Tales Of The Gurrier

The polling cards arrived today. It’s not looking good for Golden Enda and the Man Rabbitte. Although the ‘national interest’ may mean the Rabbitte will get to ride the tiger yet. It’s not that I have any great faith in the Rainbow coalition, it’s that I think Fianna Fail and the PD’s are a gang of know nothing creeps and wasters who adhere to the bizarre and irrational belief they hold a divinely appointed right to be in government. Unfortunately a great many other citizens also hold this view and it’s their choice after all.

I hope the overheated media spew is wrong. I hope the polls are bollocks, but I know different. People like to win, they like to vote for winners, it’s human nature. Fianna Fail ensure their supporters feel they are part of a special community. That they are on the inside of the tent looking out at us tossers in the rain. It rains a lot over here, people like to be inside the tent. They have ham sandwiches and crisps in the tent. And Bertie will let you rub his Tiger if you promise to give him a dig out.

All politics is local, so the say and in Ireland it’s local and personal. Here’s an example of how it works:

In the summer of ‘98 I worked for Dublin Corporation’s Motor Tax office. It was a great Summer job for a student. That year I drew a short straw and ended up in the post room. Situated on the lonely uppermost floor of River House it housed several ancient tables laid side by side and an unkempt band of misfits, alcoholics, mad fellas and us lowly temporary clerical officers. On my first day I received my own letter opener, stapler and rubber bands and a brief explanation of the system. Sacks of post arrive in the morning, sacks of post are emptied on the table, you grab a letter, slit it open, sort the contents into a pile, rubber band goes around the pile, pile goes in the basket, basket is spirited off to the relevant department. Dull does not come close to describing it.

After a couple of months of this most of us were half mad. Escape from the tedium came from making fun of people’s driving licence photos (why do they make everyone look like a serial killer?) and duelling radio stations with Ultan, the resident Post Room shutin, who took medication that made him fart silently like a rancid stealth bomber and autistically kept the radio tuned to 98FM. Once every hour or so he would leave to stand in the corridor and stare into space. We would pounce on the radio and tune it to Phantom or some other station, depending on who got their first. On his return Ultan would sniff the air, let out a deathly silent fart and plop back into his seat. As the stench wafted about the room he would prick up his ears at the unfamiliar voice on the airwaves and plod to the radio in a thick smog of pollution to change it back to his beloved 98FM. This was the height of our day, so you can imagine Bertie’s letter caused great excitement.

It arrived with a driving licence application and stated clearly and politely that the Taoiseach of the country would be greatly pleased if we could facilitate the processing of his constituents application for a driving licence. That was it, no bribes, no threats, no promises. The application; a provisional licence for a young man, had nothing unusual about it, nothing out of the ordinary, no endorsements or penalty points. The young man, or more likely his mother had taken herself off to Bertie’s constituency office in Drumcondra and thrown herself at the mercy of her liege lord, er, I mean requested the letter. For our part we stapled the letter to the application and shoved it in the pile with all the rest, but not before we stuck a photocopy up on the wall for posterity.

What did Bertie gain from all that rigmarole? I’ll wager that gentleman and his family will vote for Bertie and Fianna Fail until the day they die, and until that day he will proudly tell everyone who asks how Bertie helped get him his driving licence, oh yes. The interaction with us, the licensing authority, had nothing to do with the social transaction that took place between Bertie and his voter. Humans like to be inside the tent looking out and Bertie has the biggest tent around these parts.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, May 22nd, 2007 at 5:31 pm and is filed under Bloggery. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.