I was forced to listen to the Dublin V Kerry match on the radio today. My favourite quote occurred when a Kerry player received an injury in an off-the-ball incident. The commentator said: ‘I didn’t see what happened. I stress I didn’t see what happened so he may have injured himself falling over’.

Afterwards, in the pub, as the Dublin fans (in their jerseys) watched the Man United soccer highlights on Sky, one fan shouted across the room at his mate, ‘You’re an arselicker’. The mate, deep in conversation, interrupted said conversation and roared back, ‘Arselicker? Me bollix!’

In both cases, all I could think of was, ‘The mind boggles…’

So, on the way home, I saw the excellent ‘come-on’ in a bookie’s window:

Bet €10, Win €330

The small print read:

…but only if Ireland beat Slovakia 3-2.

I rang the ‘one who knows‘ about football and gambling and his sage advice was that both teams were ‘shite‘ and ‘pigs would fly‘ before either team could score 2, let alone 3 goals, against any opposition. I took the bet anyway because, if nothing else, I’m an greedy optimist.

Being an optimist, I went for a pint in my local pub to spend my winnings before the match. There’s no way I’d spend good money on beer actually watching the match. One of the barstaff is Polish and she’s very good at her job. However, the regulars are convinced she’s Portuguese but she’s adamant she’s Polish. Sometimes it’s like a pantomime in there – “Oh yes, you are!” “Oh no, I’m not.”

Anyway, an English guy ordered a lager with lime (cordial). She misunderstood him to mean lager with lemonade. He got a bit annoyed at the mistake and mildly shouted, ‘I wanted a lager with lime. The lime comes out of a bottle‘. She got a bit flustered and started muttering under her breath as she re-made his order. I tried to comfort her by making the joke, ‘Bloody foreigners, eh!‘, as I indicated towards the English guy. I thought it was funny/ironic but I’m not sure it was received that way. Oops.

And I’m sure Behan would be proud that the place is littered with beer cans and broken bottles. It just occurred to me that you don’t see 2-litre cider bottles around anymore. I wonder if they were banned?

Don’t know if this is true but wikipedia (link above) says:
His last words were to several nuns standing over his bed, “God bless you, may your sons all be bishops.”

Last line #1: Yes, sleeping with Prince Valium makes every morning feel like Sunday morning. The downside is I only have nine left. The comments are very funny as well!

Last line #2: Tomorrow, the government launches massive campaign to find out why people don’t sunbathe in Ireland.

Read ‘em and weep…

Irish police transported suspect ‘in trailer’
Gardaí had to take a suspected shoplifter into custody in a farm trailer because he was too big for a patrol car, it has been claimed.

Solicitor and former Fine Gael TD Charlie Flanagan claimed the man arrested for allegedly stealing from a Tesco store would not fit into a Garda car.

Full story here…

We started in The Botanic House. It’s a good reliable ‘local’. The staff are very efficient and the food, if you’re inclined, is very pleasant. Big portions too. It was pretty quiet when we went in and we soon found out why. Prescotts, a local company (not the dry cleaners) were having their Christmas party. They’d started drinking at noon and it was now past eight in the evening.

I knew it was time to leave following a visit to the toilet. Two ‘gentlemen’ from the party were talking to each in the loo when one said to the other:

– You cost me my job.
– I know I did.
– You cost me my job
– I know. And it’s because I’m better than you.
– Come Here. I want to talk to you.

I left rather the toilet quickly.

Discussions on where to go next were slightly hampered by the hour. We were unsure which other pubs in the area had a late licence (Irish pubs normally close at around midnight). O’Mahony’s was out because it’s actually shut for redevelopment at the moment. So The Porterhouse pub was it.

The Porterhouse pub is set in a former tyre garage and it’s been adapted very well to it’s current use. It’s unusual in an Irish context in that it makes its own beers and doesn’t take in commercial alternatives like Guinness or Carlsberg. It was a nice pub and it stays open until 2am. Some people, like the Santa in the penultimate photo, got rather tired with all the festivities but it was very good beer. The DJ was female, which is something you don’t see too often, but she played an excellent set. She played seasonal songs that had been adapted by modern bands.

Even bumped in one of the off-duty waitresses from the Botanic House. Her English is appalling but she smiles a lot. And that’s nice.

We had to stop for Chinese food on the way home. Why, oh, why do we abuse our bodies in this way?

The weather was pretty bad from Liverpool to Belfast airport and there was a lot of turbulence. The pilot couldn’t land the first time and had to fly around for a second attempt. He was determined to land the second time and, by god, he certainly did. In my amateur opinion, most pilots will get the plane about 10 metres off the ground and just throttle back. The plane will descend reasonably smoothly and everybody lives happily ever after. This pilot positioned the plane in roughly the right place and just dropped it on the tarmac. I think I hurt my back as well even though I knew it was coming. The fecking plane bounced violently and he had to break sharply because he must have glided too far down the runway. At least nobody clapped in appreciation.

It took a bit longer than usual to off the plane as well. It was raining so heavily that the air hostesses wouldn’t look out the door to help the airside guys get the stairs lined up against the side of the aircraft. Eventually, one of them lost (or was volunteered) and she did the needful.

I much prefer pilots to have simple monosyllabic names like Tim, Bill, Ann, or Fran etc. Subconsciously, you know you’re safe with someone like that. Timothy, Mario, Louise, or Francesa just doesn’t cut it.

Easyjet – I hate you!!

My two days in Chester was good fun. There was about 10 of us in a 60/40 male/female split. We’re all ambitious, type-A sort of people and we are not afraid to voice our opinions. We only meet once or twice a year so put the 10 of us in a room, turn off the air-conditioning, and discuss ‘money’ (our money) as the topic and the verbal sparks flew all day. It was good fun. Sparks of a different sort flew after dark, hehe.

It was a long day for most of us as we’d travelled from all parts of the UK and Ireland. We started to relax and unwind when we got to the restaurant. It was a tex-mex place called Dos Americanos or something. The food was spicy, the conversation spicier, and the booze explosive. We didn’t realise it for a little while but the person doing the ordering was getting double tequilla’s for each round. And that tells it’s own story. Poison! Then we went on a pub crawl. (Aside: can you get barred from a pub if you’re only visiting for the day??)

One woman, soon-to-be-married, had a little kiss with a man, who is just married. The next day (i.e., this morning), we arranged it so they sat together in the front of the mini-bus on the way back to the airport!! One woman had to be carried home. Another woman who used to be a holiday rep (bleach-blonde and all the rest) had us pretending to washing machines, and kettles, and dishwashers (with sounds and actions). The punchline was ‘but I’ve got a couple of mugs behind me‘. One of the men started groping (in our group) and got punched for his trouble. He got such (friendly-ish) abuse this morning that I nearly felt sorry for him. And since there was a Scot in our company, we ended up in an 80′s karoke bar.

Apart from octupus ollie, the men were well behaved!!

I spent the evening in conversation with a very nice woman. It’s not often you meet someone who likes the same music (808 State anyone?), who likes travelling, who prefers Germany to Italy (just like me). I am very happy. I wish I could be more expressive than that because ‘I am very happy’ doesn’t do the evening justice. I think British women are much more sociable than Irish women. They’re not lunatics for a start, I’ve deleted the rest of this paragraph.

I know I bang on about karma but

– what was the ‘special’ on the radio on the drive back to Dublin this evening? A two-hour special of ’80′s/Manchester music. Lots of the Happy Mondays, The Inspirals, James, and the list goes on. Bliss.
– And even better, when I got home, Tom Waits’ Orphans CD was waiting in my postbox for me!!
– And I’ve a couple of days off work as well.

That’s karma for ya, what goes around comes around. If I’m good to someone, that goodness comes back to me in spades.

Aren’t Dads great? I meet my father roughly once a week for a pint. It has to be a pint because he’s old skool. By old skool, I mean, he doesn’t do emotions/feelings or cups of tea and a chat unless he’s got a pint in front of him. Then he can impart his feelings by way of a famous soccer player or yer man from d’office. Ultimately, he can deny everything because he was having a pint. He’s not an alcoholic or anything even approaching that. He’s just an Irish male. Even worse from a macho point of view, he doesn’t even breech the medical guidelines of 21 units a week (10.5 pints).

He’s reached a stage in his life where he’s comfortable. He can afford to buy a few drinks for himself and he chooses to go to two pubs where ‘everybody knows your name‘. One pub is for after work on Fridays and the other is when he meets me (or d’brother) during the week. Service and comfort are important to him. When I meet him in the pub, he really, really gets a thrill by signalling the barman and gesturing ‘same again‘. And they know it’s him and they know it’s two Guinness. I guess it makes him feel ‘known’ and important.

Nowadays, most people don’t remember the poverty of Ireland in the… I was going to say the ’70′s, when I was born. But, realistically, Ireland was dog poor until very recently. My father had to live through that poverty and I think it marked him. He was one of the first people in his village to pass the Leaving Cert (UK A-levels, USA G.E.D.) and he never forgot that. With the money he earned as a (summer job) barman on the Isle of Wright, he even rented* the first black and white TV on his street for his parents. Now that’s hard core.

When he bought his first house with my mother, he basically had to squat in it for a few weeks until it was secure. Someone else could have ‘taken’ the house unless he protected it. And he had a full time job at the same time. He had to save for carpet…for the cooker…for the beds…for our clothes. Nowadays, people don’t remember that. Nowadays, people don’t remember that credit cards were only invented in the ’80′s. Nowadays, people pay Arnotts etc €4k to ‘fit-out’ their apartment.

All his life, he’s had to not spend save for other people (i.e., me and his family) and now he doesn’t. Perversely, we encourage him to drink more and, no, we’re not looking for an early inheritance! Rather, we want him to enjoy himself and, due to his save, save mentality, he’s never really enjoyed the benefits of foreign food (i.e. the Chinese takeaway!) or travel, or Irish restaurants, or nice clothes etc. To be honest, ‘ceol agus craic’ (music and fun) is what’s he’s after. With a good pint of Guinness, of course.

He worries about me. He genuinely does! And I’m thirty-mumble.

Do I have enough money? Do I need a loan? Can I afford the round?

Pause…

Are you sure?

My brother and I have ‘career plans’ in that we have no real loyalty to our employers and fully expect to move jobs every couple of years. This is totally anaethama to him. In fact, it freaks him out. ‘What about the pension‘, he worries?

This post may not make total sense but, like I said, I’ve been for a pint with my dad. And, aren’t Dads great!

Random trivia: Brian, the last cobbler on Moore Street, is potentially moving to the RTV shop on North Earl Street. The RTV shop was the last place in Dublin, to my knowledge, where you can rent televisions.