Wednesday was one of the greatest days of my life because this story broke:
Prominent Cork-based radio presenter Neil Prendeville was on a flight from London to Cork on the evening of 19 October when he was reported to have exposed himself and started to masturbate. He was sitting with a male passenger on one side and a female on the other. Because he was in a front row seat, the 49-year-old was also facing a pair of air hostesses. That's right, one of the most worthless bastards on the face of the planet,
Neil Prendeville fell of his famous high horse and landed in shit! He has now fallen beneath the level of all the people whom that horse has trampled and shat on during his career, surely a career now that thankfully lies in flaming ruins. This reprehensible, feeble excuse for a human being, a wannabe shock-jock, the scourge of Cork's airwaves for far to long will now be bowing his head in shame for what I hope will be the remainder of his miserable gutless life and can be known now literally as a wanker in the truest sence of the word.
Prenders outside his pulpit on Wellington Rd., from where he used to preach his prattle, talking down to the people of Cork.
The glorious news came to my attention early Wednesday morning that a scandal had emerged involving a drunken "
Prenders" allegedly performing a "lewd act" on board an aircraft. I was convinced he had urinated into a sick bag or something but what he allegedly did was music to my ears, because for so long that self-righteous dumbass has been the first person in line to throw stones at people who'd put a foot wrong, no matter what the circumstances, even before he heard their side of the story [assuming he'd even bother listening to it]. Traditionally if he didn't take a side himself, he'd use his show to pit one side against the other, something that backfired on him back in '04 when a member of a feuding family threatened to behead a member of another family on air. When the heat is on,
Prenders hid behind the idea that he can't be held responsible for what someone says live on air, but more often than not, he didn't condemn what people say which makes him seem like he accepted and agreed with some of the ignorant scumbags, racists and uneducated morons he entertains on the airwaves.
Allegedly on the night in question,
Prenders had been enjoying a day in London as a guest of the
Cork Convention Bureau. Cork
Lord Mayor Michael O’Connell, Cork county mayor
Jim Daly and CCB chairman
Seamus Heaney led a delegation to a conference to promote tourism in Cork. Prior to the flight, the boys ate and were entertained at celebrity chef
Richard Corrigan’s
Bentley’s Restaurant.
Prenders apparently gave a speech, hopefully with less of his moaning, patronising and pontificating he spews out on his 96fm radio show. While there, he imbibed alcohol and due to a recurring neck injury also popped some
Neurofen Plus painkillers.
Now, according to the man himself, he has no memory of getting to the airport, boarding the plane, whipping it out and pleasuring himself or getting home afterwards and so has conveniently blamed the combination of the alcohol and painkillers for anything he "may have" done. His utterly feeble apology could only be described as flaccid [*chuckle*] as he didn't accept all the blame himself. His words included "any offence that I might have" caused and even tried to turn it into a PSA about the danger of mixing painkillers and alcohol [yeah, most of us read the label, you stupid tit].
Prenders apology was considered by some people to be contrite with his pathetic blubbering and whinging and all, but people seemed to forget that in 2007 he appeared as a doctor in
Strength and Honour so maybe those acting classes were brought to the fore? Nevertheless, I doubt it has convinced any but his misguided hard-core listeners.
It's obvious too that the dirty scut did his best to have this kept secret and attempted a cowardly cover up by unleashing his lawyers on the
Irish Examiner who politly and fairly asked him to comment before publishing the story. Lawyer
Gerald Kean tried to get a court injunction to prevent the newspaper story from seeing print. I'd like to think that the injunction was not granted because the judge involved is one of the many judges
Prenders has pissed off during his years-long anti Gardaí and anti-civil service "crusade". This would be irony so delicious, you'd never see it on the menu of that hole "
The Boardwalk."
Neil's bizarre "apology" also laid claim to the fact that his alleged public indecency was totally out of character and while that much may be true, his attempt at concealing the truth from the public has spoken volumes about his true character.
There are a few questions that I'm confident are on peoples minds at this time:
Who was paying for this gobshite to go on a conference with his local politician friends? If the people of Cork were paying, might I suggest that we'd prefer our money would be spent doing something more constructive - literally, like repairing the quay wall by the Mercy Hospital which remains unrepaired from the devastating weather last year.
Prenders allegedly appears to have had enough manual dexterity to unzip his trousers, remove his langer and begin satisfying himself, but prior to that he was presumably able to walk through security at Heathrow airport unchallenged by the uber-diligent security there [I'm always patted down in Heathrow, but rarely Stanstead], how did this happen? How did this happen!!!!??? It's not like trying to convince a bouncer he wasn't drunk to gain admittance to
Gorby's nightclub! He was boarding an international flight! He needed to present identification and remove metal from his person etc. surely the Brits noticed something out of the ordinary if he was drugged up enough to do what he allegedly did later.
My biggest question however was eloquently alluded to by
Ralph Riegel in the Independant yesterday "
Aer Lingus has refused to comment on why neither Gardaí nor Airport Police were called" to arrest
Prenders after he touched down [*snigger*] in Cork and "why?" is a very serious and far-reaching question in this context. In light of the fact that people are arrested nowadays for being mildly boisterous and/or inebriated on aircraft flights, one can only describe the fact that
Prenders was not arrested for his sexual misconduct and public indecency upon disembarking as extremely sinister indeed. Answers as to why are something I'm sure there will be quite a few demands for.
Right: Only Sam Jackson will ever get away with handling a snake on a plane.At the time of allegedly jerking off, the plane was taking off and
Prenders was facing two air hostesses who were facing his front row seat. Alas they were powerless to intervene as they too had to be belted in until the aircraft had reached cruising altitude.
Prenders was flanked at either side by the aforementioned
Seamus Heaney. "I personally saw nothing, so I cannot comment" he said later, apparently a man bereft of peripheral vision. Poor
Niamh Hennessy, business reporter for the
Irish Examiner was on his opposite side but the poor girl allegedly got to see far more than even her window seat allowed. Were it not for this girl being a reporter the general public my still be in the dark about
Neil's alleged vile actions.
Had this been anyone else, actor, rock-star even politician, we'd have all thought it was a great joke and chances are they'd be able to eventually continue with their careers albeit with the occasional joke about it, shit happens. But it's different with
Prenders because he has always assumed the moral high ground and spoken down to people from it, that's his thing. He would be the one who would call the person a filthy animal and show no sympathy whatsoever and would do everything in his power to see that what would be an insignificant molehill be turned into Mount Everest itself. Therefore he has lost the one thing that made him who he is. How can he return to a job where he preaches his opinion knowing that he has lost all credibility? His many arguments could now be deflated as easily as a child's balloon with the words "..you're just a tosser
Neil!" and everyone would know it's true now.
This tale is far from over.
Prenders has been hiding out in the Wicklow home of
Gerald Kean and spent Friday in The Castleknock Hotel giving tightly controlled interviews to the downmarket Sunday tabloid press. No guesses needed as to what he's doing for stress relief.
Sources: The Irish Examiner / The Irish Independant / 96fm / The Journal / The Belfast Telegraph / The Herald