The Remarkable Story of MeeJahLittle

Did you ever hear of MeeJahLittle and how he disturbed a whole country - nay, continent- nay, world with his foolish alarms?

Well, MeeJahLittle was running around in Mad Money's garden enjoying flowers and fruits not his when an apple dropped from a tree and fell on his head. The apple was overblown, scabby, filled with worms and such and had to fall. 

MeeJahLittle didn't wait around to work this out - off he ran shrieking to find MeeJahBig.

'Oh! MeejahBig' he said, 'the sky is falling, the sky is falling!'
'Why how do you know?' asked MeejahBig
'Didn't I hear it with my own ears and see it with my own eyes and part of it fell on my head!'shrieked MeejahLittle.
'Oh Lord! Come then, let us run as fast as we can,' said MeejahBig. And off they ran to find MeejahBigger .

'MeejahBigger! MeejahBigger! The sky is falling, the sky is falling,' screeched MeejahsLittleandBig
'How do you know?' asked MeejahBigger.
'Well, MeejahLittle told me!' squawked MeejahBig
'And I saw it with my own eyes and heard it with my own ears and part of it fell on my head. Twice,' shrieked MeejahLittle
'Lord save us!' cried MeejahBigger, 'We must run as fast as we can.'. And off they ran 'til they found MeejahBiggerAgain.

'Oh! MeejahBiggerAgain,' they caterwauled 'the sky is falling, the sky is falling!'
'How do you know' gasped MeejahBiggerAgain.
'Why MeejahsBigAndLittle told me' cried MeejahBigger.
'MeejahLittle told me' squawked MeejahBig.
'And I saw it with my own eyes heard it with my own ears, part of it fell on my head twice and then rolled along my back.' shrieked MeejahLittle

'Lord between us and all harm!We must run, we must run!' harumphed MeeJahBiggerAgain. And they ran and they ran until they found MeeJahNormous

.
'MeeJahNormous!MeeJahNormous!The sky is falling, the sky is falling!' they all roared
'How do you know?'queried MeeJahNormous
'MeeJahsLittleToBigger told me!' harumphed MeejahBiggerAgain
'MeeJahsLittleToBig told me too' cried MeeJahBigger
'MeeJahLittle told me first' squawked MeejahBig
'And I saw it with my own eyes, heard it with my own ears, part of it crashed down TWICE on my head THEN rolled along my back and THEN fell on my toe.' shrieked MeeJahLittle.

'We better tell the people on the edge' decided MeeJahNormous. 'It's our duty.'

So they all ran as fast as they could to tell the people on the edge. And the people on the edge all ran over the edge screaming
 'The sky is falling, the sky is falling' and then fell down, down, down  into the abyss.

 And all this from the foolish shrieking of MeeJahLittle.

The End

Exceptional Inception

I took two ten year olds to see ‘Inception’ over the weekend. I won’t pretend that I understood it all, it moved too quickly for me most of the time but the kids thought it was brilliant and it kept my attention for the whole - which is something that happens rarely for me with visual media. It was ‘Dallas’ that first caused my disenchantment with television in the Eighties. The characters were so wooden and unbelieveable, so far from my daily life that I couldn’t relate to them. Yet I had no problem relating to characters in modern plays or novels of the period. Occasional dramatizations of great writing like Paul Scott’s Raj quartet or the magnificent Brideshead Revisited I watched, I enjoyed some of the British soaps of the time, mainly so I could join in canteen chat the following day but Glenroe and the Riordans didn’t relate to my suburban life either, although I recognised the characters in them, or rather the character types.

I realise of course that televison has replaced religion as ‘the opium of the people’ and like organised churches most ‘shows’ are mere marketing tools designed to wheedle money from one’s pocket or purse. The lowest common denominator will always get the advertisers money and artists are people too and need to eat, pray, love..

This is all my usual roundabout way of arriving at a conclusion that I note many other writers are coming to around the globe. The Internet and the personal computer have at last given back to creative people the ability to express oneself freely, to write/paint/design – whatever - your own truth and throw it out there for the world to see. Without an editor or the marketing department changing your work.

Creative people do whatever it is they do because it is the only way they can express how they feel about the world. Of course churches, states and ‘isms’ have for generations tried to quell that energy or used it to make ’filthy lucre’. But it always finds its way out. Is it not wonderful – truly wonderful to see a genuine talent, something the artist cannot help practising because it is the only thing that makes sense, the only way they can make themselves heard, seen and understood. Great actors, directors, writers, artists, musicians and many, many others. Cream rising to the top, as inevitable and enduring as the sun appearing on the horizon every dawn.

So there’s hope for the movies yet. I suppose we will still have to be subjected to dross to make money for the fat cats but at least smaller houses in all disciplines can then continue to nuture new ideas and talent and let the next wave of creative energy perhaps be a tsunami. A Golden Age approaches – and I’ll be bleedin’ dead and miss it!

Snow business makes show business.....

Is it just me or is the 'meejah' making a mountain out of a molehill out of the severe weather conditions?

I cannot listen to any of the three major news programmes on our national broadcaster - Morning Ireland, News at One and Drivetime - at the moment. Matt Cooper on Today FM isn't much better. News reporters in recent years seem to have strayed from reportage to standing in judgement, analysing without full facts and in general heckling any and all government members, public servants or whichever scapegoat they have identified for the latest crisis the country is lurching through. I have no problem with government ministers being severely criticised on most matters, but I really cannot understand the 'hoo-haw' about the government's reactions and attitude to the bloody weather.

Does our national broadcaster and other commercial stations think that this kind of scaremongering tabloid jouranalism attracts more listeners/viewers and therefore can sell more advertising? Perhaps it is simply an age thing. You can actually hear the discomfort in some of the older journalists voices as they pursue their quarry. Some of the younger crew on the other hand appear to enjoy the baying for blood.

I find it disturbing, I do not feel well served by such type of broadcasting. Do they assume that the government hasn't noticed the sever weather? Have they any idea how hard all public servants involved have worked - engineers, general operatives, drivers, ambulance men, paramedics, fire brigades crew, nurses, doctors. Some of these out during the night for hours in severe weather conditions to ensure cotinued service of those basics we all take for granted - water, roads, hospital services.

Lads, it's not Armageddon. Not yet anyway, and if it were I think the country could well be better served by its public servants and its government than by pointless squawking in the media.