Once upon a time, in the west of Ireland, in the middle of the nineteenth century....there lived a happy young potato called Mick Flatley.



Mick had a hard and happy life, and endured the myriad hardships that was the lot of your average potato with a smile and a bit of a wobble (since he had no feet).


Life was good for Mick, and he had few complaints. Now and again he would allow himself to dream of one day hitting it off with one of them posh crinkly chip chicks he occasionally read about in Social & Parboiled.


But life was about to change for Mick in ways he could not even imagine. Little did he know that as he bobbled about in his idyllic farmhouse, a foreign menace was cutting a pestilent swathe through the once-peaceful countryside.



That danger came from neighbouring blighty, and it was the multi-headed gangrenous gorgon called Potato Blight.


Things changed fairly sharpish once it reached the west.



The colour was drawn from the world, and Mick felt pain like he had never felt before. Even worse than the night of the pub quiz/potato wedges finger-food mixup/cannibal row.


Mick struggled from his farmhouse to the nearby road to warn his friends.



Only to find them already dead.


As he lay there waiting for the end to come, he summoned up the strength to shout "WHAT DID US SPUDS EVER DO TO ANYONE, HAH?"


And that was what did it.



For Mick was suddenly upright and looking into the pudgy eyes of what looked like a walking Christmas decoration. To his immense surprise, she spoke.


"Mick", she said. "Mick, you have been chosen. You are the one to rid this country of the foreign foe."


And then it happened. Mick felt a tingling in his groin, the like of which he hadn't experienced in about a week.



MICK GREW FEET AND DANCING SHOES.


As he stood there, full of questions and an increasing sense of self-worth, he wondered even still how he, a humble now-legged potato, could vanquish the horrible blight.


And that's when the pudgy bint in the dressing gown spoke up.


"You must dance", she said. "Mick, you must dance like you have never danced before-"
"That'll be easy since I was hitherto legless", he interrupted.
"Don't interrupt me!", she said, "you must use your new powers of dance to rid the country of this terrible plague."


And that is what he did. With a sparkle in his eye and his hands on his hips, he jigged and reeled and pelvic-thrusted the bejaysus out of himself.



Soon, other potatoes picked up on it and apart from the occasional groin-strain, the entire Irish potato population danced until the hideously foul foreign foe had no choice but to abandon its unholy plot to render the Paddys spudless.


Mick was hailed as a hero, and had many's the crinkled chip hanging out of him before he retired, all-sexed out, to a Sligo retirement home where he grew mouldy in a corner before someone threw him on the compost heap.