I believe President Putin's underpants may be too tight for him and this is why he is behaving like a madman.

I too wore tight underpants recently and for the duration my behaviour was tyrannical.

Mine had been a birthday gift from my missus.

Without wanting to go into detail, I was in dire need of new trunks.

My old ones were raggy and only fit for the laundry scrap heap.

They had done their job, served the cause, and fought a brave battle with courage and great dignity for long enough.

It was time for a change.

And a change did indeed arrive when my missus presented me with the new pair after my birthday dinner was over and as I was about to make room for the cake.

"Take these," my missus decreed, "And wear them with my blessing".

"Happy birthday, old stock," she said and the house roared aloud as I stood up to acknowledge all by way of a wave of my new underpants.

I held them high above my head.

Similar indeed to the way Neville Chamberlain acted when he arrived back from Germany before the war with his 'peace in our time' contract.

I felt something needed to be said, but overcome with emotion, I could do little more only use the new garment to wipe a tear from my eye.

"I will never forget this day," I said - and I meant it too for farming can be a tough old slog, and it's not every day we get spoilt.

Anyhow, to cut a long story short, the following morning, I put the new underpants to the test and immediately got the urge that something wasn't right... but I just could put my finger on it.

Being a day for the mart, I duly set off for Macroom.

Arriving in the town I was hit with an overriding feeling of being restricted in some fashion.

And as a result, my arrival at the mart coincided with the departure of my manners. I was like a bear. I was like Putin only a lot taller - and better looking.

Well, I was no sooner in the calf ring than I picked an argument with a calf dealer from Roscommon over a thing of no consequence.

But that was only the start of it. Next, I turned my beady eye (made beady because of my tight underpants) on the auctioneer declaring that he was selling the weanlings too dear. Then I turned to a drover and castigated him over my belief that he was bringing in the cattle too slow.

I'm telling you there was no pleasing me. I was like Putin, a proper little troublesome misfit.

If some fellow told me a cow was black, I'd be adamant the cow was orange.

I was like the devil outside the mart too causing a ruckus with everyone from a man selling puppies to the man handing me out my carton of chips.

"And where's my burger?" I asked with great insolence.

"You didn't order a burger," he piped back. 

"We boy golly!" says I, my temperature gauge now at an all-time high. "Come out of your wagon and say that to my face".

"Would you ever calm down?" says he. " And don't be getting your underpants in a knot."

And there it was. The reason laid bare.

My problems were not in my head only in my pants - and it's probably the same with that mad tyrant Putin.

I immediately rushed home and remedied a solution to the problem.

If only someone had the courage to say this to Putin our worries could be over.

For like an old ram with his raddle harness strapped too tight, Putin cannot be satisfied.

'Tis no wonder he wants to blow up the world, for he's fit for little else.

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