“Roll up! Roll up! Your man playing away from home?! Bit of footy but he hasn’t even got his kit on?! Eh… having sex… and, and… being a footballer?! Ah, f**k it anyway – are you gullible enough to pay for my dubious help, you silly cow? I think so!”

I can actually say the last line as loud as I like, because the girls haven’t arrived yet – I’m just practising my bit. It helps to stay on top of your game, especially when you’ve been away for a little while this season.

Bob’s off fetching them and bringing them back here. He’s a good lad, Bob is. He’s only been with me for a little while, but I’m impressed with what I’ve seen so far. Good pedigree, if nothing else – did an awful lot of contract work in Iraq… but had to leg it fairly fast when Saddam’s regime fell. He was working as a hired gun – literally – for the Electoral Commission in Zimbabwe when I offered him the contract. Now’s the time to expand, you see – green shoots and all that. The market’s awash with out-of-work Bob types at the moment, so get them while they’re cheap. It won’t be forever that $150 per week will get you someone who’s as equally proficient at Americano-making as they are at finger-breaking.

But I digress. With a creak, the door to the basement – sorry, ‘counselling centre’ – swings inwards, and Bob trots down the stairs. Now, here comes a slightly tricky aspect to this week’s tale, boys and girls. You see, in this politically correct world we live in, even a strictly fictional character like Mollified has to be most careful what he says. If, for example, I was to continue by implying that draped over one of Bob’s shoulders, wrists bound tightly together, was one of the members of a best-selling UK girl band, I could get in an awful lot of trouble. Just like the last time someone did something like that – oh, just Google it. Anyway, we wouldn’t want that, would we? So I won’t.

So let’s just call her ‘Cheryl’. And, in an unrelated vein, let us also take this moment to observe that, until at least the 1970s, the mining and exportation of coal formed a major part of the Welsh economy. Ah, Mollified, you dedicated practitioner of the fine art of punnilingus! Let us continue.

So, Bob dumps his human bundles on the chairs I’ve thoughtfully arranged. Mind you, it was the least I could have done with the seminar venue in the state it is. The chairs are sharing the floor with a rusted bucket and a moulded suitcase. Still, I have my laptop, meaning we have PowerPoint, and Mr and Mrs Mollified upstairs have promised that Bob and I can work away for as long as we like, provided we aren’t too noisy. Yes, I know I mentioned green shoots, but that doesn’t mean an amoral young entrepreneur like me can afford to turn down a good bargain when it’s there.

I snap my fingers in the basement’s cool gloom, waiting for the girls to slowly drift back to consciousness. Slumped in the chair beside is… well, we’ll just call her by her full, Italian, name: Toni Wifeofaphilanderingfuckwita. Toni probably works best for short.

It’s Cheryl who comes around first. “’Ooo the f**ck are you, then?”

Top class, as ever. I clear my throat. “Relax, Cheryl. It’s me, the relationship therapist you were emailing. My apologies about the slightly unorthodox method of colleting you, but it’s all part of the programme, don’t worry.”

She sniffs slightly and looks me up and down. “You don’t much look like ‘Sheikh al-Swarmy, The Relationship Guru’?”

“Well observed,” I flash back, “but the headshots on my website were taken in Tel Aviv!” The quip goes totally over her head. Honestly, bothering to sprinkle in the odd current affairs quip with these people is like feeding After Eights to a terrier.

Beside her, Toni stirs and sits up slightly, her eyes blinking as she takes in her surroundings. “What?! What’s goin’ on ‘ere, then?”

It’s all right, though, because I’ve done my biographical homework here. Before meeting her sportsman husband, Toni was a beautician. Reaching slowly into my coat pocket, I take out the most sparkly, shiny dog-ball the chemist around the corner had to offer, and I fling it in her direction. In a flash, she’s off, scrambling to fetch it.

I turn back to Cheryl. Not that it’s saying much, but I’ve deduced that she might just be the more intelligent of the pair. My teaching efforts, I’ve decided, will concentrate on her.

“Cheryl, we need to start thinking about the factors that make your husband such a pathological shit. We won’t know how to deal with these issues until we know just what they are. Come on, help me help you. Let’s make like Ashley does on the pitch and think outside the box.”

“Thinkin’ ootside ‘is troos-ars, more lyke!” Cheryl squeals, happy she’s finally getting into the swing of things.

“Yes, quite,” I mutter, suddenly realising that this may take longer than anticipated. “Look, let’s just cut to the chase here, girls, because I really want those cheques you’re going to write me, and, God love the shred of integrity I still have left, I actually do want to try and help you in return.”

Blank faces back, like mascara-plastered puppies wondering where the next biscuit’s coming from. “I mean, come on! From the way you’ve been acting, anyone would think that you’re actually happy to just let these guys treat you like absolute mugs. A detached observer might come to the conclusion that you’re willing to be used as a doormat in return for the security and lifestyle of a Premier League footballer’s wage; that you see it as a fair trade-off… ah. I see.

In front of me, their twin WAG heads are nodding rapidly in unison. The girls are delighted that they’ve finally gotten something right in class. Probably the first time since about 1995, as well.

I give up. There are some things in life that even Mollified can’t solve.

“Pssst: here, boss – do you wanna buy a university?

No, no, calm down, hang on – of course it’s legit – Government surplus, the usual story. Bargain? Well you’re telling me it’s a bargain: an absolute snip at an even million. You think I’m the dodgy one here, boss, but let me tell you, you’ll be practically robbing me at that price. Feeding the missus and kids this month on that? I’ll be lucky.

Miles on the clock? Not much, not much at all, actually. How does an even ton sound to you? 1908? Practically yesterday, boss, practically yesterday. I’ve had pairs of trainers older than that, and that isn’t a word of a lie.

I know what you’re thinking, boss, I know what you’re thinking. It’s too good to be true, isn’t it? Truth be told, I’d probably think that meself if I was stood the side of the alley the way you are. Do watch your shoes there, by the way. God’s honest truth, this is the best thing that’s gonna happen to you all night. Other than making it over to that Luas stop with the contents of your pockets as they were when you set out, that is.

What you’ve got to is trust me here, boss. Think of me as the middle man. The bloke I work for? Let’s just call him The Batman. He’s a bad one, boss, a real bad one, and if I’m being honest… I don’t want to come back to him and tell him that the gear hasn’t been shifted. Let’s just help each other out, yeah?

I mean, think about it, boss, you’re getting some definitive bang for your buck here. I’m not just throwing in one university – you’ll get four of the bleedin’ things.

You’re a Dubliner, yeah? Not from my side of the tracks, I’ll wager, but you’ll do boss. Stuck for space at home? Dry rot in the walls giving you grief? Well, my name’s not Dave if you won’t have room to swing a cat and then some after our little transaction.

Belfield? I’ll give you Belfield, boss – 365 acres of the place. Looks-wise? I’ll be honest, boss: it could be better. In fact, it could definitely be better, unless you’re a concrete man. Still and all, who ever said we’re shooting the breeze about aesthetics here? You’ll have room, and that’s what a chap needs for to be himself – am I right?!

Still, though, I can predict the next objection, boss. It’s the frau, isn’t it? The auld memsahib? The long-haired general? She-who-must-be-obeyed? Say no more boss, say no more – you’re preaching to the converted here. Behind every man… is a good woman holding him back! I know it too well, too well.

But you, boss, are in luck: that problem’s sorted before it begins. Running tracks and concrete funnels not getting her cotton moist? I have the lines for your domestic script, boss. Nestled at the entrance to Dublin city centre? Heritage and history stretching back to the nineteenth century? Immediate proximity – this is the clincher here, boss – immediate proximity to Ireland’s biggest shopping district? There’s a ‘Dun’ before the ‘Drum’ for a reason, boss, and that’s to give you a hint at the state of your credit position after herself has had a day let loose in that plastic hole. Still, isn’t it worth it for a smile instead of bared fangs?

Holidays? The way things are at the moment? I’ll be lucky to see Brittas this year, boss, at the price I’m offering you. But I’m hearing you, I’m hearing you. Well, how does the oul’ West sound to you? Bracing walks, wind-swept beauty, traditional music – you name it, boss. It’s a City of the Tribes and everything… sounds a bit like here, actually. But it’s all yours; and I’m not even looking for anything extra. Cork? You really want Cork as well? God knows, someone has to. Right then, boss, it’s yours. That’s the extra mile I’m willing to walk for you.

Something a bit closer to home? Weekend breaks instead? Can’t say I don’t see the appeal, boss. How does Maynooth strike your fancy? Close to the ‘smoke but still far away to make it different. I even like the sound of it meself. Go on. you can have that and all.

Tell you what, boss, help me out on this one and we can even throw in some of those electronic voting machines on top. Boss? Boss?!”

As I drive through the front gates, the knot of surly-looking strikers gathered at the entrance parts for a moment to let me past. One or two shoot a suspicious glance at my distinctive choice of vehicle.

I’m not surprised. I’ve brought the new Land Cruiser out for today’s little jaunt, thinking it’s the only thing capable of getting me around campus fast enough to oversee things. It’s nice to be able to bring it for a proper spin as well, after the substantial downpayment UCD have already contributed. But I digress.

The more extreme element in the crowd obviously thinks I might be a representative of the UCD corporate juggernaut, here to subvert their little attempt at industrial action. They’d be right. Money is what today is all about; lots of money. Destined to end up lining my pocket, if I have anything to do with it.

I continue on in past the Services blockhouse, turning right to motor towards my usual stomping ground in the Student Centre. I’m breaking UCD’s traffic regulations with a will here, but somehow, I don’t think anyone’s going to mind today. I slow down and lower the electric window, as I pass a familiar looking figure walking through the car park. He’s right on time. “Dr Allen, I presume?”

I can’t resist a little Arts wise-crack. He glances around furtively and returns his gaze to me. Puffing his chest out, he roars at me for the benefit of anyone listening. “You and your blackleg associates won’t be getting away with this, Mollified!”

Whipping his gaze left and right to make sure he’s in the clear, he shuffles a little closer to the window and lowers his voice to a careful whisper.

“Is everything going to plan?”

“Why, of course, Doc, of course. Brady and the rest of the fat cats aren’t going to know what’s hit them once today is over.”

Even as an inveterate liar, it does occasionally pain me to have to stoop to an untruth. Brady and company know precisely the manner in which they’ll be hit, because I’ve been considerate enough to ensure that an itemised quote for the services I’m about to render was emailed to every member of Governing Authority over the past week. The good Dr Allen, thankfully, is still in the dark about that for the moment.

Truth be told – which it rarely is, with me – Belfield’s answer to Big Jim Larkin thinks that I’m on his side here. This isn’t the first time we’ve had one of these seedy little meetings. I’ve been grooming the SIPTU mouthpiece for weeks now, steadily building up his confidence and convincing him that Mollified & Mollified Inc. truly mean no harm to the working man. And indeed we don’t – provided, of course, that the working man doesn’t get in our way.

For the moment, the Belfield Bukharin is content to believe that all the pleasant skulduggery I’ve been up to over the past two weeks is in aid of today’s Big Lefty Day Out.

“Don’t worry,” I whisper back, struggling to hide the smirk. “You hurry down to the main picket and keep the troops going. I’ll check in with my lot now.”

With that, I take off in a haze of exhaust fumes, leaving the rabble-rousing academic to blink after me before continuing on his way.

I screech to a halt outside the Student Centre and jump out of the Land Cruiser to draw a deep breath of satisfaction and anticipation before marching up the concrete steps.

Inside, the assembled crowd falls silent at my appearance, staring expectantly toward me. It’s not almost like a general about to address his troops before going into battle. That’s exactly what this is.

Facing me in the tiled atrium of the Student Centre is a motley crew of the very best that the world’s murky mercenary network has to offer. Killers, assassins, hired guns – I’ve got them all right here. It’s quite astonishing what a bit of deft work on CraigsList and a blank cheque from the NUI can do to build a personal army.

And these boys mean business. Looking at the array of lean, tanned faces, with muscles bulging under faded combat fatigues, I find it hard to suppress an involuntary shiver, even though I know that I’m the employer here, not the potential victim. At any rate, I hope I won’t be ending up a murder victim. Still, the old Mollified charm has never failed yet.

Composing myself, I step up to the nearest gaggle of hard men and offer a careful smile, glancing down at the cheat sheet I’d printed off before I left the house.

“Solomon, isn’t it?” I address the man-mountain who appears to lead this particular faction.

He smiles back, revealing two jagged ranks of gold-capped teeth. I suppress another squirming fit, and remember why the name had stuck in my head from the recruitment session last week.

Solomon “Chop-Chop” Nkumbe, if I recall it exactly. The fastest man with a machete in West Africa – if not the neatest, if the widows of the Ivory Coast are to be believed. Still, profitable workmanship can’t happen without the right tools.

There’ll never be a safe way to say it, so I just go for it. Reaching behind my back, I produce a linen pinafore and hand it over to the giant. “This is your, eh… uniform… for today.”

He growls slightly, and fixes me with a most unedifying glare. Backing quickly away, I hastily draw the cheque book from my pocket and wave it at him. At the hint of filthy lucre, the tension is instantly broken and a smile breaks his craggy features once again.

“But of course, Slightly!”

He barks a quick order and his men follow suit, strapping the pinafores on over their webbing and cartridge belts.

“Excellent! You’ll be manning the restaurant for the day!”

I quickly stride around the remainder of my real-life A Team and hand out their assignments. One-day stoppage? We’ll soon see.

As I shepherd my strike force out the door, my phone vibrates in my pocket. It’s Brady, anxiously checking in. “R we gud 2 go?”

The ingrate. DIT students could make a better fist of spelling. Still, for the moment, I’m relying on him for the remaining half of M&M’s fee. I punch back a quick reply in the affirmative, and wander over to the SU Corridor to make a coffee and await events. Being in command has its perks, I reflect to myself, as I settle in to my recliner.

~~

By 10am, word has filtered back over the two-way radio. My own little attempt at a Dramsoc staging of The Eagle Has Landed has worked a charm. Everywhere, service across campus has carried on as normal.

The South Africans are manning the library check-in desks with marked efficiency, there’s a clutch of Belgian paratroopers offering French tutorials in the Arts Block, and a squad of burly Ghurkhas are conducting rather wide-eyed secondary school pupils on whistle-stop tours of the campus. Over in Science, two stocky Ukrainian sappers are giving a First Year Chemistry class a practical demonstration in material mixing. I know this last detail without needing to use the radio, because I can hear the periodic explosions from my office. Ah, the joys of being an educational administrator.

I’m still enjoying my little reverie when there’s a commotion outside the office. The door crashes open to reveal a very, very disgruntled looking senior Sociology lecturer.

“You lying rat!” he shrieks, lunging for me across the table. “You promised me you’d have extra numbers to boost the picket line! And now, you’ve got them… working?! You told me you were a bloody Socialist!”

This could be tricky, so I proceed as carefully as I can. I take him through it patiently.

“Indeed I am, Doc. There are very few more fervently committed to the principles of socialism than I. Equal and fair distribution of wealth, that’s always been the name of my game.”

He doesn’t seem to like this. “Do you think I’m a fool, Mollified?!”

“Calm down,” I insist. “It’s true. Fair distribution to me, to my mistresses, to the Toyota dealer in Ranelagh, to my dealer… need I go on?”

He’s about to heave a laptop at me when something seems to click into place behind his eyes. “Fair distribution… of just how much?” he asks, carefully.

Despite my many failings, I still place some store in modesty, so I scribble Brady’s figure on a scrap of jotting paper and slide it across the table. His eyes open wider as he locates the decimal place.

“But, that’s…”

“I know,” I nod. “All those unclaimed registration over-charges. It’s like some grotesque version of all the ticket stubs at Dublin Bus Head Office.”

He turns it over quickly in his head. Idealism never has much of hope against cold, hard logic.

“20 per cent?” he suggests.

I counter quickly. “15, and my boys in the library will throw in enough swiped Che Guevara biographies to keep you engrossed for the rest of the winter.”

We have a deal.

~~

Within an hour, Allen’s worked his persuasive magic down at the picket line, and staff members are starting to shuffle back to work all over campus. But there’s one small problem.

The boys, you see, have quickly become quite attached to their new roles. Over in the Tierney Building, two wiry Zimbabwean gunmen have been processing student administration queries with an efficiency that the place hasn’t seen since the days of Cardinal Newman, while students already seem to be becoming quite fond of the culinary output of the tattooed Chechen cook who’s taken up residence in 911. They’re not in a hurry to finish up the job any time soon, and I’m not quite sure the student body want them to leave.

This creates a problem, however. If my gang of thugs aren’t allowed to move on to their next bit of work, then there’ll be a vital ingredient missing from war zones and dark alleyways the world over.

On the other hand though, if the majority of UCD’s staff members are allowed back, then villages the world over will still be lacking their idiots. I think about it, and make my decision. It’s time for some impromptu career exchanges.

Gesturing Chop-Chop over, I get him and his men to quickly swap clothing with the frightened looking staff members gathered outside the O’Reilly Hall. Once it’s complete, I stride across to address the lecturers and workers now garbed in ridiculously over-sized camouflage. Behind them in the car park, engines are revving on the military trucks waiting to transport them to Dublin Airport for their charter flights to various hot and dangerous parts of the world.

“What happens to you next will be… very interesting,” I drawl. “Think of it as simply an extended field-trip. Examining the practical effects of Darwinism.” I mumble the last sentence though. You can’t completely take away their hope.

As I watch one of the key human components of UCD file away under armed guard, I’m aware that I may have just done something very, very bad – even by my standards. But then I turn around just in time to catch the look of youthful excitement on a south Dublin Arts fresher’s face, as a bearded Serbian militiaman shows him exactly where to punch someone so as to instantly paralyse them.

I had that excitement once, too. Maybe my changes will make UCD a better place. It’s never too late to try and be good.

Merry Christmas, Mr Mollified.

The inspector from Donnybrook Garage has lent me his hat for the occasion, and it really does feel appropriate.

It’s a Soviet Commissar-style thing; a tall peak with a brim wide enough to eat a meal from. Before I left the house earlier in the evening, I made sure that Mammy Mollified burnished the brass Dublin Bus badge on the front to within an inch of its life, and now it looks the business. As I stride purposefully across the grass by the Student Bar, it’s all I can do, both as a result of costume and natural inclination, to prevent myself breaking into a GDR-esque goosestep down the concourse. But there still might be opportunity for that later.

I’m delighted with myself for ensuring that Mollified & Mollified Inc. have secured the contract for this little number. In reflection, the pitch was easier than I thought. Donnybrook’s Chief Inspector was dubious at first, but when I outlined things to him in his office, he began to come around to my way of thinking.

I use “office”, of course, in the loosest sense of the word. I’m sure the man has indeed worked from home at one point or another in the past, so it wasn’t all that unethical of me to have confronted him in his living room the previous evening. With a meticulously-sharpened HB pencil pressed lightly against his jugular.

Still, that’s the cut and thrust of entrepreneurship, and I do need to carve out a career for myself when my decade-long sojourn as an Arts undergraduate eventually comes to an end. In fact, that’s exactly the witty turn of phrase I used in explaining to the transport official why I felt my new company should be hired to solve UCD’s bus difficulties.

“But,” he gasped, once he’d eventually calmed down a little and stopped shaking, “even if I do say yes and you let me go, what on earth could this one-man show of yours actually do to solve things?”

“Ah, well that’s the thing, you see,” I replied, idly rolling the pencil across my palm. “I’m exactly what you need.”

“You?!”, he replied, incredulously. “You’re nothing but a student hack!”

“That’s were you’re wrong, Inspector Hostage!”, I exclaimed. “What this situation needs isn’t simply someone who can get things done, it’s someone who also knows just the right people. It’s all a matter of contacts…”

I let the words hang for a moment in the suburban quiet, and then continued.

“Over my years of student journalism, I’ve come across more than a few interesting characters. Give me a free hand in this, and I absolutely guarantee you that I can solve your campus problems in a single evening.”

He eventually said yes, of course. They usually do. Now it’s twenty hours later, and yours truly is about to kick-off his very own careers week.

As I near the 10 bus stop, I can see I have my work cut out for me. It’s just after half-ten, and the usual assortment of adolescent student miscreants have dragged themselves out of the warm fug of the Student Bar and apartment parties. Almost everyone has alcohol of some sort clutched in their hands, and I can even see one reprobate doing his level best to deep-throat a full bottle of Buckfast. God bless our country cousins. No matter; my guest list for tonight will serve admirably.

As I reach the stop, I can see the crowd staring suspiciously at me. It’s time to make my presence felt.

If this were a dinner party, I’d politely tap a butter knife against the side of a glass to get their attention. It isn’t though – it’s a windswept South Dublin approximation of an Eastern Bloc airport, so other means will have to suffice. I grasp the meatiest looking Ag Science student I can see and bodily heave him against the side of the bus stop. The hollow metallic clang as an immovable object meets a thick skull gets their interest all right.

I stride forward, leaving my dazed-looking victim to sit up and wonder whether he’s pulled before they’ve even arrived in Copper’s.

“Ladies and gentlemen, I give you… Bruce Forsyth!”

They instinctively snigger, before one of the Pulse testosterone bags whose salaries I’ve just offered to double steps forward with the BBC presenter in tow. The laughter tails off as they realise that he really is here. I might have overdone myself here, but there’s nothing like a touch of class.

Brucey looks nervous, but he’ll do the job. I know he will, because I’ve made it quite clear that I won’t be stitching his pacemaker back in until I’m happy with his performance.

He clears his throat, his foxy white moustache twitching, and speaks.

“Thank you, thank you!”, he begins, forgetting for a moment that he hasn’t got Tess Daly holding his geriatric hand now. “Our first guest tonight is very, very special. All the way on temporary loan from United States Military Detention Centre Fort Huge, it’s a lovely little lady with a neat line in dog training! Please welcome Private First Class (Dishonourably Discharged) Stacey H. Goonbaker, III!”

Most of the yokels and So-Co airheads at the bus stop don’t seem to get the reference, which fails to surprise me. Newspapers don’t tend to have much utility to these types beyond the medium of rolling paper. They rapidly get the point though, as Goonbaker lunges forward with her Alsatian in tow.

She’s been out of practice for quite a while – ever since the war crimes trial, in fact – but, boy, she hasn’t lost the magic. In an instant, the mass is cringing up against the walls of the bus stop, Fido snarling furiously at the end of his rope. Goonbaker’s eagerly making ready to start stripping our prisoners and arranging them in her patented human pyramid sculptures when I gesture for her to halt. I think it’s time to switch to more persuasive tactics.

Stepping forward again, I signal for Brucey to continue. “And now everybody… it’s time for our favourite part of the evening: getting on the bus!”

The crowd starts obligingly making for the nearest double-decker, casting nervous glances at the lurking form of Goonbaker, when I bellow for them to halt.

“Not that bus! That bus!!”

They follow my pointed figure over to where a rather different looking bus sits forlornly behind the line of pristine Dublin Bus vehicles. Different is indeed the only word for the thing.

It looks like a giant Mechano construction; all bare metal framework and exposed wiring. It doesn’t even have a roof, but I’m not too concerned. Comfort isn’t really the name of the game this evening. The pimped-out bus is exactly what I was looking for, and God knows I paid enough to the body-makers in Clare to alter it. I remind myself that you have to spend money to make money, as I select a victim from the crowd waiting hesitantly by the steps of my bus.

“You!” I growl. “Pee on it!”

The callow-faced student gawps back at me, uncomprehending, until Goonbaker’s mutt rears up on its hind legs, snarling. Panicked, the inebriated scholar stumbles forward to the side of the bus and obediently unzips his flies.

The instant his stream of watered-down Tuborg hits the metalwork, there’s a flash of bright light. My unwilling volunteer is physically picked up and flung backwards by the force of the electric shock. As a faint sizzling sound lingers in the air, I turn to face the rest of the group.

“Just try it,” I invite, as sweetly as I can. “Anything you like, not just bodily fluids. Lager, wine, alcopops… so much as moisten the paintwork and you’ll be halfway to being a mentally-impaired Florida Death Row inmate before you can blink.”

It’s a real Road to Damascus moment. Immediately, I catch the sound of smashing class and aluminium clinking as bottles and cans are dropped to the ground post-haste. Sheepishly, the crowd straightens its clothing and lines up meekly for the trip to Harcourt Street.

I love it when a plan comes together. As I saunter happily home later, past the ongoing construction works around the Science Building, I begin to ponder Mollified & Mollified branching out into the construction industry. Onwards and upwards; that’s the name of the business game.

Not again. It’s early on a rainy October Tuesday and I’m standing outside the Observer office in the Student Centre. Some bright spark has being playing with the red permanent markers again. They’ve scrawled it right across the front door.

‘NO TO RASIST JOURNALISM!’

Rasist? Sigh. This campus needs a better class of protestor. I make my way into the building and let myself into the office. It’s much the same story as soon as a check my e-mail.

‘YOU B*STARD!’ Jenny from 2nd Year Science has been thoughtful enough to drop me a few lines on the above. ‘Rot in hell, Mollified’ is Seán from 3rd Medicine’s contribution to the debate. ‘Please, please get in touch – I think I may be pregnant’ is… eh, well, forget about that for the moment.

This is just getting annoying now. I’m idly thinking of calling some sort of press conference when a movement I see in the corner of my eye attracts my attention. I duck just in time to avoid the brick that comes crashing through the office window.

It lies in the carpet, surrounded by a sheen of broken glass. It’s brown. I can’t quite tell if this is an achingly hip metaphor for inclusion, or if the cretins have just dismantled the nearest wall they could find.

I’m still weighing it up in my head when I notice the chanting outside. Squinting through the broken window, I can make out the press of bodies moving towards me across the lobby of the Student Centre. Here and there, a bright flicker of orange breaks up the dark mass as torches are ignited. This is like a bad dream. Looking closer, I’m sure I can even discern one yokel in the middle grasping a pitch-fork.

In the front rank, Scottie Ahearn is kneeling down with an empty wine bottle clasped between his legs, carefully topping it up with petrol before stuffing a dirty rag in to the top. He looks up and catches my panicked eyes.

Scottie’s normally my best source; what on earth’s he doing? He’s mouthing something at me in silent apology. Stoats? Boats? What’s the Tipperary Ranger on about now? Then I get it. Votes. Scottie shakes his head sorrowfully; and then raises his voice for the benefit of the mob:

“Burn the fascist!!”

The Blueshirt has never really had much of a feeling for irony.
I crouch down under my desk and think furiously. Years of lazy student journalism haven’t prepared me for this.

***

It had all started just over two months ago, in the very same office. The Editor was sitting at his desk; shirt sleeves rolled up over massive, meaty arms; a smouldering cigar clenched in one corner of his mouth… actually I lie. That misguided week I spend as a naïve fresher writing the Tribune’s Dramsoc column has permanently blurred my grasp of fact and fiction.
The Editor is actually a she; and on that day in late August, the sun beaming down, and birds in the trees; she’d fixed me with a rather worrying smile.

“It’ll be the making of you, Mollified,” she said, as innocently as she could.

“I’m really, really not sure about this,” I replied. And it was true. This struck even my egotistical mind as one of the most flawed schemes to emerge from the mouth of a female since Eve had been big-hearted enough to share her packed lunch with Adam.

“Nonsense”, she shot back, a glinting little smile still fixed in to place. “It would be the scoop of the century. No Irish newspaper of any kind has ever been able to get someone undercover into the BNP.”

This was just too much. I had to point it out to her.

“Isn’t that because no Irish newspaper has ever really been arsed getting someone into the BNP? I mean, it is the British National Party. Is it really… well, all that relevant?”

“Of course it is! Just think; we’ll beat them all: the Times; the Indo; Trinity News… especially Trinity News…”

I was starting to like the sound of this. But I’m a fool. If I wasn’t a fool, then I would have stopped picturing the cold feel of a Pulitzer Prize being pressed into my perma-tanned hands; and I would have looked up in time to see the little grin that she flashed to the person sitting across the room.

If I’d been even less of an idiot again; then I would have realised who the person she was looking at was. Fintan Reynolds. The lying, jumped-up little prick.

He’s been after my spot at the section editor’s table ever since he managed to door-step Daniel O’Donnell when he was staying in the Shelbourne last year and got that front-page interview about his decade of struggling with a cake jumper addiction. The bastard. If I’d figured it out there and then, I would have leapt for the nearest stationary cabinet and stapled them both between their conniving eyes. But I just never saw it coming.

“I’m your man!” I announced.

“Superb,” she purred. “If you’d just like to sign here, here, and here,” sliding the form across the table.

“Am I of pure Anglo-Saxon or Celtic descent?”, I read aloud as I glance over the membership document. I can’t resist it. “Well, probably more Celtic than anything, but there was that class trip to Manchester where I definitely felt a few different Angles while getting… getting some… Sax…”

I look up. She’s not amused.

“Just sign the bloody thing, you ass”, she snaps.

“Yes, Ma’am”, I mumble, and hand the form back.

She seals the form in its envelope and puts it into the post trolley. “Congratulations, Mollified – you’re now a member of the BNP!”

I thank her and get up to go. As I pull the office door shut behind me, I tell myself that it isn’t the sound of cackling I can hear behind me.

***

Of course, the treacherous cow leaked it. Or rather, Reynolds leaked it – you can be sure she didn’t do the dirty work herself. I can just picture the little shit now, brushing his greasy mop out of the way as he crouches over the Wikileaks website. The turd. I’d have the keyboard swept for flakes of acne residue afterwards.

None of that’s going to help me now though. The sound of baying is getting closer and closer as the crowd floods into the Students’ Union corridor. This could be my stickiest situation yet.

As the first banging starts on the door, I glance up and see her. No, it couldn’t be. It just couldn’t be.

The Editor herself is standing outside, long-lens camera in hand. I fling open the door and bundle her inside before the great unwashed outside can string me from the nearest pile of Freshers’ Week t-shirt boxes.

“What are you doing here?!”

She smiles, but it’s not a pleasant smile. “Ah, Mollified. This is going to be the Observer’s story of the decade. You really didn’t think I’d pass up the chance to cover it, did you?”
“You wouldn’t dare!” I respond. “Not even you would stoop this low!”
“Oh, but I would. Don’t worry though; you’ll still have your fifteen minutes of campus fame… I’ll make sure the colour shot of your charred carcass goes on the front page.”
I think desperately. Behind me, the office door is beginning to buckle under the pressure from outside. This is not how the Mollified story is meant to end. That was meant to involve a bath full of cocaine and a bevvy of nubile young ladies from the former Soviet Republics.
Then it hits me. The lock of the door; to the side of my face, as Scottie hurtles through the entrance with a dozen of his most drippy liberal assistants in tow. He has a length of rope in his hands, and being from outside the Pale, he may well have an idea about how to use it.
But I have a plan. Before the Welfare Officer can get to work, I suddenly grab the Editor and push her in front of me like a shield.

“This is the person you want!” I shout to make myself heard above the clamour.

Scottie draws up short and stares at me in suspicion. “What do you mean?”

“What do you mean??”, the Editor asks, even more loudly.

“Just listen to that northern accent,” I say. I’m desperate, absolutely desperate, but this might just work. “A northern accent? Come on, Scottie, we all know what that means. She’s almost, probably, possibly, maybe in one of those groups. The IRB; the MOD; the DOE. I mean, come on, have you never watched UTV by mistake?? If anyone should be investigated, it’s her!!” I jab my finger at her to make the point.

She’s not having any of it, though. “But that’s absolutely ridiculous! I’m from Donegal!!”

Scottie might just be persuaded here. I chance my arm. “Well, that’s exactly what she would say, isn’t it? I mean, I wouldn’t trust her as far as I could throw her,” I add, just to make his decision-making process easier.

It works, in a heartbeat; the crowd loses interest in me and drags her away down the corridor for a proper interrogation in Café Brava. I breathe a shaky sigh of relief. Mollified has lived to libel another day.

I glance over at the Editor’s chair, now invitingly empty. Things can only get better.

-

The adult handlers of Slightly Mollified would like to stress that the writer does not, in fact, hold any kind of racist views. He’s an equal opportunities arsehole. Please direct your ire and general abuse to slightly.mollified@universityobserver.ie.

The chill of an October evening seems all too distant in the warm fug of a tenth-floor Fleet Street office. When you’re up this high, the blaring of London’s evening traffic seems so faded as to be almost a gentle backing track; like a record with the volume turned down to its lowest level.

That’s what the sub-editor’s diary says so eloquently, anyway, and I’d be inclined to believe him as I idly flip through the notebook pages. He seems an intelligent man. Or at least he seemed an intelligent man before Marty slipped him the old Chloroform handkerchief in the ante room outside. I’m not too sure just how intelligent he’ll still be if – when – he wakes up. Glancing over at Marty, I’m none too convinced he got his sums right when he was mixing the chemicals back in Belgrove. Ah, well; back to the business at hand.

Sitting before us, the editor of the Times Higher Education supplement looks like he’s paying rapt attention to the two Irishmen who’ve suddenly bundled in to his office on a Thursday evening. He would do, though, because his arms are neatly pinioned to his reclining chair by the plastic gardening ties I picked up as an afterthought when we were on our way to the ferry that morning.

He’s stalling for time now, and I don’t like it. Marty might be content to sit there like a grinning simpleton all evening, but I have other plans for the night. A contact says they can guarantee me admission to rehearsals for Strictly Come Dancing down at the BBC’s Television Centre if I can get there before 8.00. Looking at my watch, I see that it’s 7.15 already. No, I don’t like this at all.

Leaping to my feet, I begin to pace around the room. The THE supremo watches me intently, his eyes like saucers above the gaffer tape we’d helped ourselves to from Services the other day. He’s nervous now.

“For the last time”, he begins, his voice muffled, “I’ve told you two that it’s not as simple as me just phoning the printers and telling them to change the rankin…”

“Quiet!”

I cut him off, in my best, booming, Kieran Allen-mass-meeting voice. We’re running short of time here. It’s time to go for the rough stuff.

Crossing over to stand close to The Times’ man on the spot, I slowly unroll my UCD scarf. The little metallic studs I had gotten Mummy to spend the other night sewing into the wool glint evilly in the light from the desk lamp between us.

“I’m running out of patience”, I growl in the most intimidating voice a former University Observer hack can muster. “Don’t make me go for the nuclear option here…”

The Ed’s eyes strain even wider.

“Please… there really is nothing I can do for you gentlemen”, the muffled voice comes again.

I sigh. “We’re going to have to do a little bit better than that.”

As the English journalist squirmed, my mind drifted slowly back. How on earth had it come to this?

***

It was a crisp September morning at the start of term when I first got the call. First thing in the morning, to be precise. I’d woken up and groggily reached out to feel the shape beside me in the bed.

It felt hairy… and leathery. Doubting even my ability to let the side down that badly after a night’s debauchery in Harcourt Street, I opened my eyes properly to see the horse’s head that had been left neatly propped up on my pillow during the night.

“What on earth?”

I blinked, and then flicked my phone on to dial the 716 number that had been scrawled on the Post-it stapled on to the late Dobbins’ forehead.

He answered at the first ring. I shivered slightly as I heard those unmistakeable, Executive tones flood through the receiver.

“Ah, Mollified!”, he began, sounding unnaturally cheerful.

“Mr President”, I gulped, nervously.

“Really hope you don’t mind my little, ahhh… unorthodox manner of getting in contact, young man. Have to play to the stereotype, you know. Don’t worry for a second about the nag, it was already dead. I had four of the muscle monkeys from Pulse haul it over to the Tierney Building from Veterinary last night. Quite the mess, slicing a horse’s head off indoors, actually, you’d be surprised… Anyway, I need you for a special mission.”

“Me, Mr President?”, I asked in surprise.

“Yes”, he replied, “we need a student representative to assist us with a University trip to the UK. It’s a matter of… errrr… well, one might say persuasion.”

“Persuasion…”, I repeated, the doubt showing clearly in my voice.

“Precisely, Mollified, precisely. We need a student to accompany our Vice-President for Students on a deputation to London. It’s a matter of the utmost importance. The student that goes will have to be representative of exactly the kind of young mind that UCD produces these days.”

“But, Mr President”, I butted in, “I’m a lazy, apathetic, waster who rarely attends lectures, consumes alcohol at a debilitating rate, and has generally spent the past two years trying to coast through a State-funded opportunity of higher education with the absolute minimum of effort.”

“Exactly!”, he announced, triumphantly. “So are you free early in October?”

***

And so back to the present. In front of me, the editor is visibly wilting at the prospect of what’s to come.

“You had your chance to oblige us”, I remind him. “This is your fault from here on in.”

“Please”, he begs. “Please, don’t hurt me.”

“Oh, no”, I reply, a malicious gleam in my eye. “I have much worse than that in store for you.”

I gesture to my colleague sitting beside me.

“Dr Butler; if you’d like to commence?”

Marty rises up on his haunches, visibly brimming with excitement now that his moment has come. He clears his throat and begins.

“Martin’s the name! Let me just tell you about the cross-campus and cross-community opportunities offered by the UCD Community Musical…”

I back quickly out of the office and close the door behind me. I’m a hard man, but even I don’t want to see this. Five minutes later, there’s an audible thump from inside the room.

I walk quickly back in to see the editor banging his head against his desk in sheer, abject despair.

“No more”, he gasps, in between sobs. “You can have it, just please, no more.”

Excellent. I silence Marty with a wave of my hand and pass the authorisation sheet across the table for the editor to sign.

“#89 in the table should do nicely, thanks”, I add helpfully.

Two minutes later, and Marty and I are exiting the building in to the cool evening air of London, leaving a broken man behind us.

Ah, well. You can’t make an omelette, I think happily, as I anticipate watching Alesha at work later on…

MY, BUT IT’S a tough time to be a card-carrying liberal. No sooner did we succeed in getting one of our own back in the White House after a lengthy absence (may His name be praised without reserve); then Saint Ted of Massachusetts went and… well died. Even a seasoned 3rd Year Sociology repeat like me was stunned by how low the forces of Right Wing conspiracy stooped this time. I mean, of all the conservative skulduggery – a malignant brain tumour?

All the same, I was heartened last week to see that at least some out there are still fighting the good fight.

The trail-blazers at Flintshire County Council in Wales have decided to tackle a monumentally offensive historical hangover by banning the term Spotted Dick from their canteen menus. The obnoxious pudding will henceforth be termed Spotted Richard, and proper order too. After recovering from my initial spotty outrage that such a bastion of sexist innuendo could have lingered on in to the 21st century in the first place, I matted my dreadlocks up and went out on to campus to see if we could follow suit.

“Of all the conservative skulduggery – a malignant brain tumour?”

The news wasn’t good. No sooner had I gotten over my surprise that Belfield opens on a Friday when I was confronted by a poster advertising UCD’s Michael Smurfit School of Business. The sheer reactionism of naming an educational facility after a capitalist fat cat was enough in itself to make me choke on my organic muesli, but what really stunned me? The location.

That’s right, in 2009, UCD still insists on maintaining an outpost in an area named Blackrock. Blackrock. The sheer crassness of it all. How this hasn’t yet managed to embroil the University in a controversy of huge proportions is beyond me, but I was determined to act quickly to avert the trouble that could yet ensue.

Marching up to the Student Centre, I wanted to vent my spleen at the Student representatives nestled within. They might be part of the system, and that itself makes them part of the problem, but whether they liked it or not, change was about to batter their Establishment barriers down, By next week, we were going to have a Belfield South campus instead; and I was prepared to go to whatever lengths necessary to save future generations from the anachronisms of their predecessors.

UCD Students’ Union Welfare Officer Scott Ahearn is a nice young man, and I was pleasantly surprised to see that he himself was doing his bit to struggle against orthodoxy by refusing to wear a suit – or indeed, any form of business-like attire – during working hours. For all that though, he really didn’t seem to comprehend the scale of the problems facing us.

“Did Dun Laoghaire Rathdown County Council naming conventions perturb the workers that stormed the Bastille in 1968? Did postal districts bother the patriots of Easter Week when they fought the SAS and the B-Specials?”

I jabbed my fingers at him, still calloused from the agricultural work I spent doing in July on a collective farm in Cuba, and demanded to know just what he was going to do to.
Ahearn swallowed nervously. “Belfield South? It’s a different district, isn’t it?”

Not good enough, Scott. Did Dun Laoghaire Rathdown County Council naming conventions perturb the workers that stormed the Bastille in 1968? Did postal districts bother the patriots of Easter Week when they fought the SAS and the B-Specials? Well actually, I suppose they did – I do remember something about a post office in that First Year Revolutions elective I took (and nearly passed). I asked him just what he’d do if we got the demo to end all demos brewing outside his office door.

“It would go through a complaints procedure with the local County Council, and they’d sit down and explain the situation – why it’s called Blackrock. There’s obviously a history behind the name, but a lot of people might not understand where the term comes from.”

Somewhat placated, I withdraw my threats of imminent People Power and retreated from Ahearn’s lair of bureaucracy. It was only outside, sitting on the steps as I sipped a cup of Venezuelan Fair Trade coffee and sparked a roll-up, that it hit me. The parchment scroll I’d seen framed on the wall of Ahearn’s office. The liar. The utter, sly, fox. He’d been one of them all along.

“Kicking the door open as hard as my sandals would allow me, I screamed it at him”

Pausing only long enough to show my typical disrespect for uniformed authority by glowering at a Pulse Security patrol from behind one of the concourse pillars; I hurried back in to the Student Centre to confront my new nemesis. Kicking the door open as hard as my sandals would allow me, I screamed it at him.

“You’re a History graduate, Ahearn?! A History graduate?! Why not Herstory, eh? No, this ends here. We want it renamed Past Studies, and we want it now.”

He tried to stonewall me.

“It’s an anagram, and changing the words around to make things fit. I don’t regard history as male-dominated; I think there’s been some iconic female politicans and figures. The majority of lecturers [in UCD’s School of History] are female.”

He could talk the talk all right, but I had the measure of this Establishment chimera now. His protests were in vain.

“You’re going to change an iconic word that every human being from the age of five knows?!”

Eventually, a compromise was reached. Ahearn agreed to take my passionate protests on board. I, in turn, took his advice to visit a supermarket at some point and purchase something he took the trouble of writing out for me. Where is it, again? Ah, yes. Lynx.