With Stormont suspended and political leaders busy hanging round TV studios issuing ‘grim warnings’ about the talks, people around Northern Ireland are beginning to behave like the teacher has left the classroom.
The reality of having no MLAs to make a balls of things finally sank in after residents woke up to letters telling them they’d have another month before having to pay their rates.
In a snap survey conducted by the Ulster Fry in a pub beer garden “S’nat so bad after all” was the most common reaction to this news, although several citizens revealed that they’d be taking the law into their own hands.
“I’m giving myself a pay rise,” said Staff Nurse Thora Mometer . “Nothing major, just in line with inflation so I can afford to buy fancy things like petrol to get to work.” A top civil servant we spoke to agreed this was feasible. “If we cut back on consultations on how to improve the health service we should be able to afford to improve the health service,” he admitted, before giving himself a pay rise.
Meanwhile in Tyrone there are reports of a number of Gay couples accidentally getting married. “We were in town getting milk and suddenly found ourselves in the registry office,” we were told by one couple. “It turns out that people can get married in there and religion doesn’t have to be involved at all. They kept that quiet.”
On hearing the news a Presbyterian minister we bumped into confirmed that he felt just as Christian as he did before the civil ceremony, and his own marriage remained perfectly valid. “Unfortunately,” he sighed, “I’d kinda hoped the hard faced millbag would leave me if the Gays got hitched, but it seems not.”