The recent expansion of Clan Emissions has me riddled with the fear of financial insecurity. As a result, my two remaining functioning brain cells have therefore spent the past week having a skull disco, bashing off each other in an effort to come up with a revenue generating scheme. Thankfully, their sacrifice has not been in vain. I now have a cunning plan. It involves the infiltration of car satellite navigation systems to enable advertisers to spread subliminal messages to unsuspecting punters as they drive, writes Kilian Doyle
Imagine switching on your SatNav and hearing this: "Turn left into Chatham Street. Oh, sorry, did I say ham? Juicy, succulent ham? Wouldn't you love some now?" (This would trigger the air-conditioning system to pump the smell of freshly-cooked bacon through its vents.) No man could resist. You'd instantly forget your important meeting and rush off for a rasher sambo.
It is, you'll agree, genius. Admittedly, my plan is in the early stages of development. I haven't got further than selling ham. To motorists needing directions to Chatham Street.
Luckily, I have identified another potential use for my dashboard propagandist. If any political strategists working on the election are reading this, you'll have already twigged it.
Imagine - your party leader's voice in every car, guiding motorists, soothing their frazzled nerves, maybe even humming them a nice, reassuring ditty as they drive. "He seems nice," the previously-undecided drivers will say. "I'll give him my vote."
Formerly, short of storming every radio station in the country and commandeering the airwaves by force, you couldn't buy exposure like that. Well, now you can. Send payment in used notes - all currency except Northern Bank notes accepted - in a brown envelope to the usual address. In return, I'll send you details of how to hack into every SatNav in the country. I promise. No takers? Is that because you've identified the fatal flaw in my plan? That even the most malleable, gullible drivers will quickly realise that no politician can be trusted to get them where they want to go? That one? I was hoping you would be so blinded by the guff yourself that you'd miss it. Ah, well. My dreams of obscene wealth will have to go unfulfilled.
Take Bertie, for example. Seeking directions would be futile - you'd never, ever, get a straight answer. It won't be long before you get hopelessly lost and find yourself fighting off a horde of feral kids with a tyre iron in a sink estate off the M50 instead of rolling up to your meeting in Chatham Street, bacon sarnie in hand. And Martin Cullen - think the hypnotist from Little Britain: "Look into my eyes, not around my eyes, into my eyes. You are under. This is not an interminable traffic jam - it's a beautiful empty highway, built by my own fair hands with money from my own pocket just for you ..."
Enda Kenny and Pat Rabbitte would take turns to promise you that no matter what directions anyone else gave you, they'd give you better ones. And they'd believe it too, bless them.
Michael McDowell would just dismiss you as a spineless, pitiful Marxist for asking for help and not just riding roughshod over anyone who got in your way, while Joe Higgins would denounce you as an imperialist prole-oppressing capitalist for having a car at all. As for Trevor Sargent, he simply wouldn't answer - he'd be too busy sulking because you're not driving a Prius. Or a bicycle.