Kid A. X Tractor.

Summer is departing and with it goes that unique Irish tradition of thirteen year old boys in county jerseys driving tractors the size of houses on country roads. Is the inverse of normal licensing requirements at work when it comes to tractors, I mean do you have to be under sixteen to drive one nowadays? Evidently there are random Department of Transport spot checks to make sure that when pulling a Titanic sized load down a pot holed boreen that you have to be disfigured by acne and flooring it. Are you at risk of having your license revoked if found driving one of these beasts while employing a modicum of road sense or in possession of anything which has been manufactured by the Gillette corporation? “It’s out of my hands Paudie, you were pulling twenty eight round bales and you slowed down coming into that hairpin bend, it contravenes everything we stand for. You’ll have to sit on top of the unsecured load for a few years till you get a bit of sense. One day you’ll thank me for this”

Charity Begins Elsewhere

Tube Tied

When you’re channel surfing late at night what exactly do you need to come upon to make you stop? How good does something have to be to prevent you from going around the complete circuit for the fourteenth time in as many minutes? You would think that when you happen upon the Interpol set from the Reading Festival or a previously unseen interview with Che Guevara in his dying moments or a Ken Burns documentary on the faking of the moon landings that you would drop the remote and settle down. But no, the lunacy continues unabated until you have tutted yourself into a hysterical frenzy over the paucity of quality programming on telly these days. That BBC is nothing but repeats, Channel Four is Big Brother on a loop, RTE is far too parochial and Sky Sports is an extra fifty quid a month and they can stick that right up their arse. Besides what would I do with my hands if I decided to actually watch something? The Rubik cube is surely not manufactured anymore, I can’t smoke in the house and I can’t see myself taking up knitting or embroidery. What’s on? Oh I know what’s on, it’s what else is on that concerns me. I want to find something decent so I can completely ignore it and in so doing authenticate my quest by upgrading my expectations while simultaneously guaranteeing my ultimate disappointment. I want to up the ante in the self fulfilling prophesy of misery. Better to travel than arrive, Patsy.

Oh To Be Frank

Yesterday I passed a recently built development of twelve houses. At the entrance stood a huge estate agent's sign which proclaimed excitedly that there were “only nine left”. Because let's face it erecting a sign which says “On the market an entire year and only three of the tasteless, overpriced mangy kips sold, Jesus H. Christ what's wrong with you people?” on it would probably be considered a no no from a PR perspective. There would have to a certain amount of goodwill which would accrue from its refreshing honesty though, I would have thought. Candid advertising; it'll be all the rage by this time next year, mark my words.

Ballyhoo Tube

There is officially nothing that cannot be found on You Tube. You can put in the most outlandish search parameters and a plethora of options will instantly and miraculously appear. It’s at the point now where I genuinely believe it to be under the control of fairies, such is its magical power. There I was the other day, having just viewed and enjoyed some decidedly grainy footage of me winning the sack race at the Parish Sports in 1979 when I decided to search for my five year old son duetting Moon River with Frank Sinatra. The sound quality of the resultant clip wasn’t brilliant but was still good enough to showcase my son’s promising booming baritone voice and certainly did not dampen my excitement. The picture was quite twitchy but it still managed to remind me of just how impressive a setting Carnegie Hall really is. The biggest revelation however had to be the posting which showed me and several of my primary school contemporaries disembarking from a lunar module during our third class nature trip to the moon in 1980, footage which I was sure had been long since lost. Not to mention the likes of the clip with Che Guevara joining Christy Moore on stage at The Beaten Path in Claremorris to play the spoons on Joxer Goes to Stuttgart. Stop the lights. Gas altogether.

Size Matters, Apparently

I have just seen a TV3 presenter outside the new Ikea store in Dublin in front of a baying mob of anxious punters champing at the bit to get in. The doors are about to be thrown open any minute and the tension all over north Dublin is, quite naturally, unbearable. The store we are told is “the size of several football pitches.” This shoddy description renders a good image hard to conjure since the presenter did not say whether she was talking about gaelic, soccer, aussie rules or even grid iron. And “several” left me with a muddled, unsatisfactory picture in my head. I resolved not to set foot next nor near the place until I acquire a more accurate mental image of the scale of the sales floor, in sporting terms of course. Surely Micheal O’ Muireheartigh was the man to anchor that report, not some Xpose type handbag addict. “ I can now reveal that the sales floor in this retail facility is equivalent in size to the combined playing area in O’Moore Park, Parnell Park, St. Conleths Park, Markiewicz Park ( prior to redevelopment), Semple Stadium and Dr. Cullen Park up to and including the 45m line at the town end”. Much better. Now that’s a place I can shop.

A new swimming pool opened recently in our local town and I recall excitedly describing the facility to a friend of mine who had yet to visit it. “How big is the pool?” was his sole, perplexing response. “Massive” I replied. “Yeah but how big, is it Olympic size like?” was his insistent reply. It’s funny, you think you know someone but here was a guy I have known for years who was obviously secretly harbouring ambitions to launch an assault on Michael Phelps’ 200m freestyle world record, and in the heart of the midlands to boot. I am watching his progress intently, this is the type of thing we need to put us on the map. That and a discount furniture store the size of several Olympic swimming pools. We shall be known henceforth as the definitive, undisputed Olympic Village.

Summertime And The Living Is Queasy

Have you heard the new version of “Year of the Cat” by Tehran based singer songwriter Al Jazeera? Bloody brilliant it is. You can get it on i tunes.

Have you succumbed to the temptation to quantify the remainder of your life? For example if you are thirty five you might reasonably expect to live to seventy five and, like myself, you take one shower a month that equates to only 480 more showers. If you have a shave before each shower and use Gillette Fusion razors that’s only a half dozen more four packs you’ll have to buy for the rest of your life. Keep track by drawing up a simple square grid and hanging it, and a pencil, on the wall beside the bathroom mirror.

Dennis Hopper, on screen for the first time in Blue Velvet. Come on Dennis Hopper legend of the silver screen, icon of celluloid; explain it all to me in your typically subtle, brilliantly understated way. Let your first dramatic utterance shed some much needed light on this debacle of plot and posture. I’m confused Dennis, this tangled gothic parody has me all perplexed. Bring your presence, your stature, your aura to bear on this cinematic nail bomb. We’ve waited for you Dennis, we knew you were coming and that when you arrived you would set things straight. What’s going on Dennis, please? I need to know. At which point Dennis scans the situation and booms as loud as his larynx will permit “fuck you fuckers fuck”. Grand that’s me up to speed then. Thank you Dennis Hopper. Legend.

Would the assassination of Brian Cowen qualify as a circumstance under which he would consider his position? I am of course speaking within the context of an agreed framework under which clearly established procedures and parameters of negotiation with the social partners could form the basis of the substantive issues which would then clearly need to be addressed in an inclusive manner notwithstanding current global market conditions which are still uncertain while our fundamentals are sound and sixteen pints a night does not constitute a drink problem. Not where I come from at any rate, going forward.