Water

Water.
It doesn’t taste of much, it rots your boots and it causes alarm when it starts dripping through your kitchen ceiling. The Ancient Mariner bemoaned the fact that it was everywhere but there wasn’t a drop of drink. And people have actually drowned in it.
On the other hand, we are still the only planet in the solar system to have it in abundance – either the still or sparkling variety – and it’s a handy way of separating continents, when all things are considered.
During the recent big snow, we were advised by Fingal County Council to stop running our taps at night to stop our pipes freezing, as water levels in the county were getting perilously low.
I was about to write in and tell them that we hadn’t been doing that at all when the concept suddenly hit home. Up till then I had never thought of running my taps at night to stop the pipes from freezing. What a brilliant idea!
My wife, though, who is far more mindful of concepts like ‘civic duty’ and ‘water conservation’ gave me one of her famous withering stares when I broached the subject and I knew it was a non runner. I therefore fell in behind her new water campaign which, already quite stringent, now became punitive.
The dishwasher, for the time being at least, could have a break. It uses 15 litres of water per cycle, whereas we could wash by hand, the old-fashioned way, using a half a kettle of boiled water per day.
I was not to have my traditional St Bernard blackcurrant cordial with my dinner but could make do with lemon and lime like the rest of them. Similarly, I was to have no water in my whiskey on a Friday night, just a splash of red lemonade. When I gave my car its six monthly wash, instead of filling a red basin, she handed me a mug of hot water and a sponge. Teeth were to be brushed in a thimbleful of water. And only when absolutely caked in dirt, so our skin was barely visible, were we allowed to have a shower. And even then, my wife was to stand outside the door with a stopwatch.
Invigorated by this water conservation fervour, I suggested that, as everybody knew that having a shower used much less water than having a bath, maybe we could all have bath but (and here was the clever bit) we should fill up the bath using the shower attachment instead. I am still reeling from the second withering stare in two days.
I have to admit that, such was the rigour of the new regime, that I rebelled, once and once only. When she was down her mother’s, and I was alone in the house, I flippantly and gratuitously turned on the tap and let the water run joyously down the plug hole for three seconds.
“Go, my children!” I whispered as the twirling liquid ran out of sight. “Find your way safely and quickly to the Great Sea.” It felt good, though when my wife returned I felt sure that she could read my flush of guilt by the way she kept eying me suspiciously, even though I had dried the bottom of the sink with a bit of kitchen roll, so not to give the game away.
Of course, the worry is that our efforts are merely a drop in the ocean. When I used to drive in to work along the back roads by the Cappagh Hospital, I had to drive down a road in Finglas West that I don’t think has been dry for ten years. There’s obviously a leak there somewhere that has never been fixed and it makes you wonder what is the point in conserving tiny bits of water when it’s gushing away merrily somewhere else and nobody seems to care.
But as my wife says, that’s no reason for personal irresponsibility.
There is no fear of water charges in our house. The amount of water we use, the Council will probably end up owing us money, unless of course they do what they did with the black bins and realise everybody’s being too green and they aren’t generating enough revenue and slap a fixed charge on top of the water consumption charge.
No, I’ll nail my colours firmly to the mast here, even though I’m getting pretty short of colours and am only left with a light ochre and sunset red. I believe that water should be free to be enjoyed by the whole nation as a God-given unalienable right. We live in a temperate and moist climate, abundant with water, and this should be free to the benefit of all. And if anyone wants to put pots out in the garden to collect rainwater or go down to the Tolka and scoop up a lunchbox full of water, they should be allowed to do that without fear of financial retribution. And they can gulp as many lungfuls of air as they like, while they’re at it.
If however, they want to avail of water that has been collected in reservoirs, treated, pumped to water towers, treated again and then pumped through miles of maintained piping to the comfort of their own homes, then I don’t think it unreasonable to levy a small charge based on consumption levels. There is nothing else in our homes that costs money to produce that we get for free, except maybe plastic sacks from spurious charity collectors.
Or else we can all go back to the old system of going down to the village well with our buckets and do away with indoor plumbing altogether. Come to think of it, that mightn’t be such a bad idea, as it would get people talking to each other in a community environment, much the way the water cooler does in the office. Of course, it might mean a few of our young people would die of thirst before they lifted a bucket but hey, we’re overpopulated anyway.
Yesterday, the cold tap in the wash hand basin in the bathroom, which had been stiff for a while, suddenly seized up. It turns about a half of turn but no water comes out.
I thought she’d be happy but she wasn’t.

Taking the plunge in the property market

I tend to keep my cards very close to my chest where financial matters are concerned. I find that if I leave them any further away, I walk off and forget about them and my wife is always picking them up and throwing them in the green bin.
So recently, when I got a welcome and totally unexpected piece of news regarding an inheritance, I did not clamber up on the roof and pronounce the glad tidings at the top of my voice. I simply sat there at the kitchen table smiling to myself and humming a Lionel Richie tune.
“What are you looking so pleased about?” demanded my wife suspiciously. My sudden bursts of good humour tend to have an unnerving effect on her and the sooner she gets to the bottom of my bonhomie, the easier she can rest.
“Oh, no reason, my little Venus flycatcher,” I smiled at her sweetly. “What way’s the property market these days? Have we reached the bottom yet?”
“What are you up to?” she countered, maintaining her long tradition of answering a question with a question.
It was no good. I could keep it in no longer.
“It’s just that I was thinking of buying an apartment in Kimmage,” I announced breezily.
The words had the desired effect. My wife’s jaw dropped and she stared at me like a guppy fish. My daughter shrieked. “For me? For me?” while my son wanted to know where Kimmage was.
It was obvious from my wife’s expression that she was missing some information here so I calmly told her about the inheritance and explained that I was thinking of delving into the property market. And to my daughter’s deep disappointment, I told her that I was thinking of buying it as an investment property to keep the wolf from the door later on. I had never thought of myself as a landlord but the more I considered the idea, the more I liked it, especially as everyone around me seemed to have property here, there and everywhere.
I could see my wife was doubtful from the way her eyebrows were so arched they were actually two inches above the top of her head. The questions came thick and fast. Why this sudden interest in the property market? Did I think this was really a good time to buy? Would I not be leaving myself short if other contingencies arose? What kind of return could I expect from an apartment in Kimmage?
I explained to my son that Kimmage was where the three lovely lasses came from and that it was on the south side of the city, probably the equivalent of Phibsboro (which he’d heard of.)
And then patiently I told my wife that I had been thinking of investing in an apartment for quite a while and the inheritance had provided me with the funds to do it. I was quite satisfied with the expected yields and was confident the apartment would not remain idle for long. Yes, I realised there were occasional levies on properties but that was a chance I had to take.
“But Kimmage?” she said incredulously.
“I know it sounds weird,” I replied, “but realistically I’m not going to afford anywhere in the City Centre or Dublin 4. But hey, who knows, with the returns from this property, the next step could well be an apartment on Grafton Street.”
“You’re sure you have this inheritance?” she persisted. “It’s not like in Coronation Street where people spend thousands and haven’t read the small print?”
In reply, I simply smiled and held up my recent communication. She snatched it out of my hand and began to read avidly, while Louise and Neil clamoured around, reading over her shoulder.
“Some people have all the luck,” she grumbled eventually, handing it back to me with little grace. “Well, it’s your money and you can spend it how you like. All I will say to you is – think very carefully. It’s a very big step, owning property.”
“Nobody ever got rich without taking risks,” I countered. “Listen, I’ve done the sums and they all work out. One thing’s for sure, the prices aren’t going to get any lower and I can always remortgage if things start getting sticky.”
Louise and Neil resumed their seats, somewhat gruffly I thought. I think they thought I might have given them a handout. Not in this game, I thought. You reap what you sow and you don’t get a free ride from anyone.
“Right,” said my wife. “Put your card back at the bottom of the pile. €500,000 for your inheritance. €500,000 the cost of one apartment. There you go. That should send shivers down the spine of anyone avoiding my hotels on Shrewsbury Road and Ailesbury Road.”

Greengages, red soap and breadsticks

It came to me quite suddenly,
As I lay in my bed –
That wholesome taste that one-time graced
Our slices of white bread.
.
Several years ago, I wrote a poem lamenting the disappearance of greengage jam, a confiture that had figured largely in my youth but had disappeared from supermarket shelves one day when nobody was looking. It was only many years later when somebody suddenly had a flashback that we realised it was no longer with us.
Where did it go? Was there a failure of the greengage crop, akin to the potato famine of the 1840s? Did the bottom fall out of the greengage market? Did unscrupulous co-ops make the production of greengages untenable to local farmers? What in God’s name is a greengage anyway? Is it on a list of the world’s most endangered species like the white rhino and the blue whale?
Despite being read on the John Creedon show and, I think, on Playback the following Saturday, the poem failed to break into the poetry charts, sinking without trace, much like its subject matter.

.
This wondrous fruit of great repute
Just vanished when we blinked.
One day, ‘twas here. The next, I fear,
It must have gone extinct.

.
I was reminded of this situation when I was sent out the day before Christmas Eve to buy breadsticks. We like to have breadsticks and dips for lunch on Stephens Day and subsequent days, sitting in front of the telly watching Elf or Mary Poppins or some other drug-induced nightmare. It is so easily prepared even I can do it.
Last year we got them in Dunnes in Blanchardstown without any difficulty but this year they were nowhere to be seen. Of course, we had no idea which section they should be in. With the bread? With the crackers? With the biscuits? With the crisps?
When we got home, I was sent out on a mission to get the breadsticks, probably to get me out of the house from under her feet. I tried Lidl in Clonee, the garage, the Post Office, the Soul Bakery in Ongar (it had shut months ago, apparently), Hickeys and Dunnes in Ongar. All to no avail.
In the end, we had to make do with Pringles. Quite tasty but they kept on snapping when you dug them into the sour cream and onion.

.
When did they stop this luscious crop?
Quite sudden, or in stages?
Did harvests fail through snow and hail?
What happened to greengages?

.
The summer before last, my daughter spent three months in Hawaii on something called a J1 visa. As you can imagine, it was a terrible wrench to be apart from her for such a long period of time, though it was not quite long enough to sell all her clothes and move house.
Anyway, on her return – oh sad, woebegotten day! – we were naturally excited by the thoughts of the wonderful surprise present she would doubtless have brought back. Some Waikiki crystal, perhaps? A hideously loud shirt? A fragment of Japanese bomber fished out of Pearl Harbour?
I think I would be safe in assuming that neither of us had anticipated the box of Lucky Charms that she produced from among her three months worth of washing.
For those above, or indeed below, a certain age, Lucky Charms was a breakfast cereal that was popular in our house in the late eighties and early nineties. They were like a multi-coloured Cheerios and we even saved up the tokens to buy a mug that changed colour depending on the temperature of the liquid inside, which kept us enthralled for days on end.
We actually still have the mug somewhere at the back of the press, though I’m afraid its chameleon–like qualities have not lasted. But Lucky Charms have long since gone, withdrawing unannounced to the shores of America and doubtless inspiring the Morrissey hit single This Charmless Man.

.
Look on the shelf in shops yourself,
There’s jams of every flavour.
Kiwi, plum, chrysanthemum,
To sample and to savour.

.
A few months ago, my wife’s mother, who resides down in Stoneybatter, discovered that Tesco’s in Prussia Street had stopped selling bars of red soap. You know the ones – they used to live by the sink and came in a colourful wrapper with a cartoon picture of a smiling housewife on the front. Not exactly sure what it was for but every household had one. I think it might have been for getting spaghetti hoop stains off your trousers in a hurry.
Anyway, she said, could we have a look in Dunnes and get her a bar? No problem, we said. The difference is, Dunnes are Irish. (Isn’t it ridiculous how you have loyalty to one brand of supermarket?) However, Margaret Heffernan may be a true daughter of Erin but she obviously doesn’t see the need for red soap anymore. In fact, bars of ordinary soap only occupied about an eighth of a shelf, being surrounded and intimidated by the liquid soap, whose plastic packaging is doubtless a step in the wrong direction environmentally.
“They’ll probably have it in some hardware shop in Newcastlewest,” opined my wife, “next to the watering cans and the sleeveless anoraks,” and I dare say she is right but thankfully her sister, on her Christmas visit from England, was able to bring a year’s supply of red soap (one bar) with her. In return, we loaded her down with black pudding, Walsh’s spice burgers (are they the next on the list?)and YR sauce.

Whate’er the cause, it’s time to pause,
And doff our caps with piety,
And bow the head to mourn the spread
That’s lost unto society.

The point I am making, somewhat longwindedly, is that supermarkets should warn you that they no longer intend to stock a certain product. Had we known that household soap was going to be withdrawn, we could have bought twenty bars and kept them with the Christmas decorations in the attic, bringing one down every year as needed.
Who decides that the Irish public no longer requires greengage jam? Is our family particularly odd in opting for products that are doomed to disappear as soon as we get a taste for them, or are we at the mercy of supermarket buyers who count the units sold and the shelf-space taken up?
I think there should be some one centralised store, preferably in the Dublin 15 area, where people can go and buy breadsticks or Butterscotch flavour Angel Delight or dandelion and burdock or pork pies or Birds Eye Cod in Butter Sauce or any of the thousands of products that supermarkets no longer stock.
Any budding entrepreneurs out there looking for an idea, it’s all yours.

.
Rich and sweet, ‘twas quite a treat
But, like the Dublin tram,
It’s had its day, gone on its way –
The pot of greengage jam.

The case of the missing polar bear

The other day I had some very important business in the Blanchardstown Shopping Centre which involved waiting for hours by the fountain while my wife sought out a pair of boots.
Suspecting that this was not going to be a straightforward task, I had had the foresight to bring along several novels, a flask of coffee, a sleeping bag and night apparel and thus I settled down among the rampaging toddlers for a long wait.
I was about a third of the way through War and Peace – after the first bit of war but before the next chapter became entirely peaceful – when my attention was drawn to the musical entertainment that was lightening up the lives of the Christmas shoppers in the fountain area. This group, who were obviously quite proficient at rag-time jazz, consisted of three rather jovial polar bears, one playing a fiddle, one strumming a guitar in a cello-like pose and the third tinkling the ivories in the rear.
To be fair to them, they had a good sense of rhythm and although they did not seem to encourage interaction with their audience, nevertheless they managed to strike up quite a rapport with the under four contingent, with a fair amount of moshing in the Dry Cleaner section of the crowd.
However, as I studied them more closely, I noticed one very salient fact. There was no drummer among the musicians even though it was the very crisp and controlled drums that seemed to hold the music together.
How could this be, I asked myself. Surely, after all the controversy of Britney miming in Australia, the polar bear trio were not miming to a backing track? I watched them closely but, despite the unusual stance of the guitar player, it was clear that they definitely were playing the music loive, as Bill O’Herlihy would say.
The only explanation I could think of was that they had a drum machine concealed beneath the piano which, was fair enough in my book. I mean, good drummers are hard to find at the best of times but I should imagine that finding one against the backdrop of the Arctic tundra is pretty nigh impossible. Generally I am against synthesised music but in certain circumstances it is justifiable.
The matter would have come to an end then and there if I hadn’t stood up half an hour later to stretch my legs. As I walked over towards Debenhams, for the first time, I noticed one tom-tom (a tom?) standing forlornly, on its own, on the far side of the icy stage that the polar bears were occupying.
This is getting curiouser, I thought. Idly, I wondered if the percussion section of the group had discovered the secret of invisibility but soon dismissed the notion as being too far-fetched. And anyway, the tom was not reverberating in any shape or form.
I resumed my seat, sliding a dribbling two year old off my sleeping bag and pondered anew. I tried to cast my mind back to the year before to remember if the group had been a foursome when they gigged here in 2008 but my long-term memory is sadly restricted to Shelbourne football teams of yesteryear and Lionel Ritchie lyrics. However, one part of my brain insisted that there had been four polar bears at one time. My elbow countered that I had no definite proof of this and the matter was settled when the smooth bit of skin above my ankle advised that I should enquire in Customer Services.
“I don’t honestly know, I’m afraid,” the lady behind the desk told me, eying me suspiciously. “All I know is that the music is driving me mad.” Obviously not a jazz lover, I thought. To be honest, she looked more Anastacia than Alexander’s Ragtime Band.
The more I sat and watched the group, the more I was convinced that one member had been replaced by a drum machine. This view was endorsed by the way that the fiddle player actually stood on top of the piano – not a thing to be encouraged in such icy conditions and I’m surprised the Health and Safety people in the Centre allowed it – and kept turning his head towards Marks and Spencer’s, as if expecting the errant drummer to come bounding down the red mall.
I wondered what had caused the drummer to leave. Was he disenchanted by being asked to play the same song for weeks on end every Christmas and had demanded a bit of variety in the repertoire? Polar bears are particularly susceptible to repetitive strain injury as evidenced by the former inmate of Dublin Zoo who would parade for hours along the front of his stage muttering invective at the crowds on the far side of the fence.
Maybe he was resentful of the lack of seating from which to play his tom, particularly as no expense had been spared in that department for the pianist?
Or maybe it was simply a sex and drugs and rock and roll thing and his erratic behaviour had finally ended in him being thrown out and a replacement advertised for in Hot Press?
Whatever the reason, I pondered how the missing member was surviving in the harsh environs of Dublin 15. I suspected that the absence of fish might be causing him some hardship and wondered how he had fared when he presented himself for his job seekers’ allowance. Drumming gigs for polar bears are fairly thin on the ground at the moment due to the recession and it would doubtless be a lean Christmas for him without the steady income from the Blanchardstown residency.
There and then, I decided that the only thing for it would be to set up a charity for musical polar bears that are down on their luck. I would probably be too late for the Christmas card market this year but I could easily set up a bank account that people could donate to. To be honest, there is nothing worse than coming out of Superquinn car park on a miserable December morning and seeing an unshaven polar bear sitting against the wall holding out a cap pathetically for a few coppers and I hope people will dig deep this Christmas despite the recessionary times.
When my wife returned two days later, triumphantly clutching a pair of ankle boots, I told her of my plan. Strangely she didn’t seem to share my compassion for the fate of Arctic mammals. Nor did she appear to appreciate the music still pounding out from the indefatigable trio in the fountain.
Sometimes I wonder how we get on so well together.

Heaven and hell

Occasionally, as part of a sentence of community service for some heinous crime committed in a past life, the editor of this august newspaper asks me to go down to Grove Road in Blanchardstown and report on the latest Castleknock / Mulhuddart area committee meeting of the local Council.
Naturally I am always very wary of this assignment and have added the number of the local para-medics to my mobile phone, in case the excitement gets too much for me. Some people get their kicks bungee-jumping or white-water rafting – for me, seventeen motions asking for various trees to be trimmed around the Dublin 15 area is better than riding from Chicago to Santa Monica on a Harley any day of the week.
Thus it was I was in the Council chamber a few weeks ago, listening to a presentation on the Blanchardstown Village Urban Design Framework Plan by somebody whose name I didn’t quite catch.
As Framework Plans go, and, I must admit, they’re my favourite kind of plans, it was absolutely riveting stuff and I can only assume that I caught some particularly virulent strain of a sleeping bug as I had entered the County Offices for, despite my fascination for the subject, I found my head nodding and my eyes drooping and I was suddenly transported into the Main Street of Blanchardstown far into the future.
To be honest, I didn’t immediately recognise it as such. Gone were Ryan’s garage and the queues waiting for the Bank of Ireland to open and the architectural splendour of the Mace on the corner of Church Avenue. In their place was a long tree-lined road – re-named Joan Burton Boulevard - with opulent hotels and fountains and top-class restaurants. It was only when I saw the 39 zipping up the main thoroughfare heading towards the Snugborough Road that I recognised exactly where I was.
I think it must have been National Independence Day because there was a large crowd in the Forum outside City Hall and bunting hung all around. Across the street, I recognised my face on a large statue inscribed “Peter Goulding, Liberator of the Principality of Castlehuddart” and I was gratified to see the multitudes of people throwing themselves prostrate before it and kissing my bronze feet, (though I thought the sculptor could have been a bit kinder with my facial features.)
The crowd were singing the national anthem
“Arise, ye men of Castleknock, Blanch, Mulhuddart and Littlepace,
And throw off the yoke of ninety seven years”
while people hung out of every window of the thirty five floors of the Brian Lenihan Hotel to watch the proceedings. Over at the Joe Higgins Casino, groups of rich Americans with piles of chips in their hands stood in the foyer and marvelled at the quaint assembly.
A young man took the stage, introducing himself as Giuseppe Varadkar, and told the crowd how his great-great grandfather had stood side by side with Peter Goulding in the Greyhound bar as the shells rained down on them. This, he said, had perplexed the men inside as they had expected mortars and bullets, but for some reason – probably cutbacks - the Irish Army had chosen to use shells culled from Bettystown beach. The men in the bar had held out for six days, he said, and decision to surrender had only been taken when the Guinness ran out and they were obliged to use Smithwicks for sustenance instead.
Giuseppe then proceeded to give a graphic account of the aftermath of the Rising, in which the ringleaders were rounded up and forced to do community service holding back the crowds at a Lionel Ritchie concert in Lansdowne Road. It was this barbaric treatment of the rebels, he thundered to gasps of horror in the crowd, that swayed public sympathy and eventually forced the Irish Army to retreat back to the Halfway House.
In the air, cameramen for Community Voice News International leant out of helicopters to film the scene for prosperity, while breathless reporters from around the world clamoured for space along the railings outside the Forum to relate the joyous scenes to Castlehuddart émigrés around the world.
Further down Burton Boulevard, the magnificent dome of the Mícheál Ó Muircheartaigh Stadium glistened in the autumnal sunlight as it prepared for that evening’s Champions League Final between Verona and AC Milan, whilst many of the latter’s supporters respectfully watched the proceedings from the roof-garden of the word-famous Le Terrazza Restaurant in George Redmond Grove. Above the skyline came the distinctive introduction to “I can’t believe I still haven’t found what I’m looking for” as U2 rehearsed in Draíocht for the first date of their worldwide comeback tour.
I ambled along the golden pavement in the dappled sunshine, watching the children excitedly queuing up to enter Clonsillaworld, an exhilarating new theme park where you try to find a parking space within walking distance of the train station or walk to the local school without being mown down by passing cars or simply sit admiring the view while waiting for the car ahead to turn right up the Shelerin Road.
I stopped at a local newsagent and glanced at the front page of a paper. “Minister for Finance to introduce income tax?” said the headline. “It’ll never happen,” said the kindly shopkeeper. “Sure with our full employment, the low cost of living and the voluntary contributions made by all the contented members of the country, there’s no need for income tax. Go on, take the paper – I have plenty more.”
I walked on, passing by the shrine of St. Dan of the Oratory, in front of which people were praying to a relic of his spectacles, and stopping in front of the Museum of Antiquities, where a schoolteacher was telling a bunch of incredulous children what a traffic jam was. Against the wall, a street entertainer was performing a brain teaser on a Nintendo DS as a large crowd looked on in wonder.
Across the street, the large milk shop stood next door to the equally large honey shop, whilst outside of each a large cup of plenty was overflowing. As I stood in the queue for some honey, I frowned, when I saw that my profile on the banknote had been taken from the right rather than the left. And they could have airbrushed out the wart on the end of my nose, I grumbled.
But the sun shone in all its majesty and cockatoos cawed merrily in the palm trees and the blue flag flew gaily over the artificial beach behind the Transport Hub.
“And we believe that the new upgrade works on the M50 which are due to be completed by the end of 2010 will have a significant impact on the number of vehicles passing through the village,” said a slightly familiar voice to my left. I stirred and looked up. It took me a good thirty seconds to realise that I was actually back in the Council Chamber in October 2009, listening to a presentation on the Blanchardstown Village Urban Design Framework Plan.
And here I must apologise to the Councillors. Doubtless, along with the sleeping bug I must have caught while entering the offices, there must have been a second screaming heebie-jeebie bug that hopped in as well. I hope my sudden and extremely noisy exit from the Chamber did not detract them too much from the job at hand.

The art of growing a beard

When I was a much younger man, I took a trip on the Trans-Siberian express from Moscow to Beijing in early February, stopping off for a couple of days at a city called Irkutsk in Siberia.
My father, an extremely knowledgeable man who once put a zed on the end of ‘quart’ at the end of a game of Scrabble, advised me that I should grow a beard to ward off the worst excesses of the -30° Centigrade temperatures that I could expect, if I was foolish to go at that time of the year. Brought up on tales of Scott, Shackleton and Amundsen, he recognised that no clean-shaven person had ever made it to the South Pole and there was a reason for this.
At the time I worked in Dunnes Stores in Grafton Street and I remember that I had to ask permission from my manager at the time to grow a beard, there being an unofficial no-beard policy in the company at the time, except for one guy who worked out in Northside.
I started growing the damned thing about four weeks prior to my departure date and sadly, any hopes I might have had of adding beard-growing to my extremely small list of accomplishments soon faded in the light of the scutty little effort that faced me in the mirror on the morning of my departure.
That I had failed publicly in my attempt to grow facial hair punctured my machismo somewhat, though in retrospect, I doubt that even if I had succeeded in producing a beard of Ronnie Drew proportions, it would have helped to keep out the deep Siberian cold to any degree. I was able to suggest to my father subsequently that I found that a scarf wrapped around the lower half of the face did the job just as well.
Of course, being in retail for the first half of my working life, I was always very assiduous about shaving, performing the mundane ritual every morning before work. I was never tempted to grow either a moustache or a beard, having it in my head that those with the former were intrinsically evil and those with the latter seemed to have a sad look about them.
I got an electric shaver on my sixteenth birthday and I think I’ve only had two shavers since, an endorsement that I am hoping will be read by Philips and suitably recompensed. The other odd thing is that I have never shaved in front of a mirror, preferring to let my knuckles tell me when I am baby-bum smooth. I tell myself that this is because there is no mirror near the socket where I plug in my shaver, but in reality I have better things to do than to stare at my ugly mug first thing in the mornings.
About ten years ago though, I moved out of retail, first into manufacturing and then into warehousing. Naturally, with practically no contact with the general public, there was no onus on the staff to take pride in their appearance. Not being exactly a snappy dresser at the best of times – I view clothes as being purely functional rather than a statement of fashion – this suited me down to the ground and my former daily shaving habit fell by the wayside too.
The latter is not due to lack of pride in my appearance, though when you have a face like mine, the word ‘pride’ isn’t be the first noun that springs to mind. No, it’s just that shaving is so boring. It’s not something you can do while otherwise engaged in reading or gardening or something, as you have to contort your face up like the Elephant Man to get the job done. I start under the nose before doing the cheeks and then sweeping down to my chin. Then I do under my chin before catching the stubbly bits on the line of the chin itself. Even writing down the sequence is boring.
So I leave off shaving until one of two things happens – either my wife tells me to ‘lose the beard’ or the bristles on my chin become so long that when I look downwards, I stab myself in the neck. Of course, now, my facial hair, rather than coming out a dark and virile black now comes out a rather doddery silver, much to the delight of my nearest and dearest.
I have no idea how people grow beards and moustaches. It must irritate them all the time. And I’d also be afraid that bits of food or nasal waste would become lodged in the hairs unbeknownst to myself and I’d walk around like that for days with people too embarrassed to tell me.
I was in a pub down in Loughrea recently and there was a photo on the wall of the local GAA team in 1923. The two things that sprang out of the photograph was the amount of hats and moustaches that everybody had. Well, they only had one of each but you know what I mean. How distinguished and austere they all looked! How come my three days’ growth merely makes me look like a scruff?
Like hats, moustaches have very much gone out of fashion. Take the local political scene here. None of our three TDs – Brian Lenihan, Leo Varadkar nor Joan Burton – obviously feels that growing facial hair is much of a political advantage and their lead has been largely followed on Fingal County Council, although the new Mayor sports a very distinguished James Robertson Justice full set. Gerry Lynam obviously didn’t get in at the last election because of his moustache, however well-groomed it might be, the public clamouring to see a bit of skin ’twixt nose and lip. However, I am determined that when the glorious day finally arrives and Dublin 15 gains its independence, I will make the moustache the official facial hair of the new republic.
My daughter’s boyfriend, Greg, is actually quite a good beard-grower, being able to develop a thick full set between breakfast and elevenses, though I think he realises that it may be a hindrance if he ever nurtures political ambitions later in life. Still, as I keep on hinting, it’d be a great skill to have if he ever decided to bring my daughter to Siberia.

A bit of a Hallowe’en stink

It may sound strange but I was delighted when a wise and wonderful man from Huntstown asked me last month if I had noticed the smell in the area every evening.
For several weeks, my wife had taken to sniffing the air every time I came in the front door and I had been starting to get a complex. With a sense of smell that never really returned despite being off the cigarettes for six years, I had only got the whiff occasionally – a strange brown smell that I imagine is slurry, even though I haven’t the slightest idea what slurry smells like.
I had told my wife that I didn’t think I was the source of the odour but I could tell from her raised eyebrow and clothes peg on her nose that she wasn’t convinced, particularly as she insisted on shooing me upstairs to the shower the moment I set foot in the hall and fumigating my clothes as I washed.
However, the casual remark from the man from Huntstown exonerated me completely of any blame for the smell. Though I may pong a bit occasionally, it is extremely doubtful that my odour could be smelled over a mile away, even with the wind in the right direction. Every time I opened the hall door, the smell wafted in behind me, fingering me for a crime I had not committed.
Innocent of all charges, I was thus filled with a determination to bring the true perpetrator to justice. Sadly, when I went to put my investigative journalism hat on, my wife admitted that she had given it down to the Good as New shop, so I donned a baseball cap instead and set out like Stanley to discover the source of the smell.
Now, in the cartoon advert for Bisto, the children follow a highly visible smell of gravy back to their own kitchen. Sadly, the slurry smell was not quite so definitive and certainly not as visible to the naked eye and for several days I drove around the area, getting out of my car at strategic locations and sniffing the air like a bloodhound, doubtless drawing quizzical looks from passing motorists.
Oh, how I cursed my twenty five years nicotine habit! Of course it is doubtful whether the most sensitive nose in the world could differentiate between the various strengths of the odour from one location to the next, but I, with my desensitised nose, had no chance.
To be honest, although I was completely unknowledgeable of all things agricultural – to me, the phrase “country smells” encompasses a wide gamut of odours – I was not convinced that the offending pong was indeed slurry. Sure, hadn’t we seen on the news how the farmers were protesting that they were all being put out of business by the weather, the EU and Brian Cowen, so why would they waste their time producing slurry (whatever slurry is) when their children were being starved off the land?
I made discreet enquiries in the Paddocks, telling people I was “only asking for a friend” but I could tell people were afraid, particularly when they went running out the door with their hands over their ears. Nobody was prepared to blow the lid on this story, though a few of them tapped the side of their noses, indicating either that they knew something or that they had a cocaine habit.
My big break came when I came downstairs one morning to find a piece of paper had been slipped under the hall door. Of course, it might just as easily have been pushed through the letter box but it sounds more dramatic my way.
“Rubbish collection to help the starving farmers of county Clare,” I read. “Please place all your unwanted money in a black sack and leave outside your front door on Thursday morning.” I was about to throw it away (I’d already given all my spare money to the Bankers’ Benevolent Fund) when I noticed a handwritten scrawl on the rear of the notice.
“You want to find the sauce (sic) of the smell?” it read. “Go to the graveyard in Clonsilla at midnight!”
The words sent a chill down my spine and then another one just above my left elbow. What foul deed was afoot, I wondered? And what was this sick sauce mentioned in the note?
Of course, my wife, who was becoming quite adept at eyebrow-raising, looked surprised when I casually informed her at 23:45 that I was “just popping down to Clonsilla, love.”
Her parting shot of “Drive carefully, smelly,” ringing in my ears, I clutched a sprig of garlic and a crucifix in my hand and drove the two miles to Clonsilla. There was no moon. Well, there was, but I can’t be bothered going into the astronomical reasons why it wasn’t visible. A thick mist curled across the dank night like, well, thick mist curling across a dank night. Somewhere, a coyote howled its mournful cry to the sky but thankfully it was in Arizona and I couldn’t hear it.
I parked the car opposite the deserted train station and slowly walked towards the grey church, silhouetted against the sky. Idly I wondered if the stars were out, but the question merely brought visions of Art Garfunkel into my head, so I shuddered and walked on. And then I noticed the smell.
It was the thick, rotting stench of decay, reminiscent of a soup my wife had bought in Sainsbury’s up in Newry a few years ago. It pervaded the air like a blanket. Birds were falling out of the trees, clutching their throats. A family of hedgehogs had loaded all their belongings into a small cart and were heading for Lucan. I wrapped my scarf tighter around my nose and hoisted myself up onto the graveyard wall, narrowly missing a full can of Dutch Gold sitting there, and peered over.
The sight that met my eyes that was more horrific than any Lionel Richie video. Sitting in a tight circle around a giant cauldron, was a coven of property developers, local politicians and members of the council’s planning department from yesteryear. One of this unholy number, sporting a mask of Satan, was stirring the foul mixture in the cauldron, while one of the former politicians was reading aloud from an ancient recipe book.
“Add one bucketful of rezoning applications,” he intoned, in a voice that seemed to come from the bowels of Hell itself, but was probably from his throat. As he read the words, members of the circle stood up in turn and cast the ingredients into the pot. “Stir in a wad of brown envelopes, add in several indeterminate loopholes in the planning regulations, pour in a plethora of tax breaks, muddy the whole lot up and leave to simmer for several years.”
Clinging to the top of the wall, I fumbled for my phone. I knew it had the capability to take photos but it always took me an hour to find out how. The stench was atrocious and my eyes watered. I felt my mind starting to retreat and I remember falling back off the wall and knocking the can of Dutch Gold down on top of me.
And then I blacked out and remembered nothing else until the policemen woke me up, your Honour.