The Paradox of an RTE Christmas

The 'legendary double issue' of The RTE Guide is a staple of most Irish Christmas experiences, especially for those with a penchant for circling every second film listed without any actual intention of watching them. You don't have to be Freud to diagnose that as some kind of masturbatory desire to achieve something over the holiday period other than puking up a Selection Box. Less a magazine than it is a device to tear families apart over Home Alone 2, this year we're spoiled with the cover boasting the cream of the crap of Irish TV talent. As ever, a stunning array of the almost important and not important treads just the wrong side of sparkly tack.

(The rule of thumb when it comes to actually recognising the faces on the cover is "If in doubt, they're probably off 'Fair City',")

But can it be that there's a more disturbing element at play under the surface of all this tinsel...?

Pat Shortt is possibly at his most facially outrageous here, and seems to be opening some sort of vortex within the cover by perusing a magazine which looks strangely like- oh my god, it is! The Christmas edition of the RTE Guide! But how can he possibly be reading it there on the cover itself? This plays mercilessly with the very ontology of the publication which we hold in our hands, Pat! What was once used for navigating shit Christmas television programming is now a spanner in the very workings of epistemology!

Why is he toying with us? Why doesn't he just reveal his true cloven-hoofed nature to the discerning Christmas readership? His hysterical grimace certainly would seem to imply a more than slight familiarity with the dark arts....

Beyond the immediate epistemological implications of the microcosmic diorama Shortt has exploded on coffee tables across the country, there is further confusion- can it be? The Pat Shortt in his universe is reading The RTE Guide too, but....

...but his RTE Guide is totally blank. Is this some sort of hidden esoteric seal, implying that the present moment exists in perpetuity, that time is cyclical and not linear as we have foolishly come to believe? Does Pat come from beyond our simple world, to shatter our small-minded imperception, from another world, to inform us that beyond the surface appearance of things, we have the ability to effect change in all directions, forever, at once?

Or does it just mean he's luckier than I am because he can't read the fucking thing in the first place?

M E R R Y     C H R I S T M A S ! ! !