Fi Fo Fi Fum

Setting : A Catholic Club, Alfred Street, Belfast City.
Timeline: Sun 24th Oct 2010, mid afternoon.
Players : Me, Him (man at door smoking), around 40 other Celtic supporters

The day of the first Old Firm game of the season. Tensions are high. I'd ordered beer which was Guinness. Celtic score I jump up and hug a complete stranger. Rangers score once, twice, thrice. Crying into 3rd beer now. I have lived and died the game and make to leave.

Me:
See yi later mate.
Him:
Aye, cheers pal, yi can start smiling now.

(exeunt to strains of Fi Fo Fi Fum ... I smell the blood of a protest-unt).

fin.

Belfast City

Setting : Morning Star, Belfast City.
Timeline: Sat 23rd Oct 2010. Early evening.
Players : Me, Barman

(It's the night before the first Old Firm game of the season. Tensions are high. I'd ordered food which was steak and mussels. It was that kind of night.)

Me:
Tell me this and tell me no more. Are you showing the match tomorrow?
Barman:
No.

Fin.

Bless The Weather

Yesterday, I was denied one of the greatest pleasures in my life. Contemplating the mess in someone else's house. As my avenues of pleasure have narrowed over the years this one has grown.

I went to pick up the eldest daughter from a house party. I approached the house with great anticipation. This house party, I was told, had more than twenty kids present. What joys would await me there.

As is my wont at these affairs I simply walked straight in. These are busy people. They don't need to be answering door bells. As I went into the living room and then through to the kitchen I sensed that something was gravely wrong? If anything, this house was tidier than my own. I met the husband first.

"What's going on?", I asked. "Where's the mess?".
"Ah" he said. "We were blessed with the weather. Kids played outside all day".

Definition of BLESSED
1
a : held in reverence : venerated b : honored in worship : hallowed c : beatific
2
: of or enjoying happiness; specifically : enjoying the bliss of heaven —used as a title for a beatified person

"Fuck sake", I thought. "Even God is against me now".

Porridge Recipe

A real conversation from this morning offering both a recipe for porridge and a cultural insight into social mores in present day India.

[09:49:18] HIM: had breakfast?
[09:49:23] ME : yes, porridge and fruit
[09:50:10] HIM: what is dis porridge?
[09:50:21] ME : oatmeal
[09:50:35] HIM: did u prepared this porridge?
[09:50:43] ME : yes, i simply added water and microwaved for 3 mins
[09:52:12] ME : then added pears and blueberries
[09:54:06] ME : and a splash of milk and a little honey
[09:55:32] HIM: ok
[09:56:23] HIM: r u staying alone?

The Leaf

I saw this solitary leaf suspended in the air like a badly judged remark in a bar room. It was supposed to fall to the ground like all the others as the season dictates. But it didn't seem to want that. It wanted a final tilt at life. There was something about the leaf that spooked me at first. It seemed to portend the end of the world. But when I touched it gently it was friendly. It was heedless to the wind and it stayed and it stayed. I thought about taking it home and letting it live in a matchbox in my kitchen. But I don't think I'm ready for that kind of responsibility.

Werther's Original

On the plane today the nice lady next to me offered me a Werther's Original and what's more I took it. It was very kind of her and, for some utterly unfathomable reason, I quite enjoyed the taste of butterscotch toffee as we approached Bristol.

Bee Specialists

The best-known bee species is the European honey bee, which, as its name suggests, produces honey, as do a few other types of bee. Human management of this species is known as beekeeping or apiculture.

The Rain

At the playground today when the rain started all the adults put on raincoats and magically produced umberellas and complained about the rain. Then they took all their kids home and then the rain stopped.

ATM Stalemate

Yes, I'd like a hundred euro please.
No, it's not incorrect.
No, I don't want to correct it.
Dum de dum di dum...

On Lawnmowers

I bought a new lawnmower yesterday on the back of some excellent advice from Jim who, in turn, had the word HORTICULTURALIST emblazoned across his own back. Well across the back of his Woodies DIY shirt at any rate.

Jim explained the options to me clearly and with no little amount of urbanity.

They were:

1. Petrol. Too expensive. A sledgehammer to crack a nut. Out of the question. Don't be absurd.
2. Electric. Absolutely shite. Waste of time. Flymo my arse! Move on.
3. Manual. A push one. Like back in the olden times. Environmentally friendly. The wife will be pleased. Kid friendly. They can mow the lawn themselves.

"Jim", I say. "I'm gonna take the push one. In blue. It's cool".
"Good man", he replies, adding the most interesting thing anyone has ever said to me in a shop. "Be true to yourself".

As I sat in the garden last night, listening to James Taylor, a cold glass of Chablis resting on my chest, watching the kids fighing over whose turn it was to cut the grass, I felt I had been.

Click-Click

I meant to click up to 2/6 but instead I clicked down the way to 2/4. That left me 2 gears away from where I wanted to be.

So I clicked up twice making a surprisingly audible CLICK-CLICK. Predictably just as I passed a young lady. She looked round and smiled. I realised that she thought I'd made one of these patronising audible kissing noises. Or (less likely) the noise one might make if calling on or urging horses or other animals. Anyway, she smiled and her smile was strangely crooked and seemed to be painted on. She was also wearing an eye-patch and possibly a wig.

This entire incident, largely due to the nature of cycling, was over in a couple of seconds but, honestly, it felt like a bleak farce of interminable length.

The Dealer

On our estate, it's very easy to find the dealer. A child could do it.

Parker Close

With no thanks whatsoever to Tommy TomTom our hapless Sat Nav who shat out directions randomly, zig-zagging us hither and thither o'er Merrie Olde England, we finally reach our destination.

"At last", said my wife. "Parker Close"
"I'll do my best", I replied.

Ah, we get through a few scrapes.

€1904.60

Let your dog run loose on the beach messing up the sand or getting the sea all hairy?
That'll be one thousand, nine hundred and four euro and sixty cent please you heartless scoundrel.

Prison Love

This being a reconstruction of a late eighteenth century prison cell at St Neots, Cambridgeshire. The intention, I'm sure, is to portray the cramped and meagre conditions under which prisoners subsisted back in them times.

What it achieves is something altogether more, well, is homo-erotic the right term? I'm a mere childe in these matters.

Latichood (i)

James Joyce
Very early start for the ferry. Dublin to Holyhead. In the interminable queue a large advert for Stenna encourages us to use the ferry. (There's an idea). The sign says that James Joyce chose to take the boat when he left Ireland (forever) [1] in 1902 over, one can only assume, some pretty stiff competition from hot air balloon and sea horse.
[1] ignoring his four return visits

RTE 1
Driving off the ferry surprised to find RTE radio 1 still tuned in. The Angelus clear as a bell. A call to prayer. More echoes of Joyce. That's part why he left I'm given to believe.

Goats
Or sheep, if you insist, but certainly seen through drink.

Vimpto
Among the weird and wonderful rock formations at Brimham, formed during and (to a lesser extent) after the Devensian glaciation there was a lot of ill-mannered litter. None more so than this pathetic bottle of Vimpto which I can only assume was discarded back in the old days when kids used to drink the vile "fruit" concoction.


The Beatles
Driving back listening to Revolver. My ongoing tolerance from WORLD'S GREATEST BAND severely tested by "Here There And Everywhere" being immediately followed by "Yellow Submarine". From the sublime to the ridiculous.

Hair cut
The phrase "false economy" springs into mind.


In Lancashire
But straddling the Yorkshire border. Very sexy.

People and Places

Earlier today:

Her : Sorry I've forgotten your name.
Me : It's Musters.
Her : Oh yes - nobody could forget that name.
Well you seemed to have fucking managed it!
Me : Er, no. Shall we, ehm...

Later today (but before now):

Him : You watching the World Cup?
Me : Sure am, I've taped the Argentina game.
Him : Oh yea, they won one-nil.
You arse!
Me : Did they.

A Fruity Cummerbund

Sitting in the garden with the eldest. It's hot and windy.

Me: How you getting on with "The Inimitable Jeeves"?
Her: Good.
Me: It's good, not too old for you?
Her: No, it's funny.

Ten minutes later.

Her: Dad, what's a cummerbund?
Me: Er, it's a kind of thing that men put round their waists. In the olden times.
Her: Oh. What's fruity then?
Me: Fruity ... it's like bold, cheeky.
Her: Oh. A cheeky thing you wear round your waist, then?
Me: Yes, exactly. Very cheeky.

Portable Telephones

I was just about to get it out of the carrying case when I spotted this sign. It probably interferes with the X-Ray machines.

This What?

"Date of Birth?"
"Fourteen-Two-Thirty-One".
Thus went the conversation, nurse to patient, through the curtain, from the next bed.
Hmmm, nearly eighty, I thought, tilting my left ear upwards.
"So what are you getting done today?", said the nurse.
My honed ear picks up rustling bed covers then the reply. "This".
This what?
Sympathetic murmurings from the nurse. "The doctor won't keep you long now"
What is this?
Surely some kind of explanation for the benefit of nosy bastards would have been in order.