Three Snippets from '92

Artwork by Allan at www.caricatures-ireland.com

After the recent self-congratulatory piece about DV passing 750k hits, it occurred to me that many colyoomistas have never seen any DVs published before 2007, when we went online. So over the next while I’ll be dropping a few excepts from years gone by.

I first stepped onto Irish soil in August 1992 and was awarded the colyoom three weeks later. Click below to read three snippets from the following three months, when I’m all spanky fresh and green in the Emerald Isle.

September 1992.
Inside out in Cleggan. 

The people in the dining room of the B&B are trying their best to ignore me. The state of my brain is mirrored perfectly by the low cloud drizzle that is swamping and subduing the whole of Cleggan Bay this morning.

I am blissfully unaware that my T-shirt is on inside out and back to front.

In fact, far from matters of sartorial elegance, I’m having a great deal of trouble simply eating. I try ever-so carefully to secure a piece of toast and fried egg onto my fork, and manage to fumble it into my mouth.

At this precise moment an immaculately turned-out French couple glide into the dining room. These slickers were not in the pub until early this morning, unlike some scribblers I might mention.

They stop in their tracks as they see fried egg slowly slip out from my mouth and ooze its way down my chin, on its journey back to the plate. 

Plainly horrified, they disappear from the room, having lost their appetites.

Now everyone has turned to look at me, in their clean-cut European V-neck sweater kind of way.

Do I care?
Not while there is food to be eaten.

The rain continues to come down, so all my healthy intentions to climb hills and break a natural sweat are banished.

Back to Oliver’s bar, the scene of last night's crime, where today the big screen is up, and here we go again. Galway confound the tipsters, and I can think of no better place to watch the game.

Every time a point is scored the place erupts, and at a Galway goal small riots break out in various corners of the pub.
A brave female voice insists on calling

“Come on Tipp!”

and yet, so different to my native England, nobody here boos her. They don’t need to. It’s Galway’s day, and we eventually resign ourselves to the ensuing celebrations.

Nothing like a quiet restorative trip to Connemara.

Nothing. 

 

October 1992.

Illegal Numbers?

I was out on Saturday night on the trail of the obligatory craic, and found it in the shape of ‘Zrazy’, a two woman band playing in the wonderful Galway sleaze pit that is the Jug o’Punch.

They played a strong set of love songs and political songs, and soon enough the place was hopping. After the set I went to ask Maria of the band about one song that seemed to involve the constant repetition of a string of numbers.

What was that all about?

“It’s the telephone number of a Pregnancy Advice line, or an Abortion Advice line, depending on your way of looking at it. Either way, it’s illegal.”

“What’s illegal? I don’t understand.”

“The telephone number is illegal.”

“The telephone number is illegal? But how can a telephone number be illegal?”

“You can’t print it, broadcast it or dial it. That’s how it’s illegal.”

Holy cow, Ireland is so weird. Who is frightened of what? Even if it is technically possible to outlaw a string of numbers, how can it be morally defensible? The arguments of those who would impose such mindless censorship must be oh so fragile.


November 1992.
His business just didn’t add up. 

I wander into a shop in Salthill to buy two lightbulbs. Himself behind the counter smiles to see this stranger, and tells me how the weather has been fine.

“Do you sell lightbulbs?”

“Well now, I do, yes, I do, but, c'mere to me now ...” he hooks his finger and motions me to move closer, whispering. “I do sell lightbulbs, but truth be told, there’s a place just down the road that sells ‘em a mite cheaper than me.”

I stand flummoxed. If I walk out it will look like I am a cheapskate, but if I stay I’ll look like a fool.

“I will buy them off you, thanks all the same.”

“Ah good man. Now, so, it’s two you want is it? Well, they are 30 pence each, or 3 for a pound.”

Looking deep into his kindly eyes I find no trace of irony or humour in the moment. He clearly has no idea what he has just said.

“I’ll take 2 at 30 pence each please!” I say, and thank him for his trouble, leaving the shop amazed and confused.

It’s a business that looks like it’s been around for generations, but if that’s the way they operate, how on this good earth have they managed to stay in business?

©Charlie Adley

29.03.2026.

Happy Paddy's Day and 25 years of friendship!

It’s lunchtime on St. Patricks Day, 2001, and I’m sitting at the bar of the Anchor Pub in Killala, enjoying Sean the landlord’s icicle sharp sandpaper dry wit.

I’ve only been living here for a couple of months, yet even by my own introverted sociopathic standards I’ve barely left my new home, because there hangs in the air the terrible threat of Foot and Mouth disease.

Along with the Six Nations Rugby tournament, Paddy’s Day parades have been cancelled.

Even though the Celtic Tiger cub is firing up my freelance writing career very nicely, Ireland is still an agricultural economy. Silicon Bog is yet to rise from the mist of corporate tax evasion. If livestock are slaughtered on an industrial scale, local livelihoods will be devastated.

How much do I want to be the Englishman who brought Foot and Mouth disease to the Irish Republic?

So I’ve been resisting the urge to walk long and far, yet staying inside has been such a challenge for me, because North Mayo, my new home, has the lot: rolling green pasture and barren ancient bog; drumlins and mountains; flatlands and cliffs; subterranean galleries and ancient abbeys.

I’d fallen in love with its unique seascapes. So many white sand beaches are untouched by mass tourism, while at Downpatrick Head there are blowholes and the astonishing sea stack, Dun Briste, a sight that never fails to make my jaw drop.

Sipping my whiskey, dreaming of day I can walk freely in my new environment, I spot a bearded gent down the other end of the bar.

It’s early yet, so the pub is empty, save for us two and Sean. While living in Galway City I’d learned the hard way that Paddy’s Day is rather like New Year’s Eve: a messy event full of drunk people who are not used to drinking, overdoing it because they feel they have to.

Mr. Beardy and I start chatting, and as I sit here, 25 years later to the day, we haven’t stopped.

On that Paddy’s Day he explained that his family had arrived in the area only a few months before me, and over the next few weeks he introduced me to several other families of Blow-Ins who’d also recently arrived.

Tragically since then we have lost four wonderful souls to cancer, but that has served only to strengthen our bonds.

My friend and I share a passion for nature. We love to grow plants, study animals and stare at the night sky, wondering at the beauty of it all.

He has since graduated with a degree as a local guide, now expert in local geography, history, topography, geology, folklore, music and culture. To walk along a beach with him is a privilege.

His passion for our local flora and fauna bursts out as he grabs bunches of seaweed off the rocks, explaining how it contains all the minerals that made life possible. Then his head dives down to the sand, where a pinprick hole lures him to dig with his fingers, all the way up to his elbow, until he withdraws his arm clutching a lunch of razor clams. 

Over the quarter century of our friendship, life and death have visited us both in most challenging ways, yet we have survived, and occasionally thrived, if not in riches then in laughter.

The man is notorious for his tangential ramblings. He makes Billy Connolly appear succinct and to the point. However I’ve learned through my wild and wonderful life that rather than loving perfection, it’s our foibles, faults and fractures we humans truly love.

His wonderful wife and I have our own friendship, but on occasion we’ve further bonded at my friend’s expense, in that when he’s off on a verbal trek, we circle around his story, rather like jackals hunting prey.

Will he ever get to the point?
Do we even care?

On one most memorable occasion my friend and I had greeted a sunny Summer afternoon by chatting and laughing and drinking a little. Then we visited the village and had another little talk and a laugh and a drink.

Later we returned to his home where I watched as he fed the children and put them to bed. Then we had a little drink, a laugh and talked until his wife returned from work. Then we sat, talked, laughed and drank some more.

As the heat from the coal and wood roasting in their huge fireplace rose into the room and fuelled our hearts, the standards of conversation tumbled.

By this time all those little drinkies have combined as one. My friend's’ wife and I are mercilessly mocking himself, with all his wandering tangential amorphous storytellings.

He raises his hands to protest:

“Now now now!” he bellows, eager to plead his case. “All seriousness aside!” says he, blissfully unaware of the wee verbal slip that has caused us, his audience, to fall physically from our chairs in inebriated mirth.

Thinking back now, maybe my friend has had the last laugh. Wisdom lurks in his inadvertent and hysterical error.

All seriousness aside? Isn’t that the best advice?

Here’s to the next 25 years, my lovely friends, and happy St. Patrick’s Day to you and all my colyoomistas.
 

 

©Charlie Adley

16.03.2026

Double Vision passed 750,000 hits - thanks to all my colyoomistas!

It's been 33 years and 5 months since Double Vision was born in the Connacht Tribune and Galway City Tribune, with the first colyoom (pictured above) appearing in October 1992, and 19 years 2 months since we went online.

 

Since then there have been 732 posts, 762,953 visits, with 4,450 yesterday and 36,588 this month.

 

Colyoomista activity always rises as we near Paddy's Day, but nevertheless I'm extremely grateful to all of you who have read my blather. 

 

I'll be back in touch when we clear the million mark! Thanks again!

 

Just say it. Months of rain rain rain. We can handle the truth. Unsettled, me hole.

Great artwork from Allan Cavanagh of caricatures-ireland.com

Every Saturday I take my sabbath.
I don’t have to do my stretches.
I don’t have to exercise.

I can eat whatever I want, yet must cook as little as possible.
I go out for my Full Irish on Saturday morning and in the evening I shove something into the microwave. 

Yes, a dreaded UPF dinner for me, and that’s okay.
It’s my day off.

Wouldn’t want you to think that makes life simple. Doing exactly what I want is way more complex than simply doing nothing.

The Ireland England ruby match is about to start, and I’ll watch that with full sound and vision until half time, when I have to mute the TV so’s I can listen to the Chelsea commentary on my phone.

All good and eminently doable, until I send a text to my mate JB, saying I’m having a busy lazy rainy day.

This is when being a vocational writer becomes a bit of a pain. My so-called ‘calling’ hears Busy Lazy Rainy Day in capital letters: a working title, very probably a headline for a piece, ‘cos yeh, I’ve been meaning to scribble something new for a while.

Right now though there’s the rugby, which stretches my love and loyalty between my home nation and the nation I call my home. Unless it ends in an honourable tie, part of me will win that game and part of me will lose it.

The Blues playing Burnley doesn’t stretch my loyalty at all.

My writer thing knows there’s no better time than right now to put that thought down.

In fact, if I don’t turn the stream of thought that followed the idea into notes or better, a first draft, any potential will diminish; might be forgotten.

Do it now!
Engrained in my DNA after living off my blather for so long. Do it now!

There’s the rugby, the footie, and the laundry- oh! Didn't I mention that I chose my day off to do the laundry too? There’ll be drum-spinning ear-shattering whining splicing the air in a minute - oh, no, right now in fact.

Just before kick off. Not too bad. I’ll sort those clothes out at half time, before the Chelsea kick off. 

And there I am, on my day off, writing mental lists.
To Do lists.
Worse. Unnecessary To Do lists.
Chronological blah blah.

Having laid out my clean clothes on driers I reject the matches, the laundry the whole damn doodad that had me writing mental lists.

I go outside and stand in the rain. Mental behaviours, some might say.
I beg to differ. Busy Lazy Rainy Day. I’ve been busy and lazy and it’s been raining for several centuries now, or so it seems.

Relentless dancing drops hitting my mypex, standing pools of water on drenched clogged ground.

Juicy big wet-making raindrops slick through my hair. I can feel my jeans soaking in the rainspray drenching given by the wind.

Pneumonia beckons. Communing with nature is great and all that, but I like breathing too, so I go inside and watch the drops dance on the pavement.

Rain: saviour of Ireland. Rain that keeps our clifftops free from hotels, our beaches empty and clean, our fields full of flowers and our pasture rich and deep.

Alongside the absolute certainty of rain here on the edge of the mighty Atlantic the only other thing I can guarantee is that every local soul will utter some form of weather assessment thus:

“I don’t mind if it’s cold/hot/windy/foggy/frosty as long as it’s not raining. That’s the thing. Long as it’s not raining.”

After 34 years living on Ireland’s west coast I still cannot fathom why people choose to demonise that which they live with each day.
It’s going to rain, so we might as well enjoy it.

Masters of the meteorological euphemism, the English and Irish have created a universe of weather terms that are indecipherable to foreigners, and let's be honest, pretty much incomprehensible to ourselves.

Any ideas just what an 'odd shower' might be? One in which the rain falls upwards?

Anyone know exactly what they mean by bright? Are we talking clouds, sunshine, or what?

And when did the word 'rain' disappear from forecasts, to be replaced with 'unsettled weather'?
It's not unsettled at all.
It's days and days of rain.
Weeks, nay months of rain rain rain.

Just say it baby; we can handle the truth.
Unsettled, me hole.

We do rain in all shapes and sizes: soft; drizzly; damp; showers - but is that occasional showers, frequent showers, constant showers; heavy showers, or prolonged heavy showers?

We have light, moderate and heavy rain, followed by lashing rain and then, Top of the Rain Pops comes sideways rain, which conspires to come at you on gale and storm force winds from the horizontal.

For reasons I’d rather not understand, sideways rain seems to possess some kind of perverted predilection for travelling up inside a coat or even jeans, as if sniffing out your bits.

Not good.

With the coming of spring there arrive the early enquiries from friends for summer visits, asking the inevitable question: "What's the weather like?"

Let me think: what is the weather like? I’ve lived in hot dry places. I’ve lived where the ground moves under your feet, where forests burn, where the winters blow blizzards and snowdrifts.

I’ll admit to being generally happy living between 10 - 20C, or 50 - 60F in the old money.

We rarely have extreme weather here. When we do it’s mostly rain, and we have an extremely large vocabulary with which to describe it.

My own bȇte noir is when the media forecasters show off their state-of-the-art technology by predicting

“Sunshine at times, rain in places.” 

Aaaaarrggghhhhh.

Yes we know.
Times and places.

As opposed to the weather in Black Holes and parallel universes, beyond time and reason.

Maybe, just maybe, one day they’ll share with us which places at what times.

Today To Do lists begone!
I’m watching the rain.


© Charlie Adley
21.02.2026

How many emails for a one night stay?

Your scribbler has been driven somewhat demented over the last two weeks. 

What’s that?
Oh, okay. More demented than usual, as a result of booking a hotel. 

Yep, that’s what I said.

Loyal and very attentive colyoomistas may recall that back in May 2004, I fessed up to being an anonymous reviewer of hotels for quality newspapers (not a tautology!) for over two decades.

Of course, as soon as I did, I had to retire from that particular gig, as in my opinion there is zero point in reviewing an hotel if they know you’re writing a review. All of a sudden you’re in a beautiful room and can I do anything else for you, sir? 

Being a naive fool, I thought that once I’d left the reviewing game, staying in hotels would return to being a pure pleasure.

Someone comes in and makes your bed; gives you new towels, fresh coffee capsules and more putrid cartons of UHT milk.

You fill out and hang the breakfast menu on your room’s door handle and lo, at 08:30 there’s a knock and a young man is delivering your scrambles and bacon, tea and toast.

In sad little Adley world, that’s pretty close to as good as it gets. 

And yes, I do still love staying in hotels, but that pleasure is now mitigated by the onslaught of bollocky emails that one has to endure when booking a room these days.

A couple of weeks ago, being ever-so-slightly brassic, I decided to make the most of the current price of gold by flogging a few small items I inherited from my grandparents.

An antique auctioneer advised me that yes, he could put one or two of my items into an auction, but I’d wait months for the correct collectors sale day, and then pay him a commission. 

In a rare display of altruism, he advised me that I’d be better off going to a particular shop he knew in Dublin, mentioning his name and getting a fair price for the gold weight of the lot, there and then, in cash. 

You can take the boy out of London, but you can’t take London out of the boy.

Cash?
A wad?
Yessirrreeee! 

Well, if I’m headed to Dublin, I might as well make a night of it, I decided.

I’ve been at home since before Christmas, so a night away from my own cooking and dishes would be most welcome.

Over those 20 years of reviewing I learned that the first stop in any hotel search should be the hotel’s website. The prices offered on their own sites are often very competitive with third party bookers, like Booking.com, Trivago and Expedia.

If you’re offered a bargain elsewhere, contact the hotel and tell them. See how quickly they offer you the same discount.

This is presuming you’ve chosen an independent and ideally family-run hotel (like my West of Ireland favourites: Flannerys in Galway City and Rosleague Manor in Connemara), which is where I’d head every day of the week.

Trouble is, in Dublin ,all the choices were corporate chains, so I booked a room in an apart-hotel, close to the shop that I was aiming for. 

All was good.
Here’s the email confirming my booking.
Perfect. 

Here’s another email, telling me to make the most of my trip, and what’s available in the area.
Erm, that’s fine, I s’pose.

Here’s another email. 

Do you want to upgrade your room? 

I feel my inner grumpy git awake from surly slumber.

No I don’t want a bloody upgrade.
Stop it. Go away.
Leave me alone.

If I wanted a better room, I’d’ve booked a better room. I’d been to their website, looked on Booking, read reviews on Tripadvisor and made what a pretentious prat might call an ‘educated choice.’

Oh for god’s sake, it’s only an hotel room.
Let’s not get carried away.

Then I receive yet another email, written in what I can only assume is a style they believe Millennials or Gen Zees might find amusing.

It went 100% like this, in tone and format; I kid ye not:

“Hey Charlie
Whoop!
Whoop
doopy
doopy
doo!

We are so excited to see you.

 

It’s great you booked with us.

We’re so excited about your stay.
Yippee
Yippee
Aye ayyyy...”
 

As I read this nonsensical sycophantic drivel, my grumpy git engine moved rapidly up through the gears into overdrive, outrage and disbelief, but that wasn’t the end of it.

The very next day I received yet another email. The fifth for a one night booking. 

Do you want to bid for a room upgrade? 

You wot? Is this an effin’ joke?

Do I want to BID for a room upgrade? 

Yeh, sure, of course I do, ‘cos my life is so crushingly empty I can think of no better way to spend my valuable yet vacant time than competing with other sad losers in a fight to give you more money for something I don’t even want and grrrr and grrrowl and roaaaarrr and - 

I suddenly started coughing, instantly recognising the bad taste in my mouth as evidence of a nascent chest infection. 

Given that half of Ireland was at that moment laid up with respiratory viruses, and my 1.5 very scarred lungs must be maintained with respect, I grabbed the chance to postpone my trip to Dublin and cancel my room.

Another email. 

Would you like to take a survey, to share your reasons why you cancelled your room? 

Would I? 

In the modern language of hotel reservations:

Yabba dabba dooby dooo! 

Hold me back and allow me to explain why to you!

 

©Charlie Adley

21.01.2025