So...the BBC didn't want any negative information about the late Jimmy Savile coming out...
And...Pat Kenny of RTE doesn't want any negative information about the late Gerry Ryan coming out...
"That book should not have been written", he is reported of saying about the beautiful Melanie's book which, among other things, deals with her late lover the RTE presenter Gerry Ryan.
It's ludicrous, methinks. And Gerry Ryan wasn't even a paedophile, he was just a rather sad character who took too much cocaine and didn't have any friends.
Interesting now that he's safely dead he does have friends in the Irish media mafia.
Hanging together lest they hang seperately? No doubt. And to be expected. But nonetheless it's rather alarming to note that Ireland's major radio/tv presenter/commentator (€800,000 per year...yes that's five noughts) has come out strongly in favour of book burning.
Ah sure...moving on....
Mentioning books. My own new novel The Snake Dancer of Sati Choura has now been published in print format. And very good it is too. (Though I don't expect Pat Kenny to be interviewing me on any of his shows.)
As part of its publication I thought I'd take a wander round Dublin's remaining bookshops to see how it was looking. And in the course of this wander someone told me there was a new bookshop...well...a newish bookshop down in Temple Bar.
This, I thought, was good news. Bookshops are becoming increasingly few on the ground. Thank God for the world of E, etcetera.
I looked it up. The new bookshop presented itself as a happening sort of place at the cutting edge, reader and writer friendly, all that. I found that it was owned by a bloke who used work for Hughes and Hughes (which went bust) and also with Waterstones (which did likewise). So I reckoned he should know a thing or two about the book business.
I wandered down to The Gutter Bookshop to check it all out.
It was pretty much the same old same old, like a provincial Easons, but with fewer titles. The usual suspects really. Disappointing but, whatever. A bookshop is a bookshop.
Anyway, they'd never heard of my book. But I suppose they are at the far arse end of Temple Bar in a sort of cultural bubble and stuff doesn't really penetrate.
I arranged for a copy of the book to be sent to them.
Week or so later I wandered down again.
No, they hadn't ordered my book. And she, yes she, whoever she was, had no intention of so doing. And conveyed this info in terms which could not be described as warm and friendly.
Ah hah, I thought, this shop is aptly positioned, in Cow Lane.
"Why not?" I asked, my thoughts staying schtum.
"It's not in our demographic."
"Oh. What does that mean?" I asked, but reply there came none...'she' just left and walked away to sell a jumper to a customer.
Yes they sell jumpers.
And why not? I myself used sell horticultural products in Dublin's wholesale vegetable markets. And there's no difference. Some people you meet in the sales game are polite, and some are sheer damn ignorant and rude and offensive.
The product is meaningless.
Sunday, 28 October 2012
Sunday, 30 September 2012
DESSIE SWORDS
This much I know.
I don't English speak very well.
What...am I talking about?
The Guardian newspaper, that's what. It runs a column, or columns a run, if you prefer, entitled this much I know. The content is the same old same old, a few hundred words by no you've never heard of them either. But the title of the pieces, that annoys me. It's pretentious and portentous and lots of other things ending in ous. But hell, it's in the Guardian. A newspaper I only read to avoid The Irish Times. And hell again, I'll you tell, so know you this much, I that never read.
Enough already.
Myself and herself are currently sleeping on a mattress in a room which once was the living room. We now use another room entirely as a living room, a room in the newer part of the house. But the former living room is in the very old part of the house, as is the bedroom we have migrated from. That's all by the by, just setting the scene.
The mattress lies up against a range of bookshelves which act as a sort of headboard. And it is my habit betimes to reach out a hand blindly and take an arbitrary book down. I do this over my head and cannot see which book it is until it is in my hand. It makes for a surprise. It's a journey and exciting. We have been married a while and one must spice up one's bedtime as best one can.
Thing is, becuse this is the abandoned living room, the books in the shelves are likewise, yesterday's items, abandoned, many forgotten and some by Edna O'Brien. The book that came into my hand on a particular day this week was an Anthology of Dalkey, my home town, a pretty little town on the edge of Dublin. Bono lives there now, I don't.
I flipped through the pages of the anthology, a type of memoir, local history. And there I saw a photograph of a man by the name of Dessie Swords.
Ah hah, I said to myself. I knew that Dessie Swords, when I was a child he was Desmond, the verger of the church. Cassock clad he lit the candles before Mass. And rang the daily angelus that pealed acoss the town, at twelve and at six and my Granny crossing herself and muttering incantations.
I had not seen nor heard of him for fifty years.
Thing is, Desmond was part of my early childhood. And, like my Granny and my childhood, he's long gone. And which stars in the sky are the candles he lights in the darkness...that sort of gone.
I put the book back in the shelf and, as The Guardian might say, I no more thought about it. That very day I had to go to Dublin. For work and a spot of socialising. The work was work and the socialising in the evening was to have a meal with a woman whom I had not met for thirty five years. Living in America now, she was visiting Ireland and had got in touch. So myself and my wife and herself and her husband and my mate Michael-the-Mystic all met up to eat. In Michael's house in Dalkey, my old home town. (He, being a mystic, can afford to live there).
Angela and Daniel were a very nice and interesting couple. Everything went swimmingly. Apart from the salmon which my wife had brought along...that didn't ...the guests were vegetarians.
Angela did not come from natural vegetarian territory. On the contrary, she came from an area of nearby DunLaoghaire where, my father used say, "they eat their young". But then, my father said things like that. Those that read my just published book Fragments from Frescati will understand his reasons. Whatever, Angela .comes from what us southsiders know as The Noggin, which is a large working class area of public housing. As mentioned, I come from Dalkey, which is not. (Bono lives there.) But Angela and I had known each other and had met and mingled back in the old hippie days when class and the like were meaningless.
Yeah right.
Anyway, we discussed the writing life and days gone by, and certain people remembered, many best forgotten. Sometime between the vegetarian spaghetti bolognese (don't even ask) and the vegetarian roulade Angela mentioned that as a child she used come right here to Dalkey to visit her Uncle Dessie. In Begnet's Villas.
"Uncle Dessie?"
"Yes, he was the verger in Dalkey Church."
"Dessie Swords? He was your uncle?"
"Yes."
Ah, I thought, remembering that very morning in my idle bed. And my fingers playing the unseen spines of unknown books... like a blind piano player looking for a tune.
And finding it.
I don't English speak very well.
What...am I talking about?
The Guardian newspaper, that's what. It runs a column, or columns a run, if you prefer, entitled this much I know. The content is the same old same old, a few hundred words by no you've never heard of them either. But the title of the pieces, that annoys me. It's pretentious and portentous and lots of other things ending in ous. But hell, it's in the Guardian. A newspaper I only read to avoid The Irish Times. And hell again, I'll you tell, so know you this much, I that never read.
Enough already.
*
Myself and herself are currently sleeping on a mattress in a room which once was the living room. We now use another room entirely as a living room, a room in the newer part of the house. But the former living room is in the very old part of the house, as is the bedroom we have migrated from. That's all by the by, just setting the scene.
The mattress lies up against a range of bookshelves which act as a sort of headboard. And it is my habit betimes to reach out a hand blindly and take an arbitrary book down. I do this over my head and cannot see which book it is until it is in my hand. It makes for a surprise. It's a journey and exciting. We have been married a while and one must spice up one's bedtime as best one can.
Thing is, becuse this is the abandoned living room, the books in the shelves are likewise, yesterday's items, abandoned, many forgotten and some by Edna O'Brien. The book that came into my hand on a particular day this week was an Anthology of Dalkey, my home town, a pretty little town on the edge of Dublin. Bono lives there now, I don't.
I flipped through the pages of the anthology, a type of memoir, local history. And there I saw a photograph of a man by the name of Dessie Swords.
Ah hah, I said to myself. I knew that Dessie Swords, when I was a child he was Desmond, the verger of the church. Cassock clad he lit the candles before Mass. And rang the daily angelus that pealed acoss the town, at twelve and at six and my Granny crossing herself and muttering incantations.
I had not seen nor heard of him for fifty years.
Thing is, Desmond was part of my early childhood. And, like my Granny and my childhood, he's long gone. And which stars in the sky are the candles he lights in the darkness...that sort of gone.
I put the book back in the shelf and, as The Guardian might say, I no more thought about it. That very day I had to go to Dublin. For work and a spot of socialising. The work was work and the socialising in the evening was to have a meal with a woman whom I had not met for thirty five years. Living in America now, she was visiting Ireland and had got in touch. So myself and my wife and herself and her husband and my mate Michael-the-Mystic all met up to eat. In Michael's house in Dalkey, my old home town. (He, being a mystic, can afford to live there).
Angela and Daniel were a very nice and interesting couple. Everything went swimmingly. Apart from the salmon which my wife had brought along...that didn't ...the guests were vegetarians.
Angela did not come from natural vegetarian territory. On the contrary, she came from an area of nearby DunLaoghaire where, my father used say, "they eat their young". But then, my father said things like that. Those that read my just published book Fragments from Frescati will understand his reasons. Whatever, Angela .comes from what us southsiders know as The Noggin, which is a large working class area of public housing. As mentioned, I come from Dalkey, which is not. (Bono lives there.) But Angela and I had known each other and had met and mingled back in the old hippie days when class and the like were meaningless.
Yeah right.
Anyway, we discussed the writing life and days gone by, and certain people remembered, many best forgotten. Sometime between the vegetarian spaghetti bolognese (don't even ask) and the vegetarian roulade Angela mentioned that as a child she used come right here to Dalkey to visit her Uncle Dessie. In Begnet's Villas.
"Uncle Dessie?"
"Yes, he was the verger in Dalkey Church."
"Dessie Swords? He was your uncle?"
"Yes."
Ah, I thought, remembering that very morning in my idle bed. And my fingers playing the unseen spines of unknown books... like a blind piano player looking for a tune.
And finding it.
Friday, 14 September 2012
Bad week, good week.
Bad week. Car broke down. € 1000 or thereabouts. So that means 500 of you folks have to download an EBook of mine, or 200 of you have to buy a printed book. So let's hope everone rallies round. Steps up to the plate, all that. Words are cheap. Major engine works on a VW Passat are not. Bloody Germans, first Angela Merkel, now this.
Good week. Well, good in the sense that one of the beautiful daughters appears on Page 27 of Gaelsceal, the Irish newspaper. Irish language newspaper. And here she is. On right of photo.
For the benefit of the few of you who don't understand Irish I will translate. Roughly. This beautiful daughter is a radio producer/presenter, and the article is about a series of her radio shows dealing with minority beliefs in Ireland. Here in the photo she is with a few of her pagans. Irish-speaking bodhran-banging pagans. I like to think that my book Ancient Ireland-Users Guide is responsible for the growing interest in such ancient practices.
But it probably goes deeper than that.
Good week too in that the mother of one of my beautiful daughters appears on Page Three of The Western People.
There she is, unveiling a plaque, rather than herself, which most women on page threes of Irish newspapers are doing. I dealt with all that memorial plaque business in my September Ninth posting. But of course it seems much more real when one sees it reported in the media. Which is the world we live in.
And which reminds me. I myself haven't been mentioned in a newspaper for months.
Bad news? Or good news?
Sunday, 9 September 2012
OK I'm back.
No I haven't been here for going on two months. And a quick check of this blog's stats show that, if anything, readership has gone up in my absence.
The less I write the more readers I get?
Some message there, best not go too deeply.
One of the things I've been busy with is a military ceremony to honour the memory of my wife's late father, an Irish Army officer. And here she is, walking ahead of some troops on the way to unveiling a plaque in Admiral Brown Park in County Mayo's Foxford. And yes she is the same woman who appears on the cover and in the pages of my best selling A Walk On The South Side.
And here are some more pictures. For which I am grateful to Lam Lee who came all the way from Toronto to the ceremony. And that's her (guess which?) with Jane Edwards who came from the UK. Both for family connection reasons. We're a widely scattered bunch. And yes those are glasses on the table of Brennan's Lane Restaurant, pride of Ballina nightlife.
And here is Colonel Aherne, making his speech at the ceremony, the band in the background.
Yes it all went well.
Also in my absence from this blog location, three new books of mine were published. Not one, not two, but three. This may sound magnificent but one of them (Fragments from Frescati) had been hanging round for quite some time, awaiting its moment. That moment has now come. Fragments from Frescati is now in the bookshop, as is Boy on A Bicycle. Details of these on my website. (Non fiction, they probably won't be E for awhile.) The third is the print version of the novel The Snake Dancer of Sati Choura. That has available as an EBook for a few months, though with a different cover. Same words.
There I was at home to find that the local population are celebrating the nineteenth century composer William Vincent Wallace. They're not exactly dancing in the streets but a committee is up to things, concerts and talks and the likes. This I found interesting because my book Fragments from Frescati has two pages on the same William Vincent. Also interesting because William Vincent was son of an army bandmaster and I had just come from being entertained by an Irish army band.
It all hangs together.
William Vincent Wallace is described in the publicity material for the shindig here as "colourful".
That he was. As teacher of music in a convent he ran away with one of the schoolgirls to Australia, fathered two children on her, abandoned her to a life of poverty and went about his business. Which was pretty damn murky.
OK. Those who have already read A Walk On The South Side. will know that I also married a schoolgirl and thus should cease casting aspersions.
Yeah but I didn't abandon her to a life of poverty. I share it with her.
And, more importantly, being kind of classy, we went to America, not Australia.
Wednesday, 18 July 2012
Writer's Block
If I were in my secondary home of Italy, which I'm not, I might have called this piece Writer's Sun Block. But I'm not. Another opportunity for hilarity lost.
Anyway.
I'm in my Irish home working on The Novel. Suffice to say this is based around the Yeats International Summer School which takes place in Sligo. I'm writing the thing about 50 miles down the coast.
Tuesday got into a bit of a bugger-this-writing-game, can't think what to say next. Went for walk to harbour.
There I see large and beautiful yacht stuck on sandbank. Maybird of Falmouth. Local fishermen trying to pull her off. Took these photos.
Interesting, I thought, boat sails around world through storm and fury, Fastnet Race and so on and so forth, ends up on sandbank in quiet calm harbour.
Then, more interesting. Another coincidence/correspondence/holistic occurance. The Maybird was on passage to Sligo where the owner/skipper intends to go to the Yeats International Summer School.
Sailors Block?
Anyway.
I'm in my Irish home working on The Novel. Suffice to say this is based around the Yeats International Summer School which takes place in Sligo. I'm writing the thing about 50 miles down the coast.
Tuesday got into a bit of a bugger-this-writing-game, can't think what to say next. Went for walk to harbour.
There I see large and beautiful yacht stuck on sandbank. Maybird of Falmouth. Local fishermen trying to pull her off. Took these photos.
Went home. Looked up the Maybird of Falmouth.
Interesting, I thought, boat sails around world through storm and fury, Fastnet Race and so on and so forth, ends up on sandbank in quiet calm harbour.
Then, more interesting. Another coincidence/correspondence/holistic occurance. The Maybird was on passage to Sligo where the owner/skipper intends to go to the Yeats International Summer School.
Sailors Block?
Tuesday, 17 July 2012
Sustainability and all that.
I went to Galway ten days or so ago, sat in on a speech by the Taoiseach.
I didn't actually go there to hear the Taoiseach. But I heard him anyway. He gave his speech in a large conference tent in Galway.
The Volvo Ocean Race was in town.
I didn't actually go to Galway to see the Volvo Ocean Race yachts but there they were anyway. And very impressive they were too. Not actually having a boat...(haven't had a boat for twenty years, and that a mere Enterprise dinghy in DunLaoghaire)...not actually having a boat I couldn't see the Volvo yachts in full sail...but that's them on the horizon as seen from the Galway docks.
Long years ago I was involved with him in setting up an Irish branch of The Future in our Hands.
It was not successful. We were before our time. Or, rather, before everyone else's time. I reflected on that, listening to the Taoiseach wittering on about the issues which Richard had addressed so passionately. He's in fashion now, I thought, but dead. God be good to him.
Interesting, these conferences.
A nudge in ribs from the wife/stand-in mistress then alerted me to a woman a few seats up who had beside her a copy of Anna Karenina. She was obviously expecting to have a fair amount of down time.
I found this interesting. The Anna Karenina bit. Because not twenty four hours before I had been writing my new novel in general and in particular writing a few thousand words in which my character Emily Tomkins ( sixteen with long dark hair, you'll love her) is given a present of Anna Karenina by her mother's lover. He's interested in her personal development. (But I haven't got to that bit yet.)
This rather eerie confluence of events struck me as being, well, rather eerie. My mate Mystic Michael says such things happen because of the holistic nature of the universe. He could be right.
After the speeches we were approached by a functionary who invited us to lunch with the Taoiseach. He didn't really want us at the lunch for the Taoiseach, just wanted to butter up the star turn, namely the son/investmnent banker who had flown in from afar with hundreds of millions of other people's money to splash around. Little did the apparachik know that the same son wouldn't want his disreputable parents at the lunch anyway.Lest we disgrace him.
Couldn't and didn't go anyway. Had an appointment to meet my mate John the Polymath. Met him and had hot dogs and drove, not home, but to Dublin. We had a full social diary that weekend and were headed for a barbecue in a rather elegant house on the southside. Many of the guests were people from a past that was interesting but must remain unrecorded. Being my age they were all too old for me so I talked to one of their daughters, as a sort of exercise in time travel. In that she reminded me of her mother as of twenty years ago.
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I didn't actually go there to hear the Taoiseach. But I heard him anyway. He gave his speech in a large conference tent in Galway.
The Volvo Ocean Race was in town.
I didn't actually go to Galway to see the Volvo Ocean Race yachts but there they were anyway. And very impressive they were too. Not actually having a boat...(haven't had a boat for twenty years, and that a mere Enterprise dinghy in DunLaoghaire)...not actually having a boat I couldn't see the Volvo yachts in full sail...but that's them on the horizon as seen from the Galway docks.
And that's the wife/stand-in mistress. (She's had her hair cut). We weren't in Galway to hear the Taoiseach or to see the yachts, we were there to meet a son.
The particular son, being the son of this writer and his wife/stand-in mistress, both perhaps 'alternative' and somewhat eccentric, is, naturally enough, a major player in international investment banking. This is what happens, parenting-wise. You try to bring them up right and proper and they end up managing sovereign wealth funds. He had flown in from afar and we, proud parents, had driven to Galway in the (eleven year old) car. (In the unlikely event that same son reads this blog, please note contents of the previous parentheses). Anyway we went there to listen to him at the sustainability conference. (It all comes together, eventually). He spoke with flair and humour and was quite impressive.
Though he was lucky. Comparison wise. Because he spoke after the Taoiseach...who didn't speak with flair and humour and wasn't that impressive. Wellmeaning enough, he was borderline woegeous. And, I admit, in all honesty, listening to him didn't occupy the fullness of my mind and I used some spare available capacity in remembering Richard Douthwaite. Long years ago I was involved with him in setting up an Irish branch of The Future in our Hands.
It was not successful. We were before our time. Or, rather, before everyone else's time. I reflected on that, listening to the Taoiseach wittering on about the issues which Richard had addressed so passionately. He's in fashion now, I thought, but dead. God be good to him.
Interesting, these conferences.
I noted that the guy sitting in front of us was surreptitiously reading a newspaper DURING PAT RABBITTE'S SPEECH ! But it was the Financial Times so I suppose that's OK.
A nudge in ribs from the wife/stand-in mistress then alerted me to a woman a few seats up who had beside her a copy of Anna Karenina. She was obviously expecting to have a fair amount of down time.
I found this interesting. The Anna Karenina bit. Because not twenty four hours before I had been writing my new novel in general and in particular writing a few thousand words in which my character Emily Tomkins ( sixteen with long dark hair, you'll love her) is given a present of Anna Karenina by her mother's lover. He's interested in her personal development. (But I haven't got to that bit yet.)
This rather eerie confluence of events struck me as being, well, rather eerie. My mate Mystic Michael says such things happen because of the holistic nature of the universe. He could be right.
After the speeches we were approached by a functionary who invited us to lunch with the Taoiseach. He didn't really want us at the lunch for the Taoiseach, just wanted to butter up the star turn, namely the son/investmnent banker who had flown in from afar with hundreds of millions of other people's money to splash around. Little did the apparachik know that the same son wouldn't want his disreputable parents at the lunch anyway.Lest we disgrace him.
Couldn't and didn't go anyway. Had an appointment to meet my mate John the Polymath. Met him and had hot dogs and drove, not home, but to Dublin. We had a full social diary that weekend and were headed for a barbecue in a rather elegant house on the southside. Many of the guests were people from a past that was interesting but must remain unrecorded. Being my age they were all too old for me so I talked to one of their daughters, as a sort of exercise in time travel. In that she reminded me of her mother as of twenty years ago.
The daughter was a a Canadian (we get around, us DunLaoghaire folks), worked for an NGO and had recently returned from Zambia. We discussed that, myself having lived in Zambia. As mentioned, we get around, us DunLaoghaire folks. Lovely country, laid back people. (Zambia, not DunLaoghaire). But what really interested me was that as I discussed matters such as Africa/Development/Gender Issues I was really thinking of an invitation in my pocket for a forthcoming function. It was from my mate the Ambassador of Belgium to Ireland. An evening of Stella Artois and Leonidas chocolates in Ailesbury Road. (They go as well together as do the Flemings and Walloons). I wasn't actually going to go, life being increasingly short, but it was interesting to have the invite in my pocket as I talked to the young woman from Zambia.
And why?
Because when I lived in Zambia up there on the Congo border, right across the river in the Congo lived the presentday Belgian ambassador to Ireland. I didn't know him there or then but he told me this when I first met him in a Dublin pub. People who have lived on either side of the Congo border have a certain affinity, not to mention a certain ability in self preservation. That's why he invites me to the Belgian National Day. That or he wants to dilute the Belgian thing a bit. But of course none of that's the point, as is fairly usual in my blogs. The point is...weird connections...
And so all that fascinates me.
Anna Karenina and Anna Karenina.
Zambia and Zambia.
I have a Zambian friend in Boston. If I find out she has been reading Anna Karenina this week then...well...I dunno really.
Thursday, 28 June 2012
I Met This Man and...
What a difference a week makes!
There I was last week spending time with a beautiful woman in Dublin. See last week's blog. And here I am this week spending time with a different (beautiful) woman in the West of Ireland.
Who says life is not good?
Snap out of the misery, people!
I have nothing but good news.
Firstly, I have bought a new barbecue.
Secondly, my in-box emails are positive. My much loved in Australia is there, not with great news, but any news from her is good. A woman I knew as a schoolgirl is also there, she's a Dublin journalist. I think she must be my oldest friend. Not in years but in length of time hanging on in there. When we meet as we sometimes do we relive our teenage days. And look into each other's eyes and wonder why we didn't...whatever it was we didn't do... and it's too late now. Proust probably had an insight into that stuff.
And there among my emails someone new to me, another journalist, Aoife Drew. An Irish journalist living in Paris. She wants to read a book of mine. Yes I want her to do that too. Because hopefully she will write about it and then other people will want to read the same book. Though, of course, it does depend on what she writes.
All in lap of Gods. It'll be lively anyway.
Why are all the bounciest Irish journalists and media folks living outside Ireland? Yes Aoife tells me she is married to a Frenchman, so in her case that's an explanation. But that can't possibly be the explanation for the mass migration of the brightest and the best. We can't all marry Frenchmen. Could the reason be that the Irish media and literary world is infested with dullards and mediocrities and back scratchers who won't give way to anyone else? Could very well be.
Could very well be.
So, enough of that.
I met this man and...
He approached me on the pier of the small unevolved west of Ireland town where I am well known as that ^%&*%" who writes. We conversed generally. I have found that it's always best to converse generally with men who approach one on piers. Having grown up in DunLaoghaire, which has a very long pier, I reckon I learned this at an early age.
He moved on from the general to ask me about my work, (being from out of town he didn't know me as that ^%&*%" who writes)...like what did I do for a crust, he asked?
"I'm in the book business," I told him, reluctantly. Very good reason for this reluctance. I often think I should change my stated career to rat catcher. Few people would say "good, my house is full of rats, can you help?" But at any mention of book publishing they say...Yes you know what they say. Read on.
"You mean you publish books?" he asked.
"Well I am involved with...a book publishing business..." I added, vaguely, even more reluctantly.
"I've written a book of poetry," he told me.
Yes that's what people say. Though sometimes they've written a novel. I have an all purpose answer.
"Aahh," I say, "not our area, at all at all. At all."
"Why not?"
Well. No-one reads poetry. And I like to eat. And spend my time with beautiful women in Dublin and the West of Ireland. Neither of these activities would be possible if I published poetry. Because I wouldn't have any money. And any spare time I had would be used up in dealing with poetry mafia apparachiks like Joe Woods and Peter Sirr. And Joe Woods threw me off the Poetry Ireland Forum for mentioning Cathal O Searchaigh in an unfavourable light. And Peter Sirr is descended from the secret policman who arrested Lord Edward Fitzgerald in 1798. (Yes I have a long memory). But worse, worse than that. They both do poetry readings. And even worse. They do poetry readings of THEIR OWN POETRY. And this depresses me. I don't need to be depressed by others. I can do that all by myself.
Oh. I've done it already.
Better end right here.
There I was last week spending time with a beautiful woman in Dublin. See last week's blog. And here I am this week spending time with a different (beautiful) woman in the West of Ireland.
Who says life is not good?
Snap out of the misery, people!
I have nothing but good news.
Firstly, I have bought a new barbecue.
Secondly, my in-box emails are positive. My much loved in Australia is there, not with great news, but any news from her is good. A woman I knew as a schoolgirl is also there, she's a Dublin journalist. I think she must be my oldest friend. Not in years but in length of time hanging on in there. When we meet as we sometimes do we relive our teenage days. And look into each other's eyes and wonder why we didn't...whatever it was we didn't do... and it's too late now. Proust probably had an insight into that stuff.
And there among my emails someone new to me, another journalist, Aoife Drew. An Irish journalist living in Paris. She wants to read a book of mine. Yes I want her to do that too. Because hopefully she will write about it and then other people will want to read the same book. Though, of course, it does depend on what she writes.
All in lap of Gods. It'll be lively anyway.
Why are all the bounciest Irish journalists and media folks living outside Ireland? Yes Aoife tells me she is married to a Frenchman, so in her case that's an explanation. But that can't possibly be the explanation for the mass migration of the brightest and the best. We can't all marry Frenchmen. Could the reason be that the Irish media and literary world is infested with dullards and mediocrities and back scratchers who won't give way to anyone else? Could very well be.
Could very well be.
So, enough of that.
I met this man and...
He approached me on the pier of the small unevolved west of Ireland town where I am well known as that ^%&*%" who writes. We conversed generally. I have found that it's always best to converse generally with men who approach one on piers. Having grown up in DunLaoghaire, which has a very long pier, I reckon I learned this at an early age.
He moved on from the general to ask me about my work, (being from out of town he didn't know me as that ^%&*%" who writes)...like what did I do for a crust, he asked?
"I'm in the book business," I told him, reluctantly. Very good reason for this reluctance. I often think I should change my stated career to rat catcher. Few people would say "good, my house is full of rats, can you help?" But at any mention of book publishing they say...Yes you know what they say. Read on.
"You mean you publish books?" he asked.
"Well I am involved with...a book publishing business..." I added, vaguely, even more reluctantly.
"I've written a book of poetry," he told me.
Yes that's what people say. Though sometimes they've written a novel. I have an all purpose answer.
"Aahh," I say, "not our area, at all at all. At all."
"Why not?"
Well. No-one reads poetry. And I like to eat. And spend my time with beautiful women in Dublin and the West of Ireland. Neither of these activities would be possible if I published poetry. Because I wouldn't have any money. And any spare time I had would be used up in dealing with poetry mafia apparachiks like Joe Woods and Peter Sirr. And Joe Woods threw me off the Poetry Ireland Forum for mentioning Cathal O Searchaigh in an unfavourable light. And Peter Sirr is descended from the secret policman who arrested Lord Edward Fitzgerald in 1798. (Yes I have a long memory). But worse, worse than that. They both do poetry readings. And even worse. They do poetry readings of THEIR OWN POETRY. And this depresses me. I don't need to be depressed by others. I can do that all by myself.
Oh. I've done it already.
Better end right here.
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