Category : Stories

Sub Category : Comedy

In 1974 the new television landed at our house and as my father and myself sat looking at this new television still in it's box niether one of us had a clue how to yoke it up, so we sat admiring this new technology in colour television. You were nobody unless you had a colour television.
Soon mammy and the sister's arrived home and had the television out of it's box and plugged in before you could bless yourself.
Sure it wasn't long before I began to curse that same television, a little dot appeared in the middle of the screen as it came on, then a few moments later a screen with a snowy picture appeared. It's the Ariel it needs to be adjusted mammy said looking over at me. You see I was the middle child, the hoor that got all the shite jobs and it was up onto the roof I had to go, it was late November and snow and ice lay all around, but health and safety did not exist in 1974 you always found a way round things.
Lucky enough two of my buddy's arrived to see me, Oliver Moore the hoor, and big red Seamus Mac, Seamus Mac was the big lad with the 10 inch scar going up his thigh to his groin, the Black lad in Dublin done it to him because he had sex with the Black lads woman behind the IRA memorial, then he wouldn't pay for it, Seamus Mac never paid nobody for sex, nobody. Moore the hoor was a Protestant and his mammy hated Seamus Mac's mammy because Moore the hoor, couldn't get himself a woman, no woman wanted the hoor, poor awl Seamus Mac felt sorry for Moore the hoor, so he only went and told him how to put his mickeen between two cushions from the sofa, push it in and out, sure it's just like a woman, he went and said.
Moore the hoor got very fond of the two cushions on his mammys sofa, so fond that the mammy walked in one day and here was Moore the hoor with his trousers round his anckles, and his arse in the air going like a fiddler's elbow, she demanded to know the meaning of his behaviour, sure he only told her Seamus Mac told him to do it, so she blamed poor awl Seamus Mac for perverting her son. Sure Seamus Mac's mammy didn't like awl Protestants anyways.
So the plan was for the Seamus Mac to give me a leg up on to the icey roof, then Moore the hoor got up on the Seamus Mac's shoulders and pushed me up the icey roof by the soles of my feet. I had no gloves on and wearing just a jumper it was so cold and icey by the time Moore the hoor had pushed me by the soles of my feet to the chimney stack, I was frozen stuck to the slates. With two frozen hands I loosened the nut with a wrench and began twisting round the Ariel but to no avail as the instructions below from dad bellowing them out from the living room. Turn that yoke in the direction of London and the BBC that's the only way this yoke will work.
Jaysus Christ sure this is fecking rural Toar in the Irish Midlands, how in jaysus name am I to know the direction of London and the BBC from here. I couldn't shout loud enough for him to hear, so the Seamus Mac with Moore the hoor upon his shoulders repeated every thing to my father through the window.
Back came the reply turn it towards Mick Nails haybarn yah eeijit that's London and the BBC, so after a struggle I hear the command, you have it now, you have it now, hold it there.
I was never so glad to get down off a roof freezing cold while the rest of them sat warm at the fire watching the new colour television. The old Ariel's back then we're so poor even a slight change in the weather, it was up on the roof to adjust it. Dad for years blamed Croghan hill the biggest hill in Ireland four miles from us, he believed the signal had to go around the hill, hit off Jack Dowdalls cottage, bounce off that to Mick Nails haybarn and up to our Ariel, and every time the picture went he always said well feck Croghan hill anyways.
A couple of years later the latest technology was the indoor Ariel and when it landed at our house, sure we thought our struggles were over, but it just happens it was so poor quality, that as dad and meself sat watching Shane the western in colour, my sister had to stand on a chair holding the Ariel close to the ceiling the only place it worked for the duration of the film, at least I didn't have to climb up that roof no more.