RM colum January 18 - Free Gaff

Just updating my columns, so apologies for having to read about Christmas again in the columns below.

RM column January 18 - Free Gaff

WHILE it is something that has only reared its ugly head once or twice so far in our house, free gaff is a phrase that should strike fear into most parents.

When I say once or twice some readers may remember I wrote once about the Young Wan bringing pals into the house while I was at work, a mortal sin in my book.

However they were horse playing about, hit my phone inadvertently phoning me and leaving a very loud, long and incriminating message.

When I heard it I was in doubt that there was a gang of galoots hooping and messing about in our home.

That was about two years ago and now she is a big grown up of 16 years old I would be more worried about the mischief they could get up to now.

When I first moved to Dublin some 17-odd years ago, a pal was summoned back to his hometown of Letterkenny after his sister threw a party having been left for the evening. The damage was immense and included a totalled car only it wasn’t carried out by her or her pals; it was the gatecrashers who behaved without thought or concern for someone else’s home.

Free gaffs seem to attract a certain amount of collateral damage. My own free gaff stories are quite tame, with no real damage to report. Though I do remember a friend’s house party which ended with us hiding in bushes at the back of the house as her Aunt Kathleen was on her way following a neighbour’s complaint about the noise levels.

We managed to get away with it, or so we thought, until her Dad on his return discovered an Anarchy sign whittled into the dining table, various dodgy items and men’s watches for some bizarre reason.

Speaking of being caught rightly, you may have seen the Australian teenager who was featured in the news recently after throwing a party where some 500 teenagers invited through social networking site MySpace attended causing utter mayhem. The party was eventually broken up by the police who called in a helicopter and dogs as reinforcements.

This galoot of a teenager, Corey Delaney, has now become an internet antihero with blogs dedicated to him and even a page on another social networking site Facebook dedicated to raising money for the $20,000 fine imposed by the police.

You may have seen the unrepentant 16-year-old posing like a big eejit on the news with large sunglasses, shirtless revealing a pierced nipple while sounding a little more than stupid. And I thought ‘there but for the grace of God go I’ in a previous column we already established that teenagers are stupid and this specimen is no different at all.

This new celebrity is now on the run from his parents who are understandably irate. Meanwhile if reports are to be believed, this young man could make a lot of money from the weekend’s free gaff mayhem.

Sometimes it feels like anything is possible on the internet. Here we have one teen who invited people to a party using the internet. Via the internet we hear how it all went horribly wrong and now courtesy of the internet we have websites dedicated to this guy with offers of money coming in due to his now global recognition, within days he has almost become an international brand.

Mmmhh makes you think, doesn’t it? Speaking of which I have a free gaff fancy a party?