Once more with ill-tempered feeling, it's Christmas cold turkey

Sunday Tribune 28 December

I'll happily bet that Sir Walter bloody Raleigh never wore nicotine patches. Or made New Year's resolutions. I'll bet he never once sloped off to the fire escape on a busy workday morning for a furtive fag, or smelt like a perambulating ashtray.
He didn't have yellow fingers, bleeding gums or a larynx-loosening cough. I'll wager the swine never even knew how to spell 'Marlboro' when he sailed away from the New World with a hold full of weeds.
So why didn't he stick to inventing the potato or whatever else he did with his weekends? Why did he have to make this time of year such an unbearable pain in the bottom for millions of people?
Next Thursday, hordes of us smokers will wake up and resolve (after a bit of sputum hocking) never to smoke again.
It'll be like this great global cacophony; a bazillion throaty fanfares greeting the arrival of a fresh new day.
Then half of us will go "oh, jaysus" and reach for the ciggies.
I won't be one of them however. I normally last six days.
No, on Thursday I will be relatively clean smelling (relative to a dead skunk at any rate) and partially lung-clear. I will also be fidgety, cranky, depressed, aggressive, jittery, boorish and decidedly unhappy.
Normally I am only three of these things at any one time, so you can imagine my predicament. I will not so much be climbing the walls as doing my best impression of Spiderman on Speed.
The world, as you are no doubt aware, is divided into two camps; those who are addicted to nicotine and those who suffer from nicotine addiction.
I am in the former camp; my family and most of my friends are in the latter. Every January they have to suffer my mood swings as I try to keep myself from falling apart with patches and gum. My popularity – never the most remarkable of my personal attributes – will suffer greatly.
I will also be driven mad by people giving me advice. Non-smokers will tell me to stick with it, that every ciggie takes two minutes off my life. Smokers will, almost inevitably, then contradict this by saying that their granny smoked 500 Woodbines a day, drank a gallon of methylated spirits out of a galvanised bucket and still lived to the age of 104.
Who do you believe? I've done the sums and, if one ciggie equals two minutes, then I've already lost eight months off my life, which isn't too bad if I'm destined to live to 104, but not so great if God has short-term plans for me. So why am I going to bother again this year?
My dad was a smoker. He gave up in his 40s and lived to the age of 72. Cigarettes didn't kill him, but they certainly gave him emphysema which dramatically affected his quality of life.
The sound of dad gulping draughts of air, like a drowning man, clings to the memory like the graveyard mud that clung to my shoes this Christmas.
There were other sights and sounds too, when he was alive. The hum of the nebuliser pumping oxygen to his lungs never got so commonplace that it wouldn't distract you from the Christmas TV.
Then there was the panic in his eyes when the asthma and emphysema would conspire to launch a surprise attack on his weak lungs.
Dad was a gifted journalist, and even in the darkest moments of his decade-long death occasional bursts of tar-black humour would bubble to the surface.
When we were children he would strum the air and (kind of) sing "I brought my catarrh to a parteeeeee, but nobody asked me to play..." This was always rounded off with a disgusting, throaty "kkkkkwwwwwiiiikkkkkkkkk" sound that we kiddies thought was a hoot.
If he was here this Christmas he would be furiously encouraging me to stay off the ciggies, with patches, gum or whatever. And I would probably attempt some lame joke about cold turkey.
To which he would roll his eyes up to heaven and say:
"On your bike, Raleigh."

(Happy New Year)

Fate, the toss of a coin and why we are not just statistics

I wrote about my friend 'Luke' nine years ago and feel it's timely to retell his story this week. Luke isn't his real name: I've changed it for privacy reasons. His friends will know who I'm writing about.


Fate has a habit of arriving when you least expect it.
It leaped out at me 19 years ago on the way home from a workmate's wedding. It stole up on Luke with the toss of a coin two years later.
Luke spent a disproportionate amount of his early 20s playing draughts with Fate whenever he turned up for work. The
city centre branch of the financial institution that employed him held the record for most armed robberies back in the '80s.
Fortunately, the robbers who preyed on his workplace were not always top notch and sometimes succeeded only in terrifying the staff before legging it empty-handed.
Legend has it that at the end of one abortive raid Luke's shocked colleagues discovered he had gone missing in action. Fearing for his safety, a search party was assembled.
Cool Hand Luke was eventually found safe (literally) locked in the strongroom. He was, understandably, handled with gloves of the finest kid leather after his terrible ordeal.
Later, the video footage of him with his feet up, eating a packet of crisps, happily unaware of the commotion outside, did a lot to kill the initial sympathy.
Local lore also has it that on a notable Thursday, Luke and a colleague decided they'd start the weekend early. Luke came up with the idea of setting the clock forward by 10 minutes.
After the last customer had been shunted out the door the boys locked up and got ready to leave. At exactly (what should have been) 5.30pm there was a loud banging at the shutters and a gang of thwarted villains cursed their misfortune at arriving late (by Luke Time) to rob the place. Luke, typically, took it in his stride.
Two decades on, it's hard to recall if I told Luke about the night when Fate set in motion its plan for us.
As I said earlier, it leaped out on the way home from a colleague's wedding. Some of the other revellers in the minibus, who were singing merrily, didn't notice the fireball on the other side of the Naas dual carriageway. I did, and to my shame, was too jarred to question it. It looked like the work of vandals. The taximan kept driving.
The next day I read that a couple had stopped their car to eat chips in the lay-by when a drunk ploughed into them. They must still have been trapped inside when we passed by. Disgusted with myself, I swore to always stop and investigate in future.
Luke's moment with Fate came on a Friday night when he tossed a coin to decide which nightclub to go to: in quiet Killiney or busy Dun Laoghaire. So as not to hurt the feelings of one group of friends he 'cheated' and came to join us in Dun Laoghaire. We had a brilliant night.
But that was to be expected. Luke was the kind of man you had to have a good time with. His roguishness, his humour, his kindness, his spontaneity, frequently charmed the birds out of the trees.
Later my taxi passed by a road accident. Remembering Naas two years previously I insisted the driver pull over.
An injured man was lying face down by the side of the road. He had been hit by a speeding car.
Luke was dying. He had left the nightclub early and met Fate while walking home. He was gone a few hours later.
Nineteen years on his friends still swap stories about him. He's still vivid.
Last Monday Betty Cawley, who was the TV face of
families bereaved by road deaths, finally succumbed to injuries she suffered in a crash which claimed her daughter Errin in 2004.
To those who remember them, Luke, Betty and Errin aren't just statistics, like those which will be released shortly to tally up 2008's fatalities.
Please take care on the road this Christmas and have a happy and peaceful break.

dkenny@tribune.ie



December 21, 2008

And this little piggy had roast beef ... but I'm still going for the ham

14 December 2008

Extract from
'The Bacon Diaries'

Monday: 1pm. I am in my local, reading the menu. Despite a weekend of Christmas parties I still feel festive. I order the stuffed turkey.
A far from paltry pile of poultry arrives. I am drooling as I lift a flap of meat with my fork ... but wait, there's something miss- ing. Where's the ham?
I look at the menu again. There's '_ and cabbage', 'toasted _ and cheese', '_ and mash' and 'baked honeyglazed _'.
Switching my brain on I remember: pork is off. I push my plate away and contemplate Christmas – no, LIFE – without lovely pork. It's horrible. I realise that I am rocking back and forth, moaning quietly, the early stages of cold turkey. Soon, I notice the sound of manic crunching coming from the gloomier recesses of the pub. It is then that I make a startling discovery, which I'll tell you about later.
Tuesday: 11am. Air of gloom as lay-offs increase. Country waits for safety verdict from EU. A German friend of mine, Jason, is getting calls begging him not to eat Irish pork. The schweinhund! My own swine hunt continues as I beg for a rasher sandwich.
2pm. Wondering if Cowen has done the right thing by doing a Schwarzenegger (Total Recall). Is he the man to save our bacon now our goose is cooked? Medi- cal cards, Lisbon and now this?
3pm. I contemplate the thorough Irishness of the pig. No Victorian Punch cartoon of a Paddy was complete without a pig in his parlour.
Pigs feature in our mythology, bedtime stories and rhymes: from 'Mac do Tho's Pig' to the 'Three Little Piggies' to 'This Little Piggy Went to Market'. Actually, doesn't the last line of that go: "and this little piggy had roast beef."? Change that to: "this little piggy had rendered animal waste tainted by dioxin-rich fuel fumes.…"
The pig has given us phrases for when we're celebrating: "we're on the pig's back." Cocking up: "you made a pig's ear of that." Earning: "bringing home the bacon." In trouble: "Sketch! It's the Pigs!!"
I resolve to forego Lidl and wait for Irish ham to return. I will then buy lorryloads of it. I will ask you to do the same.
Wednesday: 4pm. The Danes are saying nasty things about our pork. It's obvious they just want payback for Clontarf. It's nothing to do with selling their products here.
While they're mouthing off, the EU says our rashers are safe. SAFE?? Haven't they seen the gick that comes off them when they're frying? You're more likely to die of a coronary eating one than dioxin poisoning. It's 'Rasher Roulette' – but we love it.
5pm. I decide to appeal to any butcher reading this to make me a quiet offer on a dioxin ham. Part of the deal is you have to cook it for me. I'm serious. Email me.
Thursday: 9.30am. See some workmen forlornly eating ciabatta rolls filled with falafal and rocket leaves. Even their 'builder's crack' isn't smiling. They don't know Superquinn is back selling Irish pork.
10.45am. Again wondering if the government overreacted. I conclude that, in fairness, it may be the first thing that Cowen's lot has got right. It seems a case of "damned if you do, etc."
11.30pm. Dream of Cowen posing for the cameras stuffing his face with bacon to show the world everything is okay. He looks like a man who likes his rashers. Maybe by the time this is printed he will have done so.
Friday: 8am. Wake up worried that I'm having dreams about Brian Cowen.Then I remember to explain Monday's crunching sound.
As I was suffering pork withdrawals, the bar was doing a brisk trade on piggy methadone – aka, Bacon Fries. I ordered three packs and wondered how they would go with sprouts. Then I read the ingredients. I was startled. Did you know that Bacon Fries have zero pork in them?
Despite looking the part, they are a sham. Then, when it comes to the crunch, they disintegrate.
And no, Mr Cowen, we're not drawing any comparisons ... this time.

At least the price of drowning our sorrows is staying the same

Question: What's the difference between a pint of Guinness and a Dublin city councillor? (The answer's at the end, now please read on…)
Last week, the nation's publicans announced their new initiative to battle the economic crisis.
The price of a pint (cue drumroll) will be… FROZEN for 12 months. Ta-dah!
This announcement was greeted with derision by most tipplers who saw it as a cynical PR ploy by the vintners' associations.
People don't have sympathy for publicans. Drink is too expensive in pubs, the mark-up on soft drinks is outrageous and don't get me started about crisps.
Publicans blame the smoking ban, drink-driving laws, energy costs and Diageo (Guinness) for hiking up prices. Everybody, except themselves.
Since 2001, 10% of Ireland's pubs (1,500) have closed. The Thomas Read group last week became the latest casualty. In isolated rural areas these closures are causing serious hardship.
In 2001, pubs held 68% of the drinks market. Last year, this figure dropped to 48% as off-licences benefited from more people drinking at home.
Why is this? Price is obviously a factor. Dublin's city-centre drinkers are well used to being fleeced. One pub near the Dáil actually hikes up its prices after 11pm.
Then there's the drink driving. And the new work practices; earlier starts, later arrivals home from work.
There's the cheaper off-licences too: if you can buy a bottle of wine for the price of two pints why go to the pub?
In September, the ESRI pointed out one good reason for not doing your drinking at home. It revealed that the number of cases of women in their mid-30s presenting with liver disease more than doubled from 18 in 2002 to 39 in 2006. The figure for men in this age category had risen from 45 to 47. The HSE's Dr Joe Barry blamed the rise on increased consumption of wine at home.
The temptation to open that second bottle is definitely greater at home where we can let our hair down in private.
And there'll be a lot more drinking done at home this Christmas due to the bargains in Newry. Sainsbury's up there, by the way, sells more alcohol than any other branch in the UK.
This is not good for the nation's livers – or locals.
The pub isn't just about getting jarred. It's the nation's parlour. It's the home of debate, banter, people-watching. We romance there, we cheer our teams there, we wake our loved ones there: as Charlie Chawke was being interviewed by RTÉ outside The Goat pub on Monday, there were three funeral lunches taking place inside.
The Consumer Agency last week correctly said prices must come down if pubs are to survive. In October, the Evening Herald reported that many Dublin publicans were doing the opposite and raising prices before the budget. They did the same in August prior to a rise by Diageo.
That hike by Diageo had been criticised by the Irish Farmers Association, who said that while the company was blaming high raw material costs, its main supplier of barley was cutting the price paid to growers by more than 20%. Was this barley saving ultimately passed on to customers? No.
Despite their transgressions, the vintners deserve credit for their price freeze. Diageo should follow their lead and not raise prices next March as it have said it will.
The publicans effectively took a price cut last Monday when they absorbed the VAT hike and will do so again if Diageo doesn't play ball. It's small change, but it's a start. Instead of being accused of cynicism, they should be encouraged to continue along this road.
Save your derision, instead, for Dublin City Council. Unlike the publicans, these clowns are still raising their prices. Last week, they hiked parking charges up 20 cents an hour, claiming it would free up space for Christmas shoppers.
If that's so, will they lower the charges after Christmas? Don't hold your breath.
And so, finally: what's the difference between a pint of Guinness and a city councillor?
One's famous for its big, thick head… and the other's a pint of stout.

Fair play to Pat The Ripper for reminding us of our manners

30 November 2008

The Toy Show has been put back in the attic for another year. The audience are back home, showing off their free gifts – and photos with Pat – to the neighbours.
One woman who isn't sharing their memories is the raffle winner from Cork who told Pat she wasn't interested in attending, prompting him to rip up her tickets.
His behaviour has his detractors quoting his wages, perceived woodenness etc. His fans, and others, think what he did was understandable, considering the woman's attitude towards the nation's favourite Christmas show.
Whatever way you look at it, Pat The Ripper's reaction was a statement on the death of good manners in this country.
A fortnight ago the president of DCU, Professor Ferdinand von Prondzynski, said "we now treat the concept of manners as outdated, and maybe even vaguely embarrassing."
This wasn't a new observation. In 1998, the Small Firms Association began organising seminars on etiquette. It said that life here had become so fast that "people do not have the time to be polite" adding, "20 years ago good manners were expected, now they are noticed."
As prosperity increased, we changed from the 'Can-do' race to the 'Can-do-what-we-want' race.
I encountered an example of this in the cinema last Tuesday. A couple arrived late, pushed their way down our row and then rustled, texted, spoke loudly and drummed the back of the seats in front of them. When they were shushed from across the cinema they laughed.
I didn't say anything. I'm not going to get thumped over a film.
They are not unique. They have soulmates, for example, in the people who use their mobile phones as weapons of mass distraction by shouting into them in public places like the bus or dentist's waiting room.
Or in private: a survey by the firm 'easyMobile' found that 75% of people answer calls during dinner with friends. Sixty per cent of those same people thought this practice was rude – when others did it.
Then there are the commuters who turn their iPods up full volume. And the shop assistants who ignore you while they chat on the phone. And the people who don't say "thank you" when you hold the door open for them. And the neighbour who leaves their dog out barking all night.
What about the inconsiderate people who park in front of gates? Or in disabled parking spaces? (Rosanna Davison got clamped in one last month.)
Or land their helicopters on the roofs of shopping centres?
Or let their children run wild around restaurants?
And how about the youngsters who hang around the streets being obnoxious?
What do we do about all this selfish behaviour? We let it go because we're too scared to confront it. That's not without reason: you just don't know how violent the response will be.
Lynne Truss, the author of Talk to the Hand: The Utter Bloody Rudeness of the World Today, maintains that many rude people live in their own little 'bubbles', cut off by headphones or the overriding importance of their own desires.
In philosophy this is known as 'solipsism': "I close my eyes and the world ceases to exist."
Too many Irish people are guilty of this blind disregard for others. There is also an increasing number of aggressive types who know what they're doing is rude but just don't care.
Even our politicians, whose manners used to be so well-greased – and irritating – have let standards slip. Brian Cowen's preternatural rudeness suggests, "I got your votes, now p**s off."
I was never a big fan of Pat Kenny on TV – until 'Ticketgate'. Some saw him being petulant, I saw him saying that he wasn't going to tolerate rudeness on his show.
That lady from Cork did little to promote common courtesy. Still, I feel a bit sorry for her. If only she had told a white lie: "I haven't decided who to bring", when asked, she wouldn't have made the headlines.
Come to think of it, then neither would the announcement that the raffling of her tickets had raised €1,500 for Our Lady's Hospital for Sick Children in Crumlin, Dublin.
Good man, Pat. Keep fighting the good fight.
Any chance you could rip up Cowen's Finance Bill?


November 30, 2008

It's not easy being green when you're a shower of muppets


Kermit the Frog once sang: "It's not easy being green." After the Finance Bill last week, I know how he feels.
The constant bad news had left me – like many of us – budget-numb, but on Thursday I wanted to see if two pieces of green legislation had made it through; the parking levy and tax exemption for bicycles. They did.
The €200 levy applies to employee parking spaces across our major cities. The bike scheme offers generous tax breaks to employers and employees on up to €1,000 spent on a bike and accoutrements. The measures are the Greens' stick-and-carrot to get us out of our cars. This is for our own good, apparently.
We'll be healthier (unless we fall under a bus).
We'll be less stressed as we freewheel to our dwindling workplaces.
The rain won't be as bad as we might think: Met Éireann statistics show that the average Dubliner who cycles for 15 minutes into work, five days a week, will get wet on only four days out of 100.
Bicycle shops will thrive: during August, the world's largest bike-maker, Giant Manufacturing, sold a record 460,000 units as a result of rising oil prices.
We'll be happier and more fulfilled. So why is this Great Plan making me saddle sore?
Let's start with public transport.
On Pat Kenny's radio show last week, Green TD Ciarán Cuffe said we have a good system in place and should use it, or the bikes. Agreed, it's better than it used to be, but it's far from perfect.
There are still regular delays on the Dart and poor link-ups. For example, if you're travelling from Swords to Baggot Street you have to take a bus into Talbot Street and a long walk, or another bus, across town. Ask most citizens and they will gripe about some route or another.
The latest figures show that the proportion of people using public transport over cars has remained static for the past four years despite major investment. Some Dublin drivers still doggedly prefer enduring gridlock to using our buses, trains and trams.
When deputy Cuffe was praising CIÉ to Pat Kenny he didn't mention that it will be increasing fares by 10% as the €200 parking levy is being introduced. How much of an incentive to motorists is that? Pay higher fares, the levy or get a bike. Some choice.
Conor Faughnan of AA Ireland said last week the levy was a "cosmetic exercise" which won't alleviate traffic problems, but will just create hardship. With increased fares, of course it will.
His answer – the logical one – is more Park and Ride sites. Last July CIÉ introduced Pay and Display instead, with clamping, at 37 stations on the greater Dublin rail network.
The bike scheme IS purely cosmetic, although maybe no-one's told the Greens yet.
Fianna Fáil knows it will appeal to some people living near the city, but the majority from further afield will pay the steeper fares or still drive and pay the levy. It knows the €400,000 the scheme will cost is peanuts compared to what it can shear off drivers through road tax etc.
It's not a huge amount. Co-incidentally, it's not even as much as we paid the country's prisoners (€467,000) in damages for accidents/attacks in our jails over the past five years.
However, it could be used more effectively on almost anything else other than bicycles. It could have been put towards vaccinating 12-year-old girls against cervical cancer, for example.
Here's a question for the Greens: what kind of country pays its criminals €467,000, doesn't vaccinate its children and spends €400,000 on bicycles?
Every cent counts in the current crisis and yet we're wasting money on this claptrap. If we're going to throw away resources on free bikes, why don't we exempt shoes for committed pedestrians as well? It's ridiculous.
And who is going to police the scheme? What's to stop me getting a tax exempt bike and selling it on at a profit? Will there be roving garda units set up to check ownership of bikes?
This scheme – however well-intentioned – highlights just how inexperienced and naïve the Greens are. The country doesn't want good intentions. It wants strong, intelligent leadership.
Remember Mr Gormley: "It's not easy being Green."
Especially if people think you're a shower of muppets.


November 23, 2008

Cardinal Brady should remember the credo 'live and let live'

November 16, 2008

Two men, two wildly opposing views. On the right stands Cardinal Sean Brady, crozier ready to smite anyone who would legitimise gay unions. To his far left is Peter Tatchell, controversial English gay rights campaigner.
Cardinal Brady has indicated that the bishops may mount a constitutional challenge to the government's Civil Union Bill, which will give gay couples a form of marital status. Unsurprisingly, gay groups are outraged.
His Eminence is not the only cardinal to be targeted by gay activists in recent weeks. Last Tuesday, mass was said to commemorate the death in 1890 of Cardinal John Newman, amid Tatchell's claims that the saint-in-waiting was gay.
Tatchell says the founder of Ireland's first Catholic University had a gay union with a priest, Fr Ambrose St John. He bases this claim largely on the cardinal's last wish to be buried beside his friend.
Last month, the church disinterred Newman to move him to a larger place of veneration in Birmingham as part of the beatification process. Tatchell claims the disinterment was to cover up the gay relationship. He has no hard evidence for this.
That Tatchell would "out" a dead cardinal is no surprise. In 1994 his group, OutRage, publicly invited 10 Church of England bishops to "tell the truth" about their sexuality. It also threatened to out 20 gay MPs for their "hypocrisy." One MP died of a sudden heart attack, believed by some to be a result of the campaign.
Outing the dead and invading the privacy of the living has earned Tatchell many detractors.
One can't imagine him being invited around to tea at Cardinal Brady's palace. And yet the two men have more in common than they realise: they are both extremists. As a result, they are damaging their respective causes.
As Primate, the cardinal must be allowed to voice his concerns for society. That's his right. However, he must not challenge the bill for two reasons: it would be fundamentally unjust and will further damage his church.
Earlier this year, a national poll by Lansdowne Market Research showed that 58% of us believe gay couples should be allowed marry in a Registry Office. I don't know how many of that 58% are practising Catholics, but I'll bet there's more than a few. How will they feel about their religion if Cardinal Brady presses ahead with a legal challenge? That the church teaches compassion but won't be swayed by the compassion of its own flock?
The extreme view is that the bill will undermine marriage's special status in the Constitution. Here's a question: if marriage is so important to the church then why won't it allow priests marry? This was possible up until the 11th century. The name 'Taggart' is actually derived from Mac an tSagairt – 'son of the priest'.
Last Monday, the Bishop of Nottingham, Malcolm McMahon – who is tipped to be England's next Catholic leader – said there are no doctrinal reasons for stopping married men becoming priests.
A survey by Newstalk radio earlier this year found that 63% of Irish priests thought the celibacy rule should change. The Vatican does not. Perhaps it believes it would be unable to bear the cost of supporting priests in the same type of union Cardinal Brady is championing.
This bill will not undermine marriage. It will, if anything, endorse the concept of a caring union – gay or straight – as integral to the welfare of society.
The state is simply caring for its citizens by drawing up this bill. Brady should care for the church by not legally challenging it.
When the church undermines the credo of 'live and let live' through extremism, it undermines itself. It alienates those who want to live by that credo.
Although Peter Tatchell is campaigning for civil rights, his extremism has alienated many of the same people.
The cardinal has no right to discriminate against gays, and Tatchell has no right to interfere with the manner in which the church goes about making saints.
Tatchell should live and let rest in peace.
The cardinal should live and let live together.


November 16, 2008

Retail guilt' and why I won't be doing my civic duty today

The lights are on and there's no one home – because everyone's in town shopping for Christmas.
This was the dream scenario for the genius who decided Christmas should come to Dublin two weeks earlier than last year.
This evening, Dublin's lord mayor Eibhlin Byrne will light up the 'Beacon of Hope' tree on O'Connell Street to lure us into the city's 4,000 shops.
It is our civic duty, apparently, to buy our way out of the recession.
This twisting of the space-time continuum is nothing new. The retail festival of Hallowe'en now starts in September and 'de facto' Christmas the day after it.
Pressure, pressure, pressure. Buy, buy, buy.
The next progression will be to bring forward St Stephen's Day so the sales can start early.
This call to civic duty is a prime example of how we are controlled by Retail Guilt. This is the opposite of Retail Therapy, as there is very little enjoyment to be derived from it – unless you're selling something.
Not enough time to spend with your children? Throw money at them instead. Buy our latest designer clothes and computer games.
Are you a bad friend? 'Real' friends spend a fortune texting everybody in their phonebook on New Year's Eve. Don't leave anyone out now. (Premium rates apply.)
Guilt, guilt, guilt.
Bad man if you think Hallmark days – Granny's Day, Valentine's Day, Pet Rabbit Day – are a cynical ploy to extract guilt money.
Utter swine if you don't buy a letter from Santa. On Tuesday, I saw a newspaper ad for a phoneline offering to write one to your child for €7. Memo to parents: if you can't be bothered to do it yourself, then the gesture is meaningless.
And finally this: 'unpatriotic' Dubliner if you don't shop in town.
There are many good reasons for not doing this 'civic duty'. Firstly, local businesses need our money as much as city ones. Then there's the traffic, the queues, the €4.10 you spend in a taxi before it goes anywhere. Most importantly, there are the prices.
According to Mercer consultants, Dublin is the eighth most expensive city in Europe. This is probably why last Christmas 290,000 of us travelled to the US instead of Dublin and spent, on average, €1,900. There are considerable savings to be made there on everything from iPods to jeans. Last month, Dublin's retailers revealed how much these trips are hurting when ISME, almost petulantly, accused customs officers of turning a blind eye to them.
It's not just the United States that's challenging Dublin's shops. In June, the National Consumer Agency found a basket of 42 branded goods was 28% cheaper in Tesco in the North. A Dunnes basket was 31% cheaper.
The merchants' response to competition is to bring Christmas forward. It's laughable.
Why is it our civic duty to bail them out, despite having been fleeced by them during the rip-off years?
Dublin's retailers are faced with hardships. Grafton Street is the fourth most expensive place in Europe to rent, according to a report by Jones Lang LaSalle. As a result, it has become like a British High Street as only the big name chains such as Next, River Island, Oasis, Boots, Marks and Sparks etc, can afford to pay the rent.
However, business is business, and if Dublin's shops want mine, then the deal is this: lower your prices. Give me an incentive other than waving fairy lights at me.
Not that all of them want to give me those either. In 2006, the Dublin City Business Association claimed up to 30% of retailers were unwilling to pay for the lights. That was back when they saw no need to love-bomb us. Now we're no longer being taken for granted.
They have reeled out the mayor to emphasise that the real meaning of Christmas is consumerism.
What is even more annoying about this guilt trip is the fact that the lights she is turning on today aren't even made in Ireland. They're from France. Why couldn't they source lights here?
The lights are on but there's no one home, all right.

dkenny@tribune.ie

November 2, 2008

Freedom of speech must be cherished, not used for nasty gags

There's an episode in Father Ted that concerns racism – or, at least, attitudes to it.
Ted has been accused of being racist after putting a lampshade on his head, squinting and saying, "I am Chinese if you ple-ease", just as a Chinese family appears at his window.
Panicking, he says, "Dougal, I wouldn't have done a Chinaman impression if I'd known there was going to be a Chinaman there to see me do a Chinaman impression."
Later, he appears to give them a Nazi salute when, in fact, he is only waving at them. They storm off.
The episode brilliantly highlighted our belief that we're not racist if the foreigner doesn't see us being racist. At the same time it parodied knee-jerk reactions to perceived racism. Far more importantly – as it was a comedy – it was hilariously funny.
Minister for integration Conor Lenihan is also hilariously funny, although he doesn't normally mean to be.
Last week he invoked the Father Ted Defence that "I was only waving" when he appeared to give Leo Varadkar a Nazi salute in the Dáil. "Hi Leo/Heil Leo" do sound alike, after all.
Lenihan called Varadkar a fascist over his proposal this summer that we pay unemployed foreigners to go home voluntarily. Stress on 'voluntarily'.
Herr Lenihan later dropped the Father Ted Defence and goosestepped over to what we'll call the Tommy Tiernan Defence: "I was only joking."
Varadkar laughed it off but is still perceived as a racist for his proposal.
Kevin Myers, like Varadkar, has also been accused of being racist when trying to start a debate about immigration. On the Late Late in September 2007 he argued that anyone who tries to discuss the issue is branded a racist. He was right. There still hasn't been a meaningful debate and he was branded a racist.
Myers doesn't do himself any favours. Recently the Press Council found he caused "grave offence" with an incendiary article about giving aid to Africa. In it he asked why he should do anything to "encourage further catastrophic demographic growth" in Ethiopia. Importantly, the council added the article hadn't been intended to incite racial hatred.
I don't in any way condone Myers' antagonistic, spittle-speckled descriptions of Africans as Kalashnikov-toting and "priapic" and absolutely don't believe they should be let starve. However, while his language was hugely offensive, at the core of the article there appeared to be sincere concern for that unfortunate continent. He wanted to start a debate about it.
This begs the question: is how he delivered his opinion more important than why he delivered it?
Another Late Late Show guest who, like Myers, loudly exercises his right to free speech was also accused of being racist last week.
After snorting at Travellers and disabled people, Tommy Tiernan set about immigrants. He did this by mewling in a 'funny' voice and asking the time. This 'observation' was followed with an impression of a Chinese person working in a takeaway. Again it wasn't clear what his point was. There was no insight, no context.
Was it that non nationals sound ridiculous?
Unlike Myers, Varadkar and even Father Ted's creators, Tiernan used his right to free speech to mock immigrants. This was justified with the idiotic defence that if we all laugh at each other we'll all be grand, lads.
While Myers and Varadkar are trying to break into the debating chamber, Tiernan entered the living rooms of thousands of non-nationals and sneered at them. Just to flog a DVD. He needs to learn that when free speech is used against the vulnerable it becomes the enemy of freedom. The freedom to work in a takeaway, for instance, without being laughed at.
Some comedians use their job to observe society's absurdities, others throw custard pies. Tiernan did neither. He broke the first rule of comedy: he just wasn't funny. And the more 'outrageous' he tries to be, the more boring he is becoming as a comedian.
Perhaps next year the Late Late will have Conor Lenihan on instead.
At least he's good for a laugh.

dkenny@tribune.ie

November 2, 2008

While our parents stoked the fires of justice, we fell asleep beside them

Sunday Tribune 26 October 2008

Two stories caught my eye last week. The first was about the cancellation of bus services to UCD because of violent behaviour by drunken students. The other told how education minister Batt O'Keeffe was attempting to lure Chinese students here with the offer of great opportunities in our universities.
What an excellent idea, I thought. If we fill our universities with young Chinese folk, they can show our lot how students should really behave. They could teach them how to be the architects of social change, as opposed to just being anti-social. China's students, after all, were responsible for sowing the seeds of democracy with their defiant stance in Tiananmen Square. Even the most belligerent Belfielder would admit that squaring up to a tank is more impressive than getting tanked-up and squaring up to a bus driver.
Also in Dublin last week, a young "protestor" was fined for causing €13,500 worth of graffiti damage. I'm calling him a "protestor" because protesting was generally the reason people sprayed graffiti when I was a teenager in the 1980s. What was the message he wrote? Brits Out? Say 'No' to Apartheid? Free Nicky Kelly (with every packet of cornflakes)?
No, it was 'Konk'.
That's right, 'Konk'.
'Konk' was his graffiti tag-name. So instead of making a controversial, witty or inspirational statement, he did the literary equivalent of jumping up and down and shouting 'Look at me!' The idiot.
While I was pondering the state of our not-so-disaffected youth, an old familiar voice was tuning up in the capital. It grew louder and louder and by Tuesday afternoon was soaring over the spire of St Andrew's Church, Westland Row, and out across the country. The battle cry of a generation had been recommissioned: 'We Shall Overcome', the pensioners sang, and the government trembled.
Then, like a clip around the ear, came the realisation who these angry old folk were. They were the generation who first manned the barricades in the golden era of protest, the 1960s.
These were the young people who marched for civil rights.
These were the angry young men who protested against Bloody Sunday and burned down the British Embassy.
These were the brave young women who defied church and state by bringing a train-load of contraceptives into our prudish Republic.
These were the people who filled the streets to protest against the cruel taxation system of the late 1970s.
These furious grey-hairs who besieged the Dáil on Wednesday were the people who taught my generation to fight for the underdog.
Stirred by their example, we supported the Dunnes Stores strikers in their stand against apartheid. We campaigned for nuclear disarmament and told Ronald Reagan to go home when he visited Ballyporeen.
We shouted 'stop' to the destruction of Wood Quay and followed Sean DBR Loftus as he tried to save Dublin Bay.
We marched, sat-in, fasted and signed miles of petitions in support of the oppressed – from El Salvador to Cambodia.
This era of protest peaked in 1985 when we raised our voices to demand employment at the Self Aid concert in the RDS.
And then, when we got what we wanted – the jobs, the prosperity – we fell asleep. We dozed off beside the fire instead of continuing to stoke it. We became complacent and let our leaders turn this country into a Nanny State. We became the 'Me Generation', obsessed with wealth and status. Those of us who entered politics helped consolidate this new materialism.
It has taken the pensioners of Ireland to smack some manners back into us. And we deserve their anger.
As I stood outside Leinster House on Wednesday and watched them spank the government, I felt ashamed of myself and my generation.
Instead of passing on what our parents taught us about caring for others, we showed the next generation only how to be consumers. We failed them.
At 2.30pm, the pensioners gave way to another army fired up by their actions.
The students had arrived. They had looked beyond my generation to our parents for leadership. They proved there's still hope for us.
Long live the Granny State.

dkenny@tribune.ie

October 26, 2008

Would the real Gerry Ryan please sit down and think of others

David Kenny, Sunday Tribune, 19 October 2008

It was billed as "the most revealing showbiz book in decades" and that for two euro I could "read it here
first."
It promised to uncover the state's greatest "shock jock's" innermost secrets.
It offered "exclusive" extracts from 'Would the Real Gerry Ryan Please Stand Up'.
I was hooked from page one.
Ryan stretched the full length of the Mail on Sunday in a tuxedo, hand on hip, jacket thrown over shoulder. With those full lips of his he brought to mind Oscar Wilde doing a stint as a nightclub bouncer.
To his left were the headings: 'I know I drink too much', 'Why I lost out on millions','The truth about Pat Kenny'.
There were to be "warts and all" as we read about Ryan's "astonishing life" and "women". Would we please turn to pages 32 to 37?
Expectations were high. Would we hear the twang of knicker elastic in a broom cupboard? Or read of Keith Richards-like excesses?
Would we? Answer: "no".
The title of Ryan's autobiography echoes a song by Eminem. The newspaper article, however, was very 'slim' on anything 'shady' in his life.
We learned that Ryan drinks too much. "Enough to have you certified as a borderline alcoholic." Note 'borderline'. Here's a question: how many middle-aged Irishman DON'T drink too much?
We read about his compulsive obsession with rearranging the shirts in his wardrobe. Sex god David Beckham has the same problem although he rearranges soft drink cans. Unfortunately, there the comparison ends.
He spoke of the greatest experience he's had with drugs – they were diet pills.
He "revealed" his love of food and money. (Stop yawning.)
The "truth about Pat Kenny", by the way, was that Ryan believes he should be paid the same as him.
Oh, and he had a vasectomy (Ryan, not Kenny – that we know of).
So much for the feast of "outrageous" revelations. This was merely a puffed up soufflé that exhaled and died at the first prod of the spoon.
The truth about Ryan appears to be that he has led a relatively unshocking life. The paper gamely attempted to hype it up anyway. Here's an example: the headline stated 'My kids are great. They've seen their father drunk in his underpants, falling down and getting back up'.
What Ryan actually said in the piece below was: 'My children have seen their father in his underpants, drunk, (note commas) besuited and feted, celebrated, falling down and getting back up again'. This was an entirely more banal statement.
And that's exactly what these revelations were: banal. This was no full-frontal flash – just middle-aged belly-spread being stroked in a come-hither fashion.
The real revelation was the apparent extent of Ryan's ego and how he loves to indulge it.
His references to his wealth and how he likes to spend it were nauseating.
The 52-year-old – who was paid €100,000 for his memoirs – apparently spends so much he gets calls from his bank manager telling him he's overdrawn.
He spoke of his favourite sommelier (who's yours?) and how much he enjoys five star hotels and travelling first class – "that, my friends, is better than the 44A".
He told of ordering a €2,000 bottle of wine in a Paris restaurant that he thought was €200 euro. Only 200?
He told how he lost out on "millions" by not doing a deal with NewsTalk.
Then he referred to the moment, after interviewing rape victim Lavinia Kerwick, that he "became absolutely convinced that [he] was a significant figure".
Finally, the real Gerry Ryan had stood up. A self-indulgent, vulgar man, beloved by hundreds of thousands, but perhaps none more so than himself.
Today the listeners who pay his wages are feeling the pain of last week's budget. Ryan might like to remember that as he sips on his chilled Montrachet.
For my two euro I would have preferred less talk of Gerry in his jocks, a couple of decent shocks and for him to stop waving his wad in my face.
Would the real Gerry Ryan please sit down.


dkenny@tribune.ie

No 17 Erindipity Does Cork

Biggest county for being better than Dublin (whether it is or isn't)

LAST week this column received a nice email from a reader in Cork. Dave McArdle is his name and he hosts a radio show on RED FM.
Dave asked if we'd put together a special Erindipity Does Cork Miscellany for his listeners, which we are more than happy to do. To the rest of you non-Corkers, we say, please read on as we hope you'll find a ramble around the Rebel County invigorating. Let's get started with the . . .

Eight reasons why Cork is better than Dublin

>> Cork has more vineyards than Dublin.
>> Cork gave the world the name of one of its greatest revolutionaries. Ernesto Guevara took the nickname 'Che' after watching Cork characters 'Cha' and Miah on Hall's Pictorial Weekly. True story.
>> Cork is a bigger county than Dublin.
>> Michael Collins was a Corkman, not a Dub.
>> Michael Collins was shot in Cork, not Dublin.
>> Cork has the widest trees.
>> A Corkwoman once rogered the king of France.
>> Cork has more muck millionaires than Dublin.

Best place for making muck out of brass

Before we get to that, let's explain a couple of things. Ireland's widest tree is a Monterey Cypress (12.05m wide by 27.5m) and can be found in Innishannon, Co Cork.
The tallest tree in the country is a 56m high Douglas Fir in Co Wicklow. Douglas is also a place in Cork. Is this a coincidence? (Yes. ) Cork has three vineyards (Blackwater Valley, Longueville House and Thomas Walk) while Dublin has one, Fruit of the Vine.
Corkwoman Marie-Louise O'Murphy (1737 . . . 1814) was King Louis XV's mistress for two years.
Now back to the muck and brass.
One Cork company loves its home province so much that it's exporting it to America.
Crookstown firm, The Auld Sod Export Co. , is getting filthy rich shipping Irish muck to the yanks for $15 a bag. The 340grm packs are sealed for "freshness". Well you wouldn't want your muck to be 'off ', would you?
When the business started in 2006, one 87-year-old ex-pat snapped up $100,000 worth to fill his American grave. Another spent $148,000 on . seven tons to spread under the house he was building in Massachusetts.
The company's website is currently offering four bags of Official Irish Dirt, four bags of Shamrock Seeds and free shipping . . . for only $20. What are you waiting for?
There's a typically Cork twist to this enterprise. Where do they get the muck from? Tipperary.
Exporting their county is one way of avoiding the Tipp boys in hurling, we suppose.

Better for being older than Dublin

According to legend, Cork was established in the 7th century when St Finbarr kicked a huge serpent out of the Lee and set up a monastery. This makes it older, and therefore, better than Dublin which was founded in 988. The serpent yarn is rubbish of course.
Everybody knows St Patrick got rid of them in the 400s.

Best name for a rebel county

The name 'Cork' derives from 'Corcach mor Mumhan' which means the 'big marsh of Munster'. This explains why 'Mallow' is in Cork.
Cork is also known as the 'Rebel County'. This is because the inhabitants have been giving stick to outsiders for centuries, long before Mick Collins did.
One theory is that the county got its name in 1603 when Cork's leading Catholics refused to accept James I as king. The lovely Lord Mountjoy stamped out the revolt. Mountjoy, by the way, was named after a jail in Dublin.

Interesting fact: Cork harbour is the second largest natural one in the world after Sydney. This means that it's better than anything the dockers of Dublin have ever worked on. Also, as Sydney is very, very far away, Cork harbour is better than that too.

Tallest building

The tallest building in the Republic is the Cork County Hall (67m). Liberty Hall is only 59.4m. Dublin does have the tallest sculpture though (the Spire at 120m). Mind you it's a hell of a lot uglier than the Ballycrovane stone in Co Cork, which is the tallest Ogham standing stone in Europe (5.2m). If that doesn't impress you then Cork has the longest building in the country . . . the former Eglinton Lunatic Asylum.
It was built with long, long corridors so the loonies would never have to go around the bend.

Best place to go to the loo

In 2002 the VHI hosted a beauty contest . . . to find Ireland's loveliest public loo. This was part of a bladder control awareness campaign, although you'd want to be pretty dopey not to be aware that your bladder's out of control.
To win the 2,000 prize all you had to do was submit a photo of your town toilet's interior and exterior.
Let's reflect here for a moment on the bravery of the photographers who stood inside their public loos taking photographs ("no really, officer, it's for the Top Toilet competition").
Naturally, Cork won and the best place for a wee is Gougane Barra.

Interesting fact: Traditional Cork food consists of tripe, drisheen and crubeens. That's a combination of stomachs, guts, blood and pig's trotters. Anyone who can stomach a foot which has spent all of its life caked in pig poo is some man. Or a foot fetishist.

Best Place to survive a nuclear attack?

During the '70s west Cork was invaded by continental hippies who believed it would be the safest place on earth to survive a nuclear holocaust. Word had gone out on the hippy wire that Ballydehob's latitudinal/longitudinal coordinates,
51 33 45 N and 9 28 38 W, rendered it immune to fallout-carrying winds.
What the hippies didn't know was that down the road, UCC was storing 2.5 tonnes of uranium and a so-called "student training reactor". In 1980 energy minister George Colley told the Dail that "the sub-critical device" was acquired under a "grant provided by the government of the United States of America".
Students? Uranium? Rag week?
God help us.

Interesting Cork slang fact: Bernhard Langer is not an affliction of the trouser department caused by chaffing.

10 of the best Corkonians

>> Sir John Arnott . . . famous businessman who owned Arnotts Department Store in Dublin.
>> Thomas Croke . . . Archbishop of Cashel who has a stadium named after him in Dublin.
>> Sir Hugh Lane . . . patron of arts whose gallery is in . . . Dublin
>> Gerald Goldberg . . . made first Jewish lord mayor in 1977 . . . 21 years after Robert Briscoe was made first Jewish mayor of Dublin.
>> William Annyas . . . first ever Jewish mayor in Ireland, when he became top dog of Youghal in 1555. The last Jew to become mayor in Ireland was Ben Briscoe . . . in Dublin.
>> Jack Lynch . . . taoiseach whose day job was in Dublin.
>> Sam Maguire . . . GAA man whose trophy is awarded in Dublin every year.
>> Sean Og O hAilpin . . . Cork hurler (from Fiji).
>> Rory Gallagher . . . Cork musician (from Donegal).
>> Eddie Hobbs . . . Cork TV personality.
Definitely not from Dublin: we don't want him.

A final clatter of Cork facts

There's a Cork Street in Dublin, but no Dublin Street in Cork.

The first Turkish Delight chocolate was made in Cobh, County Cork, by the Hadji Bey company in the 1890s.

The tallest Irishman ever, Patrick Cotter O'Brien (1760-1806), was born in Kinsale. He measured 8ft 1in (2.46m).

Elizabeth St Leger of Doneraile Court, Cork became Ireland's only ever female Freemason in 1712. She was forced to join after eavesdropping on a ceremony through a hole in the wall of her family home. Some masons, leaving a hole in the masonry like that.

In the 17th century Baltimore was famous for having the biggest Curry House in Ireland, which is where it gets its name from (Baile an Balti Mor).

And finally . . .

If that lot doesn't satisfy the Leesiders, they can stick a Cork in it.

No 9 Most Embarrassing Moments

Sunday Tribune, 20 January 2008


There are two types of person in the world: those who get embarrassed and those who do not.
Actually, that’s not true. There are loads of other types of person in the world, but this week we’re just concentrating on the aforementioned type.
This is due to the convergence of two recent events in our shrivelled brain. The first was the settling of clothes-maker Karen Millen’s case with Dunnes over the copying of her designs. The second was the fresh horse manure being spread at the Mahon Tribunal.
(Please keep reading – this isn’t about Tribunals.)
We’ll come to Karen Millen later, but for now let’s consider Mahon where, on Tuesday, lobbyist Frank Dunlop claimed he had paid trainer Jim Bolger the equivalent of €200,000 for a share of a horse in 1992.
The nag, which Dunlop had never seen, died before it could be registered and never had a name, passport or insurance. Remarkably, Dunlop didn’t ask for his money back and forgot about the affair until questioned by the tribunal. He denies giving money to Bolger for “onward transmission” to someone else, or of using him to facilitate a payment to someone else.
Judge Mahon was unimpressed and said he was making the horse story up, yet thick-necked Dunlop ploughed on, proving that he falls into the Impossible to Embarrass category.
Erindipity does not and is regularly embarrassed by our own behaviour.
And so, for your delectation, here is a selection of Most Embarrassing Moments, beginning with yours truly in a Dalkey restaurant.

Most red-faced Indians

Several years ago we found ourselves nursing a heavy cold and grimly celebrating our birthday in the Al Minar Tandoori. The Family had decided spicy food would unclog our nasal passages, which it did, and after the main course we went to the loo to blow our hooter.
Turning our nose up at the sandpapery bog roll, we grabbed a fistful of soft paper hand towels, and after a few blows had cleared our head. Relieved, we flushed the lav which immediately backed up as the towels had absorbed so much water they were the size of extra-large Pampers. We waited for the cistern to fill again and the water level to drop.
And waited and waited. Five minutes later sufficient water had dripped into the cistern to allow another flush.
Still the towels refused to budge. So we waited again on the pathetic cistern. And waited and waited. As this was the restaurant’s only men’s toilet, we began to panic, imagining that someone might be waiting outside for almost 10 minutes now.
Again we flushed to no effect and panic turned us into a sweaty ball of rage, waving our fist at the loo, kicking it and swearing (as quietly as possible) that we’d “f******g get you, you b*****d.”.
We lifted the lid of the cistern and yanked the ball-cock in an attempt to make the water flow faster, which it did and continued to do, as we stood with the broken implement in our hand, mouthing “oh my God oh my God” like a religious goldfish.
Over 15 minutes had elapsed when we returned to the table. There had been nobody waiting outside the bog and no-one to point the finger of blame at the perspiring madman who had, evidently, broken the loo after a quarter hour spent dealing with the effects of his vindaloo. We were in the clear.
“Cleared my nose,” we said to the our guests, as the strains of “Happy Birthday to you” started up behind us. Several red-faced Indian gentlemen surrounded the table, one carrying a cake with almost-spent candles.
“They’ve been waiting for 15 minutes for you to come out of the loo,” Mrs Erindipity whispered.
We never went back.

Most purple-faced Bishop

In 2006 the C of E Bishop of Southwark appeared at Mass sporting a black eye after being mugged following a drinks reception at the Irish embassy in London.
The Bishop had told police and his flock that he had been robbed after two hours drinking wine with the Paddies, but didn’t remember the incident.
Others did, however – much to his embarrassment.
According to witnesses the Bishop ended up in a lane near his cathedral where he climbed into a stranger’s Merc, setting off the alarm.When the owner came to investigate he found the robed Bishop sitting in the back, throwing toys out on to the road. The incident was to provide the classic definition of a Bishop’s job.
“What are you doing in my car?” the owner demanded.
“I’m the Bishop of Southwark,” the figure haughtily replied, adding helpfully, “it’s what I do.”


Most embarrassing line for an actress

Victoria Smurfit must have been transfigured with delight when she learned that she was going to act alongside Leonardo di Caprio in the movie ‘The Beach’. It was an experience she would never forget (however hard she tried).
The trade-off for acting with Leo was that she had to recite the worst line in a movie ever.
In the scene where his character is about to go ashore to get rice, Leo is inundated with requests for sundry items.
“New shorts and a new hat,” says one hairy chap.
“Bleach,” says a dyed blonde.
“Toothpaste,” says another hirsute islander.
And then it’s Victoria’s turn.
“Aspirin, paracetamol and,” she says, breathlessly, “six boxes of tampons.”
Interestingly, the movie was never billed as a ‘period drama’.

Least red-faced Rose

The Rose of Tralee regularly throws up (pun intended) a few moments of arch-squirminess among the regular squirminess we have become used to. In 2007 the Washington contestant surpassed all expectations and proved that it’s impossible to embarrass a Rose when she sang the alphabet backwards and spoke, onstage, to her mother in her own made-up language called ‘Op’.
Rose? Pricks? Construct your own gag.

Most embarrassing fashion moment

Finally we get to the previously mentioned Karen Millen story.
Last Christmas our good friend Dominick Lewis traipsed into Brown Thomas’s to buy his fiancée a pashmina. Dom, being a man’s man, knew that this was not a breed of dog, but was still unsure of what he was buying. After 20 minutes wandering around he eventually found the relevant department. Two assistants stood by the cash desk chatting as he fumbled through the rails. Eventually he gave up and approached them.
“I’m looking for a pashmina,” he said to Assistant One, “but I don’t know anything about them. Can you help me pick one out?”
“Certainly sir,” replied the lady, turning to her left, “This here is [italics] Karen Millen [close italics] . . .”
“Hello, Karen,” said Dominick to her colleague, “I’m looking to buy a pashmina for my fiancée . . .”

Most embarrassing jockey moment

Roger Loughran stood tall in the stirrups of Central House at the end of the Dial-A-Bet Chase at Leopardstown in 2005. He waved his whip at the grandstand and punched the air.
Roger had just turned professional and couldn’t contain himself after scoring his first Grade One victory. His joy was unbridled.
There was just one problem – he still had 80m to race. The hapless jock had mistaken the end of a running rail for the winning post, and as he slowed down two other riders galloped past, relegating him to third place. The crowd booed and he was, rightly, mortified.
His remains the second most incredible story about a man and a horse ever told.
So what’s the difference between Roger and Frank Dunlop?
One’s a jockey getting it in the neck for acting the b****x, while the other’s a man with a neck like a jockey’s etc, etc, etc . . .

No 8: Ireland’s Fittest Corpse

Sunday Tribune January 13

"You are a bloated, disgusting, fat pig."
Erindipity never had a problem with being called the above as a tweenager. None whatsoever.
We did, however, have a problem with being called a "skinny, wimpy, little git" as this was an accurate description of a boy with pipe-cleaner legs, who was regularly bullied by butterflies and wore a crash helmet when it snowed.
Our pathetic physique was due to our habit of hiding food, particularly at breakfast time. School mornings began with Weetabix and hot milk. We really liked Weetabix with hot milk, but for some still mysterious reason, we felt compelled to stir it and stir it until it became a disgusting, dung-coloured emulsion. Even though we knew we were turning our favourite breakfast the consistency of cat puke, we couldn’t help it. We had to see if we could get all the lumps out (which we never did). Then we couldn’t eat it
Stuffing the bowl inside our pyjamas, we would sneak upstairs to the bathroom to hide the evidence of food-wasting.
Over time we discovered that flushing Weetabix down the loo was a non-runner as – due to its high-fibre content – it floated. Also, if any stuck to the side, it hardened like cement.
So we threw it out the window.
This practice continued for a number of years, until a man who had been painting the outside of the house asked our mum if she had been keeping cows on the garage roof.
"No. Why?"
"It’s covered in cow s***te, missus."
Another breakfast time ‘yeuch’ was eggs fried in the dripping she collected in an enamel bowl in the fridge. This would be added to over the course of many Sunday lunches and the only way of gauging its age was by slicing it in half and counting the rings. Depending on who was frying them, the eggs would variously arrive hard and shrivelled or runny and covered in burnt black fat. Either way, they tasted of beef.
These were secreted in various places downstairs: behind curtains, in the coal scuttle, in the cistern . . . One day our dad – who was an occasional golfer – pulled out his six iron and sent a petrified fried egg frisbee-ing across the fairway. He later discovered three more fossilised eggs clinging to his clubs.
Curiously, he didn’t give out, perhaps because he was too afraid to ask why his weirdo son was hiding fried eggs in his golf bag.
School lunches went uneaten too, due to a love/hate relationship with garlic salami sandwiches (our mum loved making them/we hated eating them).
As a result of this lack of eating we grew up looking like the pull-through they clean rifles with, and the butt of the usual ‘skinny’ jokes.
We mention all this here in the context of last Monday’s ‘Future Shock: Fat Nation’ programme on RTE, where we were told that 25pc of Irish boys and 30pc of girls are overweight.
The reason for this, we believe, is prosperity. Parents have more cash now, so they give their children more pocket money, which they spend on chips/burgers etc. We’re not saying this is a bad thing, it’s just that the pre-Boom generation would never have dreamed of spending their meagre money on food. That was something your mum gave you for free at meal-times. If you didn’t eat it, you went hungry.
If there’s one flaw in the current status quo, it’s that many parents spoil their offspring because they feel guilty about both having to work to pay for the mortgage. As a result Ireland’s latch-key kids are now a crowd of lard-arses.
With this body-consciousness in mind, this week we went in search of Ireland’s Skinniest Schoolboy (see above) and Fattest Man and, to our delight, discovered Ireland’s Fittest Corpse into the bargain.

Ireland’s Fattest Man

Roger Byrne, from Co Laois may or may not have been fond of his butter, but he weighed the equivalent of 728 pounds of Kerrygold (52 stone) when he wobbled off this mortal coil aged 54 in 1808.
If you have problems visualising 52 stone, then consider that Roger was over four times as heavy as Asha, the baby elephant born in Dublin Zoo four months ago (168 pounds).
As if being chronically fat wasn’t bad enough, the Laoisman was also named after the mark you get if you have sex up against a radiator.
Now let’s meet . . .

Ireland’s Strongest Man

There is an old 1950s reel in the Pathe News archive, filmed in a London gym, which begins with a shot of a man cleaning his teeth. He then bites the rung of a chair on which a girl is sitting, and lifts it off the floor, twirling it around. In another scene he lifts a weight with the girl seated on it and two young men perched on either end.
The doughty chap is Kerryman Michael ‘Butty’ Sugrue (1924/1977), a Kilburn Landlord who was the strongest man in Europe in his day.
Despite being a short-arse, Butty once pulled a fully loaded bus through the streets with his teeth.
On one occasion he got a former world champion boxer to use his stomach as a punch bag after lifting two men, tied together, over his head and spinning them around.
Another favourite trick was to tie a rope around himself and get six men to try and pull him over. They never did.
Butty was also a boxing promoter and responsible for bringing Muhammad Ali over to fight in Croke Park in 1972. To do this, he took Ali’s promoter around to meet his bank manager, who said Butty was "good for the $300,000" needed to stage the bout. The deal was settled on a handshake.
Those exploits aside, Butty is included here because of the singular diet he invented in 1968, when he decided to bury one of his barmen alive.
Mike Meaney was 33 when Butty planted him in a coffin nine feet under in the garden of the Admiral Nelson as a publicity stunt. For 61 days, Meaney – who was buried with some books and a torch – breathed through a hosepipe. For his daily sustenance, Butty fed him 1,000 calories of liquid food, plus Guinness, pumped through another pipe.
On the day he was due to be dug up, a huge crowd gathered to watch eight Paddies working away their shovels, to the strains of the London Irish Girl Pipers.
As the coffin began to emerge, Butty (never one to miss an opportunity) was the first to tell the BBC – and all of England – “we have him lads!”
After 15 minutes Mike rose from the grave wearing green pyjamas, sunglasses and clutching a crucifix. For a former grave-dweller, he looked remarkably fit and trim due to Butty’s Underground Diet.
Perhaps Butty’s diet may be the solution to dealing with today’s chip-gorging piglets – ground them and feed them through a hose.
Or perhaps not.
At any rate, it’s worth pointing out that – despite years of honing his superb physique – it was food that killed poor Butty in the end.
He collapsed carrying a fridge up the stairs.
So maybe this fitness thing is over-rated.
Chip Butty, anyone?

No 6: Worst excuse for dinner being late

Sunday Tribune December 30

DEAR reader, You are cordially invited to 'Erindipity's Ultimate Christmas Dinner' on 30 December, 2007. We would have sent this sooner but the cat ate the postman and . . . we, er, this, kind of . . . got lost?
We apologise. That was the Third Worst Excuse for Dinner Being Late.
The Second Worst Excuse is that John Boyne took over the Review section last week and we were all given the weekend off, so that's why our Christmas dinner is late.
Please join us now for our festive miscellany, which uses only the most outstanding ingredients. (We've written about some of these before, but they're worth reheating. ) For starters, may we offer you a seafood salad containing the world's . . .

Most confused prawn

In February 2007 a giant Japanese Tiger Prawn was found in the nets of a west Cork fishing boat. The shellfish is normally found in the Pacific Ocean and its presence here prompted fears of an invasion, which so far hasn't materialised.
A spokesperson for the Department of the Marine said they believed the 'prawn star' (as the saucy Irish Times called it) is not right in the head and simply decided to go 'swimabout'.
"The prawn's crackers, " the official said. Actually, that's a really lousy joke so we'll have another go at it.
"The prawn's Christmas crackers, " the official said. Nope, that's even worse, so we'll move on to the soup course which features the . . .

Best soup for killing you

Sorry, but you'll have to wait until after dessert for this. This will make sense later, so let's speed along to Co Cavan for the turkey course which will be served in the . . .

Best place for Christmas dinner if you're in a hurry

Cootehill is the home of the exceptional Vincent Pilkington. On 17 November 1980, Vincent became the fastest turkey plucker on the planet when he stripped a 16lb bird in one minute and 30 seconds. Vincent became something of a superstar in Co Cavan after his feat was televised by RTE. Yes, well, apart from The Angelus and re-runs of Mannix, there wasn't much else on the telly back in the '80s.
Plucky Vincent officially defeathered his last turkey in Bailieboro in December 2005. At the time of his retirement he could still handle an average of 16 birds an hour, making him the Jack Nicholson of the poultry world. Speaking of hams, how about a portion of the . . .

Most well-informed pigs

On New Year's Day 2003 new EU directives were introduced to keep our pigs happy.
Pig boredom is a serious issue for farmers as they are intelligent creatures and need entertainment, or else they get aggressive and surly (that's the pigs we're talking about).
The rules named specific materials, including novelty items (footballs etc) to keep the porkers occupied. That February The Corkman newspaper revealed that a farm in Dromcummer had the happiest and most erudite pigs in Ireland. It said the Lehane family's pigs' contentment was down to. . . The Corkman. They loved nothing more than getting stuck into a copy of the periodical. It even published a picture of four pigs browsing the front page and, unbelievable as this may sound, they really did look like they were reading it.
Three of them did, at any rate, one of them may have been probing some poo.
The Corkman is such a hit with the pigs that their neighbours bring it up to the farm by the car load. The pigs, for their part, have ensured that there's nothing but crap in the papers these days.
Back to the menu. Would you like some spuds with your ham? How about the . . .

First spuds in Ireland

These were planted in Youghal by Sir Walter Raleigh in 1585. Youghal, by the way, is the only Irish place name with an American accent. This is because when Walter left America with his spuds and tobacco, the Indians said: "Youghal come back now, yuh heah?"
Actually that's not true. They were glad to see him go.
By the by the way, did you know that 'Munster Plums' are, in fact, potatoes?
No? Neither did we. We thought southern plums were something you got from sitting in the saddle too long.
Care for a helping from the . . .

Biggest plate of veggies

In April of this year Harry Crowley from Walkinstown grew a recordbreaking carrot which was an astonishing three feet long. (Insert Carry On-style gag here, please. ) His parsnips are monsters too, with one reaching a length of 10ft 7ins.
Harry will also be remembered for setting the least-attempted of all gardening records . . . growing the Longest Horseradish in the World. It measured 10ft 4ins . . . enough to make a bucket of sauce to go with your dins.
In 2005, 'A Man Called Horseradish' likened gardening to studying electricity. "It is colossal, and you have to know a lot of theory, " he said, omitting to mention that nobody has ever been electrocuted by a garden vegetable.
Now for a glass of wine from Ireland's . . .

Most northerly vineyard

You probably knew that Ireland has a couple of vineyards. You didn't? Well bad news . . . Global warming is here and WE'RE ALL DOOMED. Ireland is an official EU wine-producing country and the majority of our few vineyards are located in 'lush' Munster. Here's a few: the West Waterford vineyards, the Blackwater Valley and Longueville House vineyards and the Thomas Walk vineyard in Kinsale.
Our Most Northerly Vineyard is located in Swords, Co Dublin and is owned by horticulturist, David Llewellyn. It's named Fruit of the Vine and does a nice little pinot noir.
(See? The northside isn't all Buckfast and cider. ) Room for dessert? Have a slice of cake. It's not traditional Christmas cake, but it is the . . .

Biggest cake ever

The largest cake ever baked in Ireland weighed 190lbs and was made to celebrate Dublin's 1988 millennium at the Mansion House. Like other occupants of that gaff, it was nutty and fruity, but it wasn't half-baked (Royston Brady where are you? ) and was eventually thrown out in 1991.
If you don't want cake you might try some of the . . .

Largest amount of ice cream lost at sea

Which was the 1,750 quarts of French ice cream aboard the Titanic.
Unfortunately you'll need to supply your own wetsuit.
And finally we get to the soup course and the . . .

Worst excuse for dinner being late

Dubliner, Brigadier General John Nicholson (1822-1857), was an utter bastard. This was especially true in India, where he was renowned for his foul temper. Remarkably, he inspired a short-lived cult there, despite the fact that he couldn't stand his devotees and had some of them jailed and flogged.
Like we said: utter bastard.
During the 'Indian Mutiny' of 1857 he displayed a particularly ruthless way of dealing with truculent kitchen staff. Having been told that the native regimental chefs had poisoned the company's soup, Nicholson ordered that they be forced to sample it first.
When they refused, he force-fed it to a monkey which, promptly, croaked.
Later, the General marched into the mess tent and coughed to attract the officers' attention.
"I am sorry, gentlemen, to have kept you waiting for your dinner, " he said nonchalantly, "but I have been hanging your cooks."
It remains The Worst Excuse Ever for Dinner Being Late. (It's even worse than blaming John Boyne for hogging the Review section. ) And on that charming note, we would like to assure you that no turkeys, pigs, monkeys or chefs were harmed in the writing of this piece.
They, like the Erindipity family, wish you a peaceful new year.