Erindipity Column No 4

No 4: Best reason for
being told to hump off

TO mark the launch of Erindipity Rides
Again (Mentor Books,€15), we’ve
decided to deviate from this column’s
usual ‘template’ and give you a flavour
of what to expect from the latest
instalment in the series.
This has nothing, whatsoever, to do
with us still being hungover from the
bash in our good friend Bernard
Molloy’s super-hip Solas bar on
Wexford Street (yes, that is a plug).
The following is a short and heavilyabridged
taster from the book’s ‘Best’
categories…

Best place to get stoned

The residents of Corofin in north Clare
are the greatest stoners on the planet.
This because they host the annual
World Stone Throwing
Championships.
Every May, the tranquillity of the
Burren is shattered by the sound of
smashing glass as the locals hurl rocks
at (empty) bottles behind the Inchiquin
Inn.
There are ladies’ and gents’ events
and competitors each pay €5 for five
stones and fling them from 12 yards at
a bottle, upside down on a pole. (The
bottles, not the competitors, are stuck
on the pole.)
Once an entrant has broken the
bottle, they progress to the next round
and so on to the final.
Despite the sport being little more
than a fledgling (it began in 2000), it
has attracted participants from
Glasgow, Chicago, Germany and
London, and hundreds of spectators.
So, if you ever want to watch dozens
of men, deep in concentration,
fingering their rocks behind a pub,
then Corofin is the place for you.

Best place to see Drew
Barrymore in the nip

In 2001, Hollywood actress Drew
Barrymore told an interviewer about
one of her favourite hobbies – running
naked through Irish fields. Drew
revealed to US magazine Parade that
she’s a free spirit who likes nothing
better than to go driving in Ireland,
park her car, leg it out into the nearest
field, rip her clothes off and run
through the wheat. Note here that she
specifically mentioned wheat – not
cabbages, turnips or carrots.
(Pretty painful to fall on a carrot
when you’re running in the nude.)
Or a parsnip for that matter. While
she didn’t name any specific field, one
presumes that she’s never done it
during the National Ploughing
Championships. She also didn’t say
whether she keeps her shoes and socks
on while she interferes with the
farmer’s livelihood.
Whatever about her trampling the
stalks underfoot, one imagines that her
ponderous boobies would make some
interesting crop circles.
When the story was picked up by an
Irish newspaper it made for at least
one intriguing pub conversation:
Drinker One (reading paper): It says
here ‘Barrymore Runs Naked Through
Wheatfield’.
Drinker Two (splutters into pint):
What? Michael Barrymore?!!
Drinker One: No, Drew Barrymore.
Drinker Two (snorts): Those bloody
prisoners get the best of everything.

Best Fashion Week
(if you’re in a hurry)

The very first Dublin Fashion Week
took place in October 2005 and was
judged to be such a great success that
it is now part of the, ahem, fabric of the
capital’s sartorial life.
The organisers describe this week as
an opportunity for buyers and the
press to view the following season’s
collections.
Unlike other weeks in the year,
Dublin Fashion Week is unique in that
it lasts for only three days.
To add to this magnificent
manipulation of the space/time
continuum, it also takes place twice a
year: once for Spring/Summer, once
for Autumn/Winter.
Two weeks of three days duration
each, adding up to six days, equals
Dublin Fashion Week – the shortest
fashion week on the planet.
With this Stephen Hawking-like
ability to master the concepts of
physics, surely delivering World Peace
should be a piece of cake, ladies?

Best Place To Avoid Getting Your
Knickers Bombed by the Jerries

A: Germany
B: Any German Embassy
C: Ballsbridge, Dublin 4
During the second World War, the
best way to avoid getting bombed by
the Hun was to either get a job in the
German Embassy in Ballsbridge or
become a laundry van driver.
While the first piece of advice is
obvious, the second will surprise most
Irish people below the age of 40.
For over 50 years, the residents of
D4 lived happily under the shadow of
the biggest Swastika to be found
outside of Nazi Germany. Even more
horrible than this was the fact that it
was painted on a chimney stack.
From 1912 right into the mid-1960s
there existed a cleaning company
known as the Swastika Laundry on the
Shelbourne Road. Their fleet of
delivery vans, which were painted red
with a black swastika, were a common
sight on the city’s streets.
The laundry, you’ll be pleased to
learn, wasn’t a fascist organisation and
the Swastika it used is an ancient
Indian symbol for good luck.
It wasn’t so lucky for physicist Erwin
Schrödinger, who had fled to Dublin
from Hitler’s mob. One tale relates how
he was almost killed by one of the vans
as he crossed the road and believed he
had been the victim of a Nazi
assassination plot.
His boxers probably needed a good
cleaner after that.

Best reverse getaway

Reuters press agency reported on
what rates as the most bizarre getaway
in Irish legal history.
In January 2007, Wexford District
Court gave a 25-year-old man a sixmonth
suspended sentence for stealing
a car and a €300 fine for failing to
provide a breathalyser test. The judge
heard that the culprit had nicked the
vehicle after falling asleep on the bus
home and overshooting his stop.
What makes this case noteworthy is
that the thief’s home, on this occasion,
was Shelton Abbey Open Prison in
Arklow, where he was serving time.
The criminal mastermind made his
dramatic dash to incarceration after
missing a weekend release deadline –
and got himself arrested for trying to
stay arrested.

Best radio station to dance on

Ireland was the first country to
broadcast dancing on the radio. Do not
adjust your set – you really did read the
words ‘Dancing’, ‘On’, ‘The’ and
‘Radio’. In 1953, the state radio station
began transmitting Take the Floor, with
host Din Joe, to regular audiences of
over a million listeners.
It featured an hour of dancing to the
Garda Céilí Band, complete with
stamping feet and cries of
‘hupyeboysye’ and continued to 1965.
It wasn’t the daftest idea the radio
station ever had: that would be the 1978
one-hour special performance by mime
artist Marcel Marceau. The second
was to extend the News For The Deaf to
radio in 1984. Okay, that last bit’s made
up, but the radio dancing’s true.

Best reason for being
told to hump off

Let’s end on a festive note.
This time last year, the employees of
the Mullingar Equestrian Centre
arrived at their Christmas party and
were shocked to find the tables of food
and drink they had prepared earlier
strewn all over the main hall. The
shindig they had planned for months
was beyond salvation.
Who could have done such a thing?
Desperate druggies? Riotous kids?
The culprit – a drunken 11-year-old –
stared, bleary-eyed at them from the
debris. It was a sight, most agreed, that
you didn’t see every day, especially
given that the cross-eyed pre-teen
was… a camel.
Snout covered in mincemeat, Gus
the camel was only too delighted to
disprove that a ‘ship of the desert’ can
go for ages without a drink, by
swigging on a can of Guinness. The
dromedary, which was part of the
Santa’s Animal Kingdom Show, had
spotted the booze and grub while
someone was giving him some hay and
broke out when everyone had gone
home to change for the party.
Happily, he didn’t have a hangover
the next day. Neither did the staff for
that matter, one of whom pointed out
that Gus was “acting as if nothing had
happened”. Which raises an
interesting point: what was he
supposed to act like? Embarrassed?
Furtive? He’s a CAMEL.
Party animal Gus was, and still is,
Ireland’s first camel gatecrasher –
which is the Best (and most
appropriate) Reason for Being Told to
Hump Off at a Christmas Party.
If you don’t want us to send him
around to yours, then hump off and
buy Erindipity Rides Again.
Please???