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
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