Ballso and Andra -and the revolution

I spent Christmas mulling over the responsibility of the serious blogger. At my age, I decided, I HAD to put my thoughts in order. The state of the country demanded no less. As a former hack, I realised the vital importance of a good intro and thus the festive season bubbled along without any definitive sentence coming to my rescue. History repeating itself.
The problem was that every time I peeped into the abyss, I was distracted by - hope?
This may well be a universal trait of humanity. We cling to the hope that something will turn up when, in fact, Corporal Fraser in Dad's Army got it dead on the nail . "We're doomed" he'd bellow, eyes twirling "Doomed". And that's pretty much where we are this first day of 2009. Nothing short of total revolution will do.
I am not one of these blood-thirsty types who fantasise about rivers of blood flowing from the remains of our former rulers. In fact I favour Mao's approach of transporting the lot - FF and FG without exception- to a remote and stony island, lashed by Atlantic gales, there to cultivate the soil . This will be essential because the prospect facing the rest of us is the dismantling of the State as we know it. All office holders, all recipients of permanent and pensionable jobs, all CEOs in semi-state industries, all holders of official credit cards, all the crutches of the corrupt state would be obliterated. This has to happen because if any trace of the patronage of the present continues, the mob will recreate itself.
These were the thoughts that buoyed me up over the last week or so, and highly diverting they were. For hardly had I started on the deep thinking bit than errant strands of thought intruded. Inevitably I'd begin with lists of favourite candidates for the chop. Before I knew it I was forced to introduce a system of alphabetical order in case any bastard escaped in the confusion. Some parts of it were easier than others. The obvious suspects went first, thereafter I racked my memory banks until the B categories were denuded and we moved on to the C's. As a way of lulling yourself to sleep this is infinitely preferrable to counting sheep.
And then , without warning I found myself looking out onto the lake from what used to be Murphy's kitchen window as Phyllis, between paroxysms of cigarette coughing, launched into a tirade against Balls O'Leary from Dalkey. There was no secret who Ballso was. He was her husband, Peter.
My aunt Eilish when goaded by unacceptable behaviour in others, would claim that they were up to their " andra martins". Maybe Andra was really Andrew but noone, to my knowledge, ever attempted to identify him. Both Ballso and Andra have been my companions as I drew up my blueprint for the brave new world of 2009.
Well - you have to have a laugh.