Lick my load off an hallucinogenic toad, but this really hasn’t been the best of fortnight’s for Ireland’s, Europe’s and the whole fucking planet’s greatest-living, longest-loving and heaviest-coming rock journalist. Me.

Samuel J. Snort would like to apologise in advance for the general shoddiness and thrown-togetherness of this issue’s column but, to be perfectly fucking frank about it, I’m under a lot of stress and pressure at the moment and don’t really feel up to the job of entertaining you lot.
If you’re looking for thrills, keep turning the pages of this fine organ until you reach my colleague Olaf Tyaransen’s hilarious 400,000 word account of his recent trip to the London Wankathon.
Of course, when I say it’s hilarious, I don’t necessarily mean that it’s funny. I haven’t actually read his article yet, but my editor tells me that Olaf claims not to have had a single wank during his time covering this auspicious – or should that be suspicious? – event.
Far be it for me to cast aspersions over young Tyaransen’s honesty, but Ernesto and Raul – who were also in attendance in the so-called ‘Exhibition Room’ – tell a very different story. According to them, hotpress’, ahem, ‘Writer-At-Large’ actually won a trophy for the ‘Best Long Distance Comer’ award at the event.
In fairness to my steamed and esteemed journalistic colleague, Ernesto and Raul tell very different stories all the time, and aren’t really to be trusted. Just the other day, they were bullshitting me about some wannabe politician that they’d tried to sting in some convoluted blackmail operation. Raul told me that they’d managed to take his picture on a mobile phone camera pretending to snort some gak. Ha! As if any politician would be that fucking stupid! The mind boggles!
Still, they claim that Tyaransen’s Wankathon activities will feature heavily in the forthcoming Channel 4 documentary, so we’ll just have to wait and see in the Autumn. If it turns out to be true, he’ll probably fuck off back to Thailand.
Anyway, I digress. I was telling you about what a shite fortnight I’ve been having.
Under normal circumstances, I’d probably write about Bono and the lads moving their mucho moolah over to the Netherlands in order to avoid paying any tax on it. Bono, in particular, has come in for a lot of critical flak. Critics are saying that, given his fondness for telling the rest of us what we should be spending our money on, he should at least be giving his royalties to the Irish government.
Of course, that’s the bunch of people last seeing living it large with some of the dodgiest fuckers in the land in their tent at the Galway Races. The same motley crew who blew 60 million on an electronic voting system.
Bono has spent a lot of time in Africa, and I’m sure he’s seen many a corrupt political regime in inaction over the years. However, Africa’s worst couldn’t even begin to compare with the yellow-suit-wearing bunch of banana republicans (sorry, socialists) running this country. Given this sorry State, he and the rest of the U2 lads can hardly be blamed for not wanting to contribute another red cent to the current regime’s coffers. They’d probably spend it on fucking make-up! And not just the kind of make-up their many spin doctors specialise in either.
So fuck the begrudgers, Bono! Samuel J. Snort is right behind you on this one.
(Oh, and incidentally, any chance of a job at Forbes?).
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If I wasn’t so stressed, pressurised and generally unfit for work, I might also think of devoting a paragraph or two to the plight of my old mucker Boy George, who was forced into the undignified position of becoming a New York street sweeper for a week as part of his community service for drugs offences.
As the person who accidentally left the bag of Columbian Marching Powder in George’s apartment that night, I feel somewhat guilty for all the trouble I’ve caused him. Just not so guilty that I was willing to fess up to the NYPD and take the rap (for the wrap). True, I did tell him that I’d come to New York and help him out in solidarity. But that was just a lie.
Obviously having realised that I wasn’t going to come over, he rang me up and left a message just the other night, sounding more than a little tired and emotional. “Do you really want to hurt me, Sam?” he sobbed. “Do you really want to make me cry?”
George always was a bit of a sissy. I don’t know what the fuck he’s crying for. The rest of Culture Club have been sweeping city streets for the past two decades. That’s karma, my chameleon friend.
But I’ve no stomach for writing about Girl George’s misfortunes this week. Speaking of the old Columbian Marching Powder, there’s only been one thought bouncing around the massive Snortian cranium for the last fortnight. The root cause of all this stress and pressure I’ve been telling you about, it comes in different ways and waves but, whatever the permutation, ultimately boils down to the same thing: ‘WHERE ARE THE FUCKING DRUGS?’ or ‘FUCK – WHERE ARE THE DRUGS?’ or ‘ THE DRUGS – WHERE THE FUCK ARE THEY?’
My impeccable sources on the streets – though they’re not so impeccable that they can actually sort me out! – tell me that the Irish drug squad have recently enlisted the help of the American DEA in their war against drugs. While this war is ultimately futile, unfortunately they appear to be having some success at the moment. There’s a serious drought on. I couldn’t even score some weed in Galway.
Sam Snort and his many agents have scoured the streets of every city, town and village in the country, but we can’t seem to get our hands on anything more potent than bags of last year’s weed-dust, aspirins and talcum powdered gak.
To the Irish Drug Squad and their DEA overlords, I have only this to say – won’t somebody think of the children? I’m actually less concerned about myself, Ernesto and Raul than I am about those poor members of the text generation.
Thousands upon thousands of Leaving Cert students who got their results last week have been forced to celebrate without any chemical or herbal assistance. That’s just fucking shocking in this day and age!