From Bath to Cork with Baby Grace

“Birtie has always been a rock of support”

Celia Larkin should know. She was his lover.

“When Celia puts her mind to anything, she will move heaven and earth.”

Birtie Ahern should know. He was her lover.

The Taoiseach went to Limerick, on Thursday 27 April, to the opening of Celia’s beauty clinic at the Castletroy Park Hotel. His presence ensured wonderful publicity for her “Beauty at the Blue Door Salon“.

I admire him for it.

Not for such a blatant bit of commercial sponsorship, but for the example he gave of how to relate to your ex-lover.

I am delighted to say that I am good friends with my ex-wiffe. I’m proud of that.

Many people break up and cut each other off. What happens to the love that was? It gets destroyed and so much important stuff gets lost.

Birtie impresses me because he seems to be his own man when it comes to personal relationships with women. The spin doctors must have a hard time with him.

ps : Looks like it’s a franchise because there is a Blue Door in Sacramento. I found this review of the service:

“My hair; long, shiny, thick, healthy, styled, highlighted and very beautiful. In style and looking awsome. This is what I get at the Blue Door Salon. Mother of three, no time, I depend on Jade. For 13 years I have depended on Jade to keep my hair healthy. Why 13 years? hum….. maybe cuz she’s reliable, comfortable to be with, excellent in her practice, commits to her clients, extremley sharp in business. Her accomplishments in life definately shows, she works hard to be successful. ***completely satisfied**** and for those neg. remarks below. Slandering may make you feel good on occasion but it gets you no where in life. I highly recommed this place………….. judge for youself.”

The conversation at breakfast went like this:

“(addressing the child)Morning treasure . How’s my little discus thrower?”

“Look, it’s not a boy we have. It’s a little girl. And she won’t thank us. She’s meant to be slim and elegant.”

What a bloody pain!

Imagine having to think about this sort of stuff and the child not yet 8 months old. When she was born she was 7lbs5oz, which is a fraction below average, according to the chart. The last time she was weighed properly by the nurse, she was a fraction above average. So, as far as I’m concerned, she’s perfect.

She has got fantasic forearms. You wouldn’t want to be in the way of them if she lost her temper.

“Have you ever tried pushing against her, if she want to push the other way?”

“I can tell you it’s not easy.”

I’m proud to have a daughter who won’t be a push over. Her strength isn’t simply her demeanour. She is literally strong, well built.

The “problem” is that well built women are not a la mode. Women are meant to be fragile, lithe and elongaged. God help you if you have short legs, thick arms and solid shoulders. And all this stuff starts before 8 months is up.

I’m glad I’m not a woman.

All that image-burden to carry. Right from birth. It isn’t enough to be an average weight, you have to have your weight distributed in certain places. You have to be shaped from the start.

All these beautiful clothes that make the child look like a model… these seductive outfits… that’s where it all starts.

As if the child was a doll to dress or a jelly to carve into shapely form.

How do I resist all this? How do I cling to my image of a young woman who can stand up for herself in a world that would turn her into an image?

Do I change the diet:

drop plums, bananas, grapes ?

reduce cheese, yogurt, steak, steamed fish ?

stop sweet potato, cereal, organic apple juice ?

introduce ice cream, chocolate, crisps ?

Do I have to stop all the exercise that is building up her muscles?

no more rolling over on the carpet?

swimming banned?

sneak her into the sauna?

I’d like every woman who reads this to comment. If there are any men out there who have cracked this one, do please write me a note.

ps Curly K has posted something that I found really hard to read which is related to this issue. The fact that I found it so hard to read makes it well worth reading, in my opinion.

I’ve been looking for her.

Can’t find her.

Hope she hasn’t done a runner.

I get all my legal education from her blog.

Come back Fiona.

I was in Dublin Airport when I last posted.

The text message I sent to my son at 1059 on Monday went as follows:

“disastrous start. at cork airport i hadn’t booked for stansted. flight closed. nearly gave up. had to fly to dublin (E85) & stansted (E221) & run for plane.”

I couldn’t face telling the wiffe what was going on.

Nor could I buy an Irish Examiner at Dublin Airport because of massive demand for their report of Munster victory. So I distracted myself from misery by a text to her:

1105
“would you mind getting me an examiner today. p x x”

Then came reply from son and following exchange:

1111
“You muppet. you can never tease me about flying to olso again.” (This refers to the time he went from London to Stockholm, via Oslo - because he mixed up Oslo with Stockholm.)

1123
“lol it goes from disastrous to worse. ryan air to stansted late. almost sure I’ll miss plane to sweden. i might as well go to london.”

1124
“No that would be silly. you would just have to get a flight back. Oh well you tried. A real shame but sometimes you can’t help it.”

1132
“i’ll be stuck in dublin. i feel so pissed off i might as well chance it in london. the flight to sweden might to late too.”

1133
“Ok let me know how it goes. Will cross my fingers.”

1325
“fucked. screwed even more by delay on runway. no hope now. its take off time in 10 mins. i’ll go to ryan air desk in case of miracle.”

1348
“bless all ryan airs cock ups. i suppose their plane came via oslo. over an hour late. i got on. now waiting for another flight to board.”

1450
“Brilliant i knew it would be ok when i went to the shop and they had strawberry magnum. what time you lind? Prob meet in stock for a beer and dinner”

1459
“Where ll we meet?”

1522
“Stockholm bus station where you get off bus”

1809
“Hey are you on bus yet. When did you leave?”

1822
“just off bus in stockholm. where are you?”

The rest is a boring story about how fabulous Stockholm is… how great the first Kurdish meal was… how clean, orderly and on time everything is… what magnificent department stores and off licences there are… how they know how to drink up north… and what great photos I’d love to show you… not forgetting the man on the plane who worked for IBM on his way over to work every week from Stansted and the young German physician woman on her way to visit her Swedish grandmother 12 hours train journey away near the Artic Circle…

Living to tell the tale is essential, isn’t it.

Take an early morning flight out of Cork.

Go to the check-in desk and discover that you never booked a ticket. This, of course, takes a while to be fully revealed and confirmed. During this time you can panic, despair, annihilate yourself, and see this as a continuation of a run of bad luck which began the day you were born.

You can also curse the complexity of booking several flights together, just to go to Sweden for a couple of days… to pick up some of your “cost centre no. 1″’s baggage. (I sweatily acknowledge Moneypenny in the FT Weekend Magazine for this inspired term.)

After accepting that you have made a monumental cock-up for which Ryan Air can’t be blamed, you can return to the ServiceAir Ticket desk to buy a ticket. You can find out that the flight has closed and you are stranded.

At this point, you will probably have had enough, especially if you began with a load of unpleasant things on your mind.

But, you can persist and fork up for a ticket to Dublin (E85) and another to Stansted (E221) - saying to yourself that this is better than returning home in disgrace. So I flew to Dublin.

Dublin is big, so is its airport and the RyanAir ticket desk is miles from where you come in. Time was disappearing and I ran, so that my heart gave out. That was when I died, and went to hell.

Later they sold me a ticket. I rushed again. To the boarding gate… to the gate… RyanAir flight late taking off. But how late? No one on the gate. Look harder. You can find a small woman hiding behind a big desk marked RyanAir customer service. I think she was positioned there so that they could say there was something, but she was never meant to talk to anyone.

More later… if I get back from the dead.

And Munster have only reached the final.

It could so easily have gone the other way.

O’Gara could have been born in Dublin.

I’m going to eat Kidneys for supper, in quiet celebration.

Thank goodness I resigned.

Shame on you Cork, for not wearing your Red. Or was you just being modest, as usual?

This is a reprint of everything written about Saturday’s Heiniken Cup semi-final match.

I’ve re-organised it, so that you can follow it through the day and especially the second half action.

0923 Saturday 22 April 2006

Bath Win… Win…Win please

Come on Bath!
I know you think there’s nobody in Ireland who gives a damn. That’s not true.
There is one person in Douglas, Cork, Ireland who will be shouting you on, just for old time sake.
When I met you first, you were top dog. You’d won the English championship something like 9 years in a row.
Then the bastards went professional and that screwed you. You couldn’t take it. The Committee fell at the first fence, squabbled themselves to death and your players collapsed under the weight of the scrum.
The free-for-all left you floundering after the likes of Leicester. You use to wipe their face in the mud of the Rec (Bath home ground); it was awful to see them run through you in the new era.

Therapised forever:
But I know you’ve been to therapy. Psycho-therapy too. You’ve all had your heads re-oriented and you’re back. The way you held out for the last 10 minutes against Leicester with only 13 men (2 feckin eejits in the sin bin) was magnificent. If Munster had done that, it would be written in the annals.

It’s time for Bath:
So today’s your day. I haven’t a clue who you’re playing. Some French lot where they go surfing instead of treading grapes. Hopefully a bunch of no-hopers.

Correction: after you beat them this afternoon, we’ll realise that Biarritz are one of the strongest French teams ever. It’ll be seen as victory again overwhelming odds: Viet Cong overcome USA.
Bath, you Vietnamese of the Heiniken world - I roar you on.
Note:
The fact that I lived in Bath from 2000-5, and down the road in Bradford upon Avon from 1993-2000 has in no way influenced the author of these views.

I am not related to any member of the Bath front row.

I do not have any shares in the company selling Bath Rugby shirts.

I have not been drinking Bath Ale (which is bloody good and is brewed by the one independent brewery left in Bath. There were over 200 brewers in Bath 100 years ago.)

There is absolutely no truth in the seditious rumour that I support Bath because I think Munster would gobble them up and might choke on Biarritz.

Now, back to my dream come true:
I need to learn all the bloody Leinster names as well. If I am to blog for Munster, I have to know who the opposition is. Contrapony isn’t is? And O’Drishcool…
He’s a dish isn’t he!
____________________
2.56 Frustrated French

Biarritz are good. But we can still do it. It was always Bath’s plan to lure the French into false confidence and zap them in the fourth quarter.
The ‘dirty’ play by one particular French man was poor example to young viewers.
I’ll certainly control which rugby matches I let Grace watch before she is 5. After that, she’s a big girl. I’m going to treat the second half of this match as a rehersal for tomorrow. So there’ll be loads of posts.

Watch the way Bath start this half. They have had an extra special team talk. Maybe we’ll see the result of all that medition. Let’s go Bath. I’m not partisan.
________________________
3.01 Restart penalty

Straight into touch…
Lineout number 1: messy win for France. Bath turn it over and now more Bath possession and another lineout on other side of field. Have the French calmed down during the interval?
Oh dear, Bath penalty. Maybe that’s the plan to put the French ahead by a bit more…
Strange…
________________________________
3.04 Biarritz prove to be tough olives

They are battering Bath. They are holding on to possession like possessed partiots.
What a sweet dropped goal! 6-15
Nine points - what’s 9 points?
_____________________________________________________________
3.07 Bath secret weapon comes on

Bath’s Samoan’s on (Fuimaono-Sapolu). Now we’ll see a turnaround.
Nothing like an islander to inspire a miracle… (Thinking about Ireland here… Christianity too)
Who gave Biarritz the right to wear red? I see that the Queen (Elizabeth) wore red yesterday, on her birthday: she’s a closet Munster supporter. (I know the tone of her dress wasn’t right.)
_____________________________
3.09 Only a couple of tries separate the teams

Nitty gritty time
Sublime on the way (poetic this bit)
Stay with us to the end
Send Chirac back to bed
Instead (messing with words)
____________________________
3.12 French in touch with their strong side

Bath are game. They have possession. But it’s not the devil, and they need to be fierce in these closing stages
(6-15)
____________________________
3.15 Is Leinster supporting Biarritz?

Do the blues stick together? (reference to the fact that Bath and Leinster both play in blue)
I’m getting my colours mixed up. This is terribly exciting I’ve had to turn the crown (misprint: should be crowd) off.
These English commentators, where did they get their passion? (They were egging Bath on desperately…) I though the English were an objective nation? (what I meant was detached and lacking in passion)
(9-16)
____________________________
3.16 No point in watching this

I should be doing the washing up. (at this point the excitement started to get to me) But E. has done it already. (finding someone to blame… displacement activity) Why didn’t she leave me something to distract me?
(9-16)
____________________________
3.18 Re-cap

Bath are the boys in blue. Underdogs. Stiff upper arms. Trouble with their passes.
Biarritz are the bastard in red. Cocky superdogs. Loose and flowing, like their wine.
(9-15) (I like that bit, good to take time out to review, whenever)
____________________________
3.20 Where is the Samoan?

Is he in the fight? Why not? (not serious) It can’t be only the English. They are such a peaceful lot. (tongue in cheek)
Did that punch fell the French man? Or is he merely winded? This’ll show how well they recover. (pretty inhumane stuff: that guy was really hurt)
____________________________
3.22 Oh Captain, my captain

Come back Walt Whitman. (my favourite poet of all time. Whitman hero-worshipped Ab Lincoln, called him his Captain, in a poem after Lincoln was assassinated. Read Leaves of Grass soon)
All is forgiven. You’d have made a wonderful rugger player. (Whitman always took to big view and wrote the strongest verse)
If you mess with the French, you might be sleeping with the snails… (it took me a minute to replace ‘fishes’ with ’snails’)
How many sin bins does it take to be mortal? (now I am completely out of control, remembering mortal sin)
_____________________________
3.24 Penalty for Bath

He better kick this.
He better.
He…
has
Halleluia…. Hosana in excelcis….
I knew there was a mirace in the offing. (didn’t really believe it, but unless you say it, it might never happen)
(9-15)
_________________________
3.25 Only a converted try in it

Bath can score from here. (joke) They are back on their own line. They have the French in the depth of their own territory. (it looked as if the French were about to score)
Right now French spirits are flying… Now’s the time for an interception… (desperate hope)
(9-15)
_______________________________
3.29 Blue, blue, my world is blue

The heart is thumping. (this bit is totally true) Pumping blood the pulse is pulsing
when the going gets tough, the tough get going… (remembering my management training) There’s a multi-coloured French guy going off. (he had a fantastic hat on) Great. Those colours were confusing Bath.
Oh, oh…
Why didn’t we score there? (Bath cock-up here)
(9-15)
______________________________
3.30 I can’t take this anymore

I’m a young man. I have life left in me. I am running too much of a risk blogging during this match. How on earth could I blog for Munster? They’d have a dead man on their hands…
(This is the point where I realised that I better own up to my disability: there is no way I could blog about Munster without a whole team support)
________________________________
3.32 Attack, attack

You have to do something Bath. You have to. If you go on like this, you’ll go down as game losers. Like your football team. (obvious reference to soccer team which I expect to fluff up the World Cup)
___________________________
3.33 Malone can’t kick

Right now, he is a waste of space. (Malone dies… doesn’t he - just had to bring Beckett in: he’d have been watching this match. But he’d surely support Leinster)
French kickers have had loads of practice. Weren’t they the ones who invented Follies Bergeres? (I bet I didn’t spell that right)
___________________________
3.34 Down to the wire

Bath have another chance. (Yes, to my surprise) If Bath could rescue this one, they’d be as good as Munster. (remembering the many times Munster dug themselves out of a lost position) Are they as good as Munster? Doesn’t look like it.
___________________________
3.36 Last minute French collapse

The dream. (Yes, Laughman, this has been a dream: you were right first time Forgive me)
the dream is breaking out into the open… it’ll be with us any minute go go give it away…
do you really want to go home with nothing more than loads of bottles? (you can imagine Bath spending time after the match buying wine, to settle them down)
___________________________
3.37 French in trouble

They can’t score. they deserve a score but can’t do it what a Bath victory it would be if there was time Bath are trapped says the commentator what does he know.. he’s watching the match I can’t… I have to blog (you are either at a rugby match, or not)
____________________________
3.39 Bath are on the line

the long line that separates a try from not a try… (Bath were back on their own line. Biarritz on top of them) the French are arguing with each other what’s the best way to win? Typical French… Look at the Arc de Triumph… (I had to try and say something anti-French, didn’t I?)
_____________________________
3.41 Who taught the French to play like this?

They are squeezing Bath Bath are on the line Can they break out of here and run the whole length of the field? (That would have been a real miracle)
Oh dear… that’s a penalty for France. I think this is a good French team. (realising that this team was going to be in the final, hopefully against Munster: you need worthy opponents to win well)
He should slot this… (the French place-kicker)
Yes. well kicked (see, I’m a rugby person, not a football)
I was always a French supporter at heart Weren’t they with us at Kinsale? (Battle of Kinsale, 1609 ish) Or was that the Spanish?
_______________________________
3.42 Score lost in the excitement

If I was French I’d be proud… I’d have won the right to play … Munster. That’s one hell of an honour
_______________________________
3.45 Amen: France wins

They lost in Vietnam. (They were there, imperialists before the US)
They lost in …. where did Franch lose… ? oh yes, they lost in Canada, to the Brits…they were in alliance with the wrong Indian tribes…. (as if I knew enough about that war)
So they deserved to win… today. I hear the English commentators waxing on about how good Bath were back in the 1990s. Don’t the English love nostalgia? Munster gobbles nostalgia…
No Munster team has ever lived in the past. (playing up my Munster roots, shamelessly)
_______________________________
3.48 The better team won the Heiniken Cup battle

Today
I take my hat off to the surfers of south west France. (There are wonderful waves in Biarritz)
Victors always write the history books. (remembering 1916 and its myths)
Let’s be balanced: Leinster is a good team. Well worth beating.

Bye for now. Tune in tomorrow for the real thing. (just a way of signing off. By this stage I had decided that it would not be safe for me to blog the Munster Leinster match. I woke up. It was all a dream - even if it grew out of a dream imagined while awake…)

Munster will go into the match without their key blogger.

In a surpise move this afternoon, Munster Rugby supremo Noel S. announced the shocking resignation of Omaniblog as official team blogger.

“We are bitterly disappointed” he said. “We had hoped to have an advantage over Leinster in this respect. However, following his blog on the Bath Biarritz match, Omaniblog tendered his resignation for health reasons. He also said that he needed to spend more time with his family.

“The Munster Rugby fraternity would like to take this opportunity to wish Omani well and to emphasise that it does not expect Omani to blog for Leinster in the forseeable future. Perhaps when Munster reach the final, Omani will feel that he has had enough time with his family. We would to say that we have always regarded Omani’s blog as a pillar of health.”

The shock announcement came in a short statement. Mr S was not available for questions.

Neither was Omani. When we tried to contact Omaniblog, we found that there were technical difficulties on his blog. The comments section was not working property.

In an unexpected development, Omani’s friend Marcin from Poland agreed to give his view of why Omani resigned as Munster blogger.

“Mr Omani was honoured to be invited to play a part in Munster’s effort to win the Cup” he said.

“Omani has been a long standing Munster supporter. Even when he lived in Leinster from 1968-75, he never lost his Munster accent. I have it on good authority that he always wore red undergarments when Munster were playing, even during the difficult years.

“As an emmigrant, Omani kept in touch with Munster’s fortunes and was always waiting for a Munster victory. He was in Twickenham when Munster put up their most unfortunate and dreadful performance and never lost his attachment.

“As a blogger, Omani did his best to wait for the call. I even believe he practised his rugby blogs in private by running old Munster matches against the All Blacks and imagining how he would have responded.

“When the phonecall came, he was not wanting. He rose to the occasion with aplomb and agreed to the invitation without hesitation. He did say to me that he had one concern: he was worried about the possibility that other bloggers would be jealous of his position. I have to say that he would have been in a better frame of mind if the position of Munster Official Blogger had come with a small quanitity of match tickets which he would have used for the benefit of developing young Irish bloggers.”

Marcin said that there were three key considerations behind Omani’s decision to resign:

(1) His mother’s birthday is on Tuesday: he wanted to make sure he was in good health for that.

(2) He so much wants Munster to win that he felt it would be impossible to take his eyes off the match

(3) The experience of blogging the second half of Bath V Biarritz raised his blood pressure so high that he became certain that he would die during the Leinster match.

Dying for Munster:

Marcin added: “I know that Omani would regard dying during a Munster victory to be at least as wonderful as any high anyone could imagine. But Omani has a young daughter who deserves to see her father draped in red and blue after the final, not the semi-final. Omani has never been able to settle for second best: he will live until a Munster victory in the Heiniken Cup is assured.

“Omani would like you all to know that blogging such an important pulsating event is not something any individual should take on alone. Consequently, he would like it to be known that in future Omaniblog will be available for commission on condition that it is a team effort.

” I hope you will now allow Omani to have a bit of rest after today. He would like you all to look on the positives: a team of bloggers available to blog all the key matches. He would like to thank the Munster Branch for the honour they paid Omaniblog.”

Blogger on the sideline:

So it seems that one of Munster’s key players will be on the sideline tomorrow. It remains to be seen how this will affect the result.

Today

I take my hat off to the surfers of south west France.

Victors always write the history books.

Let’s be balanced: Leinster is a good team.

Well worth beating.

Bye for now.

Tune in tomorrow for the real thing.

They lost in Vietnam.

They lost in ….

where did Franch lose… ?

oh yes, they lost in Canada, to the Brits…
they were in alliance with the wrong Indian tribes….

So they deserved to win

today.

I hear the English commentators waxing on about how good Bath were back in the 1990s.

Don’t the English love nostalgia?

Munster gobbles nostalgia…

No Munster team has ever lived in the past.

If I was French I’d be proud…

I’d have won the right to play … Munster.

That’s one hell of an honour

They are squeezing Bath

Bath are on the line

Can they break out of here and run the whole length of the field?

Oh dear… that’s a penalty

for France.

I think this is a good French team.

He should slot this…

Yes.

well kicked

I was always a French supported at heart

Weren’t they with us at Kinsale?

Or was that the Spanish?

the long line that separates a try from not a try…

the French are arguing with each other

what’s the best way to win?

Typical French…

Look at the Arc de Triumph…

They can’t score.

they deserve a score but can’t do it

what a Bath victory

it would be if there was time

Bath are trapped says the commentator

what does he know.. he’s watching the match

I can’t… I have to blog

The dream.

the dream is breaking out into the open

it’ll be with us any minute

go go give it away…

do you really want to go home with nothing more than loads of bottles?

Bath have another chance.

If Bath could rescue this one, they’d be as good as Munster.

Are they as good as Munster?

Doesn’t look like it.

Right now, he is a waste of space.

French kickers have had loads of practice.

Weren’t they the ones who invented Follies Bergeres?

You have to do something Bath.

You have to.

If you go on like this, you’ll go down as game losers.

Like your football team.

I’m a young man.

I have life left in me.

I am running too much of a risk blogging during this match.

How on earth could I blog for Munster?

They’d have a dead man on their hands…

The heart is thumping.

Pumping blood

the pulse is pulsing

when the going gets tough, the tough get going…

There’s a multi-coloured French guy going off.

Great. Those colours were confusing Bath.

Oh, oh…

Why didn’t we score there?

(9-15)

Bath can score from here.

They are back on their own line. They have the French in the depth of their own territory.

Right now French spirits are flying…

Now’s the time for an interception…

(9-15)

He better kick this.

He better.

He…

has

Halleluia…. Hosana in excelcis….

I knew there was a mirace in the offing.

(9-15)

Come back Walt Whitman.

All is forgiven.

You’d have made a wonderful rugger player.

If you mess with the French, you might be sleeping with the snails…

How many sin bins does it take to be mortal?

Is he in the fight? Why not?

It can’t be only the English. They are such a peaceful lot.

Did that punch fell the French man?

Or is he merely winded?

This’ll show how well they recover.

Bath are the boys in blue. Underdogs. Stiff upper arms. Trouble with their passes.

Biarritz are the bastard in red. Cocky superdogs. Loose and flowing, like their wine.

(9-15)

I should be doing the washing up.

But E. has done it already.

Whe didn’t she leave me something to distract me?

(9-16)

Do the blues stick together?

I’m getting my colours mixed up. This is terribly exciting I’ve had to turn the crown off.

These English commentators, where did they get their passion?

I though the English were an objective nation?

(9-16)

Bath are game

They have possession

But it’s not the devil,

and they need to be fierce

in these closing stages

(6-15)

Nitty gritty time

Sublime on the way

Stay with us to the end

Send Chirac back to bed

Instead

Bath’s Samoan’s on.

Now we’ll see a turnaround.

Nothing like an islander to inspire a miracle…

Who gave Biarritz the right to wear red?

I see that the Queen wore red yesterday, on her birthday: she a closet Munster supporter.

They are battering Bath.

They are holding on to possession like possessed partiots.

What a sweet dropped goal!

6-15

Nine points - what’s 9 points?

Straight into touch…

Lineout number 1: messy win for France. Bath turn it over and now more Bath possession and another lineout on other side of field.

Have the French calmed down during the interval?

Oh dear, Bath penalty.

Maybe that’s the plan to put the French ahead by a bit more…

Strange…

Biarritz are good.

But we can still do it. It was always Bath’s plan to lure the French into false confidence and zap them in the fourth quarter.

The ‘dirty’ play by one particular French man was poor example to young viewers.

I’ll certainly control which rugby matches I let Grace watch before she is 5. After that, she’s a big girl.

I’m going to treat the second half of this match as a rehersal for tomorrow.

So there’ll be loads of posts.

Watch the way Bath start this half.

They have had an extra special team talk. Maybe we’ll see the result of all that medition.

Let’s go Bath.

I’m not partisan.

Come on Bath!

I know you think there’s nobody in Ireland who gives a damn. That’s not true.

There is one person in Douglas, Cork, Ireland who will be shouting you on, just for old time sake.

When I met you first, you were top dog. You’d won the English championship something like 9 years in a row.

Then the bastards went professional and that screwed you. You couldn’t take it. The Committee fell at the first fence, squabbled themselves to death and your players collapsed under the weight of the scrum.

The free-for-all left you floundering after the likes of Leicester. You use to wipe their face in the mud of the Rec (Bath home ground); it was awful to see them run through you in the new era.

Therapised forever:

But I know you’ve been to therapy. Psycho-therapy too. You’ve all had your heads re-oriented and you’re back.

The way you held out for the last 10 minutes against Leicester with only 13 men (2 feckin eejits in the sin bin) was magnificent.

If Munster had done that, it would be written in the annals.

It’s time for Bath:

So today’s your day. I haven’t a clue who you’re playing. Some French lot where they go surfing instead of treading grapes. Hopefully a bunch of no-hopers.

Correction: after you beat them this afternoon, we’ll realise that Biarritz are one of the strongest French teams ever. It’ll be seen as victory again overwhelming odds: Viet Cong overcome USA.

Bath, you Vietnamese of the Heiniken world - I roar you on.

Note:

The fact that I lived in Bath from 2000-5, and down the road in Bradford upon Avon from 1993-2000 has in no way influenced the author of these views.

I am not related to any member of the Bath front row.

I do not have any shares in the company selling Bath Rugby shirts.

I have not been drinking Bath Ale (which is bloody good and is brewed by the one independent brewery left in Bath. There were over 200 brewers in Bath 100 years ago.)

There is absolutely no truth in the seditious rumour that I support Bath because I think Munster would gobble them up and might choke on Biarritz.

Now, back to my dream come true: I need to learn all the bloody Leinster names as well. If I am to blog for Munster, I have to know who the opposition is. Contrapony isn’t is? And O’Drishcool…

He’s a dish isn’t he!

Oh bloody hell!

Why did I ever say I’d do it? Why didn’t I say something else? Anything. Anything would have been better than this.

My whole weekend ruined. The wiffe’s birthday too.

There was I looking forward to an uneventful few days, recovering after being alone with the child. Then I bloody well set myself up as the official blogger for the Munster team. All because I thought there should be such a blogger. I even thought there should be a blogger on both sides.

Battle of the bloggers…

Have you ever had a situation where your dearest fantasy comes true, and you shit yourself with anxiety, wishing that you’d never agreed? Ever won that fantastic job and collapsed in a heap of “I can’t do it… I’m no good… I’m a complete fake… They should never have selected me…”

Some of you must know what that’s like. It’s happened to me, several times.

When I got this huge job in London Transport, in charge of training everyone, including the bus directors, on customer service, I was sick. If it wasn’t for wiffe no. 1, I’d have jellied myself down the plughole.

I remember designing a cutting edge management development programme with great pride, until it came to delivering it. I can still feel the dribble of urine…

Going on stage for my first poetry slam at the Swindon Literature Festival in 1997, dressed in a green kaftan, trapped into performing a poem of my own before bright lights and a big audience…

I have thrown up, or almost done so, several times in my life, after I have volunteered myself into the situation.

It was a great consolation to find out that one of the greatest Irish comics, Maureen Potter, threw up before every performance all her life.

I’ll be all right on the night…

I have a few things to learn, fast.

(1) How do you move a photograph from your digital camera on to your blog, without taking an age? It would be a bit more honest to ask: how do you do it at all?

(2) How do you do a digital interview with an apoplectic Munster forward in the sin bin and make that a podcast which you upload onto the blog, in a few minutes?

(3) Where can I get a decent reliable battery for my laptop, one that’ll last the match, one that is guaranteed to last?

(4) Who the fuck has done this sort of thing before and survived to tell me the tale?

Help .. Help…Help…

No one owes me any favours. I don’t even have a spare ticket with which to bribe anyone.

This is one awful nightmare.

Would anyone else like to be the official blogger instead?

I could hold your coat, your umbrella, your hipflask loaded with dry martini, rocked not stired.

In case you think you’re getting your grubby little fingers in this chance of a lifelife, you can twenty major off. (in-joke: look at his disgraceful blog; it’s on my blogroll.) I may be about to make the greatest fool of myself ever, but I’ll go down in style. This is my toy. I hold on to my own rattle.

I’m not going to let anyone down. I can always blame the technology.

Oh bloody hell. Tune in for further episodes of omani in the bog.

Just imagine… your worst nightmare.

Where are the car keys? Is there any petrol left? I should have said I’d charge a fortune…

I’ll be at the match.

My wildest dream come true. After a week of phoning round, contacting all the brothers, the brothers’ friends and the brothers’ friends friends, I had given up hope.

I was grudgingly reconciled to having a front row seat in my own front room on Sunday. What was the point in being absolutely pissed off at my own inability to pull in the favour? After all, I’ve only been back in Ireland a few months - not enough time to be owed shit load of favours. In fact, the way tickets are changing hands, you’d want to have saved more than a few marriages, or covered up some mega discretions, to have any chance of getting a ticket.

No one I know really well is going. But I suspect some of the people I know are not being entirely truthful. If I had a ticket, would I admit it? But I’d sure come out afterwards, especially if Munster wins.

Then the most amazing thing happened.

Just before 9pm the phone went. “Unusual…” I thought. “The wiffe isn’t due to ring this early”. (She’s in UK on corporate business.) “Who could this be? I spoke to the mother this morning. Mother-in-law’s at a concert… I don’t know anyone else…”

I nearly missed the call because I have one of these cordless numbers that hide round the house playing hide-and-go-seek. The last ring is the sweetest…

It was Noel S. I’ve never had a call from him. We were at school together back in the 1960s. He was a scrum half and looked like one. But small men make good… I’m not sure what they make good but this guy has gone on to live the life of a rugby committee man.

He’s Munster branch. That’s Limerick for Special Branch. They’re the people with the tickets. It was a complete shock to hear him on the phone.

“Paul, how you doin? Look I know we haven’t spoken for ages but I hear you were back and there’s something I wanted to ask you…”

I was all ears.

“Yea, sure Noel“. I wasn’t sure if I could use his old nickname; he might have outgrown it and then I’d screw up the start of a beautiful friendship. “What is it? Is everything all right?”

“Oh, yes Noel. I wouldn’t miss it for anything.” says I, not lying. The journey from my kitchen into the sitting room where the TV is constitutes going in my book.

“Oh good. Look I wonder would you be up for a job? You know I’m secretary general of the Branch this year and I came across your blog. One of the lads is into that sort of thing. I was wondering if you’d be prepared to be our official blogger, the team blogger… you know what I mean?”

I didn’t wet myself. I can be cool under pressure. I have played at Lansdowne Road myself. (The back pitch, against Bective I think. It was very muddy and about 1967.)

“Sorry Noel, did you say would I be the Munster team official blogger? ”

“I see. You want me to be the official blogger. Why me, Noel?”

One of the things I’ve learned about negotiating is never to show the slightest enthusiam whenever the other side exceeds your wildest expectations. You’ve got to bleed all over the carpet while you agree to anything.

“One of the lads reads your blog every day and says it’s really funny and very sharp too. I don’t know much about blogs myself.”

“No, honest. This is for real. You know I’m in charge of communications for the team. It’s my job to think about the best way of spreading the message of Munster rugby. Brian N. is involved too.”

“Oh, I know Brian. I thought there’d be so many people after him for a ticket that I didn’t bother.”

“Of course. you’re the blogger. You tell us what you need and I’ll fix it.”

“Oh right. OK. This is what I’d most like:

(3) Photos, but none posed…”

I spoke slowly because I was kinda making this up as I went along and I was hoping he’d be writing it down.

“(4) The half-time listen in to the team talk

“Em, that might be a bit tricky. you wouldn’t exactly write what they say would you? We have to have some control over the language… I expect some kids would read this blog? Any way we’d probably want to publish it as a pamphlet or book or something afterwards…”

“Well look Noel. I’ll make sure it’s safe. No really bad language, just enough to give the flavour. You know this blog will go out in real time?”

“Oh, that sounds like a good idea. Has that ever been done before?”

“Oh of course. All the best US blogs do that. Do you have any interest in American football?”

“Bye.”

I’m waiting for the call back. So I better stop and get my head in order.

Wow… wow… wow

Wait till I tell the wiffe…

Imagine.

Will Hillary Clinton be next president of USA?

Or will it be Condoleeza Rice?

It’s great to be able to consider such options, at long last.

In Ireland too, despite two consecutive women presidents, it’s a bit of a novelty to have a woman taoiseach as an option.

Mary Hanafin is that woman.

Over the last few months she has impressed me like no other government minister. I now think of her as a potential future national leader.

This is her week - the week all the Irish teachers gather for their conferences and Education gets more publicity than ever. Mary Hanafin, as minister for education, is right there at the heart of all the debates.

She’s an ex-teacher, just like that woman who was in charge of education in UK (the one who resigned, saying the job was too much for her). That experience seems to have been an advantage to Hanafin during the 18 months or so that she’s been at the educational helm.

But, has she got the stuffing to become taoiseach?

Who knows? There is no way of knowing except by observing closely how she rises to challenges. She probably doesn’t even know herself.

Fortunately the primary school teachers have given us an opportunity to learn what Mary is made of. At their conference they came out against Hanafin’s policy of publishing school inspection reports. This was a bit of a surprise. All the better for that. It gives us an opportunity to see how she handles issues that come from left field.

She’ll be no good as taoiseach unless she can handle this one.

The teachers have a good argument that it’s unfair to publish reports which identify them as individuals.

On the other hand, parents need to know. I want to know how good is any school I’d send my little girl to. I don’t want to send her to a school which is consistently failing. In fact, I want the very best school within reason.

Mary Hanafin now has to prove herself, her acumen and adroitness. (What made those words pop up? I don’t usually talk like that.) The powers that be in Fianna Fail must be, or should be, grateful to the teachers.

Even if she re-frames the debate and leads the way successfully to a new consensus, she’ll only be as good as her last challenge.

But I’d like to thank the teachers for giving us all something to watch carefully.

ps I must send Mary Hanafin and the teachers’ trade union leader a copy of this.

Should I send my mother a copy of my first play?

She’s asked for it. But she doesn’t know anything about it, except that it is the first play ever written by any member of her family. I’m her oldest child. She has always been incredibly supportive of the artistic efforts of her children.

Graduation ceremony:

There’s a story told about what happened at the sister’s graduating exhibition at St Martin’s College, London, back in about 1978.

Mother looks long and hard at huge abstract painting. Says nothing for a long time. The painter hovers, barely able to contain herself. Puzzled look on mother’s face.

“It’s lovely, D. But what is it? What does it stand for?”

“Oh.”

The fact that she couldn’t understand the painting didn’t stop my mother being ever so proud of her daughter.

It would take a much longer story to chart the journey whereby my mother now makes her own meaning from sister’s abstractions. But at almost 80, she is well and truely comfortable and delighted with D’s visualisations, even when she has to work at making sense of them.

You couldn’t ask for a more supportive mother.
She’s got better and better over the years. She even bought 3/4 of my first published poetry collection, thereby enabling me to go into a second edition.

But should I expose her to the world of two unsavory characters in a graveyard on Good Friday evening?

Should I show her the language I put in their mouths?

What’ll she feel when she reads their irreverent, perhaps blasphamous, imagery?

You self-censor when you are a responsible parent.

You don’t swear in front of the child. Slowly and surely you do. You don’t want the little one to grow up in ignorance of the language of society.

I was struck by the discussion of language at the tribunal investigating what the police got up to in Donegal. Apparantly they swore all the time, fucking and blinding as if such expletives were merely glottal stops.

There was a great feature in the Sunday Independent by Barry Egan recently. When Paidi O Se (Kerryman) called Kerry GAA team supporters “the roughest type of fucking animals you could meet“, he caused a bit of a storm it seems (Sunday Independent feature on Paidi on 2 April 2006).

His view was:

“The word ‘fucking’ is a modern form of shorthand, I say. It’s another way of saying ‘very’.”

He gave examples:

“He’s a fucking horse of a man”.

“She’s a fucking tough cookie”

I used an awful lot of ‘fucking’ in my Graveyard: first draft.

Would that bother my mother? Probably not.

But what about the use of religious symbolism? Language that comes from a reverential framework, and means something sacred to it’s adherents, like ’sacred heart’?

I think I’m talking myself into sending it to her, lock, stock and smoking barrel. What’s the worst that could happen? A mother’s love is forever. It is unequivical. Lots of mothers have stuck by their murderous children.

I just hope the language doesn’t distract her from the merits of the art.

But what if the art and the language are inseparable?

You want to stay there, but it’s not your own house.

You love the sky and the clouds that fly by so quickly. You could walk that beach until your footprints join up.

You have nowhere to put your things that isn’t in the way. You keep puttings knives in the wrong drawer.

You figure out a way you could stay longer, how you could leave early in the moring and fit in another night drinking. How you could swallow another sunrise…

But you need to escape from the words, and the looks, and from being in the way.

You know you’ll yearn to return.

The Visitor Centre on the Cliffs of Moher intoxicated you. You wish you could still see the cliffs without their clothes on. Next time you’ll take the small boat from Doolin and photograph the rock in its naked wave.

I said I’d write a play there and I have. It’s newborn here.

I’d love to know how much of it you read, what you think of it, what you make of it.

It’s a gift, and now that I’ve posted it, I am unburdened. I loved writing it, and it is great fun imagining how it will end…

The first thing a child is given is a name.

The child is not consulted. The label is put on the infant and the individual is stuck with it for the rest of their life (except for those brave enough to change it).

Grace Violetta was named after

(1) an Irish pirate woman, and
(2) a character in an opera by Verdi who was a delicate flower.

A warrior woman and an ill sweetheart - what a combination to live up to!

I was asked recently whether I was a “management consultant” and this is what started me off on this theme.

The first social thing I was called was my name. My father had a thing about Paul the apostle, a transformational character. Dad must have had some sort of intention that I would live up that example.

I certainly hope Grace becomes a woman with spirit who cow-tows to noone. But I want her to sing like an angel, and exhibit a fragility that is in keeping with the human condition.

The name the child is given is a bit of IMAGINATIVE CONSTRUCTION, isn’t it? You imagine what you’d like the person to become and you give her a name in the hope that she’ll live up to it.

Similarly, when I started to write poems in 1995, I got some wonderful advice from someone: “if you want to become a poet, call yourself a poet“.

So far this has worked for me, and I have certainly become a poet.

Now I am a playwrite.

I have started my first play and I will finish it this weekend. Not surprisingly, it is a sort of homage to Beckett.

If I knew how to put a hyperlink on to the first few lines, I’d be tempted to publish it in first draft form, on Tuesday. But I haven’t the courage or stupidity to publish it in its entirity, as if I expected my regular readers to lap it all up.

It’ll certainly be a minority taste. All the action takes place in a graveyard. However, that may mislead: the action takes place inside the minds of the characters, most of whom remain in the graveyard.

But the writing of this play has distracted me from blogging.

It’s also challenged me to live up to the name of playwrite.

My next post will be on Tuesday. Have a wonderful Easter.