Head Rambles

Grandad June 14th, 2007

When I was ten, I was sent to boarding school.

I soon discovered that this wasn’t a place where merry chaps played cricket and then had a pleasant evening roasting a first-year pupil over an open fire.

This was more like Colditz - a dark place where survival was the name of the game. For this was Ring College [or Coláiste na Rinne, as they liked to call themselves] where we could only speak Irish, and you were flayed to the bone if a word of English slipped out.

Mercifully, my memory auto erased itself to spare me the nightmares of the place, but one or two still linger.

One of my memories was of Cheffy’s Vomit. This was the main meal of the day on Friday. It was revolting stuff. It had the look and consistency of wallpaper paste, and had little things like diced carrot floating in it. It was bland, and had a taste of desperation about it. It was served up in a soup dish and we all ate it or starved. I’m sure we should have been entitled to Red Cross parcels, but we were too young and scared to argue.

But why do I think of Cheffy’s Vomit now?

Strangely, it was the news of the Greens’ pact that brought the memories back.

Our current selection of political parties are the Cheffy’s Vomit of the modern day. They are colourless, tasteless, and we put up with them because that’s what we are given.

But there was always that little bowl of peas at one side of the soup dish. I don’t fancy a diet of peas, but at least it was there, providing a bit of colour, and an alternative if you were that desparate.

Now the peas have been thrown into the Vomit. It is the end of alternatives. It is the end of the mildly eccentric bit of colour. We are now stuck with Cheffy’s Vomit for the foreseeable future and it makes me want to throw up.

I know some will say that there are still different flavours in government. But it is very hard to tell the difference. Maybe a 1% difference in proposed tax rates, or a difference of opinion as to where private hospitals are built, but essentially they are all the same recipe.

What we need now in Irish politics is a bit of spice. A vindaloo on the menu, or a bit of bolognese. Even a traditional Irish stew would do to liven things up a bit.

Anything but Cheffy’s Vomit.

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Grandad June 4th, 2007

What is your favourite classical composer?

That question was posed to me over the weekend and somehow it evoked memories of childhood.

I was forever being asked my favourite pop singer [though in those days it wasn't known as 'pop'] or my favourite football team.

Whatever answer I gave was the wrong one and I’d get beaten up and jeered at. Because the right answer depended, not only on the questioner but on his mood.

Somehow I had an instinctive knowledge that this was part of the ritual of establishing a pecking order. Like dogs. But they only pissed on me once, when in a moment of panic I replied ‘Millwall’. I hated football and didn’t know one team from another, so I don’t know why I said that.

I had four things going against me at school - I was tall and skinny; I had glasses; I was very quiet and I was a pacifist. So I stood out from the crowd and was a natural target. It was the natural order of things so I didn’t complain. That was just the way things were.

As for my favourite classical composer? I don’t know. I like Mozart and I like Beethoven. I like Vivaldi and I like Handel. But there are pieces they wrote that I don’t like so much. I go for the song, not the singer.

If I had to bring just two tracks to a desert island I would probably go for Vidor’s Toccata & Fugue in D Minor, or Adiemus by Karl Jenkins.

And if you don’t like that answer, you can beat me up if you like.

I don’t care.

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Grandad May 20th, 2007

In the old days, the heart of Dublin was Nelson’s Pillar.

It was the focus of the city. It was marked as the destination on buses going to the city.

I used to love that pillar. For 6 pennies [a tanner] you could enter the dark doorway, and climb the spiral staircase inside, right to the top. The view was fantastic. The flower and fruit sellers used to have their stalls around the base. It was a meeting place. I loved it.

In 1966 the IRA blew it up. The bastards. It was supposed to represent “British Imperialism” or something. Crap. It was an icon of the city.

They should have left the stump as a monument to stupidity.

It was removed though, and replaced with a “fountain”. That was an ugly yoke. It was a figure of a very depressed looking female sitting in a tub. It was supposed to represent the river Liffey. It became known as “The Floozie in the Jacuzzi” and became a handy place to dump your old beer cans and McDonalds junk. It was removed.

I can’t describe what replaced it. It’s not a monument. It’s not a statue. It’s certainly not a building, even though they employed a firm of architects to “design” it. I don’t know how much training they had to learn to draw a straight line?

It cost nearly 5 million Euro to put up. But what is it?

It is completely functionless.

If they grew sweet pea plants up it in the summer, it would be nice. If they had drilled holes through it, it could have made a fluting noise in the wind. If they had attached mobile phone antennas at the top, it would have a purpose. Come to think of it, a mobile phone mast would have been more attractive.

It is supposed to be self cleaning. I have this vision of it waiting until no-one is looking and then shaking itself like a dog. And they still have to clean it every year!

It has, of course attracted a load of colloquial names:

Bertie’s prick,
Stiletto in the Ghetto,
Erection at the Intersection,
Stiffy by the Liffey

It even has it’s own website for god’s sake. The only nothing in the world to have a website.

I don’t like it, because there is nothing to like. I don’t dislike it, because there is nothing to dislike.

I just wish someone would tell me what it is, or what it does, or what does it represent?

What is the point?

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Grandad May 15th, 2007

When I was a child, everything had its time and its place.

The days were marked by events.

Saturday was bath day, when we all bathed and washed our hair [not all together, I hasten to add]. Because Sunday was Mass day.

Sunday was a big deal. First of all - no breakfast, because in those days, you had to fast from midnight. Then we’d head off to Mass in the car. Sunday was about the only day in the week when we got a ride in the car. Mass, of course was the old style. We stared at the back of the priest as he chanted away in Latin and it all had a great air of mystery. None of this lets-all-be-friends-and-shake-hands stuff. The Mass then had an air of timeless ritual.

On Sunday afternoon, if my Dad was in a good mood [which he usually was], we’d go for The Sunday Drive. This could be anywhere. Slane. Wicklow Mountains. Howth. I never knew where we’d end up, but it was fun.

Monday was wash day. My mother would fire up the big copper boiler, and all the sheets and cloths would be left boil and the place would fill up with a wooley steam. And after they had boiled for while, we had to put them through the wringer and then hang them out on the line. None of your washing machines and tumble driers for us!!

The days themselves had little milestones too. Meals were always eaten at the table. It wouldn’t occur to us to eat anywhere else. And we had to get permission to leave the table! On hot summer’s days, we used to lay the table in the garden, and eat out there. Dinner was at one o’clock sharp. Tea was at five. If you were late, then too bad.

A quarter to two was “Listen with Mother” with Daphne Oxenford, on the radio. My day was incomplete without that [I was only three or four, for God's sake]. At two, I had to be silent for an hour. This was “Womans Hour” time, and my mother would stretch out on the settee with her cup of tea and a digestive biscuit. I used to get my dose of Virol then too. I loved Virol. It was like liquid toffee. I wonder what happened to it?

Evenings were spent around the fire. This was the time for reading or listening to the wireless. Sometimes my dad would put on a record. It was all very cosy.

Nowadays, people eat around their widescreen televisions that dominate the room. Meals are whenever you want them. Conversation is a dead art. Studies have shown that one of the causes of juvenile delinquency is the decline in the formal family meal. Children identify more with their friends and characters on television than they do with their families. Sad.

I must admit to eating in front of the television myself these days. We have a washing machine and a tumble drier. The car is used whenever we feel like it.

I listen to the radio a lot. But the biggest thing I have brought with me from those days is my love of books.

I’d be lost without my books.

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Grandad May 11th, 2007

When I was a lad, we lived about a mile and a half from Terenure.

I those days, we had fields behind us where they kept the horses that used to pull the HB milk carts. Now there isn’t a field for miles.

If we wanted groceries, Terenure was the nearest shopping area. We used to walk there, unless it was raining, when we’d get the bus. We had a car, but that was kept for important trips only.

Terenure was still a village then. The main grocery shop was Floods. That’s long gone now. It had great oak counters, with lines of biscuit tins in front. The biscuit tins had transparent lids so you could see the contents. There was a lovely smell of smoked bacon and spices. You would be served by a cheerful assistant, who would fetch each item in turn off the shelves behind him. Items such as sugar and butter had to be weighed and packaged. Very few items were pre-packed in those days.

When the time came to pay, you gave him the money. He would put it, and the bill into a wooden jar that was then clipped into an overhead wire system. He would pull a handle, and the wooden jar would go flying across on its wire into the cash office which was high on the opposite wall. There, a girl would put in the change and the receipt, and the jar would come flying back again.

Choice of food was very small compared to nowadays. There were no exotic fruits or vegetables. There were only a few varieties of other products such as breakfast cereal or tinned produce. You could only buy fruit or vegetables if they were in season. But they tasted great!!

People nowadays have no idea how food really tastes. Unless of course, you grow your own. Bread was lovely and soft and squishey, with crackly crusts on the outside. Fruit and vegetables had real flavour.

Across from Floods was Home Stores. I loved that shop. It was a smallish hardware shop, and it was jammed to capacity with produce. You could buy anything there. They had gardening tools, and carpenters tools. They sold wood, and rope. If you wanted a single 6″ nail, you could buy one. Nails were usually sold by weight. Nothing was pre-packaged. I presume they are long gone too.

The chemist was another shop I remember well. again, if you wanted a prescription, it had to be made up by the chemist. He would vanish into the back and return a while later with The Bottle. The Bottle was usually small, with a hand written label on and a cork in the top. If it was poisonous, it would be in a special bottle with ridged sides, just to warn you.

Then there was Eaton’s the bakery. Everything was fresh, from the doughnuts to the bread. And the smell in that shop was fantastic.

Nearly all of that is gone now. Terenure is more of a traffic jam on the way into the city now. I haven’t been there in a while, and I am unlikely to pass through.

I miss the personal service. I miss the ability to buy a single battery instead of four. I miss the days when you could open a pack of rashers without a degree in engineering, or a very sharp pair of scissors.

But most of all, I miss the taste of food.

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