Irishman cuts off his own arm to escape British TV nightmare

D'Unbelievables are an Irish comic duo formed in late 80s by Pat Shortt and Jon Kenny in Limerick. They created characters which can be seen on every street corner and every pub in Ireland.
Their performances include; One Hell of a Video, D'Telly, D'unbelievables, D'Video,D'Collection, Films: The Closer You Get, Angela Mooney Dies Again, Saltwater, This Is My Father.

After days trapped on the sofa of his home, Patrick Murphy realised that he must sacrifice his own arm — or go insane

Speaking from his hospital bed, Mr Murphy recalled the story of horror beyond human understanding: "It began when the remote fell down the back of the big sofa bed," stuttered a one armed Mr.Murphy. "I put my hand down to retrieve it and my arm stuck in the folding mechanism. After hours of trying to free myself, It was clear that it wasn't going to work itself loose. I had to sit and wait for help to arrive."

But no one came for Mr Murphy. After two days, still no knock on the door, desperation set in. "I ran out of potato crisps after two days, and the last of the Guinness went shortly after that. And all the while the British Broadcasting Corporation kept broadcasting endless footage of socially and mentally inadequate ex-celebrities playing with themselves, with these horrible accents, in the jungle somewhere," said Mr Murphy. "After a while, the bullshit of it all began to play on my mind. I started to hallucinate. Ridiculous visions of top-quality Irish television drama danced before my eyes. Only then did I make the decision to cut off my own arm with the ring-pull from a Guinness can."

As anyone who has ever cut off their own arm can tell you, this is no easy matter, he said. Mr Murphy has cut off his arm, so he recounts the story: "At first I couldn't cut the flesh covering my arm. In fact, I needed to make it numb to stand any chance, so I clubbed my arm with a magazine until it went limp. After that, it was a simple matter of cutting through the flesh and muscles until I was free."

Finding his way to the telephone with his bleeding arm in tow, Mr Murphy dialled the ambulance and slumped on the floor. "They told me they'd definitely be round before the end of the week," recalls Murphy, "so I kept up morale by switching manually to RTE the Irish channel. I thought there'd be some documentary strand worth watching, instead of all that BBC endless loop of celebrities pulling off their faces to advertise some BBC channel package. It just went on, and on, and on...."

At this point in his sad story Mr Murphy broke down. Doctors asked the hacks and paparazzi to let the poor man get some rest. The assembled press respected his wish but not before one last question: "What was the worst moment?" A sobbing Murphy did not hesitate in his reply: "John Simpson's pompous and self-satisfied face twittering on for the 200th time about 'Freeview — or some new package of BBC channels...'."

Mr Murphy is expected to make a physical recovery. His long-term mental well-being depends largely on some decent TV schedules.