After lunch I jump into Joey SX and aim for Lough Conn. Out of my cocoon for the first time today, I wonder what’s going on in the world, so I flip on the radio, expecting to hit NewsTalk, but it’s on Today FM.
Fine, who needs to know what’s going on in the world, when you can have a good old sing song? Ooh, even better, they’re doing a quiz.
Unfortunately, I missed the question, but evidently up for grabs is a big weekend for two, in a posh 'resort spa.' I think last year we called them hotels.
Yer man Gerry on the end of the phone is suckin' diesel. Everything is just so funny to him, he can’t stop wid da larfin and da larfin.
I imagine Gerry as an explosion of long curly black hair, cascading over a ball-shaped head, his stubbly face stretched in ecstasy.
“Well, now, Gerry, you said 83, Maria, you guessed 189, and Sean, well you reckoned it was 458. The right answer was.......112, so Gerry in Dublin, well done mate! You’ve won a weekend away for two!”
“Oh tanks! Tanks Tony, tanks tanks tanks! Wow, dass grea’, really grea’! Who’d-a tortit? Who’d-a tortit? Jaize, I tort I was way off!”
Driving along, I wear a big smile on my face, as I enjoy the harmless happiness of a winner. Yet soon enough my mind starts to spin around, in a metaphysical more than Exorcist kind've way.
Then the driver of car behind me is hooting his horn because, instead of noticing the traffic lights have gone green, I’m staring into space, lost in deep and meaningful philosophical wonder.
Unless my ears deceive me, I just heard Gerry on the radio say he thought his winning answer was “way off."
But hang on...
If he thought his own answer was wrong, then why...
Fantastic! Marvellous! Couldn’t happen anywhere else.
If I told this as an Oirish joke at a London dinner party, I’d be considered vulgar and racist, but right here right now, I’m loving the fact that whenever I think I might be going loopy, the people of Ireland make me feel right at home.
Now before ye all get uppity and irascible and accuse me of accusing you of being nothing more than a bunch of nutters, I suggest that from my perspective, this is a massive compliment.
But anyway, I wasn’t calling you a bunch of nutters: just some of you; well, quite a lot of you, but I reiterate, it’s truly a form of praise, coming from me.
As defined by the cold harsh steel of North European Protestantism, ‘Sanity’ is a fearfully boring and staid state in which to exist.
I love living in a country where people don’t even agree with their own answers!
©Charlie Adley
06.08.2026
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