When Guido met the Orange…

I’m hoping to meet up with the notorious Guido Fawkes next week. He sent me this short account of a previous experience in our short email correspondence. It seems he has had a talent for wind-ups, long before his blogging days. If you were there, let us know!!From Guido Fawkes

One of the reasons my Laois born wife fell in love with me is from the time when the Orangemen were marching down Whitehall. Something for which they had great difficulty getting permission.

I was completely smashed returning from a rugby match – saw them outraged (I had a place in the Parliament View building). Got home taped a tri-colour coloured Irish leprechaun hat (you know the type) to the top of a crash helmet and jumped on my scooter.

Rode back across Westminster bridge in the opposite direction to thousands of marching flute-playing Orangemen. Slowly. A couple of yards on the other side of the centre of the road. A couple of thousand stunned Orangemen could not believe what they were seeing, Met coppers fell about laughing, a jeer went up – I was doing a full 5mph at this point. Suddenly two motorbike coppers zoomed either side of me. I had my own escort. The Orangemen were jeering, I was giving them the Royal wave.

When we got to the top of Whitehall I made to turn the scooter around for a second victory lap and one of the motorbike cops said firmly “you’ve had your fun son, on your way”. Given I was half-cut I took his advice. I’m told the BBC live feed of the event has a commentator laughing on it.

Mick Fealty

Mick is founding editor of Slugger. He has written papers on the impacts of the Internet on politics and the wider media and is a regular guest and speaking events across Ireland, the UK and Europe. Twitter: @MickFealty