We’ve perfected the art of circular talking!

Thanks to thrillist.com

I’m over in England for a few days, so my mum and I are heading to Delisserie for some lunch. Calling itself a ‘New York Deli’, both the majority of its clientele and the food on offer are Jewish.

Even though my family could not be more English, the fact that we are descended from a Mediterranean culture is never more evident than when we sit down to eat.

The Australian Aboriginals have mastered the art of circular breathing, enabling them to blow into their didgeridoos while at the same time inhaling through their noses.

Jewish people have mastered the art of circular talking, whereby we are able to simultaneously talk to several people at once, whilst assimilating and generally interfering in what several other different people are talking about at the same time.

In an inspired moment, my brother once declared that if the Adleys had a coat of arms, our family motto should be:  'Stop Talking While I’m Interrupting.'

The last time my mum and I went to Delisserie for lunch we’d rather foolishly waited until after 1 o’clock, and sure enough the place had been packed. Like all other Mediterranean cultures, Jewish people love taking their kids out with them; the more the better.

Trouble is, the generation now giving birth to babies were themselves raised by Baby Boomer parents with liberal ideas about boundaries and behaviour, as in no boundaries and who cares about behaviour? Without role models, these young parents now let their kids run amok, screaming and shouting and wailing as if their collective din had the audible quality of honey.

With the adults having to shout at each other so that they could be heard over their kids’ cacophony, I sat there feeling very far removed from my County Galway back garden. I’ve been to countless Ramones gigs and still cannot imagine a more intense and energetic noise than a full Jewish restaurant.
 

This time we arrive earlier, and lovely, there are only six or seven other people in.  We sit and pick up the menus, look at each other and smile. How can so few people make such an incredible noise? Do they design delis so that every word spoken is bounced around to maximise the latent Jewish atmosphere? Is screeching chatter the Jewish muzak of choice?

My mum reaches both hands to her head and announces she’s going to take off her hearing aids. I tell her I think that’s a stroke of pure genius. Placing the two tiny plastic gizmos on the table, she sits back and exhales with relief.

“Oh, that’s so much better!” she laughs.
“I wish I had hearing aids! I’m jealous of your deafness!”

We both laugh and somewhere at the back of my mind I acknowledge the birth of a Jewish joke. Good humour is filled with truth and tragedy, and the success of a Jewish joke also relies on our ability to mock ourselves. A classic example is set in a restaurant, where five Jewish ladies are having a meal. The waiter walks over and asks
 

“Pardon me ladies. How’s the food? Is anything alright?”

Now I’m looking at the menu and my stomach is starting to rumble. When I was younger I never thought about being Jewish, because I was surrounded and immersed in the culture, but ever since leaving London I’ve felt very aware of my roots, and the fact that I’m a life-long atheist-pantheist mutant in no way compromises my Jewish identity.

Living in Bradford I was the Jewish guy surrounded by the largest population of Pakistanis outside of Pakistan. During the first Gulf War we’d talk in corner shops, the Jew and the Muslim, debating in a friendly way the rights and wrongs of the tragedy that is the Middle East.

Even though there are roughly only 300,000 Jewish people in the UK, forming a mere 0.5% of the population, their impact on everyday life and culture is respected and acknowledged.

It wasn’t until I moved here to the west of Ireland that I suddenly felt really Jewish, simply because here we make up a mere 0.04% of the population.

Naturally, the first thing you miss about the culture you’ve left behind is the food. So will I have the salt beef on rye? Will it be that heaped pile of steaming scarlet heaven wedged between seeded smoky white rye slices, mustardy and fresh? Will I go for the aromatic chopped liver and matzos or the viennas with würst and scrambled egg? No, it has to be that ultimate Jewish staple: chicken soup with kneidl (dumplings) and lokshen (noodles).

Yum.

Later I’m dispatched to Yossi’s deli and bakery, armed with a list of things mum wants. The lass serving me keeps looking back at me between each order.
She’s not used to being treated so politely, but I’m influenced by two decades of living in Ireland.

“A quarter of best salmon! Perfect! 8 mixed danish. Thanks a million! One smoked salmon cream cheese bagel and one chopped herring bagel. Lovely, thanks!”

Each side of me her regular customers grunt orders:

“No, not that one, the big one at the back! Is that fresh? When did you make it? A week ago?”

and being barked back at

“Of course it’s fresh. What you think I am? If you don’t think I sell fresh why you come back each week!”

Whilst on the subject of good service, I need to send a huge thank you to Francesca at the Grim’s Dyke Hotel, and to the barman who saved and returned my pink folder. Also thanks to Mr Butler, for driving my mum and her friends Betty and Geoff! I know you buy the Connacht Tribune in London, so thanks for reading my blather each week!

We’ll finish this week with what I consider to be the quintessential Jewish joke:
 

How many Jewish mothers does it take to change a lightbulb?
“Don’t worry about me. I’ll just sit in the dark and die alone!”

C’mon y'all! Do do do the Galway Shuffle!

Thanks tgalwaysalbum.com

Sometimes you’re just not in the mood; sometimes you just don’t have the time, but it’s not up to you. If you want to walk from Spanish Parade to Cross Street on a sunny midweek afternoon, you have to do the Galway Shuffle. Way back in 2004 this colyoom christened Galway ‘The City of 10,000 Howyas’, but beyond that short sweet “Howya!” there exists a higher level of Galway greeting.
 
Sitting outside The Quays, I spot a friend of mine walking up the street.
‘Haven’t seen her for ages.’ I think to myself, ‘Must try to catch her and have a chat.’
 
Fifteen minutes later the chef, artist, restaurateur, author and general Galway legend has only made it as far as Martine’s Wine Bar. Everybody wants to say hello to her, have a wee chat and a hug.
 
By the time I stand to greet her she’s explaining how she’s already late for an appointment. She’d stopped to talk to people on Wolfe Tone Bridge, and with the sun shining, Quay Street was lined with folk such as myself who were delighted to see her.
 
If we lived in Hollywood she’d be crying “Everyone wants a piece of me!” but thankfully we live on the shores of a different ocean, where we appreciate the profundity of human contact, and are willing to walk the Quay Street line, shaking hands, kissing mwaaahs and… oh hell, maybe we do live in Hollywood after all!
 
No. There’s no red carpet on Quay Street. If you’re recognised and talked to, it’s because you’ve a red carpet soul.
 
Do do do the Galway Shuffle!
 
If you’re in a hurry, dealing with Howyas is a lot easier than doing the Galway Shuffle. A couple of weeks ago, walking along Dominick Street, I met three Howyas in the tiny distance between the Arts Centre and Bridge Mills. Being a bit of a recluse, I hadn’t been into town all week and it filled me with joy to feel I still belonged, since I’ve moved out of the city yet again.
 
The sun was shining that day too, so people’s chins were raised, their eyes looking out towards each other, rather than cowed to an Atlantic gale and lashing sideways rain. The weather definitely plays a massive part in Galway life, but no storm is stronger than bonds forged in fun.
 
My first smiling “Howya!” that morning comes from another English lad, with whom I used to enjoy a chat and a pint, back in the days of Taylor's Bar. As we pass in the street and exchange Howyas, a smile brushes my lips as I remember the slagging he gave me across the street last year.
 
I’d written a colyoom about the misery I’d experienced being a fat teenager, and as I came down Henry Street, he’d called across from William Street West, his sardonic northern accent the perfect foil to his sandpaper dry wit.
 
“ ‘Ere, Chaaaarlie! Read that piece you wrote about you being a fat kid. Shocked me it did! Never thought in a million years you’d’ve been a fat kid. Not Charlie, not with his natural athleticism. Shocked me to the core, t’did!”
 
Passing Aniar I almost knock over yer wan from Galway market. Seemingly plucked intact as an extra from Godfather Part II, he’s sartorially perfect and, as ever, aesthetically beautifully turned out, from flat-capped top to the tip of his arcane bike trailer.
 
He is an example of a perfect Howya. Such is the complexity and subtlety of life in Galway City, the fact that we’ve barely ever shared a word spares us the compulsory and potentially lengthy Galway Shuffle encounter. Yet because we both have a pretty good idea of who the other is, it’d just be plain rude not to acknowledge that mutual recognition, even though we don’t actually know each other. So another smile and a Howya exchanged puts a bounce in my boots and a smile on his lips, and how bad can that be?
 
Crossing the road towards Arabica I spot the print shop owner. For years I’d see him in his shop, but back then, clutching a mere three sheets that needed photocopying, I was barely a blemish on his platen. Years later, with much thanks due to his wonderful staff in their main depot, his company has done all of my printing jobs, so we now know each other well enough to be genuine Howyas.
 
“Howya!”
“Howya Charlie!”
“How’s life?”
“Good! Mighty! Yourself?”
“All good mate! See you later!”
“See you.”
 
How simple is that? How happy am I to be living near a city where I share three friendly smiling greetings with three human beings I only partially know, barely 50 metres out of my car? I’m not even over the river, but as I stroll over O’Brien’s Bridge I know I’m leaving behind the world of the Howya.
 
I’m entering the dance floor that is Galway City Centre.
 
Do do do the Galway Shuffle!
 
On those days when you’re not in the mood you simply have to pretend you haven’t seen a soul you know. They’ll forgive you, because their lives are not void of interest. They aren’t exactly sitting there hoping against hope that you’ll turn up and save their day. They’d have been happy to talk, but hey, no biggie.
 
Ah, but when you do have time to do the Galway Shuffle, or when you’ve been so missed that you’re given no choice, it’s far from a terrible trial. Outside Fat Freddy’s, hands are outstretched towards me from arms raised to be shaken. Bottoms rise from the mock  wicker chairs outside Tigh Neachtain, where smiles are shared with recollections of shameful times past; where hugs precede new mischief to come.
 
I’ve lived in London; Melbourne; San Francisco: some of the world’s most wonderful cities, yet there’s nothing anywhere that compares to the sense of comradeship, kinship and caring that awaits those who walk the Quay Street line.
 
Do do do the Galway Shuffle!

Life is so easy when everyone else is wrong!

With thanks to my good friend Martin Rowson

Dear Mum,
 
I know it's a while ago now, but I’m sorry that I argued with you. I felt terrible as soon as I put the phone down, and even though we speak nearly every day, the fact that I've not yet apologised properly has been on my mind for weeks.
 
Maybe I just felt so comfortable with our chitty-chatting that I thought I’d get away with saying how George Osborne had managed to enrage me. I know that no matter how much I tried to explain my outrage, you would respond with classic Daily Mail stances. 

I’m not suggesting that you are unable to form your own opinions. I remember well the dark and fearsome atmosphere in the family home decades ago when life was tough for the Adleys, and it looked like you might vote for the SDP, rather than the Conservatives. Dad didn't know what to make of it, but I was impressed. It was a huge opinion shift for a woman who had spent all her adult life campaigning and fund-raising for the Tories.
 
As you know, I lost my interest in party politics when New Labour arrived on the scene. Even though it was great that their victory broke the sequence of four successive Conservative governments, Blair's rebranding made my old socialist party sound like a jazzed-up washing powder.
 
Trouble was mum, you and I were coming at our conversation from completely separate perspectives. You sent me to Public School, so I know well the Camerons, Osbornes and Blairs of this world. I know them for the self-serving ignorant little twits they are, so when Osborne asked why the English should have to support a dole culture like that enjoyed by child-killer Mick Philpott, I just lost it a little in the noodle.
 
However much I insisted that there is no dole culture being enjoyed by people like Mick Philpott, because Mick Philpott is a crazy evil man, and that by making such a comparison Osborne was not only trying to scrape some political kudos from the bottom of a stinking barrel, but also, in the process, demonising all other families on the dole, you kept referring to the way Philpott had exploited all his women to increase his welfare payments.
 
I’m sorry that I lost it, but that sounded so Daily Mail, and I can only take so much of George Osborne’s knee-jerk bigotry. You see, despite the way the English middle classes depict themselves as quintessentially conservative with a small ‘c’, there are few people I’ve ever met more conservative than the Irish. When they’re not comfortable with their own status quo, they borrow someone else’s and stick to that like a mouse in a glue trap. To satisfy this appetite for conservatism, Ireland actually has two Daily Mails: one of them is called the Irish Independent.
 
So no, I didn’t mean to offend you, and yes, you’re right, Philpott was just doing it for the money and the power, but isn’t that central to Conservative policy?
 
Now, now, there I go again. There’s no need for such flippant provocation, but I’ve just had it with all these pathetic small-minded propagandist myths that the political Right spread around, like slurry on fields.
 
Top of the misinformed begrudging Pops is welfare fraud. Apologies for my lack of Irish statistics, but I can’t imagine that, pro rata, there’s a great difference between here and Britain. A TUC poll revealed that most people believe a massive 27% of the entire welfare budget is being claimed fraudulently, when in truth the figure is 0.8%
 
Can I say that again, so that we can get a grasp on this, once and for all? A measly 0.8% of the entire welfare budget is being claimed by fraudsters. I strongly suspect that much more than that is spent in efforts to catch fraudsters, because clamping down on dole cheats gives good political game. Bagging dole-stealing skangers wins votes, so it’s worth spending loads of money on nicking them, in an extremely visible and public way, but please never say that the welfare state supports people “...like the Philpotts...” because thankfully, there are no people like the Philpotts.
 
I think you’d like it over here, mum. Lots of people think just like you do.  They even use the same expression: 

“We’re just a small country!” say the Irish, just as you do about England, and they go on (and on and on!) “We simply don’t have room for them all. They don’t just come for our dole, they come over here to use our health service and get looked after better than local people when they do. And they get council houses as if they’ve lived here all their lives. And they get cars and mobile phones off the government.”
 
To them I say one word: “Tosh!”
 
Thankfully mum, I know you’re not that extreme, although I do sometimes wonder how much you temper your opinions when I’m around! But by god, I do get fed up with hearing all these moaning minnies going on about how everything is somebody else’s fault.
 
That’s why I loathe the Daily Mail: because it’s just a blaming machine. Life is so easy when you’re the only one who knows the truth, and everyone else is either wrong or dangerous. It’s a comfy and smug place to live, at the top of your own hill of righteousness.
 
But life is more complicated than that. The vast majority of people are good, sound, honest and well-intentioned.
 
If they have signed on the dole they most probably need to.
If they have arrived in the country they probably needed to leave where they left. As I always point out, our family were immigrants too, and all of us have benefited from the Welfare State in so many ways.
 
Of course your right to your own political opinions is sacrosanct, and I think no less of anyone - especially my lovely mum! - for their own beliefs. You are living proof that Tories can sometimes be wonderful, generous and loving people!

A friendly finish for Cúirt Festival of Literature!

In the course of my travels I’ve lost count of the number of bars in which I’ve sat, alone and happy, staring at a bunch of blokes having an uproariously good time.  Alongside singular freedoms, being on the road brings an inherent loneliness to life. Even as I thrilled at being in that bar in that village in that foreign country, I envied those lads, hanging with their everyday mates, having a right laugh.

Like life itself, travelling is a wasted journey if you don’t learn how to be happy on the way. So I was very aware the other night that I was among those lads, those everyday mates who I’d coveted on the road.

Sitting between The Body and Whispering Blue, I was the Chelsea in a United-City Club Sandwich, and even though I was in a pub, I was completely at home, surrounded by my brethren.

I was, as the Irish are wont to say, ‘happy out.’ So I appreciated it. I enjoyed the moment and noticed the happiness coursing through me.

The bad times you never miss. They come up behind you and hit you over the head with a baseball bat, repeatedly and rudely until you beg for mercy. Yet our happy times are very likely more numerous and long-lived than any of us realise. We smile and share a chuckle, hug a brother or a friend and feel a rush of love back, yet walk away as if nothing happened.

So I try to make sure that I notice and appreciate the good. If my family are a gratefully-accepted given, then without doubt the greatest good in my life has been my friends.

At Public School I met and bonded with a fairly extrovert bunch of individuals who were kicking back in a mildly non-conformist way against the entrenched regime of the institution. Over the last 4 decades we’ve all remained in touch, becoming embedded in each other’s lives somewhere between family and other friends. We’re an incredible bunch, our friendships forged in the searing hot fires of teenage rebellion, and I am eternally grateful to have them in my life, as both individuals and a collective.

It’s over 20 years since I moved to Ireland and met Blitz, The Body and Whispering Blue, but such is my luxury and fortune that I’m able to think of them and all my Irish pals as new friends.

My awareness of how unusual it is to call friendships of 20 years’ standing ‘new’ came to a head a couple of years ago, when I was at a gig at the Roisin Dubh, hosted by Tuam’s revered poet and songsmith Seamus Ruttledge and Conor Montague, a.k.a. Monty, the creator of the hilarious series ‘Who Needs Enemies?’

The two lads were reminiscing on stage about how long they’d known each other, talking about 1994 and that little paper they worked on. All of a sudden something twisted deep inside me. I felt happy, swollen-hearted and deeply sentimental. Oh please god no don’t make me cry right here, please, no, not in front of all these fairly drunk people.

Thankfully with the help of another Jameson, I managed to keep my tears to myself, but I felt moved. Here were these old friends, locals talking of a shared past, and I, a lowly blow-in, had been there at that time.

Seamus had asked me to contribute to that paper, and ever the opportunist when there’s a chance to make money from my scribbling, I wrote four columns for it, under four different aliases. I wrote the drug-crazed biker Freebase Kevin; the Muse with the Views, Swami ben Carpenter; the ingenue blow-in, Poor Little Greenie, and my personal favourite, the petulant politico, Pink O’Bum.

Back then I didn’t really know who Seamus was, or even what he did exactly, but I dribbled a merry dance around the streets of Galway trying to find him and the money he owed me!

Even though I saw them as new friends, going by their time frames I have now earned the right to be referred to by that esteemed and comfortable title: ‘Old Galway Head’.

After that gig I said to Seamus that I’d love to participate in one of these events, and sure enough, last Summer I got the call. Would I read a piece at the charity fundraiser ‘A Night For Celia’?

That fun-filled, relaxed yet uproarious evening was last July, and following the success of several such collaborations between Monty and Seamus, I’m delighted to announce that their event ‘Far From Literature We Were Reared’ will close this year’s Cúirt International Festival of Literature this Sunday, April 28th.

Like all of Galway’s other festivals, Cúirt relies on and is inspired by talented local personalities from both Galway City and County, so it’s perfectly fitting that this year’s festival will finish with an irreverent and eclectic programme, from an array of Galway-based writers and performers - including this very ‘umble colyoomist.

Following on from the success of last year’s fun and frolicksome event, this cocktail collection of performances by well-known literary figures, musicians, comedians and emerging writers has moved from the cosy confines of upstairs to the main stage at the Roisin Dubh. Mixing Hennessy Award nominees with known miscreants on day release, the stage will be shared by poetry, song, comedy and fiction, in what will be one of this year’s Cúirt Festival highlights.  

Together with music from Seamus, Willow Sea, Pearse Doherty and Michel Durham, there will be readings from Olaf Tyaransen; Kevin O’Dwyer; Laura Ann Caffrey; Fiona Farrelly; Helena Kilty; Paul McCarrick; Ruth Quinlan; Emma Comerford; Kernan Andrews; Aideen Henry; Paul McMahon; Alan McMonagle and myself.

Comedic satire will appear in the forms of the unique John Donnellan, grumpy taxi driver Hugo Seale and Street Theatre Artist, Midie Corcoran.

A mighty night is guaranteed. I’m really looking forward to being there, grateful and happy to be surrounded by friends.
 
Roisin Dubh: Sunday 28 April: 8pm 'til late: Admission €8/5

Thanks so much!

Huge thanks to Liz, Violet, Tony and Una of the Old Deanery Holiday Cottages and Joe Keane Creative Centre in Killala, Co. Mayo, for making my Craft of Writing Weekend such a success.

Thanks also to the participants, who drove from all over the country, wrote their wrists off and showed bucketloads of enthusiasm and talent!