It's Christmas once again, and up and down the land, Santy is busy packing his bag full of robogougers and Nintendo DS Lite expensive things, whole tracts of land are being denuded of small pine trees and Mammys and Daddys, who normally hit the sack at 10pm sharp, are hitting the tiles for the annual knees up.
Darkening the door of a nightclub is not something I do easily, but when the vino rosso has been good, the company better and the cries of "sure it's nearly Christmas" have come thick and fast, then workaday sense seemed to fly out the window. And lo and behold I found myself in a newly tarted-up club in the bowels of a Georgian house on Harcourt Street, bemused and finally gobsmacked at the carry on.
Celtic Tiger how are ye, it's the Celtic Kittens who are really on the rise these days. The tabloidisation of Ireland is well and truly up and running and its principle students, the young ladies of the land, have taken up the cudgels and raced like hell. We could be proud. Or we could, like my friends and I, gape rather ill manneredly, stunned into stupefied silence.
In common with every other tranche of society they have their rules. Firstly, you have to wear, very little. And I mean, very little, a dinky chemise, or a crotch, not bottom, skimming, skirt. Next, you have to be tiny and I mean teeny tiny. Size four or six. Or eight, tops. Victoria Beckham has a lot to answer for. Irish women were never known for their small bones.
Well, things have changed. They are all uniformly slender, but tall, tall, tall. Elongated, willowy and fragile looking. These girls don't go for a Big Mac. Lord no. A smoothie, perhaps. (Or "Colombian marching powder" which, one suspects, goes with the territory.)
And you have to wear skyscraper shoes, twinkly, sparkly vertiginous heels. Shoes you could never run in, God forbid anything nasty should befall you on your night of triumph.
But easily the most astonishing thing was the dancing. Or the simulated sex, depending on your point of view. The guys won't bother with a lap dance when they can get the same frisky result for free in the local nightclub.
So its girl-on-girl action on the dancefloor, large groups or one-on-one, lots of backside slapping, boob moshing and general "naughty" behaviour. Centre stage is a former beauty queen and her friends. And the guys watch, sometimes feigning boredom, sometimes joining in, some laughing, some looking perplexed. All nonetheless, falling for it to some degree. It's embarrassing, it's excruciating, it's extra decadent. And it's unreal, both for the kittens and the cubs. Some of the girls look mortified, some look keen. It's a game, they know the rules. But have no doubt, of the two groups it's the girls who seem in charge.
The diet of quasi-porn fed to them morning, noon and night through the tabloids, the net, and TV, specifically un-reality TV, has been assimilated. Of course you go out with wisps of clothing on, of course you dance like a stripper. They've been surreptitiously told to do that for years. Well, they are at it now and then some. Nell, eat your heart out. The question of stimulants came up. Was it alcohol or drug fuelled? Difficult to tell: None of them seemed plastered. Or extra exuberant. It just seems to be the done thing. A step up from the junior discos. A step up from the expectation the boys at the infamous Wesley have that you can get some action, just by taking a girl outside. That a bewildered young teen will get some attention and affection if she does what's expected and pleasures a young dude.
By the late teens, early 20s, the tables have turned. Because the Celtic Kittens are in control. The ultra thin girls with their knowing ways, their hint of decadence and whiff of the burlesque have their boyfriends by the short and curlies. The boyfriends are property developer wannabees, or junior bankers or lawyers. Something with money, because you will need serious dosh to keep up with these ladies. God bless them, you'd nearly feel sorry for the lads. Stalked and hunted ruthlessly, the guys give up and give in. They haven't a hope.
Perhaps we have no need to have such concern regarding our daughters. From where I sat, on my "big nite out", the girls had learned the lessons of the feminist movement, albeit in a fashion not anticipated by the original leaders of that movement. They had turned feminism on its head. They use the tools of modern Ireland to get their own way, to move through life on their terms. And they use the currency women have used from time immemorial, their bodies, to get the guy. But, if they are so liberated, why do they need to behave in this way?
I suspect because it is "bold". Because it's fun being a "bold" girl. Because they can. Because they all went to good convent schools and they know really that they shouldn't. But if everyone else is at it, from the high society, knickerless Hilton heiresses to the hoi polloi, sure why not? Like I said, it seems to be the done thing.
Perhaps it's the boys we should be more worried about. Perhaps Nell doesn't need to eat her heart out after all.
John Waters is on leave