Once again, here come the Priggles: the busy-body snooping army of Preaching, Righteous, Insipid, Goody-Goody, Lustreless, Euphemists, who have been present in all civilisations and all societies everywhere, but seldom so unfailingly as in this unfortunate country, writes Kevin Myers.
Their sad, neurotic desire to impose their vision of human nature on the rest of society has been a standard feature of Irish life, from the Playboy riots in 1907, to the outright and permanent banning of Playboy magazine in 1977.
These days, Priggles are most evident in Ireland in the numerous state "watchdog" committees, but they even exist in a privatised form, most acutely in that risible body the Advertising Standards Authority of Ireland, which, in essence, tells the newspapers and the broadcast media of Ireland what advertisements they may or may not carry.
The reassuring feature of Priggleness is its resolute determination to deny what we all know: to refute the realities of human nature, and to impose in their stead a prissy and sanitised fantasy, which lies of course at the heart of all ideologies. Non-racism, non-sexism, non-ageism: those central canons of the modern Priggle, most especially in ASAI-land, where they no doubt begin their morning's work humming a mantra to equality that old is young; Eskimo is Masai: Stephen Hawking is Venus Williams: rap is Chopin.
In Priggleland we don't lose our looks as we grow old, hence ASAI's decision to condemn the Sandtex advertisement which shows an old battleaxe of a harridan glaring out of a window, with the slogan: "For Longer Lasting Good Looks. Sandtex Super Smooth." In the never-never land of ASAI - Anal Society of Asinine Imbeciles - our looks become a visual form of that delightful euphemism, People of Differing Abilities (ie, disabled). So in age, we become Persons of Changed Appearances. Not worse, not better, not handsomer, not uglier, not finer, not grosser, not more enchanting or more repellent: simply, a new hue of neutrality.
So, why are the catwalks of haute couture not filled with zimmer-frames and wheelchairs? Where is Jean Shrimpton today? Why do we no longer see Verushka? Or Twiggy? Why was Katherine Hepburn not chosen to play the part so shamefully given to Sharon Stone in Basic Instinct? Why did Charlton Heston not land the lead role in Gladiator, which so mysteriously went to Russell Crowe?
And why was 007 never played by an older man? Well, actually, come to think of it, he was - or rather, by his corset, Roger Moore merely, if somewhat rigidly, following where the whalebones of his abdominal harness chose to go. He must have been delighted to have been the subject of a pleasing little Irish advertisement for condoms (devices that earlier generations of Priggles managed to outlaw from 1926 to 1991): "roger more", it declared, adding: "Durex Performa. Made to make you last longer." ASAI ruled that this advertisement was "likely to cause widespread offence" - as indeed it probably would in that strange land where Prigglish is spoken.
Naturally, Prigglish is beset with taboos, so it no longer allows the term "Indians" to describe the aboriginal inhabitants of the Americas. But steady: for why would those people prefer to be known after the Italian navigator Amerigo Vespucci? And what if they are Canadians? Or Argentinians? But of course, such people do not count, because the ideological home of the term "native American", is the USA, the only state in the world to use the word "America" in its title.
The official journal of Prigglish on this side of the Atlantic is the Guardian, which makes the ASAI seems almost like Bernard Manning. Perhaps as an anthropological curiosity, this newspaper recently republished a Guardian article by a Richard Adams, condemning the great J K Rowling's novels as "a political bandwagon".
Harry Potter, he declares, is a Conservative. "A paternalistic, One-Nation Tory, perhaps, but a Tory nonetheless." (Stop sniggering in the back there: this is serious).
Without a trace of lingual latitudinousness, he points out that JK Rowling is an honorary member of the British Weights and Measures Society, one of her fellow members being Norris McWhirter, "once a friend of apartheid". Ah yes, that familiar old smear, guilt by association: hmmm, and how unsurprising to find it being used by a Priggle.
But of course, Priggles - being dim but sanctimonious prats - would never even begin to understand they are merely inverts within the political and intellectual tradition of Senator Joe McCarthy. And just as association, no matter how tenuous, is proof of guilt, so is omission: "Hogwarts celebrates Christmas and Hallowe'en," he whines, "but there are no feasts for Rosh Hashanah and Diwali."
There is worse to come. JK Rowling, he avers, despite being a single parent herself, is committed to the traditional family, as if this were comparable to cannibalism or child-sacrifice. Thus, "Harry has to endure the cruel and violent treatment of his aunt and uncle."
Quite: and how much happier the boy would have been had he been raised in a lesbian vegan collective in Hammersmith, with many she-parents of many races, from whom he could have learnt native American vegetarian paeans to the deer and the buffalo.
This is certainly sad stuff: whinging, humourless and precious, a Priggle in an anorak, furiously noting down the ideological imperfections of those around him.
It says something for the generosity of this newspaper that we should give space to such a pretentious, politically correct nerd.
One almost turns to the ASAI for a breath of libertarian air: ah, but not quite.