Ask Audrey: Is there any way I can give back my TV licence?

All of us Stunners have two things in common — we were in the same class in Scoil Mhuire and we married men eight years older than us. (That age gap is large enough to make sure they die first so we get all the money, but small enough to stop people calling us GrandPa Shagger.) 

The upshot is all our Kens’ 40th birthday parties are happening in 2025, and the planning starts here bee-atches. 

I’m a bit strapped right now because My Ken is trying to flip a block of apartments in Lebanon and seriously, could they have picked a worse time to start a war? 

I’ve come up with a killer idea, a sustainable 40th, so instead of half the Douglas Road jetting off to Marrakesh, we go bush-whacking in Ballinlough Park, drinking Margaritas instead of Linden Village we’re so classy. 

My Ken is refusing to play ball, even though this is all his fault. What would you recommend?

— Jenni, Douglas Road

I booked a dirty weekend in West Cork next month for My Conor’s 40th. All I have to do now is figure out who to bring.

Hello dear. I’m from one of the oldest families on the Model Farm Road, when people ask me why I speak through my nose, I treat it as a compliment. 

I have two sons, marvellous boys, doctors, married to doctors, what more could you ask for? The problem is my daughter — she fell in with a very dodgy shower in UCC and now she’s ‘working in the arts’, whatever that means. 

I tell my butties in the Bridge club that she’s a dentist in Brussels, God forbid they should see her walking around town swaddled in tattoos. 

Anyway, she’s married to this juggler from Clonakilty, Lenny, very nice fella, but we’re devastated obviously. The final straw for me is their son, my grandson. 

It’s bad enough that they called him Ducklips, but now he’s six and they’ve signed him up for kick-boxing, as if he was a northsider or something. (They actually live on the northside, but it’s St Lukes, so that’s ok.) 

Our solicitor tells me that I can’t take custody of Ducklips just because of kick-boxing, which sounds wrong, so I’ve decided to get a new solicitor. Could you recommend anyone for me?

— Joyce, Model Farm Road

I think you’re being very harsh on your son-in-law. Poor Lenny is worn out from work, he has a lot of balls to keep in the air.

I’m harbouring a terrible secret from my friends and I can’t sleep at night. It’s to do with the TV licence. 

We were all out having a few beers the other night, when one of the lads mentioned that he hadn’t paid his licence and he never would again.

One by one, the other lads chimed in and said they are refusing to pay as well. When it came to me, I confirmed I haven’t paid because of ‘that shower up in Dublin 4 laughing at us behind our backs.’ The problem is that’s a lie. 

I have paid my licence, because those ads in the 80s where a Renault 4 with a weird looking aerial roamed around housing estates catching license dodgers, they had a huge impact on me. 

Now I’m dreading that one of my friends will have a similar device that can catch people who PAID their licence fee, and he’ll disown me in front of the lads. 

I rang RTÉ there and asked if I could hand back my licence and the woman wanted to put me through to Joe Duffy so I hung up. 

I haven’t slept for three nights worrying about this, it’s ruining my life. Could you ring RTÉ there and ask again if I could hand my license back?

— Benny, Mallow (Not my real name)

I’d hide my name too if I was from Mallow.

I don’t want people to think I’ve a dirty mind. Particularly as I’m a nun. 

But my grand-niece is getting married in Dublin next weekend to a very nice lad from Edinburgh and they’ve invited me along, they must think I have money. 

The problem is a lot of the men at this wedding will be wearing kilts and God forgive me, but I’m only ever one whiskey and coke away from lifting up a Scotsman’s kilt to see what’s underneath. 

When I told our priest in confession he invited me to an orgy in Kinsale. The man is useless!! 

Do you know, is there a way to stop a nun from lifting a Scotsman’s kilt?

— Sister Name With-held

It’s not just nuns. We have a similar problem in the Agony Aunt Community. Susan Solves lifted a kilt at a wedding in Glasgow last year. 

The bad news is she got three months in a Glasgow prison. The good news is she lives in Limerick, so she just treated it as a holiday.