Enda’s revolutionary plans mirror Homer’s Odyssey... D’oh

A MAN who decided it would be fun to try and split the atom on his kitchen stove is now facing two years in jail.

The Swede, Richard Handl, admitted he’d achieved a “small meltdown” in his flat using the radioactive elements radium, americium and uranium when he was arrested on charges of unauthorised possession of nuclear material.

Handl had been trying for months to set up a nuclear reactor in his kitchen and was only busted when he asked Sweden’s Radiation Safety Authority for help and they replied by sending the cops round.

“I just wanted to see if it’s possible to split atoms at home,” he mused as he was led away by the police.

Now, Enda Kenny may not be Swedish, but he is blonde, and he may not have promised to split the atom on his gas ring — but he did pledge on general election night that he would create “a democratic revolution” in which he would “close the chasm that has opened between people and government”.

And he seems to have been just about as successful in that aim so far as Handl was in building Sellafield in his apartment.

U-turns, delays and unnecessary own goals appear to have veered the much vaunted revolution somewhat off track in the past five months.

Indeed, Enda’s very first act as Taoiseach, the unveiling of his Cabinet, was hardly revolutionary — particularly in his appallingly reactionary treatment of women.

The number of female ministers actually fell from the previously miserable three out of 15 to just two — and even they were put in charge of children (the nanny) and social welfare (the housekeeper).

It was quite clear that of all the revolutionary thinkers he could have taken as his mentor, Enda Kenny chose to emulate Homer Simpson, particularly the yellow fellow’s career advice to his daughter Lisa: “If the Bible has taught us nothing else — and it hasn’t — it’s that girls should stick to girls’ sports, such as hot oil wrestling and foxy boxing and such and such.”

Though, at least Enda emulates the nicer aspects of Homer, rather than his two predecessors who could be said to have exhibited the more sinister side of Springfield during their time in office.

Brian Cowen arrogantly thought the top job would be a doddle and was his by right: cue economic collapse, surrender of national sovereignty to the IMF and being easily the worst Taoiseach in history.

Indeed, Biffo’s two-and-a-half years of disaster and total inadequacy for the post could be summed up by Homer’s howl of despair: “D’oh! Whoever thought a nuclear power plant would be so complicated?”

At least we can be assured Enda would never sneak off to Moe’s Bar for a few sneaky scoops of Duff Beer. And he would certainly not globally humiliate the country by being accused of appearing: “Half way between drunk and hungover” on national radio.

Bertie was asleep at the wheel when he and Biffo car-crashed the economy, as his regulators did not regulate and his watchdogs never watched — all very reminiscent of Springfield’s Mayor Quimby when he said: “It is with great pride that I place the safety of our city in the hands of the first four people who showed up.”

And it is also unlikely we will ever see Enda squirming in the witness box of a Mahon-style corruption probe like Ahern did for 14 tortuous days.

Again emulating his revolutionary hero Homer, Enda did belatedly manage to get a better deal on the bail-out terms by seizing a “crisitunity”, as the Greek euro crisis was certainly transformed into our opportunity and even Mr Kenny’s rather cavalier rubbing-up the wrong way of the EU’s top knobs on his first outing to Brussels in March could no longer stand in the way of reduced interest rates for Ireland.

But despite the slight easing of the IMF/EU strangulation of Irish civil society through the mammoth size of the loans we can never realistically pay back, the clear message of indifference coming from the European Central Bank is pure Homeresque. Namely: “Just because I don’t care doesn’t mean I don’t understand.”

But the ECB has now “introubulated” the whole eurozone with its lack of grip on the worsening disaster unfolding across the money markets.

ECB chief Jean-Claude Trichet looks like he is panicking as hard as Homer did when he grabbed the telephone and yelled: “Operator, give me the number for 911!”

But then Ireland’s financial woes often feel like the farce of a Simpsons cartoon — as the revelations of the extraordinary 70-day annual leave system at FÁS emerged, the late and not lamented organisation’s motto could easily have been Homer’s sage advice: “Lisa, if you don’t like your job you don’t strike. You just go in every day and do it really half-assed.”

And like Homer, the Greeks really do have a word for everything, and while it is true we have moved away from the Bertie/Biffo era of kakistocracy — rule by those least able — are we restored to a real democracy, rule by the people?

At least the era of kleptocracy — rule by thieves — which so dominated our developer/banker/financial elite seems to be.

But yet we await Enda’s “democratic revolution” — even though it is hardly up their in the difficulty stakes with splitting the atom.

And we must remember, Enda was the man who promised us a jobs budget, down-graded it to a mere initiative and ended up delivering little more than 5,000 work experience placements — hardly the great cure for the twin evils of record unemployment and emigration, or as Homer might have summed it up: “craptacular” — spectacularly crap.

Enda could argue with some justification on that front that his economic hands are tied by the IMF fiscal shackles the Bertie/Biffo clowns locked him into, but on the democratic deficit front, he has no such camouflage to hide behind.

Even so, unrevolutionary Enda still towers above all others in the polls.

But then as his hero Homer once pointed out: “Oh, they can come up with statistics to prove anything — 14% of people know that.”