Return of the mattress

There have been many great comedy duos over the years, Morecambe and Wise, Fry and
Laurie, the two Ronnie’s, Reeves and Mortimer even, but none come close to the comic
talent writing the new hit sitcom, the Irish economy, oh yes, let me introduce you
to Cowan and Lenihan.

It’s a perfect partnership, Cowan writes the scripts, it took a few years to
perfect, and then Lenihan acts them out and between them we have the farce of the
century.

Lenihan of course now is taking over the writing, giving Cowan more time to play
crazy golf and do guppy impressions at the ploughing championships, and we wait with
baited breath for the next instalment of the recession busting budget, though don’t
hold your breath too long, if passed performance is a bench mark, you will be dead
from suffocation long before he learns to count never mind save the day.

Public spending is of course going to be cut, no more medical cards for all the
over seventies, if you have a bit of cash sitting you can just damn well go and buy
your own tablets, after all you probably use more tablets than the average ecstasy
user and you are just costing the HSE far too much money. The HSE can of course
afford to pay out over €700M in extra payments to staff but would leave you lying on
a trolley, paying for your own tablets and weighing your incontinence pads to save a
bit.

Minister ‘I can’t count past ten’ Lenihan also took a bit of a swipe at Joe Duffy
over his programme which questioned the safety of Irish financial institutions. It
seems his critique has called up mass hysteria and panic in the populace not known
since Brian Cowan and Mary Harney chose the same moment to walk over the Ha'penny
Bridge.

Let’s face it there is a credit crunch on, which means that the Irish financial
institutions don’t trust each other, why should we have anymore faith in them than
they have in themselves.

With that in mind there has been a rush on in the sales of mattresses as people
follow Bertie Aherns example and return to keeping their money stuffed inside soft
furnishings and out of the eye of the inland revenue, sorry I mean where it will be
safe from your bank imploding.

It does appear that there is one place where the credit crunch has not hit home,
Debenhams, in a single visit to the department store you are assured to be asked a
dozen times whether you would like to take out a new credit card. The Scotsman’s
credit crunch survival advice would therefore be, head to Debenhams, get a credit
card and buy lots of mattresses, but do it quick before the special mattress levy is
brought into place on the 14th.