There's an American who has been mentioned once or twice around here in times begone. He went by the name of Hugh Everett with an III to go with it. A brilliant mind, his many-worlds intrepration of quantum physics remains a player in the pursuit of the ultimate in knowledge - a unified theory of everything.
Who gives a fuck i hear some ask, and you may be correct, but as a morbid byline to a future movie, Hugh left instructions that his ashes be pegged out with the trash - after his demise. That demise came early in life - a victim to a lifestyle that required no thought into what one might do to their own body via the excesses of life.
A few years after his death, his wife, herself a somewhat tragic figure, duly obliged, and Hugh was pegged out, his final wish no longer obliged on her or anyone else.
As it should be.
You might imagine the surprise when a small little padded envelope arrived in the door about a year ago. A Joe Lumley, Solicitor, business card and a small, clear, zip-locked plastic pouch with what looked like dust inside. On the back of the card a few words -
Your bit of Larry. Do as you will.
I like that.
Joe.
It took me a few days to get to the bottom of it. I couldn't make contact with Joe myself, but he had left word with his secretary to say that science had finished with Larry, what was left was to be distributed among named beneficiaries and I happened to be one of them.
'We get weirdos a lot,' she said over the phone.
Several months passed and what was left of Larry was itself gathering dust. I tried to think what he might have wanted done with his last remnants. He was a loner once politics rejected him, so throwing him to the wind seemed like a cop-out. He'd have appreciated a Big Lebowski moment, but living miles from the sea, counties from a cliff, and a continent away from such a soulful evening in that scene that gives a certain clarity too - perhaps - ones own odyssey on this blue, soon to be blazing sphere, fizzing through mostly empty space at a phenomenal rate of speed.
Perhaps many spheres, hey Hugh?
'Smoke him,' my foreign neighbour suggested, blowing leaves into my yard, not a care in the world. Not sure if he was serious or not. Humour gets lost in translation sometimes.
And no, we didn't!
I finally decided what to do with my ounce and a half of what's left of Larry. I'll tend to that soon. Maybe after the rain.
Things are kind of slow round here with secret dealings being done in the corridors of power so that vested interests can take the scalp of national ones for a little longer. Doesn't seem right somehow, it being 2016 and all. Not sure how anyone else feels about being Irish, but I sense we have lost our way.
Think i'll bury Larry's absurd play in a desolate place, along with what's left of his matter. I wonder what the other beneficiaries did with their dustings?
The Ashes of Larry Mulligan. I can see it now. Up there in cobalt neon, somewhere in Dublin.
Who knows, if i vacuum pack it, then triple-wrap it in heavy-duty industrial plastic, encase it in a water-tight thingy and bury it deep enough, it might be found by another generation of wanderers who might be able to bring ol' Larry back to life. I should put a coin in too. While they're still tender. And a nail. For devilment. You know, for the metal detector enthusiasts of tomorrow. At the very least they might perform Larry's play in some far off cave in the future. Hovering around some cosmic energy source lost for centuries within the Vatican vaults.
For the last time, the typo-laden, predicatively naive, one act 'play' by Larry Mulligan.
Bailout - A Short Play
Showing posts with label Booker's World. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Booker's World. Show all posts
Tuesday, March 22, 2016
Wednesday, November 14, 2012
Don Bookered. Parting FAQ.
So, it has been a while. Not long enough, I hear some say.
In response to a 'Where's Don Booker gone?' question that's been asked in recent weeks, it's with regret I inform that the character has relieved himself of his duties and gone deeper into Ireland to pursue other avenues.
Will he be back?
Nope. His time at The Writing Life and Other Absurdities is over. Though, a follow up of Booker's World will be available sometime next year. Or the year after.
He may also turn up in unexpected places from time to time.
Why now?
As the old adage goes, 'It's as bad a time as any.'
Where's he gone?
Spare, I've heard mentioned.
What now for the blog?
A return to something that does more justice to its title.
When?
In the coming weeks and months.
I'll miss reading his bullshit?
http://fbooker.blogspot.ie/p/bookers-world-ebook-series-2009.html
Final Muse?
He came. He saw. He ran.
In response to a 'Where's Don Booker gone?' question that's been asked in recent weeks, it's with regret I inform that the character has relieved himself of his duties and gone deeper into Ireland to pursue other avenues.
Will he be back?
Nope. His time at The Writing Life and Other Absurdities is over. Though, a follow up of Booker's World will be available sometime next year. Or the year after.
He may also turn up in unexpected places from time to time.
Why now?
As the old adage goes, 'It's as bad a time as any.'
Where's he gone?
Spare, I've heard mentioned.
What now for the blog?
A return to something that does more justice to its title.
When?
In the coming weeks and months.
I'll miss reading his bullshit?
http://fbooker.blogspot.ie/p/bookers-world-ebook-series-2009.html
Final Muse?
He came. He saw. He ran.
Sunday, September 23, 2012
Shocks
'What you think?' Gus asked as we stepped out of Linda's car. The cold morning stung like the government. Attempts to wean residue from my eyes only made matters worse. Before I could answer, I was off. One, two ............. seven.
'Better than sex,' Leon used to say when ever he sneezed. I never got that. Not the sex! The comparison.
'God bless you,' Linda said. I wish He'd hurry on sometimes.
The morning had barely turned nine. I'd already been in the car for what seemed like an eternity. The sun began to paste the trees a sad orange as it rose. It didn't do much for my eyes either.
Ahchooooooooo.
Aftershocks!
'I think you have cold in your head,' Gus said. It was looking like it. More and more I've been waking up like an old tractor. Starved of oil. Coughing and spluttering - crying to be fed. Smokey. Rusty, tired and worn.
'No shit, Einstein,' I said back. Gus didn't know what I meant.
'Come on,' Linda said. 'We'll show you around.'
She slipped her hand around Gus' elbow and they began to walk toward the door of the house that stood no more than ten-feet away. I cleared my nose. My throat hurt as I attempted to go higher - into my head. See could I clear it a little. I must be coming down with something. That green belongs on the wall of some swish contemporary apartment with an nice red abstract contorting itself across the surface.
I began to follow them.
Word of this early morning nuisance had reached me the day before. Gus doesn't really ask. His way of asking comes across as telling. Like he's doing someone a favour by interrupting the lack in their lives. I wasn't even sure why I had been asked to come along. They don't need a chaperon.
They reached the door. Linda bent down and took a key from beneath a Mat outside the door. She opened the door. Good job the house was a little remote.
'So, what you think?' Gus asked again. Give us a chance Gus. Books and covers and all that.
'Looks (struggling for a word) big,' I said.
It was big. Five bedroom dormer bungalow at the end of a quite cul-de-sac in wooded surroundings. Dining roon, reception room and a Gordon Ramsey kitchen. Conservatory and large decked area. Office. Upstairs and downstairs relief quarters. All rooms en-suite. Mature gardens.
They were mature. Sort of grown up around the place. The house, cold and empty - like the heart of a government minister. Abandoned almost. Apart from the three of us and a distant wood pigeon there was little sign of life.
'I'm thinking of buying it,' Linda said. 'Needs a bit of work, but it's going cheap.' She didn't part with a sum. I didn't ask.
'You could do worse,' I said, starting to imagine it lived in. It definitely had potential. Lots of potential. Bit big for two, though.
We went outside and out around the back. Large garden leading down to a wood. The grass was long and wet so we stayed close to the house. At the bottom of the garden lay the shell of an old house. It looked a hundred years old. It must have been the old dwelling before it got its modern makeover.
'You smell that,' Gus said, breathing in. 'Peace.'
Linda laughed. So i joined in.
'Is it not a bad time to be buying?' I asked. Apparently not. Linda had bought her own house before Ireland thought it was Manhattan for a while. She told me that she could sell her own, buy this place, and hopefully have enough leftover to do this new place up. Sounded like a good plan.
'If I don't do it now, I never will,' she said. I'd heard property in Spain and Greece was going cheap. Had climate not figured in her plans? Or does this climate not bother everyone?
'Don...' she said - looking at Gus, who seemed excited. 'Would you think about moving out here with us - if it all goes to plan.'
'Maybe rest you need is a change,' he added. His enthusiasm waned when i didn't answer. A hundred thoughts going through my head trying to seek an answer that might buy me some time and not kill off this unlikely friendship. Were they taking pity on me? Or after my rent?
'Well have a think about it,' Linda said. 'There's nothing solid yet - no rush.' She beckoned us back to the car.
'Yep, that's best,' I said. 'There's lots to think about.'
The drive back to town was quite. I figured it hadn't quite worked out the way they had planned. But how could they expect an answer, right there, on the spot. This is a life-changing decision. Moving so far away.
Twenty minutes later Linda had us dropped off. Gus yawned.
'I better get eye-shut,' he said. 'I have work tonight.'
'Might grab forty myself,' I said. He scooted off into his own house. I stood outside mine. Looking at it. Over 40 years written in her walls. In grime. Never painted. I could do with cutting the grass myself.
Bed is usually a good place to avoid having to think about stuff. Not this time. I've been sleeping with the enemy lately and the enemy has been keen on keeping me awake. Nights are long in the dark. In that silence. Writing might help. I used to be one. Back in the day.
It only usually happens once a year. For a week - give or take a few days. It's been a month now. Not quite insomnia-tic in nature, but not too far off it.
Ever get those jumps? An excited nerve ending - reacting to something - while you sleep? Or when something or other made the veins jump randomly. I put into down to posture.
'Nah. You're on the way out,' as Leon used to say.
These jumps though, they're like a lightening bolt. Usually happens in that micro-second - the one you take between the cross over from the waking to the dead - of night - of course. Bang. From Brain to foot and back again. Too quick to know for sure. It's usually enough to keep me up for the rest of the night.
It's funny the things you notice when you're wide awake in the black dark. The attic window gives much away. A kinda moving picture frame. Big. Live. Slow.
Take last night. I'd just got a jolt and up I sat.
'Jaysus, thought I was gone there,' I thought to myself - swallowing water like I'd rambled in from the desert. I lay back down, my back perched high on the pillow. Uncomfortable - like Eamon Gilmore. I wasn't risking another one of those shocks.
I didn't do much night-sky watching in my time. The odd glance up maybe - after they expelled smokers from pubs. Walking home from hovels with Leon now and again. No - maybe not. That time was usually spent following our feet with our eyes. Wondering why they wanted to wander off - following them, hoping something was still functioning that may get us home.
I watched it last night. As the sky above moved around. Or should that be the universe? Or is it us? You don't really notice it moving. I mean who watches the night skies for hours on end in unemployed Ireland? I got up and opened the window and peeked out. I don't know much about what I'm looking at - Big Dipper I think they call it. Taking up the right side of my view - along with the rest I could never name. Orion - half in view to my left. It's belt open. Another few million stars keeping him company. Planets out there too somewhere. Pulsars. And big black holes.
They reckon there are as many planets out there as there are grains of sand on a beach. Always wondered what beach?
Still, if you think about, that would mean an infinite amount of planets for every single human on this planet at the moment. And for non-humans too!
Assuming of course all those billions are vacant. And resource rich - can't forget the resources. We'd need a reason to, em, take care of it. Couldn't imagine us invading them. Could you?
Pity we don't think about it that way sometimes. The size of it all - the potential in it all. How we could trade - not on rare commodities, but on abundant spheres, and minds that wander and wonder like a child becoming conscious of everything for the very first time. Each discovery made- a derivitive to be traded. Freely. Too further knowledge. Longevity. Perhaps, even form.
The tempeture soon had me running back between the sheets. I think it's time to get out the extra blanket. Must be just above freezing out there. The grass is still green. For now. Anyway.
Perhaps it is time for a change of scene. Still the same sky out there! But little worse than that record, you know, that worn one. That lie in attics.
Elsewhere.
'Better than sex,' Leon used to say when ever he sneezed. I never got that. Not the sex! The comparison.
'God bless you,' Linda said. I wish He'd hurry on sometimes.
The morning had barely turned nine. I'd already been in the car for what seemed like an eternity. The sun began to paste the trees a sad orange as it rose. It didn't do much for my eyes either.
Ahchooooooooo.
Aftershocks!
'I think you have cold in your head,' Gus said. It was looking like it. More and more I've been waking up like an old tractor. Starved of oil. Coughing and spluttering - crying to be fed. Smokey. Rusty, tired and worn.
'No shit, Einstein,' I said back. Gus didn't know what I meant.
'Come on,' Linda said. 'We'll show you around.'
She slipped her hand around Gus' elbow and they began to walk toward the door of the house that stood no more than ten-feet away. I cleared my nose. My throat hurt as I attempted to go higher - into my head. See could I clear it a little. I must be coming down with something. That green belongs on the wall of some swish contemporary apartment with an nice red abstract contorting itself across the surface.
I began to follow them.
Word of this early morning nuisance had reached me the day before. Gus doesn't really ask. His way of asking comes across as telling. Like he's doing someone a favour by interrupting the lack in their lives. I wasn't even sure why I had been asked to come along. They don't need a chaperon.
They reached the door. Linda bent down and took a key from beneath a Mat outside the door. She opened the door. Good job the house was a little remote.
'So, what you think?' Gus asked again. Give us a chance Gus. Books and covers and all that.
'Looks (struggling for a word) big,' I said.
It was big. Five bedroom dormer bungalow at the end of a quite cul-de-sac in wooded surroundings. Dining roon, reception room and a Gordon Ramsey kitchen. Conservatory and large decked area. Office. Upstairs and downstairs relief quarters. All rooms en-suite. Mature gardens.
They were mature. Sort of grown up around the place. The house, cold and empty - like the heart of a government minister. Abandoned almost. Apart from the three of us and a distant wood pigeon there was little sign of life.
'I'm thinking of buying it,' Linda said. 'Needs a bit of work, but it's going cheap.' She didn't part with a sum. I didn't ask.
'You could do worse,' I said, starting to imagine it lived in. It definitely had potential. Lots of potential. Bit big for two, though.
We went outside and out around the back. Large garden leading down to a wood. The grass was long and wet so we stayed close to the house. At the bottom of the garden lay the shell of an old house. It looked a hundred years old. It must have been the old dwelling before it got its modern makeover.
'You smell that,' Gus said, breathing in. 'Peace.'
Linda laughed. So i joined in.
'Is it not a bad time to be buying?' I asked. Apparently not. Linda had bought her own house before Ireland thought it was Manhattan for a while. She told me that she could sell her own, buy this place, and hopefully have enough leftover to do this new place up. Sounded like a good plan.
'If I don't do it now, I never will,' she said. I'd heard property in Spain and Greece was going cheap. Had climate not figured in her plans? Or does this climate not bother everyone?
'Don...' she said - looking at Gus, who seemed excited. 'Would you think about moving out here with us - if it all goes to plan.'
'Maybe rest you need is a change,' he added. His enthusiasm waned when i didn't answer. A hundred thoughts going through my head trying to seek an answer that might buy me some time and not kill off this unlikely friendship. Were they taking pity on me? Or after my rent?
'Well have a think about it,' Linda said. 'There's nothing solid yet - no rush.' She beckoned us back to the car.
'Yep, that's best,' I said. 'There's lots to think about.'
The drive back to town was quite. I figured it hadn't quite worked out the way they had planned. But how could they expect an answer, right there, on the spot. This is a life-changing decision. Moving so far away.
Twenty minutes later Linda had us dropped off. Gus yawned.
'I better get eye-shut,' he said. 'I have work tonight.'
'Might grab forty myself,' I said. He scooted off into his own house. I stood outside mine. Looking at it. Over 40 years written in her walls. In grime. Never painted. I could do with cutting the grass myself.
Bed is usually a good place to avoid having to think about stuff. Not this time. I've been sleeping with the enemy lately and the enemy has been keen on keeping me awake. Nights are long in the dark. In that silence. Writing might help. I used to be one. Back in the day.
It only usually happens once a year. For a week - give or take a few days. It's been a month now. Not quite insomnia-tic in nature, but not too far off it.
Ever get those jumps? An excited nerve ending - reacting to something - while you sleep? Or when something or other made the veins jump randomly. I put into down to posture.
'Nah. You're on the way out,' as Leon used to say.
These jumps though, they're like a lightening bolt. Usually happens in that micro-second - the one you take between the cross over from the waking to the dead - of night - of course. Bang. From Brain to foot and back again. Too quick to know for sure. It's usually enough to keep me up for the rest of the night.
It's funny the things you notice when you're wide awake in the black dark. The attic window gives much away. A kinda moving picture frame. Big. Live. Slow.
Take last night. I'd just got a jolt and up I sat.
'Jaysus, thought I was gone there,' I thought to myself - swallowing water like I'd rambled in from the desert. I lay back down, my back perched high on the pillow. Uncomfortable - like Eamon Gilmore. I wasn't risking another one of those shocks.
I didn't do much night-sky watching in my time. The odd glance up maybe - after they expelled smokers from pubs. Walking home from hovels with Leon now and again. No - maybe not. That time was usually spent following our feet with our eyes. Wondering why they wanted to wander off - following them, hoping something was still functioning that may get us home.
I watched it last night. As the sky above moved around. Or should that be the universe? Or is it us? You don't really notice it moving. I mean who watches the night skies for hours on end in unemployed Ireland? I got up and opened the window and peeked out. I don't know much about what I'm looking at - Big Dipper I think they call it. Taking up the right side of my view - along with the rest I could never name. Orion - half in view to my left. It's belt open. Another few million stars keeping him company. Planets out there too somewhere. Pulsars. And big black holes.
They reckon there are as many planets out there as there are grains of sand on a beach. Always wondered what beach?
Still, if you think about, that would mean an infinite amount of planets for every single human on this planet at the moment. And for non-humans too!
Assuming of course all those billions are vacant. And resource rich - can't forget the resources. We'd need a reason to, em, take care of it. Couldn't imagine us invading them. Could you?
Pity we don't think about it that way sometimes. The size of it all - the potential in it all. How we could trade - not on rare commodities, but on abundant spheres, and minds that wander and wonder like a child becoming conscious of everything for the very first time. Each discovery made- a derivitive to be traded. Freely. Too further knowledge. Longevity. Perhaps, even form.
The tempeture soon had me running back between the sheets. I think it's time to get out the extra blanket. Must be just above freezing out there. The grass is still green. For now. Anyway.
Perhaps it is time for a change of scene. Still the same sky out there! But little worse than that record, you know, that worn one. That lie in attics.
Elsewhere.
Sunday, September 9, 2012
Hurl
'Sit yourself down there and watch real men play sport,' I muttered to Gustav, a rare cultural superiority causing me, at an atomic level, to pulse. Slightly.
'Fastest game in the known universe,' I said as we sat down. Cheap beer. Orange colored can. Sounds foreign.
'What are those in hands?' he asked. I went on to explain what they were, what the players could do with them and told Gus that in a few hours time, one set of them would be the Hurling champions of the world.
'But it is only in Ireland you play?' he said.
'Well yes. Professionally anyways,' I said. 'But - without pay.'
'I not understand this country sometimes,' he said as a posse of people invaded the hallowed turf of Croke Park. Hallowed everywhere, it would seem!
You and me both, Gus!
What was this? The posse stretched themselves out into flags of welcome. A cry to the Irish masses who find themselves abroad. From RTÉ.
Come back we call. Next year. For a time. Too dwell. Too spend.
The Gathering.
By all means come. We are a land of a thousand welcomes. Run ragged through the ages, the melancholy hides in the rain for those that remained. Too squabble. Too drink. Too play...
'Why he hit his friend with stick?' Gustav asked.
'It's a Hurley,' I said.
'Yeah. Hurley.'
'He's G-ing him up,' I said. 'Getting ready for battle.'
'I think I like this sport,' Gus said leaning forward. Lips drying up.
'What's it name again?'
The roar went out from within the cauldron and could be heard in every door throughout the land such was its might.
OK, that's drivel. But it did go up and it does carry. Impressive also.
I wish I'd surround sound.
Just an hour an a half later and both of us were exhausted. Gus' hair whipped east and west. I didn't bother pulling at mine. He's opted for the Tribesmen - because he 'don't like cats.'
For a time it looked like he'd picked a winner. Galway, the men from the West - the provincial champions of Leinster - looked like they were picking up again from that Leinster final day when they whipped the cream from the Kilkenny whisker in a ten-point mauling. It's not often it happens, but it did force the Black Cats to think that perhaps, this year, they might not have things all their own way.
But the Cats are a strange bunch. Instead of bickering and analysing everything, they closed their training camps to the public and held their enquiries behind closed door, before demonstrating the look of the Kilkenny of old in an successful, but unexpected, detour through the playoffs.
It's rumoured throughout the island that Cats are born with a Hurl in hand. They have won five of the previous six All-Ireland finals. 33 in all. Star man of an age, Henry Shefflin, stood on the threshold of becoming the first Irishman to hold nine All-Ireland winning medals won from the field of play.
But at half-time it looked like Galway were on to something as they left the pitch with a healthy five-point lead. It looked like the Tribesmen could bring the Liam McCarthy cup back across the Shannon for the first time in 24 years.
In the end, Shefflin came within seconds of his place in history, before Galway's Joe Canning slotted over a free, having just missed one from a similar range the minute before. A sighing Shefflin at the final whistle was left reflecting on a thunderous personal performance - but one that could have been that little more, perhaps enough to have seen his kittens over the line.
Trading scores with Joe Canning for much of the match, both players ended up scoring twelves points each. Canning, in his first final, scored 1-9. Shefflin's scored an even dozen points.The same number of Leinster titles he holds as it happens.
Shefflin looked to set his own personal bar early on with a goal attempt from a close-range free - only to see it saved. When faced (twice) with similar situations in the second half, he opted for points. But when Kilkenny were awarded a late penalty, Shefflin once again assumed the leadership role - and opted for a point instead of going for goal, despite having hit the net on four occasions in previous All-Ireland finals.
'So what happen now?' Gus said at the end.
Converted or what?!
He was none too happy when I told him there was to be no extra-time. Cashing-in and all that.
'I think this game is well for 3-D,' he said. 'It be awesomeness. That how you say?'
Sure is, Gus - and what an idea! We should grab ourselves some suits and BS our way into RTé. An unemployed writer and a foreigner. In to save the day at the cash-strapped cash cow. Selling Hurling to the world - through green tinted glasses. Few pints of the black stuff and away with ye. Might be interesting on whiskey too. Get the NFL involved. Keep all our athletes in good jobs. Ones that pay a little.
'So, did you play this game?' Gus asked, as I flicked the TV off.
'Nope,' I conceded. 'Far too windy.'
Have a think about that my foreign buddy. I heard him mutter 'ah, the weather' as I went to relive myself. That supermarket stuff doesn't half run through ye.
He left a few hour ago. Human contact done for another week. Opens a writing window.
'I walk Linda from work home,' he said.
Sap!
Clouds closing in. Hope he doesn't get wet.
Yesterday was a Vitamin-D stockin'-up day. Make hay while the sun shines - or something like that. Glad the weeks done with. A chance to put behind one of those cage rattlers that pass through us all from time to time. Just to let us now how fragile most things are. To remind us to take it all in whist we can.
I don't like weeks like that. Weeks that make you think. Weeks that don't make sense. That kinda pull people about a little. Giving folk a little shake.
Too remind of whatever, wanted or 'wise.
*************
The ramblings here are three-years old this week, so great to see the blog shortlisted in the categories of Personal, Pop Culture and Humor blogs this week in the Blog Awards Ireland.
Booker's World will be free to download tomorrow, Tuesday and Wednesday at this link.
'Fastest game in the known universe,' I said as we sat down. Cheap beer. Orange colored can. Sounds foreign.
'What are those in hands?' he asked. I went on to explain what they were, what the players could do with them and told Gus that in a few hours time, one set of them would be the Hurling champions of the world.
'But it is only in Ireland you play?' he said.
'Well yes. Professionally anyways,' I said. 'But - without pay.'
'I not understand this country sometimes,' he said as a posse of people invaded the hallowed turf of Croke Park. Hallowed everywhere, it would seem!
You and me both, Gus!
What was this? The posse stretched themselves out into flags of welcome. A cry to the Irish masses who find themselves abroad. From RTÉ.
Come back we call. Next year. For a time. Too dwell. Too spend.
The Gathering.
By all means come. We are a land of a thousand welcomes. Run ragged through the ages, the melancholy hides in the rain for those that remained. Too squabble. Too drink. Too play...
'Why he hit his friend with stick?' Gustav asked.
'It's a Hurley,' I said.
'Yeah. Hurley.'
'He's G-ing him up,' I said. 'Getting ready for battle.'
'I think I like this sport,' Gus said leaning forward. Lips drying up.
'What's it name again?'
The roar went out from within the cauldron and could be heard in every door throughout the land such was its might.
OK, that's drivel. But it did go up and it does carry. Impressive also.
I wish I'd surround sound.
Just an hour an a half later and both of us were exhausted. Gus' hair whipped east and west. I didn't bother pulling at mine. He's opted for the Tribesmen - because he 'don't like cats.'
For a time it looked like he'd picked a winner. Galway, the men from the West - the provincial champions of Leinster - looked like they were picking up again from that Leinster final day when they whipped the cream from the Kilkenny whisker in a ten-point mauling. It's not often it happens, but it did force the Black Cats to think that perhaps, this year, they might not have things all their own way.
But the Cats are a strange bunch. Instead of bickering and analysing everything, they closed their training camps to the public and held their enquiries behind closed door, before demonstrating the look of the Kilkenny of old in an successful, but unexpected, detour through the playoffs.
It's rumoured throughout the island that Cats are born with a Hurl in hand. They have won five of the previous six All-Ireland finals. 33 in all. Star man of an age, Henry Shefflin, stood on the threshold of becoming the first Irishman to hold nine All-Ireland winning medals won from the field of play.
But at half-time it looked like Galway were on to something as they left the pitch with a healthy five-point lead. It looked like the Tribesmen could bring the Liam McCarthy cup back across the Shannon for the first time in 24 years.
In the end, Shefflin came within seconds of his place in history, before Galway's Joe Canning slotted over a free, having just missed one from a similar range the minute before. A sighing Shefflin at the final whistle was left reflecting on a thunderous personal performance - but one that could have been that little more, perhaps enough to have seen his kittens over the line.
Trading scores with Joe Canning for much of the match, both players ended up scoring twelves points each. Canning, in his first final, scored 1-9. Shefflin's scored an even dozen points.The same number of Leinster titles he holds as it happens.
Shefflin looked to set his own personal bar early on with a goal attempt from a close-range free - only to see it saved. When faced (twice) with similar situations in the second half, he opted for points. But when Kilkenny were awarded a late penalty, Shefflin once again assumed the leadership role - and opted for a point instead of going for goal, despite having hit the net on four occasions in previous All-Ireland finals.
'So what happen now?' Gus said at the end.
Converted or what?!
He was none too happy when I told him there was to be no extra-time. Cashing-in and all that.
'I think this game is well for 3-D,' he said. 'It be awesomeness. That how you say?'
Sure is, Gus - and what an idea! We should grab ourselves some suits and BS our way into RTé. An unemployed writer and a foreigner. In to save the day at the cash-strapped cash cow. Selling Hurling to the world - through green tinted glasses. Few pints of the black stuff and away with ye. Might be interesting on whiskey too. Get the NFL involved. Keep all our athletes in good jobs. Ones that pay a little.
'So, did you play this game?' Gus asked, as I flicked the TV off.
'Nope,' I conceded. 'Far too windy.'
Have a think about that my foreign buddy. I heard him mutter 'ah, the weather' as I went to relive myself. That supermarket stuff doesn't half run through ye.
He left a few hour ago. Human contact done for another week. Opens a writing window.
'I walk Linda from work home,' he said.
Sap!
Clouds closing in. Hope he doesn't get wet.
Yesterday was a Vitamin-D stockin'-up day. Make hay while the sun shines - or something like that. Glad the weeks done with. A chance to put behind one of those cage rattlers that pass through us all from time to time. Just to let us now how fragile most things are. To remind us to take it all in whist we can.
I don't like weeks like that. Weeks that make you think. Weeks that don't make sense. That kinda pull people about a little. Giving folk a little shake.
Too remind of whatever, wanted or 'wise.
*************
The ramblings here are three-years old this week, so great to see the blog shortlisted in the categories of Personal, Pop Culture and Humor blogs this week in the Blog Awards Ireland.
Booker's World will be free to download tomorrow, Tuesday and Wednesday at this link.
Monday, August 13, 2012
Trips & Double Majors
I'm just in the door in time for the golf. I've been away too long. Longer than I had intended to be. Was it worth it? Can't say it did me any harm. On a battery level.
I don't know what it is about this particular year but, be it a US presidential election or visits to the nursing home, I seem to be tuning out. Seeing little benefits from certain things. Tiring to the point of - nonchalance.
French word I think. General meaning. I really couldn't be giving a certain four letter work made famous by a fictional priest with a liking for alcohol from the Isle of Craggy. Desperate stereotyping - the genius type - but the subject of stereotyping couldn't have been further from my mind as I turned on the computer and prepared for another week writing for myself.
Shortly after a deep sigh something unexpected happened. My finger just kinda stopped short of the 'on' key. Stayed there for a few seconds. Then moved again. Away.
I gathered it up and closed the laptop down, grabbed a bag full of clothes and 37 minutes later I was sitting on a bus heading West. Spontaneity, I think they call it. I left the key of the house with Gustav who I woken from his sleep. He'd just got off the night shift.
'I'll be back in a week,' I said. 'Keep an eye on the place,' handing him the key to the house.
'Hold it a second,' he said, still half asleep. He went back inside, returning with his camera.
'Where it is you go, take picture. I keep it for scrap.' He handed it to me. Cool.
'OK, 'I said and hurried off. The bus to the big smoke needed getting if I was to make Mayo by nightfall. I could do it. It was 8.35. In the morning.
Go on Rory Mac. Whey! 3 shot lead in the final major of the year. Ooh, Tiger there's too. Nice. I'm glad I didn't extend my holidays into another week. There's no place like home on the last day of a golf major - however good it was to touch base with Mattie once again.
I tend to avoid impulsiveness since - well, you know. Never seemed to work out for me. Finding myself half way to Dublin on a whim was a surprise.
'Anyone sitting in there?' an elderly woman asked me, pointing down to the seat beside the window. Was she blind? She didn't look blind. Was quite obvious there was no-one sitting there.
'No,' I said, rising to my feet.
'Oh, you could have just shuffled across,' she said, grazing past me toward the window. Bloody hell. What does she think I am? A poker dealer. A disco dancer.
'You're very kind.' How little people know about others.
'My pleasure,' I said, disguising my voice unknowns to myself. Like I do. Hiding who I was - where I came from - for reasons I don't even know. I sat back down. It's times like this I wished I'd brought a book.
'So where you headed?' she said. Deep sigh. My mistake for sitting so close to the top on a near empty bus.
Oldies.
I looked at her face. Late sixties, I'd say. How could I fib?
'Out West,' I said. 'To see a friend.'
'I've never been,' she said, before telling me her life story. She's been to England once.
'My sister died. Unexpected,' she said. 'I found thousands of pounds hidden everywhere when I was clearing out her flat. Her daughter was delighted. We could have had her brought home if we'd found it sooner,' she said. 'She'd have liked that.' She seemed sad all of a sudden.
'Was too late be then. We'd cremated her. My niece said it was more environmental friendly.' I wasn't sure where to look. At least she had the window. Not that she cared as she went on to tell me how hard it was for adventurous women back in her day. Seems her sister was one of those.
'Shocking to see them still leaving today,' she said, shaking her head. At last. On my level. Something I'd heard about. Emigration. I was just about to go into a rant at the expense of the present administration when the bus stopped suddenly.
'Mrs McGuire,' the bus driver shouted.
'My stop,' she said. For feck sake. I got up again and stepped out into the aisle.
'Enjoy America,' she said walking forward. A little rustically. Age, I suppose.
Woo! Ian Poulter. What you at? Five birdies in a row. Leon would be proud.
Better watch your back, Rory Mac.
I was early for the bus to Castlebar. Three hours early. I parked on a bench and waited. The back of the bus felt like a seat from the heavens when I finally took it. I could have stretched out along them.
Gone to sleep. Would have felt like home. There was no such luck. A few fellows took up their own residence on the back seats. Avoids. Luckily no one decided to use the seat beside me. You know the one? The one you don't pay for but still feel is yours.
Buses. Strange places.
The last time I came this way I found the trip bleak. We weren't long out of the city and I'd drawn the same conclusion again. I decided to do what I do best. Sleep. I dreamt of Granddad Booker making his way up from Mayo all those years ago 'walking barefoot in winter.' Never could tell me how long it took him. I tried to draw Granny out about it. One of her finger wagging 'don't mention that again' times, it was. Man, they fought like tigers. Funny stuff.
A cleaner woke me when we got to Castlebar.
'Last stop,' she said.
'Barefoot,' I said, trying to remember where I was. She looked at me. Tired. Drawn. Beaten.
'Just get off the bus,' she said. I hope I wasn't foaming from the corners of my mouth. I quickly moved on and stepped out on to the street. A Tesco's the only thing I recognized. Phew. Some bells rang six. I'd made it. Before dark. Hours before dark. I'm sure Mum was fibbin' to me when she said I'd never make it in out in the real world.
'Is this Castlebar?' I asked a random passer-by. She kept walking. I put it to one side and built myself up to ask someone else. They look friendly.
'Excuse me, is this Castlebar?' They stopped. They looked like students. I'm not sure what they thought I was.
'Yes,' said the one with the messy hair. 'Where do you think it is?' Aggressive little git.
'Sorry,' I said. 'I fell asleep on the bus and wasn't sure.'
They looked at me - this freak. In off the bus. Clothes in a hold all. Had I even shaved?
'Thanks,' I said after them. The natives were friendlier the last time. If a little more eccentric. I walked on up the street in the opposite direction and popped into a newsagents.
Tiger to -4. Normally starts falling away by this stage since his crimes against matrimony. Not today. Not yet anyway.
'Can I help you?' a girl said from behind the counter. Ah, this is more like it. Smile too.
'Could you point me in the direction of the Pontoon Road?' I said, mirroring a smile back in her direction. Lord, but I must sound like a plank.
'We have little maps of the town,' she said, pointing up to a stand displaying postcards. Enda Kenny's office? No way.
I was sure I'd remember - Castlebar wasn't Dallas. But smiling she stayed until I reached up and took one.
'€3.'
Never broke the smile. I gave her it in change. She didn't seem to mind as she told me there was an 'alphabet' thing at the back and I'd find where I was looking for there. I didn't realise I looked so odd - so out of place - that I looked like someone who couldn't find their way around a map. I was a scout once. For two weeks.
Paddy Harrington! -4.
I stepped back out on to the street. It was busy. I continued on up the street and found a quite spot. I sat down on my bag against a wall and folded the map out.
P.
Pontoon.
To Pontoon.
Pontoon Road.
Here we go. Quick turn 90 degrees. Booker luck. Back down where I'd just come from.
A car horn. I looked up. Police. Irish ones.
'Lost?' They had pulled up on to the footpath. I hadn't even noticed. I got to my feet.
'I am, be dad,' I said. 'I'm looking for the Pontoon Road.'
'Hop in,' one of them said. He didn't look old enough to be driving. 'We'll run you over.'
I did as instructed. You don't mess with the law. Unless, you're from Rossport.
'Thanks lads,' I said getting in. 'Very decent of you.'
'New in town?' the passenger Garda said as his mate pulled off down the street.
'I am,' I said. 'Just off the bus.'
Silence.
'Where you from?'
I told them.
'My aunty lives down there. Una Gangley. Do you know her?
'Can't say I do,' I said.
'What's in the bag?' the driver said.
'Clothes,' I said. 'I'm here for a few days.'
'I didn't ask you how long you'd be here?' said the driver. Pause. The two of them laugh.
'Where will we drop you?
'Little cafe,' I said. 'Tessy's.'
'Mattie's joint,' they said together before laughing again.
'How you know Mattie?' the passenger guy asked. I couldn't go into it. I'd need all night.
'Old friends,' I said.
'Ah, Mattie's alright. Best breakfast in the town.'
The driver guy took a sharp turn right and then another almost immediately. I was glad i was sitting in the middle of the back seat. I'd definitely have been kissing window.
Two minutes later they screeched up outside.
'Mattie's place is down the alley at the back.'
'Thanks lads,' I said, missing the door handle at the first attempt in my hurry.
'We'll be seeing you about,' the driver said with a serious face. He then pretended to smile before they began twittering to themselves again.I shut the door over and they drove off.
Rory's taking Kiawah Island asunder. -10 at the turn. Two ahead of Poulter. Oh, who's that? Justin Rose. -6 for the day.
I kind of knew I'd find Mattie at something. As I walked down the alley, there he was. Mowing the lawn with one of those old mowers. The 1 hp. Keeping busy.
'Do you never stop?' I called out. He was facing my direction. Head bowed. Watching the newly sharpened cutters scalp blades from the grass. He looked up and stopped.
'Well it's about fuckin' time...' he said walking over to me.
'Great to see you,' I said.
'Aye, it is,' he said shaking my hand firmly. He's re-discovered a depth to his accent since he moved back over here. Sounds like Granddad used to - when he'd be telling his stories. His bullshit stories. Great bullshit stories.
Within minutes normal service was resumed. Mattie cooking and serving me. Like the old days. Cabbage, bacon, spuds, onions and carrots all in the one pot. He filled two mugs from it as it fermented. If vegetables ferment - which I doubt they do. As good a soup as I've tasted in a while. Nice and salty. Great for the heart.
I could bore you into a coma with scenes of serenity as Mattie closed the cafe early each day so we could cycle some ruggedness. He damn near killed me on Day 3 - a four hour round trip to the place the road led off to. A little pub on a bend on the road, a lake for as far as the eye could see.
I was a little worried as we set the bikes down up against the side of the pub and went inside. Mattie opted for a cordial when i went for the black stuff. Two to re-hydrate, two for pleasure - and one for the road. We got back by bike light around eleven, taking breaks to grab Gustav his snaps and to water the bog. Not that it needed it.
By the weekend I was talking about going home but Mattie would have none of it.
'What you going back for?' he said. 'Stay another week.' I didn't need convincing. There was something about getting lost on a bike in the middle of no-where which was appealing to me. A different state of recluse. A more natural one.
Bogey-bogey, Ian Poulter. Rory by four. Barring an Adam Scott...
My phone rid itself of some dust when it rang on the Tuesday night of the second week.
'Are you alive?'
Gustav. I'd filled Mattie in on our Gus. I sensed Mattie was glad I had a neighbour. I re-assured Gus I was well and good.
'Maybe you come back this week?'
I didn't know if that was a question or not.
'Maybe,' I said. Jaysus. The freedom.
'Please try,' he said. 'Linda's friend. She come for weekend visiting.'
I knew there and then I wouldn't be going back. I wasn't going through that again.
'I'll see what I can do.' I'd have asked him to feed the goldfish but I don't have any, so I bid him a quick goodbye. Mattie laughed as I told him of that fateful night.
There was days I just sat in his little cafe. Reading a newpaper. They still exist. Just watching the world go by. The two young Guards were in and out. Could be a comedy duo. Sonny could have done something for them. If the law didn't work out. If Sonny was here...
They were drove off their feet. Some lorry with part of an drilling machine had jackknifed in the county. Heading to the coast. To drill. Who'd have thought? Oil - in the West of Ireland. Being given away.
I couldn't resist. I stole away and found an internet cafe to find out what had happened. Shell had tried to sneak it under cover of darkness. Big escort. Media silence. Then the old bog road had her say. I find them hard enough on a bike. I had a snigger to myself as i read how Mother Nature had her say and thought to myself- only in Ireland. But when was planning ever a concern in this country?
Oh shut up. You're on holidays! Or were.
Rory. Can't see him doing anything but winning from here. Six clear. Two-majors at 23.
You can't help but deal with the issues at hand when with close friends for a time. It was no different here. I took what Mattie had to say seriously. Hadn't listened to many this year. Gustav's occasional rabble and that's about it. Mattie was always worth listening too. The coherent Mattie, that is. He's still hanging in there. Fighting like the Irish boxing team at the Olympics. And after spending a little time here, he seems to be winning as well. Funny where he found his place. Back home. Where he probably always belonged.
We said what needed saying and no more. I promised return visits as i packed to leave.
'You're always welcome,' he said. 'I don't forget.' I knew he didn't. He was one of life's good ones. Rare. Occasional. Proper friends.
The two boys in the squad car picked me up earlier today to run me to the bus. They had insisted. I'd got to know them by name. Larry and Larry. The two Larry's. If only Sonny were around. I made one last request.
Within five minutes there I was. Standing in front of Enda Kenny's office. Jaysus, it's small. Bit drab. Depressing color. It seemed fitting. For the times that are in it.
It was Sunday. I decided to take the chance that he wouldn't be in there. That he'd come out and tell the two Larry's that he wanted a word in me ear. Out the back!
I got passenger Larry to take a quick snap of me. Outside the seat of power in the West. For prosperity. I giggled at that thought.
They dropped me to the bus.
'Add us on Facebook,' they said.
'I'll do that,' I said, waving a backward five. Like we were buddies. I know I won't. But, good lads. The pair of them. Doing their job in a jobless country.
I felt a little less stooped as the bus made her way back to Dublin. Raining one minute. Sunny the next. Cars racing along - Galway flags trying to escape from car windows. Heading for Croker. Hundreds of them. Cris-crossing. Too and fro across the island. In no time at all.
Great country.
Lousy government.
I don't think Gus knows I'm back. I'll knock into him tomorrow. With his photos. Can't have him ruining the golf. I'd missed the whole Olympic games. We did good. For a little country with feck all going for her. Our athletes have rarely let us down. This team certainly didn't. In youth I'd have been absorbed in it. Everything. From dusk to dawn.
Things change I suppose. As people get older.They say a change is as good as a rest. For once, I think they're right.
Go on Rory. Roll it in. Nah, I don't believe it. He has. Win by eight. One of the Golden Bears records seems safe as Tiger faded. Just can't see him taking Jack's 18 now.
With no-one really knowing who is claiming who this weather isn't it great to watch someone as young as Rory McIlroy shove criticism back down his critics throats.
USPGA champ. Double major champion. Not bad, wherever you're from.
I don't know what it is about this particular year but, be it a US presidential election or visits to the nursing home, I seem to be tuning out. Seeing little benefits from certain things. Tiring to the point of - nonchalance.
French word I think. General meaning. I really couldn't be giving a certain four letter work made famous by a fictional priest with a liking for alcohol from the Isle of Craggy. Desperate stereotyping - the genius type - but the subject of stereotyping couldn't have been further from my mind as I turned on the computer and prepared for another week writing for myself.
Shortly after a deep sigh something unexpected happened. My finger just kinda stopped short of the 'on' key. Stayed there for a few seconds. Then moved again. Away.
I gathered it up and closed the laptop down, grabbed a bag full of clothes and 37 minutes later I was sitting on a bus heading West. Spontaneity, I think they call it. I left the key of the house with Gustav who I woken from his sleep. He'd just got off the night shift.
'I'll be back in a week,' I said. 'Keep an eye on the place,' handing him the key to the house.
'Hold it a second,' he said, still half asleep. He went back inside, returning with his camera.
'Where it is you go, take picture. I keep it for scrap.' He handed it to me. Cool.
'OK, 'I said and hurried off. The bus to the big smoke needed getting if I was to make Mayo by nightfall. I could do it. It was 8.35. In the morning.
Go on Rory Mac. Whey! 3 shot lead in the final major of the year. Ooh, Tiger there's too. Nice. I'm glad I didn't extend my holidays into another week. There's no place like home on the last day of a golf major - however good it was to touch base with Mattie once again.
I tend to avoid impulsiveness since - well, you know. Never seemed to work out for me. Finding myself half way to Dublin on a whim was a surprise.
'Anyone sitting in there?' an elderly woman asked me, pointing down to the seat beside the window. Was she blind? She didn't look blind. Was quite obvious there was no-one sitting there.
'No,' I said, rising to my feet.
'Oh, you could have just shuffled across,' she said, grazing past me toward the window. Bloody hell. What does she think I am? A poker dealer. A disco dancer.
'You're very kind.' How little people know about others.
'My pleasure,' I said, disguising my voice unknowns to myself. Like I do. Hiding who I was - where I came from - for reasons I don't even know. I sat back down. It's times like this I wished I'd brought a book.
'So where you headed?' she said. Deep sigh. My mistake for sitting so close to the top on a near empty bus.
Oldies.
I looked at her face. Late sixties, I'd say. How could I fib?
'Out West,' I said. 'To see a friend.'
'I've never been,' she said, before telling me her life story. She's been to England once.
'My sister died. Unexpected,' she said. 'I found thousands of pounds hidden everywhere when I was clearing out her flat. Her daughter was delighted. We could have had her brought home if we'd found it sooner,' she said. 'She'd have liked that.' She seemed sad all of a sudden.
'Was too late be then. We'd cremated her. My niece said it was more environmental friendly.' I wasn't sure where to look. At least she had the window. Not that she cared as she went on to tell me how hard it was for adventurous women back in her day. Seems her sister was one of those.
'Shocking to see them still leaving today,' she said, shaking her head. At last. On my level. Something I'd heard about. Emigration. I was just about to go into a rant at the expense of the present administration when the bus stopped suddenly.
'Mrs McGuire,' the bus driver shouted.
'My stop,' she said. For feck sake. I got up again and stepped out into the aisle.
'Enjoy America,' she said walking forward. A little rustically. Age, I suppose.
Woo! Ian Poulter. What you at? Five birdies in a row. Leon would be proud.
Better watch your back, Rory Mac.
I was early for the bus to Castlebar. Three hours early. I parked on a bench and waited. The back of the bus felt like a seat from the heavens when I finally took it. I could have stretched out along them.
Gone to sleep. Would have felt like home. There was no such luck. A few fellows took up their own residence on the back seats. Avoids. Luckily no one decided to use the seat beside me. You know the one? The one you don't pay for but still feel is yours.
Buses. Strange places.
The last time I came this way I found the trip bleak. We weren't long out of the city and I'd drawn the same conclusion again. I decided to do what I do best. Sleep. I dreamt of Granddad Booker making his way up from Mayo all those years ago 'walking barefoot in winter.' Never could tell me how long it took him. I tried to draw Granny out about it. One of her finger wagging 'don't mention that again' times, it was. Man, they fought like tigers. Funny stuff.
A cleaner woke me when we got to Castlebar.
'Last stop,' she said.
'Barefoot,' I said, trying to remember where I was. She looked at me. Tired. Drawn. Beaten.
'Just get off the bus,' she said. I hope I wasn't foaming from the corners of my mouth. I quickly moved on and stepped out on to the street. A Tesco's the only thing I recognized. Phew. Some bells rang six. I'd made it. Before dark. Hours before dark. I'm sure Mum was fibbin' to me when she said I'd never make it in out in the real world.
'Is this Castlebar?' I asked a random passer-by. She kept walking. I put it to one side and built myself up to ask someone else. They look friendly.
'Excuse me, is this Castlebar?' They stopped. They looked like students. I'm not sure what they thought I was.
'Yes,' said the one with the messy hair. 'Where do you think it is?' Aggressive little git.
'Sorry,' I said. 'I fell asleep on the bus and wasn't sure.'
They looked at me - this freak. In off the bus. Clothes in a hold all. Had I even shaved?
'Thanks,' I said after them. The natives were friendlier the last time. If a little more eccentric. I walked on up the street in the opposite direction and popped into a newsagents.
Tiger to -4. Normally starts falling away by this stage since his crimes against matrimony. Not today. Not yet anyway.
'Can I help you?' a girl said from behind the counter. Ah, this is more like it. Smile too.
'Could you point me in the direction of the Pontoon Road?' I said, mirroring a smile back in her direction. Lord, but I must sound like a plank.
'We have little maps of the town,' she said, pointing up to a stand displaying postcards. Enda Kenny's office? No way.
I was sure I'd remember - Castlebar wasn't Dallas. But smiling she stayed until I reached up and took one.
'€3.'
Never broke the smile. I gave her it in change. She didn't seem to mind as she told me there was an 'alphabet' thing at the back and I'd find where I was looking for there. I didn't realise I looked so odd - so out of place - that I looked like someone who couldn't find their way around a map. I was a scout once. For two weeks.
Paddy Harrington! -4.
I stepped back out on to the street. It was busy. I continued on up the street and found a quite spot. I sat down on my bag against a wall and folded the map out.
P.
Pontoon.
To Pontoon.
Pontoon Road.
Here we go. Quick turn 90 degrees. Booker luck. Back down where I'd just come from.
A car horn. I looked up. Police. Irish ones.
'Lost?' They had pulled up on to the footpath. I hadn't even noticed. I got to my feet.
'I am, be dad,' I said. 'I'm looking for the Pontoon Road.'
'Hop in,' one of them said. He didn't look old enough to be driving. 'We'll run you over.'
I did as instructed. You don't mess with the law. Unless, you're from Rossport.
'Thanks lads,' I said getting in. 'Very decent of you.'
'New in town?' the passenger Garda said as his mate pulled off down the street.
'I am,' I said. 'Just off the bus.'
Silence.
'Where you from?'
I told them.
'My aunty lives down there. Una Gangley. Do you know her?
'Can't say I do,' I said.
'What's in the bag?' the driver said.
'Clothes,' I said. 'I'm here for a few days.'
'I didn't ask you how long you'd be here?' said the driver. Pause. The two of them laugh.
'Where will we drop you?
'Little cafe,' I said. 'Tessy's.'
'Mattie's joint,' they said together before laughing again.
'How you know Mattie?' the passenger guy asked. I couldn't go into it. I'd need all night.
'Old friends,' I said.
'Ah, Mattie's alright. Best breakfast in the town.'
The driver guy took a sharp turn right and then another almost immediately. I was glad i was sitting in the middle of the back seat. I'd definitely have been kissing window.
Two minutes later they screeched up outside.
'Mattie's place is down the alley at the back.'
'Thanks lads,' I said, missing the door handle at the first attempt in my hurry.
'We'll be seeing you about,' the driver said with a serious face. He then pretended to smile before they began twittering to themselves again.I shut the door over and they drove off.
Rory's taking Kiawah Island asunder. -10 at the turn. Two ahead of Poulter. Oh, who's that? Justin Rose. -6 for the day.
I kind of knew I'd find Mattie at something. As I walked down the alley, there he was. Mowing the lawn with one of those old mowers. The 1 hp. Keeping busy.
'Do you never stop?' I called out. He was facing my direction. Head bowed. Watching the newly sharpened cutters scalp blades from the grass. He looked up and stopped.
'Well it's about fuckin' time...' he said walking over to me.
'Great to see you,' I said.
'Aye, it is,' he said shaking my hand firmly. He's re-discovered a depth to his accent since he moved back over here. Sounds like Granddad used to - when he'd be telling his stories. His bullshit stories. Great bullshit stories.
Within minutes normal service was resumed. Mattie cooking and serving me. Like the old days. Cabbage, bacon, spuds, onions and carrots all in the one pot. He filled two mugs from it as it fermented. If vegetables ferment - which I doubt they do. As good a soup as I've tasted in a while. Nice and salty. Great for the heart.
I could bore you into a coma with scenes of serenity as Mattie closed the cafe early each day so we could cycle some ruggedness. He damn near killed me on Day 3 - a four hour round trip to the place the road led off to. A little pub on a bend on the road, a lake for as far as the eye could see.
I was a little worried as we set the bikes down up against the side of the pub and went inside. Mattie opted for a cordial when i went for the black stuff. Two to re-hydrate, two for pleasure - and one for the road. We got back by bike light around eleven, taking breaks to grab Gustav his snaps and to water the bog. Not that it needed it.
By the weekend I was talking about going home but Mattie would have none of it.
'What you going back for?' he said. 'Stay another week.' I didn't need convincing. There was something about getting lost on a bike in the middle of no-where which was appealing to me. A different state of recluse. A more natural one.
Bogey-bogey, Ian Poulter. Rory by four. Barring an Adam Scott...
My phone rid itself of some dust when it rang on the Tuesday night of the second week.
'Are you alive?'
Gustav. I'd filled Mattie in on our Gus. I sensed Mattie was glad I had a neighbour. I re-assured Gus I was well and good.
'Maybe you come back this week?'
I didn't know if that was a question or not.
'Maybe,' I said. Jaysus. The freedom.
'Please try,' he said. 'Linda's friend. She come for weekend visiting.'
I knew there and then I wouldn't be going back. I wasn't going through that again.
'I'll see what I can do.' I'd have asked him to feed the goldfish but I don't have any, so I bid him a quick goodbye. Mattie laughed as I told him of that fateful night.
There was days I just sat in his little cafe. Reading a newpaper. They still exist. Just watching the world go by. The two young Guards were in and out. Could be a comedy duo. Sonny could have done something for them. If the law didn't work out. If Sonny was here...
They were drove off their feet. Some lorry with part of an drilling machine had jackknifed in the county. Heading to the coast. To drill. Who'd have thought? Oil - in the West of Ireland. Being given away.
I couldn't resist. I stole away and found an internet cafe to find out what had happened. Shell had tried to sneak it under cover of darkness. Big escort. Media silence. Then the old bog road had her say. I find them hard enough on a bike. I had a snigger to myself as i read how Mother Nature had her say and thought to myself- only in Ireland. But when was planning ever a concern in this country?
Oh shut up. You're on holidays! Or were.
Rory. Can't see him doing anything but winning from here. Six clear. Two-majors at 23.
You can't help but deal with the issues at hand when with close friends for a time. It was no different here. I took what Mattie had to say seriously. Hadn't listened to many this year. Gustav's occasional rabble and that's about it. Mattie was always worth listening too. The coherent Mattie, that is. He's still hanging in there. Fighting like the Irish boxing team at the Olympics. And after spending a little time here, he seems to be winning as well. Funny where he found his place. Back home. Where he probably always belonged.
We said what needed saying and no more. I promised return visits as i packed to leave.
'You're always welcome,' he said. 'I don't forget.' I knew he didn't. He was one of life's good ones. Rare. Occasional. Proper friends.
The two boys in the squad car picked me up earlier today to run me to the bus. They had insisted. I'd got to know them by name. Larry and Larry. The two Larry's. If only Sonny were around. I made one last request.
Within five minutes there I was. Standing in front of Enda Kenny's office. Jaysus, it's small. Bit drab. Depressing color. It seemed fitting. For the times that are in it.
It was Sunday. I decided to take the chance that he wouldn't be in there. That he'd come out and tell the two Larry's that he wanted a word in me ear. Out the back!
I got passenger Larry to take a quick snap of me. Outside the seat of power in the West. For prosperity. I giggled at that thought.
They dropped me to the bus.
'Add us on Facebook,' they said.
'I'll do that,' I said, waving a backward five. Like we were buddies. I know I won't. But, good lads. The pair of them. Doing their job in a jobless country.
I felt a little less stooped as the bus made her way back to Dublin. Raining one minute. Sunny the next. Cars racing along - Galway flags trying to escape from car windows. Heading for Croker. Hundreds of them. Cris-crossing. Too and fro across the island. In no time at all.
Great country.
Lousy government.
I don't think Gus knows I'm back. I'll knock into him tomorrow. With his photos. Can't have him ruining the golf. I'd missed the whole Olympic games. We did good. For a little country with feck all going for her. Our athletes have rarely let us down. This team certainly didn't. In youth I'd have been absorbed in it. Everything. From dusk to dawn.
Things change I suppose. As people get older.They say a change is as good as a rest. For once, I think they're right.
Go on Rory. Roll it in. Nah, I don't believe it. He has. Win by eight. One of the Golden Bears records seems safe as Tiger faded. Just can't see him taking Jack's 18 now.
With no-one really knowing who is claiming who this weather isn't it great to watch someone as young as Rory McIlroy shove criticism back down his critics throats.
USPGA champ. Double major champion. Not bad, wherever you're from.
Monday, July 23, 2012
50 Shades of Green
How often do you go to sleep and wake up feeling twice your age? I don't know what it was, but wave after wave of whatever it was slowly took any energy I did possess to places outside my person at the beginning of the week. I didn't feel particularly sick. Just aged.
The stairs felt like Everest and attempts at writing were cast to the digital trash bin. By Wednesday morning I'd given up and took up residence on the sofa down on the first floor of the residence.
I'd have went to the doctor but I don't think I'd have made it. There can't be many things worse than ending up on the broad of your back in broad daylight (and it would want to be pretty broad around here at times) on a public street and becoming the victim of wild story lines that plot their way around small places.
I lie. There are far worse things that could happen - and happening.
The house seemed quieter than usual, it's hollowness more apparent as I cut a way through some deplorable daytime TV. I didn't want to eat. I couldn't sleep. When I did I came through, drowned, like a trip outside on an Irish summers day.
By Thursday, even trips to the toilet were put off for as long as could be mustered from the rapidly declining stock of energy. Sometimes that bursting signal to go, just went away. That can't be good for you.
Late in the afternoon I felt like my cognition was waining - like I wasn't processing much. Just sweat - by the large bead - cascading from wanton pores. For the first time I felt a little worried.
As i caught the days happenings on the evening news, a press conference from Enda and Eamon had given caught my attention. After listening to what I thought Enda had said when defending James Reilly's glaring inadequacies when serving his department - in any department - I was convinced.
I needed hospitalization - and quickly. My world had turned into a freaky cartoon, where the clouds were made of crows. Tall jagged shadows everywhere. Delirium?
Who'd have thought? Enda - saving my life.
I don't know what happened. I passed out. For fifteen hours. Woken only by my humming of an old Oasis song, bladder filled beyond capacity. I lumbered to my feet. I could feel them again. The walking wasn't as difficult as it had been the past few days. The relief, when i got there - majestic.
Noise. Turning the toilet water amber. Whatever it was that laid me out was coming out of me. At length.
I was glad there was no mirror to ponder into as i felt cold water soothe the worn-out pores of my face. That could have been enough to throw a reversal into the mornings good fortune. For better or worse, it looked like I was on the mend. I was going to survive, much to the lament of many.
Saturday saw a meeting with food again. It felt cramped at times. The final test came late that evening as I climbed the steps of the stairs. Then the more difficult attic ones in search of the last sole place of purpose I still had left. My bed.
I woke this morning a little after ten. It sounded like a Sunday so I went back to sleep. It made more sense to energize. I'd worry about the stone-and-a-half I'd lost during the week later. Despite those good intentions, I'm staying on the ice-cream diet. For a few more days anyway.
Gus called in the afternoon. Worried. He'd noticed that my curtains had been closed all week.
'You look like train hit you with a bus,' he said, after he explained all the things he had found 'unusual' in order for him to reach his conclusion that maybe something was up with me.
Good job I hadn't succumbed to life. Like old Larry had. Maybe even worse. Dying with that Oasis song on my mind might have lead to an uncomfortable death scene for anyone entering it.
'No, just run down,' I said.
'Aw. Depressed,' he said.
'Nooo,' I said, before loosing him as quickly as i could by explaining in detail, using words i didn't even know, to describe a mysterious bacterial infection - cum virus - called 'Knockthebolleekouttaya.'
'It sounded serious,' he said, before saying he'd call again soon.
'I'm meeting with Linda,' he said. I knew it already. I could smell it off him. I'll tell him later I was only taking the piss. I'm sure he'll get the humor in it.
I returned to my couch to sit out the return to normality and watched as Adam Scott headed off on his final round at the British Open with our own Graham McDowell. Prowling together behind the ultimate prowler, Tiger Woods, looking to end a streak of nearly four years without a major win.
They were all jittery to begin with - Woods being the less of the three. As Woods made steady pars, both McDowell and Scott were swapping between bogeys and pars and the very odd birdie.
The wind was rising on the Royal Lytham and St. Annes course after giving the field as easy a ride a links course could over the first three days. At least that was what the commentator said as I lay there watching 50 shades of green through worn and beaten eyes. Unable to see any shade of white.
Woods was the first to concede ground, something he didn't need, as he tried in vain to chase down Scott - now caddied by Wood's ex-caddie, Steve Williams. Woods and Williams paired together in 13 out of 14 of Wood's major titles.
Woods seemed to have a decent approach to the 6th, but plugged his shot into a green side bunker. After skillfully dodging his ball which rebounded off the face of the bunker in his attempt to get it out, Woods got down on his knees to somehow manage to get the ball on to the green with his second attempt - but three putts away. With a +3 on his card there was now serious daylight between Woods and the likable Scott seeking his first major title.
McDowell made birdie on eight to reduce the gap between him and his playing partner to three. However, G-Mac's joy was short lived. He bogeyed the next three holes and with Scott himself steadying with a string of pars it looked for all the executions in Texas that Scott was about to become a major champion for the first time.
There was no push from the pack, who mostly all struggled around the back nine. Woods continued to look frustrated as his driver appeared with little effect for the first time in the week. His playing partner Brandt Snedeker was gone by the turn. World Number 1, Luke Donald, posted a -2 total, but when Adam Scott birdied 14 to get to -10, Donald's score was never going to take the Claret Jug.
Enter...
Damn to how the universe operates at times. Damn the way the human body does also. As Stevie Williams and Adam Scott walked from the 14th green to smiles and applause, it was at least concrete in my mind that it was in the bag for the Australian.
Just like that. Out, I went. I must have fell asleep because I haven't went out again since I woke to find Ernie Els hoisting the famous Claret Jug to the green side spectators who roared their approval at the now 4-time major champion. The second 42-year old to win the Champion Golfer of the Year in a row after Darren Clarke's own fairytale last year.
Oh no! I was sick again. Back in that other reality I seemed to have been in all week. I jumped up from my stretched out position. Nope. I was like a cat. I wasn't dreaming.
Ernie Els. Where had he come from?
Els hadn't caught my eye. He'd been flirting with the 'there or thereabouts' all week - but at the turn he was +2 for the day and half a dozen strokes behind Scott. Then Ernie's putter got hot. Apparently!!!
Birdies at 10,12,14 and a little monster on 18, saw the South African card a 2-under-par 68 for a -7 total. Then, like so many other times in the sport of golf, absurdity stepped in to even tie the tongues of the David Feherty's of this planet.
Scott bogeyed 15. No big deal. He could afford that. In fact he could afford a few of them. Luckily. Right on the next hole he missed a three-footer for par. Another bogey. Lead down to one. Surely not?
Bogey at 17. All square. Unbelievable. I'm speculating!
As Scott stood on 18 he must have been barely able to grip his club. He needed to steady himself. A par for a play-off. Having practically lead since Thursday he deserved at least that. Didn't he?
No-one knows who the God of Golf is. All that's known is that he works in strange way and mysterious ways. Much like many Gods. For Adam Scott bogeyed again. For the forth time in a row. You wouldn't write it.
And I slept through it all. Never did happen before. Only one-person to thank for being able to witness it. After the event! The person who invented highlights.
Els, ten years and a day since his first British Open success at Muirfield, finishes practicing putts for a playoff - champion outright without having to walk another hole. In hindsight all the signs were there. The decade since his first. His experience at winning majors. Same age as last years winner. A second and a third at the same venue in past Opens. His return to form in the past year. How the game of golf writes the strangest of stories. Good punter might have put all that together and had an old flutter. I certainly didn't. There was no book-making for me this week.
There were none more joyed than Ernie - none so disconsolate as Adam Scott. He hid it professionally as watched Els hoist the famous trophy. Steve Williams wondering how his experience couldn't carry the Australian down the home stretch for what would have been his sweetest major of all. But like so many stories surrounding this strange game, it failed to produce the ending most expected. The times it does that is extraordinary.
'Part of the lure,' as Leon used to say - though he wasn't talking about golf!
I nearly slipped and fell up the stairs as I returned to the attic to write this and gaze out at the clouds as I work on getting a degree of cognition back.
An envelope. It had slid across the floor and half under the bottom step of the stairs. Bit dusty too. Must have been there a while. I opened it.
Nice. A €50 note. Was I delirious again?
A letter with directions to Mayo.
Come across sometime.
Mattie.
No date. Bloody hell. That could have been there for... How long has it been since I heard from him? It definitely was this year sometime. Hope he doesn't think I just kept the money and ignored him.
Why is it whenever I get the chance to get away it is always to Mayo. Not like the memories are the best I have ever had. What if I ran into Enda Kenny down there on his eight-week break from the Dáil with the other 165 TD's.
Love when that happens. Déja vu.
Enda. Press conference. Dancing jagged shadows. Sweats.
Within five minutes I'd found it. That press conference. The one I thought was in my head when my head was everywhere else.
'Oh my sweet...'
Words do fail me sometimes.
I've come across some statements in my time. The ones from modern 'celebrities' are a source of amusement to some - distress to others.
Some observant musings can spark a thought - for better or worse. Some too obvious to even consider vocalizing into sound.
Other that still do. -
'Generally when people speak they use words.' - Enda Kenny
Profound, hey? Gives us great hope for the future. I didn't know whether to laugh or cry. Or get sick!
Though, I must stop projecting. I could have been causing a coroner a few awkward moments. If things hadn't gone my way. At least I've seen it into another week. Might get something done for a change. Maybe even head West when the weather picks up.
Mights and maybes.
The stairs felt like Everest and attempts at writing were cast to the digital trash bin. By Wednesday morning I'd given up and took up residence on the sofa down on the first floor of the residence.
I'd have went to the doctor but I don't think I'd have made it. There can't be many things worse than ending up on the broad of your back in broad daylight (and it would want to be pretty broad around here at times) on a public street and becoming the victim of wild story lines that plot their way around small places.
I lie. There are far worse things that could happen - and happening.
The house seemed quieter than usual, it's hollowness more apparent as I cut a way through some deplorable daytime TV. I didn't want to eat. I couldn't sleep. When I did I came through, drowned, like a trip outside on an Irish summers day.
By Thursday, even trips to the toilet were put off for as long as could be mustered from the rapidly declining stock of energy. Sometimes that bursting signal to go, just went away. That can't be good for you.
Late in the afternoon I felt like my cognition was waining - like I wasn't processing much. Just sweat - by the large bead - cascading from wanton pores. For the first time I felt a little worried.
As i caught the days happenings on the evening news, a press conference from Enda and Eamon had given caught my attention. After listening to what I thought Enda had said when defending James Reilly's glaring inadequacies when serving his department - in any department - I was convinced.
I needed hospitalization - and quickly. My world had turned into a freaky cartoon, where the clouds were made of crows. Tall jagged shadows everywhere. Delirium?
Who'd have thought? Enda - saving my life.
I don't know what happened. I passed out. For fifteen hours. Woken only by my humming of an old Oasis song, bladder filled beyond capacity. I lumbered to my feet. I could feel them again. The walking wasn't as difficult as it had been the past few days. The relief, when i got there - majestic.
Noise. Turning the toilet water amber. Whatever it was that laid me out was coming out of me. At length.
I was glad there was no mirror to ponder into as i felt cold water soothe the worn-out pores of my face. That could have been enough to throw a reversal into the mornings good fortune. For better or worse, it looked like I was on the mend. I was going to survive, much to the lament of many.
Saturday saw a meeting with food again. It felt cramped at times. The final test came late that evening as I climbed the steps of the stairs. Then the more difficult attic ones in search of the last sole place of purpose I still had left. My bed.
I woke this morning a little after ten. It sounded like a Sunday so I went back to sleep. It made more sense to energize. I'd worry about the stone-and-a-half I'd lost during the week later. Despite those good intentions, I'm staying on the ice-cream diet. For a few more days anyway.
Gus called in the afternoon. Worried. He'd noticed that my curtains had been closed all week.
'You look like train hit you with a bus,' he said, after he explained all the things he had found 'unusual' in order for him to reach his conclusion that maybe something was up with me.
Good job I hadn't succumbed to life. Like old Larry had. Maybe even worse. Dying with that Oasis song on my mind might have lead to an uncomfortable death scene for anyone entering it.
'No, just run down,' I said.
'Aw. Depressed,' he said.
'Nooo,' I said, before loosing him as quickly as i could by explaining in detail, using words i didn't even know, to describe a mysterious bacterial infection - cum virus - called 'Knockthebolleekouttaya.'
'It sounded serious,' he said, before saying he'd call again soon.
'I'm meeting with Linda,' he said. I knew it already. I could smell it off him. I'll tell him later I was only taking the piss. I'm sure he'll get the humor in it.
I returned to my couch to sit out the return to normality and watched as Adam Scott headed off on his final round at the British Open with our own Graham McDowell. Prowling together behind the ultimate prowler, Tiger Woods, looking to end a streak of nearly four years without a major win.
They were all jittery to begin with - Woods being the less of the three. As Woods made steady pars, both McDowell and Scott were swapping between bogeys and pars and the very odd birdie.
The wind was rising on the Royal Lytham and St. Annes course after giving the field as easy a ride a links course could over the first three days. At least that was what the commentator said as I lay there watching 50 shades of green through worn and beaten eyes. Unable to see any shade of white.
Woods was the first to concede ground, something he didn't need, as he tried in vain to chase down Scott - now caddied by Wood's ex-caddie, Steve Williams. Woods and Williams paired together in 13 out of 14 of Wood's major titles.
Woods seemed to have a decent approach to the 6th, but plugged his shot into a green side bunker. After skillfully dodging his ball which rebounded off the face of the bunker in his attempt to get it out, Woods got down on his knees to somehow manage to get the ball on to the green with his second attempt - but three putts away. With a +3 on his card there was now serious daylight between Woods and the likable Scott seeking his first major title.
McDowell made birdie on eight to reduce the gap between him and his playing partner to three. However, G-Mac's joy was short lived. He bogeyed the next three holes and with Scott himself steadying with a string of pars it looked for all the executions in Texas that Scott was about to become a major champion for the first time.
There was no push from the pack, who mostly all struggled around the back nine. Woods continued to look frustrated as his driver appeared with little effect for the first time in the week. His playing partner Brandt Snedeker was gone by the turn. World Number 1, Luke Donald, posted a -2 total, but when Adam Scott birdied 14 to get to -10, Donald's score was never going to take the Claret Jug.
Enter...
Damn to how the universe operates at times. Damn the way the human body does also. As Stevie Williams and Adam Scott walked from the 14th green to smiles and applause, it was at least concrete in my mind that it was in the bag for the Australian.
Just like that. Out, I went. I must have fell asleep because I haven't went out again since I woke to find Ernie Els hoisting the famous Claret Jug to the green side spectators who roared their approval at the now 4-time major champion. The second 42-year old to win the Champion Golfer of the Year in a row after Darren Clarke's own fairytale last year.
Oh no! I was sick again. Back in that other reality I seemed to have been in all week. I jumped up from my stretched out position. Nope. I was like a cat. I wasn't dreaming.
Ernie Els. Where had he come from?
Els hadn't caught my eye. He'd been flirting with the 'there or thereabouts' all week - but at the turn he was +2 for the day and half a dozen strokes behind Scott. Then Ernie's putter got hot. Apparently!!!
Birdies at 10,12,14 and a little monster on 18, saw the South African card a 2-under-par 68 for a -7 total. Then, like so many other times in the sport of golf, absurdity stepped in to even tie the tongues of the David Feherty's of this planet.
Scott bogeyed 15. No big deal. He could afford that. In fact he could afford a few of them. Luckily. Right on the next hole he missed a three-footer for par. Another bogey. Lead down to one. Surely not?
Bogey at 17. All square. Unbelievable. I'm speculating!
As Scott stood on 18 he must have been barely able to grip his club. He needed to steady himself. A par for a play-off. Having practically lead since Thursday he deserved at least that. Didn't he?
No-one knows who the God of Golf is. All that's known is that he works in strange way and mysterious ways. Much like many Gods. For Adam Scott bogeyed again. For the forth time in a row. You wouldn't write it.
And I slept through it all. Never did happen before. Only one-person to thank for being able to witness it. After the event! The person who invented highlights.
Els, ten years and a day since his first British Open success at Muirfield, finishes practicing putts for a playoff - champion outright without having to walk another hole. In hindsight all the signs were there. The decade since his first. His experience at winning majors. Same age as last years winner. A second and a third at the same venue in past Opens. His return to form in the past year. How the game of golf writes the strangest of stories. Good punter might have put all that together and had an old flutter. I certainly didn't. There was no book-making for me this week.
There were none more joyed than Ernie - none so disconsolate as Adam Scott. He hid it professionally as watched Els hoist the famous trophy. Steve Williams wondering how his experience couldn't carry the Australian down the home stretch for what would have been his sweetest major of all. But like so many stories surrounding this strange game, it failed to produce the ending most expected. The times it does that is extraordinary.
'Part of the lure,' as Leon used to say - though he wasn't talking about golf!
I nearly slipped and fell up the stairs as I returned to the attic to write this and gaze out at the clouds as I work on getting a degree of cognition back.
An envelope. It had slid across the floor and half under the bottom step of the stairs. Bit dusty too. Must have been there a while. I opened it.
Nice. A €50 note. Was I delirious again?
A letter with directions to Mayo.
Come across sometime.
Mattie.
No date. Bloody hell. That could have been there for... How long has it been since I heard from him? It definitely was this year sometime. Hope he doesn't think I just kept the money and ignored him.
Why is it whenever I get the chance to get away it is always to Mayo. Not like the memories are the best I have ever had. What if I ran into Enda Kenny down there on his eight-week break from the Dáil with the other 165 TD's.
Love when that happens. Déja vu.
Enda. Press conference. Dancing jagged shadows. Sweats.
Within five minutes I'd found it. That press conference. The one I thought was in my head when my head was everywhere else.
'Oh my sweet...'
Words do fail me sometimes.
I've come across some statements in my time. The ones from modern 'celebrities' are a source of amusement to some - distress to others.
Some observant musings can spark a thought - for better or worse. Some too obvious to even consider vocalizing into sound.
Other that still do. -
'Generally when people speak they use words.' - Enda Kenny
Profound, hey? Gives us great hope for the future. I didn't know whether to laugh or cry. Or get sick!
Though, I must stop projecting. I could have been causing a coroner a few awkward moments. If things hadn't gone my way. At least I've seen it into another week. Might get something done for a change. Maybe even head West when the weather picks up.
Mights and maybes.
Tuesday, July 10, 2012
Womble Don
Eat, write and sleep. Write, sleep and eat.
Odd menial chores.
Sleep, eat and write.
Bathroom breaks. Various lengths. Some tasks rhyme with write - others with behave. Others hiss.
Weekly excursion - visit old folks home.
Collect wages on way back.
Eat, write, sleep.
'I think we need a hobby,' said Gus, already claiming his first week of paid leave from the supermarket. Linda was working. Coinciding holidays might give their little secret away. I mean, how dare they fall for each other contrary to company policy. Unwritten too. NO employee liaisons.
'We?' I said, as Andy Murray, great British tennis hope, turned to his Mum, fist clenched, having just taken the first set in the Wimbledon final against Roger Federer. The time had come.
'Yes. It can't be all working and no playing,' he said, grabbing two bottles from a box of top-end beer he had bought in a two-for-one children's allowance day offer at a rival store earlier in the week. Gus doesn't have kids. So, he doesn't get the allowance. But why shouldn't he, should we say, take advantage.
'What's this?' I asked. 'Is this working. Sittin' here on a Sunday - getting slowly intoxicated?'
'No. This is not my meaning,' he said, as Andy's Mum jumps forward, raising a loving fist at her son as he takes another game. I can't see Murray being denied. His time must be now. He's hitting it sweetly.
'Tennis?' Gus offered. I nearly choked on my suds.
'You're kidding - right?' I said, recovering.
'Do I look like I is for kidding?' He raised his right eyebrow. He didn't. Unfortunately.
'Tennis isn't really my thing.' I said.
'Then what? he asked. Break point, Murray. Looking like his day.
No.
A second one.
No again. Fed ain't a six-time champion for nothing.
'Then - how about we just watch the TV?' An extension of tone on the 'then.'
'OK,' he said - ruffled.
Menial conversations. On Wimbledon final day. Can't be having it!
Another break-point.
No.
Murray would rue these. Minutes later he did. Federer wraps up the second set from no-where. Didn't see that coming. Neither did Murray by the looks of things. He's slumping. He has to hold.
He does.
Phew!
Bottle.
What next? The skies to open.
Yes. Players off.
'I must go,' Gus said rising. He took three bottles from the box and left them to the side.
'Call in during the week,' I said. 'When you're off.' He picked the box up and put it under his arm. Clinking all over the place.
'I is off now,' he said, waiting for a second.
'Talk to you soon.'
I jumped up myself, leaving Gus to let himself out. I'd bought strawberries. And cream. They're very green though. Must be the rain.
I shut the curtains over not long after Gus had closed the door. Soon after the roof went over Centre Court. Off, it would not come again. The rain hopped off it, rebounding out from the speakers on the TV. Quite the pour.
As the players came back out to a longing British crowd, it didn't take long before they started to realise that Federer was hitting form, and try as he may, Murray had no answer. Federer was coming in more, making Murray move, being more aggressive on Murray's second-serve. An error that had cost the Swiss the first set. Serving sublimely. Focused.
The writing's on the wall. With all the grace and elegance that has made him the greatest tennis player of all time, Fed reels off the closing two sets to claim a record-equalling seventh crown. His seventeenth grand slam title. World number 1 again. At 30.
As Murray reflected on his fourth grand slam final loss, the disappointment flowed from his eyes as he thanked those around him. Graceful in defeat like William Wallace on his final day in Hollywood.
Time is on his side - but he is playing in the Federer/Nadal era. Throw in a Djokovic, and one can see why it is difficult for the Scot - the weight of an entire nation on his back. The burden of carrying the failures of his peers at the London Venue stretching back to the 1930's on his shoulders.
What might have been...
I lay prostrate on the couch. Head tilted to the side. Catching the glow from the fire and glimpses of the TV set in equal measure. The fire - patching my face. The TV - parching my brain. To combat the boredom I did what all self-respecting practitioners of the state of elusiveness do. I fell asleep.
There I was. Driving Sonny to talk Andy Murray off the Wimbledon roof. It took a long-winded motivational appeal, but Sonny talked him down.
Seconds later.
We're all refused entry in The Fed's private party. Wimbledon champs only - and their agents.
'Maybe next year,' said Mike Tyson to Andy. He was bouncing at the door. With Mitch!
'I'm heading back to Italy,' Sonny said - telling Andy to keep his chin up. Andy thanked him for talking him down.
'I do it all the time,' Sonny said, before shaking both our hands.
'Nice to see you again, Don,' he said. He disappeared like the figment of my imagination he was.
'Who are you again?' Andy asked.
'Don Booker.'
'Never heard of you, Don?' Don't worry about it kid.
But this was a dream. My dream. I could have fed him anything. Took advantage of the scenario.
'Wanna get drunk?' he asked. A bolt from the tartan.
'Shouldn't you be getting back to your girlfriend and Mum?'
'They won't stop crying. You'd think I'd died or something.' He turned his head back a little and attempted to smile. 'Unless you have to get back to yours?'
No. That certainly wasn't going to be a problem!
Somehow or other my face had found itself nestled, nose first, down where lost pennies go to hide in the couch. Among the stale crumbs and discarded hairs. Forensic nightmare!
We found ourselves drinking a 200-year-old bottle of Jim Beam on the very couch I lay sleeping on. From his private collection.
'Bit of a hole,' he said, looking around. He passed the bottle over.
Cheap shot.
'Tis. Writings a bit of a slow burner.'
Think.
'You must be devastated with your loss?'
Cheaper.
The mouth fulls pass.
'Must be nice,' he said, offering his hand to take the bottle again. 'Being a nobody. Not that I mean any disrespect.'
I handed Jim back over. Us pair of slang-slingers. Probing.
'It has its benefits,' I began - not able to list many. 'It's quite for one.'
'Yes it is,' he said.
We listened for a time. Passing the bottle too and fro. Commenting occasionally on its hidden nectar's - its values - its historical importance in times of male woe. Near its death, it came.
'What do I have to do to win one of these damn things?'
That's Sonny's field. I had no answers. I thought about giving his a few positives. Like he had got to final. That he had millions in the bank. Third best player on the entire planet. Or is it the fourth? I was never third at anything. Not even at egg and spoon. But I didn't. Like a seasoned voter, I knew it wouldn't make a difference.
'You need a hobby, man,' I said eventually, after some serious thought. I wanted to help.
'You think?' he said, tipping his head as far back as it would go to drain the final drop of Jim down passed his mouth. It was an impressive sight. 'Like what?'
Fuck. I should have just kept my mouth shut. I was stumped.
'Do you read?' I asked. He looked at me like i had asked him something offensive.
'Of course I can read.' Ignoring his hearing, I passed him the copy of my book which just happened to be in my hand.
'Try that,' I said. I expected him to say 'No.' But he didn't.
'Booker's World,' he said. 'Imaginative!'
I don't know how long it took in dream hours, but he got through it in what seemed like the blink of a squinting eye.
'And I thought I was a loser?! he said, breathing out, eyes bulging like he was stressing a fact.
Bingo!
'See,' I said. 'There always someone/something worse.'
'I just needed reminding,' he said - shaking the empty bottle in hope. But this was not a fairytale. 'Thanks. Just what I needed.'
I knew it would have its uses. Someday. I told him to keep the book.
'Toilet reading,' I suggested.
His Galaxy something sounded off. He took it out. Fancy.
'It's the girls,' he said, passing it over for me to read.
Sleek too.
We've stopped crying now.
'Guess, I gotta go,' he said, starting to rise. Thank fuck. The legs on which he sat were numb. I wasn't doing my own chest cavity much good either. So, I rose off me as well.
'Do you think I can win a Grand-Slam?' he asked. He disappeared before I told him he could. He just had to do it. I sounded like a Nike cliche. I was glad he didn't hear me.
I woke from my slumber. Morning. Trying to cascade through those heavy curtains that served me so well. I felt like an eighty-year old man having just done a 12-hour shift on a ground-roller over rocky terrain. Which isn't good. I'm no where near eighty.
I attempted to stretch. I felt a twinge. Jaysus, had I pulled a disc? No. I could walk. My blood turned to pins as it began to circulate.
What was that noise?
Skype? Upstairs. Who'd be calling at this forsaken hour? Through a simple process of elimination I realized who it was. Sonny. He's the only one in my Skype list. Ordered to download it. By him.
I made coffee. Purposely strong. Those cheap bottles!
Ten minutes later I'd framed myself adequately and had Sonny on the other side of a computer screen. Bronzed as usual. Reminding me of those medals I never won.
'I tried calling you,' he said.
'I heard,' I said.
'Why didn't you answer. It could have been important.'
Not to me.
'Is it?'
'Well, no...'
I listened to him bang on again. Like his marriage counsellor. Amanda and Luke were fighting. Over how to develop the Italian enterprise to make Sonny 'fit in.' To make it pay for them all. So they'd never have to come back. I listened. Silently. Until he stopped for breath.
'Do you think they're having an affair?' I said. I watched as the expected look fell across his face. The classic furrowed brow. Might as well give him something else to think about. Throw a little family triangle among those thorny Italian vines. Paint that. Abstractly.
'I never said that?' he whispered - looking cautiously over his shoulder. No you didn't, Sonny. But now your thinking about it. Still - at least you have the sun down there.
He convinced me there was nothing going-on. Not that he had too. Boredom's a wicked thing sometimes. My bad.
Personal note to self - Must try harder in inter-personal relationships. Claim more sensitivity from universe. Must maintain friendships. Might need feeding. Someday.
Eventually the conversation ended itself in its usual way. The connection died. Like it does. Not sure if he tried to call back. I'd sent the computer into hibernation and got beneath the bed covers. That's more like it for a Monday afternoon. I'd talk to Sonny soon.
Larry Mulligan used to say he'd ban days of the week in favour of a more 'floating' approach if he ever got into power. Not sure of the power he had on his mind - being the independent hippy of the wrong era he was. In the wrong town. In the wrong country. Contemporary California might have suited old Lar better.
Me? I'd just ban Mondays. Make Sunday a 48-hour thing. Get the publicans on board. Reclaim the beer from the supermarkets. An Irish revolution.
You'd miss certain people. Certain places. Things.
Maybe I do need a hobby.
Kite surfing? You'd need a kite for that.
Research the family tree? - No thanks!
A job? - If only.
I think Ireland has me withered.
Write, eat, sleep.
Eat, sleep.
Sleep.
Odd menial chores.
Sleep, eat and write.
Bathroom breaks. Various lengths. Some tasks rhyme with write - others with behave. Others hiss.
Weekly excursion - visit old folks home.
Collect wages on way back.
Eat, write, sleep.
'I think we need a hobby,' said Gus, already claiming his first week of paid leave from the supermarket. Linda was working. Coinciding holidays might give their little secret away. I mean, how dare they fall for each other contrary to company policy. Unwritten too. NO employee liaisons.
'We?' I said, as Andy Murray, great British tennis hope, turned to his Mum, fist clenched, having just taken the first set in the Wimbledon final against Roger Federer. The time had come.
'Yes. It can't be all working and no playing,' he said, grabbing two bottles from a box of top-end beer he had bought in a two-for-one children's allowance day offer at a rival store earlier in the week. Gus doesn't have kids. So, he doesn't get the allowance. But why shouldn't he, should we say, take advantage.
'What's this?' I asked. 'Is this working. Sittin' here on a Sunday - getting slowly intoxicated?'
'No. This is not my meaning,' he said, as Andy's Mum jumps forward, raising a loving fist at her son as he takes another game. I can't see Murray being denied. His time must be now. He's hitting it sweetly.
'Tennis?' Gus offered. I nearly choked on my suds.
'You're kidding - right?' I said, recovering.
'Do I look like I is for kidding?' He raised his right eyebrow. He didn't. Unfortunately.
'Tennis isn't really my thing.' I said.
'Then what? he asked. Break point, Murray. Looking like his day.
No.
A second one.
No again. Fed ain't a six-time champion for nothing.
'Then - how about we just watch the TV?' An extension of tone on the 'then.'
'OK,' he said - ruffled.
Menial conversations. On Wimbledon final day. Can't be having it!
Another break-point.
No.
Murray would rue these. Minutes later he did. Federer wraps up the second set from no-where. Didn't see that coming. Neither did Murray by the looks of things. He's slumping. He has to hold.
He does.
Phew!
Bottle.
What next? The skies to open.
Yes. Players off.
'I must go,' Gus said rising. He took three bottles from the box and left them to the side.
'Call in during the week,' I said. 'When you're off.' He picked the box up and put it under his arm. Clinking all over the place.
'I is off now,' he said, waiting for a second.
'Talk to you soon.'
I jumped up myself, leaving Gus to let himself out. I'd bought strawberries. And cream. They're very green though. Must be the rain.
I shut the curtains over not long after Gus had closed the door. Soon after the roof went over Centre Court. Off, it would not come again. The rain hopped off it, rebounding out from the speakers on the TV. Quite the pour.
As the players came back out to a longing British crowd, it didn't take long before they started to realise that Federer was hitting form, and try as he may, Murray had no answer. Federer was coming in more, making Murray move, being more aggressive on Murray's second-serve. An error that had cost the Swiss the first set. Serving sublimely. Focused.
The writing's on the wall. With all the grace and elegance that has made him the greatest tennis player of all time, Fed reels off the closing two sets to claim a record-equalling seventh crown. His seventeenth grand slam title. World number 1 again. At 30.
As Murray reflected on his fourth grand slam final loss, the disappointment flowed from his eyes as he thanked those around him. Graceful in defeat like William Wallace on his final day in Hollywood.
Time is on his side - but he is playing in the Federer/Nadal era. Throw in a Djokovic, and one can see why it is difficult for the Scot - the weight of an entire nation on his back. The burden of carrying the failures of his peers at the London Venue stretching back to the 1930's on his shoulders.
What might have been...
I lay prostrate on the couch. Head tilted to the side. Catching the glow from the fire and glimpses of the TV set in equal measure. The fire - patching my face. The TV - parching my brain. To combat the boredom I did what all self-respecting practitioners of the state of elusiveness do. I fell asleep.
There I was. Driving Sonny to talk Andy Murray off the Wimbledon roof. It took a long-winded motivational appeal, but Sonny talked him down.
Seconds later.
We're all refused entry in The Fed's private party. Wimbledon champs only - and their agents.
'Maybe next year,' said Mike Tyson to Andy. He was bouncing at the door. With Mitch!
'I'm heading back to Italy,' Sonny said - telling Andy to keep his chin up. Andy thanked him for talking him down.
'I do it all the time,' Sonny said, before shaking both our hands.
'Nice to see you again, Don,' he said. He disappeared like the figment of my imagination he was.
'Who are you again?' Andy asked.
'Don Booker.'
'Never heard of you, Don?' Don't worry about it kid.
But this was a dream. My dream. I could have fed him anything. Took advantage of the scenario.
'Wanna get drunk?' he asked. A bolt from the tartan.
'Shouldn't you be getting back to your girlfriend and Mum?'
'They won't stop crying. You'd think I'd died or something.' He turned his head back a little and attempted to smile. 'Unless you have to get back to yours?'
No. That certainly wasn't going to be a problem!
Somehow or other my face had found itself nestled, nose first, down where lost pennies go to hide in the couch. Among the stale crumbs and discarded hairs. Forensic nightmare!
We found ourselves drinking a 200-year-old bottle of Jim Beam on the very couch I lay sleeping on. From his private collection.
'Bit of a hole,' he said, looking around. He passed the bottle over.
Cheap shot.
'Tis. Writings a bit of a slow burner.'
Think.
'You must be devastated with your loss?'
Cheaper.
The mouth fulls pass.
'Must be nice,' he said, offering his hand to take the bottle again. 'Being a nobody. Not that I mean any disrespect.'
I handed Jim back over. Us pair of slang-slingers. Probing.
'It has its benefits,' I began - not able to list many. 'It's quite for one.'
'Yes it is,' he said.
We listened for a time. Passing the bottle too and fro. Commenting occasionally on its hidden nectar's - its values - its historical importance in times of male woe. Near its death, it came.
'What do I have to do to win one of these damn things?'
That's Sonny's field. I had no answers. I thought about giving his a few positives. Like he had got to final. That he had millions in the bank. Third best player on the entire planet. Or is it the fourth? I was never third at anything. Not even at egg and spoon. But I didn't. Like a seasoned voter, I knew it wouldn't make a difference.
'You need a hobby, man,' I said eventually, after some serious thought. I wanted to help.
'You think?' he said, tipping his head as far back as it would go to drain the final drop of Jim down passed his mouth. It was an impressive sight. 'Like what?'
Fuck. I should have just kept my mouth shut. I was stumped.
'Do you read?' I asked. He looked at me like i had asked him something offensive.
'Of course I can read.' Ignoring his hearing, I passed him the copy of my book which just happened to be in my hand.
'Try that,' I said. I expected him to say 'No.' But he didn't.
'Booker's World,' he said. 'Imaginative!'
I don't know how long it took in dream hours, but he got through it in what seemed like the blink of a squinting eye.
'And I thought I was a loser?! he said, breathing out, eyes bulging like he was stressing a fact.
Bingo!
'See,' I said. 'There always someone/something worse.'
'I just needed reminding,' he said - shaking the empty bottle in hope. But this was not a fairytale. 'Thanks. Just what I needed.'
I knew it would have its uses. Someday. I told him to keep the book.
'Toilet reading,' I suggested.
His Galaxy something sounded off. He took it out. Fancy.
'It's the girls,' he said, passing it over for me to read.
Sleek too.
We've stopped crying now.
'Guess, I gotta go,' he said, starting to rise. Thank fuck. The legs on which he sat were numb. I wasn't doing my own chest cavity much good either. So, I rose off me as well.
'Do you think I can win a Grand-Slam?' he asked. He disappeared before I told him he could. He just had to do it. I sounded like a Nike cliche. I was glad he didn't hear me.
I woke from my slumber. Morning. Trying to cascade through those heavy curtains that served me so well. I felt like an eighty-year old man having just done a 12-hour shift on a ground-roller over rocky terrain. Which isn't good. I'm no where near eighty.
I attempted to stretch. I felt a twinge. Jaysus, had I pulled a disc? No. I could walk. My blood turned to pins as it began to circulate.
What was that noise?
Skype? Upstairs. Who'd be calling at this forsaken hour? Through a simple process of elimination I realized who it was. Sonny. He's the only one in my Skype list. Ordered to download it. By him.
I made coffee. Purposely strong. Those cheap bottles!
Ten minutes later I'd framed myself adequately and had Sonny on the other side of a computer screen. Bronzed as usual. Reminding me of those medals I never won.
'I tried calling you,' he said.
'I heard,' I said.
'Why didn't you answer. It could have been important.'
Not to me.
'Is it?'
'Well, no...'
I listened to him bang on again. Like his marriage counsellor. Amanda and Luke were fighting. Over how to develop the Italian enterprise to make Sonny 'fit in.' To make it pay for them all. So they'd never have to come back. I listened. Silently. Until he stopped for breath.
'Do you think they're having an affair?' I said. I watched as the expected look fell across his face. The classic furrowed brow. Might as well give him something else to think about. Throw a little family triangle among those thorny Italian vines. Paint that. Abstractly.
'I never said that?' he whispered - looking cautiously over his shoulder. No you didn't, Sonny. But now your thinking about it. Still - at least you have the sun down there.
He convinced me there was nothing going-on. Not that he had too. Boredom's a wicked thing sometimes. My bad.
Personal note to self - Must try harder in inter-personal relationships. Claim more sensitivity from universe. Must maintain friendships. Might need feeding. Someday.
Eventually the conversation ended itself in its usual way. The connection died. Like it does. Not sure if he tried to call back. I'd sent the computer into hibernation and got beneath the bed covers. That's more like it for a Monday afternoon. I'd talk to Sonny soon.
Larry Mulligan used to say he'd ban days of the week in favour of a more 'floating' approach if he ever got into power. Not sure of the power he had on his mind - being the independent hippy of the wrong era he was. In the wrong town. In the wrong country. Contemporary California might have suited old Lar better.
Me? I'd just ban Mondays. Make Sunday a 48-hour thing. Get the publicans on board. Reclaim the beer from the supermarkets. An Irish revolution.
You'd miss certain people. Certain places. Things.
Maybe I do need a hobby.
Kite surfing? You'd need a kite for that.
Research the family tree? - No thanks!
A job? - If only.
I think Ireland has me withered.
Write, eat, sleep.
Eat, sleep.
Sleep.
Tuesday, July 3, 2012
The Bailout Job
Last Thursday night an expectant German nation watched as their football team took to the field in Warsaw to play Italy in the European Championship semi-final. Having rifled their way to the group of four with steely German precision, the country felt this team had come of age and were set to deliver again on the major championship stage. Italy, no longer considered the powerhouse of the past and caught up in a fixing scandal within their domestic league were expected by most - myself included - to be swept aside. Efficiently.
Meanwhile, in Brussels, EU leaders were battling it out amongst each other, trying to kicks some cans down ever windier roads within palatial summit surroundings. Enda Kenny was there too. Not bad for a man from Mayo. Grandad Booker would be proud.
Angela Merkel, who Germans see as a good luck charm when it comes to the national team, is a footballing fan. The German chancellor was there for the previous match when the Greeks were dispatched - if not quite with the same ruthlessness as austerity - but European matters had her precedent on the night. Still, like she does, I'm sure she expected.
At worst Angela would have received whispered updates - as I'm sure any other fans around the table did that cared for the eccentricities of a moving liathróidí. What it is that attracts such beings remains a mystery for it seems to encompass all, peasant to president.
However Angela is fed her footballing news, I'm sure what she was hearing was not what she was expecting. And the worst was still to come.
The start of a bad night came from an wayward source - one of those flawed genius types which have graced the soccer field at times.
Rags to riches, Manchester City bad-boy, Mario Ballotelli - who had just heard that he was to become a Dad for the first time - rose to the occasion in the 20th minute to head a bullet into the German net from six-yards. Mario wasn't finished either. On 36 minutes he followed it up with, in my opinion, the best finish of the tournament - a 75 mile-an-hour rocket which flew past German keeper, Manuel Neuer - drawing applause from the beaten net minder and showing sportsmanship still exists somewhere.
Try as they may the Germans could not find a way through the Italian defense and despite an injury time penalty, the coming-of-age would have to wait for another few years. They were packing up and going home. The Italians would play the Spanish in the final. Both from Ireland's group, but it doesn't help with the suffering.
In an attic, a failed writer, takes advantage of the muggy night, sleeps in skin, dreaming of owning a shed load of e-voting machines and getting paid to store them. Handsomely!
Meanwhile back in Brussels.
Enda bites his nails. Another Mario - Monti - the Italian premier (unelected) throws eyes at Spain's own Mario - sorta - Mariano Rajoy, who eyes back in prospect. Tonight was not the night for squabble.
Threatening to throw Europe into chaos by vetoing everything from growth packages to the fracking of the land - OK, not quite - if the Germans didn't do something to alleviate the stranglehold the markets had around their borrowing necks.
Agreement was reached - in principal. Bank and sovereign debt are to be separated. Moves towards growth. Jobs for - well, not 25 million Europeans unemployed - for the time being anyway. More cutting.
Handshakes were faked. Monti claimed a double-victory. Merkel didn't approve. Balotelli milked the acclaim in the Italian press. A hero is born.
Morning breaks.
In an attic, a recluse wakes. Sweaty. Cold. Storage contract pulled. The rain, returned. A quick scratch of the nether, he embraces the groundhog in the day. A mouse circles.
What's this? Seismic shifts? Game-changers? Yawn!
Breakfast.
Enda and Nooner had returned. A sense of triumph. A nation saved from doom. Peace for our economic time. Had a ring of 'Neville Chamberlain' about it to me.
Ireland's leaders had the same cards the Italians and the Spanish had to play with - before, and on Thursday night.
I doubt the lack of press coverage about Irish input into the happenings was cynically left out from all major reporting of the unexpected 'deal.' The Finns and Dutch have already threatened to throw spanners and clogs at it. And rightly so too! For what is a deal - in principal? Where has anyone seen principal being a force for anything involved in this debacle in recent years?
Harmonization? Unity? Ask the Greeks - in fact, ask any nations citizen who is feeling the impact of austerity.
The Spanish and the Italians - with French backing - played their cards and made the threat. They got the result they were looking for. On the night anyway.
Ireland has kept her cards hidden for years. The Troika have seen the books. I'm betting Ireland will do as she is told to do. The coalition, elected on a mandate pitched to the Irish in a fighting tone, soon lost their bottle, dooming the vast majority of decent Irish people to carry the can once again for our nations political failures.
This was not a V-Day for Ireland. If there is to be a victory - and I doubt it - it won't be anything to do with Irish leaders standing up for Irish concerns and that's for sure.
And those which bankrupted us? They remain free... and flush.
Snap out. Fast forward. Sunday evening. Kiev.
As Irish and German fans look on, dreaming of what might have been, one a whole lot more than the other, the victorious bailout nations took to the soccer field to decide who would be crowned champions of the ball for the next four years.
Spain, reigning world and European champions, and four-time champions of the world, Italy. The Brussels Bunch.
Spain. Favourites. They had never beaten Italy in a competitive match before. Looking to do what no other nation had done in the history of the game before - win a third major championship in a row. Olympics not included.
Something had to give - and it did.
Goals from Silva, Alba, Torres and Mata rammed critique of the all-conquering Spanish firmly back down the throats of critics the world over. The ones who dared question their brand of slick football. Those who said they passed for the sake of passing. Those who had questioned their team without strikers. Those who questioned their lack of goals.
Italy, to their credit, tried hard. The games statistics testify to that. But artistry was not to be outdone by workmanship on this occasion, and when Italian, Tiago Motta, limped off early in the second half, reducing the brave Italians to ten men, history began to write the record of a unique achievement which will be unlikely to be seen again. Not in a Booker lifetime.
Spain had prevailed. All week. By all accounts.
As Ballotelli huffed down the tunnel, Iker Casillas stepped up to raise the Henri Delaunay trophy and send his nation into rapture once more. Tears poured from Italian eyes - graceful in defeat. Pirlo, so great for so long throughout the tournament, no answer to the Spanish weaving he'd just endured. Ballotelli returned from the tunnel to see see the light - sulk over. Flawed. Like us all.
Fernando Torres claimed the golden boot - albeit by being on the pitch for fewer minutes than his goal-tally equaling fellows, all of whom had found net three times throughout the tournament. The masterly Iniesta was the player of the tournament. The Spanish reign goes on.
The days of lives drift by where ever people hail from. All to the tune of different drums. Some under the boom of bombs, some in the glare of the Spanish sun, some in tandem with the rain, beating its melancholic Irish drum. Some doing favour for others - others doing themselves no favour at all.
Time for a swim. Where's me jumper?
Meanwhile, in Brussels, EU leaders were battling it out amongst each other, trying to kicks some cans down ever windier roads within palatial summit surroundings. Enda Kenny was there too. Not bad for a man from Mayo. Grandad Booker would be proud.
Angela Merkel, who Germans see as a good luck charm when it comes to the national team, is a footballing fan. The German chancellor was there for the previous match when the Greeks were dispatched - if not quite with the same ruthlessness as austerity - but European matters had her precedent on the night. Still, like she does, I'm sure she expected.
At worst Angela would have received whispered updates - as I'm sure any other fans around the table did that cared for the eccentricities of a moving liathróidí. What it is that attracts such beings remains a mystery for it seems to encompass all, peasant to president.
However Angela is fed her footballing news, I'm sure what she was hearing was not what she was expecting. And the worst was still to come.
The start of a bad night came from an wayward source - one of those flawed genius types which have graced the soccer field at times.
Rags to riches, Manchester City bad-boy, Mario Ballotelli - who had just heard that he was to become a Dad for the first time - rose to the occasion in the 20th minute to head a bullet into the German net from six-yards. Mario wasn't finished either. On 36 minutes he followed it up with, in my opinion, the best finish of the tournament - a 75 mile-an-hour rocket which flew past German keeper, Manuel Neuer - drawing applause from the beaten net minder and showing sportsmanship still exists somewhere.
Try as they may the Germans could not find a way through the Italian defense and despite an injury time penalty, the coming-of-age would have to wait for another few years. They were packing up and going home. The Italians would play the Spanish in the final. Both from Ireland's group, but it doesn't help with the suffering.
In an attic, a failed writer, takes advantage of the muggy night, sleeps in skin, dreaming of owning a shed load of e-voting machines and getting paid to store them. Handsomely!
Meanwhile back in Brussels.
Enda bites his nails. Another Mario - Monti - the Italian premier (unelected) throws eyes at Spain's own Mario - sorta - Mariano Rajoy, who eyes back in prospect. Tonight was not the night for squabble.
Threatening to throw Europe into chaos by vetoing everything from growth packages to the fracking of the land - OK, not quite - if the Germans didn't do something to alleviate the stranglehold the markets had around their borrowing necks.
Agreement was reached - in principal. Bank and sovereign debt are to be separated. Moves towards growth. Jobs for - well, not 25 million Europeans unemployed - for the time being anyway. More cutting.
Handshakes were faked. Monti claimed a double-victory. Merkel didn't approve. Balotelli milked the acclaim in the Italian press. A hero is born.
Morning breaks.
In an attic, a recluse wakes. Sweaty. Cold. Storage contract pulled. The rain, returned. A quick scratch of the nether, he embraces the groundhog in the day. A mouse circles.
What's this? Seismic shifts? Game-changers? Yawn!
Breakfast.
Enda and Nooner had returned. A sense of triumph. A nation saved from doom. Peace for our economic time. Had a ring of 'Neville Chamberlain' about it to me.
Ireland's leaders had the same cards the Italians and the Spanish had to play with - before, and on Thursday night.
I doubt the lack of press coverage about Irish input into the happenings was cynically left out from all major reporting of the unexpected 'deal.' The Finns and Dutch have already threatened to throw spanners and clogs at it. And rightly so too! For what is a deal - in principal? Where has anyone seen principal being a force for anything involved in this debacle in recent years?
Harmonization? Unity? Ask the Greeks - in fact, ask any nations citizen who is feeling the impact of austerity.
The Spanish and the Italians - with French backing - played their cards and made the threat. They got the result they were looking for. On the night anyway.
Ireland has kept her cards hidden for years. The Troika have seen the books. I'm betting Ireland will do as she is told to do. The coalition, elected on a mandate pitched to the Irish in a fighting tone, soon lost their bottle, dooming the vast majority of decent Irish people to carry the can once again for our nations political failures.
This was not a V-Day for Ireland. If there is to be a victory - and I doubt it - it won't be anything to do with Irish leaders standing up for Irish concerns and that's for sure.
And those which bankrupted us? They remain free... and flush.
Snap out. Fast forward. Sunday evening. Kiev.
As Irish and German fans look on, dreaming of what might have been, one a whole lot more than the other, the victorious bailout nations took to the soccer field to decide who would be crowned champions of the ball for the next four years.
Spain, reigning world and European champions, and four-time champions of the world, Italy. The Brussels Bunch.
Spain. Favourites. They had never beaten Italy in a competitive match before. Looking to do what no other nation had done in the history of the game before - win a third major championship in a row. Olympics not included.
Something had to give - and it did.
Goals from Silva, Alba, Torres and Mata rammed critique of the all-conquering Spanish firmly back down the throats of critics the world over. The ones who dared question their brand of slick football. Those who said they passed for the sake of passing. Those who had questioned their team without strikers. Those who questioned their lack of goals.
Italy, to their credit, tried hard. The games statistics testify to that. But artistry was not to be outdone by workmanship on this occasion, and when Italian, Tiago Motta, limped off early in the second half, reducing the brave Italians to ten men, history began to write the record of a unique achievement which will be unlikely to be seen again. Not in a Booker lifetime.
Spain had prevailed. All week. By all accounts.
As Ballotelli huffed down the tunnel, Iker Casillas stepped up to raise the Henri Delaunay trophy and send his nation into rapture once more. Tears poured from Italian eyes - graceful in defeat. Pirlo, so great for so long throughout the tournament, no answer to the Spanish weaving he'd just endured. Ballotelli returned from the tunnel to see see the light - sulk over. Flawed. Like us all.
Fernando Torres claimed the golden boot - albeit by being on the pitch for fewer minutes than his goal-tally equaling fellows, all of whom had found net three times throughout the tournament. The masterly Iniesta was the player of the tournament. The Spanish reign goes on.
The days of lives drift by where ever people hail from. All to the tune of different drums. Some under the boom of bombs, some in the glare of the Spanish sun, some in tandem with the rain, beating its melancholic Irish drum. Some doing favour for others - others doing themselves no favour at all.
Time for a swim. Where's me jumper?
 | ||||
Wednesday, June 27, 2012
Constants
'You must give me €20,' he said, looking as if an invisible had a gun to the back of his head.
'Morning to you too, Gus,' I said, telling him to come in. I quickly closed the door over on the rain pissing venom on anything that dare enter the world.
'The bank. It not give me my money,' he explained as we walked through to the kitchen. It was 10am on a summers morning. It was dark. I flicked the light switch. That was better. Gus looked ill.
'What you mean?' I asked.
I haven't had a bank account in over three years. I wonder if they're charging me for abandoning it. But what's a guy to do with nothing to filter through it to be nibbled at by those pesky banking flies. Gus told me he couldn't access his account via the bank machine.
'That happens a lot in Ireland,' I said, memories of such events rushing back. A trigger I think they call it.
'You never understand,' he said. 'The wages, they not go in so no bills come out. This is like worst nightmare.' I'd hate to see him on Elm Street or in conversation with an English aristocrat.
Seemingly there had been a little IT trouble at his bank which rendered its systems useless. Account holders unable to access their own money. Tran-suctions not taking place. Way to much Cyber for me. I could see his frustration all the same.
'When they say it'll be fixed?' I asked, the kitchen lighting up from a sky strike outside.
'Maybe next week,' he said. 'That's why I want the money from you. If you can be kind.'
I felt warm. A headache coming on. Sweat needling me. Thunder rolling. Clamorous. Fuck this weather.
'Sure,' I said, reaching for my gold-plated wallet on the table. It turned to worn leather as i touched it. I peered inside. A twenty and a ten.
'I'm kinda like your bank,' I said, taking out the ten and handing it to him. 'Short on funds.'
'It must do,' he said, almost tripping over the leg of the table in a bolt for the door. 'I must go. I not eat since yesterday morning.'
'No problem,' I said, taking a more Saturday-ly approach to the front door. No need to say thanks.
'I call soon with it back,' he shouted. I watched as he walked in a hurry toward the shops. Waiting. Another growl. Spit-Spat. Spit-spat. That's as far as it sounded warning, before the heavens opened - once again! Poor Gus. When it rains - it pours.
You'd wonder about them banks though, wouldn't you? Access to all those deposits upon which they can profit from in any which way they can. Then the access to cheap credit - which they then lend out nine-times over at extortionate interest rates to willing folk who want a bigger slice of life. Some slices bigger than others, I should add. The debt cycle begins.
With so much opportunity - opportunity never afforded the ordinary man - it does beggar the question. Just how did they screw it all up? And why are they not held to account? Why are they allowed to continue? Fractional reserve, they call it. But did they keep the fraction? Do they even have your money at all?
It's a flawed system, yet the cheerleaders are many. They are influential. They care little for society - less for those who make up its parts. A peak to trough - boom to bust - ponzi scheme that may very well go pop. Crazy, when you think about it. Crazy, that her top-practitioners work with world governments watching their backs. Paying themselves salary increases directly from the proceeds of austerity. So the heist can continue. For a little bit longer. In Casino Pon-zi.
I hate filling out forms. Particularly official ones. That come down from the top. It's part of the joyous world bitches to systems must endure throughout the year. So files can be updated. Giving people something to do.
What have you been doing to find ...
Provide proof.
Penalties.
I never like the wording. At least the banks hide their terms and conditions in the ultra-fine print that no-one can read. Not that people do in any case.
Housing this time. Fill out forms provided. Return to sender.
Never really bothered me before. Mitch was here a lot then. I got him to fill them out mostly. Mum was here, incapacitated as she was/is. She should have filled them out as she was the renter.
It was the only trouble I'd ever had with them. I had to provide proof of her incapacitates. Doctoral. Apart from that it was home. For over thirty years now. I think herself got the chance to buy it once. The rent was cheaper. It fitted her philosophy. Back when she had one. Was never as full as it was a few years ago. Hardly ever lightly to be again. A constant. Apart from myself - my only real one. And it doesn't talk. That's always good.
Number of residents?
For once the silence got me. There was no-one else here. Didn't really bother me. It was the question that did?
'Just stick down three,' I could hear Leon sneer. This was no time to be funny. I could put Mitch down as resident - he being kin and all. He still pops in. Every few months. The last time he was up from Dublin he told me he had spent the whole bus trip wondering if sometime he'll walk in the door and find me rotting there, akin to a beautiful girl from a film he'd seen. I told Mitch he should have himself checked out.
I put the forms away for a day. But the question kept reminding me to answer it. It wouldn't go away. Like a constant ringing in the ears, it plagued. Until I returned to it.
1
Fifteen minutes later it was falling into a box dressed in a stamp and an address. Waiting for the postman. Damn postmen.
It's not often it happens. You open a door just as someone is stood there. Nearly jump out of your skin - though the skin doesn't move.
'Just the one,' he said, as he handed me my mail. Been delivering here for years. I still don't know his name.
'Thanks,' I said. I knew by it, it was official. I shouldn't have been too disappointed. It's not like people write personal letters anymore. Not to me anyhow.
'The state are everywhere,' he said, beady eyes, trying to take in everything. In an instant. Relaying to me all the times in the past few days he had come across checkpoints, speed cameras, customs and welfare officers. The list was long. I half-expected Lord Lucan to get a mention.
'Soon, you won't be able to shite. I used to be finished by now,' he scolded. I'm sure filling me on the nations development wasn't helping his cause much with that. I'd heard it had become like that. From someone...
'I'll motor on,' he said. 'While I still can.' The poor hoor. Wonder if he has ever been bitten?
'No sense worrying about it,' I keep thinking. So why can't I see the sense. Not going to look good though. Me. Here. On my Tod. Hopefully they'll see my name on the form and just slip it over to the pile reserved for the familiar without going past it.
I'm sure it would make some small family happy. Starting out. Three-bed house in quiet area. One previous occupant. Recluse! Shifted to a granny flat in an area riddled with kids. Meanwhile, down in Longford...
Maybe I'm reading too much into it. They'd hardly evict me to smaller quarters. Not that I'm into big places or anything. It's just this is home. I'm sure its been paid for by now. Twice-over.
No, I'm right. As usual.
No sense at all.
'Morning to you too, Gus,' I said, telling him to come in. I quickly closed the door over on the rain pissing venom on anything that dare enter the world.
'The bank. It not give me my money,' he explained as we walked through to the kitchen. It was 10am on a summers morning. It was dark. I flicked the light switch. That was better. Gus looked ill.
'What you mean?' I asked.
I haven't had a bank account in over three years. I wonder if they're charging me for abandoning it. But what's a guy to do with nothing to filter through it to be nibbled at by those pesky banking flies. Gus told me he couldn't access his account via the bank machine.
'That happens a lot in Ireland,' I said, memories of such events rushing back. A trigger I think they call it.
'You never understand,' he said. 'The wages, they not go in so no bills come out. This is like worst nightmare.' I'd hate to see him on Elm Street or in conversation with an English aristocrat.
Seemingly there had been a little IT trouble at his bank which rendered its systems useless. Account holders unable to access their own money. Tran-suctions not taking place. Way to much Cyber for me. I could see his frustration all the same.
'When they say it'll be fixed?' I asked, the kitchen lighting up from a sky strike outside.
'Maybe next week,' he said. 'That's why I want the money from you. If you can be kind.'
I felt warm. A headache coming on. Sweat needling me. Thunder rolling. Clamorous. Fuck this weather.
'Sure,' I said, reaching for my gold-plated wallet on the table. It turned to worn leather as i touched it. I peered inside. A twenty and a ten.
'I'm kinda like your bank,' I said, taking out the ten and handing it to him. 'Short on funds.'
'It must do,' he said, almost tripping over the leg of the table in a bolt for the door. 'I must go. I not eat since yesterday morning.'
'No problem,' I said, taking a more Saturday-ly approach to the front door. No need to say thanks.
'I call soon with it back,' he shouted. I watched as he walked in a hurry toward the shops. Waiting. Another growl. Spit-Spat. Spit-spat. That's as far as it sounded warning, before the heavens opened - once again! Poor Gus. When it rains - it pours.
You'd wonder about them banks though, wouldn't you? Access to all those deposits upon which they can profit from in any which way they can. Then the access to cheap credit - which they then lend out nine-times over at extortionate interest rates to willing folk who want a bigger slice of life. Some slices bigger than others, I should add. The debt cycle begins.
With so much opportunity - opportunity never afforded the ordinary man - it does beggar the question. Just how did they screw it all up? And why are they not held to account? Why are they allowed to continue? Fractional reserve, they call it. But did they keep the fraction? Do they even have your money at all?
It's a flawed system, yet the cheerleaders are many. They are influential. They care little for society - less for those who make up its parts. A peak to trough - boom to bust - ponzi scheme that may very well go pop. Crazy, when you think about it. Crazy, that her top-practitioners work with world governments watching their backs. Paying themselves salary increases directly from the proceeds of austerity. So the heist can continue. For a little bit longer. In Casino Pon-zi.
I hate filling out forms. Particularly official ones. That come down from the top. It's part of the joyous world bitches to systems must endure throughout the year. So files can be updated. Giving people something to do.
What have you been doing to find ...
Provide proof.
Penalties.
I never like the wording. At least the banks hide their terms and conditions in the ultra-fine print that no-one can read. Not that people do in any case.
Housing this time. Fill out forms provided. Return to sender.
Never really bothered me before. Mitch was here a lot then. I got him to fill them out mostly. Mum was here, incapacitated as she was/is. She should have filled them out as she was the renter.
It was the only trouble I'd ever had with them. I had to provide proof of her incapacitates. Doctoral. Apart from that it was home. For over thirty years now. I think herself got the chance to buy it once. The rent was cheaper. It fitted her philosophy. Back when she had one. Was never as full as it was a few years ago. Hardly ever lightly to be again. A constant. Apart from myself - my only real one. And it doesn't talk. That's always good.
Number of residents?
For once the silence got me. There was no-one else here. Didn't really bother me. It was the question that did?
'Just stick down three,' I could hear Leon sneer. This was no time to be funny. I could put Mitch down as resident - he being kin and all. He still pops in. Every few months. The last time he was up from Dublin he told me he had spent the whole bus trip wondering if sometime he'll walk in the door and find me rotting there, akin to a beautiful girl from a film he'd seen. I told Mitch he should have himself checked out.
I put the forms away for a day. But the question kept reminding me to answer it. It wouldn't go away. Like a constant ringing in the ears, it plagued. Until I returned to it.
1
Fifteen minutes later it was falling into a box dressed in a stamp and an address. Waiting for the postman. Damn postmen.
It's not often it happens. You open a door just as someone is stood there. Nearly jump out of your skin - though the skin doesn't move.
'Just the one,' he said, as he handed me my mail. Been delivering here for years. I still don't know his name.
'Thanks,' I said. I knew by it, it was official. I shouldn't have been too disappointed. It's not like people write personal letters anymore. Not to me anyhow.
'The state are everywhere,' he said, beady eyes, trying to take in everything. In an instant. Relaying to me all the times in the past few days he had come across checkpoints, speed cameras, customs and welfare officers. The list was long. I half-expected Lord Lucan to get a mention.
'Soon, you won't be able to shite. I used to be finished by now,' he scolded. I'm sure filling me on the nations development wasn't helping his cause much with that. I'd heard it had become like that. From someone...
'I'll motor on,' he said. 'While I still can.' The poor hoor. Wonder if he has ever been bitten?
'No sense worrying about it,' I keep thinking. So why can't I see the sense. Not going to look good though. Me. Here. On my Tod. Hopefully they'll see my name on the form and just slip it over to the pile reserved for the familiar without going past it.
I'm sure it would make some small family happy. Starting out. Three-bed house in quiet area. One previous occupant. Recluse! Shifted to a granny flat in an area riddled with kids. Meanwhile, down in Longford...
Maybe I'm reading too much into it. They'd hardly evict me to smaller quarters. Not that I'm into big places or anything. It's just this is home. I'm sure its been paid for by now. Twice-over.
No, I'm right. As usual.
No sense at all.
Wednesday, June 6, 2012
Knights of the Green Brigade
There she was. Surfing the horizon. Going down - causing the skies on the east coast of Ireland to ponder colour. Cruising I was, a commercial success - implanted hair flying everywhere. Doing 35. An old Bentley. Soft-Top. Down. Sitting six inches from the road.
I'd picked her up cheap. At an auction. Down at the Sheriff's yard. Some poor fool. Gone under. Took a dive. Felt the fall. Left the car. Absurd!
It was one of those days that you dream of. When it all goes right. The smouldering voice that came through the stereo system. Marilyn Monroe's - on a sultry evening. Soon after the tequila ran dry.
'Ireland is free,' she whispers, loud enough for the island to hear. 'Happy Birthday.' In that Galway brogue of hers. From the speakers. In the boot. The big ones. The sea hissing as it rolls in her background. Perched there high in her home in the hill-tops. Where Wales can seen. On a clear day. If you're deluded!
Frédéric François Chopin ringing out from opened floor-to-ceiling bay windows as old fogies play lawn bowls and drink gin with gusto. Lamenting at little, aside the can-swilling, football fanatic, closet Rhianna fan - rendered the twenty stone beast she was - and him - by unemployment. But, no more!
Ireland had rid herself of her ills. Unanimously. To the very citizen. In a vote. A Refer-Enda, A New Politic. A little off-center, pursuing a right-wing agenda with left-leaning goals.
Enda had grown a pair - fed up with nightmares about his legacy - the nonce portrayed by irate bloggers who he'd see would soon the Atlantic mist. Up-close and personal. Tied to a rock. Riding waves.
The people had chosen. To go back. Back. To '72. That New Year's Eve. Where flares swung wild and wide and socks multitask-ed. That last day when Ireland was truly Ireland.
Now Kenny would lead. Doherty assisting. Higgins over-seeing. Adams defense. Cowen taking coats at NAMA's - Ireland's answer to Disney World.
Phil Hogan sent to the islands. Howlin & Gilmore too.
As our 'friendly foes' threaten nuclear options, with Enda the country stood. Doherty whispering in his ear. Higgins listening. Adams egging them on. Hogan, since pardoned, playing fiddle and singing of the rising of 2016.
'Go ahead...' Enda urged them - a firm quiet tone. A menace in his eye.
'Press it,' he dared.
Irish brows rose. And with them returning smiles. Like the ones in the Summer of 2012 - when the boys in green took Europe home.
'You go, Enda boy,' says a hopeless bass player. Locked in his black bedroom - caged there by himself. Streaming. YouTube. Happy.
'What about the deficit?' a lone wolf did cry. Bearded to a peak. Siding down. White shirt. Dressed in Hemp. Friendly sort.
With it Hogan rises. To boos. And eggs. An army boot. A sod of turf. Not sure if I imagined the Septic tank or not. 'Big' Phil accepts them all. With a grace. For social sins.
'With this pen - I declare no deficit,' he mantra's - stroking it away as the important watch on. The masses roar. In their scattered millions. Across land. Across sea. Across the world. Jedward told to hit the cruise liner circuit. Off Dubai. Dublin Housewives and Fair City are HBO hit.
'How can you do that?' asked the wolf. The masses shush. Still. The ghosts of all that had passed through her land go through not one - but all. East to west. North to south. Young and old.
'With free enterprise and social motivation - the likes of which have never been seen before,' he roars - a fist aimed northward to an eager masses. 'Skulduggery. Shenanigans. Sharks. 'Tis what we're famous for? Let's use it. For all its worth.'
And Ireland did. With Hogan's call they rounded - but not on him. Not on each other. Not on your Nelly!
The wolf got Propaganda.
Renowned minds were sought and bought with the best NAMA could provide for them. Oil men. Thinkers. Investors. Scientific and environmental heavy-weights. Social reprobates. Danish filmmakers. Lady Scandinavian CEO's. Social dictators.
The tiny island formerly known as Iremany took her name back. She thrived. Prospered. She even paid it all back. Unsecured bondholders and all. Even Bertie and Brian's pension. Fuck, it even stopped raining in the summer.
It did take time - but what's time in an expanding, infinite universe anyway. There were squabblers at first. Arts Minister, Dan Boyle suggested that was what smaller western and northern islands were for. The Greens were back. They'd not falter again.
There the squabblers were free to fight - with each other - mandatory bare knuckle rules applied. Pitch fork or Scythe on a Sunday. Till they tire and roam the icy Atlantic rock filled lands that sometimes glisten like from another world. For a few days a year.
When reflection peaked, they were welcomed back. To trade like mongrel dogs in a capitalist market with one sole aim. Too take it over. Then take it down. Like those who had did Ireland before. Back in the bad old days. When the gutter grime of grey Dublin buildings remained there. For all to see.
The Noble lost ground to The Higgins Prize as the years they did slid on by. The dynamite fell silent and with it the prize money. The nukes followed soon after. Sent towards the sun. As if it weren't bright enough.
They all wanted 'The Higgins.' Coveted it was. Even more than Kim Kardasian. More than oil itself. Putin, Romney, (Congrats, btw), Palin, Bill O' Reilly - even the new Pope. Bono - 1.
They would do anything to be considered for it. Merkel hosted a Dad's Army fancy-dress night on the net. She poll-danced. With Lucinda and Simon. On RTé.
They all wanted to be bestowed - A Knight of the Green Brigade. The most successful army in the world. Never had fired a bullet. Since that day. When Enda ordered them out.
Of course, all that nonsense lies way off in the mind of a young Ming Flanagan or off in one of those multi-verses Hugh Everett found his fame for.
For Ireland was not to be so nonsensical. Voters of the day decided to go with Europe - for better, that may yet turn too worse. The people spoke and despite very conspiratorial theories flying around the place - it's in the beefy bosom of the ESM, we place our future in.
Except the beef is going-off. Stinking of austerity. Ireland has accepted her fall and will now pay the price with her assets, economic sovereignty and wave after wave of austere measures aimed at reducing a fiscal deficit that can only mean one thing. A stiff one. Yearly. For many to come.
That Hendrix kid in his room. Unhappy now. Defeated.
'You a real dancing queen?' Gustav muttered to my annoyances as he stepped in from the downpour outside to deliver the 'greatest news.' It has barely stopped since Friday. I'd offer an analogy for it, one that could drown in that vast sea of words, but...
Interview Thursday. Twelve bells.
'Wear a suit,' he offered in kind. I don't have one.
'Sure will,' I beamed - falsely. It should have felt like a lotto scoop but it was more an old Christy Moore ballad involving the colour black. For that is the colour - as Europe threatens to go wallop unless austerity demands are met. And even then it don't look too Miami beach on a hazy July day, does it?
'I have good feeling you get job,' he said - before telling me he was sitting his English Leaving Cert exam this week. Been studying, our Gus. In the evenings.
'A grade would be of much pride,' he said, a lisp of achievement breaking through into his voice. 'Maybe next year I do Irish.'
I felt like telling him he's be better served doing German or French - there was probably more opportunity in those language. I didn't. I just wanted rid. I got what I wanted.
"Break your leg on Thursday,' he said, scooting off to do the night shift.
Certain things bring up other things. Can be too easy to get lost there sometimes. In those other things that revolve around us in daily life.
Ireland can't change things now. It's done. Hard to figure at the best of times. People do speak in the strangest of ways sometimes.
Still, I hope he gets his grade. A great one. Good luck to him/them.
As Ireland now begins the transition in order to meet this unachievable deficit reduction bound by these draconian terms, she also takes a firm back seat in World affairs. It was left to 955,091 people from a population of 3.1 million entitled voters to set us on this new course. How many of that number felt they had absolutely no other choice? We'll never know.
The campaign was dirty - fear led - devoid of the leadership that may see Ireland through. The 'No' side failed by not offering solutions to the deficit - or should I say, by not being willing to saying it.
For mention of cuts and tax-hikes and service depletion are not vote grabbers in any political language or arena. But yet, they now form the basis with which we limp forth. Or backward - depending on your viewpoint. For they're all coming. We accepted it - so no cop out to ill-governance anymore.
The number gap between the populous entitled to vote and those that voted for the fiscal treaty, probably says more about the sad state of Irish democracy than any of the leaders that have served us ill throughout the course of our history. Be they here or otherwise.
'Let it go.'
Like a whisper it was - if it was there at all. Leon - way off out there in the mechanic mashes of all that exists blind to us. Beneath the surface. Fizzing, looping, shooting spectra of almost nothings, whirling about, directionless, playing quantum hide and seek, in realms, forming all, beyond most compressions.
'Twas like the old beggar was back here for a nano-second. Saying that's there's more at play right now in the world than the troubles of a little green island in economic and social strife.
What's a whisper, anyway? Between friends. Perhaps the whisper was right. In fact, it is right. There is.
A whole lot more.
I'd picked her up cheap. At an auction. Down at the Sheriff's yard. Some poor fool. Gone under. Took a dive. Felt the fall. Left the car. Absurd!
It was one of those days that you dream of. When it all goes right. The smouldering voice that came through the stereo system. Marilyn Monroe's - on a sultry evening. Soon after the tequila ran dry.
'Ireland is free,' she whispers, loud enough for the island to hear. 'Happy Birthday.' In that Galway brogue of hers. From the speakers. In the boot. The big ones. The sea hissing as it rolls in her background. Perched there high in her home in the hill-tops. Where Wales can seen. On a clear day. If you're deluded!
Frédéric François Chopin ringing out from opened floor-to-ceiling bay windows as old fogies play lawn bowls and drink gin with gusto. Lamenting at little, aside the can-swilling, football fanatic, closet Rhianna fan - rendered the twenty stone beast she was - and him - by unemployment. But, no more!
Ireland had rid herself of her ills. Unanimously. To the very citizen. In a vote. A Refer-Enda, A New Politic. A little off-center, pursuing a right-wing agenda with left-leaning goals.
Enda had grown a pair - fed up with nightmares about his legacy - the nonce portrayed by irate bloggers who he'd see would soon the Atlantic mist. Up-close and personal. Tied to a rock. Riding waves.
The people had chosen. To go back. Back. To '72. That New Year's Eve. Where flares swung wild and wide and socks multitask-ed. That last day when Ireland was truly Ireland.
Now Kenny would lead. Doherty assisting. Higgins over-seeing. Adams defense. Cowen taking coats at NAMA's - Ireland's answer to Disney World.
Phil Hogan sent to the islands. Howlin & Gilmore too.
As our 'friendly foes' threaten nuclear options, with Enda the country stood. Doherty whispering in his ear. Higgins listening. Adams egging them on. Hogan, since pardoned, playing fiddle and singing of the rising of 2016.
'Go ahead...' Enda urged them - a firm quiet tone. A menace in his eye.
'Press it,' he dared.
Irish brows rose. And with them returning smiles. Like the ones in the Summer of 2012 - when the boys in green took Europe home.
'You go, Enda boy,' says a hopeless bass player. Locked in his black bedroom - caged there by himself. Streaming. YouTube. Happy.
'What about the deficit?' a lone wolf did cry. Bearded to a peak. Siding down. White shirt. Dressed in Hemp. Friendly sort.
With it Hogan rises. To boos. And eggs. An army boot. A sod of turf. Not sure if I imagined the Septic tank or not. 'Big' Phil accepts them all. With a grace. For social sins.
'With this pen - I declare no deficit,' he mantra's - stroking it away as the important watch on. The masses roar. In their scattered millions. Across land. Across sea. Across the world. Jedward told to hit the cruise liner circuit. Off Dubai. Dublin Housewives and Fair City are HBO hit.
'How can you do that?' asked the wolf. The masses shush. Still. The ghosts of all that had passed through her land go through not one - but all. East to west. North to south. Young and old.
'With free enterprise and social motivation - the likes of which have never been seen before,' he roars - a fist aimed northward to an eager masses. 'Skulduggery. Shenanigans. Sharks. 'Tis what we're famous for? Let's use it. For all its worth.'
And Ireland did. With Hogan's call they rounded - but not on him. Not on each other. Not on your Nelly!
The wolf got Propaganda.
Renowned minds were sought and bought with the best NAMA could provide for them. Oil men. Thinkers. Investors. Scientific and environmental heavy-weights. Social reprobates. Danish filmmakers. Lady Scandinavian CEO's. Social dictators.
The tiny island formerly known as Iremany took her name back. She thrived. Prospered. She even paid it all back. Unsecured bondholders and all. Even Bertie and Brian's pension. Fuck, it even stopped raining in the summer.
It did take time - but what's time in an expanding, infinite universe anyway. There were squabblers at first. Arts Minister, Dan Boyle suggested that was what smaller western and northern islands were for. The Greens were back. They'd not falter again.
There the squabblers were free to fight - with each other - mandatory bare knuckle rules applied. Pitch fork or Scythe on a Sunday. Till they tire and roam the icy Atlantic rock filled lands that sometimes glisten like from another world. For a few days a year.
When reflection peaked, they were welcomed back. To trade like mongrel dogs in a capitalist market with one sole aim. Too take it over. Then take it down. Like those who had did Ireland before. Back in the bad old days. When the gutter grime of grey Dublin buildings remained there. For all to see.
The Noble lost ground to The Higgins Prize as the years they did slid on by. The dynamite fell silent and with it the prize money. The nukes followed soon after. Sent towards the sun. As if it weren't bright enough.
They all wanted 'The Higgins.' Coveted it was. Even more than Kim Kardasian. More than oil itself. Putin, Romney, (Congrats, btw), Palin, Bill O' Reilly - even the new Pope. Bono - 1.
They would do anything to be considered for it. Merkel hosted a Dad's Army fancy-dress night on the net. She poll-danced. With Lucinda and Simon. On RTé.
They all wanted to be bestowed - A Knight of the Green Brigade. The most successful army in the world. Never had fired a bullet. Since that day. When Enda ordered them out.
Of course, all that nonsense lies way off in the mind of a young Ming Flanagan or off in one of those multi-verses Hugh Everett found his fame for.
For Ireland was not to be so nonsensical. Voters of the day decided to go with Europe - for better, that may yet turn too worse. The people spoke and despite very conspiratorial theories flying around the place - it's in the beefy bosom of the ESM, we place our future in.
Except the beef is going-off. Stinking of austerity. Ireland has accepted her fall and will now pay the price with her assets, economic sovereignty and wave after wave of austere measures aimed at reducing a fiscal deficit that can only mean one thing. A stiff one. Yearly. For many to come.
That Hendrix kid in his room. Unhappy now. Defeated.
'You a real dancing queen?' Gustav muttered to my annoyances as he stepped in from the downpour outside to deliver the 'greatest news.' It has barely stopped since Friday. I'd offer an analogy for it, one that could drown in that vast sea of words, but...
Interview Thursday. Twelve bells.
'Wear a suit,' he offered in kind. I don't have one.
'Sure will,' I beamed - falsely. It should have felt like a lotto scoop but it was more an old Christy Moore ballad involving the colour black. For that is the colour - as Europe threatens to go wallop unless austerity demands are met. And even then it don't look too Miami beach on a hazy July day, does it?
'I have good feeling you get job,' he said - before telling me he was sitting his English Leaving Cert exam this week. Been studying, our Gus. In the evenings.
'A grade would be of much pride,' he said, a lisp of achievement breaking through into his voice. 'Maybe next year I do Irish.'
I felt like telling him he's be better served doing German or French - there was probably more opportunity in those language. I didn't. I just wanted rid. I got what I wanted.
"Break your leg on Thursday,' he said, scooting off to do the night shift.
Certain things bring up other things. Can be too easy to get lost there sometimes. In those other things that revolve around us in daily life.
Ireland can't change things now. It's done. Hard to figure at the best of times. People do speak in the strangest of ways sometimes.
Still, I hope he gets his grade. A great one. Good luck to him/them.
As Ireland now begins the transition in order to meet this unachievable deficit reduction bound by these draconian terms, she also takes a firm back seat in World affairs. It was left to 955,091 people from a population of 3.1 million entitled voters to set us on this new course. How many of that number felt they had absolutely no other choice? We'll never know.
The campaign was dirty - fear led - devoid of the leadership that may see Ireland through. The 'No' side failed by not offering solutions to the deficit - or should I say, by not being willing to saying it.
For mention of cuts and tax-hikes and service depletion are not vote grabbers in any political language or arena. But yet, they now form the basis with which we limp forth. Or backward - depending on your viewpoint. For they're all coming. We accepted it - so no cop out to ill-governance anymore.
The number gap between the populous entitled to vote and those that voted for the fiscal treaty, probably says more about the sad state of Irish democracy than any of the leaders that have served us ill throughout the course of our history. Be they here or otherwise.
'Let it go.'
Like a whisper it was - if it was there at all. Leon - way off out there in the mechanic mashes of all that exists blind to us. Beneath the surface. Fizzing, looping, shooting spectra of almost nothings, whirling about, directionless, playing quantum hide and seek, in realms, forming all, beyond most compressions.
'Twas like the old beggar was back here for a nano-second. Saying that's there's more at play right now in the world than the troubles of a little green island in economic and social strife.
What's a whisper, anyway? Between friends. Perhaps the whisper was right. In fact, it is right. There is.
A whole lot more.
Thursday, May 31, 2012
Chapters
I think the only reason I voted today was for the gateway
to continue to comment about Ireland. Not that anyone reads them much,
but if I didn't 'do the duty,' well, maybe in some eyes, it renders those
comments useless. Unfortunately, it seems that way most of the time. A friend posted a succession of 'No's' on his Facebook earlier to get his own point across. When questioned by someone from across the Atlantic, he began his explanation by saying - 'We voted in a referendum
today on whether Europe starves us, or we starve ourselves.'
I laughed. Strange reaction - surely it couldn't come to that. Until you read stuff that's happening in Greece right now. For any society who sees their suicide rate jump by 40% over the course of a few years has a problem on its hand. Austerity is what is driving the majority of these deaths there.
IMF chief, Christine Lagarde said late last week that she had little sympathy for the Greek people. She called them 'rampant tax-dodgers.' There was outrage worldwide. Then, just days later, she has to concede that she pays NO tax on her salary or expenses - which come in at a cool half-a-million a year. This is the type of human-being fronting an organization that has wrecked havoc globally since its inception and is currently pulling a lot of the strings attached to our political leaders. Those puppet ones. Ones who would sooner leave unborn children with a huge debt to be paid than come up with just one - yes, ONE - idea that may resonate somewhat on a national level. Something that doesn't have us dipping into a fund that has nothing but the disease of debt attached to it. What next? Anti-evolution groups using ponzi economics as an argument for their stance. It's a strong argument too. It used to be people acquired debt - of their own choosing. Now people are born with it. You have to give the establishment their dues on that one.
I rooted out the chapter from Booker's World that dealt with the day of the Lisbon 2 re-run. Got to say I ran an awesomely juvenile campaign on that one. Thorough, insightful, bit of Bruce Campbell - deleted! Fear of a backlash from the power structures for being an anti-Lisbon-er and accessing the means to get back to work. It didn't do any good though. Lesson learned. Stand true to who you are. Should be the standard way of thinking - but we're humans.
The only thing that has changed since 2009 is the swap of one set of Europhile implementers for a new one. And with it a steady decline. Into what? You'd think we'd know by now. But all we see are ruptures across Europe. An economic volcano waiting to erupt. No real desire to stop it.
Not sure if people think about this sort of stuff, but i kinda thought a spitting overcast day played to the "no's' - while bursts of sunshine would play to the 'Yes's'. It rained most the day. Around here anyway. In days by-gone I'd have looked at that as a positive. The truth is now, whatever the result, you'd have to have a third-eye or be a Capitalist to see the positive in this one.
Here's that chapter -
Poll
Axed
I
rose at six. Mitch had Mum dressed already. Mitch decided not to
vote.
“Can’t they take ‘No’ for an answer?” he
scolded in that squeaky voice of his. I'm sure he puts it on. To
annoy me. After a quick coffee we set off. It was nice to walk with
her; we don't get out much these days.
We
arrived at the polling station just after seven. We were told we were
the first. In my life, that felt like a little honour. I had my arm
around Mum and pushed it forward, so she could hand in her form to
secure a vote.
“Ms. Booker, it's lovely to see you out and about,”
said a heavy-breasted lady sat on an uncomfortable chair. Mum stared
forward at the blackboard behind the ladies.
“She's not quite awake,” I remarked, as they handed
her the card.
“And here's yours, Mr. Booker,” she said. I smiled
at her, before marching Mum behind the booth.
“I’m sorry Mr. Booker, but you can’t be with her
behind there. One voter to a booth,” one of the ladies said, rising
from her perch.
“It’s OK,” I said. “She forgot her glasses.
Blind as a bat.”
“You’ll just have to bring her back later then”
she said, her fifteen minutes in the corridor of power gone to her
head.
“But…,” I began.
“But nothing,” she said. She took the polling card
from Mum who in turn didn't help as she gazed off into space.
“I’m sorry Ms. Booker,” she said as she took it.
No response. Just a vacuum.
I
left Mum there as the lady talked to her. I quickly ran behind
another booth. I put an X in the ‘No’ box. I walked up and put it
in the voting box, returned to Mum and began to walk out.
“See you later, Mr. Booker,” the lady cried after
us. Probably in there now talking about us behind our back. Hope
those tits give her back pain. What sort of a Irish patriot is she
anyway?
“Don’t worry, Mum,” I said. “When the result
comes in tomorrow, we’ll have the last laugh.”
Today. Today we were heroes.
The very next day -
Freud
The
people have spoken. The result is in. Ireland has approved the
ratification of the Lisbon Treaty by a majority of 2/1. Didn't take
us long to change our minds, did it? Hopes of 500 million Europeans
resting on us. Felt kinda powerful. A chance to – ah fuck it. Who
cares!
Maybe
Freud was right about us after all when he allegedly said, “This is
one race of people for whom psychoanalysis is of no use whatsoever.”
Can't argue with you there, Sigmund.
***
Nostalgia. You can't beat it. Wonder what I'll be writing tomorrow? I get the feeling there's more money in erotica! Certainly beats filling out these forms.
Why do they want to know my interests? It's a job chaperoning a buffer! Where do you see yourself in 5 years time? I can't see tomorrow for feck sake. Email: donbooker@bufferservices.com. donbooker@icouldntgiveaflyinfuxk.org.
Forms need to be in by Saturday, Linda said. 37 in so far. They could do an X-factor thingy - for the Tube. Novice buffers. Bound to create a mass of hits. Free advertising. Bit of fun.
Champion buffer of the year : ???
1st prize - Minimum wage!
I wonder if Eamon and Enda are at home now. Shitting themselves. Remember milk bottles? The ones with the foil tops? I imagine they are like those crows that used peck the top of the bottles trying to get the goodness inside. We'll know soon enough whether they managed to crack the bottle. And to sign off on a hopeful note - I never did see it happen.
Today. Today, I'm tired.
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