John “John” Johnson, a famously average human in every way, received 9 A1s in his Leaving Certificate
examinations today. He has been described by family members and friends as “raging”.
Johnson, who lives in the middle of the road in an average-income area, has a younger sister and older
brother. He plays some standard sports with his friends, of which he has an unremarkable number. His
favourite ice-cream flavor is none of them, because he doesn’t really believe in favourites as a concept,
though he is partial to vanilla.
After an exhaustive year of 15 hour days studying, John began his Leaving Cert in June. Taking French,
English, History, Maths, Physics, Chemistry, Geography, Irish and Biology, all at honours level, he
received the maximum grade of A1 and 100 CAO points, to a maximum of 600 points.
His teachers described him as “grand” “a nice lad” and “dull”. “Honestly? A bit thick. Not thick-thick, but
not bright. I’ll tell yis, he worked his bollix off for those marks,” said Paddy McHedge-O’Hurley, the Ass.
Deputy Principal and head of the Irish (and Soundness on The National Question) Department.
NDNI headed over to St. Saint’s Local School in order to get Johnson’s take on the situation
himself. Fighting our way through the scrum of reporters taking pictures of the 5 prettiest girls in the
year jumping into the air, we tracked Johnson down to behind the bike shed, where we found John blue
and coughing on the ground.
Sorry, that should be ‘found him coughing a Johnny blue onto the ground.’ He looked around at us,
miserable and shrugged “What was the fucking point of all this? I spent all year studying. All year, every
day 15 hours of work. I only took Christmas Day off, and I was so tired I slept the whole day. Do you
know how many 18ths I went to this year? Hmm? None! Not a fucking one! And it was all for nothing!”
“Ah here now John,” says NDNI “It was hardly for nothing. You got 9 A1s, man. That’s the most
anyone in the country got. You should be really proud. I know your teachers and school are-”
“Well Whoopdi-fucking-do!” interrupted Johnson “I’ve made those shower of shites proud. What does
that get me? Seriously? Nothing. Nothing at all. Each one of my teachers gets a fat bonus because I get
an A1 and I get the pleasure of not having scored anyone all year. I get the honour of being known as a
nerdbag. They lied to me.”
“They told me the Leaving Cert was important. They told me I owed it to myself to get the most points
I could. Well, why? I mean, they never even told me they only took my best six. I thought I was getting
900 points! If I’d known they were only gonna mark the best 6 I would’ve stopped after Maths and gone
on the piss. Except I can’t go on the piss, because all my mates booked their holidays when I was locked
up studying and now I’m left at home with elderly relatives calling me a “great chap” but not exactly
ponying up with the cash.”
The Spanner tried to edge away at this point but Johnson grabbed us, vicelike, and stared deeply into
our eyes. His haunted, yellowy orbs burned into our brain and his leaden voice etched itself onto our
soul as he said “Do you know the worst part? The very worst part? I didn’t even get my course. I didn’t
do a business subject and keep my options open…”
No Dogs ~ No Irish 