'She'll be fine now' - that's why I live here!

Several weeks ago, just after the big Grand Slam rugby match in Dublin, I was at Luton Airport for the late night flight to Galway. The security guard at looked at my boarding pass.

 “Hope you're happy now, beating us at cricket and rugby!”

There was an edge of good old-fashioned English aggression in his tone, so I walked on through into the Departure Area without bothering to tell him I was English too. His tongue-lash reminded me why I prefer the lack of violence inherent in the people of the West of Ireland to the latent violence all over English attitudes.

Trouble was, after that rugby match, I'd read acres of Irish newspapers and listened to scores of Irish voices telling me how, sure, wasn't it feckin' mighty to wipe those smile off the faces of the auld enemy? The nationalist fever (yes, 'nationalist' is the word, unless you prefer 'jingoistic') that surrounded the victory made me wonder: why have I been in love with the West, ever since I arrived here 19 years ago?

The memory of a friend's voice slid through my brain. Back in London, outside a pub, he'd asked

“So what is it you love so much about living out there, Charlie? The whole country's broke and anyway, don't they hate you for being English ?”
“Dunno.” I offered eloquently in reply.
“Do you ever think of coming back to England?”
“Not a chance.”

If relationships are all about the bad times, then my love of the West of Ireland must run strong and true. As we in the West know, when economists and journalists say 'Ireland' they mean 'Dublin and the Pale'. If life in that 'Ireland' is described as tough, you can bet the price of your last pint that times are even harder in the West, yet still I'd live nowhere else.

Whereas in England people are culturally and bureaucratically punished for being poor, here in the West of Ireland a simple humanity thrives still. Despite the inescapable melancholy that pervades our daily lives; the stark hard fact that jobs this side of the Shannon are rarer than raw meat and that paying each month's rent or mortgage now presents a financial mountain to climb, we stick together and have a laugh.

It's safe to say that 'Hard Times' is the West of Ireland's default setting. Here we know how to smile when life is hard, and we're famous for the way we party. Thankfully, the people of the West of Ireland determine for themselves when times are good, and it's rarely based on our financial status. A good time might be the next 9 minutes, the next 8 hours, or it might not come for weeks and months. But from the moment she kicks off her shoes, be ready to dance!

The flight landed safely back at Galway Airport around midnight. I showed my UK passport to the Irish Immigration Officer.

“Enjoy your stay.”

For the second time that night I couldn’t be bothered to explain that while yes, I'm English, I first arrived in Galway almost  two decades ago. It's my home, has been for ages. I love it, hate it, know it backwards, inside out, up the wall and around the bend, as only an outsider can. Yet 'tis the curse of the blow-in, to answer every single day of your life “Are you on holidays?” or “Whereabouts in London are you from? I was over there in the 50s, d'y'know!”

Galway Airport has two Car Park Payment machines, each side of the Terminal entrance. That night the machine on the right had an 'Out Of Order' notice stuck on it, and there was already a long queue for the one remaining machine. The slightly harassed and hirsute American at the front of the queue put his ticket into the machine, but it didn't register.

Nothing happened.

Feeling twelve pairs of impatient eyes burning his neck from behind, he started pressing buttons like Ensign Sulu on Red Alert. As we looked on over his shoulder, the screen went German, Norwegian, all over the place.

There were grumblings in the queue. It was late. We were tired. We wanted to pay for our parking but if their equipment wasn't working then couldn't they just raise the barrier and let us go? Please?

Frustrated, the American tourist went off to speak to the folk at the Information Desk, and sure enough, a few minutes later a bloke with a bright orange plastic toolkit arrived.
At last someone was on the case. He was going to take on the machine.

Except he didn't.

Side-stepping us all, he strolled over to the other machine and peeled off the 'Out Of Order’ sign that was taped to it.

“You can use this one now!” he said, as we all gasped astonished. Facing us with not a trace of a smile, he explained

 “Sure, it was just booting up. Takes about an hour. She'll be fine now!”

While others around me made infuriated grumpy sounds and wha'th'hell perplexed explosives, I smiled as I slipped in my ticket, giggled a little as I paid my money, chuckled as I left the airport and guffawed as I drove home.

She'll be fine now. That's what the man said, and that's why I love living here. The sign might say 'Out Of Order', but that's not the truth of it. Life's absurdities are relied upon and respected in the West of Ireland, and after travelling around the planet a couple of times, I found out that I belong here.

A little bit of what you fancy does you good!

Saturday night, fire blazing in the grate. 

Channel 4, 9 p.m. Continuity announcer:

“The following programme contains strong language and violence throughout, with scenes of a strongly sexual nature and drug taking from the start.”

I turn to the Snapper.

“Excellent! That’s what we like to hear, innit girl!”

My London cocktail: Love, fun and fear, shaken and stirred!

The driver of the shuttle bus that runs between Luton Airport and the car rental centre smiles at me and says “How’re ya doing?”

The bloke behind the Hertz car rental desk also smiles and wishes me a good weekend as I walk away.

‘Blimey!’ I think to myself. ‘Maybe I’ve been too hasty in the past to condemn England. Maybe it isn’t that violent place I’ve so often written about.’

Hurtling down the M1, I turn off at Edgware and head towards my Mum’s place. Just before you drive through Stanmore there’s a crossroads with traffic lights, and as I slide into the left-hand lane, the car on my right suddenly moves across to change lanes. He’s coming straight for me, so I slam on the brakes, and thinking he hasn’t seen my car, I give a short ‘pip’ on the car’s horn to let him know I’m there.

As the old Renault moves into the space in front of me I can see its driver looking at me in his rear view mirror. His neck is as thick as mine, his hair cropped short and both he and his missis are resting their arms on the car’s open window sills, flicking fag ash.

He knows that I know he’s looking at me in his rear view mirror, so I shrug my shoulders in an attempt to say ‘Sorry, I just rented this car and didn’t want to prang it!’

He shrugs his shoulders too, but stays staring at me in his rear view mirror, his hand still agitatedly flicking fag ash, even though there is no ash on his fag to flick.

I try to ignore him, and look out of the window, but I can see him in front of me, mimicking my every move. I scratch an itch on the back of my neck, and he does the same. I gesture with my hands towards my windscreen, trying to let him know that I got it, ha ha, now grow up and leave me be.

He gestures towards his windscreen just as I did, and I can no longer pretend that this is an amicable routine. He’s winding me up, or at least he’s trying to, but I have a really busy schedule, and being beaten up before I get to my Mum’s isn’t really on my agenda.

I don’t need this. I don’t bloody need this right now, not from him, not from anybody. I’m starting to feel a little bit scared. The traffic lights turn green, but as all the cars move off, he rolls his towards the light at a snail’s pace and then stops, right in front of the green light, with me stuck behind him. 

Oh shit. Oh fuck. He’s looking for trouble, and I’m starting to feel real fear. While the alpha male in me wants to get out and tell him to grow up, I know I’m a lover not a fighter. What kind of pathetic sad character is he? What pale imitation of a life must he have if his idea of fun is to pick a fight with an absolute stranger because somebody pipped a car horn in his direction?

His missis has not moved an inch. She sits slumped in her chair, relaxed and evidently well used to this type of behaviour.

As the rest of the cars go past us he sits staring at me, challenging me, wanting me to do something that’ll let him vent his fury. 

Maybe he can’t get it up. 

Maybe he’s had a terrible childhood and cannot be held responsible for his actions. 

Yeh, and maybe I couldn’t give a bleeding heart liberal damn about him and his pathetic existence. 

Slowly my fear is turning to anger. My England buds are awaking, losing their veneer of Galway chilldom, and starting to pump with adrenaline. He’s a big bloke, and clearly no stranger to fighting. If you go around behaving like this, you don’t only know how to fight, you enjoy it too.

Resisting the strong desire that is rising within me to sink to his level, to get out of my car and face him and beat four shades of crap out of him, I sit instead calmly and wait for him to drive off. We sit in our cars and watch another full traffic light cycle, during which time I restrain myself, somehow managing not to give him the finger or any other reason he might grab to get out of his car and have a go at me. 

Then he sloooowly drives away, with me behind him keeping a good distance, in case he slams on his brakes and causes me to rear end his car.

Five minutes later I’m at my mum’s, and back in the green and pleasant land of my birth. There is tea in bone china cups, Wimbers on the tele and a great weekend ahead of me. 

But despite an hour earlier wondering whether I’d been unfair to write all those features about the latent violence inherent in English society, I now feel justified. Shaken and stirred, happy and sad, excited and fearful, the cocktail of emotion that runs through me every time I return to London is as powerful as ever. 

I was meant to be beaten up Charlie - if not by someone else, then by myself!

You know how your brain can drift off in strange directions. I was reading about how Archie Young, a 14 year-old chorister at Westminster Abbey, recently foiled a mugger on the streets of London. Having been told to hand over his iPod, the youngster just said
"I'd rather not!" and precipitated a conversation that ended up confusing the would-be thief, who eventually walked away.
Instead of delving deeper into the magazine interview, my mind settled upon a Saturday lunchtime a good few years back, when I met the Guru in the Quays.
Much to my horror, my friend's face was bearing the scars of a terrible beating. There was a fresh red bloody scabby wound on his chin, and across his forehead another fresh long gash that had only recently stopped bleeding.
Clearly the Guru had been in a punch-up, and inside me this triggered a deep hurt and a feeling of offence. Not offense, as in attacking, a desire to go out and rip to shreds the people who had done this to my mate, but offence, as if to say I felt offended by the world on the Guru's behalf.
I felt embarrassed to be part of a world that could do such a thing to a man like the Guru.
I have known him since I was nine years old, and as youths we broke plenty of rules, rebelled more than most, and since then have both made sure to live our own lives, and not those proscribed by others, or convention itself.
The Guru has for several decades been a student of Peace: a spiritual, vegetarian, non-violent human of the first order, neither cloying with hippy sweetness, nor burdened with annoying New Age Evangelical nonsensicals.
Sometimes he has been unable to enjoy within himself the calm he projects to others, but he looks at the world in a most balanced manner.
"Bloody hell mate! What happened to you? Who was it? Tell me their name!"
"I didn't get beaten up, Charlie. Somebody wanted to, but it never happened!"
"But but, so then but why did you that how...?"
"Okay, so last night I went out to Arus na Gael, and then decided to walk back home along the river. As I was going past the university residences, I saw this bloke having a go at his girlfriend. It didn't look pretty, so I sort of yelled out to him 'Oi!' "
"And then he came over and thwacked you?"
"Well no, but he stopped fighting with her, and they both turned on me, and I thought 'Oh blimey, why can't I keep my mouth shut!' "
"Then what?"
"Well then he was standing in front of me, telling me to mind my own fucking business, and he pulled his arm back to punch me in the face. Suddenly I spread my arms out wide, stretched out as far as they could go, and looked him in the eye, and smiled a huge smile at him, and stood there ready to take it. He hesitated and I was laughing, saying
'You're not really going to hit me are you? You don't really want to, do you?', and then we looked at each other for ages, while his girlfriend stood there telling him to do it."
"Gordhelpus Guru, you've got some nerve!" I offered, looking at my bloodied messed-up friend's face.
"Not really! You see, before I knew it, he had collapsed into my open arms and was weeping and hugging me, and saying over and over again that he didn't want to do it. We hugged for a while, and then he pulled away, nodded at me, grabbed his girlfriend's hand and walked away."
"Ayyy-mayyy-zing! Bloody hell! Only you mate! Only you! But if he didn't beat you up, how did you ...who did it?"
"I did it to myself Charlie!"
For a second I considered the possibility of the Guru self-flagellating, but instantly I knew he was as unlikely to harm himself as he was to attack another.
"But how?"
"Well, after they walked off I was filled with a powerful euphoria... I was so full of myself, burning with light and love, and oh aren't I great, and wasn't that wonderful, and all that stuff, that I didn't look where I was going. My foot must have hit a tree stump or something, because before I could take a single step, I fell flat on my face right onto the gravel, so suddenly and quickly that I had no chance to put a hand out or anything!'"
"..and that's how you...?"
"...yeh, that made this!" he said, pointing to his two bloodied wounds.
"So you managed to save yourself from a beating, but you ended up beating up yourself!"
"Well Charlie, the way I'm coming to see it is that I was meant to be beaten up last night, one way or another."
"Jeezus peezus Guru, sometimes your thinking goes a step too far for me!"
For a while I just couldn't stop laughing.
Then I looked at my friend's face, his poor innocent mashed-up face, and thought of how strange the other guy must have felt; how confused his girlfriend must have been; how amazing the Guru is, not only to try something like that, but also to pull it off, make it work, and quite possibly in the process change the other man's life for good.
Sometimes I just don't know what to say. At such moments as this, I find the following most helpful:
"Can I buy you a drink?"
"Oh, go on then!"
"Good. At least that makes sense to me!"
We raised glasses and looked each other in the eyes, laughed hearty head-thrown back manly guffaws at the wonder and madness of it all, and drank to life, l'Chaiim."
****
So messy is my desk that only today I found an item meant for the 2006 DV Awards.
Better late than never, the 'Freudian Slip When I Say Udders I Mean Mammy' DV for Meaning What You Said The First Time goes to the newsreader on Today FM, who reported that Taioseach Bertie Ahern had declared 2006 his 'Anus Horribilis'.
Possibly Bertie actually said it was his 'Annus Horribilis'; thereby admitting having had a terrible year, but I prefer to believe what the female journalist stated in her story: that Bertie really knows he's a dreadful arsehole.