Charlie Adley's Double Vision

Fear not loyal colyoomistas - there will now be a short pause of a week or two while I move house, but the colyoom will return as soon as possible!

2012-02-24T08:21:00.000Z

Is other people’s misery spoiling your comfy existence?

2012-02-15T16:10:00.000Z

http://www.compassnt.com/Compassion_fatigue.html

Despite many Irish people feeling most comfortable when times are hard, it’s bloody difficult to be depressed or down-hearted around them.

Unlike England where it’s perfectly acceptable to respond to ‘How’re you doing?’ with a diatribe of disaster, here in the West of Ireland there are only 3 acceptable answers: Mighty; grand; not a bother on me.
Or, if you’re lucky, all three joined up in one gutsy fanfare:
“Mighty grand not a bother on me!”

Trouble is, not everyone is feeling grand. Lots of people are feeling terrible, yet they’re not finding it easy to talk about their situation.

Thankfully the start of this year has seen a tide turning in my life. The last 4 years have been exceedingly difficult, from the death of my father to the demise of the freelancing market, but the Snapper and I soldiered on through many tests and hopefully, (almost whispering now, peering this way and that around imaginary corners so as not to tempt fate) we’re on the up again.

However I could not fail to notice how unacceptable it was to say “Yeah, life’s been really hard for 4 years now!”

Just not on. Not in the streets of Galway. You can maybe have a bad day, or a bad dose that lays you out for a week, but nobody here wants to listen to matters as dark as ‘bad years’.

Nuhuh. That’s just pure self-indulgence.

Except that everyone has bad years, and it’s preposterous to pretend otherwise. Much-loved colleagues for whom I worked many-a-year became subtly weary of my incessant hard-luck stories, while I bit my tongue, refraining from apologising sarcastically that I was sorry to mess up their happy job situations with my oh-so imperfect existence.

Wherever we’re at in our lives in the First World, there’s billions of humans worse off elsewhere. We’re all familiar with the concept of ‘Compassion Fatigue’, that scourge of charities whereby donors, weary of being bombarded by too many worthy causes, stop giving altogether.

A few too many famines chucked in with a couple of earthquakes and a tsunami and we’re not picking up the phone to pledge credit card help. We’ve done our bit. What’s the point anyway? Shit happens and it always will.

Yes it does, yet sometimes it happens neither to you nor the stranger in the Third World, but to the person sitting next to you on that Galway bus.

So please, let’s not become too quickly tired of the problems of others.
If you have a job then let your friend give out about not having one.
If you’re healthy then allow the neighbour to complain about her painful hip.
Let’s not allow compassion fatigue to creep into the way we deal with each other in our everyday lives, because that compassion, worth infinitely more than 40 shades of green and cead mille failte, is what I adore about the people of the West of Ireland

"I Love You!" - Three words that can mean so little!

2012-02-14T09:05:00.001Z

Here's a colyoom from 2007 that dares to ask if there is anything less romantic than Valentine's Day!

Thanks to Allan Cavanagh at Caricatures Ireland

I love my woman. She loves me. She knows it and I know it and lots of other people know it too.
Sometimes quite out of the blue I become burdened in the chest region, and I have to tell her I love her. Sometimes it's when leaving or returning from overseas; after joyous acts of kindness; intimate moments... there is no definitive list.
The point is that there are certain moments when saying 'I love you' is perfect, and there are an infinite amount of other times when it is pointless.
So harsh. So cruel. So 'male', I hear the females out there cry.
Well yes, as male as male can be. But did you ever wonder why men tend not to say 'I love you' as much as women?
Did you ever consider that it may be because, for us, those three words really mean something?
To us men it seems like women play for some kind of Fantasy Love League, where each time they say 'I love you' they score a point, and when their partner says it back to them they score five. Every text, phone call, trip to the loo for a peeper, all can entail the need for profound emotional exchange.
It used to be all too easy to try and pin it down to old-fashioned stereotypical behaviours, but they are outdated. Women these days are out there, sisters doing it for themselves, so surely they do not need the same constant reassurances that their more constrained predecessors longed for.
To us blokes, the constant reiteration of the Three Little Words does nothing more than diminish their power. It's not that we are incapable of feelings. Despite appearances to the contrary, we do not lack the full emotional panorama.
It just looks that way because women have for centuries carpet-bombed the Arena of Lurrrve with their very particular version of romance.
Take Valentine's Day. Please, take it. (arf!)
Is there a day out there more lacking in romance than the fourteenth of February?
Don't you dare accuse me of being bah humbug about this. I am absolutely not attacking romance, but rather launching an assault on Valentines Day, that killer of romance, murderer of amore.
Valentine's Day is to romance what New Year's Eve is to spontaneity.
Each of those occasions carries obligation: a list of places to be, acts to perform, clothes to wear and for god's sake be happy.
Can there be anything worse, or indeed more pointless than being forced to be happy?
Well, yes. Being forced to be romantic, because that, to me and I suspect millions of other men, is impossible.
Just because we don't fit into the framework of romance as constructed by women, we are considered devoid of romance.
But what, pray tell me, is romantic about obligation?
What is romantic about having to do something on a certain day?
What is romantic about everybody doing the same things - eating chocolate drinking champagne eating heart-shaped food in suddenly pink restaurants -at the same time?
Absolutely nothing. To this male, Valentine's Day is something you do to keep 'Her Indoors' on board, and if that makes me sound horribly unromantic, then you couldn't be more wrong.
I love romance. I adore being romantic, and I'm saying that as a bloke who loves beer and football, a man who prefers to wake up with someone who has different bits.
Being romantic gives me a thrill of excitement that I hope will be imparted to my woman.
Sometimes romance is about being thoughtful, thinking what she might like, or love to do, and then planning it, and presenting it as a surprise.
Other times, romance is a random and sudden act of love or kindness that exhibits consideration and, ideally, a special and insightful understanding of herself, executed in a way that nobody else could.
Romance can be a tingle; something unique - perchance an occasion on which to utter those Three Little Words, and give them back the power that they deserve.
I love you.
And look, see here! See what I have done to show you that this is true. See this romantic act or gift or evening or drive or meal or act of love. It shows you that I mean what I say when I say I love you.
So yes, we men know what romance is, and we know what it is not. We know it's not about having to do anything. Romance is not an obligation, and it can never be a duty.
Romance is pure unadulterated pleasure, a selfish excitement at the thought of the smile that will be implanted upon the face of your loved one.
So don't be disappointed if we men don't conform to your own very female construct of love and romance.
We love the power of love so much we do not want to go on and on about it. We do not want to say it 40 times a day, precisely because it becomes pointless and worthless, and then, well, then what is left?
We do not love romance when it is ordered from us like dinner from a waiter, yet given the chance, we are full of it. Just because our notion of romance doesn't come in the girly wrapping paper that you dreamed up in your collective minds' eyes, it doesn't mean men are incapable of it.
Just let us do it our own way.

Go ahead Google - Make my profile!

2012-02-05T11:53:00.000Z

Thanks to venturebeat.com

Unlike many others I don’t care about Google’s plans to follow my use of You Tube, Gmail and Google to build a profile of me based, as they say, “ on interests expressed.”
Do I feel threatened by their methods?
Do I feel intimidated by the fact that yet another distant powerful corporation is scrutinising my web browsing habits?
Not in the least little bit. In fact, I say “Go ahead Google - Make my day!”
Why?
Because one of the main things I use Google for is to help me solve crossword clues.

Take a look at those advertisements that you can see over on the right of your screen. They are Google’s attempt to match products to the needs of my colyoomistas.
Or so they reckon.
Trouble is, those Google bots which crawl over this colyoom’s text pick up such a varied amount of subject matter that they come up with ridiculous combinations of commercials. Right now as I look there are adverts for house sitting in Ireland, a place to buy turbans and lesser-known cancer therapies.
Perfect if you’re a Sikh living in Longford who’s going on holiday to visit someone in hospital.
Is that you?
If so, well done Google!
In the same way, as a crossword solver, my use of Google paints a profile of anyone Google wants me to be. Anyone, that is, except the real me.
In the last few days I’ve looked up the collective noun for a group of Bishops; a selection of downy and furry fruits; the history of sherry; Iowa; the Holy City of Mecca and Neil Armstrong.
I’m not a big user of You Tube, but browsing facebook postings I occasionally watch funny shorts - the most memorable recent one being a naked farmer who willingly threw himself into his own baling machine, emerging with head and all four limbs sticking out of a bale of straw. You had to see it to enjoy it, but Google will have added it to my You Tube ‘expressed interests’, alongside the ubiquitous talking dog and 4 songs I posted myself, from the unique and little-known 80’s band Non-Stop Jeep.
I don’t use Gmail, but hell, surely Google have enough on me by now. I’m attending a Bishop’s conference in Iowa, chatting to astronaut Neil Armstrong about the great pilgrimages of Islam, whilst drinking sherry and eating apricots, watching men made of straw singing songs about Thunderbirds and French volcanoes.
Perfect. Build that profile! What an interesting guy I sound!
You’ll never know the real me, the one others care about. Yes this colyoom does sometimes delve into deep and delicate matters, but there are always more personal issues that remain private. No amalgam of browsing interests will ever reveal a true picture of my personality, my soul, or most important to you, my true purchasing preferences.
As long as I continue to solve crosswords with the help of your lovely search engine, you won’t have a clue - unless you put up an ad for crossword books!
Is there already one there?

If debt is a tumour then bailouts are chemotherapy!

2012-01-25T15:31:00.000Z

http://www.naturalnews.com

Sadly, too many of us will be familiar with the maxim: if the cancer doesn’t kill you the chemo will. Recently over in England, I had to explain to my friends and family that however bad the UK economy might appear to them, with its trillion pound debt, the atmosphere in London was so preferable to the melancholic treacle we have to wade through every waking moment in Ireland.

When they asked me what’s it like living in a bailout country, I found myself describing awful things: our stunned outrage over the €1 billion paid to the Irish Bank Resolution Corporation, which is nothing more than the new fascia of the dead bank previously known as Anglo-Irish; our utter disbelief at the €1.25 billion being paid to unsecured bond holders, because we know that if we mere proles failed to pay back an unsecured loan, the bank would sell our debt to bastards who’d come to our homes and take away our furniture and TVs; our seething frustration at the closure of hospitals all over the country; our boiling rage at the loss of schools and teaching jobs; our pathetic impotence in the face of VAT tax rises, because purchase tax damages the poor so much more than it hurts the rich; the demise of our self-respect as we either lose our jobs or face penury paying the new Universal Social Charge alongside the new Bank Levy, PRSI, the new Property Tax and Income Tax (blimey - nearly forgot Income Tax there, so blinded was I by all the new taxes!); the raging anger about …

… the raging anger about all of it, all of it all of it, because all the good that was in our lives and this nation is being slowly destroyed, poisoned, killed off to save invisible greedy rich people who gambled and lost.

And then it struck me. They’re trying to kill us in order to save us. The debt that neither Paddy nor Patricia Public was guilty of creating arrived like a tumour in the body of this nation, and now, with this disgustingly misnomered ‘bailout’, we are being pumped with chemotherapy, which in its efforts to kill the debt is destroying all that was good and healthy about us and the country in which we live (although it won’t succeed, because we and Ireland are just so bloody great, we will refuse to succumb).

A very dear friend of mine died of cancer a few years ago. She refused to have chemotherapy, preferring instead to enjoy a long happy Summer. My memories of her are not filled with the terrible sights of her treatment taking its toll, but rather of her beautiful face laughing over the kitchen table, as she prepared her healthy dinner and felt happy with her choices.

We all have to die sometime, but what’s the rush?
Why are we being forced to suffer this chemo poisoning now, when we all know this tumour is nothing more than an abstract number on a Troika computer screen?

Two barbers, a dead footballer and a bit of colonial symbolism!

2012-01-25T11:47:00.003Z

A man’s relationship with his barber can be a wondrous and personal thing. In so many movies, when the old fella wants to talk about the mysteries of life, or mull over a very personal problem, he talks to his barber. I’ve been very lucky over the last 20 years in Galway, because I’ve had two excellent barbers who not only made sense of the swirling cow’s lick sheep’s ass hedge that is my hair, but also have been good for a bit of banter, craic and fiendish slagging.

The other day I was pounding along Salthill Prom (yes, the knee operation was a success, I’m thrilled to say) when my path crossed with Old Barber. I’m calling him that not because he’s longer in the tooth than New Barber, but simply that five years ago he put down his scissors to go to college.

Such is the heinous grapevine that is Galway, after our initial “Howyas!” I was able to tell him that he’d been spotted last week, back cutting hair in a shop in the high street. Was he done with college?

“No, Charlie, just doing one day a week for the bobs, y’understand. Nearly finished, now though, at college. Five years done and I’m about to be a barrister!”

“Bloody hell mate, well done! That’s incredible. I’ll have you on speed dial on my mobile.”  

“Sure that’s what they all say! We’ll see, but it’ll be a great day when I put my scissors up on eBay!”

“Mate, you’re an inspiration! Well done, and thanks for giving me ammo to use against New Barber. I’ll be able to taunt him now that the Master is back on the job!”

“Thanks Charlie, but there’s one thing I’m really pissed off about. They’ve only just gone and changed the law, stopping barristers wearing wigs in court …”
and as he lifted the hood on his anorak to reveal his balding pate
“… and wasn’t that the only reason I bloody wanted to be one in the first place!”

We roared with laughter.

“Ah sure mate, those wigs were only sad leftovers of colonial symbolism. You’ll be better off without them.”

As we walked on our separate ways I smiled broadly, happy to live in a place where you bump into the bloke who used to cut your hair and share a laugh talking bollocks and colonial symbolism.

So when I popped into New Barber I told him he’d better do a bloody good job, ‘cos Old Barber was back on the beat. Trouble was, such is the nature of the two men, we only ended up talking about what a great bloke Old Barber was, and I knew that having sat in New Barber’s chair for many a year now, I was not about to take my barnet elsewhere.

But all this mutual male respect and lurrve didn’t stop us enjoying a good slagging. Most of our banter over the years has been based around the fact that, as my colyoomistas know, I am a life-long Chelsea fan, while New Barber is a Gooner, one of the lowest forms of animal life, otherwise known as an Arsenal fan.

I had a peach ready.
“Did ya hear the news? Chelsea’s bringing back Peter Osgood!”
“Peter Osgood? But isn’t he dead?”
“Sadly yes, but your lot have bought back Thierry Henry and Man United have dragged back Scholes, so while Drogba and the lads are away at the African Cup of Nations, we’re going to let Ossie have a few games.”

Thankfully he stood back and lowered his scissors before he fell about laughing and coughing.

“Peter Osgood! Love it! That’s the best one this week!”

Peter Osgood - The King Of Stamford Bridge.

(Here's a little ditty we used to sing back in the 60s and 70s, to the tune of 'The First Noel')

Out from the shed came a young rising star,
Scoring against Jennings from near and from far,
When Chelsea won the game like we all knew they would,
The star of that great team was Peter Osgood.

Osgood, Osgood, Osgood, Osgood,
Born is the king of Stamford Bridge,
Osgood, Osgood, Osgood, Osgood,
Born is the king of Stamford Bridge …..

Where did the colyooms go?

2012-01-18T11:42:00.003Z

Panic not my colyoomistas, just been the busy madman from Blurville for the last few weeks. Off to England to visit family and attend a friend's wedding this weekend, but already this desk has a little pile of shreds of paper with notes scrawled upon them, all reasy to be colyoomised next week.

The day that Christmas stopped the killing.

2011-12-25T11:11:00.002Z

And finally, a moving reminder of heroic times, so that we can give thanks for being so safe, warm and well fed this Christmas Day! It’s the 7th Christmas colyoom this week, so it must be Christmas Day! Happy Christmas to all of you, friends, strangers and most of all my colyoomistas! I hope you enjoyed this week's marathon dip into the archive!

http://www.caricatures-ireland.com/

Thanks to Allan Cavangh for the perfect illistration.

British Expeditionary Force,
Friday December 25th, 1914.

My Dear Mater,
This will be the most memorable Christmas I’ve ever spent or likely to spend: since about tea time yesterday I don’t think there’s been a shot fired on either side up to now. Last night turned a very clear frost moonlight night, so soon after dusk we had some decent fires going and had a few carols and songs. The Germans commenced by placing lights all along the edge of their trenches and coming over to us - wishing us a happy Christmas etc ... Some of our chaps went over to their lines. I think they’ve all come back, bar one from ‘E’ Company. They no doubt kept him as a souvenir.
There must be something in the spirit of Christmas as today we are all on top of our trenches running about. ... Just before dinner I had the pleasure of shaking hands with several Germans ... I exchanged one of my balaclavas for a hat. I’ve also got a button off one of their tunics. We also exchanged smokes etc. and had a decent chat. They say they won’t fire tomorrow if we don’t so I suppose we shall get a bit of a holiday - perhaps ... We can hardly believe that we’ve been firing at them ... it all seems so strange. With much love from Boy."

Strange indeed, how wonderful is the human spirit. We humans have hearts the size of harvest moons. Given the choice of killing indiscriminately or having a meal with friends, the vast majority of us lay down our guns and pick up our knives and forks.

I always find the Christmas Day truce of 1914 exceptionally moving, as for once, a religious festival was used to encourage exactly what it stood for.

As an atheist of Jewish stock, I have always loved the Nativity story. Evidently God was showing in the strongest possible way that social status meant absolutely nothing; that true power lay in the heart, mind and spirit.

All that matters is to be a loving human being; to shake hands with your enemy, love your neighbour and turn the other cheek. Christian ethics are an admirable and glorious collection, never better illustrated than by those good men who lifted themselves clean out of their hellish muddy disease-ridden trenches and played a little footie with the lads from the other side.

Christmas as a child was a big affair in my Jewish home. My parents felt it was important for us all to feel a part of the country that had taken us in, and so, in our own way, we assimilated the English culture of Christmas and left out the religion.

We had a tree, which is a Pagan tradition anyway, and we had presents and decorations. Indeed, on Christmas morning my Dad would crack open a bottle of champagne and declare ‘Happy Christmas!’, and none of us felt any less Jewish. Didn’t we still light the Menorah candles and celebrate Hannukah? Didn’t we eat hot salt beef sandwiches with sweet and sour cucumbers on Christmas Eve night, feeling completely Jewish and comfortable within ourselves?

All wisdom and worthy religious creed is based around acceptance (rather then tolerance, even though many still fail to see the vital difference), but even at this time of year, when true Christians are supposed to be celebrating the arrival of peace on Earth in the shape of their Saviour’s birth, there is begrudgery and prejudice aplenty.

Even though I cannot stand the censorial excesses and puritan overtones of Political Correctness, I’m going to risk being accused of just that when I say that, unlike lots of ye Irish folk, I actually like the “Happy Holidays!” thing.

Many of you believe that maniacal liberals demand the saying of “Happy Holidays!” so as to avoid offending non-Christian members of society, but they are wrong. No Irish Muslim, Sikh or Jew will be offended by one Christian saying “Happy Christmas!” to another, but there are other festivals that occur at this time of year in each religion. No minority immigrant is going to sit around and wait for an Irish Catholic to wish them a Happy Hannukah or Diwali, so why not cover all the religious bases, spread the love a little and keep everybody happy?

It seems absurd to me that people should get protective over their own religious festivals to the detriment of others. It feels a little like grown-ups who never learned to share their toys as children.
So no, “Happy Holidays!” does not preclude you celebrating your festival: it merely includes all of us who might be celebrating ours. I have never felt in any way offended by the sight of somebody gaining wisdom or comfort from their personal religious faith, but I do feel offended when I read in Irish newspaper pages “...well tough luck, why should we worry about offending anybody in this our country...?”

Why? I’ll tell you why! Forgive this atheist Jew for preaching Christianity, but you should worry simply and purely because it is un-Christian to think that way. I have lived in ‘your’ country for 16 years. I love Ireland, the Irish and I even pay my taxes. At what point does this country become my country too? Clearly, never, as far as many of you are concerned, and once again I recall the words that my Dad used to say, when I was but a little boy.

“We are just visitors in this country.” he told me, “One day we may have to move on, like your grandparents did before you were born.”

How dare any of us become angry over such trifling matters, when we think of the bravery, love, compassion and ultimate sacrifice made by the lad who wrote that letter back in the trenches? A victim of a pointless and disgusting war, he and his equals on both sides found the true spirit of Christmas and made peace.

So please, as you celebrate this most important of feasts, give thanks to your God for all that you have, and try to love the fact that we are all so beautifully different.

'Bertie Potter and the Lost Memories of Erin' - a fairytale of Christmas Eve.

2011-12-24T15:47:00.000Z

Thanks to conormchale.blogspot.com/2011_10_01_archive.html

(This 6th of the 7 colyooms I’m posting this week was first published in December 2002.)

It was the night before Christmas, and snow lay all over the fields of Erin. Out in the garden shed, Bertie Potter was shivering in the cold, wondering why oh why he couldn’t sleep inside the na Fianna family house.
There was a terrible curse upon the na Fianna family. Old cousin Charlie had strangled himself on the sleeve of his silk shirt, and Bertie’s father Albert had choked to death on a beef bone. Bertie Potter was sent to live with his nasty Auntie Mary Harniggan, and his horrible Uncle Charlie McCrevil.
Auntie Mary was a huge woman with a short temper, who loved her own children much more than she loved Bertie Potter. She gave Bertie old clothes to wear, and just enough food scraps to keep him alive.
Uncle Charlie was a dirty smelly old man, with bad teeth and too much drink inside him. He went on and on about never having enough money, but Bertie Potter didn’t understand why he couldn’t have any Christmas presents, because he remembered the time when Auntie Mary wanted to buy a bottle of wine in a faraway county. Uncle Charlie suddenly found the money to pay for a private plane for her, which must have cost a pretty penny.
Bertie Potter knew that as soon as he was able, he was going to leave home and live on his own. Somewhere deep inside, he knew he was not the same as them. He felt special, somehow different, but he didn’t yet know why.
Wrapping himself up in his tatty old blanket, Bertie Potter finally drifted off to sleep, but an hour later he woke up with a shock. The door of the shed suddenly crashed open, and two men burst in, falling over each other.
Bertie couldn’t believe his eyes! It was the ghosts of Grandad Eamonn and his Great Uncle Michael, who’d both been dead many a long year. Bertie Potter could smell the drink on them, so he understood how they were able to fight and laugh and hug each other, all at the same time.
“On yer boike, ye pat’et’ic two-faced weasel!” shouted Great Uncle Michael at Grandad Eamonn.
“Never moind my bike, ye great hulkin’ Cork fool, you watch yer back - oh sorry, too late, har har har!” cried Grandad Eamonn, at which the two men fell over, giggling like a couple of teenagers on Buckfast.
Eventually they calmed down, and turned to Bertie Potter, who was sitting with his blanket wrapped around his knees, his eyes bulging with surprise.
“Howya, Bertie Potter!” said Grandad Eamonn. “Sorry to wake ye up, but the time has come for ye to know the truth! Bertie, you are a wizard, and you have a very important job to do!”
Nothing could prepare Bertie Potter for what happened next. Before you could say ‘Ryanair extra charges’, Great Uncle Michael scooped Bertie into his arms, and the two men flew out of the shed, and up high, into the Christmas Eve sky. It felt good, being held by that strong giant of a man, and as they flew over Erin, Great Uncle Michael explained everything to Bertie Potter.
“Look below and see the Erin that your Grandad and I built, after we kicked the English out of the place - ”
“Well, most of the place!” interrupted Grandad Eamonn.
“Oh for god’s sake, wouldja ever get over that!” shouted Great Uncle Michael. “Anyway, Free Erin was the envy of the world. Sure, we weren’t rich, but your Uncle Buck and Auntie Dollares came to visit from far away, and loved us so much, they opened lots of shops and factories here.
"Then Uncle Mark from Germany and Auntie Franc from France sent Erin lots of money, so that we could build new roads and houses, and everything was looking good. Everyone could buy new cars, take holidays, and last Summer, your Uncle Charlie gave everyone free money for their piggy banks.
“But then something terrible happened. Your Auntie and Uncle sent out hundreds of magic brown envelopes, and anyone who opened them fell immediately under a spell. All over Erin, people lost their memories ... and their money.
“Everyone in the Tribunals forgot everything ever!
“The Gardai even forgot what each other looked like!
“Aer Rianta forgot to forget about £5,000 of cigars and brandy that Seamus Brennan never had.
“Mad Cows forgot they had BSE.
“Mothers forgot they had Hepatitis C.
“British soldiers in Derry forgot they shot people on Bloody Sunday.
“Both sides in the North forgot they had promised to make peace.
“The FAI invited everyone in Europe to come and play football here, but forgot that they had no pitches to play on!
“Some people in Erin even forgot that millions of us were once refugees, fleeing persecution and famine, and suddenly started being racist against asylum seekers here.
“Politicians forgot how important medical cards and hospitals and FAS Courses are to the poor. And tonight, there are many very poor children all over Erin who will not wake up to a pile of Christmas presents at the end of their beds.”
After their long flight, Great Uncle Michael and Grandad Eamonn landed on the top of Athlone Cathedral.
“So who am I?” asked Bertie Potter, “And what can I do to help?”
“You are 'The Boy Who Remembered’. It is your destiny to save Erin, Bertie Potter!” exclaimed Great Uncle Michael.
“When you get home, you must cast a powerful magic spell on your Auntie and Uncle, making them prisoners inside the na Fianna house. You must make sure that your evil Auntie Mary and your wicked Uncle Charlie never ever leave that house again. They must never be seen, never have one of their words heard, and never ever send a brown envelope in the post. If you do that, Bertie Potter, you will save your Erin!”
‘I can do it!’ thought brave Bertie Potter to himself, ‘And without those nasty na Fiannas, everyone will have their memories back, and remember the numbers of their Cayman
Island accounts. We’ll all have enough money for a very Merry Christmas!’

No room at the Irish inn?

2011-12-23T16:32:00.000Z

This 5th of 7 Christmas colyooms I’m posting this week was written in December 2004, just after the Irish, (a nation of people who more than any other have seen - and still see! - economic migration as their birthright) voted in a referendum to deny children born in Ireland the right of automatic citizenship.

Christmas is a cosy time of year, isn’t it? Roaring fires, full bellies and a movie before tea. Comfortable, happy and safe. Yes, feeling safe, that’s what it’s all about.

You close your eyes and drift off into a little snooze, but your mind brings you nightmares.

You’re walking into your home, but it feels empty. Silent. Where is your wife and where are your children?

You walk into the kids’ bedroom and see a few clothes thrown around. You see that their small suitcase is missing, and then you run, crazed, into your own bedroom, where you see your wife’s bag gone too.

You don’t know what to do.

You call your friends and find nobody knows anything.

All you can do is sit and wait and hope they return.

Two days later, you receive a call from the police. Your wife went to a government office to pick up some forms, was suddenly arrested, handcuffed, and driven immediately across town to pick up some clothes for the children. Then she and your children were rushed to the airport and thrown out of the country, flown off to the very place you spent your life trying to escape.

What a terrible country that must be to live in. To lose your wife and kids, without so much as a kiss goodbye. To think of the shame your wife felt being walked handcuffed through an airport. To feel the fear and confusion of your children who might wonder what terrible thing they had done to deserve this.

To wonder if you will ever see your family again.

Kingsley Igbojionu may well have seen his wife Rachel, and their two Irish-born children again, as months after his wife was humiliated and deported, he too was sent back to Nigeria.

As you recline safely in your Christmas armchairs, ponder for a second about Ireland, and how it behaves towards refugees.

Over 80% of you voted ‘Yes’ in the referendum this year. Over 400 people have been sent out of this country since then, and more than 11,000 parents of Irish-born children could be deported.

The kids can stay, but what parents would abandon their children to the care of a State that has enforced such a separation?

No room at the Inn. Happy Christmas to you.

Christmas is supposedly a celebration of birth, love and delivery from fear. This year, if you will excuse my chutzpah, this Atheist Jew implores you all to behave like true Christians.

Love thy neighbour.

Celebrate the fact that others want to live here. They want to share their cultures, to love their children, and to worship their own gods.

Pray in your churches this Christmas that all the people living in this land might feel as safe as you do.

Oh, and have a most excellent and jubilant Christmas holiday!

...and then there was the Christmas we burned the banker’s lawn!

2011-12-22T15:35:00.002Z

The 4th of the 7 Christmas colyooms I'm posting this week oozes us into that alcohol-stained area known as‘Christmas Past’, back when nobody had ever heard of burning bondholders, but somehow (I blame Dumbo!)we managed to burn the banker's lawn...

Although old enough to know better,we were a bunch of friends clinging collectively to a mischievous hedonism, adesire to have just two too many, because we could, and then someone found abottle of Tequila, and we did that too, d’ya know the kind o’way?

The Croaker’s dad wassome kind of bigwig at Lloyd’s Bank, and his friend had a timesharecottage down in Somerset. So we decided we'd all go off to do Christmas in a Merchant Banker’s holiday home in the picturesque village ofPorlock.

Oh, and we were very, very lucky,or so everyone told us.

Far from being the biscuit tinpicture Tudor oak-beamed thatch of our dreams, the ‘cottage’ turned out to be acrushingly unremarkable house, at the end of a suburban-style cul-de-sac.

Well, dwaaarling, to be dreadfullyhonest, it was simply awful. Bland. Pure 100% unadulterated boring dull andtaste-free, decorated throughout in white this, grey wall-to-wall that, nothingof note, character, history or colour.

But boy, had we been warned!Daddy’s little gal drummed into us that his place was to be respected. Nothingwas going to happen to this place, okay? Rilly, because one just doesn’t goaround damaging other people’s homes, okay yah? And the garden too, okay, yah?Daddy loves his lawn, okay? Super!

She handed us the keys. Young,loaded with disposable income, drink and doubtless, in those days, a wide rangeof potent and nefarious ‘recreationals’, we headed off to the West Country.

Christmas morning arrives, anddomestic bliss descends on the ‘cottage’.

Everyone, except for Lucy, isdraped over chairs, sofas and each other. Every eye is trained on the TVscreen, where Dumbo’s mother is locked up in a cage. They think she’s a maddangerous animal. We know, of course, that she is nothing but a pure sweetheartof a beast, and our emotions are gently twitching, peaking and troughing,sailing blissfully on the waters of mass mind-altering consumption.

Little Dumbo is losing his mum. Heputs his trunk through the bars of the cage, which if I recall correctly was ona train, and Mummy Dumbo and little Dumbo link trunks.

Lucy’s smiling face appears aroundthe door.

"Er guys - the kitchen’s onfire."

I asked her later why she said itso calmly. She explained that in her shock, she incorrectly assumed we wouldreact like responsible adult human beings, so she decided it best not to createunnecessary panic.

As it was, we were so far gone inthe cerebrals we completely ignored her, as one.

"Oh cool!"

"Nice, nice!"

"Poor lickel nellyphant gonnaloose his mumma. That’s so sad!"

"Yeh - but it’ll be alright inthe-"

"No...er...guys, the KITCHENis on FIRE!"

"No, really? Be with you in atick, love! Luce, chill, we just wanna watch this!"

Confronted with such overwhelminglyabject apathy, Lucy finally lost it.

"Fire! Fire! Fire! Fire!Fire in the kitchen! Turn off the bloody video you morons, there’s a FIREIN THE KITCHEN!"

I heard a distant Rasta voiceemerge from under a cushion, bravely offering in a whispering song

“...there’s a fire in my kitchen, what am I gonna do!”

By the time we actually got off ourarses and made it into the kitchen, Lucy had rushed upstairs and was, rathersuperbly, dunking bath towels in water. Flames were licking out of the oven,smoke billowing all over the place. It was dramatic and confusing, our feebleheads no longer lolling on oceans of calm, instead now tossed about on stormyseas of impending disaster.

We felt collectively unsure aboutopening the oven door.

Didn’t opening doors make fires getworse?

Maybe if we all stood at oddangles, and chewed our cuticles frantically for a few more minutes, maybe itmight go away.

Anyway, the fire didn’t lookstructurally threatening. Not yet.

Still, it was pretty exciting, andwe generally ooo-ed, errr-ed, yelled ‘Don’t Panic Captain Mainwaring’, andgiggled like infants eating cake-mix behind Mummy’s back.

Lucy appeared with soaking towels,opened the oven door, and threw a towel over the flames in the roasting tin.

Gone. Wow, fire gone bye-byes! Weall stood and stared, while Lucy tried to come to terms with saving the day.

Suddenly, for absolutely noapparent reason whatsoever, Neil was spurred into action.

"Got to get that pan out ofthere!” he said, and before any of us could stop him, he picked up the othertowel, and lifted the smouldering disaster of a dinner out of the oven, yelling

“Open the front door!"

Like a man possessed, he stormedout into the garden, and carefully lowered the smoking dish down onto thevelvet turf.

We all looked at it, and we 'knew’, as it says in the Bible. We knew that it was not good.

Never mind the smoke-stainedkitchen. Black can be made white again. We could clean the fire damage, noproblem.

But right now, somebody had to goand move that dish. As soon as possible. Pronto. Like, er, yesterday, dude...

It was, as it had to be, Neil whowent back to the scene of his crime. Once more, as neighbour’s net curtainstwitched all around, in true British Bourgeois fashion, we stood and giggled asNeil bent over the now-cooled tray.

As he lifted it, so he also lifteda clump of verdant bliss the size of - well, the exact size and shape of alarge roasting tin.

"Daddy loves his lawn!"offered some bright spark.

"Drink!" Lucy wasinspired. “Drink! We need drink, lads! It’s Christmas Day! We need adrink!"

This time we all heard her, and Ihave to admit, from that moment on I can’t remember anything - not awall-cleaning, oven-scrubbing moment, but a fine time was had by all, and that,my patient readers, is what I wish for you.

May this season of Christmas, Diwhali and Hanukkah bring you, andyour families, Shalom peace.

There really is no such thing as free beer!

2011-12-21T16:47:00.001Z

The 3rd of the 7 Christmas colyooms I'm posting each day this week is a tale of broken bones, beer, pantomime and Archimedes' Principle of Displacement!

Visit Caricatures Ireland

More than any other time ofthe year, when we sit around our dinner tables on Christmas Day, we are awareof who is there and who is not.

At the age of 17, havingperformed impressive acrobatics with my Yamaha 250, a saloon car, a ditch and abarbed wire fence, I spent six weeks in hospital over Christmas and New Year.My femur was snapped in two, which is no mean feat with thighs like mine, andmy tibia had a crack or two as well. Bed-bound, with my leg in traction, Ideveloped a bronchial chest infection after an emergency operation.

Every two seconds for six weeksI coughed in hacking spasms, thus shaking my smashed leg, which was hung in asling, supported by a metal pole they had driven through me, just below theknee.

Suffice to say I came toterms with pain.

In our part of the ward,there were four beds and three bikers with broken bones.

There was Kev, who had fallenoff his sleek and mean Suzuki GT750 (a two stroke 3-into-1, since you ask), andopposite us two was brick shithouse Yorkshireman Gary, ex-SAS, and mightyembarrassed, having survived several covert tours of duty in Northern Ireland,to have to admit to falling off a Honda 125.

Compared to the otherpatients in the hospital the three of us were well off.

We were not sick. We'd hadour operations, and apart from antibiotics for wounds, and pain killers forbroken bones, we needed very little medical attention.

We were young, male, bored,and allowed to drink beer. Naturally, we tried to attract the attention of thestudent nurses as much as possible, and equally, they were happy to have a bitof a laugh with lads who were not ill, physically, at least!

By the time Christmas camearound, the three of us were well aquainted with all the student nurses, andthen we were told we would be allowed to drink spirits during the Christmasperiod.

So we did.

We got plastered, if you’llpardon the pun, and so did the student nurses. We persuaded them that by havinga tipple or three with us they were really doing their jobs, because they werehelping us through a difficult time.

On Christmas morning, theConsultant Surgeons came around the wards, carving the turkeys at our besides,and general merriment was had by all.

Karen, my favourite studentnurse, had had a lickle ickle bit too much to drink. She pulled the curtainsaround my bed, produced a half bottle of vodka from under her skirt, and takingsome lemonade and a clean specimen bottle from my bedside cabinet, mixed us upa festive cocktail, after which she gave me a lovely snog, and left me feelinga million dollars.

Looking back now, I can onlythink how wonderful she was, because not only was I away from my familyChristmas table, but so was she.

After the Christmas pud, wewere all wheeled out of the ward in our beds, and taken to a large and crowdedarea, where the staff were putting on a Panto for the patients.

Gary’s wife, (a woman of suchsubstantial proportions and brooding menace that she clearly put the fear ofgod into our man of iron) had turned up with several cases of brown ale, and sowe sat up in our beds, enjoying the show, drinking frothing foaming pints ofbeer from plastic glasses.

Half way through theperformance, I realised I needed to pee. I’d done precious little but drink allday, and now I really really needed to go, all of a sudden, with the fiercelydemanding urgency of someone who knows that he cannot go.

There was no way I could askanybody to wheel me to the loo. To get me and my bed out of that area wouldhave meant interrupting the show, and causing a kerfuffle that would spoileverything for everybody.

So I did all I could do.

I drained my pint glass ofbeer, and, errr, then I refilled it!

In my drunken state, Idecided it made perfect Archimidean mathematical sense.

Reaching out of my bed, Iplaced the foaming frothing pint onto a shelf, and watched the rest of theshow, making a mental note to remember to pick it up afterwards and dispose ofit myself.

Trouble was, when the lightswent up, it was no longer there, and to this day I do not know whether someunfortunate alcoholic scrumper thought his luck was in.

Free beer! Whoopee!

Best not think about that toolong.

But on Christmas Day, please,let’s all for a minute think of those who have given up their day to work: toserve us with safety in our homes, at sea and overseas; those who comfort and care, and those whovolunteer to help others without a home to go to.

If you spare them a thoughtand give thanks, you won’t be far off pleasing whichever God you might worship!

Happy Christmas, Diwali,Hannukah and Solstice, and may your god go with you.

What’s so terrible about Christmas on your own?

2011-12-20T15:20:00.001Z

(Day 2 of the 7 Christmas colyooms I'm posting this week! This one was written in 2002, when I lived in a farmhouse near Killala, Co. Mayo, and felt very happy to be spending Christmas on my own...)

lifehack.org

It’s the look in their eyes that gets me. They’ve asked you what you’re going to do for Christmas, and you’ve said you don’t know. You might go to friends, but you might just stay in and do it on your own.

Then there’s the look. The staring-down-the-nose dewey-eyed you-don’t really-know-what you’re-saying-do-you-you-poor-sad-lonely-little-loser look.

Drives me crazy every time.

Of course it is tragic that some people will be lonely and alone on Christmas Day.

But the time has come for me to stand up and be counted, on behalf of the multitude out here who will be alone and doing just fine, thanks very much.

Well, I wanted to be counted but there’s just me, so I’ll do it myself: one.

One person who will wake up when he wants to on Christmas morning. It’s a special day, so I’ll make sure to leave a few cards and pressies to open, at my leisure, whilst lying in bed.

Then I’ll take a wonderfully peaceful walk along a deserted beach and return home to build a massive fire. Once the coal is crackling and hissing in the hearth, I’ll phone my family back in London, and chat to my nieces, sister, brother and parents as the phone is passed around their living room. Once again, I’ll reassure my folks that I am fine and happy.

Time to have a little snifter. Crack open the Jameson 12, feel the dark chewy whiskey flowing all over my far-flung bodily extremities, warming my heart while cheering my soul.

Now it really feels like Christmas: time to play some music. I’m partial to the Vienna Boys Choir on Christmas morning (and they speak very highly of me too!), but I might just be tempted by my very dodgy ‘The Chieftains - The Bells of Dublin’ Christmas album.

Shocking behaviour.

I’ll play my music as loud as I want to, very probably do a silly little dance and nobody will complain or mock my natural sense of rhythm.

Time to warm up the oven, but what does a man cook to eat on his own for Christmas dinner? Well, exactly whatever he feels like,to be eaten whenever he wants.

All I know for sure at this moment is that the meal will consist solely of the most magnificently self-indulgent ingredients. Possibly a roast fillet of lamb, larded with garlic, wrapped in rosemary and honey; crispy roast shpuds; steamed carrots and leeks; a braised onion and a sweet roasted parsnip.

Sound good? Oh, you don’t care for lamb?

I don’t care. I’m cooking for one.

Such a feast requires a splendid bottle of French red, perchance a Grand Cru of velvet depth and sublime body - much like myself!

As the smells of the roasting meat inveigle their way around the house, I’ll make a few more phone calls, spreading love and good wishes to my friends, scattered around the globe.

Then it’s out the door, and up to visit the landlord farmer and his wife, drop off a bottle of whiskey and a message of thanks to them for housing me in such a happy home.

Oh, and donkeys celebrate Christmas too, so the usual carrots are out, and today it’s nothing but choccy biccies and Golden Delicious apples for my closest ‘neigh-bours’, Kitty and her foal Molly.

Even an atheist Jew such as myself can be a hoary old Christmas traditionalist, so I put the Christmas pud on the steamer and glaze my home-made mince pies, to be snarfed later with brandy butter and burps.

Most important of all, I take the cheese out of the fridge, and let it breathe. I am a self-avowed pathetic slave to cheese, and this year I have had to cut it from my diet at home, in an effort to cut down on the cholesterol.

But hey, it’s Christmas, so it’s got to be stinky creamy Stilton on digestive biscuits, and a pungent nutty cheddar on oatcakes, washed down with a healthy dose of vintage port, of which I will purchase a half bottle for my own consumption.

After the meal, a stroll down by the river, enjoying the utter tranquility of the day that’s in it, and back home to watch a movie. As a child in England, there was comfort to be found in the Christmas morning Beatles film on the box, and in the afternoon the Beeb always used to run ‘Bridge Over The River Kwai’. Some traditions are best left unwrapped, so to be on the safe side I’ll make sure to rent a couple of vids - one new release and one old fave ,something epic like Goodfellas or ‘Dr. Zhivago’.

By the time darkness has fallen on my solitary Christmas Day, I will have exercised twice, been well fed and over-watered, ready to snooze a while in front of the fire. I will not be woken up by any upsetting family rows, or Uncle George needing urgent medical attention after overdoing the brandy.

After my snooze, there’ll be an energetic walk to the bathroom, followed by a disgustingly long soak, and then a bit of a wash and brush up to see if I feel like visiting friends, or prefer simply to stare at the goggle box and drift off into my own private Yuletide nirvana.

How bad does that sound?

To be completely honest, I’m not even sure that I really will spend Christmas Day alone this year. I have two friends in Galway City who are also planning to spend the day alone, so I made a suggestion that if they felt the urge, so to speak, they might come up and share a country Christmas with me.

If they come I will be delighted to see them, certain in the knowledge that we will still have exactly the day we all want, under no pressure to do, be or say anything that crosses the border from our Happy World of Indulgence into the dark dreary land of Duty.

Either way, alone or with my fellow Lost Boys, I will be spending money I don’t have; eating and drinking as if I were immortal; enjoying my own company, and equally eager to step into the pub at noon on Stephen’s Day and quaff pints of black, whilst listening to the horrific tales of woe emanating from all those poor sad souls who had to endure the Christmas that everyone else wanted.

Whether on your own or in the company of others, enjoy a peaceful happy Christmas, and whatever your faith, may your god go with you.

“Well, he was Jewish, wasn’t he?”

2011-12-19T10:38:00.000Z

One of the challenges of being a columnist is coming up with a new Christmas piece each and every year. One of the bonuses of being a columnist is that I've now a sizeable archive (oooerr Matron!) - so I'm going to try and post a different Christmas colyoom on the blog each day this week.

First up, A Tale of Two Santas and Hundreds of Hassidic Jews, who rescued me from the prospect of an impoverished Christmas!

The snow was falling onto the sodium-lit street. Chris and I sat in theliving room of my Rats Alley flat. We stared at each other in silence, hunchedup, wrestling with the fierce London cold.

Broke. Two days to go until Christmas.

‘Hey Charlie, have you got any old whiskey bottles?”

“Yeh, there’s two empties over there. Why?”

“Aha! Bring them to me, and bring out that fan heater you hide in yourbedroom. We’ll have a drink yet!”

Ten minutes later, we lay on our bellies watching whiskey seeminglyappear from nowhere. The heat from the fan was condensing the holy juice out ofthe glass, and from nothing we suddenly had an inch or two of Christmas Cheer.And we did.

The ‘phone rang. Did I want to earn some cash? And did I know anyoneelse who needed some too?

Did I?

One of the shop owners down the street was looking for a couple of guysto stand outside his store dressed as Santa Claus. They would be collectingmoney for the Great Ormond Street Children’s Hospital.

Sure, yes, we can do that. But how can you pay us if we’re collectingfor a charity? We wouldn’t stoop so low as to take money from the sick kiddies.

He explained that our presence was going to attract punters to his shop,one way or another.

Well, fair enough then. More than fair, but just one more thing. Thiswas Golders Green, the most Jewish suburb in North London. How kindly were thelocals going to take to Father Christmas?

“Well, yer man was Jewish, wasn’t he?” came the inscrutable, irrefutablereply.

Chris and I could not contain our laughter as we were fitted out for ourcostumes. We were unsure if Santa was meant to be naked underneath his regalia,but the freezing air settled our minds on that issue.

Somehow, fitting the tights over our jeans felt more than a littleSuperman-ish, but the beard was another matter entirely.

It got up my nose, tickled my lips, and after a minute or two ofbreathing, returned to my senses the less-than delightful scent of the previousnight’s Rogan Josh curry.

And so, out onto the streets, followed by a gaggle of giggling shopassistants.

“Cor, look at those two sex bombs!”

“Yeh, don’t fancy yours much though!”

We asked the boss if it wasn’t a little excessive having two Santas outthere together, but once again, his answer was beyond reason.

“In most places you only got one, so in Golders Green, you got two.”

Chris and I started to shake our buckets, trying to catch a generouseye. People were ready and eager to give. It was a cause that crossed thebarriers of race and religion, although I was a little saddened to have totreat a hospital like a charity.

We had been provided with bags of lollipops, which we were meant to giveto sweet little kiddies who came up to us. Unfortunately, (or maybe mostfortunately) little kiddies are these days trained to stay away from strangemen bearing candy. The combination of my costume, and the ultra-deep voice Iadopted for my ‘rôle’ seemed to scare the hell out of the wee darlings.

All it took was “Hellow lickle girlie! Do you want a lollipop?” and Iwas instant pervert, children scurrying away to hide behind their parents, safefrom the nasty red man.

Off in the distance, we heard a strange commotion. Two police carsrolled slowly down the street, followed by a massive demonstration by HassidicJews, they who sport the long hair curls, blue raincoats and big floppy velvethats. Hundreds of them were marching down the Golders Green Road, carryingplacards written in Hebrew.

Chris and I stepped back to watch this strangest of sights unfold, andthen all of a sudden, it dawned on me that each and every one of them was apotential punter.

I leaped into the fray, shaking my collection bucket, while each side ofme, every which way, hats, raincoats and beards glided past, temporarilyblinded by this scarlet flash in their Aegean Sea of blue. I felt like I wasinside a roll of news film, and was tempted to just savour the moment, butthere was work to be done.

“Cough up for the kiddies! Great Ormond Street Hospital needs your help!Dig deep!’”

Dig they did. Coppers started flying into the bucket, followed by silvercoins and then notes, fivers, tenners, the lot. It was enough to bring a tearto my eye. There was no question of Old or New Testament loyalty here, just ariver of raincoats on a mission from God.

A full bucket, a happy shopkeeper, and two very merry Santas in the pubthat Christmas Eve.

May your God be with you.

Will the last simple sandwich to leave Ireland please put the ciabatta under the grill?

2011-12-11T13:18:00.001Z

youthink.com

The tattered remains of the Celtic Tiger are scattered all over Ireland.
It’s easy to spot the empty rotting ghost estates that stand as headstones for the grave of another failed construction boom.
It’s fun to count the traffic jams of ‘00’ and ’99’ reg cars that cram Ireland’s roads.
It’s sad to see the frail, old, young and poor yet again take the hit for the failures of the rich.

Far from these deep and depressing issues, there’s another much more trivial yet still irritating legacy of those boom days occupying Galway City.

From High Street to Spanish Arch it’s nigh on impossible to sit in a pub and order a simple sandwich. Off the beaten tracks there are thankfully pubs that knock out that classic Irish standard, Shoopandsandgidgeforafiver, but from Sea Road to Eyre Square you’re more likely to be offered a menu crawling with gourmet offerings of organic Mongolian yak’s cheese, with sun-dried beetroot husks on a bed of 85 day-aged wolf navels on a wood oven reheated ciabatta, drizzled with extra virgin olive oil sourced exclusively from a 60,000 year-old tree on a long-lost Ionian island.

Yours for only €7.95, served with 6 blue seaweed leaved foraged from the local beach and 2.5 game chips

Very lovely; doubtless scrumptious; but all you really want is a sandwich.
A cup of tea washing down a couple of slices of wholemeal pan filled with ample ham and mustard, cheese and pickle or excuse me, fellow travellers, but egg mayonnaise.
Yes, I am that simple, and if you can’t stand the smell, don’t fly Adley Airways.

Don’t get me wrong. I'm delighted that Irish cuisine has come up in the world. There has been a foodie revolution in Ireland over the last 10 years, and we’re all the better for it. But just as I am so happy still to be able to start my Galway nights out with PJ McDonagh’s excellent cod and mushy peas, so too I fear Irish pubs are flushing out the basic bready baby with the Tiger’s bath water.

Why does a pub have to hand over its entire menu to sumptuous über-bites? Why can’t they also offer us plebs a simple cheap lunch on square bread? While we’re on the subject, is it just me that has always had trouble with the term ‘gastropub’?

I’ve never been able to get past the fact that the first two syllables allude less to having a good old chow down, and more to do with the prefix of a series of vile stomach illnesses.

I don’t watch films at a cancercinema or shop in a poxmall, so why would I want to eat in a Gastropub?

‘Gourmetpub’?
Love that. I’m there.

Where have all my comments gone?

2011-12-08T14:10:00.001Z

There used to be a healthy discourse on my blog. People left comments to which I’d reply, then others might join in, helping to brew up a cauldron of exchanged ideas.

Then I started to use facebook as a portal to the blog and overnight the comments disappeared. Being a scribbler and a wordy old hoor, I still enjoy using just as many words as I deem necessary. Not too many and never too few: just enough; the right amount.

Yet today the world of words is shrinking. Not sufficient that text messaging and tweets allow only 140 characters with which to express yourself, facebook has now reduced the comments on my blog to a single mouse click.

Of course I’m delighted that people on facebook click to say they ‘like’ a link to the blog, but I miss those expressions of anger, joy and general bloody-mindedly opinionated thought that used to grace the bottom of my blog posts.

Ah well, maybe I should be grateful that in a world where ‘more’ rules the roost and ‘excess’ is a dream to be sought after, this need for fewer words is a good thing.

No, can’t buy that. I want to know what you’re thinking, and ‘like’ clicks representing approval or an absence of clicks to show dissent just doesn’t cut the mustard.

What’s worse than a bus driver talking on his mobile phone? I found out on Saturday!

2011-12-04T12:34:00.001Z

http://zazzle.com

As I stepped onto the bus I handed the driver the correct fare.
He waved his hand at me, urging me to take my ticket.
He couldn’t actually speak to me because he was on his mobile phone.

‘Charming!’I thought.

I took my seat and fumed to see him continue to talk into his phone as we pulled out into the main road. Admittedly Salthill on a wet cold Saturday morning is not a hotbed of high speed driving, but we had all paid to be driven by him, and not only was he breaking the law, but doing so in a way that could risk both his job and our lives.

By the time I reached my destination I had worked out what I wanted to say to him. There was no point in being aggressive, as that would only get his back up. For all I knew he might have been on the phone to a sick wife, or an ailing parent in an Emergency Room, so I was loathe to judge him too harshly.

Before I walked off the bus I turned to him and calmly said:

“Hi. You know, when we step onto this bus we’re putting our lives in your hands, so it’s a bit scary for us too see you driving while you’re talking on your mobile.”

As I spoke to him my eyes looked over to see that in his lap he was balancing his football pools sheet, while in his other hand he had a pen with which he was doing the pools, leaving, errrr, no hand at all with which to drive the bus.

He then contemptuously snorted wind from his nose, and in my direction exclaimed slowly, impatiently, emphatically:

“Oh. Sweet. God.”

Evidently he felt he had the absolute right to endanger not only us, but other drivers and pedestrians, by driving a bus whilst talking on the phone whilst doing his football pools.

Part of me wanted to report him, but I didn’t, as he’d lose his job, bringing untold suffering upon his family who were, unlike him, innocent.

Instead I gently said:

“When you hit a child in the road, saving your job will be the least of your worries.”

The Winter of Burning Cars.

2011-11-27T18:47:00.001Z

http://10horses.blogspot.com

With all this talk ofcollapsing currencies and impending apocalyptic chaos, I thought it was time torevisit 'The Winter of Burning Cars', a nice little post-apocalyptic piece Iwrote for this colyoom back in September 2002, when the supposed threat camefrom Saddam rather than the Euro.

As thatAutumn of 2002 came around, we had no idea what lay ahead.

No ideathat the war would be over without a shot fired. No idea that we would lose.

Septembercame and went in a blaze of sunshine. The October gales plucked leaves from thetrees, scattering them over the earth.

Talk of warseemed almost safe, remote. Everything was going to be alright, I told myself.We’d heard it all before. Same old macho politicians posturing and prattingaround the planet, desperate to try out some strategic nuclear weapons in thefield of battle. Donald Rumsfeld and Condoleeza Rice droned on and on, justlike Daddy Bush back in ‘92.

“Blah blahU.N. resolutions, blah blah weapons inspectors, blah blah Saddam must go.”

Same-oldsame-old.

With thecoming of a cold November, the first coal fire of the season was built More talk on the news about theprotection of freedoms, limited strikes, and somehow, there’d been so manyfar-off wars I’d grown immune. Of course it was a terrible thing and all that,but rain was still going to fall on Ireland’s fields.

Still does.

Now I knowhow complacent I was.

This is theWinter of Burning Cars.

It happenedso quickly. That was what shocked everyone. We all felt so deep-down secure inour western civilisation. Whatever atrocities were visited upon distantvillagers in crumbling stone desert huts, it wouldn’t really stop us living ourday-to-day lives.

How couldit?

Oneinterview, that was what did it in the end.

The US andUK forces were building up on the Iraqi borders, trying their best to provokeSaddam into attacking first. They desperately wanted war, but all they got wasentrenched defiance, and then Condoleeza Rice gave ‘that’ interview to CNN.

“So Condie,can I call you Condie? So, Condie, how is this war on Iraq going to help theUSA’s war on terrorism?”

“Well, Isee this chapter as part of a greater book. George Bush is a great man, a goodman, and his policies will make the world a safer place. After the Taliban andSaddam’s regime have been replaced by democracies, the US can turn itsattention to Iran, and then Saudi Arabia.”

“But theSaudis are our allies. Does this mean a shift in policy toward the Saudis?”

“Well, ithas to be said that it’s not a very attractive society.”

“So is itnow US policy to gradually replace all Middle-Eastern societies with theAmerican-Israeli democratic model?”

“If you putit like that, yes, that’s a dream I hold dear. What’s so bad about a worldwhere elections give everyone the leaders they want?”

“But whatif they elect leaders who are anti-American?”

I missedCondie’s answer. My spuds had to come to the boil.

As I ate mydinner, reports were coming in about the beginning of the end. Condoleeza’sinterview had provoked an immediate and massive response from a belt ofcountries from Libya to Pakistan. There was, for the first time, a consensus ofoutrage and direction.

No moreoil. That’s what they decided. Rather than sit and watch their owncivilisations fall foul of the infidel predator, the western war machine wasgoing to be starved of oil.

Middle-Easternpopulations were already living with the threat of a costly deadly war with theUS, which would leave their countries destroyed, the survivors condemned toslow deaths from depleted uranium.

Theprospect of abject poverty was not too hard a sacrifice.

The US hadstockpiled their Texan oil, and started to intercept (pirate) any tankers thatsailed the Atlantic from the Venezuelan oil-fields. The Russians managed tosecure supplies from Azerbaijan, but for Western Europe, the brakes came onunbelievably quickly.

By the timeEuropean governments realised what was going on, it was too late.

TheAmericans had shut up shop, becoming instantly uncooperative. They were plaindoolally terrified that their combustion-engined world was going to dry up, andwhen your back’s up against the wall, you don’t look out for your mates.

Well, theydidn’t, anyway.

Petrolstations and civil liberties were, naturally, the first to go. All Ireland’smanufacturing industries were shut down in the first two weeks, but it didn’tmatter. People couldn’t get to work even if their jobs still existed, becausetheir cars couldn’t run.

They turnedour electricity off at 22:00 each night, while the military convoys escortedroad tankers from the docks to oil depots.

Riotsswarmed over Europe’s old capitals as mould on a loaf.

After amonth, income as we knew it was a thing of the past. We cycled, walked, begged,borrowed and stole to get through that fierce cold winter.

Andfinally, as an expression of our pain, we people pushed our cars out into thecity streets. We built huge towers of our wrecked, impotent, pointless cars.All those angry, now orphaned Celtic Tiger Cubs who loved all their thousandsof brand new ‘99’ and ‘00’ reg cars, shiny proud memberships to the club ofnew-found affluence and a high-flying economy, now nothing more than patheticlumps of metal, as cheap as the world on which they were built.

We piledthem high, and they burned beautifully, massive bonfires all over the land.

Driftinginto the freedom of anarchy, the people of Europe finally grasp our chance tostand as one. We stand together as we watch the flames of our burning cars.

Losing your home doesn’t hurt any less just because you don’t own it!

2011-11-23T13:10:00.001Z

dragonworldz.net

What about us renters? We’re being punished for not being massively in debt to the banks, but when we lose our home it hurts just as much!

We’re always hearing about the mortgage holders.
How can we help the mortgage holders?
Should we offer mortgage holders some kind of debt protection, so that they don’t lose their homes?

I’ve never owned a home and I’ve never missed a rent payment, but I know the pain I felt years ago, when my landlord told me he was going to sell the house I was living in. I was going to lose my home, and there was nothing I could do about it. Didn’t matter that I’d kept it immaculately, paid all the bills. Counted not a jot that I had personally painted the whole place and paid all my rent on time.

You’re out. Good luck.

I haven’t suddenly become a heartless bastard who thinks my situation is more important than anyone else’s. If you’ve paid your mortgage and then lose your job, you shouldn’t have to live in fear of being homeless. Ideally nobody should ever live with that fear.

Yet all the media talk is of the mortgage holders. How can we protect the mortgage holders?
But renters matter too. Renters on the poverty line in Ireland are about to have their rent allowance benefits cut asunder in the upcoming budget, and nobody seems too upset about it.

I do. In fact I need to say it again: poverty-line renters are losing their benefits and as a consequence being kicked out of their homes, while debt relief for mortgage holders is still a possibility.

Personally, I’d be delighted to protect those who took out mortgages from slavering bankers who aggressively sold economically insane mortgages. It’s too easy to call the punters greedy. We all want to live in lovely homes, and if we’re told by lenders that we can afford it, we want to believe them. ‘Sub Prime’ could not exist as a concept were that not true.

But what about the renters? There’s no protection for us because we haven’t played the game. We’re not hundreds of thousands of euro in debt to the banks. We are people who are trying to pay our way, simply and honestly. Many renters have debts of course, because they’ve bought into the credit card culture and they have children to feed. But because they are not ridiculously in debt, for some reason their homes are not deemed worthy of financial protection.

When a renter is served notice, nobody notices. It doesn’t make the 6 o’clock news. But losing your home doesn’t hurt any less just because you don’t own it, especially when you’ve paid your way, looked after the house, and loved the home it became.

Why did the Irish make such a mess of democracy?

2011-10-31T12:50:00.001Z

http://nialloloughlin.blogspot.com/

Fair play to you Irish. What a great election! The thrilling campaign careered from the gay Joycean scholar candidate being accused of defending a Palestinian child abuser to the Eurovision Song-winning Christian Fundamentalist candidate screeching about car crashes, slashed tyres and attempted murder. The nation watched as the ex-IRA leader shot down and killed the corrupt and greedy Dragon’s Den ogre, and that was just the Live TV debate!

At the start of the campaign all the presidential candidates lined up on the lawn outside Áras an Uachtaráin, and I wondered where else on earth I’d ever seen such a disparate collection of fading celebrities and ageing politicians gathering to do battle.

And then I was confused. Was this the Irish Presidential Election or the new series of Strictly Come Dancing?

Thanks goodness for Martin McGuinness for metaphorically knocking some sense into the Irish people, who were unbelievably yet again drawn to the guy with the big car and fat cigar. When will you ever learn?

Well, maybe you have, because you voted in the right man. On a national level, Michael D. is a proven humanitarian, peace advocate and a champion of the arts. On a personal level, it feels great that the Head of State of my adopted country is somebody who I have chatted with on the street several times. However sad and egocentric it may be, I’m delighted that the new President knows me by name. We have collaborated together on a few occasions when I was working with teenage Travellers, and way back in 1993 I interviewed him for this colyoom, (excerpts from that interview can be posted here soon, if any colyoomistas would like to see them!).

The diversity of the candidates reflects well on the growing enlightenment of this republic, but the process that they had to undergo to become candidates appears farcical to this Englishman.

After all those years of oppression you had a blank canvas.
After all those years of colonial masters dictating the limitations of your freedom, you had the freedom to deny yourselves any limitations.

Depending on which Irish person happens to be chewing my English ear off, you Irish suffered either 400, 700, or 800 years of brutal colonialism. After all those centuries of having alien overlords imposing their laws upon your country, Irish people could finally choose their own constitution.

You did not have to pander in the slightest to the political model that had been harshly visited upon your country for aeons. You were free to build a fair and just electoral system. You had the chance to devise simple political models that might draw joyful breaths from hearts of every free Irish citizen. Instead, you made an absolutely shabby and disgraceful mess of your democratic processes.

Significant problems arise in both England and Ireland with the elections of the Upper House and Head of State. The English rather ingeniously avoid any controversial democratic practices concerning these two bodies by avoiding elections altogether. Unfair and anachronistic it may be, but at least they don’t pretend that in these areas democracy is at work.

Much as I dislike the House of Lords and feel at best ambivalent about the monarchy, both arcane institutions are starting to compare pretty favourably with the way you Irish have chosen to elect your Upper House and Head of State.

Do you, an educated Irish person, have a clear understanding of who represents you and why? I doubt it. I made some effort to understand how the Seanad is elected, but instead decided you couldn't make it up.

Of the Seanad's 60 members, 11 are elected by the Taoiseach, 6 by university graduates, while 43 are selected from 5 panels, which have a number of members allocated as 5; 11; 11; 9; 7 respectively, with a minimum to be selected from each sub-panel allocated as 2; 4; 4; 3; 3.

You had a blank canvas, but instead chose that good old 11:6:43 ratio that you find naturally occurring absolutely nowhere in nature, mathematics or common sense.

Skipping over the entire debacle of which particular privileged sectors of Irish society are allowed to elect Senators, we arrive at the happy fact that if you want to become President of Ireland, all you have to do is be an Irish citizen, over 35, and nominated by at least 20 members of the Oireachtas or at least 4 local authorities.

Why pluck these seemingly random and pointless numbers from the ether, and apply them to your constitution? Why does your Head of State need the approval of at least 4 local authorities? What possible advantage might people who plan roundabouts and organise wheelie bin runs have over your own decision-making abilities?

You had a blank canvas. Why make it all so complicated and elusive? Why not choose a number, any number, say 1,000 signatures, and a person can run for President?

After 20 years of living here, I suspect that the needless involvement of local authorities has a great deal to do with gombeen politics and nothing more. If Sean Gallagher had not been able to take the ‘Roundabout’ route he’d have had to parade his true Fianna Fail colours, at a time when that is political suicide.

Such circuitous Irish behaviour as the Presidential candidature process is often excused as a post-colonial reaction to years of trying to secure freedom by keeping secrets from the Powers-That-Be. Now your very own Irish Powers-That-Be are able to deny freedom to the Irish people by obfuscation within their own constitution.

After all those years you had a blank canvas. Your electoral systems could have been gloriously simple. Yet the very same Celtic twirl of thought that created the Back Door system in the GAA Championship, whereby a team can beat another in a knockout competition and later lose to the same team in the final, has created an electoral Jackson Pollock.

One for you, Jon!

2011-10-24T10:15:00.001Z

clashmusic.com

Decided to ease my Chelsea blues by going to see Billy Bragg play a stonking set to a packed house at the Roisin Dubh. Good to see all Galway’s old lefties come out of the woodwork, as well as those who appreciate a good song well sung.

As the set built I felt pounded by waves of nostalgia for my teenage London years back in the 1970s, and when he played 'Levi Stubbs Tears' I felt a rush of emotion and strongly and suddenly missed my dear departed friend Jon Lewin, who was by my side at so many gigs back then. He would've been should've been and maybe was in spirit by my side tonight.

Miss you Jon, did tonight, do often. This one goes out to you mate. X

All Hail The Magnificent 7!

2011-10-22T06:24:00.002Z

zazzle.com

For those of you who complained that the link to my Irish Times article (17.10.2011) didn't work, here is my spermy tale of woe once more...

8.05: Good, she's awake. In 40 minutes she needs to be at the clinic, where the egg collection procedure must go ahead at precisely 09.00. Timing is vital today. She needs tea and toast before the procedure, so I'll make that and go upstairs.

8.20: Lying on the bed. All I need to do is something I've done countless times. How difficult can it be, compared to what she's been through over the last few months? She has sniffed hormones up her nose, swallowed hormones in tablets and injected her own belly with yet more hormones, stoically suffering a panorama of nasty side effects. Day after week after month her mobile has chimed reminders to take another nasty drug, so that she might produce fertile eggs and prepare her womb for carrying.

All I have to do is produce a sample. That's all. Over the last two years almost everything about this process has quite rightly been about her body. My sperm count is a low but tolerable 2 million, however my lads are no longer lively young things. They have little chance of fulfilling their natural destiny, so rather than IVF we're doing ICSI, where the sperm are injected directly into the eggs.

8.25: As I look down on my mature meat and two veg, they visibly shrink. I'm watching a time-lapse film of my own puberty in reverse. Over the last two minutes my penis has shrunk to the size it was when I was seven, while my testicles are on a mission to rise up through my body and hide in my rib cage.

8.30: Time is ticking. My mind is all over the place. Can't concentrate. Can't relax. No, this isn't going to work. We have to get going. I'll just have to provide my sample at the clinic. Not a very appealing prospect.

I'm silently hoping I'll be able to have my sample done and out of the way before the egg collection process starts. That would be great. The last thing I want to do is make a fuss. It's only a bloke knocking one off, so what's the bother? Try being a woman, Sir, and have someone put a foot-long stiletto needle up your netherly noodles.

8.45: I hold her hand as they sedate her and do unspeakable things to her in a gentle and professional way. And lo, her body has produced miracles! There are now eggs in a container, waiting to be inspected for quality; maturity; whatever it takes for life to begin.

By now I just want to scream out loud: “I'm feeling under massive pressure! I must get my sample done as soon as possible!” but not one part of me feels comfortable saying a word.

11.00: She's safe in bed. I ask a nurse if I can finally give my sample.
“Sorry, no!” she says, “There's another man using The Room at the moment.”
The Room? Oh yuk. How absolutely not sexy.
I sit by her bed, hold her hand and try not mention how much I dread letting her down; about how devastated I'll feel if I can't do one simple thing, after all she's been through.

11.15: The nurse tells me The Room is free.

11:17: I'm in a dimly lit sperm collection room designed by women. There's a chair, a pile of fairly unpleasant soft porn mags and a specimen jar that's way too fiddly for the job in hand. My bare buttocks are stuck on the same plastic seat that was occupied by another man's buttocks a mere few minutes before. I could not feel less able to produce a sample, but I simply have to, otherwise, quite apart from all the major life factors, we've wasted a massive amount of money. Nothing small at all. Just life-changing issues and huge amounts of money.

11.45: Simply by being a male of the species, hotwired to be able to prioritise sex, I have somehow produced a sample. Thank God! Oh good grief! Relief floods over me. I'm so happy not to have let the side down. Phew!

12.45: A nurse pops up by her bedside.
“Well, there's really great news! You've produced 10 mature eggs! Fantastic! You can go home now, but take it very easy for the rest of the day. Now, Charlie, not such great news. There was nothing in your sample, I'm afraid!”

“Nothing?”

“Nothing at all. There's no reason to it. Last week a fella gave one sample that had zero and another he delivered two hours later had 90 million. It just goes like that. We don't have a clue why. Thing is, time is now a factor.
We need another sample in the next two hours? Can you drive her home and bring another sample back to us?”

Another one? Please no. I am utterly wired. Another sample, with added real time pressure? Great!

13.15: Back home, I'm trying to avoid a panic attack, whilst trying yet again to supply a sample. Knowing there are now 10 eggs out there and that her body has worked magnificently is not diminishing the pressure I'm feeling.

14.15: Back at the clinic with another sample. The nurse suggests I wait while she tests it. I sit in the waiting room, surrounded by women thumbing magazines, feeling tremendously lonely. Any minute now somebody will walk into the room and tell me whether I've written off any hope of parenthood for good, or that everything is back on track. Of course she will use delicate rational language, but I'm not feeling the slightest bit rational.

15:15: Back at the house, relieved and exhausted. I tell her how the nurse managed to find 7 healthy lads. Not 90 million. Not 2 million. 7. Already my infantile male mind has named them The Magnificent 7. She reminds me that throughout the process, we were told that 'Quality not Quantity' was the maxim whenever eggs and sperm were mentioned.

I love her for reminding me of that. Now we are in the hands of fate. Despite the way that as a man I felt marginalised throughout this process, the boy in me feels rather proud of The Magnificent 7.

Does Largely Cloudy beat Mainly Cloudy?

2011-10-20T09:23:00.000Z

paddyjokes.com

We all drop our chins in wonder at the popular myth that the Inuit have 40 words for snow, but right here at home in Ireland there’s a subtlety to the vocabulary of our weather forecast that has me flummoxed.

Despite what you see as evidence here in this colyoom, I tickle fancies of being a man of words, but all my scribbly instincts and blathering verbals proved useless when I looked at the weather forecast in the paper on Tuesday (it’s broken down into Ireland’s four provinces, roughly west, east south and north respectively).

Connacht: Generally cloudy today with spells of rain.
Leinster: Largely cloudy today with occasional rain.
Munster: Mainly cloudy today with outbreaks of rain.
Ulster: Largely cloudy today with periods of rain.

You don’t have to be a meteorologist to know that for at least 300 days a year we enjoy a mixture of sunshine and showers, and this colyoom has in past years romped with agitation about forecasts predicting ‘Rain at times, sunshine in places’, because with the only details we actually need to know having been rather ingeniously omitted, we have no idea at what times it might rain and in which places.

But this is a different matter; a question of language. I need to understand words and their uses in my adopted home’s vernacular, and also I need to be outside for those brief periods when the sun might shine down on my sorry soul.

So, does Largely Cloudy beat Mainly Cloudy?
Or is Generally Cloudy the biggest baddest adjective in the Irish cloudy lexicon?

As for rain, are Spells of Rain shorter than Periods of Rain?
Do Outbreaks of Rain come less often than Occasional Rain?
I haven’t a clue. What the bloomin’ ‘ell are they on about?

Perchance the poor bored artisan who had to fashion something readable out of a messy map of uncertainty made their lot less heavy by entertaining themselves with a dash of creative flair, in an effort to help the forecast appear less dreadfully repetitive and oppressively rank.

Or maybe I just don’t understand the power order of the words.
Help me out. I need to know.
Or maybe I just need help...

I was strangely proud of my 'Magnificent Seven'!

2011-10-18T09:22:00.000Z

thanks to clker.com

All summer my colyoomistas have been brushed aside with excuses. You've had apologies about long gaps between colyooms and enigmatic allusions to a period of stress and pressure.

Well, now you can read about what was happening by going out and buying a copy of today's Irish Times, or clicking on the link below.

http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/health/2011/1018/1224305986419.html

Sadly the fates didn't bless us with a child, so we're going to buy a puppy instead!

Can an Adult Burger legally change its name to Cherry Pie? Does an Adult Burger have the right to Same Sex Partnerships?

2011-10-14T10:05:00.002Z

image from bdtimes.com

There are Burger King leaflets all over town, offering
‘Free Fries And Drink When You Buy An Adult Burger.’

Does the beef in an Adult Burger have to be 18 years old?
Can Adult Burgers marry the fries of their choice?
Can an Adult Burger legally change its name to Cherry Pie?
Does an Adult Burger have the right to Same Sex Partnerships?
When oh when will the day come that all Adult Burgers have the right to vote?

Now, my loyal colyoomistas, we can hide no longer.
We must turn and face our fear.
There can be no more procrastination.
This is the time we have to confront that most profound and perplexing question, the very conundrum that all the above flippancy works so hard to avoid.

Well, actually, that’s not entirely true. There is still one tiny and slight tangent we must travel. Before we’re ready to delve into the massive philosophical quandary of
‘Why is an Adult Burger?’
we must know the answer to
‘What is an Adult Burger?’

At this juncture all I can tell you is that we know precisely what it is not, because on the voucher is printed ‘excluding Hamburger, Cheeseburger, King Deal Meals and Breakfast menu.’ So we can safely conclude that an Adult Burger is anything that’s not a hamburger or a cheeseburger or breakfast.
Limitless options open.
Marvellous.
That’ll do for me, Tommy.

Now ponder well and let me know, is an Adult Burger a burger for adults, or is it a grown-up burger?
Do Burger King want adults to buy Adult Burgers, thereby making them loyal and frequent customers with or without their kids? If so, methinks in a valiant effort to pinch punters from the Golden Arches, the Home of the Whopper is rather missing the point. Adults eat in McDonald's and Burger King because apart from it being cheap and fast, by doing so we relinquished all adult responsibilities. For a short time, we don’t have to think about cooking, washing up, or worry our tiny minds with such minor trifles as nutrition and health. No, we get to feel a lickly bit childish as we tuck into our American Franchise sandwiches.

Eating burgers is nothing to do with being grown up.
It’s about knowing that as far as your food goes, you don’t have to be an adult at all. In this mind frame of reckless abandonment, you don’t even have to feel the slightest bit embarrassed hearing yourself say out loud in public

“Double bacon cheeseburger with fries and a vanilla shake, please!”

Maybe the folks at the Home of the Whopper have some understanding of psychology. Maybe Adult Burgers were invented so that kids could pester adults by pleading...

“Pleease paaaleeeease can I have an Adult Burger? Papapaaleeeease mum paaaleeeese?!?!”

... so that they can feel really grown up and choke on jalapeno peppers.

Sure, there’ll be some Joe the Plumber types out there who’ll want to order the most Aberdeen Angus USDA-Approved Hairy-Chested Adult Burger smothered in hot pepper and so-not-a-Kiddie Meal that simply ordering such mature fare just proves he must have a huge penis, but mostly, for the rest of us meek and sensible creatures, we’ll order a Whopper and have a little giggle that it’s just a bit rude.

When does a Blow-in become a Local?

2011-10-13T11:35:00.000Z

Not wanting to overdo the legwork after my knee operation, I dive off Shop Street and take a few minutes to sit down and relax outside Buon Appetito Café on Upper Abbeygate Street.

When I arrived in Ireland there was no talk of Immigrants. I was just another Blow-in, and as such felt envious of those locals who could righteously claim they had a history with the place.

I look to my left, towards Lynch’s Castle and Powell’s Four Corners. I look up at the ancient buildings opposite and to my right, towards Newtownsmith and

and all of a sudden my mind is filled with a gushing flood of memories. Down there on the left, that’s where I converted, opened and ran a charity shop. That was a mad period of time, just back from America, working my bollocks off and living in the Claddagh. Tired after a full day in the shop, I had to build two fires after work in that house, and the bathroom was an icy cupboard, but in the summer, ahhh, the garden at the back was a rambly paradise.

Right here, opposite this café in the narrow cobblestone street, up in that window there, above the Barber’s Shop and the Organismical Seaweed Mermaid Massage Baths, there used to be an office occupied by a Galway free sheet newspaper. As well as scribbling this very same colyoom for the Tribune papers, I was back then also writing for the inestimable Seamus R.(vot a schnozz! Oy!). Can’t for the life of me recall the name of the paper (The Bugle? The Word? The Execrable Screech?). But I remember exactly how good life felt then.

I was living in a tiny wee house in Connemara, a few country miles between Slyne Head and Ballyconneely, driving a transit van and delivering to Seamus four different columns under four different names each week.

There was Pink O’Bum - the Petulant Politico; there was Swami ben Carpenter - the Muse with the Views; there was Poor Little Greenie, a Bowie-Inspired Ingenue; and of course, ever popular whenever I’ve dragged his wretched bones back from the dead, there was Freebase Kevin, the drug-crazed cider-fuelled foul-mouthed biker, who went down a storm with Galway’s lads, just as he had in Cambridge and Bradford, 20 and 10 years previously respectively.

I was living my dream - my dream of that moment. I believe that life is not a one way street, but rather a series of journeys, and in each we must pursue a dream. If we focus strongly, we’ll arrive somewhere very close to that dream: possibly better, maybe simply different to what we’d imagined, but I knew at that time that life was perfect, and realising joy is what matters.

You have to be aware of the happy times, because hard times, by their nature, let you know they are there, whereas happiness can pass by undetected, like a cooling zephyr on a summer's evening. You neither notice it nor give thanks for it.

Oh, and the memories keep flowing over me. In a tiny room high up in the medieval building opposite this café, there’s that jeweller, one of Galway’s old-fashioned expert craftsmen. I only found him because the owner of a High Street jewellery shop told me to go to him, and with his skill he repaired my father’s watch, the one that Mum game me after Dad died.

Around the corner there’s the Tribune offices and an Tobar and countless other chapters from my Galway storybook, but it feels good, right now, sipping my coffee, resting a while. Not swamped by my past, very much in the present, just pausing for a moment in life, drifting off in reverie outside the café, my mind awash with the happy history I have with this place.

I don’t believe in God, I’m ashamed of successive Israeli governments, so why am I proud to be Jewish?

2011-10-07T15:02:00.000Z

pic thanks to www.atheistnexus.org

The answer’s in the question: I’m ashamed of how Israeli governments have behaved. I wasn’t ashamed of the abomination of South Africa’s apartheid régime: I just loathed it.

Not one part of my being seeks to be allied with the brutality that’s going on in Israel and the Occupied Territories, but still, for a reason that neither this colyoom nor any other piece of writing can fully explain, despite being an atheist, I feel it personally.

When I call myself Jewish in Ireland people assume I am some kind of Zionist fascist racist anti-Palestinian bastard. In London, I am seen by some members of my family and the wider Jewish community as an embarrassing Arab-loving Palestinian hugging Hezbollah kissing terrorist.

Why does everyone seek black and white solutions to problems? Why search for absolutes, where none exist?

A old friend of mine insists that I have no right to call myself Jewish. He tells me that he could convert to Judaism, just as easily as I could become a Catholic, and that would make him Jewish. He says that as I don’t believe in God, it makes no sense to claim membership of a religion.

I try time and time again to explain to him that my Jewishness is not a preference. I don’t call myself Jewish in the same way that I call myself a Chelsea fan. It’s not a lifestyle choice.

Why on earth would I seek membership of a club that has been attacked for thousands of years? Why would I align myself with a group of people that every conspiracy theorist blames for all the banking ills of the world? Why would I choose to belong to a people that has survived despite its history, rather than because of it?

If Judaism was about believing in God then I’d be stuck. But it’s not, and I’m one of the thousands of living proofs. I feel my Jewishness in my bones; in my heart; in my head and on this evening of Kol Nidrei, the holiest night of the Jewish calendar, my thoughts will be with my family in London and my late Father, for whom a candle will be lit in my living room.

Being Jewish means a lot to me. Judaism is so wrapped up in the fabric of family life that I cannot see my mother, brother or sister, or myself in the mirror, without knowing, feeling, living my Jewishness.

Judaism starts, ends and lives in the home. Every Friday night throughout my life, the family gathers at the dinner table to break bread and drink wine and welcome in the Sabbath Prayers are read and blessings made, but the occasion is infinitely more about the family being together than giving thanks to an ill-tempered God.

Every Jewish festival starts in the home, usually around the dinner table, and such is the importance of food within Jewish culture that each festival brings different food traditions in different families.

For New Year we used to eat roast lamb, and at Pesach or Passover we eat matzos and small yeast-free cakes like cinnamon balls, almond cake and coconut pyramids. At hannukah we eat doughnuts and latkes. Tonight my family will take the Yom Kippur fast together and then 26.75 hours later, they’ll break that fast with a selection of deli items, like rollmop herring, chopped liver, smoked salmon and cream cheese bagels, and cold fried fish (delicious, despite how vile it sounds!).

Possibly as a result of Jews being excluded from society for so many centuries, my Jewishness gives me a sense of inclusion. I’m part of something ancient and vast, even though it operates best at a tiny domestic level. For me, it’s neither a religion nor a way of life. There’s nothing I do every day that makes me know I’m Jewish.

Hmmm, well, I call my mother every day. Good Jewish boy. And when I see Jewish comics on the TV I feel I can relate to their humour better than a non-Jewish person might. I feel a part of Larry David and Woody Allen running through me. Their angst is mine.

I feel proud of Einstein’s genius, proud of Menuhin and Chomsky and Roth and all the great Jewish thinkers, scientists and artists, musicians and inventors (although the atom bomb was less than a good idea); proud that Jews have survived long enough to allow someone like me, an atheist living in a Catholic country, surrounded by millions of non-Jewish people, to be part of the Tribe, but cannot tell you why or how it feels.

As I say to my friend after I’ve become exasperated: “If I’m not Jewish what am I? You can philosophise all you like about whether being Jewish is a religious or racial matter, but I can tell you from the inside, that’s what I am: God or no God!”

So as we enter this Yom Kippur, this Day of Atonement, when Jews remember their dead and ask for forgiveness from sin, I’ll think of my family, of their Fast and how long the day feels when it has no meals to mark its progress.

I’ll remember long Yom Kippurim spent in our family living room, with the TV off and all of us forced to make conversation, no choice but to to discuss matters of life and meaning. Weighty and philosophical discussions were not commonplace in our lounge, so it always made a welcome change to hear how crazy we all were; how different were our outlooks on life, and yet there we all were, bonded together by ... by what?

A culture? A race? A people? A religion? A nation?
Being Jewish can be all and none of the above. It’s an identity that you know you have, from which there is no hiding. And why would you want to hide?

Well, history has shown us why, and now with the crimes of Israeli governments lighting the fires of hatred all over the internet, a subtext of anti-Semitism is showing through the cracks. The word ‘Zionist’ has been hijacked by those who would do us damage. It fuels all the conspiracy theories and will eventually fire up hatred against people like me once again.

So am I Jewish because I’ll be persecuted as a Jew, atheist or believer?
No. That’s far too negative an assumption. In the words of the Jewish God (or was it Popeye?):

“I am who I am!”

To be Jewish, you need to have Jewish humour. So as a way of saying ‘Yes I’m Jewish, no I don’t know why, but strangely, I’m proud of it!’, and as an antidote to the hatred, here’s a wee Jewish joke.

So two Israelis, Avi and Motti, are wandering around the Amazon Jungle, trying to hunt down Nazis. They stumble upon a clearing in the trees, where there sits a beautiful marble mansion, with towering pillars and vast formal gardens.

Nodding silently they slip inside unseen, and climb the huge white staircase, higher and higher, passing an unparalleled collection of rare and stolen art.

Finally they reach a gallery, and looking down they see below a long table, around which sits twenty young men and twenty old men. The young men look strangely like the old men, as if they might be their sons, and all the old men look suspiciously like notorious Nazi leaders.

The young man at the end of the table stands up to speak. Avi points out to Motti that this bloke looks a lot like a young Hitler, and then they listen to his fierce speech.

“Ziss time ve vill make no MISTAKES! Ziss time ve vill not be so SOFT! Ziss time ve vill kill ALL za JEWS and ALL za HEDGEHOGS!”

The men sitting around the table sit back in shock, and then start shouting back:
“Hedgehogs?”
“Why kill the hedgehogs?”
“What’s that about hedgehogs?”
“Hedgehogs? Why hedgehogs?”

Looking down from above, Motti turns to Avi and whispers:
“You see. I told you. Nobody gives a shit about the Jews!”

I wish you all Well over the Fast, and please, don't not only pray for peace: believe it might happen.

The Welfare State makes me proud to be human - so why are ‘Benefits’ being used as a weapon against the poor?

2011-10-05T10:38:00.000Z

There’s not much that makes me proud to be human, but the Welfare State was Britain’s finest creation, as compassionate and civilised a route as any society might hope to choose.

Clement Attlee's 1945 Labour government went to war on what the Beveridge Report called ‘The Five Giant Evils’ of squalor; ignorance; want; idleness and disease. They introduced laws to provide for the people "from the cradle to the grave”.

Nobody ever need be homeless, hungry, or uneducated. Why you fell ill, you were cared for. Wonderful.

(Sorry, colyoomistas - just have to pause here and say ‘Health, housing and education. Health, housing and education. Health, housing and education.’ for the umpteenth time in my life. Write it off as a nervous tic, a Socialist Obsessive Compulsive flicking his moral light switch three times, to make himself feel better.)

There was no need for Communism. Give everyone a safe, informed and healthy start, then let the human race rip. We’ll all go off in different directions, but we’ll live without fear. Well, we would, but the rich like to hold on to their riches, and the Tories turned our right of support into a privilege.

Now Cameron's Conservatives are throwing lumps of bloody red meat to the wolves baying for rioters’ blood. If you riot, your family loses its benefits. If you play truant from school, your family lose their council house. That’ll bloody show the scum, eh chaps! Can’t sit back and let the anarchists control the streets, what!

Quite apart from the simple fact that hundreds of middle class rioters and truants have families with neither benefits nor council houses to lose, there’s an elephant in the room: the real cause of the riots, which was simply rampant materialism.

These kids have grown up in a society where stuff counts and to be a face, a hit on the street, you need the bestest most superlative hyperbolic all-new must-have stuff at all times. Come the recession, come the heinous Conservative cuts, and the kids ain’t getting their stuff.

This week at their party conference, the Tories blamed the riots on poor parenting and ‘Benefit Culture’, but ironically it was the very same acquisitional Capitalist society that the Conservatives have always encouraged which drove those angry young people to steal trainers and TVs, and all the other stuff they can’t afford.

And what of this ‘Benefit Culture’? The only people who say how easy it is to live on the dole in England are those who never have. Over here in Ireland the dole is set at €188 a week, but in the UK you get £65, and still politicians talk of benefit culture. It drives me crazy. Yes, of course, there are out there some few professionals who screw the system for every penny they can get, but mostly it’s just poor decent people trying desperately to keep their heads above water.

Those who talk of ‘Benefit Culture’ tell their researchers to look up how much you can get with a family of four on full housing benefit, full family credit and all the other benefits they can find, and then come out with absurd stories about how the poor are living it large on the backs of the middle classes.

What they might not know, and certainly have no desire to find out, is that you might well claim for all that stuff, but you’re a rare person if you actually get it.

Murdoch’s Irish Sunday Times last week ran a front page piece under the headline ‘Welfare Wage €28,000. According to the piece, there’s no point in getting a job for less that €28,000, because you’re better off on the dole. If you have 4 children and are in receipt of every possible available benefit to its highest threshold, that may be the case, but what the journalist doesn’t bother to explain is that the partner of that recipient will only receive a pittance in proportion to the main claimant, who most likely isn’t getting half of it anyway.

Most likely that recipient is sitting on a plastic chair, in a soul-sapping queue, watching the numbers go round, deciding whether it’s the wife or the son who’ll receive no birthday present this year, waiting to be called, and the rich call that ‘Living It Large’? They dare to threaten the poor with the withdrawal of these cash dribbles while they award themselves gold mountains ...oh ah eeee I’m starting to feel angry.

Calm down calm down. I experienced the UK’s Welfare State system during the Thatcher years, and I’m ready to admit that once, at Shepherd’s Bush Dole office, they made me cry. The Irish attitude is thankfully more respectful of the poor, but when you hear on the news those stats about the numbers claiming benefits, never ever assume the people are actually receiving the money.

This practice of using welfare as a weapon comes, of course, from the USA, and just as when Washington sneezes, London catches a cold, we here in the West of Ireland run the risk of droplet infection.

Let’s hang on to our precious values and never use the most wonderful creation of the almost civilised world as a weapon to beat the least guilty.