The Apes of Arse (End)

Sweary

Yeah, yeah. I know. Ireland’s going to hell in a handbasket, society is dithering down around our ears, and we’re haemorrhaging respect for our fellow man at a rate that would alarm Robert Mugabe. C’est epic disaster, like.

There are so many elements to this most heinous state of affairs – a government of fools who’ve lined their pockets so much they waddle into the Dail (apart from Harney and Cowen, whose waddling is down to a more self-indulgent design), a culture of greed and absolute belief in the right to own two cars and a holiday home, a two-tier society in all but wedding cakes, a celebration of mediocrity, a barely-hidden middle-class gak and alcohol problem… oh, and young fellas. Young fellas are fuckers. They’ll be the end of us all.

I was reading through Yahoo Answers or some such shite t’other day, possibly for genuine reasons but more likely because of an embarrassing addiction to problem pages, when I came across a submission by a young mum at the end of her tether. She felt like a prisoner in her own home because them next door had a young fella of fifteen or so, who often used to sit outdoors with his buds.

Eh? No, that’s it.

He hadn’t burgled, threatened, raped, set fire to or otherwise disrupted her life outside of sitting down in full view of her curtain-twitching ego. I’m mentioning this because there’s a million of these utter arses in Ireland, cowering in the Council estates, nitpicking through the byroads. And in case you’ve mistaken my tone for one of po-faced concern, I’m not referring to the fifteen-year-old neighbour.

So fucking what if there are teenagers outside your house/shopping centre/newsagents with their hoods up and their hands entwined in those of blondes with Croydon facelifts? Fair enough, I concur that there are a lot of wee hooligans out there, and that they wander towards the feral sooner than the idea would have occurred to us fogeys, back in the day, but not everyone with acne is a fucking terrorist! My suggestion to those of us held hostage in our homes by our snooty fucking stupidity is to stop calling the Joe Duffy show and start working towards the recognition of the social needs of young adults – because without youth cafes, or skate parks, or hideous discos, where the fuck else are they going to go but the low wall twenty yards from your front door, where theyfling testosterone about, roll collapsible joints and twang bra straps in relative peace?

You lot might let me know. Were we always afraid of young fellas and the unfortunately fertile young wans cuddled into their Lynx-coated armpits, or is our discomfort around them something attributable to upward mobility? Gangs of sniggering youths outside Supermacs are uncontrollable, greasy, and contribute the the disintegration of the value of your house, after all, and if their parents have let them out for the night in neon baseball hats then surely their parents are nasty, council estate types, afeared of nobody and possibly desperate to stab you with a syringe for junk money? I know back in the day we could kick around the communal green any young fella who threw shapes in our general direction; dads would only agree with you, and kick wee Gary back home from your altercation in support of your choosing to inflict henious physical abuse on their offspring. Now, of course, we are likely to be sat on by loud-mouthed mothers with the Guards on speed dial if we dare but shout an “Oi! Stop that!” at young Gary… there seems to be more to it than that, though. There seems to be something akin to… I dunno, a social divide we’re intent on fabricating, bolstering and intently maintaining, a horrid hangover from the Celtic Tiger based on a paranoid oneupmanship.

Either that or we’re allergic to sportswear all of a sudden.