Colenso Parade

As is well documented recently, employment is incredibly difficult to come buy in the present economic climate. In the band digs, two of the members look resolved to weather the global financial meltdown in the jobs they were employed in before things got so bleak, however menial they might be. the other half of the band have not been so fortunate and this has rendered a strange dynamic in the house - A perverse twist on the old fashioned family dynamic.

For four young men this is most disturbing, epsecially for myself as I seem to have developed into the mothering figure of the household. The fact that it’s undoubtedly a matriarchy comforts little. My day is shaped around a variety of domestic tasks, culminating in cooking for the family. Same time every night, if you’re asking. Initially cooking and cleaning were ways to keep me busy (I was resolute that the credit crunch was not to be used as a justification for lying in bed until a vulgar hour) but now I’ve grown strangely formulaic in their execution and it has become a rigid routine, one that remains unchallenged by the rest of the housemates. Can you really blame them though? It is a sad day in a young man’s life when he catches himself thinking, ‘I better make a start on the dinner, so I can have it on the table when Fergal gets home’.

Fergal, the breadwinner, the bacon bringer, superstar singer. The paradigm father in our subversive weird family. He provides money for us all when we really need it. Strangely enough he hasn’t moaned about being a one man taxi service yet, even though he has had ample opportunity were it would be completely justified. We never go out anywhere nice anymore either, always too tired after work. He resembles the passive male in Irish novels that just gets on with life beside his belligerent wife and confused children.

Those damn chillun’, if only young Philip would take after his older brother Paul and get a job. Electricity doesn’t grow on trees ye know! Listening to his rock music to all hours, I don’t know what we’re going to do with him, he’s a proper tearaway. A good few years in hard work would straighten him out. If only he was more like Paul, this family’s shining light. Everyone in the village recognizes his resolve, he’ll make an honest women out of that girlfriend of his soon enough. Then I’ll get to wear a lovely wedding hat…"