The betrayal of the cursed Bayern beer bottle!

I can’t afford Sky Sports, so any live football involving either Chelsea or England on terrestrial TV is a source of excitement in this house, as well as a chance to indulge our English palettes.

As many Irish people know, when you live away from the country of your birth, there exists a comfortable nostalgia for the ways of the old country. So before Chelsea’s thrilling encounter with European Champions Bayern Munich a couple of weeks ago, I spread the coffee table with plates of pork pies, Scotch eggs, pickled onions and Branston pickle. Then, lifting my 1970s dimpled glass pint mug, I slowly poured out a bottle of Fullers London Pride.

One of the few English beers available in Irish supermarkets, London Pride may not be a supreme beer, but to someone who yearns for real ale, it goes down a treat. Also, it’s brewed in Chiswick, west London, close enough to Chelsea to feel local.

Sad to admit, but I was twitching with excitement. Much as I enjoy the craic watching footie in pubs, as a lifetime fan of the game there’s little I love as much as watching a Chelsea game unfold properly, at home. Everything was prepared so that I could sit on my voluptuous arse throughout the match.

Just before kick-off I decided to build up the fire. As I stood up my foot got caught in the phone cord, which tripped the little table, which threw the entire pint of Fullers London Pride all over the floor, phone, coffee table and ... just bloody everywhere. My eyes tried to follow the beery tidal trail, marvelling for a second at just how far a single pint of liquid can travel.

Then I moved like the wind.

From the age of 17 I worked in bars, so spilled beer was nothing new to me. Zooming into the kitchen, I grabbed the mop, bucket and wooden floor cleaner and set about an emergency operation.

The teams were already coming out, but UEFA were throwing a razzmatazzy party to celebrate this coming together of footballing giants. Good, that’d take a while.

Mop, rinse, mop, rinse, then out with the lavender wooden floor spray, because after years of opening up pubs in the morning, I know only too well the stink stale beer leaves on a floor. Mop, dry, into the kitchen to dump the filthy mop in the sink, and finally sit down, breathe out, say bollocks out loud and stand up yet again, to get another bottle of beer, because after all that stress I really needed one now.

Just typical. The one thing I’d been looking forward to and tried to set up so that  -

Oh give the whinging a rest man. Football’s on.

The Snapper arrived back from work just before kick off and we sat and watched a thrilling first half, in which Bayern Munich had all the possession and made twice the amount of passes that Chelsea achieved, but Chelsea scored the goal.

Even though my beer was going down a treat, part of me yearned for a proper pint. The hand pumps you see in English pubs draw real ale along the lines, finishing at a little valve called a sparkler, which sucks air into the beer as it flows into the glass. In namby-pamby Southern pubs, the sparkler is set really loose, so the pumps are easy to pull and the beer floods out uninhibited.

So it wasn’t until I moved north that I discovered how real ale should really be poured. When I went for a job at the Peel pub in Bradford, West Yorkshire, the landlady told me to pull a pint for her. Sure, no problem, I’ve pulled thousands and - ooeerrr!

She laughed as I struggled to pull the handle down. In the north, they tighten their sparklers to the max, making the pump the super-stiff. The beer then hisses as it slowly fills the glass, forming a thick creamy pint of bitter that needs time to settle and clear, like a pint of Guinness.

I’d poured and drunk the very same bitter in London, but it had never looked so good in its glass nor tasted so fine in my mouth as that proper northern pint.

I got the job and withstood the inevitable barrage of abuse that any London boy would endure from Yorkshire ‘regs’ in their local.

Everyone had their own bar stool and their own style. At the far right of the bar sat Jeb, a softly-spoken philosophical genius of a man. Every day I’d bottle up 9 bottles of Carlsberg Special Brew on a shelf just for him, so he could drink them warm.

Then there was tall Tony, the Wizard we called him, with his long white hair and beard.

“Ere Chaaarlie!” he drawled, handing me back the pint I’d just poured for him, “Can you drop a whiskey in there fr’us?”

“‘Course I can Tony.”

“Well then top it up with beer ye prat. Asked for a pint, didn’t I, not half ‘alf a bleedin’ pint.”

Meanwhile, back in my living room, Bayern Munich had scored a equalizer in the second half and Chelsea’s Ramires had been sent off. When the whistle blew at 90 minutes, the score was 1-1. Chelsea were heading into Extra Time with only 10 players.

There’d be a few minutes before the game resumed, so I dashed off into the kitchen to rinse out the beer-drenched mop, because I knew it’d smell wretched, but as I lifted it out of the sink it hit the bucket, which hit the empty beer bottle, which flew into the air and fell onto the kitchen floor, shattering into thousands of beery shards of broken glass.

That same bloody bottle, spilled and then shattered at each end of the match. 

Maybe it wasn’t brewed in Chiswick any more. 

Maybe London Pride was now brewed in Munich. 

Maybe that bloody beer bottle was an inanimate Bayern fan. 

Maybe this was now a game that required Irish whiskey.

Without Bradford there'd be no ‘Double Vision’! Come on you Bantams!

I’m thrilled to bits that Bradford City will be at Wembley this Sunday for the League Cup Final. My connections to the West Yorkshire town run deep and personal.

Indeed, without Bradford this colyoom would not exist.

Back in 1992 I’d been living in Bradford for 3 years, just finished a novel and felt pretty finished with England too. The great British public had elected their fourth consecutive Conservative government. Well, if they wanted Tories they could bloomin’ have them. They deserved them, but I wasn’t going to stick around.

So I walked into a travel agent and asked for the cheapest flight out of the country. £39 bought me a one-way flight to Malaga. Luvvly jubbly. Walking out of the airport I stuck out my thumb and looked for a new life in Spain.

After hitching around Andalusia, I headed for Barcelona. I knew the place well and hoped I might feel I belonged. However, after a tremendous Summer in Catalunya I found myself hitching over the Pyrenees into France.

Throughout my teens I’d hitched around France and felt such an affinity with the place that it already felt like home. But the Goddess of the Road had other ideas. Despite arriving in the south-westerly corner of the country on a Sunday and sticking to ‘D’ roads, slow and void of traffic, I found lift after lift propelling me northwards, until in a single day I’d reached Poitiers.

Then I was in Roscoff, boarding a ferry to Cork.

Six weeks later I was walking from my new home in Salthill to the Westside, where I was starting a job as a Youth Worker in the Rahoon Flats. As I turned out of Highfield Park I saw on the side of the Rahoon flats a huge mural of a city skyline. Stunned, I recognised it immediately, as it was the last place I’d truly called home.

How bizarre! I’d taken a one way flight to Spain, hitched randomly through three countries and ended up in Galway, which was apparently twinned with Bradford.

The question that most perplexed me was ‘Why?’

Why was Galway twinned with Bradford? I couldn’t think of two less similar places. Bradford is in the centre of the country; Galway’s on the coast. Bradford, like Rome, is built on seven hills; Galway’s pretty much flat. Bradford has the largest Pakistani population living anywhere outside of Pakistan, while Galway’s population back then was completely white. Bradford is a heaving melange of so many global cultures it’s hard to keep track. Galwegians think their city is multicultural, but it’s not really.

Ever the chancer, I typed all this down on a couple of sheets of A4, called it ‘Double Vision’ because of the comparisons I was making between two twins,
and wandered uninvited into the newsroom of the Connacht Tribune.
Shoving the sheets under the Editor’s nose, I asked if he could use something like that. After reading it, to my amazement he said he could use something like that each week.

That was September 1992, and you’re still stuck with me. But now at least you have some idea of how important an ingredient Bradford has been in my life.

I moved there in 1989, and within a few months had blagged my way into so many jobs at the university, nobody was quite sure what I did, which proved perfect for allowing me to access all areas.

I worked as a cellar man, tending real ales and as a barman I served students vile pints of Guinness and blackcurrant. The only male cleaner on a staff of 83 women who cleaned the student halls of residence, I also drove the Union van, did turns as a DJ, sweated for a few months as a pizza chef, worked a venue kiosk, wrote the programme and tasting notes for the beer festival, and wherever I went, whatever I did, I was welcomed.

Much of this was made possible by the Bars Manager, my friend and housemate, the enigmatic and wry Malcolm Arnold, who tragically died aeons too early.

Phwoof! A wave of emotion him me when I wrote that. I’ll just take a moment if you don’t mind.

As is the case when you’re working in extremis, I forged friendships behind the bars of Bradford that proved stronger than time. So when Bradford City made it to Wembley, I noticed on Facebook a conversation between two of my erstwhile colleagues. Now we’re back in touch, and that’s the power of football.

Distant from embarrassing Premiership giants like my own beloved Chelsea, there are clubs like Bradford City that make the game worthwhile. They haven’t won a major trophy since their FA Cup victory in 1911, which might make victory for them seem perfect, until you consider the fact that Swansea City, their opponents, have never even made it to a cup final before.

I’m not so petty that I’d begrudge Swansea a win simply because they outplayed and defeated Chelsea over a two-leg semi-final, but every cell in my body will be rooting for Bradford City this Sunday.

Back in 1985, the entire population of Bradford was devastated by the fire at City’s Valley Parade ground. The blaze killed 56 fans and left 265 injured. Afterwards the club rose from the ashes, gaining promotion to the Premier league in 2001, only to plummet down 4 leagues since.

With a side that cost absolutely nothing except the £7,500 they paid for their centre forward (he used to work in the local co-op) Bradford City have defeated the Premiership’s mighty Arsenal, Wigan and Aston Villa to make it to Wembley.

Once the home of Britain’s industrial millionaires, Bradford is now a poor and beleaguered city, yet their football team shines like a beacon to the underdog.

You don’t need to spend millions to be successful.
Glory doesn't come with a price tag.
Come on Bradford City!

One ‘No’ too many - it's not easy being teen!

Last Wednesday night I was walking down the pub to meet my mate for a pint. 

Towering dark shower clouds were speeding across the blue sky above Galway Bay, the low Autumn sun dazzling my eyes. People of all shapes, sizes and speeds were striding along the Prom.

For a moment all was right with my world.

Deciding to cut across the park I chose a diagonal path next to a flat sweep of lush Irish lawn. Passing a signpost I found myself swinging my head back to see what it said.

No Littering. 

No Camping. 

No Ball Sports.

Aye and triple aye to the first ‘No’. Can’t stand the way ye lads litter up your own country. To an alien like this Englishman it seems sometimes you’re not proud enough of what you fought so long to own.

As for the second ‘No’, well, yeh, I suppose it wouldn’t be right for random hosteleros to pitch camp willy nilly. Wouldn’t worry me, to be honest, but I can see that causing trouble with some types.

But ‘No’ as in ‘No Ball Sports?’

My heart, so freshly risen and daring to feel joy instantly dropped and felt damaged.

Yes yes I know that there are nearby roads and balls might run out into those roads and people might get killed and cars might have pile ups.

And yes I know that the grass is there for everyone not just young people and it might end up getting a bit muddy if people played ball sports on it after rain.

But in truth, there aren’t that many cars near this beautiful flat stretch of deep green grass.

And mud is not a rare commodity  in Ireland.

And sad to say, there aren’t any people in the park to be upset about anything. It’s as empty as a politician’s promise.

There are no raggle taggle teams of teenagers here kicking a football around. No pairs of brothers holding hurleys banging a ball. 

No clash of ash. 

No sliding tackles. 

No laughs. 

Nothing. Nobody.

It’s not easy being teen. 

If you stay at home playing Xbox all day you’re told you’re useless and need to go out a get a life. 

If you go out you need money and if you have money you’ll buy a bottle of Buckie which you’ll drink in the park when nobody’s looking. Then you’ll get drunk and throw up or get into a fight and then you’ll be told that you were useless and that you need to go home and get a life.

It’s confusing. And being a teen is confusing enough without authority figures being confusing on top of it all.

What we used to do when we were teens was get a ball and go down the park for a bit of a kick about. 

If it was just me and my mate we’d play penalties.

If there was 3 of us we played 3-and-In, where you’re in goal ‘til one of the other lads scores three goals, and then he’s in goal.

4 lads meant 2-a-side, game on, we’d got ourselves a match. 

Any more than 4 was pure heaven, which could only be improved upon if the older lads turned up , when we played out of our skins to try and impress them.

Now there are no teens playing football in the park. 

One ‘No’ too many.

Teens hear a lot of ‘No’s.

Bit of a kick about with a ball?

Crying bloody shame.

Finding a manager means more than just looking for fella who sounds like a pasta!

Whilst over in England recently, 'twas my rare honour and absolute pleasure to be personally invited to attend a meeting of MOPE, (Managers and Owners Private Enclosure).
As I walked through the huge oak doors, I was quickly swept to one side by an immaculately-uniformed doorman.
"Very sorry, Sir! Mind how you go there!"
Walking back and forth from one side of the hallway to the other was a tall and strange-looking man, with sad vulnerable eyes. Apparently oblivious to everything else around him, he took three steps, walked into the wall, banging his long gnarly nose, pointy chin and bandy knees, swung around on his heel muttering 'Vieira! Vieira!', and then walked three paces until his nose, chin and knees hit the other wall.
The doorman's hand gently moved me along.
"Nearly bumped into Arsene Wenger there, Sir. A very clever man, so I'm told, the Arsenal Manager, Sir. His problem? Most of the time he can see fine, just like you and me, Sir. Drives a big fancy car, he does too, Sir, but any given time, he goes completely blind. Why, just last week we only found him trying to dunk his chocolate croissant in a skip down off the Seven Sisters Road. Bless him.
Eyes like a hawk he has Sir, when he's watching very young French men. He doesn't miss a trick, signs them up for the Arsenal, and turns them into free-flowing skilled artistes.
Then he goes blind and just keeps saying 'Hi deede not see yit, zo hi cannot zay!' over and over again.
Now come on through, Sir."
Entering a large darkly-lit oak-panelled room, I asked for a large Scotch at the bar, and turned to see an older grey-haired red-faced man, chewing gum and drinking wine.
"Aye. I was there once. Scotland. Worked at Aberdeen, aye. But ye kinna get the wine that far north. See this, son? Ahhm drinking a Chateaux Margaux, so I am. Nivva mind it's wan o'the most dearest wines in the world, the quality of this lad really stands oot. I give it a chance to breathe, see. Goes perfect with the Spearmint, does the Chateau Margaux. Ye look more of a white wine man, son, if ye don't mind me saying so. Now, tell me I'm wrong, but with white wine, Juicy Fruit is the only gum. Aye, Spearmint for the red, and Juicy Fruit for the white. Tell me I'm wrong, son. Go on! Tell me! Tell me!"
The barman whispered
"He plays this game with everyone, does Sir Alex. If you tell him he's wrong, he won't speak to you ever again."
"Thanks for letting me know. Another nutter, then?""Well you might say that. But he's the most successful nutter of all time."
'What's over there, in the corner? Is that a boxing ring or a jacuzzi?"
"Oh, that's our 'This Is Anfield' section, Sir. With Liverpool being European City of Culture, we are offering Traditional Spanish-American Face Slapping in the ring, featuring Razor Raffa and Piercer Parry, followed by classes in the Ancient Merseyside Martial Art of Back-Stabbing, given by Masters Hicks and Gillet. A really good show it is too, Sir, Why, sometimes, there's so much blood, you'd almost believe they really harboured a dislike for each other."
In the Gents I saw an ugly sad and dejected-looking man, dressed up as Eeyore, painting the red walls blue whilst being whipped by a bald, evidently sadistic man from Manchester. All of the cubicle doors had been removed, and upon a giant throne erected where the toilets once were sat a stubbly Russian oligarch, yelling to his bald henchman:
"Kenyon, explain him now we still must be cutting off one of his hands for winning nothing, but is not so bad, for also we now will give him one hundred meeeelion pounds to buy players!"
At this his laughed erupted with a boom to strike fear into the hearts of peasants the world over.
It was all just too weird and exciting for me. I bolted for the fresh polluted air of London's West End, and struggled to breath as I took in the horror.
Gone are the days when footballers mattered. While there are of course a few (very few) footballing superstars, there are no charismatic heroes with muddy knees on match day. Compared with the mass ranks of mad Managers and crazed Owners, the players are less than a paltry bunch of overpaid journeymen.
Can you imagine having an interesting conversation, or even a wild night out with Stevie G and Frank Lampard? Sure, you'd get drunk and snowed up, but where's the thrill in that?
No, for real fun and frolics you need those hybrid bastard love children of The Sopranos and Dirty Sexy Money: the Managers and Owners.
Thankfully there are exceptions that prove the rule. American Owner, Randy Lerner, seems to have grasped the idea that an excellent Manager like Martin O'Neill needs years, freedom, time and support to build the strong squad amassing at Aston Villa.
But from Fulham's Mohamed Al Fayed to the drooling Amish-with-Attitude-looking Glazer Family who own Manchester United, there is no doubt that the Owners and Managers are the true stars of the Premier League.
And now the Republic of Ireland has its own bona fide eccentric National Team Manager.
Admittedly, Snr. Trapattoni has one of the most impressive footballing CV's I have ever seen, but I print the quotation below to let you (and England!) know that there's more to choosing your country's coach than just looking for fella who sounds like a pasta.
(Apologies to those loyal colyoomistas who remember this quotation being used herein many many moons ago, before there was any connection between Giovanni and Ireland.)
Giovanni Trapattoni, then the coach of Austrian soccer champions, Red Bull Salzburg, was being grilled by German journalists, who by way of revenge, broke the habits of a lifetime, and reported exactly, word for word, what Trapattoni said:
"Our training is strong. Is modern. Training wins also. I have 21 trophies. There is blah, blah, blah from you. Fools write who know nothing. Blah, blah, blah, blah. I can understand people paying. No problema! Let whistle, is right. Have lost. But run 90 minutes! I am a professional when it comes to psychology. We train, make fitness. You people always make qua, qua, qua! Shit fools!"

Roll up! Roll up! Anybody else want to hate the English?

I

It's not just you Irish who are upset about the whole Partition thing. 

There are English men such as myself who, when settled comfortably on the sofa in front of their tele, have been known to swear and curse and damn the Six Counties, their very existence and all they ever were, are or might very well be. 

But it's not really their existence that does my head in. It's the BBC and their dark evil mind games. 

There's Gary Lineker on Saturday night's Match Of The Day, building the hype for the big England game, which is live on BBC1 on Wednesday at 7.30. 

And well it might be, if you were living in England (see, I didn't even call it 'The Mainland'). 

At the consigned hour, with beer, whiskey, pizza aplenty and lads agog, we are cruelly transported to another game, involving a team from what appears, somehow magically, to be a different country to both the one I'm living in and the one I'm from. 

You could argue that I should be grateful; that going by recent form, Northern Ireland have become a more entertaining prospect than England, but that's missing the point. 

We don't belong to our sporting tribes because we really think our respective teams are the best. 

When the die-hard fans at Accrington Stanley sing: "We're Accrington Staaaanley! Accrington Stanley Efff Ceeeeee! We're by far the greatest tee-eeam ...the world has eeeever seen!" they know they're not really. 

Sporting tribes are like families: the most important thing is to belong. 

That's why we tend to choose the ones we grew up amongst. 

Certainly, speaking personally, where national sporting tribes are concerned, I don't give a monkeys on any deep or spiritual level. 

In my heart and head I wear the colours of so many different nations, cultures, creeds and tribes that I'd never be able to give too much of a damn for any one in particular. 

But that's no fun. 

So instead I proudly and somewhat loudly raise the White Ensign, and come on all blimey guv'nor how's your father, because that guarantees a reaction in the Republic of Ireland. 

Well, no, that's not true either. 

Yes it gets a reaction, but no, I do not go to pubs to court antagonistic wind-up lightly disguised as Irish wit. 

I go to watch the game, and hope to goodness it will be a good spectacle. 

So, a few months back, when England played Russia in a Euro qualifier, I toddled off to KRCMA, the Eastern European bar in Salthill. 

Surely there I might find myself at worst a neutral crowd, at best a friendly supportive bunch. 

After all, what had Russia ever done for them? Wouldn't it be another case of 'My enemy's enemy is my friend'? 

Not to mention the small matter of the English lads who died to kick the Nazis out of their countries. No, that doesn't work either. 

Not when you consider the 29 million Russians who died in the Second World War. 

Yeh, that's right: seven times the population of this country. It was neither the Stars and Stripes nor the Union Jack that defeated Hitler. 

Not getting too serious on you here now, but I've always felt that the enormity of the Communist Russian sacrifice was swept under history's carpet by the Capitalists who wrote our history books; the ones who printed in our school Atlas world maps with Mercator Projections, designed specifically to make Russia look vast and threatening to our little 1960's kiddy minds. 

Anyway, the game was a disaster for the English, and this Englishman. My footballers underestimated the Russians and I misjudged the locals. 

I was curious to find out why one young woman, who had earlier told me she was Latvian, had been shouting so energetically and vociferously for the Russians. 

What might a Latvian love about Russia, beyond the fact that ultimately they gave them their country back? 

"S'cuse me there. Didn't you tell me you were Latvian? I was just wondering. Were you shouting for Russia, or against England?" 

"Oh no. I am Latvian, yes? Russian from Latvia!" 

"Oh right, I see. Thanks!" said I, less than none the wiser. 

Seems to me there is almost an infinite number of ways to dislike the English, and being sadly human, that serves only to make me prouder of being English. 

Not because I am proud of being disliked or dislikable, but because I know better. Like duh. 

Some of us English are evil and some of us aren't. 

Just like you. 

Just like everybody, but again, that's no fun, so we construct illogical emotional sporting tribes, and have a larf, a shout, a swear, a wee tear and then jump around shout and cheer and yell louder and longer than we would were a child just born. 

We can let ourselves go because, at ve hend of va day, Brian, it doesn't matter either way. 

We avow and bestow an undying lifetime of loyalty unto our sporting tribes, and breathe deep the ecstasy when they are, for a brief exquisite moment, like Accrington Stanley, by far the greatest tee-eeam ...the world has ever seen. Girlfriends boyfriends pets and parents come and go, but your tribe is your tribe. 

Sure, the Irish know better than anyone, because your GAA parish teams are as hardcore as it gets anywhere in the world. 

Right now the hype is flying about the Six Nations Rugby, and even though I would love to sit and share verbal craic and quippy bon mots with the local Irish, I will stay at home to watch the England games, because it's not worth the hassle. 

When the Irish are playing anybody but the Auld Enemy, I shout for the boys in green, but what kind of sad pathetic man would I be to sit in the pub, as the barrage of anti-English artillery comes flying my way during the game, to negotiate like a wrung-out flaccid liberal flannel: 

"But but but I thupport your team too! Yeth I do, honetht. Come on you boyth in green!" 

So even though I do indeed yell for my host country, when the white rose of England is on the field of battle, I keep my support to myself. Grunt. 

Yes, hoh baby, even as I write that, an image builds in my minds' eye, and the Jingoist sporting bile rises in my throat.

Mild-mannered dreams make waking up much easier!

Rarely a night goes by without my brain concocting a dream that either thrills, mystifies, terrifies or beguiles.
If I am about to try something for the first time, anything from a weekend away to a job, I dream of people and places I have never seen or been to. These 'Adventure Dreams', as I call them, often involve a small town set on the side of a mountain, bustling and friendly, and generally I wake feeling elated. I have no idea whatsoever where the place may be, but if I ever find it and settle there, I wonder if my dreams will be of here and now!
My dreams have never been dull, and without doubt the strongest ones begin with me lying in my own bed, because from that point it's easier to believe that everything that happens is fiercely real.
People who I admire, trust and respect inform me that these dreams are, in fact, Astral Planes, or flights, and I am not going to poo-poo such an idea. Quite simply I do not know, but if I am doing something wilful, I wonder why I let such terrible things happen to me?
Back in my seedy North London bedroom, I dreamed that I was lying in my bed, when round the closed door came a nebulous black shape. It settled by my bedside, and stretched out to reveal a long triangular 'Clockwork Orange' steel blade, which it then plunged swiftly and fully deep into my chest.
Whilst living on my own in a farmhouse deep in the countryside, I dreamed I was lying in my bed, where I was almost seduced by a couple of women, who proceeded to become skeletal zombies, dragging me through my own home and then pinning me down as they hacksawed their way through my left ankle.
Honest, Doc, I'm as sane as you are.
Every night, more enthralling nonsense. My dream-making abilities are quite amazing, especially when you take into account the altered state my addled old head finds itself in some nights as it hits the pillow.
There are the usual smattering of sexual and erotic encounters, but ever since the very unwelcome advent of a dream-state guilty conscience, some of the action would barely make an 18 rating.
The heaviest and most exhausting periods come when I am ready and able to write fiction, but prevented from doing so by the distractions and imperatives of real life. Despite all my efforts to behave like a calm and mature human being, I go a bit mental altogether, my brain boils over, and I have to endure three or four full-on rushing crushing toiling broiling adventure dreams every night, night after night, week after week, until I sit here at the keyboard and spill.
Such a period came around a month ago, and coincided with my having read Cormac McCarthy's brilliant post-apocalyptic novel, 'The Road'.
For three weeks, three times nightly, showing in my DreamoPlex, Charlie deals with different post apocalyptic worlds, where he almost gets a bit of nookie but never does because he chooses to leg it off into the dust storm, burning hellhole, boiling mud pit.
One memorable night, when I lived free and happy in Co. Mayo, I dreamed I could fly. Even though it has never come again, I can still recall the feeling, and for that I give thanks.
So it was hardly surprising that the other morning I awoke feeling faintly and privately embarrassed. Used to a diet of dreams that offer either splendid excitement and adrenaline rushes, or self-help symbolism of the subtle-as-a-baseball-bat-hitting-you-on-the-back-of-the-head variety, I had dreamed that I could run.
Yes, just that, On a personal level, it does make some sense, because although I am perfectly built for walking ("Perfect? Are you having a laugh? Perfect, maybe, in yer dreams!" cry my own long-suffering knees from below) and can march for miles and miles, I am not, and have never been built for running.
Thus it seems only fair that I should award myself that ability in dreams.
But it's a bit sad, isn't it? I mean, while others soar above the clouds, make fantastic multi-orgasmic love to whichever gender and number takes their fancy, I am running, like a latterday oval-shaped Forrest Gump.
Even more embarrassing was the way it all began. Not for me a starting block, alongside some worthy fellow competitors. Not a race to rescue a damsel in distress, nor an emotional rush to a lovers' reconciliation.
No. My running skills emerged only as I was being chased by Frank Lampard off the playing surface of Chelsea's Stamford Bridge pitch.
Oh look, gosh. I can run run and run.
I wake up. I can't run.
Hmm, maybe there's something to be said for having mild dreams after all.
Although it was massively wonderful to discover that I had not been murdered by the steel blade-wielding black shape, and deeply emotionally gratifying to see that the ankle that had been so agonisingly hacksawed off my foot was, in fact, still attached to the end of my leg, life comes a little easier and smoother when waking requires only a simple reminder that I'll still be keeping one foot on the ground with each step I take.

****

Many thanks for all the ingenious emails offering differing definitions of 'disingenuous'.
Máirtín from Carna tickled my pleasure zones with his tirade about hotels, and their attitude to towels.
In nearly all of the hotel bathrooms of the world is a printed message about how the environment suffers from the overuse of towels, and how we can help save the planet by not wanting fresh clean towels every day.
'Do you know how many towels are washed each day in all the hotels of the world?' it asks.
Máirtín considers this to be the pinnacle (or nadir?) of disingenuousness. Admitting it may not be a serious problem, he asks:
'Do they not know why people like to stay in hotels? Do they really think we buy that nonsense about them caring from the environment, when really all they are trying to do is cut down on the costs of their own laundry bill? Disingenuous: Please don't use the towels because then we have to clean them, er, I mean save the planet.'
Keep those emails coming, good people.

Double Vision
Caricatures Ireland

Unpredictable, astonishing and appalling: Chelsea are back to mirror my life!

With a little dust precariously settled after the departure of Jose Mourinho from Chelsea, this colyoom stumbles disconsolate once again towards the truth that football (the 'English game') is a metaphor for life.
If you do nothing but defeat all your enemies, then your victories will feel increasingly meaningless and shallow. To truly know the value and excitement of winning, you have to know what it is to lose.
If you win all the time you have no hope; there are no dreams left unfulfilled. All you are left with is the dread of loss, whereas if you lose often, your dreams of winning grow all the time.
Before the arrival of the Special One at Stamford Bridge, Chelsea FC offered their fans all that life had to offer.
They would destroy Manchester United at Old Trafford, and three days later lose ignominiously to a team of part-time herring fisherman from a hamlet in Norway whose goalie was blind in one eye.
Regardless of whether managed by Hoddle, Vialli, Gullit, or the original Tinkerman, Claudio Ranieri, Chelsea never fielded the same team week to week, played one day with passion, commitment and flashes of dazzling brilliance, only to offer for the next game a performance damnably lacklustre and dreadful.
Each glamorous manager bought international superstar goalscorers to Stamford Bridge, who, having donned the blue shirt, became instantly unable to find the net ever again (some things never change).
Following Chelsea before Mourinho was excruciating, infuriating, exhilarating and inspiring.
The former because an ethos of inconsistency permeated the entire club.
The latter because life is like that: scattered with rare and beautiful victories, besmirched by ugly shoddy shabby times and most importantly, completely beyond our control.
Then came the Russian billionaire, who hired the Portugeezer, and immediately everything changed.
Suddenly Chelsea were entirely predictable.
Almost impossible to beat, they were Premiership Champions two years in a row, whilst picking up an FA Cup, and two Carling Cups on the way. There were two Champions League semi-finals and a double-header against mighty Barcelona that some consider the most exciting European game ever played.
Mourinho picked the right players. He made daring and impressive tactical substitutions, and kept his players out of the English tabloid papers by gushing forth a constant torrent of apparently mad and egocentric nonsense for the gutter press to feed upon.
Something of a genius, something of a despot, it was no surprise that he failed to get on with the post-Communist fascist who was his boss.
Although I have enjoyed the last three years, I am not inordinately sad to see him go.
All that winning became a strain. It didn't feel quite right, and the football was rarely stimulating to watch.
As football reflects life, so my team should have erratic, flawed, passionate yet talented players who do their best, will not always win at the expense of style, and accept their fate with dignity.
Chelsea have never been a dynastic club like Manchester United, who suffer a joyless search for perfection. The Blues are more like you and me: living on the edge of uncertainty, aware that change is the only constant, relishing the good times, and learning from the bad.
My only deep concern for the club I love rests with Chelsea's Russian billionaire owner, Roman Abramovich.
We all sit and shout at the TV and tell our mates what we would do if we could boss the team, but we realise that in the real world, the Manager knows best.
Blinded by power and wealth, misguided by sycophantic Yes-Men, and drowning in his own vanity, Abramovich decided he knew more about football than Jose Mourinho, the man who won the European Cup with a team from Portugal; the man who did not lose a single home league game throughout his entire tenure at Chelsea.
If Abramovich continues to play 'God' by deciding what he thinks is best for the team on the pitch, Chelsea will crumble and die within a few years.
But now, with Mourinho gone, what will happen?
We might win and we might lose. Once again, Life and Chelsea are back on the same track, and it feels good!
In purely commercial terms, Roman Abramovich has scored a massive own goal by sacking Jose Mourinho, but ironically, in the process, he gave me back the team that mirrors life as I see it: ever unpredictable, often astonishing and sometimes plain appalling, Chelsea came back to me. (The Snapper, however, is still in mourning.)

****

On a slightly more literate note, by now the winner of the Man Booker Prize will be known, and the winning author will be showered with fame and wealth.
Indeed, each writer on this year's Booker Shortlist is guaranteed to sell several thousand copies of their nominated novels.
However, it's worth taking a quick look at the numbers of those books sold before they were nominated on the Shortlist.
While über-scribbler Ian McEwan's novella 'On Chesil Beach' had found its way into a respectable 99,660 homes, Nichola Barker's 'Darkmans' had sold less than 500 copies.
Two of the other shortlisted books had sold less than 900, and quite amazingly, 'Animal's People' by Indra Sinha had made it onto the list despite having sold only 231 copies.
231 copies? Is that all it takes to catch a ride on the Man Booker Prize Express?
Once you've flogged a few to your mates, your family, and the barstaff at the launch; put 20 in a box in the attic for those yet-to-be-born grandchildren who will be oh-so grateful for your foresight, you'll have flogged 250 copies.
So why would anyone want to try and write fiction? Clearly, it's not for the money. Sure, the above shortlisted books will now make their writers rich, but it is, after all, a short list.
Personally, I think we scribblers are just a bunch of nutters who need to write in order to function as vaguely acceptable human entities, and some of us are better at it than others.
But if you only need to flog 200 copies to make the Man Booker Shortlist, there's hope for us all.
So the next time somebody tells you they are writing a novel, hesitate for at least a second before you gush
'Oh wow! You'll be loaded! Remember us simple folk when you're a gazillionaire!'

Double Vision

Caricatures Ireland

Dangerous T-shirts, testing tea bags,raving coaches and dodgy defenders!

Rather than the beginning, which always seems to get more than its fair share of starts, let's go back a couple of weeks, to when this colyoom showed surprise and disgust at Prince Charles' apparent lack of grey matter.
For those of you who managed to escape my blather that week, we're talking about how the heir to the British crown had appeared nonplussed when (the then) President Reagan served him up a cup of Rosy Lea with a teabag in it.
"I didn't know what to do!" grumbled the Prince, precipitating a mean-spirited diatribe from your scribbler.
One sensitive local soul, who shall remain nameless for fear of being outed a staunch monarchist in this Republic of Ireland, took the time and trouble to point out that, quite possibly, I had missed the point; shot my load in the wrong direction, as it were.
She reminded me that over in Yammerikka, it was quite possible that Chazza's cuppa was in fact not a cup at all, but a mug, served without saucer.
Given that set of circumstances his Princeship might indeed not have known what to do, as in 'what to do ... with the bag'.
After all, you wouldn't want to dump a wet squidgy payload onto the polished oak desk of the White House's Oval Office, would you?
Hey, leave Bill Clinton out of this.
The obvious question that follows is 'Do we care?', and the temptation is to say 'Only as much as Bertie Ahern cares about repaying those 'loans' from his mates.
But this colyoom is nothing if not fair. That item slammed the Boy Windsor for being even more brainless than his host. Now, thanks to time taken by an absurdly caring and ridiculously imaginative Galwegian, I retract my accusation.
Yes folks, it is possible that Prince Charles is an eentsy bit brainier that the (late) Ronald Reagan, even if Big Ears hasn't yet had an airport named after him.
While we're looking back at recent colyooms, thanks to Chris from Yorkshire (who reads the colyoom on the blog) who, inspired a few weeks ago by the wee item about logos lost in translation, alerted me to a certain T-shirt that was, up until recently, on sale in Burton, the male clothing retail giant.
Helping lads look all 'ard and effnic, said T-shirt sports a quasi-imperial crest, surrounded by well-foreign-looking letters; a look, no doubt; that makes you want to get drunk in Nottingham and beat up a few police after the pub.
Well, while you'd be okay wearing it darn va nick in Nottingham, don't go displaying it in Moscow's Red Square, because the shirt's crest turns out to be the emblem of the Russian equivalent of the fascist National Front Party, and those funny lickle shapes spell out the heart-warming message:
'We will cleanse Russia of all non-Russians!'
How charming! How scary! How did that happen?
Or, to be more honest, how come this kind of thing doesn't happen more often? In our modern yet tiny global village, so many, like me, live our lives in foreign countries, it is only a matter of time before tremendous linguistic faux pas dribble forth.
Giovanni Trapattoni, who I strongly suspect might be Italian, is the coach of Austrian soccer champions, Red Bull Salzburg.
Showing a poetic talent that, despite his managerial achievements, suggests he might well have followed the wrong career, Snr. Trapattoni let rip at a bunch of German journalists (what, pray, is the collective noun for more than one journalist? A 'haemorrhoid' of hacks? Perchance a 'claptrap'' of correspondents? Or what about an 'emetic 'of Editors? ... email suggestions...) who were criticising his fitness coach, Fausto Rossi.
Breaking with timeless and sacred journalistic traditions, the German hacks delivered their revenge by printing exactly what the national coach said, word for word:
"Our training is strong. Is modern. Training wins also. I have 21 trophies. There is blah, blah, blah from you. Fools write who know nothing. Blah, blah, blah, blah. I can understand people paying. No problema! Let whistle, is right. Have lost. But run 90 minutes! I am a professional when it comes to psychology. We train, make fitness. You people always make qua, qua, qua! Shit fools!"
Very well said sir! I speak no Italian and only a little German, but reading that just makes me want to learn both languages, so that I can fully enter into your fascinating mind.
While we're on the subjects of words and footballers, David Hills of The Observer reminds us that we don't have to go to mainland Europe to become dazzled by footballing crassness.
Manchester Untied and England defender Rio Ferdinand (yes, the very same fella fined and suspended for 'forgetting' to turn up for a vital drugs test) decided that the time had come to put something back, to nurture his youthful roots, by fronting a major anti-knives campaign, alongside an anti-guns initiative.
Heading off to Downing Street, Rio talked to Tony Blair about how playing shoot-em-up games on PlayStations and other consoles is turning young lads into deadly marksmen, which has resulted in many young people in urban English 'sink estates' wearing body armour to protect them when they go outside.
One of the PM's staff later declared: "Kids have no male role model. Rio's just the man!"
Sadly, Rio turned out to be 'Da Man' more than the man, when a few short months later,
he listed in a magazine a few of his favourite things:
Rio's Favourite Rapper: Notorious B.I.G.
Nice one Rio! After all, what better music could you suggest to vulnerable young things than an artist whose tracklist includes such exemplary role model ditties as 'Somebody's Gotta Die'; 'Fuck You Tonight'; 'Niggas Bleed', and wholly enchanting 'Me and My Bitch'. B.I.G., an ex-dealer, was shot dead in a drive-by shooting during a gangland war.
Rio's Favourite Book: 'Cocky' which is the story of Curtis Warren, the notorious gangland criminal mastermind who made a fortune out of drugs and murder.
Rio's Favourite Console Game: SOCOM US Navy Seals, which is described in a review as:
'A game that lets you yank victims into the darkness and do the deed. There's a cool animation as the knife runs along their soft flesh...'
Clearly Rio Ferdinand is an all-round heads-up guy, more than able to lead Britain's at-risk youth into a life of violence, crime and... well, I suppose they could always become footballers instead!
cadley1@eircom.net
Double Vision
More cartoons.

How will the capitalist, the communist and the fascist settle their football scores?

No more inflated bladders and onion bags. Soccer all gone upriver for a few blessed months, with neither a World Cup nor a European Championship to fill the lock.
The back pages of Redtops will be filled with speculation on transfers and all the usual managerial sacking Hoo-Haa, but I will be taking a breather.
August will be round again soon enough, when the Community Shield season opener will be between cup winners Chelsea and league winners Manchester United, and we'll all be deja-vuing like there was no tomorrow.
This comes from a Chelsea fan, a happy Chelsea fan whose team, at the time of writing has both cup and manager intact.
I originally became a Chelsea fan simply because they were my Dad's team, and he took me to Stamford Bridge. Blood is thicker than water, and as I stuck with the Blues through thick and thin, relegation and promotion, there grew a deeper bond between myself and the club.
Over the decades I realised we were not the same as other clubs. No matter which idiosyncratic character is at the managerial helm; irrespective of which super-egoed players sporting bizarre haircuts and glowing reputations wore the blue shirt; sometimes despite and sometimes because of who owned the club at any particular time; permanence and consistency as a way of life had no place at Chelsea FC.
We are and always have been the Flash Harry superstars; mere Flash-in-the-pan success merchants; flashy with money and fashion and flashy with cars and birds.
On the pitch, Chelsea always had players who were capable of flashes of brilliance. Nothing that lasted, just a 'good cup side', which is a nice way of describing a team which capitulates to minnows, but might turn on the style against the big teams, on their day, when they could be arsed.
And then came Abramovich, Kenyon and Mourinho, and everything changed.
For the first time in their history, Chelsea were consistently beating the little teams as well as the big teams, home and away, week after week. It might not be pretty, but it's bloody effective, and along the way there are flashes of brilliance just so that you know you're still watching Chelsea.
Sure United and Arsenal are a lot prettier, but all they have to offer is a cantankerous purple-faced Scot and a melancholic delusional Frenchman.
We at Chelsea can offer the full Shakespearean drama, in which the players play only small parts, distant generals out in the field, occasionally appearing in cameos when their contracts are up or another vat of transfer money is to be made
Scene: Forum on stormy day: Enter Kenyon, dressed in white silk toga, the capitalist money-maker, who is also a self-avowed lifelong supporter of Chelsea's major opponents, Manchester United:
"Dollar double cook up some trouble... two giants of their Kingdoms come. All powerful are they within their own realms, and yet, without me, they have nothing (cackle). For all his power the Russian Bear needs my face to talk to our people. He needs my shoulders on which to launder his great wealth. And as for that Portuguese fascist, the pompous piratical pri-"
As Kenyon rambles, Mourinho approaches, somehow looking so good in a simple yet stylish brown tunic with gold and blue armoured trim. Sneaking up on Kenyon, he talks quietly into his ear from behind:
"And me? You say I need you too? Truly if you think that you delude yourself more than I do when I throw away medals into the crowd. I do not need either of you, you fools. I can go today and be welcomed by millions in any Kingdom in the world."
"And so you can my handsome moody and most mysterious Iberian pally boy, but the world today is a vile and unnatural place. The Communist Bear is strong, and even richer today than any capitalist, so for you to stay here you must please the Russian. Now take my advice (cackle cackle) you will never win Mother Russia 's heart by trying to make her look foolish."
"I do not need to make him look foolish. He does it very well by himself."
Enter Abramovich in flowing purple robes, with dancing ladies in entourage.
"Hail Money Manager man and Man Manager man. Hahahahaaar! I forgot your names again, but hahahahaaaar, it does not matter, because I am all powerful and can have you drown in a bath filled with boiling borscht should the whim attract me! Hahahahaaar! Did we win the Champions League yet?"
Chelsea have always been uncomfortably big yet brittle, brash yet belittled too often.
As one after another English Premiership team is bought up like the latest fashion accessory by foreign magnates of extremely dubious pedigree, should I fear for the future of my team?
During the games of the latter half of last season, Mourinho started to sit holding his left arm up against his chest, rather unnervingly resembling Dr. Strangelove and his efforts to restrain his Heil-Hitlering arm.
Kenyon is a slimy Iago slithering sycophantically from leader to leader, while Abramovich has built a fortune on the back of broken peasants, and will quite possibly get his full comeuppance when Putin is finally removed from power.
My beloved Chelsea FC will survive all these dodgy geezers along with their dark and dismal dosh. Diving up and down in fortune and fortunes, greatness will always ebb and flow from Stamford Bridge.
Attracted to the aforementioned flashiness of the club, gifted players and great characters have always entertained Chelsea fans on our road to oblivion and back.
Dazzling talents from Jimmy Greaves to Gianluca Vialli, from Ruud Gullit to Peter Osgood, Charlie Cooke to Gianfranco Zola have graced the Chelsea shirt. Great team players like John Terry, Chopper Harris, John Hollins and Marcel Desailly have stayed the course while others have come and gone.
How will Chelsea's triumvirate of massive male egos finally settle their differences?
How will the capitalist snake, the communist capitalist and the charismatic fascist settle their scores?
Perchance we need to return to great theatrical tragedy, where by the final act the stage is inevitably strewn with bloodied bodies.
Enter John Terry, Frank Lampard, steam rising from their first team strip:
"Gaffer! Gaffer! We won! We bloody won, just like you - oh bloody 'ell Lamps! Looks like we're too late!"
"Yeh, JT! They'll never know now! It's a blue day!"
cadley1@eircom.net

Criminal celery, tattooed mountain women and other journeys into absurdity!

Life often appears to me as nothing much more than a wrestling match with the absurd.
Far from being a bad thing, these tussles, tumbles and teases with the preposterous and incongruous allow me to enjoy my life a great deal more than I would if I was forced to live in a rigid and rational reality.
A bit of nonsense every now and then can put a smile on your face, d'ya'know?
Over the water at my beloved Chelsea FC, while the media stalk celebrity 'Socceristas' Jose Mourinho and Roman Abramovich, there is a fascinating and altogether more absurd struggle going on between the fans, the police, the Football Association and the club.
After each game, the referee makes a report which he delivers to the FA.
As a result of two recent referee reports, the FA has warned Chelsea that they are investigating celery-related incidents, and that the club may suffer sanctions if celery is thrown during games.
Celery? Yes, celery.
Whilst to the uninitiated amongst ye, this may appear strange beyond reason, inside the mind of every Chelsea fan reading this, there now sings a little song.
Unfortunately, the lyrics that accompany said ditty are just a tad crude for this family newspaper, but suffice to say that upon its catchy rhythmic melody rides a suggestion that if the lady in question does not intimately peak as dramatically as she might, a little tickling of her least visible orifice with a stick of celery might just do the trick.
Some might see a football chant. Others merely valuable and imaginative advice.
But now the Law has moved in, and once again absurdity has sewn its seed and taken root on the pitch at Stamford Bridge.
Chelsea have made a strong statement advising fans that anyone caught throwing the 'popular salad vegetable' could end up being banned from the ground. In the past, English clubs have seen idiots in the crowd throwing coins, in spiteful malicious attempts to injure visiting players.
But whereas that constitutes a physical threat, the throwing of sticks of celery, accompanied by the singing of the song itself, threatens only to make me feel proud to be a Chelsea fan.
Into the super-serious multi-billion pound industry that Premiership soccer has become, we Blues introduce a smidgen of absurdity.
As a club, we may be riding high these days, but we have yo-yoed up and down the leagues, and suffered enough over the decades to know that nothing lasts; that life is absurd and that we have to enjoy it as and when we are able.
Celery is now a banned substance at Stamford Bridge. We been officially warned by Chelsea FC that "The throwing of celery is a criminal offence for which you can be arrested and end up with a criminal record."
And just to help us lose all touch with sensible reality, employing shades of RUC tactics from the bad old days in The North, the club has urged fans who spot other fans doing naughty things with celery to call their the newly-opened Celery Line.
Chelsea FC, who might have exercised a little more wit and restraint, promise "All calls will be treated in confidence.", but by taking the stick between the teeth, they have allowed a wonderful slice of absurdity to cut the austerity of reality.
Can you grass someone up to the police about a vegetable?
Does that mean you have to vegetable someone to the cops about grass?

****

Thanks to one of my favourite annual competitions, we have no need to stray from the wonderful wold of the absurd.
Once again, the estimable The Bookseller magazine has invited libraries, publishers, agents and ...yes... booksellers to submit their choices for the award 'Oddest Book Title Of The Year.'
Ever since 'Proceedings Of The Second International Workshop On Nude Mice' ran away as winner of the first award in 1978, I have been enchanted by the whole affair. In 1985, at the height of militant feminism, the winner was 'Natural Bust Enlargement With Total Power: How To Increase The Other 90% Of Your Mind To Increase The Size Of Your Breasts'.
Personal politics still played a part in the following year's winner: 'Oral Sadism And The Vegetarian Personality', and stayed relevant all the way to 1990's winner, 'Lesbian Sadomasochism Safety Manual'.
Although last year's winner was the robustly original 'People Who Don't Know They Are Dead: How They Attach Themselves To Unsuspecting Bystanders And What To Do About It', my personal favourites are 2002's gloriously titled winner: 'Living with Crazy Buttocks' and 2004's plainly bizarre and brazenly enigmatic 'Bombproof Your Horse'.
Why not join in the fun, and vote for this year's winner at www.thebookselller.com?
Refreshingly, the actual content of the book is wholly irrelevant. All you must concern yourself with is the book's title, and to help you with this, I print below this year's official shortlist.
And before you ask, yes, they are all real, and have all been published in the last year. Choose between:
'D DI Mascio's Delicious Ice Cream: D Di Mascio Of Coventry - An Ice Cream Company Of Repute, With An Interesting And Varied Fleet Of Ice Cream Vans' by Roger de Boer. Yes, you guessed correct. It's an ice cream history of Coventry.
'How Green Were The Nazis?' by Franz-Josef Bruggemeier, Mark Cioc and Thomas Zeller, which offers an environmental perspective on the Third Reich.
'The Stray Shopping Carts Of Eastern North America: A Guide To Field Identification' by Julian Montague is described by its publishers as a way '...to comprehend the complex relationship between (shopping) cart and landscape.'
Let's invite them over to check out the contents of Irish canals for Volume Two!
'Tattooed Mountain Women And Spoon Boxes Of Daghestan' by Robert Chenciner, Gabib Ismailov, Magomedkhan Magomedkhanov and Alex Binnie. This baby is self-explanatory, as much as it also completely defies explanation.
'Proceedings of The 18th International Seaweed Symposium' has so many editors I cannot name one, and finally, a rather cheerful little tome entitled:
'Better Never To Have Been: The Harm of Coming Into Existence' by David Benatar.
Have fun, vote wisely, and never ever forget the wonder and wisdom awaiting those who revel and romp in the absurd.
cadley1@eircom.net
http://doubledoublevision.blogspot.com