Gather now and give us your money

When I hear the term, ‘The Gathering’, I can’t help thinking it means something Poe, Hitchcock, or King, might write about.

I always get the feeling the collective name has evil connotations, with man-eating zombies and blood-sucking vampires making up the cast of characters who’ll hold sway over the unlucky year of 2013.

The Sawney Bean clan of Scottish murderers was a gathering, as were the Manson ‘family’, and if we throw in the cult of the ‘Troika’, then we have good reason to be fearful in this coming year of possible mayhem and misrepresentation. We have enough proof that they’re all out to get us, so it is advisable to be ever vigilant and to seek to determine who are merely sheep in wolves’ clothing, as opposed to the real thing. Mother Ireland has always reared jibbers who manage to get their own way without it costing themselves anything.