other smaller English indie bands, also an interview with Sammy Jacob, the programme director at Xfm London. Scattered around the edges of the freesheet are club, gig, and recording studio advertisements, which is fair enough when you consider that for this issue they had a run of 50,000. Not bad at all. 54/56 Compton Street, London, EC1V 0JE. Organ 51 and 53, one pound and free respectively. Organ is London's top zine, and shifts about 10,000 units per issue, no easy job that. 51 is the same as usual, hundreds of gig, LP, single, demo and fanzine reviews and band interviews, too much stuff to go into but suffice to say its written in a very accessible and friendly style, and you wont finish it on the bus home like you do with S@E. 53 is a lot slimmer (24 A5 pages as opposed to 84) but free, and the editor explains the reasons for this: "Organ from now on will be a free publication - mostly cos we need to tell you about the stuff we're up to here at Org records, like we said last time Org Records is very much the priority here, we've got a label to run here, we've got loads of records to feed you.." so now they dont have the time to review all they wanted, but still a cool zine anyway. Unit 205, the Old Gramaphone Works, 326 Kensal Road, London W10 5BZ. Noise Gate #4, 64 A5 pages, 2 pounds. Very technical zine from Sheffield. Articles about the perception of space in music, the psychology of timbral development in western music, pyrotechnic music, wavelengths in recording music on different formats, radio emissions from the sun, noisy audiences vs. quiet audiences, how to release your own DIY Record, and a couple of other pieces, including very experimental gig and book reviews. Interesting, but just make sure you have a dictionary beside you when you're reading it so you can understand what the fuck they're talking about. 150 Scott Road, Pitsmoor, Sheffield, S4 7BJ. Knowledge #15, Free, 64 A5 pages. 'Ardcore jungle zine, a glossy affair with a sizeable chunk of ads (but they're all club and rave ads so thats ok then..) but still acres of reading space, with hundreds of record reviews, i/views with DJ Rap, Peshay, Peanut Butter Wolf, Marc Smith (Hardcore Scottish DJ), Randall, Dazee, Knights of the occasional table, Future Forces INc., Cridge, a very well written article about "The Commercial Issue", Playstation and CDRom reviews, and a few other bits and pieces. Music covered wasnt our cup of tea but its still a good read, and its glossy and coloured too, which we liked, being such picky bastards for high class zines. Vision Publishing, Second Floor A, 14 King Square, Bristol BS2 8JJ. Sleaze Nation, issue 11, Free, 48 pages somewhere between A4 and A5. This was definitely more up our street now, although it is just a bit too hip, especially with a fashion shoot.. are you a music mag or a fashion mag? Make up your mind. This too was free and was thrust into our waiting hands as we fell out of Blood Sugar off our collective faces, lashed into a bag with a rake of glossy flyers. Its got loads of news about clubs and dance music, record reviews, ads for clubs and listings, but its also got some genuinely intelligent articles about art, Rimbaud (19th century poet), the 2 Tone Record label, and a multi media art duo Hex (half of which is also half of Coldcut). Full colour and glossy, well laid out and informative, and a title that sent a pang of jealousy up our spines, this is what we'd like to see S@E become eventually. 12 Vale Royal, Kings Cross, London N7 9AP. Club On, Sept 97. Free, 48 A5 pages. Another full colour glossy club magazine, where the fuck do people get the money to do this eh?? This mag is a monthly updtate on the UK Club guide which is a big annual coffee table guide to all the clubs in the UK, which of course goes stale a month or two after you buy it.. most of the stuff they feature is really bad house music and all their ads are from clubs who have Jeremy Healy, Boy George, Tony De Vit, Judge Jules and other similar "hands in the air" tossers DJing on a Saturday night, who goes to these things? And the photos from the clubs make us resolute in not going to the pictured venue.. dunno, maybe we're just not trendy enough, but then again if being trendy means dressing like a Leeson Street wanker, count us out. Give us our adidas runners any fucking day of the week. Greenacre Publishing, PO Box 16462, London EC2A 4TB. D>Tour, Sept 97, Free, 64 A4 pages. Another free glossy colour mag.. wot da fuk? Give us some of your money.. this is a monthly mag with a mix of techno (Norn Iron guru of tech-funk David Holmes and the Dub Pistols were featured this issue) indie (Travis and Dubstar), sports (skateboarding - if you could call that a sport, we think we'd call it a fashion or a fad), comedy (Junior Simpson), soul (Montage), and other features (property, art [dont hate, sculpt], fashion shoots), and a couple of opinions (editorial about drugs, short piece about smoking), alonside the omnipresent club reviews, listings, gig and band news, record reviews, etc.. this is a good read but we'd hardly call it a fanzine (considering its a magazine) 'cos they have a crew of about 40 people working for it.. sigh.. wouldnt it be nice if Dublin had something like this.. overall this mag was the best free read of the summer. Bibliotech, 31-37 Hoxton Street, London N1 6NL. Transmission, Autumn 97, free, 12 A4 pages. Black/white freesheet full of band interviews, record reviews and label features, not one of which we had heard of before ('cept for Lydia LUnch and the only way we knew her was because she was sampled on the Floors LP ranting some crazy shit) which is of course a good thing, so we guess this must be the true underground. Very very obscure though. This scared us though.. does this mean that S@E are not aware of some scene out there?? Anybody know what sort of music Kepone, Starfish FX, Quickspace and Portatastic are?? PO Box 5 9, London N22 1AR. Escape from Gravity, no. 5, free, 4 A4 pages. This is literally on another planet, cos its the bulletin of the Association of Autonomous Astronauts. This is wierd stuff but it does contain some really positive hopes for life in space in the future, thats of course if it isnt one huge big pisstake? Fuck knows. Get a copy of this and make your own mind up. Inner City AAA, BM Jed, London WC1N 3XX. Free Infonet, no. 5, free, 8 A4 pages. Techno freesheet with a lefty/crusty slant. Interesting main article entitled "The techno manifesto" which makes some valid points but several others we disagree with and might take up some time in an article of our own. Other stuff including information about picking and preparing magic mushrooms (its that time of year again, people), music and book reviews, poetry and a list of contacts. Good stuff. PO Box 9228, London NW10 5WB. While walking down some road, not doing any harm to anybody, this smelly old man jumped out and pushed a zine called "Smile" (with a big smiley face drawn on the cover) into my scared little hands. "Gee thank." I said as I walked quickly away. "Oi !! That costs a pound !!" he screamed at me. It turns out that this zine was made to "Create work and maintain hope". Well it was only a pound so I bought it. But man was it bad. I mean it was the standard "three A4 pages folded together" but it was just filled with old non-funny jokes and some crosswords that had been nicked out of Puzzle Weekly. At the end there was a few words about what drugs were "Chemicals that interfere with the working of the body" and also a paragraph telling me how nasty wasps are. "Wasps are nasty" it said. Does unemployment entail a lack of creative writing skills ? I always buy the Big Issue, they've actually got some good articles in there, but this ? I'm sure people without jobs would have plenty to say, why then was this zine filled with crap ? Grumble grumble grumble.... Are you a winner ? You are ? Fuck off then and watch rugby or whatever you're into. Anyway I was watching MTV a while ago, out of sheer boredom, and they were playing a load of crap as usual. Select MTV was on (the show were "viewers get to pick their favourite tunes". Yeah) and that baldy one Eden was presenting it. Ugh, don't like her. So I phoned in and said "Listen, you better play some Faith No More (that band being the best they seemed to have on offer at the time) or I'll get bloody annoyed and I'll start swearing in a vulgar fashion." So the woman on the other side said "Okay riiiight, do you want to enter our competition ?" "Um, okay." So I had to tell her the name of the new Chemical Brothers LP (Duh !! It's Dig your own hole) and strangely enough they phoned me back and suddenly I was on MTV, LIVE !!! It was my voice, communicating to the masses !! And with this superb opportunity in front of me, did I utter any political slogans or messages of hope to bind the world together in a peaceful way ? Did I scream out about oppression, suppression and depression ? Did I even *mention* the third world ? Of course not, this clever eejit could only manage to mutter "Gee thanks, I'd like to say hello to all my friends, bye !!". Humph, well I got a free Chemical Brothers t-shirt for a prize. Not bad considering the prize before that one had been a (get this) signed Lisa Stansfield poster. Oh the joy......Oh and they didn't play any Faith No More, but they did play Block Rockin' Beats, which was pretty groovy. So, wow, I was on MTV. Um, I wonder if they want me as a VJ ? Maybe I'll phone back and ask........ Anyway, Mark Morrison came onto MTV this morning with his latest hit (from behind bars) called something like "I am the Mack." Wasn't his last single called "Return of the Mack" ? And that was taken from his debut album, also entitled "Return of the Mack". I wonder what the rest of his songs are called. Maybe there's : "I really am the Mack" "Mack is my name" "Me, the Mack" "There's only one Mack (Me)" "Who's the Mack ? (I am the Mack, Mack-xium pressure remix) "Mack Mack Mack" "Mack, me, Mack, you" And what about that cover he did of The Prodigy's latest hit "Mack my bitch up" ? Zine review : The Zoo Brain. (issue "minus three" apparently !!) Now these zine looks different. Issue three had a lovely black cover (S@E fully condone the use of black as a predominant colour throughout various publications, free or otherwise) And there was a likkle hole cut in the front page revealing the title of the zine. Very very nice indeed. It must have taken ages to cut out the holes in a few hundred issues of that. The first "real" page looks flashy too, lots of pictures/quotes/bits of cuttings of stuff littered around the place in a collage-type thing. Elsewhere in the zine were some weird narratives talking about such diverse subjects such as the possibility of Gotham City actually existing and also a scientific talk about the pros and cons of cloning Jesus from the shroud of Turin. (very clever, we wish we'd have thought up of that) There's also a witty carton in the centre of the zine, almost everything in this zine made me laugh. Except for the bit about the bloke buying an Oasis CD which made us cry. (Why waste so much money ???) Quite a lot of the pages in the zine are blank (Sixteen pages, only seven have text on them) which seems like a huge waste of money and paper. Hopefully they'll write more for issue four. We'd also like to see some more gig/music reviews maybe, just more writing dagnabit !! Misadventures in Lo-Fi no 3. free, 4 A5 pages. Not a bad little freesheet. Interesting article on the front page about the Marx Brothers and a history of the films they made, none of which we've ever seen but might go look at some time.. the other good article is on the back page about Tantrum Rock, and oh how true are those words. People only liking music if its moaning, depressing, poetic and "deeper" than other forms of music.. The rest of it is only ok. Does anyone really care about what the Placebo singer does? And also, we dont see how anyone could ever think that Joe mangel from Neighbours would be worthy of the title of an "icon", yet theres an article in this praising his supposed genius. Or maybe they're being ironic. Or something. Whatever. Needs more articles like the ones we said were good. 31 The Avenue, Boden Park, Dublin 16, or email milf62@hotmail.com. The World Wont Listen #4, 8 A5 pages, free. Four pages of this eight are a waste of paper - the front cover, which just has "kill dana, do us all a favour" written on it (I wonder could they be prosectued under the Public Order Bill for inciting hatred.. hmm.. theres something we might keep for a rainy day!!), the back cover, which has a pic of dana on it and a target thing, and then one page inside has a makeshift enevelope on it (the address of which is a UCD student residence - 'nuff said) and the other is a survey thing, which we here at S@E will guarantee will recieve less than five replies, having done something similar ourselves in Kows @nd Kre@m.. the actual content of the zine is ok, the only really good bit is the music reviews, the urusei yatsura interview could have been a bit better also, although maybe thats the fault of the bloke answering the questions rather than the interviewer. Two sentences before the interview made us laugh until we wet ourselves though: "Urusei Yatsura answer your letters, so they arent rock stars. But they have been praised to the skies in NME/MM, so they cant be any run of the mill shitty indie band." Yeah, everyone who's ever been praised in those two papers has been amazing, people like the Super Furry Animals, S*M*A*S*H, Bis, Gene, and others, they're all brilliant musicians whose careers will last longer than most others... like FUCK!!! Christ, if I was in a band that got onto the cover of the NME or MM or praised to the skies by them I'd be looking for a day job pretty fucking quickly.. the rest of it, not great. Needs more articles with points or just something a bit.. interesting. Not that our articles have points to them or anything.. M 7.2.4, Merville, UCD, Belfield, Dublin 4. Sheer Brutality, no. 1, 35p, 16 A5 pages. This cunt has a review of Kows @nd Kre@m in his review section and he's moaning about the price of it. Well, go and fuck yourself you prick. "Be warned you pay for it". FUCK YOU. As if 70p was going to break the bank. And your shitty little zine was 35p and it only had 16 pages while ours was 70p and had 44, yep count them, 44 pages which is almost 3 times the amount of your pathetic heap of shit. Clodagh and everyone else put a lot of fucking good hard work into that zine and then you see some shitheads moaning about it being 70p. Yeah, next time you're buying your hip-hop jeans in hobo for eighty quid and buying your spray paints for your graffitti for about a tenner a can you fucking think, THINK, about the work and effort we put into that zine and we charged a fair price. In fact, we lost a lot of money doing that zine and eventually ended up giving it out free cos scabby wankers like you were moaning about 70p being too much and that probably scared people off buying it. Imagine if it had been 50p, would we have sold any then? Just for the extra 20p we had people whining like spolit brats. The same people who buy CDs and not vinyl. And we didnt plagiarise other articles, unlike your "shit list" which has been doing the rounds on the Net and other places for years now. This zine has now been turned into internal energy in a back garden in Blanchardstown and we urge you not to buy it again, if it ever comes out (lets see you fucking put out a 3500 word freesheet on a monthly basis you cunt), which we sincerely hope not. Traffic Flow #1, free, 4 A5 pages. Those ultra-friendly damn cool people at the lovely new yellow coloured record shop, Road Records (16B Fade St) are making a little newsletter which reviews the stuff that they get in and sell to the public. The question must be asked though: do they dare distribute this freesheet in Borderline?? heh heh.. this is like an expanded version of the little board thing they have in Borderline, a list of all the new stuff with a couple of lines describing each one.. nice way to keep up on whats coming out. And they re-filled the lollipop jar in the shop so get yourself up there and buy some stuff. This is an article sent to the DCU Students Union in response to an article they published in this years student handbook. You might not pick up on some of it if you havent read the article in question, but we feel it makes some good points so we're going to include it anyway. If anyone wants to see the original article just ask us and we'll send you a photocopied copy of it. It was a mixed feeling of amusement and anger that came over me when I read the article entitled "dangerous drugs" in this years DCU Student Union handbook. One would have expected such a reactionary article to appear from the ranks of the boys in blue from Templemore or maybe even a PD conference, never would I have expected it from a supposedly responsible and progressive SU. Interesting that UCD's SU can accept that drug use is going to happen and issue safer dancing guidelines (to a chorus of disapproval from hordes of right wing loonies) while our SU prints something that rings back to the times of the sixties when our parents were fed the same bullshit about taking one LSD tablet and it killing you. Does the DCU SU not realise the apparent contradiction in its printing this article and the hypocrisy that they are practising when the whole context of this book is taken into account? There is one sentence in the article that is vastly overlooked. Maura Russell says "A young drug addict.. starts drinking at 14". The problem of alcohol abuse in this country is generally glossed over and becuase of our history and society it is not seen as a problem, or certainly not one in the same league as the drugs "epedemic". Having a few drinks is seen as a bit of "craic". All harmless, good, clean fun. Sure what would the Irish be without drink? Does the DCU SU promote excess alcohol abuse? Because thats what it appears to me. Where is the guideline before the guide to 20 Dublin pubs, telling people that excess alcohol consumption causes blackouts, nausea, dizziness, increased aggression levels, impaired reaction and other negative effects in the short term? What about long term effects? In a 1990 booklet distributed by the Department of Health, entitled "Facts about drug abuse in Ireland", Dr. Desmond Corrigan, head of the Pharmacy Department in TCD, outlines these: "Prolonged heavy drinking over many years usually leads to the development of an alcohol dependence syndrome, involving a compulsion to drinking, tolerance to the effects of the drug, and drinking to avoid withdrawal symptoms. It is not possible to esitmate the total number of alcohol dependents in Ireland, but one source suggests that as many as 95,000 of the estimated 1.9 million drinkers will go on to develop a problem with alcohol. Alcohol disorders account for 23% of all admissions to psychiatric hospitals, although it is recognized that as psychiatric hospital admission policies have changed, statistics relating to such admissions may not be a true indicator of the problem. In 1990, 6377 people (of whom 2146 were first admissions) were admitted to psychiatric hospitals with a diagnosis of alcohol abuse or alcohol psychosis. For men, alcohol disorders were the main cause of admissions, accouting for a third of all male admissions. The highest rate of admission is in the age group 35-44 years, whereas a few years ago it was in the 45-55 age group. Experts in the field predict that in the coming years, the rate for those aged 25-34 will increase. "Heavy drinking affects the heart, causes gastric cancer disorders and inflammation of the pancreas. Cancers of the upper airways and digestive tract (mouth, throat, and oesophagus) are alcohol-related and there is an increasingly large amount of evidence linking alcohol and breast cancer in women. One sophisticated statistical analysis of the breast cancer studies showed that women who drank 24g of alcohol [2-3 units] per day were between 1.4 and 1.7 times more likely to develop breast cancer compared to non-drinkers. However it is recognized that further studies are needed to confirm this link. Because it supplies calories, heavy drinking may cause obesity with its attendant dangers. This inadequate diet can result in protein and vitamin defiency, damaging to the nervous system, both in the limbs causing loss of power and sensation in the brain causing impairment and poor concentration." Does the DCU SU give guidelines alongside its guide to pubs concerning drinking and driving? No. Although the SU may claim student poverty, there are a considerable number of DCU students driving to college every day in their own cars or their parents', after all approximately 40% of the students in DCU are from Dublin and the suburbs and it is foolish to assume every one of them is coming from lower socio-economic groups (and all you have to do is stand at the Collins Ave Entrance in the morning to see for yourself). >From Desmond Corrigans report again: "The number of people killed and injured between 9pm and 3am provides a rough indicator of alcohol related deaths. In 1992, 134 people were killed during these hours. When account is taken of the fact that only about 13% of road travel is undertaken during these hours and that 32% of road deaths, and 21% of road injuries in 1992 occured during these hours, there is, as stated in the Environmental Research Unit's Road Accident Facts and Statistics (1989) 'little room for doubt but that the combination of alcohol and driving in the darkness are significant contributory factors in road accidents'. An accident involving a driver who fails the breath test has been shown to be three times more likely to be fatal than an accident involving a driver reported to be sober." Drink kills more people in this country than ecstasy ever has or will. It breaks up families, causes violence on the streets of our cities, encourages dangerous behaviour, and puts extreme financial strain on those who even drink one or two pints a night. Of course these are not mentioned. Having a few joints in a flat will eventually lead you on to heroin, but lying comatose in Holyhead after drinking large amounts of spirits while on the "booze cruise" is all a great laugh, something to laugh at a few days later. A drunk couple who nearly kill themselves by falling off the edge of the boat while intoxicated is amusing. Robbing other peoples property for drugs money is a henious crime, but robbing other peoples trophies while on the tear in the town is a mad escapade. Drinking is healthy, sociable, affordable, part of student life. Everyone drinks, those who dont are freaks. If you dont drink during rag week there is something wrong with you. Free pints if you join this society. Booze cruise tickets only eight pounds. Beer promotion in Jets tonight, pints only 1.50. Tequila night in the bar, shots only a pound (but they're limited so everyone had better run to the bar and buy several at once!! oh what fun we had when we all blacked out on the way home, puked up all over the campus, and spent more money than we had budgeted for..). It would seem from your article on drugs that everyone who indulges in one or two e's at the weekend is a sad, insecure, lonely person. "Students may feel that getting high on ecstasy and dancing around the floor faster than the speed of light will numb any feelings of loneliness or insecurity". Yes, everyone who goes out to nightclubs and takes drugs with their friends, has a great time, listens to some music they like, goes to a party afterwards, meets one or two new people, is a pathetic individual with no real meaningful relationships in their lives. It would be much better to sit at home in a dingy student flat and study than go out and meet some new people. Your terminology used in this article is also reactionist (e.g. "dancing faster than the speed of light", I mean, come on now..) and the "facts" that you put across are distorted. And why is it that Julian Madigan's book is quoted as a book of complete truths and undistorted facts? The claim that he was taking six ecstasy tablets within six weeks of taking his first half tablet is laughable. Why are other books, such as Nicholas Saunders' "Ecstasy Reconsidered", which contains reports of the positive effects of ecstasy, such as treating rape victims and ex-viet vets to deal with their tramuas, or helping rowing married couples to open up to each other, not referred to? I am not for a minute saying that taking drugs is not dangerous. Taking drugs can be very dangerous and has killed people before. But your separation of alcohol into a class of its own is sheer madness. There has been 10 deaths in this country from ecstasy. There are an estimated 20,000 tablets consumed in the Republic every week. That is one million tablets a year. And those are conservative Garda estimates. The true figure is estimated to lie closer to the 50,000 mark as ecstasy spreads to rural areas. Ten people have died in the last six or seven years, in which time at least five million ecstasy tablets have been consumed. Stastically ecstasy is safe, but of course when it is manufactured in dirty illegal laboratories nothing is ever safe, and even if ecstasy was manufactured in clean environments it would still pose a risk. But the risk has been blown out of all proportions. If people are educated about the risks involved after taking drugs, then they will be able to deal with situations more readily. Your scare tactics have been employed for years and have not stopped people from taking drugs. If those people who died from ecstasy had been better informed their deaths might not have occured. People should be made aware of chilling out, taking the correct amount of fluids (and not being told to drink "lots" of water which can burst the kidneys if too much is consumed), and knowing and respecting their own limits. If perhaps the drink culture in this country wasnt so respectful to excess, then we might not have a similar situation in the drug culture where people take more than their body can handle in a night. You say that "too many students ignore the disastrous consequences of drugs". How many people have dropped out from not showing up in lectures the next day from being in the Bar? From coming back from Jets at 3am on a Friday morning and missing the next day asleep in bed and too hungover at the weekend to study? Alcohol is a poison and as much a dangerous drug as any of the ones mentioned in the article in the SU handbook and should be treated as such and not something that can be consumed excessively without harm or consequence. Who should you vote for? Seeing as how all you brainless proletarian plebs out there dont have a fucking clue in those moronic minds of yours about the slightest thing, especially politics, we intellectuals here at the house of S@E are going to tell you w ho to vote for. If ppl listen to us and did what we told them then this country would be a better place but some times some ppl like to think that they know better than us and make their own minds up.. the fools! Alright so lets take a look at the racing card. On the inside left you have Adi Roche. Well, she aint re ally a leftie. She may have got Dick behind her (oo-er!!) but she aint really a hardcore leftie in the true sense of the word. Robbo [Thats Mary Robinson to you and me - ed] got the Labour backing last time but when you think about she was much more poltical rather than humanitarian, think of all the things she did in t he late sixties and early seventies with all the condom trains and what have you. Filthy revolutionary scum eh? You cant bring your kids anywhere these days without some rabid pinko running the country... Adi Roche seems ok and despite all the "Stalinist" tags, she must be a decent enough skin to take on the Chernobyl Childrens Project and organise the whole thing, and in the mid eighties she was involved in anti-nuke protests with semi-lefties CND. She lacks a bit of substance in our not so very humble opinion but time will tell.. the thing is if she really was a Stalinist we'd have no problems whatsoever in voting for, but i f shes only a damn pseudo-dictator and not a real one then we'd definitely have to think twice. Next up in trap no. 2 we have Mary Banotti, the Fine Gael greyhound. Ach.. Fine Gael. Wouldnt vote for them if you paid us. Well, maybe if you got us free photocopying we would. But anyway, thats beside the point. FG are a safe pussy-wussy shower of liberals who feel guilty about their priviledged position in society but not guilty enough to do anything about it. Silly bed wetting wasters. Centrist nonsense. This party has no policies these days, not that it ever had any anyway. Oh for those days of Eoin O Duffy and his wonderful silly little hats and marching bands.. they may have been fascist wankers but at least there was some fucking row in the streets that had some meaning to it and not just drunken shitheads falling out of pubs at night puking all over each other and beating their chests like gorillas in a shameless pathetic attempt at demonstrating their tiny puny insecure manhoods. Next up we have Derek Nally from Victim Support. Seems like a decent enough bloke. Likes his pint. Likes the odd smoke. Likes to chill to a bit of Red Snapper now and then. Likes a bit of house and garage but not the commercial shit. Apart from that we dont know much about the chap. The S@E team at the moment is predominantly male (until Orly joins us, come on O you know you want to) so we might just give him the vote simply for the fact cos he's male cos women are always going on about the womans vote when of course it shouldnt make a difference what sex a person is, its the policies that count, just to piss some feminist heads off. Next up we have FF Mary McAleese. The first thing we do, lets kill all the lawyers. Anyone who is in league with the Garda and all those snooty up-their-own-hole judges deserves a horrific constipation, not a presidential nomination. Last but not least, we have the cichli suite Dana, with the permanent grin and monotone fairy voice. Having lived in America for the past ? years, she obviously knows what is best for our country, and has a deep understanding of the social changes that have taken place in the last ten years. This is the woman that S@E are telling you to vote for. Seriously. Enough of the tongue-in-cheek shit. We are serious here. Alright so shes a right wing loonie. She has her headquarters on the Shrewsbury Road (where does she get the money for that???) and she has alleged rumoured links with ultra-catholic groups in the USA. She doesnt have a clue about the country and she wants us back to the time of crossroads and comely maidens and all that jazz. When shes on Prime Time or Q&A she churns out the same shit over and over again about "democracy" winning when the county councils voted her in, and theres very little character about her. But shes the most right wing fundamentalist candidate on the ticket. All of the others on the form are middle of the road. Something for everyone. One size fits all. The usual FF/FG divide crap we've come to expect from this country. But Dana is different. Shes the ace in the hole. The dog in the butter. The lorry in the slurry. If half the country voted for her could you imagine what would happen? There would be a huge right wing vote, an unprecedented swing to an extreme. Thats what this country needs. Extremes. For too long we've been content to let things swim in the middle. If Dana won then within a week of her election you would have hordes of Youth Defence lunatics and their lackies in the National Party and the CCP et al marhcing down O'Connell Street calling for the internment of anyone with runners and a referendum to jail anyone who di dnt go to mass. You'd have a huge publicity drive by these psychos and they'd be ranting mad shit on the telly and on the radio, because they would know that they had POWER. And then people might start fighting back. You'd get housewives who would have come out for the X Case rally but nothing else coing out to support a womans right to choose. Ravers and indie heads who only gave a fuck about their music and their drugs would see that what was happening to the country was wrong and might get off their fat holes and do something for a change. Punks might stop doing zines and hanging around pubs and the central bank all day and actually do something poltical. There would be running battles between Left and Right in town. The country would split down the middle between socialist and conservative politics (like every other sane country in the world) and the old civil war bullshit of FF/FG would be swept away. When Dana made statements about Ireland, you'd have hundreds of people protesting about her remarks, saying they painted an inaccurate picture of the people and society. Voting Dana will drive this country to extremes. Thats what we want. She isnt going to get elected anyway.... October the 30th Noticing that Rosemary Brown (Dana) is last in the polls of the presidential election, the extreme left wing populous of Ireland (mostly students, punks and crazy folk) decide to waste their vote on the woman that has no chance of wining, a tongue-in-cheek attempt to snub the other candidates. The vast right wing catholic bible thumpers of the land also vote for Dana, in an effort to turn Ireland back to the way it was in the sixties. November the 1st After the final recheck, the country is stunned with the election of Rosemary Brown to the position of President of Ireland. An embarrassing loss for the other candidates as Dana scoops seventy four percent of the vote. The lefties grow restless. November the 2nd As Dana moves into Aras an Uachtarain a large crowd of students congregate outside of Trinity College. In a shock move the USI shed their pussy attitude to politics and set up a rally denouncing the election of a "right wing capitalist bible basher". The president of the USI, Colman Byrne, is suddenly pushed off the stage by four skinny blokes who unroll a huge banner bearing the slogan "Sickened @nd Enr@ged". Thirty five thousand voices scream their approval. One of the banner holders, a small character with a tight haircut, addresses the crowds attacking Dana and calling for new legilation legalising soft drugs. Two official looking men in dark coats are overheard saying "The boy knows too much, he will be the first to die." November the 3rd Joined by a multitude of students and other young people, a crowd of one hundred and seventy thousand mark to the Phoenix Park and besiege the presidential residence. Famous Irish dance act Decal start their set at six in the evening and play the best dance tunes ever heard by mortals. The striking show culminates at four in the morning with the sample "all kinds of everything" repeated over a head melting drum and bass backdrop. Because of the vast numbers of people present riot police are unable to move any sections of the crowd. Attempted arrests result in riots, but on the whole it is a peaceful concert. Despite this fact, Dana doesn't make an appearance. November the 4th The Lieutenant General of the Irish Armed forces, General Gerry MacMahon, is allowed to address the crowd and receives minimal booing and jeering. Unfortunately nobody heeds his advice to "disperse quietly and go home". Armed forces surround the students. General MacMahon delivers a twenty four hour deadline before the troops move in. Meanwhile in France, the socialist prime minister, Lionel Jospin, praises "the youth of Ireland" for sticking by their left wing values. November the 5th Several French fishing boats run aground on Bull Island, filled with a multitude of French students who apparently hijacked the fishing boats at La Harve. An estimated seventy eight thousand of these foreigners illegally enter Ireland and make their way to the Phoenix Park and reach there before eleven o' clock in the morning. The French government makes an official statement warning of retaliation if the Irish army move in on their citizens. Meanwhile a high percentage of the French and Irish people sitting outside the presidential residence have cast Dana's words of warning to the wind, and engaged in the use of "unnatural family planning", and are actually having sex just for the fun of it !! November the 6th In what The Irish Times describes as a "veritable civil war of words" and The Star describes as "MASSIVE STUDENT ORGY ON DANA'S DOORSTEP", three spokesmen from what is now being called "the large group of smelly people" by locals engage in talks with General MacMahon, Bertie Ahern and President Brown. November the 7th What is now being called "the large group of smelly sticky wet sore tired people" by locals, erupts in a wild frenzy of cheering when their three spokesmen emerge victorious from the talks, carrying a poster bearing the words "Successful @nd Ecst@tic". Word spreads that President Brown has agreed to resign as president, another election will be held after the start of the new year. November the 8th Dublin Ferry are besieged with seventy eight thousand French people trying to get home. Five French warships collect them instead and bring them back to Le Harve. December the 25th To coincide with his Christmas performance on national television, Daniel O' Donnell announces his intention of running for the presidency.