Ian O'Doherty: Well, we've all done it
There is no doubt that La-Z Boy chairs are incredibly comfortable and can become almost addictive, but some people take their fondness just a little too far.
Minnesota man Dennis LeRoy Anderson was busted by cops for drink-driving when he was returning from his local bar -- while driving a motorised La-Z Boy.
Our hero had pimped up his chair with a lawnmower motor, when he realised that if he stuck an engine on the back, he would never have to walk to his local ever again.
Sadly, however, he crashed his chair -- very slowly, presumably -- into a parked car and bemused police found the man, who was three times over the legal limit, trying to extricate himself from the damage.
Among the additions to the chair was a customised steering system, an in-chair stereo and a cup holder.
Well, you'd need the cup holder to stop you spilling your drink while you're driving down the highway, wouldn't you?
You'd be stupid not to have one.
ARE YOU A GIRLIE MAN?
Men are under threat everywhere we look.
In Japan -- where else, in fairness -- there is a new breed of bloke, Ojo-Men, or 'girlie men', who have no interest in standard male behaviour, such as hanging out with the lads, drinking beer or watching sport.
Instead, they prefer to, according to one report: "Hold down humble jobs, cultivate women as friends rather than as conquests, shop in boutiques and pursue what is viewed as a profoundly feminine pastime: eating cakes."
Frankly, this column has never viewed a man eating cake as effeminate, but then we're more open-minded, liberal and tolerant than most.
But what's this about how they like to "cultivate women as friends"? Women as actual friends and equals, rather than sexual playthings to be used purely for your basest pleasure? Honestly, those Japanese get weirder by the day.
EXPENSES MACHT FREI
There are few things more entertaining than watching politicians squirm like eels on a frying pan.
And it seems that British and Irish politicians have a lot in common, apart from the fact that both countries are run by unelected simpletons.
The expenses scandal in Britain is, if you can believe it, even more acute than here in dear old Oireland, but it would appear that some politicians have had enough of being questioned and now they are fighting back.
In a very weird way.
Tory MP David Wiltshire, who will step down at the next election -- really, he should stay, Nu Liebour are going to get a good, thoroughly deserved kicking -- feels that politicians are now a persecuted minority.
In fact, he says that: "Branding a whole group of people as undesirables led to Hitler's gas chambers."
The usual thin-skinned people have invoked the murder of six million Jews in relation to being asked some questions about his claims for a second house.
But these people -- Jews, presumably -- are quite wrong.
As anyone who has ever read Primo Levi's accounts of his time in Auschwitz, such as The Drowned And The Saved, will know: the one consolation the camp inmates had was that at least they weren't constantly asked to explain their expenses forms.
So people really should get some perspective.
DVD TIME BOOK WORM
Picture the scene -- you're stuck for eternity on a satellite with two sarcastic robots and forced to watch the worst movies ever made.
That's the premise behind Mystery Science Theatre 3000 and it's brilliant.
All you see is a cinema screen and three silhouetted heads taking the piss out of whatever old B movie they're watching and it works brilliantly.
Sample quote: "Recently I've become a vegetarian and it's worked out great. You know, the other day my colon looked up at me and thanked me. But what do I do with all that meat I've stored in the freezer? I know. I'll just bring it back to life."
BOOK WORM
Few writers have chronicled the life of the ordinary working Joe quite as brilliantly and sympathetically as the truly great New York hack Jimmy Breslin.
For nearly half a century he has been exposing the middle classes to life on the underbelly, including such brilliant pieces of work as profiling the men who dug John F Kennedy's grave.
The perfect introduction is The World According to Jimmy Breslin.
- Ian O'Doherty
Irish Independent
