This relative poverty is worth a fortune!

The other day I was feeling a bit blue. After two courses of antibiotics and some not insignificant physical pain, I was feeling washed out; a tad lonely; a bit sorry for myself.

I do not wear self-pity with comfort, so off I went, in search of some perspective, turning to my old journals to give myself a proper kick up my voluptuous arse.

One of the benefits of being a writer is that we’re allowed to call our diaries ‘journals.’ All mighty fancypants and pretentious, yet despite the name, they’re not daily affairs.

For consistent entries (Oooh Matron!) you’d have to go back to the years 1975-1981, when I spilled onto paper my adolescent pain, each and every night. Looking back at those diaries now, I see a whole lotta heartache and much fiction presented as fact.

Over the decades the ingredients of my journals grew organically: records of each play, book and project I was working on, along with a mosaic of letters and emails depicting my extraordinary life lived on three continents, with all the love and loss you’d expect from a scribbler.

Often the edges between journals and colyooms blurred, and I enjoyed the supreme luxury of being paid to publish my egocentric personal ramblings. It was one of those colyooms that delivered to me the blow that kicked me out of my self-indulgent slump the other day.

From the City Tribune, November, 2001 (check out the dated references to cassettes and videos!) 

*

For me, there is no point in earning moolar if it comes in the form of compensation. Some can spend lots of money, and it makes them feel better. For me it doesn’t, and it never will.

Happiness to me means having time to live, so in exchange for the fat wad of folding green every Thursday night, I take a walk on the beach. Instead of buying CD’s and videos, I listen to the radio and play old cassettes. Instead of the brimming bank balance, I have all the time in the world.

When I talk to almost anybody else, the stress in their lives is palpable. I see the tired black rings around their eyes, listen to their frantic gabbling about how they are trying to ‘fit it all in’, and in those moments, I remind myself that this relative poverty is worth a fortune.

It ain’t all easy. This is a life as tough as any other, just a lot calmer, even if these colyooms sometimes tell another story!

My life is less about acquisition, more about introspection; less about buying things, more about less things; less about climbing social ladders, more about watching the tide turn.

Sometimes it is a lonely path, especially when I’m home alone, aware that others are out, living life on the pig’s back.

Still, I’m hardly a slave to suffering, and when a particularly smart editor places one of my features, I drive to the city and splurge a wad in an orgy of consumerist conformism, and each shared whiskey and bite of restaurant food tastes better for the utter badness and excitement of it all.

This colyoom is not pre-scented with smugness. I couldn’t look my loved ones in the eye if I suggested that my life is a breeze. I feel inhibited when generous souls drag me out to the pub, knowing that rounds only go one way, but hell, they seem to love me, and who am I to say no?

Well, sometimes we just have to say 'No!’ Sometimes, even when you know your friend or loved-one really wants to help, you just can’t take any more generosity.

And then you get over it and say "Well, a wee whiskey would be lovely, thanks Dave!” 

* 

 These days thankfully I have a little more dosh in my account, but the things that make me happy have not changed one iota. Reading that old piece made me feel grateful for all the time I have to do those wonderful things, so I pulled my head out of my hole and moved on.


©Charlie Adley
08.08.2024

RACE WEEK: The triple-distilled spirit of Ireland!

Winner more than alright by Allan Cavanagh of caricatures-ireland.com/blog/

The horse’s name was Minesadouble. I mean, come on. I had to, right? I’m a whiskey drinker.

Back when I lived in 80’s London, I was a whisky drinker, without the ‘e.’ Before your triple-distilled Jameson became my liquid home, Scotch whisky was my tipple.

That old English 6th of a gill measure barely dampened the glass, so I always ordered a double. Famous Grouse, because it was my Dad’s choice too.

In those pre-digital days of stark reality, placing a bet involved going to the bookies. On the morning of this bet, I was strolling down Portobello Road.

Now those street cobbles are polished, the area gentrified and sterilised, but in those days there were two distinct parts of that 'manor.'

Notting Hill Gate was yuppie frappaccino wine bar bliss, an ideal location for Julia Roberts to meet Hugh Grant in the movie.

Around the corner, the streets of Westbourne Park and Portobello were poor and dilapidated. All Saints Road served as West London’s Front Line for street drug deals.

I was hopelessly in love, wandering the legendary market, looking for something that might put a smile on the face of the lucky winner of my obsessive attention.

Taking a breather from the packed streets, I turned up a side road, and spotted Ladbroke’s familiar Golden Circle.

Ah go on. Why not? It’s Saturday. All bets are off, so put one on.

You just can’t argue with that kind of logic.

That bookies was absolutely tiny, crammed with punters, mostly Rastafarians. There was a symphonic buzz of secretive whispers, angry shouts and joyous laughs, the air pungent with hash and grass.

Taking deep breaths for a free secondary high, I eased my way to the wall, where I stared at the Sporting Life's tipsters grid.

For my ‘shot to nothing’ bet I look for a race where all the tipsters have chosen the same horse, except for one.

Then I’ll check to see if it’s run the distance and deeply technical stuff, like does it have a leg at each corner?

That’ll do for me.

There it was: Minesadouble, picked by one expert, who had also napped it, which implied he knew something the others didn't.

Minesadouble? Named for me, and 20/1? Luvvly bloomin' jubbly! I’ll 'ave summathat.

A fiver on the nose, which then felt like betting €50 to win today. A decidedly decent bet, which looked even prettier when the nap proved the tipster’s inside knowledge.

As Minesadouble came on in the final furlong, I started pumping the air with my fist.

Repeatedly grunting inaudible words, as men do while their horse is passing all the others, I was unaware of the attention I was receiving from everyone in the minuscule space.

They’d all turned to watch me, 30 or 40 pairs of eyes focused on me, willing my horse to win, and when Minesadouble flew past the post, the place erupted in shouts and yells and general testicular jubilation.

Instantly I became the centre of attention.

“Wha’ odds ye ‘ave, man?”

“Twenty to one!”

“Ya say wah? Bloodclaat! Ye ‘ave wha? ‘Ear that? ‘Ear that! Man here ‘ave ‘is ‘orse at twenty to one! Bloodclaat! Whass in da next race? Go on! Whass ya nex’ ‘orse?”

“ ’Ow you know? ’Ow you know? You give me a tip, yeh? C’mon, give me a tip and I give you some of me personal!”

After much handshaking, shrugging and smiling, the others realised I was just a lucky mug punter, who'd liked the name of a horse.

Pocketing my hundred, I invested my stake of five quid on a little local green, and arrived home to my beloved, laden with strawberries, cream and a bottle of champagne, which we consumed, drenched in sunshine, lying on the grass in Golders Hill Park.

If Galway is pure Ireland, and Race Week is the triple-distilled spirit of Galway, then Ireland is essentially Race Week.

Every year, immediately after hosting the nation’s biggest arts festival, Galway slips into the largest social and sporting week in the country’s calendar.

Race Week is mad, bad and wonderful. Whoever you are, whatever you’re doing, if you’re around Galway, as sure as gee-gees love carrots, Race Week will infect you, working its way into your mind and body like a metaphysical tapeworm.

This week should come with a health warning: “The Galway Races may empty your wallet, destroy your liver and send you stark staring cuckoo.”

Be kind to your bar-people, servers and cooks. They’re working their backsides off for you. Tip them well.

Last year I was in a Salthill bookies, jostling for space by the newspapers on the wall.

A well-dressed elegant woman in her 60s tapped me on the shoulder.

 “Sorry, now, excuse me, but do you know, how do ye spell that horse’s name? Jesus Mary Mother of feckin’ God, can you bleedin’ believe my eyesight? Is that an ‘R’ or a feckin’ ‘A’? Good God almighty, sweet Jesus, it’s fucking unbelievable, isn’t it?”

The slang of my adopted home might be slightly different to that of the Rastas in my native London, but as Del Boy would say:

 “Plat du jour, my son, plat du jour!”


©Charlie Adley
31.07.2024

Staying at a good hotel feels like visiting a friend!

It will come as no surprise to several hoteliers when I reveal that for the best part of a couple of decades, I've been writing hotel reviews for various Irish and UK publications, under a scattering of noms de plume. 

The reason I’m breaking cover from this obsolete secret is that I’ve recently chosen to cancel a commission to review a London Premier Inn.

An Irish paper noticed I often go back to my native city, so they asked me to write up a weekend visit to London.

The reason you're reading this now is that it all went wrong, weeks before I left home.

Whenever I review a place I ask for a top floor room, and if there’s a noisy road nearby, I ask to be at the back of the hotel.

I do this both because it’s what I want, and to find out how the place deals with simple requests.

Premier Inn turned the everyday task of adding a request to a booking into a nightmare. I ended up emailing their Press Office and a Media person (with a capital 'M'), but each time was forwarded to an Escalation process, where I was patronised and reminded what I already knew.

Point being, I’m not going to review a place that has managed to annoy me before I get on the plane.

I will never write a purely negative review, because wherever it is and whatever has happened, there’s a good human in there somewhere, underpaid, working long and inconvenient hours.

Hopefully when I stay at this Premier Inn, all will be wonderful, but I’m no longer able to arrive as an open-minded guest. 

Left to my own devices I very rarely book a room in a corporate plastic menu hotel. I’ll always aim for the independent family-run outfit, because they are invariably the best.

My two favourite Irish hotels - Flannery’s in Galway City and Rosleague Manor in Connemara - are both independent and family run.

As different in style and status as they are in location, I feel part of both whenever I stay.

 

Flannery's hotel in Galway City

Flannery’s is my city home from home. Utterly unpretentious while offering every comfort, I’m greeted by a ‘Welcome Back Mr. Adley!’ box of chocs in my room, a bit of football banter with the Duty Manager who calls me Charlie, and last Christmas they sent me a card with a voucher for a night’s B&B inside.

Life feels lovely when loyalty is rewarded with more than spammy e-mails.

Rosleague is my otherworldly escape. Truth be told, I’m a victim of its well-deserved success, as proprietor Mark Foyle’s excellent instincts and superb team have combined to guarantee the hotel is always full.

  

 

 

 

 

I try to stay at the beginning or end of the season, when the price is lower. One night at Rosleague Manor leaves me as relaxed as a week by the Med. Two nights and I have to buy a bigger belt.

Flannery’s Hotel and Rosleague Manor offer me sanctuary, in different and vital areas of my life, for which I thank them.

Sounds like I’m thanking a friend?
Exactly.

Good hotels are not about how many stars they wear.

Staying at a good hotel feels like visiting a friend.

I made a new friend in April. Last year I went to Bordeaux, ostensibly for the Rugby World Cup, with three others from my school posse. We rented a house with a pool and it was tremendous fun, great craic; relaxing it was not.

The last time I went on a chill-time holiday was way back in 2017, before the marriage collapse and that mystery illness which almost killed me.

This Spring my confidence finally reached a level sufficient for me to try a solo holiday. I had trouble reconciling in my head the apprehension I felt.

After all, I’d travelled the world on my own, hitching with Blue Bag in the 80s, and in my early 30s went round again, ending up somehow in the country next door.

But travelling is different to being a tourist, and I definitely didn’t want to be in a vast resort hotel, surrounded by families with kids and couples on honeymoon.

It'd be no fun playing the part of a morbidly obese Billy-No-Mates by the pool.

I’m way too anti-social to go on a 'singles’ holiday. Even typing that sends a fearful shiver through me, but I remembered visiting the town of Tavira, in the East Algarve, a few times.

Liking its vibe and taking note.

  

Away from the thumping great resorts of the Algarve, Tavira lies on a river between Faro and the Spanish border.

Free from fast food outlets, hi-rise hotels and skyscrapers, Tavira is a place of beautifully tiled houses lining tiny cobbled streets.

After countless hours online I found the Authentic Hotel, which despite its name is more boutique than traditional. Usually I run a mile from anything that describes itself as  ‘boutique’, but the reviews for this little 2 star hotel were through the roof.

 

Located on what might be described as Tavira’s Left Bank, it was within stumbling distance of several excellent neighbourhood bars and tiny family restaurants, filled with locals as well as tourists, where no photographs of food adorned the menu.

I had the most excellent time, partly because Tavira is such a wonderful place, but also because the Authentic Hotel was so lovely, staffed by three or four friendly faces, who always go the extra mile to make you happy.

Hotel stars mostly just reflect services and facilities, and as the Authentic has no bar, no restaurant and no room service, it only qualifies for 2 stars.

However the bathrooms are five star, the breakfasts are quirky and excellent, with a freshly squeezed orange juice that sends a smile guaranteed to shatter your hangover.

The rooms are serviced my midday, and the rooftop terrace has a plunge pool with view of the town’s traditional rooftops.

 

I loved it, had a magnificent time, never once in any bar or restaurant feeling self-conscious about being alone.

In fact I found the opposite: it was pure luxury to do whatever I wanted whenever I felt like it.

If ever there was a definition of a holiday…

I will be back there next Spring. Checking into the Authentic Hotel will feel like visiting a friend.

As for the Premier Inn, well, you’ll never know.

I’ve cancelled the commission for the review, and will hope that the booking process does not mirror the hotel itself.



©Charlie Adley

24.05.2024



 

Overbearing and ebullient, English Pete will be missed!

(Pic: Noel Barbour)

“I know what I am, Charlie!”

“And what are you, Pete?”

“I’m overbearing and ebullient, mate. That’s what I am!

“Well, ebullient is good. But if you know that you’re overbearing, did you ever think of maybe, I dunno, being less overbearing?”

“No, Charlie. Not really. No. Never.”

A wise man from Caltra once told me that self-knowledge is utterly useless, unless you do something about it.

Tragically it’s too late for Peter ‘English Pete’ Ryan to act on his self-knowledge, as he died a few days ago.

I know little of the circumstances, apart from the fact that he was found in his gaff, but to be honest, I don’t care.

I’m not being a hypocrite when I say that I’m sad Pete has gone. Many, myself included, often found his overbearing ebullience hard to take.

But he was a character, of the Old School Galwegian Blow-in variety, and his spirit will be missed.

I first encountered Pete when interviewing potential housemates for my semi-slum in Flea Lane, Salthill, back in 1993. Pete arrived half cut, with bodhrán in hand.

Despite the traditional instrument there came out his mouth a raw cockney accent, and I sat back as he told a great story.

Several minutes later, when he was into his third great story, I started to think back to Orla, that nice young woman who’d been up for the room herself a few minutes before Pete.

Pete had an inexhaustible supply of great anecdotes, which is a wondrous thing. Trouble was though that he felt it his duty to share as many of those great anecdotes with you as possible, at any given and all other times.

As he moved onto the fourth, in the manner of a runaway train gathering momentum rolling down a steep hill, I wept a tiny bit inside:

‘Will he ever shut up? I can’t live with this bloke. I’ll call back that Orla and offer her the room.’

Over the next few years Pete and I developed a friendship that was primarily based on his reading of Double Vision, back when this blog appeared weekly in its original newspaper colyoom form.

It’s safe to say that apart from a manic Texan who operates on the power of new-found sobriety, Pete became this colyoom’s #1 fan, so when I bumped into him - no, let me re-frame that - when he caught me off-guard by Johnny Massacre Corner, he flattered me something rotten by recounting what he’d enjoyed about that week’s piece. 

To protect friends in a small city I gave everyone I wrote about in DV a moniker, as a disguise, and when Pete was anointed The Waistcoat I think he felt a level of acceptance quite alien to him.

I know that sounds harsh but the man was - I think we asserted - overbearing, and sometimes you just didn’t have the energy for him.

When you heard his penny whistle playing half way down Buttermilk Lane you chose Druid Lane, and when he played in Druid Lane you might cut through by Healy’s barbers.

During Chelsea games in the pub, he would choose the ear on the head nearest him, and talk into it throughout the entire match, expounding on the finer points of football and illustrating his unique and frankly scary memory for details.

“Yeh, that’d be Saturday March 23rd, 1972, sunny and hot it was, when Barnet were beaten 0-3 at home.”

Back when I lived in or near Galway City, I’d always encounter Pete on one of my Organic Rambles around the early evening pubs, yet to his credit Pete let me speak frankly and straightforwardly to him:

“Look mate, gotta be honest. Great to share a pint with you ’n’ all that, but I’m on one of my rambles, and I’ve got to ramble alone.”

“Understood Charlie. No problem.”

And he walked off, leaving me alone.

At some point during each Galway Summer, I’d find Pete escorting a young middle-aged tourist around the city. He could be thoroughly charming, and he’d even be attractive if he’d ever washed his filthy T-shirts, but for some reason he managed to entrance many a Canadian 40 year-old, to whom I’d be introduced as one of his best friends.

Humbling and meaningful now, as I’ll never see him, be bumped into by him or try to avoid him again.

It matters not whether someone was the most popular man in town or a social pariah: we miss them all when they‘re gone: the rascals, the raconteurs and the ruined.

Yes, I will miss Pete. To his credit he managed to be all three of the above, and he constantly told me how much he enjoyed my scribbling, so it was through both vanity and humanity I saw him as my friend.




808 words
©Charlie Adley
19.04.2024

Hooh mumma - those Vernal Surges are strong!

 

April 1st and all my seeds are in. Feels good. I can now focus wholeheartedly on the much less attractive task of Spring Cleaning.

My gaff has no foundations, so I share it with a plethora of leggybugs and wrigglesomes who crawl up from below and colonise my books; photo frames; everything.

I’m something of a swallow in this gaff. During the Winter months I sleep in what will be my guest quarters, once the cleaning and migration have taken place. It’s a separate little dingly dell of a room, but its walls are thick and it’s warmer.

The bedrooms in the main place are prone to mould, flooding, gordknowswhat, so I steer well clear and keep the dehumidifiers going 24/7.

Anyway, by the time I head to London in mid-May the place will be as spotless as I can make it, and I will be back in the summer bedroom, which means I can once again enjoy the company of houseguests.

Something strange and wonderful comes over me around the Vernal Equinox. I’m not sure if those words should be capitalised, but I do it because to me they are That Important.

As soon as the days become longer than the nights, the nurturer in me experiences an explosive surge of growing energy.

Plants are like us mammals: they need to rest over the cold dark months.

But while we survive the Winter by stuffing our cold achy bodies with high fat foods, and drinking enough alcohol to imagine the world beyond the front door is not really miserable and hostile, plants profit from serious downtime.

So the houseplants get watered fortnightly instead of weekly, and everything outside is mulched with leaves, and left unwatered for months.

Come March 21st the Baby Bio comes out and those houseplants that like a feed get a capful in their water, which delivers an instant pick-me-up.

The aloes and bromeliads live in rough tough locations in the wild, so no feed for them, but all the pots will be given what’s called a ‘top dressing’ of an inch or two of fresh potting compost, which perks them up way more than you’d ever imagine.

Time too to snip a few babies from the Spider plant and fresh shoots from the Tradescantia, or Wandering Jew, and drop ‘em into water to see if we can make new plants.

Outside, I remove the leafy mulch off all the containers, and they too get a top dressing. I find it fascinating to see what survives the Winter.

There’s this idea of all plants being divided into annuals and perennials, either living one year or several, but given mulch and a bit of care, those terms become irrelevant.

In the gravel beds out the front of my gaff the calendula (marigold) and Californian Poppies have survived well through the Winter, and the lupins in pots have thrived too, showing new life from January onwards.

In February I pruned the orchard, a job I love ‘cos it lets this space cadet disappear into a world of his own for a few weeks.

The trees hadn’t been snipped for three years, so they needed a lot cut off, and I spent hours, days, weeks walking around them, loppers in hand, looking up at their leafless canopies, trying to design in my head a bowl shape where air could circulate and no branch would grow into another.

Throughout the dark months I fed the birdies outside, and ended up with a mountain of empty plastic birdseed tubs. Along with a load of the little plastic bowls that used to have the Centra’s fruit salad in them, those placcy tubs made their way to the potting shed.

I banged a hole or three into each container’s bottom and the tubs have become home to my lettuce and tomato seeds, with the fruit salad bowls serving as incubators for starting new babies from old seeds.

Apart from the lettuce and tomato, the only seeds I buy are bags and bags of Virginia Stock. I buy loads of them ‘cos they just love the climate here in the west of Ireland.

They will germinate and flower in a few weeks, any time from February to November, and they’re simply lovely. Cabbage white caterpillars seem to agree with me, and can demolish yards of their flowers in a few days, so if you grow ‘em, keep your eyes peeled.

  

I sow them at the edges of containers where they fringe with delicate beauty, and drop their seeds into cracks on the patio, where they grow out of bare stone and transform an ugly oopsy into a spot of pure delight.

Next up was buying several bags of ornamental grit and compost, and replenishing the herb garden I built last year. Most of it survived the Winter well, with the sage especially happy, but the thyme plants took a hit, so I’ve got three new ones 'growing on' in the potting shed, almost ready to join their aromatic mates.

Then there was the weeding, re-membrane laying and sowing of the bed out front on the roadside, and finally the scattering of all last years seeds onto the two areas in front of my gaff.

 

Right now it might look pretty sorry and messy, but hopefully it will once again transform, as it did last year.

This year’s main competitor to all new growth comes in the form of those childhood helicopters. Last Autumn I was sitting in my living room when a huge THUMP came from outside.

I went to investigate and found the entire garden blanketed by a zillion billion sycamore seeds, or helicopters as we knew them.

After doing a wee bit of research I now know that, like oak trees with their acorns, sycamores also have what they call Mast years, when given the right climatic conditions, they produce hundreds of times the seeds they normally do.

They are now taking root just everywhere, all over the beds, containers and grasses, where they almost outnumber the blades.

  

Bad news if you’re a horse, as chowing down on too many of those babies can make you very sick indeed. Bad news too if you’re a gardener’s back, as I’m bending over every other step to try and diminish their occupation.

Little bastards.

Maybe, but clever tree. Mast years pretty much guarantee survival of the species.

Apologies for what are possibly the most boring photos Double Vision has ever offered, but all being well we’ll be able to do a Before/After display in a few months.

Something like this, I’m thinking. 

 

 

©Charlie Adley 

01.04.2024