour when fourteen people were arrested on site for disorderly conduct. Gardaí told me they have more men down here than they ever need for Oxygen, Slane or Electric Picnic,’ added Miss Doyle.

  She refused to comment on rumours that Cardinal Brady would be allowed to give a ‘testimonial Mass’ in an effort to give him one last chance to ‘rock the Knock’.

  Such is the level of disruption caused to the lives of locals during the pilgrimage that the council has raised an order for the removal of the apparition, a move that has led to clashes with pilgrimage organisers.

  ‘One year I had my house ransacked by Knock die-hards who had run out of holy water – they cleaned out five litres of the stuff from my house,’ revealed upset resident Noleen Andrews.

  It is rumoured that local firm Dolan Demolitions has secured the contract for the removal of the apparition from the site in Knock. When the company’s owner Derek Dolan was interviewed by WWN he seemed fully aware of the sensitive nature of such a task.

  ‘It will probably be the most difficult job we’ve undertaken in our thirty years in the business. There are a few factors to consider: for one, some of the lads I have working for me just don’t believe in God, so how they’re going to see the thing is beyond me.’