Frankfurt Fun

Well, I'm in Heinrich's place in Frankfurt now, having got an insanely early flight this morning.

I met Ruth in the local for one (really!) last night, and then returned home to pack and grab a little sleep. Up ridiculously early so, and then a frantic drive to the airport. Thankfully, due to the new road the drive is only about fifteen minutes now; there was a time when going to the airport was a virtual holiday in its own right. Luckily there were now queues at either the ticket desk or the check-in counter, so I had plenty of time to stroll about. Too much really. I just wanted to go to bed.

I stayed awake for the first hour or so, enabling me to look out at the beautiful sky, which going from top to bottom, as it were, managed to display the seven spectral colours, with red at the horizon. The crescent moon sat beautifully halfway in the sky, with Venus sparkling above it, slightly to my right. I know that's an appalling description, but I'm too tired to think properly.

I'll need some sleep before this evening.

I've dozed off twice since getting here. I arrived at the airport just after nine, and after trekking through that Bauhaus fantasia met Heinrich and Beulah at about half nine. Back here then for a spot of coffee, chatting to Tom and Lucy while the others did shopping, brief hellos to Holger when he popped in, Christmas cards dispensed, a spot of rather delicious lunch - gnocchi of some sort, with pesto and salad, then dozing in rocking chair in Heinrich's room while Tom messed with the Playmobil crib. I eventually rose and wandered in here, where Lucy was tracking down internet card sites and Ikea online, Dara stuck on a brilliant Wallace and Gromit video, featuring lots of short films about various ingenious and laborious inventions, notably the unforgettable 'Snoozatron'.

'Creature Comforts' has just finished. 'Father Ted' is on, and his horse, Divorce Referendum, has just lost.

Father Dougal has just lost Father Jack. I tell a lie, he never even got him out the door. Dougal and Jack are commenting on Jack's hairy hands, and the time Jack's head went septic. Mrs Doyle has just arrived. Five people are giggling on the couch.

I must stop now.

Capital Christmas, continued

Right. I’m in town again, since I reckon there’s no point even trying to blog from home. This time I’m in my favorite internet café, a ridiculously cheap spot just behind the Central Bank. Or at least, until lately it was my favourite. Strange things appear to happen to the text nowadays, with weird Chinese characters materialising whenever an apostrophe is called into play.

I made a few calls this morning, checking flight details with Aer Lingus, chatting briefly to Frank O' Connor (my old school friend, not the late author of 'Guests of the Nation' and 'First Confession') who I'll see when I'm back from Frankfurt, and booking tickets at the Gate Theatre for the Epiphany; I'll be heading back to Manchester the following morning. After my phone calls I fought my way through some particularly horrendous Dublin traffic to get into town. Dublin traffic, for those of you who haven't been here, is a nightmare. Renate, my Austrian friend, remarked to me when we were in Vienna a couple of years back, that she prefers everything about Dublin to Vienna with the exception of transport and traffic.

I’ve just met one of my oldest friends - the older brother of a childhood friend - for lunch. He’s a detective in the Guards; for those among you unfortunate enough to lack the blood of the true Gael, and hence fortunate enough to have escaped thirteen years of compulsory Irish, the Garda Síochána, Guardians of Peace, are our police force. It’s been over a year since we last met; along with several other friends, I helped him and his wife load up the removal van back when he was moving house. Curiously, one of the other helpers there, my friend's own closest friend, has since been elected to the Dáil, the Irish Parliament, where he's member of the Green Party, so even while resting between carrying stuff we argued about the Nice treaty, which had been recently rejected by the Irish people.

(Or more accurately, by about 18 per cent of the Irish people, which is the usual percentage of people in Ireland who oppose any changes in our relationship with our European partners. ‘Nice I’ failed to be ratified because the usual yes voters didn’t bother to vote, for whatever reason. The ‘No’ vote on European issues has been consistent since 1987.)

I went out for a bit last night, since I’d arranged to meet Debbie Cheevers and some of my other former students from the Institute in the Duke on Duke Street. I wound up getting the same 66 bus that Sarah Anderson had got from Maynooth, which was nice; I was glad to hear that she’s now doing pure English in UCD. The meeting was bizarrely coincidental: last time I met Sarah it was also on the 66 bus, and she had just seen The Fellowship of the Ring; yesterday it transpired that she had seen The Two Towers earlier that day. Spooky. Debbie, who’s doing a core introductory year in the National College of Art and Design, was already in the Duke when we got there, along with Bruce O’Donnell, who’s now in UCD, having just done his Leaving Cert this summer. I was glad to hear that he was doing Greek and Roman Civilization, though he probably won’t keep it up next year. So it goes. To my delight, he was able to confirm to the others that my Vic Connerty impression, which I really need to stop doing, is frighteningly accurate. After a bit in the pub we were joined by Ronan Brandon, who’s now in Trinity, and apparently loving it there. I have no idea if he sees Rachel or Paul there.

I was quite touched at one point in the pub, when Sarah reached into her bag and took out a copy of my Cannae book for me to inscribe for her. I was delighted that she'd bought it, and amazed that she'd read it; she apparently got it ages ago, soon after it came out, though she sensibly bought it online, since it was a reasonable price on Amazon, while disturbingly and I think unjustifiably expensive in the shops. I don't see why it has to cost so much, especially since I get virtually nothing from royalties. I suppose if I were utterly shameless, I'd put in a link to the book's page on Amazon here. Oh, what the hell, have a link to the cover: http://images-eu.amazon.com/images/P/0415261473.02.LZZZZZZZ.jpg

Conversation hovered, as often in reunion situations, around those people who had also taught or been taught in the Institute. I was able to fill the others in, however briefly, about Rachel Emerson, Fidelma Yore, Louise Clarke, and Ambrogio Caiani, and was pleased to hear the Liam Donnelly seems to be happy doing Arts in UCD now. I’d heard something of that the other day, in fact, having bumped into Rory Devine in the Foxhunter. Rory wasn’t actually a student of mine, though he was in the Institute with the others and was quite good friends with Liam and Rachel. His brother, Shane, was in primary school in St Lorcan’s at the same time as me, though I hardly knew him then.

Shane and Rory’s Dad got a mention in one of our crap tabloid newspapers the other day; The Mirror, I think. I was tracking down The Irish Times in Eason on O’Connell Street the day before yesterday, when my eyes alighted upon a headline to the effect that Julia Roberts would be spending New Year in Ireland. Out of curiosity, and indeed expectation, I turned to the appropriate page. As I’d guessed, the paper declared that she would be spending at least one night in Mick Devine’s house in ‘Palmers-Town’, since Mick was her closest friend in Ireland, and was so discreet, never talking to the press. Aside from the annoying hyphenation in Palmerstown, I was irritated by the paper doubtless truthfully observing that Mick Devine was so trustworthy and discreet, while itself clearly caring nothing for his privacy, or that of Miss Roberts.

That reminds me: I’d read that article just before blogging the last day, and having blogged I read my Irish Times over coffee in some random coffee shop in Temple Bar, after which I went to Nealon’s pub on Capel Street to meet up with Colum Keating, Alan McGaughey, and Keith Brunkard, all of whom I’d been to school with. Eamonn McGarty was meant to come along, but couldn’t make it. To be fair, this was hardly a surprise. Eamonn once managed the remarkable feat of missing his own twenty-first birthday part.

On the way to the coffee shop I bumped into Tíarnán Johnston and a couple of the lads from his new band, the oddly named ‘Eskimo Convention’. (I have no idea whether an Eskimo Convention is like an Inuit tradition, or if it's simply a huge shindig, where loads of native Canadians and Greenlanders get together to get sloshed while telling seal-hunting stories and exchanging harpoon tips.) I’d taught Tíarnán in UCD in my third year of tutoring, in a very memorable Thursday afternoon tutorial group, also including Caroline Beatty and Clare Lee – Clare was responsible for introducing me to the music of Nina Simone, Django Reinhardt, and above all, Ani DiFranco. Curiously, I mentioned Ani while in passing last night, and Sarah was delighted that somebody else had heard of her. She’s got one CD, including songs from Dilate, as far as I can tell, since she asked me what album ‘Napoleon’ was on. Tíarnán was at the time in a band called The Blew, which seemed very much tipped for success at the time. They won the Hot Press New Band of the Year award, received lots of advice from Paul McGuinness of all people, and released a couple of singles and an EP, all to much critical acclaim. I was always rather surprised that I’d not heard anything of them since; it turns out that they split up a year and a half ago, or thereabouts.

In Nealon’s, where I’d never been before, I met a neighbour of mine who I haven’t seen in about two years. When shewas a child, herself and my younger sister were best friends, and several years ago she did her stint as a loungegirl in the Silver Granite. I found it particularly odd meeting her, because not only had we not seen each other in ages, I had earlier on met Aisling McAuley, another former loungegirl who had been in the Granite at the same time as Ruth. I’d accosted her on Dame Street, and we’d strolled as far as the Grafton Arcade together, catching up, however rapidly, on what must have been five years of not seeing each other – she’s been back from Belfast for quite a while now, and is due to be getting married soon enough.

This is what I meant about Dublin at Christmas. You can’t help but meet people.

***

Before I sign off, here’s the complete Drunken Thesaurus as it now stands, with 181 Terms of Drunkenness. I woke this morning to find that Morag had sent me four particularly weird ones on my phone. Canadians. So here goes, in alphabetical order:

Annihilated, Armchaired, Ar meisce, Arseholed, Badgered, Banjoed, Battered, Beery, Befuddled, Binned, Binnered, Bladdered, Blasted, Blathered, Blithered, Blitzed, Blocked, Blotto, Bluthered, Buckled, Bollixed, Bollowed, Bombed, Boosy, Buzzing, Cabbaged, Comatose, Crocodiled, Cut, Destroyed, Didn’t know your own name, Disorientated, Dizzy, Drunk, Drunk as a lord, Drunk as a skunk, Elephants, Elevated, Flower-potted,Flush, Flustered, Fluthered, Foggy, Fou, Frazzled, Fresh, Fucked, Fuckered, Fuckfaced, Fuddled, Full as a shuck, Full up to the gills, Fuzzy, Gee-eyed, Goggle-eyed, Gone, Groggy, Half-cut, Hammered, Happy, Have a bit of a lean on, Hazy, In a right jocker, Inebriated, In the bag, Intoxicated, In your cups, Jam-jarred, Jarred, Jolly, Langered, Langers, Lashed, Leathered, Legless, Levelled, Locked, Lubricated, Maggotty, Mangled, Mashed, Mellow, Merry, Monged, Mortal, Mortalled, Mouldy, Muddled, Mullered, Muzzy, Never saw it coming, Nished as a pewt, Not in full possession of your faculties, Not the best, Not well, Obfuscated, Obliterated, Off your face, Off your head, Off your tits, Oiled, Oodled, Ossified, Out of it, Out of your face, Out of your head, Out of your tree, Palatic, Paralytic, Parkbenched, Pasted, Pickled, Pickled to the tonsils, Pie-eyed, Pie-faced, Pissed, Pissed as a fart, Pissed as a newt, Pixilated, Plastered, Plastic, Polluted, Puddled, Raddled, Ratarsed, Ratted, Rotten, Rubbered, Screwed, Scuttered, Scuttled, Shitfaced, Shwallied, Skankers, Skanky, Skinned, Skulled, Slammed, Slaughtered, Sloshed, Smackerooed, Smashed, Soused, Sozzled, Squiffy, Steamed, Steaming, Stewed, Stewed to the gills, Stocious, Tanked, Tanked up, Tankered, The worse for wear, Three sheets to the wind, Tiddly, Tight, Tipsy, Tired and emotional, Toasted, Totalled, Trashed,Trollied,Trousered, Twisted, Two sheets to the wind, Twisted, Twatted, Under the influence, Under the weather, Unwell, Upside-down behind the telly, Wankered, Wasted, Wellied, Well-oiled, Well on, Wipered, Woozy, Wrecked, and Zonked.

Thanks to everybody who’s contributed. You know who you are, you sots. Do you think there might be any more drunken phrases lurking about?

Labels: drunken thesaurus

Christmas in the Capital

Stephen's Night: Greg likes Foxhunter Shocker!

Okay, Saint Stephen's Day working in the Foxhunter went really well. (While English people call Saint Stephen's Day 'Boxing Day', Irish people attempt to recognise the day's sanctity in some notional sense, but pronounce it Stephen's's Day, for some reason. I can't think why. We basically ignore the fact that the first martyr was a saint, but stick a bonus possessive 's' at the end of his name. Odd. We don't feed the ducks in Stephen's's Green.) The Fox is dead easy to work in, having a very deep bar, in the round at one point, which is laid out with an impressive logic I would hitherto never has associated with bar design. I was mainly working in the old lounge, but was quite taken with the new bar. The bar was done up a year ago, but since it's been a couple of years since I've set foot in the Fox, I had no idea that it had been transformed from a somewhat barren hall into a rather trendy establishment, which really doesn't look like a suburban pub.

The staff were great to work with too, notably Joanne, one of the barmaids. I didn't realise she was still working there, though I knew she'd been there a few years back. She used to work in the Palmerstown House back when I first started drinking there in 1993. Fun to work with somebody who had served me some of my first legal pints. Also had a good laugh with the loungestaff, notably Niamh, an art student in Ballyfermot; she's the loungestaff supervisor in the Fox, having worked there for three years, and is very strong on the floor, as I commented to Declan afterwards. I was also impressed with Hannah, a Chinese girl who's been there for the last year.

It was a strangely quiet night; not quiet in an absolute sense, since it felt like a normal Saturday night, rather it was relatively quiet, since Stephen's Day has long been one of the traditional big nights of the year.

Declan decided to shut the bar at twelve rather than half twelve, so we cleared fairly quickly. Once we were done I went into Tailor Quigley's, the Fox's late bar, where the crew from the Granite had gone after leaving the new bar; they were out not merely because it was one of the few nights of the year when all Granite staff are off, but also because it was Sharon Moone's 21st Birthday. I pushed my way among the dancing throng to give Padraig Gilligan back a fiver I'd borrowed from him earlier on. On the way I was accosted by the ecstatic trio of Ann Fitzgerald, Debbie Harris, and Glen Hansard. (Not the Glen Hansard from the Commitments and the Frames, although they are related.) Avril Lavigne's 'Complicated' was on at the time, and I had little choice but to join in. Debbie requested my tie for costume purposes, and I obliged. Dancing and cavorting continued for some time, myself and Ann just having a laugh mainly, and then us all being swept up in a big circle with Emma Jones, Sharon Mooney, Fallon Leddy, Kieran Towey, and a few others for 'Fairytale of New York'.

It was hammering down outside, but we managed to get a lift back, oddly enough. Thank God.

Some thoughts on escaping...

The day after Stephen's Day was generally spent lounging on the couch at home, watching The Great Escape. I always forget how good the film actually is, and ven when I do remember its quality, I tend to think of it as a rather chirpy piece. So I was rather startled to find a small lump in my throat when 'the Mole' was shot trying to struggle over the wire, and when James Garner tells Richard Attenborough that even though the almost blind forger, Donald Pleasance, is a hazard to the escape plan, he'll take him along with him.

I was reminded of how Eddie Izzard was saying that the reason he thinks The Great Escape is shown every Christmas is because everybody feels trapped, stuck for days on end with family members they'd never normally see. The film acts as a metaphor for what they want to do, to break out of the house somehow. Oddly, I've only felt claustrophobic for about fifteen minutes this holiday, as squabbling took place while getting the table ready for dinner on Christmas Day. I retreated to my room until the vein on my temple had stopped throbbing.

Looking at the film really whetted my appetite for Tuesday. I know the film is shot round Bavaria, and Frankfurt's in Hesse, but what the Hell, it's still Germany, and I'm really looking forward to getting back there. It'll be my fifth visit. In 1991, on a school tour, I stayed in a twelfth century castle overlooking the Rhine at a place called Bacharach, and visited Cologne, Koblenz, and Heidelberg, which I'd really love to see again. In 1996, while interrailing with Alan McGaughey, I spent three days in Munich - where we met Neil, Doug, Ali, and Roxanne, but that story can wait for now - and then three days in Berlin a couple of weeks later. In 1999 I stayed with Heinrich in Frankfurt for a few days. It was actually while arriving at Frankfurt's station from Luxembourg via Metz that I first chatted to mad Jeana, the psychotic American with whom I was destined to stay in Paris. It was only a week or two before that visit that Heinrich had experienced his now legendary 'Day from Hell'. I returned to Frankfurt in December 2000 so myself, Heinrich, and Holger could go to Hanno's place in Berlin to see in the New Year.

Gosh. Four trips to Germany, and my German is still atrocious.

I'm looking forward to spending my Euros somewhere other than Ireland. Britain's perversity in that regard still astounds me. Get with the programme, people.

After the film, I ate and got ready to go out. I met Ruth at her house where we exchanged cards and I gave her the signed copy of Neil Gaiman's Coraline that I'd picked up back in October. Into town then to meet Eoin, and then over to Four Dame Lane, a bar which is too col to have a name. I like it there. The music is good, and not too loud - I'm not actually sure how I'd classify the music - and the furniture and decor are great. With high ceilings to boot, it never seems smoky.

It wasn't busy at all. Neither was town in general. Certainly not for the Christmas period. I'm beginning to notice a trend here. It appears that the economic pinch is starting to be felt...

Christmas in Dublin

And finally, today I've been in town in the afternoon, spending the book vouchers which my little brother cleverly gave me. Little? Sorry, Adam's almost 22. But he's still the youngest of the clan, so 'little' it will have to remain.

Book vouchers are really an ideal gift for me, since I'm as bibliophiliac as I am ergasiaphobic (thanks, Shaw), and whenever people give me books they run a risk of giving me something I already have. With nearly 1,500 books weighing down my shelves, this is understandable. So I cheerfully picked up P.G. Wodehouse's fourth Jeeves Omnibus in Hodges Figgis, and then on noticing that the Hodges Figgis Vouchers also worked in HMV I eventually worked my way up to HMV on Henry Street, where I bought Eddie Izzard's new Circle DVD. I would have got it in Grafton Street, but it was sold out there; a quick phone call established its availability on Henry Street.

Strangely, neither Henry Street nor Grafton Street were packed. Fairly busy, yes, but nothing like I would have expected for the Sales. I found this mildly unnerving. It's probably bad news for the economy.

Doing research in Manchester, rather than job-hunting in Dublin, may have been the right career choice for me at this point.

It was fun to stroll around town today, though I feel rather bad at having screwed up my timing; I had wanted to get out to Ranelagh to meet up with Rachel for a coffee, or at least have one while she was working; she was due off at five, and I didn't finish doing things in town till nearly six. But yes, it was really good to stroll around.

One of the odd things about Dublin is that wherever you go you meet people. It's like a giant village. I don't know if David 'Indy' Hudson is reading this, but if you do, you'll remember that weird day when I just kept bumping into people I knew from totally different places. In Hodges Figgis alone I met Simon Spence and Aideen Hartney, two former Classics postgrads from UCD - they were key players in the batch that finished just before myself, Alison, Lucy, Claire, Heinrich, Fiona and the rest all started. So, chatted to Simon for a bit, and then, after buying my Wodehouse, met Michael Finucane on the way out of the shop. Michael, inexplicably known as 'Fred' , did a four year course in International Commerce with Italian, back when I was doing Commerce, dropping out of Commerce, and doing Arts. We got to be really good mates, especially during our final year as undergrads, and then never saw each other. Since finishing my degree I've seen Fred twice. On the night of Cathal Delaney's Stag Party I was sitting with Dave, Cathal, and loads of Cathal's friends in O'Neill's of Suffolk Street, when I noticed that at the side of our group were, bizarrely, Michael Scully and Fred. Mick Scully is a sports journalist now - I can't remember which paper he writes for. Last time I saw Fred was a dull May morning in 1997, as I was waiting by the Number 10 bus stop near O'Connell Street bridge. Basically where I am now, oddly enough. I was rushing out to UCD for Greek test, and he was rushing into work, so a few hurried words were exchanged and then we shot off in our separate directions. So, needless to say, it was great to meet up again. Having gone to the trouble of exchanging e-mail addresses this time, perhaps it won't be so long till our next meeting, please God.

Aside from the people I met, there were the ones I just spotted. Was that Liam Donnelly, who I taught in Leeson Street, in Hodges Figgis? Was that Tara Wickham, from UCD Arts, but the year ahead of me, in Temple Bar? Was that Ruth Kelly from Drumcondra and UCD just coming on to Suffolk Street?

Dublin is great at Christmas, it has to be said. Meeting so many old friends again, as the emigrants, however briefly, come home: tonight I'm due to meet Colum, Alan, and possibly Eamonn in some pub on Capel Street. I haven't had a drink with Colum since, I think, September 2000 or so, and it must be a year since I've had one with Eamonn. I saw Alan, albeit briefly, a couple of times over the summer. And the city itself does look quite impressive when illuminated at night; not just the classic set-piece buildings and bridges, but so many other ones that you never notice by day.

I popped into the G.P.O. on the way here, and was delighted to see that they've got the same crib in place as they had last year. Joseph, rather inappropriately, looks like Osama Bin Laden, and the wise men look like cartoon terroists. There are paintings in the background, showing Mary, the infant Jesus, and what can only be described as 'Evil Joseph'. If you're reading this in Dublin, go and see it. It's brilliant.

Ho Ho Ho.

Nativity Festivity

There are times when this cursed laptop really pisses me off. Sorry, not the most Christmassy of sentiments there, but that’s how I feel. I just typed up a huge blog and somehow wiped it due to the stupid touchpad. Damn.

Right. Before I get started, I should note that the Drunken Thesaurus has got completely out of hand. This evening at dinner my parents offered me the following terms, most of which I am fairly surprised I’d forgotten: ‘soused’, ‘merry’, ‘maggoty’, ‘mouldy’ – pronounced ‘mowldy’, ‘toasted’, and the only one I’d never heard, contributed by my sister, as it happens – ‘bollowed’. That brought the list up to 142. So far, so frighteningly affected by alcohol.

And then, while I was rooting around for something in an old jacket’s pocket, I found the drunken thesaurus I had attempted to compile last year. How could I have forgotten so many colourful words? Get this: ‘banjoed’, ‘buzzing’, ‘comatose’, ‘didn’t know your own name’, ‘disorientated’, ‘dizzy’, ‘frazzled’, ‘hazy’, ‘jam-jarred’, ‘leathered’, ‘levelled’, ‘lubricated’, ‘mashed’, ‘not in full possession of your faculties’, ‘obliterated’, ‘oodled’, ‘off your face’, ‘off your tits’, ‘pasted’, ‘pixilated’, ‘puddled’, ‘ratted’, ‘skinned’, ‘slammed’, ‘smashed’, ‘tanked up’, ‘twatted’, and ‘woozy’. And my sister Elaine has just offered, over my shoulder, ‘fuckered’ and ‘in a right jocker’.

Now I might have doubled up, or miscounted, and to be honest I think the best thing is to repost the whole list as one coherent and indeed alphabetical unit. But I reckon this whole shoddy litany to consist of a whopping 172 TERMS OF DRUNKENNESS! What the Hell is wrong with us people?

Anyway, so, after blogging yesterday I conducted a highly efficient shopping blitz, of which Rommel and Guderian would have been proud. Home then, to eat, sleep, conduct a monosyllabic phone conversation with Ruth, sleep again, book flights over the net, and go to bed to sleep properly.

I woke at ten, and then decided that rising would be possibly immoral, probably unhealthy, and definitely inadvisable. Since I had to do a little work, I lurched from the bed to the shower at half past two, and soon found myself being assaulted by the good people of Palmerstown, desperate to breach the walls of the local off-license and plunder the liquor within. Not merely did we have to deal with immense queues within, but there were so many people outside that Sean Bowe had to stand at the door and regulate the numbers coming in. I’d never seen anything like that before. I mean, come on! It’s only an off-license.

Ah, but what an off-license, you might say. If I may quote the Sunday Tribune from a few weeks back – or at least, I think it’s the Tribune; my Mam clipped the relevant piece:

On The Grapevine

It has just been announced that the winner of the Cheers Take Home / Edward Dillon Wine Shop of the Year award is The Silver Granite in Palmerstown – an outlet that crops up regularly in this column. The Cheers group as a whole is going from strength to strength, and Ciaran [sic] Towey of the Silver Granite deserves credit, not just for an excellent shop, but for nurturing wine knowledge among local enthusiasts.

Anyway, as it neared eight I headed off home for my break, hoping that I’d be needed around half ten; there was really no need for me to come back, as Kieran reckoned there’d be more than enough staff on, but since he knew I was desperate for work, or - more accurately - money, he said I could probably come back in for the last hour if I really wanted. As it turned out, things slackened down a lot, and I wasn’t needed at all. Instead I strolled back just after last orders, clutching a rake of cards for people. (What’s that about fearing Greg, even bearing gifts? Sorry, Classical joke. Not a good one, either. Boom boom.)

The Cheers gang were sitting around on Heineken cases, drinking very nice champagne and passing around chocolates, so I gladly joined them. After a while we headed back into the lounge, as the staff were finishing. Much drinking took place.

Unfortunately while there it turned out that due to a misunderstanding I wasn’t down to work on Saint Stephen’s Day after all, a anomalous state of affairs, since I’ve worked in the lounge on every Stephen’s Day since 1991. There were too many staff on as it stood, but I spoke to Kevin (former manager of the Granite, and now kind of a general group manager) who was fortuitously around, and he arranged it for me to work in the Foxhunter, our sister pub in Lucan, from four until close on Stephen’s Day. With a bit of luck I’ll be there for Sharon’s birthday party.

Today followed much the same pattern as usual. I got up round half eleven and went to half twelve mass in Ballyfermot with Mam and Dad; it lasted for ages, and involved some rather peculiar mummery involving a giant candle which the priest needed help to carry. Home then for dinner preparations. At one point I got rather stressed out and had to retreat to my room, reading Lone Wolf and Cub and playing Spider Solitaire until I’d calmed down – I had felt ready to explode. Back downstairs then for the slightly less enormous than usual Christmas dinner.

Hmmm…. two main Christmas dinner observations. The first one concerns dessert. My Mam used always to make three desserts at Christmas, which we would have a choice of. Usually they would be a trifle, a pavlova, and a cheesecake, a flan, or occasionally a black forest. The same thing happened every year. Offered a dessert, most sane people, somewhat rested after a post-main course pause, would go for the trifle, being light, and slightly sharp; it cleanses the palate. If people felt greedy, a second dessert might be taken (this was a once yearly experience, I should note), which was invariably the cheesecake or flan. Everything would then be put into the fridge for the following day. And the following day we would go to the fridge to find that the pavlova had turned to a cracked and mushy wreck. What a waste. God knows how many years we did that for. But then, he would, since he knows everything. Holly’s sister would probably consider the casting out of the pavlova to be a tradition…

Um, yes, the other point about Christmas dinner occurred to me last year. Aren’t Christmas dinners, in some weird way, like computer games. Consider an insanely large Christmas dinner, bigger than we’d have. Wouldn’t it work in terms of levels, each of which you have to beat? The aperitif, the starter, the soup, the main course, the dessert, the cheeseboard, and finally, for the real experts… the mint! Points would be awarded for whatever you consume on each level, especially on the main course… roast and boiled potatoes, carrots, sprouts, peas, broccoli, whatever you care to mention… there’d be points for each vegetable, with specially high points for every sprout you manage to swallow. A real challenge would be avoiding the particularly emetic parsnips, cunningly disguised as potatoes, since nobody eats them when they know what they are. Marks could also be awarded for the number of sauces added to the pile. Liquid intake would have to be very carefully judged, both in terms of wine and water during the meal and coffee afterwards. Rests must also be allowed for, and sometimes you win a bonus notch on your belt. Um, cracker pulling could be a whole special bonus round: sometimes you win, and sometimes you don’t. And even when you win, what do you get? There’s a game there somewhere.

(For the record I got a pack of cards, a silver paper crown, and a small piece of paper bearing the words:

'What do you say to a camel when you give him a cup of tea?' 'One hump or two.')

We did the presents thing between levels, and then after dinner I strolled up the road to Delaneys to see whoever was about. Stayed there a while chatting to Maurice, Mina, and Grainne, and then sat drinking wine in the kitchen with Dave, admiring a remarkably good poem written by Grainne’s eight-year-old son Ben. Then round to mine, where we played Trivial Pursuit with Mam, Dad, Elaine, and Adam. Adam and I were a team, and lost. I am doomed in that game; I’m always the first to six pieces of pie, but can never get into the middle for the master question. And on those rare occasions when I do make it I get thrown a fiendishly difficult entertainment question, the answer to which is usually, though not today, oddly enough, Adam Faith.

Mam and Dad won, despite (or perhaps because of)the fact that they played as they always do, Dad answering other people’s questions in an absent-minded way, and Mam just generally being amusing. Today when asked the title of Don McLean’s song lamenting the death of Buddy Holly, she was trying to think of the title and momentarily considered ‘This American Guy.’ I mean, really. Apparently the other day she said to Elaine that my Dad’s back hadn’t been so bad since Elaine had had foot and mouth disease. Yes, take a look at that. Foot and mouth disease. Elaine, obviously, had never had foot and mouth disease. What she had had, as I realised once they got to this point in the narrative, was Whooping Cough. I mean, HELLO?

My Mam always says things like this. She calls The Seven Samurai, my favourite film, The Gemini Men. ‘Groncho’ or even ‘Moncho’ is how she refers to Groucho Marx. She once said that my Dad had comfortable shoes like Morris Gump’s. She wanted me to get out The Whispering Horse from the video library at one stage, while on another particularly memorable occasion she asked me to hire Not the Glen of the Downs. Scarily, I realised that she meant Dancing at Lughnasa. Her favourite Beatles song is ‘Hello Dude’.

Are all mothers like this?

Wrath of the Travel Gods

Well, the mystery of how the travel gods appeared so generous to me a couple of weeks back has been solved. They were storing up their curses for my trip home.

Having checked train times on the web, I got a taxi from halls to Manchester Oxford Road at half ten; the train was due around a quarter past eleven. As I was getting out of the taxi, after paying the driver, I realised that I'd left my passport behind.

We pelted back and I ran in to get the neglected document, briefly explaining what had happened to Les, Eddie, and Hannah. Then back to Oxford Road as fast as possible. I paid the driver and strode towards the brightly lit station, impressed that it was only a couple of minutes past eleven.

The station doors were locked.

I rushed back to the street and hailed another cab, which took my to Manchester Piccadilly. The driver had no idea why the station might have been closed. After paying him I grabbed my stuff and trudged into Piccadilly Station, only to find that the strike which I had thought was over was still on, and that the next train to Holyhead was at 5:23 in the morning. I sadly set off back to halls.

Back at base I decided I'd better check online to see were any other problems likely. Indeed they were: owing to bad weather the Irish Ferries fast services were cancelled. That meant that the only hope for getting back at a reasonable time was with Stena, who I don't like. It also meant I needed to be in Holyhead by 8:25, half an hour before the ship sailed. This was bound to be tricky, since the train wasn't due to arrive in Holyhead till 8:23.

I didn't sleep.

At half four I left halls and said goodbye to Les on reception for the third time in six hours. A few minutes later I paid for my fourth taxi journey in as long. I slowly dragged myself into the almost desolate emptiness of Piccadilly Station; The Twelve Days of Christmas was being piped noisily throughout the station, which I found rather disturbing. A minor miracle took place, as the 5:23 Virgin train left as scheduled, and indeed arrived in Crewe as scheduled.

In Crewe I made my way over to Platform 12 to get the 6:23 train for Holyhead. I sat and dozed for a bit, leaning against my rucksack, clutching the bag which held my laptop. At 6:15 I roused myself, and noticed that I was the only one on the platform. Even at that time of the morning this was odd, and I went up to the departures screen to see was there anything wrong. Indeed there was. The train had been cancelled.

The next best bet seemed to be the 6:33 to Chester, so I sadly hauled myself over to platform 6. There I found a cluster of angry people, all desperate to get home to Ireland. One couple had come from Manchester, like me, but had a long journey ahead of them when they reached Dublin; they were to go to Derry. The guy working at the station really didn't know what to do, but just kept telling them to go to Chester, since he couldn't do anything in Crewe. He seemed to be just palming us off, but what choice did we have. Bitterly bemused we boarded the train. Sarcastic comments met the inspector's request to check our tickets.

Amazingly in Chester there was a train for Holyhead. I think this was a desperately arranged replacement service, since it certainly didn't appear on any timetables. It reached Holyhead at 8:38, and once there I stumbled as fast as I could into the Ferry terminal, hoping that I could somehow board the boat. Thank God for small miracles; the boat was being held up because of the train delays and because Stena had decided to let the otherwise stranded Irish Ferries passengers on board.

So I finally, slowly, made my way along the gangway to the boat, where I found a vacant stretch of couch and lay down. Even if I hadn't been so drained that would have been the only thing to do. The boat was going to take a wide detour, in order to avoid the worst of the weather on the Irish Sea, but even so, it was going to be very rough. The boat began lurching the moment it moved out of harbour, but I soon drifted off.

Just before eleven I arrived in Dun Laoghaire, and my Dad soon came along to pick me up. Home then for some food, up to the Granite to arrange a spot of work tomorrow and Thursday, and then into town to do some shopping.

I think I'll sleep well tonight.

Echoed Conversations

I have only a few minutes before I pack my bag to go home. The train from Oxford Road is just after eleven, so I'll need to be very efficient. This next couple of weeks will be the crucial patch for the blogsite. Will I just not bother, because I'm home and internet access isn't as handy as it is here, or will I be disciplined? I shall try the latter.

In return, please convince me that you guys are reading this. Almost twenty of you have commented so far; I know a few others are reading it, so come on guys, let your voices be heard! As Stuart said yesterday, when it comes to blogging, comments are your wages.

Very weird thing. Shaw told me some time ago of how odd it was to read this site, since it tended to record exactly events she had herself been there for, conversations that she had been part of. Holly yesterday mentioned how odd it was to read Stuart's post on Friday, since she had been discussing those very things with Stuart over coffee that day. Well, today I read Stuart's blog from yesterday, talking about his brother who he speaks too, barely, once a year, and his mother who has only ever sworn once, and that was quoting the word 'Sod'.

And we'd had that very conversation around Stuart's kitchen table yesterday morning.

Odd.

Absolutely RExed

Gosh, where to begin? Hmmm....

Naff Patriotic Song is World Favourite: I'm Not Happy, says Heinrich

Thanks to Frank O'Connor for forwarding the following article to me. With a bit of luck these polls will start to trickle off now.

Elation once again as Wolfe Tones top BBC world song poll

FORGET the Beatles, forget Elvis, the rousing singalong ballad, 'A Nation Once Again' by the Wolfe Tones, has been voted the world's favourite song in a BBC poll.

A World Service poll of 150,000 listeners placed the Irish group's recording narrowly ahead of a popular patriotic Hindi song in the top spot.

But the success has not been without controversy. In the run up to the close of polling an e-mail was circulated urging Irish people to vote for the band and "mess it up" for the BBC.

However, yesterday a BBC spokesman said there was no question of the campaign denying the group its place at the top.

"Every single song in the top 10 had some sort of campaign behind it," said a spokesman.

The only basis on which a song was banned was if it breached BBC guidelines in respect of sexual content or violence.

The BBC received a flood of e-mails from around the world naming the old Irish ballad which has become a Republican anthem as their favourite song.

The Wolfe Tones won narrowly over Indian patriotic song 'Vande Mataram', based on a Hindi poem and which was first featured in a 1950s film.

Only two songs which could be regarded as Western hits, 'Believe' by Cher (1998) and Queen's 1975 hit 'Bohemian Rhapsody', featured at number eight and 10 respectively. Cliff Richard's 'We don't Talk Any More' was number 11.

A surprised Brian Warfield, leader of the Wolfe Tones, described the competition as "a bit of fun". He said although the group's website had urged people to vote for the song, the band had not been part of any campaign to "mess it up" for the BBC.

Commenting on the poll he said: "I was surprised by the whole thing but it was something which caught on. I suppose a lot of people must have voted for us but we have a lot of fans around the world."

The competition attracted 150,000 votes from 153 countries for 7,000 songs and revealed a diversity of musical tastes.

The winning songs will be aired tomorrow at 1.05pm.

Songs from India and Pakistan had a strong showing. The BBC said although all the top 10 were the subject of on-line campaigns attempts at multiple voting or "spamming" were discounted.

A Nation Once Again was written by 19th century poet and patriot Thomas Davis, the Young Ireland leader and editor of 'The Nation' newspaper.

It includes the refrain: "And Ireland, long a province, be a nation once again."

Some artists suffered because they had so many songs nominated it split their vote. Iranian artist Googoosh had 40 different songs while Bob Marley had 29.

World's Top Ten: 1, A Nation Once Again - Wolfe Tones (Ireland); 2, Vande Mataram - Various Artists (India); 3, Dil Dil Pakistan - Vital Signs (Pakistan); 4, Rakkamma Kaiya Thattu - Ilayaraja (India); 5, Poovum Nadakkuthu Pinchum Nadakkuthu - Thirumalia Chandran (India); 6, Ana wa Laila - Kazem El Saher (Iraq); 7, Reetu Haruma Timi - Arun Thapa (Nepal); 8, Believe - Cher (US); 9, Chaiyya Chaiyya - A R Rahman (India); 10, Bohemian Rhapsody - Queen.

I'm glad to see that Frank has evidently changed his mind and updated wcfan.com.

Drunken Thesaurus: No end in sight

Thanks are also due to Holly for giving me the 136th drunk term: 'pickled to the tonsils'. Will this ever stop?

Drinking in a Toilet: How Low Can You Go?

Yesterday was tiring but fun. I spent the bulk of the day working on my cards and marking essays, joining Holly in town as it was approaching five. We went to Wagamama in the Printworks for something to eat; I had a rather impressive soup, which demonstrated that not only am I wholly inept at manipulating chopsticks, but also that I have yet to fully master the ancient art of the spoon. After dinner we strolled round to the Royal Exchange theatre where we had a drink and went in to see the show, an adaptation of David Almond's recent novel Secret Heart. The play was quite uneven, with the second half being far better than the first, and truth be told I had difficulty in understanding it. It was quite spectacular - especially with its trapeze artists - and I did enjoy it a lot, but that says nothing about its quality. I've seen so few plays that I tend to enjoy any play I go to. Even Rosencratz and Guidenstern are Dead was enjoyable, although for the wrong reasons. After the play Hol and I went to a rather cool little pub called 'The Temple' in what used to be an underground public toilet. I liked it a lot; I reminded me of all the things I had liked years ago in such rather dinghy Dublin spots as Bruxelles and the International. The Temple has many of their best features, and few of their worse ones. Against that, it must be noted that its toilets were not the finest lavatorial facilities I have ever encountered. This was somewhat ironic, considering the pub's prehistory. After some drinkage there - Erdinger Schneeweisse for me, vodka and tonic for Hol - we moved on to a bar called '46' to wait for Stuart, who I had previously met for only a brief moment when I first went into the Exchange earlier in the day. Having been entertained by his site for some time now I was really looking forward to meeting him, and he didn't disappoint, being just as funny in real life as on the (virtual) page. Drinking was a little more exotic there, me returning to gin and tonic with Holly and Stuart sticking with vodka and tonic until Hol decided to get three 'flatliners' for us. Flatliners are frightening little shooters, consisting of tequila, sambouca, and tabasco sauce. To say they have a kick is putting it mildly. Try them some time. Eventually we shifted out of there and wound up out in Stuart's place in Bolton, where I also spent the better part of today. Giggles galore. Thanks are due to Heinrich and Morag respectively for telling me the stories of the Sitian Pelican and the Worst Tattoo in the World, which I related to great amusement. Hol still seems traumatised by the Tattoo story, while it was brilliant watching Stuart descend into uncontrollable giggling after I referred to the sad fate of the Sitian Pelican as a mere preamble to the tale of the Tattoo.

Postgraduate Exhaustion: I'm getting old, says Greg

I was fairly well rubbered last night, as you can probably guess, and hence rather frail today. 'Beer is the path to the Dark Side,' as Yoda might say. 'Beer leads to drunkenness, drunkenness leads to hangovers, hangovers lead to suffering.' When Hol and I got back here, we really just lolled about. I was capable of no more. I tried with no success to get the video to work so we could watch Eddie Izzard's new video, Circle, and having failed in that I settled for making tea and toast and vegging, before walking Hol to the bus stop and waiting there with her until the 46 bus arrived to take her to her mate Doron's house in Hulme - she'll be heading back to Cambridge tomorrow.

Empty Halls Make Least Noise

I didn't mind not being back in Halls for our last brunch today. Aside from it being alarmingly unhealthy, and Lord knows, we get enough dangerous food already here, I didn't really relish the prospect of such a lonely meal. Shaw's leaving last week was bad enough, but the double whammy of Marlisa and Jenny going within about an hour of each other around lunchtime yesterday was particularly dispiriting. The place is virtually empty, a Mancunian ghost town. Of the people I hang around with here, only Eddie remains. He's not going home for Christmas until Monday, but will only be back for a couple of days in January before heading off to York, and the Real World.

He ought to be appearing here again shortly, having been having dinner in a friend's house earlier. Tea will doubtless be required. I should probably stick the kettle on.

Swiss Cheese

Some months back, George Bush, speaking of the sanctions then in place on Iraq said that 'The Sanctions regime is like a Swiss cheese. By which I mean... it's not much good.' I'm sure he pissed off many a Swiss cheesemaker with that one. I also reckon he regrets having used that line then, since it would be appropriate at the minute, since apparently the American establishment believes the 12,000 page Iraqi weapons dossier to be full of holes. Like a Swiss cheese.

Meanwhile, the hall is becoming emptier by the minute. I'm starting to feel like the old timer left in prison after all his mates have gone.

(Why do Australians call each other 'mate'? Coz that's what you call someone you share a cell with.)

Right, I'm off.

The Two Towers

Just a thought. This morning I realised that I'd left both 'battered' and 'legless' off my drunken thesaurus. 135 words of phrases that imply drunkeness. Frightening.

I saw The Two Towers last night. I couldn't help but wonder whether Legolas gets legless... there's definitely a joke there somewhere. There's also some mileage to be got over how plump Sam is. He's trekked from the Shire to Rivendell, over the Misty Mountains, through Moria, into Lothlorien, and all the way to the fringes of Mordor, all apparently on a diet of toast, and he's still really plump. How? Okay, it's obviously not toast, but it looks like it. Lembas bread or something. There's also a spectacularly absurd bit with an enormous army of horsemen charge downhill, attacking an army below. The hill was nearly vertical. I kept thinking if even one horse fell, there'd be an avalanche of horses and men. Still, as Groucho Marks once said, 'Avalanche is better than no lanch at all.' The military historian in me kept screaming out during the battle scenes that so much was ludicrous or just incredibly unlikely. But I kept my mouth shut. I kept my eyes shut at one point too, it must be said. I fell asleep for about ten minutes, almost an hour in.

Which is no criticism of the film; I clearly needed some sleep, and having grabbed some I was hooked for the rest of the film. I really enjoyed it - it was very funny, with lots of great one liners, and the battle scenes, of which there are no shortage, were spectacular. Gollum was fabulous, and the Ents were about as good as they could possibly have been. Fritz Leiber, almost certainly the greatest fantasy writer of the last century, used to think that they were probably the best thing in the book; certainly, he felt, they were the most 'fantastic'. The film looked beautiful too, of course, frequently seeming as though Alan Lee's paintings had come alive, and the big swooping helicopter shots of people moving through the landscape were stunning, though I couldn't hep but think that there were slightly too many. I was surprised not to hear a voice at some point saying 'This Film was brought to you by the New Zealand Tourist Board.'

There's a thought. Apparently the armies in the film are played by New Zealand soldiers, who clearly doublejob, like the Irish army, in Hollywood epics. That means that Saruman's genetically modified army of super-orcs, the Uruk Hai, basically formed in a huge cloning centre in Isengard as shown in the first film, are all New Zealanders. I wonder are they Maori? I'm just thinking that because as Star Wars II: Attack of the Clones revealed, the Imperial Stormtroopers are in fact a giant army of Maoris cloned on some strange waterworld.

Why do Maoris play evil armies?

And why don't they do the Haka before going into battle?

Matt, Phred, and Herodotus

Shaw has sent me a mildly frightening link to http://www.housedavid.com/logia.html which reminds me a test Heinrich found some years ago to see whether the food you were eating was physically pure, morally pure, and spiritually pure. Or something. I wonder if that's still out there...

More proof of how peculiar things can be up north, after the maneating squirrel in Knutsford some weeks back, can be found at http://www.ananova.com/news/story/sm_727887.html?menu=news.quirkies.

In other news, Holly and I went to Matt and Phred's last night, after having a quick drink with Seb in Richmond Park's bar. Matt and Phred's is a Jazz club in town where Gavin, a friend and former housemate of Holly's, was playing. He plays the Double Bass and is really good, as indeed were the pianist and drummer he was with. Apparently they'll be playing there virtually every Tuesday from now on. Some random friend of theirs joined them on the saxophone for a few numbers; he was excellent too, though he did jiggle about in a way that was mildly disturbing. And indeed, I would think, unnecessary.

(Whenever I see people playing the sax I always think of Zoot from the Muppet Show, sadly picking up his horn to perform some appalling tune, and muttering in resignation 'Forgive me, Charlie Parker.')

The club itself was great, and I'll definitely be returning there. It's got a wonderful atmosphere, with its near complete darkness, mildly seedy red drapes against which the sparkly blue drums stood out in an alarming fashion, and general air of mild decay. Oddly, what used to be the front door is now the back door, and indeed is closed except in emergencies. When arrived to find it closed we stood there a while, thinking the place hadn't yet opened, and then went for a brief walk. On returning we noticed the sign saying the entrance was now on, I think, Tib Street, which is behind Oldham Street. It's not exactly the most obtrusive of places; while the old entrance has a large window beside it with 'MATT AND PHRED'S' in large neon red letters, the new entrance is distinguished only by the broken brickwork and graffiti that surrounds it.

Before we went in, Hol was telling me that while the place itself was really good, it was extremely badly run. It has closed and reopened several times over the last couple of years. She was rather understating things. In an interval Gavin spoke to us, and told us that while it was still called Matt and Phred's, only Matt still ran it. Himself and Phred (Fred?) had had a fight in which Phred had broken Matt's leg. Phred was now a thing of the past, while Matt walked with the aid of a crutch.

To his credit, Matt turned out to be a good barman, even with a gammy leg. However, it must be admitted that while his skills behind the counter were not inconsiderable, his skills on stage were sadly lacking. At the end of the night he foolishly got it into his head that it would be fun to join the lads on stage and jam with them. This was what we in the trade call an error. Out came a saxophone that had clearly seen better days, and with horn in one hand, wine glass in the other, and crutch dragging from his elbow, he shuffled on stage and began to play.

'Play' is not quite an adequate word to describe what he was doing. The saxophone made noises which I'm really sure it should not have been making. Hideous, tortured screeches and toots. His eyes were squeezed tightly shut, like Christy Moore's (see Eamonn's anonymous comment on Tuesday December 10th), and his face grew redder and redder, matching the drapery. At one point I convinced that he was about to explode. That subsided, and he began forcing the saxophone to do a rather painful and unwilling impression of a pneumatic drill. He was completely out of time with the others at one point, which Gavin picked him up on to little avail; for several minutes afterwards Gavin was clearly suppressing his rage. Any anger on his part would have been thoroughly justified, since Matt was ruining what would otherwise have been a brilliant performance.

Which is not to say that I didn't enjoy it. I enjoyed it perhaps a little too much. A bit like at the performance of Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead put on by our hall and Slems a couple of weeks back, it was all I could do not to laugh. Whenever I looked at Matt I quaked with laughter but kept my mouth shut until I got it under control, at which point I'd catch Holly's eye, and the two of us would be off again, doing all we could not to break down in fits of giggles. I had to just look down, focussing on my drink, since I knew that whether I looked at Holly or the stage I was bound to laugh. I had just managed to control myself when Holly lightly tapped my forearm and whispered 'Everone's leaving.'

Indeed they were. The people at all the tables behind us had all stood up and put on their coats to go. Admittedly, it was very late, but I really don't think they were going because of the time. They hung around for a little even then, presumably enthralleded by how bad Matt's performance was, and wondering in vain hope whether it was ever going to stop. Eventually it did, but they had gone.

I wonder what Matt thought when he finally opened his eyes to a half-empty club? Who knows, maybe this is how he clears the shop at the end of the night?

***

Apparently Eddie's reading from 'Herodotus' went down really well at the Christmas concert the other night, some people even thinking it the best part of the evening. I wasn't at the concert myself, as Heinrich and I were catching up on our internet backgammon - I won three games to his one, in a radical break with tradition, and when that was done I returned to my Christmas cards. I think I'll finish them today, with a bit of luck. I'm currently on what Lewis would have his Herodotus call 'Exmas' cards. My 'Crissmas' ones are finished. I'm told that the Warden and her husband were both particularly impressed with the passage Eddie read, since both have at one point or other studied Herodotus, and so get all the jokes.

Herodotus is great, the first historian and one of the all-time masters of digression. He's definitely a hero of mine. He can be in the middle of a battle description or some similar section which is crucial to his narrative when on mentioning somebody he'll feel an urge to tell an irrelevant and highly unlikely but nevertheless immensely amusing anecdote about them. He's a bit like Gaelic football commentators at home that way.

For example, at one point he describes the campaigns of the Persian Harpagus in Caria, which is basically in the bottom left hand corner of Modern Turkey. He observes of one group of Carians that there were also certain folk of Pedas, dwelling inland of Halicarnassas ; when any misfortune was coming upon them or their neighbours, the priestess of Athene grew a great beard. This had happened to them three times.

In his account of the heroic but doomed Spartan defence of the Pass of Thermopylae, he records perhaps the greatest one-liner in Antiquity. The Spartans were hopelessly outnumbered at the pass. At Thermopylae there were probably a couple of thousand Spartans, allies, and Helots - the enslaved native population of Lakonia - up against between one hundred thousand and a quarter of a million Persian troops. Herodotus records an even larger Persian force, well over three million men, and among the Greeks emphasises almost to the exclusion of all others the three hundred Spartans under King Leonidas. One of the three hundred, Dienekes, was evidently the Classical answer to Arnie or to Clint Eastwood. A soldier from Trachis was terrified before the battle and addressed Dienekes, nervously saying that he had heard that when the Persians fired their arrows there were so many as to blot out the sun. Dienekes smiled grimly and said 'Good. Then we can fight in the shade.'

Herodotus is particularly good on the stranger Babylonian customs, where not merely does he describe them, but he makes the odd deeply sexist joke. Temple prostitution was definitely the oddest one, whereby he relates that every woman who is a native of the country must once in her life go and sit in the temple of Aphrodite and there give herself to a strange man. In case you're confused by this, it means she'd have to be with any random bloke she doesn't know; it would hardly be the case that there was one deeply weird fella hanging round the temple who every woman in the country was obliged to shag. Though that would have been funnier. Anyway, the way it worked was that big gangs of women would sit in groups, marked out by bands of plaited string around their heads. Pathways were marked out, so that passing men could stroll among them and pick out the ones they fancied. Men picked their women by casting a silver coin of any value into her lap and saying 'In the name of the goddess Mylitta' - that being the Assyrian name for Aphrodite. The women had no say in who their partners would be, and having done this once they would go home and were apparently incorruptible for the rest of their lives. Herodotus ends this description by memorably observing that Tall, handsome women soon manage to get home again, but the ugly ones stay a long time before they can fulfil the condition which the law demands, some of them, indeed, as much as three or four years.

Nice.

Bathing Pigs

Last night I was at party round at my mates' house for a few hours. Things lulled in the living room for a bit, so I decided to cast what, in word bomb parlance, would be classed as a weapon of mass destruction.

'Two pigs in a bath,' I said. 'One says "Pass the soap." The other says "What do you think I am? A radio?"'

An hour of frustration, confusion, and laughter followed. I'm surprised nobody hit me.

(Credit where credit's due... thanks to Paul Phelan for that one, way back in the Belmont Lounge in late 1993. Poor Karen O'Flaherty spent almost a month trying to work it out.)

Memories are made of this...

Memory is a deeply mysterious thing, don't you think?

Take the example of how a couple of weeks back, when Diarmait was over from Dublin. After being out in Squirrels we wound up drinking tea in my room with a few of the others. Stories were swapped. 

Diarmait entertained the crowd with a story of how we'd cycled down towards the river in Palmerstown as children. His bike was a Releigh Grifter, which bore much the same relationship to a BMX as a rhino does to a horse; mine was its idiot cousin, a small blue beast with solid tyres and back-pedalling rear brakes and a regular front brake. Hurtling downhill, for Mill Lane is very steep, I pulled the front brakes for no apparent reason and was catapulted not merely over the handlebars but over an adjacent wall into the local hospital for mentally handicapped people. There I was surrounded by the patients, who were deeply fascinated by this unusual visit. A nurse charged over, scattering the crowd, and yelling at me to leave. I gladly obliged.

An entertaining tale, I'm sure you'll agree, but one which, as I pointed out to Diarmait the following day, rates at about a mere eight per cent on any authenticity index. Elements in the tale do certainly converge, however tangentially, with reality, but I'd not say more than that...

We did indeed cycle headlong down the very steep Mill Lane, and accidents nearly took place, but nothing like this. The bike as described by Diarmait is a mutant hybrid of my sister's bike, a maroon machine with back-pedalling brakes, and my own inferior specimen, a tiny thing, navy blue with solid tyres and, by the time we took to hurtling down Mill Lane, no brakes whatsoever. My braking technique consisted of putting my shoes on the ground several times in succession to slow the infernal device down, and then a final application of sole to ground. It was a braking technique that wore out many a shoe, as you can doubtless imagine. The only person I know of who was cast over the front of his handlebars was Christopher Cass, and that tale has already been narrated on this site; I certainly never suffered such an ejection; indeed my cycling accidents were usually more elaborate, less dignified, and more painful. I would rather not speak of them. And while there is indeed an enormous hospital for mentally handicapped people in Palmerstown, located to either side of Mill Lane, I'm fairly sure that there is no point at which someone could be catapulted from the road into the grounds. The wall is too high, and would surely be at an impossible angle to the road for such a feat to occur. Which is a shame, because the story, while entertaining as it stand, would be even better if true.

Diarmait believes this story. He has apparently been telling it for years. It is possible that a true story, based perhaps on simply how stupid it was for me even to attempt cycling down that hill on my ridiculous 'bike', grew with the telling, mutating in strange directions, converging with other anecdotes and speculations, eventually freezing into the form in which it was told the other day. I guess it's been told that way for so long that it's become almost 'historical'.

What's the point of this, you might ask? This site, you are probably saying, while rambling and never remotely to the point, usually has at least some tangential connection to events that happened that day. Well, true enough. I'm getting there.

I described at some length yesterday the rules and etiquette of our computer room. For the past couple of days, keys have been rarely necessary, save to provide support when you absolutely needed to claim a computer, because the door was really difficult to shut. There appeared to be nothing wrong with the lock. At some ungodly hour last night, or this morning to be chronologically accurate, I realised what was causing the door to remain so conveniently open.

Along the floor, at the base of the door, where a door jam ought to be, lies a thin metal strip, pinning the carpets in place. This strip has been loosened by the simple expedient of having partially unscrewed one of the screws. The strip is now slightly raised; more importantly the screw itself protrudes a good centimetre above the strip, creating a small, but fairly effective, doorstop.

I was impressed. Indeed, I still am.

I have no idea who did this, but that's not the point. This minor act of sabotage reminded me of an old school friend, a potential criminal mastermind who was content to waste his talents and become a mere Tom Sawyer-esque waster. God only knows where he is now.

Eoin was a great man for minor acts of sabotage. His speciality was lightbulb theft. Many's the time he'd be spotted sauntering about our school's corridors, drifting aimlessly between classes, stretching a casual arm above his head, swiftly and nonchalantly removing lightbulbs. The Lord alone knows how many lightbulbs the school was deprived of during Eoin's five year reign of mischief.

One of his finest hours took place while in our Inter Cert year, if I recall even remotely correctly. Whenever we'd have book-keeping homework in commerce class the answers would be displayed on the overhead projector the following day. One day, for some reason, no sooner had the class begun that our teacher had to leave the room; hardly had he gone, leaving us with work to do, that Eoin darted out of his seat and over to the projector. He calmly took the plug from the socket and produced a screwdriver from his pocket. It was the work of a moment to open the plug, remove the fuse, reassemble it, plug it in again, and then merrily skip back to his seat. Not a word had been said, and I think less than a couple of minutes had passed. When our teacher returned he was not in a good mood, and his temper was further aggravated by the inexplicable failure of the projector to work. Much time was wasted in that particular class that day.

A good story, I think you'll agree, and one I've been telling for years.

Lately, however, I've begun to doubt it. Could I have once been talking to him, and he merely suggested doing this? Or maybe a few of us had been talking in the canteen over whether such a thing would be possible? In either case the scenario could well have been vividly imagined and described, always preceded with the words 'Wouldn't it be brilliant if...' And at some point those opening words could have been dropped. And eventually the story would have become, to all intents and purposes, true.

In the World Fantasy Award-winning 'Midsummer Night's Dream' issue of Sandman Neil Gaiman has Dream comment to Auberon and Titania that 'Things need not have happened to be true. Tales and dreams are the shadow truths that will endure when mere facts are dust and ashes, and forgot.'

He has a point. But I wish I could be sure.

Heinous Acts of Harmless Hypocrisy

A triumph for hypocrisy yesterday, I'm proud to say. Gave little lectures on the proper use of the computer cluster here, explaining in a most condescending fashion to both Judith and Anne that people are not allowed to pass on keys to each other.

I'm getting ahead of myself. The deal for the room, which Paul sees as his legacy - the Paul Brown Memorial Computer Room, I suppose - is that as there are four computers - two on the University of Manchester network, one on the UMIST network, and one not networked at all - there are four keys. We have to sign in for them at reception, and leave some form of ID to guarantee that we'll give them back. Four hours is the maximum stint that a key is allowed to be taken for by any one person. Supposedly, whenever somebody wants to leave the room, even for a few minutes, they have to return the key to reception. This, in theory, ought to ensure a high turnover.

Such, as I said, is the theory. In practice, however, what normally happens is that whenever anyone just wants to check their mail for a minute, they chance their arm by knocking on the door assuming that somebody inside will let them in. The only person who gets stroppy about this is Rosemary, a Kenyan woman who lived above me last year, and played with her drawers all night. Don't misconstrue that. It tends to be that the unofficial user can use the computer as much as they want until somebody turns up who has gone to the trouble of getting a key. When this happens, courtesy prevails, and the unofficial user yields their seat to the keyholder.

Occasionally, the system gets completely screwed up, by people taking keys and then buggering off somewhere, ensuring that nobody can get in to the room. This has happened a few times, and cocks up not only the official system, but also our own unofficial enhancement of it.

It's not helped by the fact that some people at reception think that the keys, numbered one to four, correspond to the computers, also numbered one to four; others argue that the keys are simply door keys. This is a rather murky issue, and I think I may be rather to blame for this, by having told Janette and Val that the computers are all different. They're the ones who distinguish between the keys.

Yesterday, Judith had been in here for ages, a least a couple of hours, before I replaced James at position two. After a good while, while I was heatedly debating the rights and wrongs of voting for 'A Nation Once Again' in the comments section of this site, Judith finally ceased in her aimless trawling through E-bay, and wandered off, leaving her key behind. Marlin - part German, part Indian, and all loopy - took over, the whole time with the key taken out in Judith's name lying on the desk. Judith eventually came back to get a book she'd left behind, and said that she'd leave the key so Anne could use the computer.

Which is were we came in.

I lectured Judith at length about how the computers were to be specifically booked in a person's name, and that said person was in no circumstances to pass the key on to somebody else, allowing groups of friends to monopolise the computers. Furthermore, if keys were simply passed about without going through reception, the Hall authorities would have no idea who was using the room at any given time; if anything happened, the residents as a whole would be blamed. These computers, I sternly pointed out, were a luxury, and very expensive - we were lucky to have them, not having had any last year. They were for everyone, and should not be abused. Eventually, she brought the key back. And when Anne came along, she was put out by the key having been brought back, since she'd now have to go to reception to sign for it. She clearly couldn't understand why Judith simply couldn't have given her the key. So off I went again, pompously lecturing. I don't think I convinced her, but she went and got a key.

And of course, I shouldn't really have been there, since I didn't have a key at all. Hypocrisy rocks. Well, when it's harmless anyway.

Yesterday was largely given over to tormenting Judith and Anne - Sylvie wasn't around, and in any case, I think I may have pushed her over the edge with the door sign. Marlisa had been there for the computer room lectures, for dinner discussions, and for kitchen tennis. M and I told Eddie, who's a tutor here, about my lecturing the girls, and he expressed his approval, as he thought that needed to be said, since they do tend to abuse the computer room; Anne was one of those who took a key first thing in the morning last week and buggered off for the day, while Judith lives there. When she's not singing in the corridor. I pointed out to Eddie that I really was, as it happened, in no position to criticise them; technically I shouldn't even have been there. He countered that by pointing out that I was hardly hogging a computer, since like all non-keyholding users I would have given up my computer the minute somebody turned up with a key. While I conceded that that was true enough, Eddie had to understand that I wasn't actually lecturing the girls in order to bring about a change in their reprehensible behaviour. I was just doing it for the craic.

Oh well.

As for the rest of the day? Card production continued apace, with a whole bunch of Snowmen looking like Michelangelo's 'David' being the main item of the day. I spent ages crouched over the lightbox, pencilling, inking, erasing, and colouring, then turned to the backing boards, folding, cutting, trimming, and slitting, before assembling the things. All was done to the tune of Beth Orton's Daybreaker, which I received as a very welcome Christmas gift from Shaw, who departed just after lunch. In the evening, after Kitchen tennis, I slumped over hot chocolate (courtesy of Marlisa) in Jenny's room, watching Speed 2 with half an eye, exhausted after being up so late while making cards the previous night. Marlisa was down in the Common Room, watching the emetic Dirty Dancing with the crazy people.

Incidentally, I was astounded to discover that it was not the cool trio of Marlisa, Jenny, and Shaw who had fiddled with my sign and put up that yellow 'wet floor' sign outside my room; I'm a little embarrassed about assuming their guilt, as it happens, since in revenge I conducted a minor act of comedy retaliation. Nor, strangely, was it the crazy people, three witches, Franco-German alliance, call that trio what you will. No, it turns out that the Edwettes were responsible. The Edwettes, as I call them, are Hannah, Debs, and Moo, three of our undergrads who are inseparable except when Hannah and Debs are stilt dancing in 'Ascension' while Moo stays back in base; they've very pally with Eddie, hence their collective name.

In case you're wondering, I'm not going to tell you what Kitchen Tennis is just yet. That can wait. Like the Giant Rat of Sumatra, it is, as Sherlock Holmes noted to Doctor Watson at the outset of 'The Adventure of the Sussex Vampire', a story for which the world is not yet prepared.

Lewis's Lost Chapter from Herodotus

Yeah, so I've been out - drinks with the girls, it being Shaw's last night till January - and have been back here in the library, oddly enough, scouring through art books looking for pictures of famous statues. I'm making Christmas cards again. 32 Madonna and Child cards yesterday, and as of now an avalanche of snowmen at art galleries...

So far, only Erin, Holly, and both Pauls have specifically signalled that they would appreciate said cards. In theory, I could probably get away with only four cards this year. But no. I feel that some effort is required this Christmas, what with my abysmal showing last year - though to be fair I was slumped in a puddle of depression at the time. I may even be punctual.

Earlier today, Eddie was looking for a poem by G.K. Chesterton on a Christmas theme, but while I could certainly provide said poems by Gilbert, I felt they were not up to scratch. Something to do with that Wildean quotation about all bad poetry (or art?) springing from genuine emotion, I imagine. And Eddie wasn't comfortable with either the scansion or the odd rhyming schemes. Fortuitously I remembered a very good article by C.S. Lewis I'd read some years back, where he imagines Herodotus, the Greek historian/ethnographer and so-called 'father of history' commenting on our Christmas traditions. So Eddie will be reading that at our Christmas concert next week. Having tracked it down online, I thought it might be interesting to paste it in here.

***

XMAS AND CHRISTMAS - A Lost Chapter from Herodotus (1954)

C S Lewis

And beyond this there lies in the ocean, turned towards the west and north, the island of Niatirb which Hecataeus indeed declares to be the same size and shape as Sicily, but it is larger, though in calling it triangular a man would not miss the mark. It is densely inhabited by men who wear clothes not very different from the other barbarians who occupy the north western parts of Europe though they do not agree with them in language. These islanders, surpassing all the men of whom we know in patience and endurance, use the following customs.

In the middle of winter when fogs and rains most abound they have a great festival which they call Exmas and for fifty days they prepare for it in the fashion I shall describe. First of all, every citizen is obliged to send to each of his friends and relations a square piece of hard paper stamped with a picture, which in their speech is called an Exmas-card. But the pictures represent birds sitting on branches, or trees with a dark green prickly leaf, or else men in such garments as the Niatirbians believe that their ancestors wore two hundred years ago riding in coaches such as their ancestors used, or houses with snow on their roofs. And the Niatirbians are unwilling to say what these pictures have to do with the festival; guarding (as I suppose) some sacred mystery. And because all men must send these cards the marketplace is filled with the crowd of those buying them, so that there is great labour and weariness.

But having bought as many as they suppose to be sufficient, they return to their houses and find there the like cards which others have sent to them. And when they find cards from any to whom they also have sent cards, they throw them away and give thanks to the gods that this labour at least is over for another year. But when they find cards from-any to whom they have not sent, then they beat their breasts and wail and utter curses against the sender; and, having sufficiently lamented their misfortune, they put on their boots again and go out into the fog and rain and buy a card for him also. And let this account suffice about Exmas-cards.

They also send gifts to one another, suffering the same things about the gifts as about the cards, or even worse. For every citizen has to guess the value of the gift which every friend will send to him so that he may send one of equal value, whether he can afford it or not. And they buy as gifts for one another such things as no man ever bought for himself. For the sellers, understanding the custom, put forth all kinds of trumpery, and whatever, being useless and ridiculous, they have been unable to sell throughout the year they now sell as an Exmas gift. And though the Niatirbians profess themselves to lack sufficient necessary things, such as metal, leather, wood and paper, yet an incredible quantity of these things is wasted every year, being made into the gifts.

But during these fifty days the oldest, poorest, and most miserable of the citizens put on false beards and red robes and walk about the market-place; being disguised (in my opinion) as Cronos. And the sellers of gifts no less than the purchaser's become pale and weary, because of the crowds and the fog, so that any man who came into a Niatirbian city at this season would think some great public calamity had fallen on Niatirb. This fifty days of preparation is called in their barbarian speech the Exmas Rush.

But when the day of the festival comes, then most of the citizens, being exhausted with the Rush, lie in bed till noon. But in the evening they eat five times as much supper as on other days and, crowning themselves with crowns of paper, they become intoxicated. And on the day after Exmas they are very grave, being internally disordered by the supper and the drinking and reckoning how much they have spent on gifts and on the wine. For wine is so dear among the Niatirbians that a man must swallow the worth of a talent before he is well intoxicated.

Such, then, are their customs about the Exmas. But the few among the Niatirbians have also a festival, separate and to themselves, called Crissmas, which is on the same day as Exmas. And those who keep Crissmas, doing the opposite to the majority of the Niatirbians, rise early on that day with shining faces and go before sunrise to certain temples where they partake of a sacred feast. And in most of the temples they set out images of a fair woman with a new-born Child on her knees and certain animals and shepherds adoring the Child. ('The reason of these images is given in a certain sacred story which I know but do not repeat.)

But I myself conversed with a priest in one of these temples and asked him why they kept Crissmas on the same day as Exmas; for it appeared to me inconvenient. But the priest replied, "It is not lawful, O stranger, for us to change the date of Chrissmas, but would that Zeus would put it into the minds of the Niatirbians to keep Exmas at some other time or not to keep it at all. For Exmas and the Rush distract the minds even of the few from sacred things. And we indeed are glad that men should make merry at Crissmas; but in Exmas there is no merriment left." And when I asked him why they endured the Rush, he replied, "It is, O Stranger, a racket"; using (as I suppose) the words of some oracle and speaking unintelligibly to me (for a racket is an instrument which the barbarians use in a game called tennis).

But what Hecataeus says, that Exmas and Crissmas are the same, is not credible. For first, the pictures which are stamped on the Exmas-cards have nothing to do with the sacred story which the priests tell about Crissmas. And secondly, the most part of the Niatirbians, not believing the religion of the few, nevertheless send the gifts and cards and participate in the Rush and drink, wearing paper caps. But it is not likely that men, even being barbarians, should suffer so many and great things in honour of a god they do not believe in. And now, enough about Niatirb.

C S Lewis

***

Just before typing this up I returned from my library to my room to find the sign on my door turned upside down and a yellow plastic side outside announcing 'Wet Floor'. I think I can guess which trio of young ladies were responsible. I hope so anyway.

What goes around comes around.

Cyborgs and Ropey Statues

G.R.E.G.O.R.Y.D.A.L.Y.: General Replicant Engineered for Galactic Observation/Robotic Youth Designed for Assassination and Logical Yardwork. Such, apparently, is my cyborg name. Beulah sent me the address to this site a long time ago, and I just spotted the mail today for some reason. I thought it was quite clever, better than most of these things, anyway. Try it with your own names - I think Paul and Holly in particular will be quite impressed.

I find it gratifying to think that I was designed for assassination and logical yardwork. My former employers, however, would probably point out that my approach to yardwork was anything but logical.

Incidentally, and entirely unrelated to the last post, remember how a couple of weeks back I was commenting on a poster in the Fab Cafe, showing Doctor Who and a rather ropey statue? It looked far better on the book cover... well, I've tracked down that edition on the web, and it can be viewed at http://www.personal.leeds.ac.uk/~ecl6nb/OnTarget/1982/keeper/82keeper.htm. The one I had is the first one you see.

Assuming you read top to bottom.

When Boyhood's Fire Was In My Blood

Our wing party is winding down in the room next to me, James is defending communism in one corner of the room, and I'm absolutely knackered and ready for my bed. Before I go, though, I thought I'd stick up this e-mail, forwarded to my brother from a friend of his, and passed on to me. It amused me.

*********************************************************************************

The BBC are at it again - this time however they're asking everyone to vote for their favourite song of all time. So obviously we're going to try and mess it up for them. Go to the website and enter your details. In the boxes for Favourite song and Artist add the following

Artist : Wolfe Tones

Song : A Nation Once Again

Why : 800 years of oppression

P.S. And send it to everyone else you know.

*********************************************************************************

To put this in perspective, if you're not Irish.... nobody in their right mind would ever pick this song as their favourite ever. Somebody once said that they'd believe the Peace Process in the North was working when the Wolfe Tones decommisioned their instruments. Bertie Ahern, our glorious Taoiseach, or Prime Minister to those of you who lack the blood of the true Gael, once suggested that 'A Nation Once Again' would make a better, more appropriate, less divisive national anthem than 'Amhran na bhFiann'. Joe O'Connor ridicules this very concept in one of his books, pointing out that with just a few minor changes this is the kind of song that would have gone down a treat over the schnapps in 1930s Berlin.

Here are the lyrics, as written in the early nineteenth century by Thomas Davis:

When boyhood's fire was in my blood I read of ancient freemen

For Greece and Rome who bravely stood, three hundred men and three men

And then I prayed I yet might see our fetters rent in twain

And Ireland, long a province, be a nation once again!

A nation once again, a nation once again

And Ireland, long a province, be a nation once again!

And from that time, through wildest woe, that hope has shown a far light

Nor could love's brightest summer glow outshine that solemn starlight

It seemed to watch above my head In forum, field and fame

Its angel voice sang round my bed, a nation once again

A nation once again, a nation once again

And Ireland, long a province, be a nation once again!

It whisper'd too, that freedom's ark, and service high and holy

Would be profaned by feeling dark and passions vain or lowly

For, freedom comes from God's right hand, and needs a godly train

And righteous men must make our land a nation once again!

Mass For Beginners

Today's - well, yesterday's - sung mass was great. It was Latin again, but followed the new liturgy, so I wasn't totally lost. And the singing was beautiful.

Strangely, everybody who went to communion brought their bags with them. Marlisa asked me why this was, and I guessed that it was force of habit. A couple of minutes later my jaw dropped as I saw one fella returning to his seat, carrying a colossal bag, barely supported by one strap, a huge red and grey monstrosity straining to break from his shoulder, swinging to either side and threatening to hit the people nearby. He can't have been carrying that from force of habit. I hope.

While there I was reminded of a story Tony Curtis used to always tell whenever he was on the Late, Late Show back home. He used to be a regular guest at one point, a bit like Billy Connolly, I suppose. Apparently, when he was a child, in New York for argument's sake, a Catholic friend brought him to mass. I think Tony Curtis is (was? is he dead?) Jewish. In mass, T.C. simply imitated his friend, in an attempt to fit in. At one stage they were both kneeling, praying silently, or at least seeming to. The friend leaned over to T.C. and whispered reproachingly 'Did you fart?' T.C. paused. 'No,' he said. 'Was I supposed to?'

I think he told that story every time he was on the show.

In other news today, Shaw drew my attention to this article from today's Guardian. The thing that amazed me was the fact that Western European approval for the US has dropped so little over the last couple of years. I would have thought that Kiato, The ICC, steel tariffs, and everything else over the last year would have hit relations much harder.

Finally, a strange thought occured to me while chatting to Marlisa, Francesco, Oscar, Nabil, and Roberto this evening.

To wit, if you were stood up, would you be let down?

An Unexpectedly Old-Fashioned Mass

This morning I woke feeling somewhat tender, a sad consequence of last night's excesses. I wasn't too bad, though, thank God.

Back when I was eighteen, after Stephen Owens' s 21st party I was called into work without warning. I eventually dragged myself out of bed and up the road, pausing to decorate the grass verge once or twice en route, and made it to the Granite a good half-hour later than I should have. Joe, the head barman, was standing at the door, and on seeing me roared 'Young Daly! Where've you been till now?' As I neared him, green-faced and trembling, he grinned wickedly, and growled 'Oh. Out buying sickness with the rest of them!' Stephen spent most of that morning polishing one tiny patch of shelf, while I took a good hour to sort out just one bottle skip. That was a ten minute job. I was deeply unwell.

But I digress.

(Could that be a new challenge? Terms that indicate being hungover? Hungover, frail, tender, under the weather, not the best, unusual, shaky, wasted, dead, corpsed... I like it when people have 'big mouldy -pronounced 'mowldy' - heads on them... Germans apparently hear the 'wailing of cats' while a Swede would have 'workmen in his head'... let's hear some comments, people... it's kind of quiet in the margins! SHOUT OUT!)

Yeah, so, I was enfeebled, but alive. Barely. I moved table when the girl next to me began singing Beethoven's Ode to Joy in her irritatingly high pitched voice, substituting 'la' in for every syllable. After about twelve second of that I got up to get tea, and then plonked myself down in the far more sane, and indeed subdued, company of Shaw, Jenny, Chris, Marlisa, Dave, Eddie, Kyriaki, and Jeannine. I was not the most tender of our gathering.

Went into Argos in the morning. The shop, in Manchester's Arndale Centre, not the town, in the Peloponnese, which is a rather ramshackle spot, though in its defense it must be said that it has a good museum. The museum features a nifty hoplite panoply - a helmet and cuirass anyway - and a huge stone head out the back which both Josh and I photographed wearing our respective hats. When I was there they had a special exhibition on of finds from the nearby site of Lerna, famed in myth as the hangout of the Lernean Hydra. There Monica merrily stole my joke - and fair play, I've robbed plenty in my time - to ask someone leaving the exhibition 'Did ya Lerna lot?' Boom boom.

But as I was saying, went to Argos to buy a little shelf unit, which I assembled this evening. I wanted it since I've nowhere to store my food, since my multitudinous books take up all my shelf space. Hitherto I've simply done without food here, coping with tea and sugar, kept in the top of my wardrobe, but I've long planned on rectifying that. Tomorrow, I shall buy stuff.

Went to mass, for a change, this evening. Marlisa came along with me, since I thought she'd enjoy it. Masses in the Holy Name, the big church on Oxford Road, can be really nice, and I thought today's would be a sung one, since the eighth of December is a holy day, the feast of the Immaculate Conception. The eighth has traditionally been an important day for entirely secular reasons in Ireland, with people from the country, or Culchies, as we so fondly term them,* thronging into Dublin to do their Christmas shopping. Sadly, however, because the eighth has fallen on a Sunday this year, the feast day has been shifted to tomorrow instead. We'll probably still go, as the sung masses in the Holy Name are lovely.

But anyway, mass was deeply weird today. Sunday's four o'clock mass is a Latin mass, but I was prepared for that. What I was not prepared for was a Tridentine Mass.

The Tridentine mass is the old church mass, used continuously from the time of the Council of Trent in the Sixteenth Century up to the Second Vatican Council, forty years ago, more-or-less. I had never been at one before. I don't know if anywhere in Ireland uses the Tridentine order rather than the New Order of mass.

I could easily have coped with a New Order mass said in Latin - that would be like walking round my own house blindfolded. But this? Oh no. This was like being given the keys to a new house, and then having to walk round that blindfolded. Occasionally I'd recognise something at random, the theological equivalent of tripping over the coffee table, rubbing your shin, and going 'ahhh... the coffee table.'

The consecration was highly amusing. I realise that statement may sound somewhat blasphemous, but what the Hell. One deacon, or something, would lift up the back of the priest's surcoat every time the priest genuflected. And every time the priest genuflected, the church bell rang. While this was undoubtedly quite impressive, it did prompt Marlisa to wonder whether there was some sort of bell-ringing button by the altar that he pressed every time he bent his knee.

The sermon was a drab and fairly poorly written letter from Bishop T.J. Brain (I think) of Salford. As the priest ascended the pulpit to read it, he removed his biretta and started, out of habit, I guess, to sing. After about four words he checked himself and returned to normal speech.

Incidentally, while I know his hat was a biretta, I can't remember what the rest of the his get up was called, though the brief but technical http://www.geocities.com/Athens/Delphi/7911/tridentinemass.html told me. A good explanation of the Tridentine mass can be found on this site, though the guy who wrote it is clearly more than a tad reactionary. Finally, next time I go I'll be preparing by looking at this translation.

*Less fond terms include 'mullahs', 'rednecks', 'boghoppers', and 'mucksavages'.

The Travel Gods Keep Smiling

Amazingly, my return trip to Manchester, via Reading for a change, was entirely devoid of delays. Left Slough at 13:05, arrived in Reading at 13:20; left Reading at 13:35, arrived in Manchester at 16:57. I was sure that some sort of karma thing was about to kick in, causing me to get stranded in the middle of nowhere (though the train doesn't go anywhere near Longford) and not reach Manchester until about noon tomorrow. Presumably I have by this stage accumulated sufficient delay points in the eyes of the train gods to allow me a limited number of punctual journeys. If so, I am deeply grateful to the schedulers in the sky.

I had the good fortune to sit, by fluke, in the 'quiet' carriage, where mobile phones are banned. Unfortunately, behind me was a rather feral child, who kept kicking my seat, hitting me with his Buzz Lightyear toy, and yelling. Perhaps this was some form of cosmic justice, balancing out my disconcerting punctuality...

In other news, Liam has sent me a link to the following amusing and unlikely story. God knows how I missed it myself...

When the Travel Gods Smile

I'm in Slough again, deeply disorientated by today's journey. The train left Manchester on time. It arrived in London on time. I walked from Euston to Euston Square, and as I reached the platform the Hammersmith and City tube turned up on time. It reached Paddington without any delays, and when I walked into the main station I found that there was a train due to go to Slough in six minutes. This left on time, and arrived on time.

Three journeys. No delays.

I don't understand.

Speaking of improbably travel adventures, my nephews are in the next room watching Airplane. I first saw it when in school. Religion class as it so happens. However, that, as Doctor Watson would say, is a story for which the world is not yet ready.

Um, I'm going to be making my Christmas cards over the next few days. If you want one, leave a comment... and if you think I might not have your address, mail me or something.

Rosencrantz and Guildenstern might have been better off dead

Two years ago, when I was intermittently working at the Canadian excavations at Stymphalos in Greece, I wound up attending a performance of Aristophanes' classic anti-war play, The Acharnians. Unfortunately, I hadn't actually read the play at that point, and it was in modern Greek -- or at least pronounced in the modern Greek fashion, so I understood nothing. Nor did my friends. Josh, Andrea, Lisa, Crystal, Dana, John, and several others including myself sat clustered together high up in the theatre at Epidavros, staring in bemusement, frequently gesturing in confusion, and laughing in the wrong parts. Afterwards, I commented that it was like watching a Monty Python sketch in a foreign language, if it had been directed by Salvador Dali. I'll tell you all about it some other time, if you're good.

Anyway, I never imagined that I would someday have the same experience when watching an English play.

Last night was extraordinary. It was beyond all my expectations. 'Theatre of the Absurd' indeed... you have no idea.

I mentioned yesterday that last year's play, A Bird in the Hand, was by all accounts abysmal. Among other oddities, it featured, I am told, one character who was unaccountably covered in glitter for the duration of the show. To this day, nobody knows why. Marlisa, who attended that show, was somewhat anxious that this year's display might not remotely rival that mess. She need not have worried. Brace yourselves . . .

Of the two main characters in Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead, Guildenstern tends to be the wordier, having longer speeches, questioning the meaning of things; Rosencratz, on the other hand, is simpler, earthier, more concerned with the here and now. This is not always the case, as at times the characters are virtually interchangeable, but it works as a general rule of thumb.

It was inconvenient then, that I could hardly understand a word Guildenstern said. He had an impenetrable Geordie accent, tended to splutter, and spoke incredibly fast. Now, I speak fast, as you know, but at least I make a brave effort to separate the words. Guildenstern made no such attempts, so that whenever he spoke, which was often, all that would be emitted were strange machine gun-like bursts of Geordie, loud and incomprehensible splutterings of northern saliva.

To give an example, take a look at the following passage, where coins have been flipped, turning up heads on eighty-nine occasions in a row. After the eighty-ninth flip, Guildenstern wonders how this could happen:

"List of possible explanations. One: I'm willing it. Inside where nothing shows, I am the essence of a man spinning double-headed coins, and betting against himself in private atonement for an unremembered past. Two: time has stopped dead, and the single experience of one coin being spun once has been repeated ninety-times. On the whole, doubtful. Three: divine intervention. Four: a spectacular vindication of the principle that each individual coin spun individually is as likely to come down heads as tails and therefore should cause no surprise each individual time it does."

Now, I count ninety-four words there. I may be off, slightly, but that's about right. Guess how many I could distinguish when they were (spl)uttered last night?

Two.

'Divine intervention.'

I make that less than 3 per cent of the whole thing. Granted, that was a particularly puzzling passage, but even so, I doubt he made it above a comprehensibility ratio of 15 per cent over the course of the play. What made this particularly bizarre was that the girl playing Rosencrantz was fine, or at any rate I could understand her. I don't ask for much really. So what would generally happen was that Guildenstern would splutter away for a minute or two, and the Rosencrantz would reply with a clear, pointed, one-liner. Than Guildenstern would go off again. . . with barely a word being distinguishable.

To say I was mystified would be putting it mildly. Marlisa constantly had to turn away from me, or to shield her eyes so that they did not inadvertently alight on my dumbfounded face. Every time Guildenstern spoke I leaned slightly forward; sometimes my eyes narrowed and my head tilted in a futile effort to catch some semblance of Guildenstern's meaning; other times my eyes simply widened, my jaw dropped, and my hands spread in a blatant state of hopeless perplexity. My mixture of horror and confusion had her on the edge of laughter for the duration of the play, and she constantly had to nudge me so I adopted a more seemly countenance.

Guildenstern, for the record, was played by the same guy who played the lead in a Bird in the Hand last year. Sadly, Marlisa can't remember how he sounded, but, I'm told, he was distinctive by having just one facial expression, a perpetual sneer of some sort. Shaw remarked at the interval that, although it sounded really nasty to say this, the guy playing Guildenstern had the same face as the guy who haunted her childhood nightmares.

A bit of a breather...

The interval was fun, it must be said. We resisted the temptation to run away - to be fair, I was enjoying the weirdness too much, and in any case, I don't think our warden would have been happy had all five of her postgrads in the audience all scarpered at half-time. She knew we were there. When we arrived, we were announced to the two wardens, who would then shake our hands... ' Miss Hubbard!.... Miss Cartwright!.... Miss Ross!.... Mr Daly!....and so forth.'

No, the interval was spent munching sandwiches and drinking wine, while laughing at the photos of the boys in the hallway - our brother hall, as you might expect, is an all-male hall. Aside from the fact that it appears that the boys must get through a vast quantity of hair gel - I felt decidedly undergroomed -- many of them have highly entertaining names. Mr Drinkall... Mr Drysdale... Mr Coxhead. Need I say more?

Before returning to the play, Shaw and I explained the plot of Hamlet, so that Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead might be slightly more comprehensible to the others. In case you don't know, Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are just about the two least significant characters in Hamlet, and R&GaD takes place in the margins of that play, with the action occasionally intersecting with episodes from the source play.

The explanation given by Shaw and me was quite entertaining, I think, and must have come across as something from 'The Reduced Shakespeare Company,' with each of us completing the other's sentences, adding in quirky references, surprising ourselves my how much we remembered, and being mutually nonchalant when our memories failed us. I'm not entirely sure that it helped the others, though.

Having resisted temptation...

The second half began with us trying to keep straight faces. Not a hope. The minute Guildenstern opened his mouth it was all I could do to stifle the paroxysms of laughter than threatened to overwhelm me. I was shaking with mirth, keeping my mouth shut the whole time, and occasionally failing to control the snorts from my nose. Jenny, two seats along, held her programme over her face to conceal the tears that were running down her cheeks. She had the added disadvantage of being able to see the guys working the lights constantly holding up cards with hastily scrawled words on them in a desperate attempt to prompt the leads.

Making our situation, and indeed, behaviour, worse, was the fact that the lads who'd been sitting in front of us during the first half had all done a runner, so that we were in plain sight of the cast. And we'd gone to so much trouble, sitting in the back row over at the edge.

(The back row is the only place to sit when you have a bad feeling about plays. Alison, Georgia, Claire, Daron, and I once saw a spectacularly bad version of King Oedipus in UCD, where we were all very grateful that we were seated well away from the stage. Especially when all five of us were quaking with silent laughter. I had to take my glasses off that time, so I couldn't see the stage. I'm not sure what caused me to crack that time... was it the dubious bandage Oedipus wore over his gouged-out eyes....or the rather busty messenger falling onto the stage.... or the shepherd with crutches and a broken leg?)

During the second half the American girl playing Hamlet was far more prominent that earlier on - Shaw reckoned she was drunk, since she was slurring so much - and indeed, at one point I heard what sounded like a beer can being dropped backstage, but I half-suspect that she'd been taking acting lessons from Guildenstern. Whenever she spoke it seemed as though the stage was being filled with a fine mist. There's a bit where Hamlet says that Rosencrantz is like a sponge 'that soaks up the King's countenance, his rewards, his authorities... when he needs what you have glean'd, it is but squeezing you and, sponge, you shall be dry again.' By the end of that I bet that poor Guildenstern was wishing for a sponge to mop the spittle off herself.

The Player King definitely had the privilege of creating the second half's most memorable moment, revealing himself on the ship to England by leaping up and declaring 'Ah Ha!' Not, in the traditional manner, I must point out. No. Think Alan Partridge.

As for the rest of the cast? 

The director played Polonius, and was clearly inspired by every Hammer Horror 'Igor' that has been committed to film... 

Ophelia and Horatio were played by the same person, who was fine in that small part (there are no small parts - only small actors - blahblahblah)...

Gertrude was nicely unobtrusive, a good thing compared to some of the others... 

And the King? Ah, Claudius was definitely a real find. This smiling damned villain was wan and insipid, almost zombified in appearance. His speech was a thin and reedy upper-class English accent, punctuated with countless pauses, each one located with a truly Shatnerian randomness.

I quite liked the guy playing Alfred, one of the tragedians... definitely the play's unsung hero.

I should stop now. Who am I to take the piss out of this? I'd never have the nerve to do it myself. Fair play to them for having the balls to do it.

(Except for Guildenstern, who has apparently been in thirty-five plays, and doesn't feel complete without a script on his desk. By this point he should have realised how crap he is. Plonker.)