Multi-cultural is fair-enough, in fact that state of Utopia should be heroically strived for provided the objective is to both accept and celebrate the differences and not to create a bland amalgam that stands for everything and means nothing. But as I worked my way through the entry filters that all countries seem to have in their heightened state of self-induced paranoia, out of approximately seven people that I had to deal with, only one was Australian!
South Africans, Phillipinos, Germans, Croatians, Brits, and Malayans; is this really Australia?
Where have all the Aussies, aboriginal or pioneering (even if it was only to leave the Fields of Athenry), gone?
I finally got to meet my first local at the final checkpoint. He was a big lad; 6ft 4” or more, with atypical red-hair and pale skin.
This was the place where they check for foodstuffs and substances which are not allowed into the country - there’s no ‘nothing to declare’ channel.
The fellow in front was being given the usual suspicious interrogation.
“Any foodstuffs, drugs, pets, drugs, perishable items, drugs………etc etc?”
Drugs seemed to be the main focus of attention!
He was sent to have his baggage examined.
Now it was my turn, I swallowed the last of the mints they had given me on the plane and looked on the bright side of my recent trials in Spain. They had nicked all my drugs there! -----JOKING!!
“Where have you flown in from mate?”
“Glasgow pal”
“What’s that badge on the side of the green bag?”
Even after the evnts at Toronto, I didn’t hesitate (even Customs interrogators can read after all) and replied confidently…
“Celtic”
While I didn’t expect him to break into ‘You’ll never walk alone” (Toronto had not completely been erased from my memory) I didn’t expect what followed either.
“OK, your clear straight through”
I was so surprised I nearly questioned his decision.
Fortunately with that my mood began to lighten and here I am, still with my lap-top and all my luggage.
The trip hasn’t been without its fraught moments of impending doom and disaster, but I think the combined effects of suspicion (from recent events in Barcelona) and exhaustion have been a major contributory factor in those.
Tiredness has long been a misunderstood part of the human psyche. For too long it has been ignored in favour of the examination of sleep, dreams, nightmares and REM. (Although why anyone should want to study an 80’s Brit pop group at all, escapes me!)
Tiredness is seen by too many as a simple by-product of being awake for too long, and considered as nothing more than the skeleton of a day’s physical efforts, denuded of its muscle by the graft swinging a hammer, wielding a pen, kicking a ball, invading a middle-eastern potentate or bringing a first world country’s banking system to its knees.
In source, cause and effect however tiredness can be seen as so much more than the simple depletion of physical resources, far more powerful than simply needing to sleep, and more mysterious than even the alter-egos of the sandman who visits us with those gentle dreams and terrifying nightmares of the eight hours between the sheets, in a shop doorway, or like me most recently on a 36 hour long haul from Glasgow to Sydney.
After that it is clear that the irritable ennui of tiredness is no corruption of our more normal and lively personas, but an essential ingredient of our autonomous nervous system that albeit like heads to tails, or black to white, both fashions our actions and emotions all day and every day bringing a darker pessimism and negativity to the more optimistic liveliness of our undoubtedly sun basked personalities!
No, tiredness is not something to be eliminated and avoided but almost a necessary emotional response to be welcomed and understood as a Darwinian mechanism that gives an edge in the rat race of survival!
I mean, if the simple fact that after 27 hours flying time both stimulated and depressed by copious amounts of beer and wine, an epitome of tranquil contemplation (that’s me by the way) has to ‘Muttley-growl’ under his breath to contain his growing cynicism at the whole irrational and condescending charade of the in-flight Pavlovian customer conditioning, then it occurs to me that ‘tiredness’ may very well be the first stimulus for all sorts of great corrective deeds of the past.
After all we get ‘tired of’ this, ‘tired of that’, and tired of the next thing’. That’s when we do something about it.
Let’s be honest Brutus got tired of Caesar, Wallace got tired of Edward, France got tired of royalty, the Soviet Union got tired of communism, Brother Walfrid got tired of hunger in the East end of Glasgow, and I got tired of listening to Aussie soaps on television. (I don't see them here in Oz)
I know that some less than great things have also been done through tiredness, but that just demonstrates the essential neutrality of this phenomena. After all nuclear power, or knifes, or guns or scissors are not per se evil, but how we use them is, and ‘being knackered’ may very well have the unstoppable potential to weed out evil in this world, or the equally immovable latency to lay waste to culture and progress!
Anyway eventually when we get ‘tired’ of something, it’s then that we do something about it!
And if ever something needed to be done, then the pointlessness of flight protocols and the (excuse the pun) elevated status that pilots and cabin crew give themselves really gets my hackles getting into training for an attempt at the world hackle-rising record.
For God’s sake the Pilot is a bus driver and the Cabin crew are waiters and cleaners.
This is no attempt to demean any of those two categories, but I don’t get on a bus (although I have noted the neurosis starting to infiltrate train personnel) and go through the nonsense that accompanies a plane journey.
So through the essential sensitivity of ‘tiredness’ I started to ask and answer my own question regarding just what this whole farrago of flight disciplines is all about!
First, just why can’t I be left alone to sleep?
Flying from any point A to any point B, is now no more than the aerial equivalent of “One Flew Over The Cuckoos’ Nest” where Nurse Ratched and her cohorts are dressed in the livery of BA/Quantas cabin crew, the inmates sit around taking their directions and medicines on schedule, to order, and as decreed by ‘those who know better’, while in some of us the fuse of R.P. McMurphy burns towards the explosion of ‘air rage’.
For God’s sake, just why do the blinds have to up for take-off and landing (other than the pilots that is)?
Why must the cabin lights be dimmed for take-off and landing in the hours of darkness? After all we can all put on our overhead lights?
Why even more mysteriously does the upright angle of the seat backs have to simulate a brush handle down the back of our shirts?
Why are we patronised by the statement that ’you may have travelled on a plane many times, but that subtle differences are to be found in this one’ ? NO THEY’RE NOT!
And further I couldn’t give a monkey’s what the pilot, co-pilot and even more ridiculously the cabin crew’s names are and how they are there primarily for my comfort and well being!- NO THEY’RE NOT.
They are there to maximise the amount of hard earned cash from their captive audience.
Listen , if a plane is about to crash, the least of my worries is whether the guy in front has his seat at a slightly more gradual angle; if we hit terra firma, or even ‘aqua slightly less firma’ with the impact of an asteroidal collision then the fact that he/she/me has a table-tray down, or that objects falling from the overhead lockers may hit me on the head, takes on all the importance of a shaving nick in the "Bates' Motel"!
And as for this preoccupation for reminding people that smoking is illegal anywhere on the plane; well they don’t also say that rubbing two sticks in the quest for fire or kids playing with the chemistry set that their auntie Mary bought them for Christmas is also illegal.
We sort of know that.
Anyway, it’s far more likely that someone will get third degree burns or contract beri-beri from the rubbish that is now proffered straight from the microwave as in-flight catering.
As an aside, being a non-smoker of ten years or so, I have also contemplated carrying a single Cigarette and lighter with me just in case of the catastrophic loss of power at 35,000 feet. Believe me that I would calmly light up as we plummeted to our fates but I suspect that while it may prove to be the most enjoyable cigarette ever dragged, there would also be an announcement informing me that in the unlikely event of my survival, the police would be waiting to arrest me!
"All mobile phones must be switched off"!
Of course vthey must, after all the airlines have invented a revolutionary new technology which means that people can use 'their' mobile technology instead, and pay through the nose for its use. This new technology is called 'changing the rules when profit is at stake'!
“All hand luggage must be stored in the overhead lockers or placed safely under the seats in front of you”!
Really?
As the quest for squeezing more and more people onto a plane in order to maximise ‘ROI’ (Return on Investment, NOT Republic of Ireland’) it is likely that Easyjet and Ryan Air will lead the field to set restrictions on height, leg length and hip size as well as setting the agenda on the size of wallet you will be allowed to carry. After all they will need all the space they can get their tiny grubby hands on to ensure that ‘Gin and Tonic sir?’ or ’Coffee madam?’ can be offered at the same cost as the flight did in the first place. (You can still get economic flights with the above two carriers, provided you don’t want to take any luggage and are prepared to fly in the nude)
BA and the others will then follow suit or should that be birthday-suit!
So as the inside of the aircraft is gradually filled with human Lego and all other space is taken up by replete overhead lockers and over spilling underseat spaces, where do we then stick the cushions, blankets, socks, eye-masks and other paraphernalia that are provided ‘for our comfort and safety’?
Well, if airlines could also set a rule as regards the alimentary orifice of staff working in the cabin, I know exactly where I would stick them.
So treat us with some intelligence and be honest.
I really won’t verge on the edge of psychosis if I know WHY things are done as you suggest. I won’t become tired of the charade, and I won’t store up every little inconvenience until it becomes one big grudge that demands ‘something must be done”
For when ‘something must be done’ it usually is.
Something had to be done about Hitler, Ceausescu, Communism, Capitalism, Bush, Blair, Thatcher, ‘the Board’, John Barnes and Bertie Vogts.
So my friends in the SS Cabin Crew, don’t think you are immune!
Oh and by the way, you are not alone!
Having been cheered up by the reception from Mick (my name for my Aussie mate at customs), I was then surprised to find that Ned Kelly is still alive and flourishing in the antipodes!
He now dresses in the attire of the airport Vodafone representative.
This one is still running but when it comes to a head……believe me ‘something will have to be done’ - and when it is you will hear all about it!
For the moment G’Day and ……
Hail Hail
Matt
Sunday, 29 March 2009
Monday, 16 March 2009
I loved Paris in the spring time.........
but now its time for the trek to Toulouse!
Did you notice that clever juxtaposition of words giving a play on the famous French character!
That's it, every place I've been to so far, (well maybe apart from the Priory Hotel) has stuck in the memory for all of the right reasons.
You can't 'do Paris' in a day or two, but you can sit back on a sunny morning at the highest point of Montmartre and quite simply be amazed at the magnificence of the Sacre Coeur, the view over the south of the city and the comfortable cosmopolitan and welcoming city that Paris is.
And then their was the Harp Bar, with Nils - the Swedish Dubliner - a tremendously friendly host whose every characteristic exuded Celtic charm, whichever way you pronounced it, Conor from Dublin, Steve from Aberdeen, Stephane, Wully and young Liam from Devon, Charlie and Maria from Castlemilk, Steve from Springburn, Matt and Kieron (father and son) - from somewhere in Glasgow and the wee lassie whose name I didn't catch who came in with two Americans one with his American express card at the ready.
Out came the absynthe, and as they sipped it through the heat of the doused flames, she just looked and stared at Celtic Banner after Celtic Banner. Each time she simply said
"A Celtic bar in Paris........"
And with each repetition her 'mid-atlantic' accent took on more and more of her original Edinburgh rumble!
By the time she said to me
"Wae that shirt oan, ye must be a Celtic fan tae".
I was sure that she had been reincarnated in Westercraigs!
Anyway, a thousand stories later and I'm off to Toulouse - possibly with a stop in Bordeaux.
Bit of a tricky one this one, as following our win yesterday I was a wee bit lax in organising transport and accommodation.
Will be getting into Toulouse really late - if trains hold out - so this could be my first night sleeping in the station!
Still it is much warmer and even Paris was shirt sleeve weather!
One moment worth mentioning happened on Saturday evening when a wee Columbian, possibly partaking a wee bit too much of his Country's main cash crop, haltingly asked me if I wanted to buy a DVD called 'La Clef Ecossaise".
I don't normally buy DVDs in pubs, but I think he may have missed the irony of offering me one about the creation of French Freemasonry.
So onwards and upwards.
Hail Hail
Matt
Did you notice that clever juxtaposition of words giving a play on the famous French character!
That's it, every place I've been to so far, (well maybe apart from the Priory Hotel) has stuck in the memory for all of the right reasons.
You can't 'do Paris' in a day or two, but you can sit back on a sunny morning at the highest point of Montmartre and quite simply be amazed at the magnificence of the Sacre Coeur, the view over the south of the city and the comfortable cosmopolitan and welcoming city that Paris is.
And then their was the Harp Bar, with Nils - the Swedish Dubliner - a tremendously friendly host whose every characteristic exuded Celtic charm, whichever way you pronounced it, Conor from Dublin, Steve from Aberdeen, Stephane, Wully and young Liam from Devon, Charlie and Maria from Castlemilk, Steve from Springburn, Matt and Kieron (father and son) - from somewhere in Glasgow and the wee lassie whose name I didn't catch who came in with two Americans one with his American express card at the ready.
Out came the absynthe, and as they sipped it through the heat of the doused flames, she just looked and stared at Celtic Banner after Celtic Banner. Each time she simply said
"A Celtic bar in Paris........"
And with each repetition her 'mid-atlantic' accent took on more and more of her original Edinburgh rumble!
By the time she said to me
"Wae that shirt oan, ye must be a Celtic fan tae".
I was sure that she had been reincarnated in Westercraigs!
Anyway, a thousand stories later and I'm off to Toulouse - possibly with a stop in Bordeaux.
Bit of a tricky one this one, as following our win yesterday I was a wee bit lax in organising transport and accommodation.
Will be getting into Toulouse really late - if trains hold out - so this could be my first night sleeping in the station!
Still it is much warmer and even Paris was shirt sleeve weather!
One moment worth mentioning happened on Saturday evening when a wee Columbian, possibly partaking a wee bit too much of his Country's main cash crop, haltingly asked me if I wanted to buy a DVD called 'La Clef Ecossaise".
I don't normally buy DVDs in pubs, but I think he may have missed the irony of offering me one about the creation of French Freemasonry.
So onwards and upwards.
Hail Hail
Matt
Friday, 13 March 2009
That was only Dover
“Ten minutes” He said.
“Aye that’ll be shining bright?” I questioned to myself as I headed towards the ‘SF Rodin’ and the definitive start of the journey to the centre of Celtic consciousness or possibly my own unconsciousness.
I hated being right. Especially as it meant pain for me and to be fair he had only missed out three wee words. So really it was a sin of inadvertent omission rather than one of deliberation!
Unfortunatey the three words were erse, feckin, and my! As in……..
“Feckin ten minutes, my erse”!
“Ten minutes maybe, for a normally constructed man with the requisite specification of limbs and joints, but not for me – the human tortoise/snail – depending upon your phobias or tastes”
It had always been obvious just why those overburdened creatures of Gods mischievous sense of humour were so slow, but obvious in the same way that daylight comes from the sun is obvious. But the sheer undertaking and understanding of how the universe functions in the way it does only becomes really important when you become personally involved in making sure that the light just keeps on coming, plants grow, snow melts and Jimmy Calderwood gets a tan!
For the moment I’ll leave that to God, as I was having enough trouble attempting to walk along Marine Parade in Dover with all my possessions and accoutrements loaded and packed within the bulging, straining straps and flaps of my heroic backpack.
Snails and tortoises now have my unbound admiration.
Thirty minutes later and I suavely and coolly entered the travel centre via the auto-start/stop revolving doors and fifteen seconds later, having ignored the signs that said ‘keep walking’, I left the same travel centre this time on my back, propelled by the unstoppable sweep of the same auto-start and slightly less efficient auto-stop revolving door.
Profusely tendered apologies that ‘the automatic safety stop was intermittently inoperative”, stemmed neither my embarrassment nor the unstifled guffaws of the waiting, watching passengers. The suavanometer and coolguage plumbed the bottom of their scales and I only hoped that the sniggering mockers of my affliction weren’t travelling on the same ferry as me!
Mind you after my one day and evening in this final stepping stone to Europe and all its potential, I should have learned how to deal with adversity and embarrassment.
I had met the master; his name is Flynn; he comes from Mayo; and he owns the Priory Hotel!
I’m saving the whole story up for later, but believe me if you ever have the fortune to find yourself at Dover Priory railway station. Then under NO CIRCUMSTANCES miss the opportunity of Dover’s answer to ‘From Dusk to Dawn’, looming like some praying mantis, scooping its victims into its voracious mandibles.
I had arrived at the station on March 12th three hours late and had decided to stay overnight in Dover rather than rush to get the last ferry!On reflection I am glad I did this, but at the time I was well and truly tired, hungry, pished off, and a wee bit of the opinion that Britain not only conspires to prevent people from entering the country (unless they are free of all curry stains, have made their money by pillaging the poor, or are indictable on charges of causing crimes against humanity), but also pulls strings and levers, derails trains, causes road crashes and generally does everything possible to prevent anyone leaving the country (unless the have never eaten an onion bhaji, believe in equality of opportunity and contribute to Amnesty International - in which cases they will provide first class accompanied air travel, possibly a big whack of cash, and maybe even a change of identity if necessary to speed the unwanted on their way. The even have invented a new term for this largesse – Extraordinary Rendition).
Anyway I had slipped through the net of the normally impeccably efficient security service’s beady eyes and had been delayed at every possible opportunity finally arriving dishevelled and dyspeptic in Dover (now that beats 'Down and out in Beverly Hills’).
It’s a strange but welcoming wee town which probably feels the pull of Europe more than most since its whole economy and existence is now based upon the ferry system that keeps its arterial sustenance pumping through its vital organs – the Bureau de Change and the B&Bs.
It’s said that during the second world war, German Generals with binoculars or very good eyesight used to point their beady eyes at the lookouts on the tops of the white cliffs where the Home Guard were correspondingly ‘watching them, watching us, watching them’.
Personally having stood both at the top and bottom of those same white cliffs, I tend to think that the Krauts (vernacular of the time applied only to those who gave the orders) were thinking “I vunder vot ze idiots are doing at ze top of zose hills. Vy vood anyvun vish to try and invade zer unless zey were totally mad. Zey must be planning zumzing else, zo keep your eyes on zem”! (apologies to allo allo!)
Anyway, having arrived and exited from the station I looked around and, my back pack feeling like another body stowed on my shoulders, was totally underwhelmed to see that the handily placed St Albans hotel – “ideally placed for the weary rail traveller” - was exactly where it was designed to be…..right at the top of about 50 steeply rising steps. It wouldn’t have been that much worse if it had actually been in St Albans!
However, I state this without a word of a lie.
This wee diamond of a hotel is well worth the climb, oxygen and muscle spasms.
It is run by Theodora, a young lady who I would imagine is in her early thirties with a smile that could bring world peace and eyes that could put the stopper back on Pandora’s box.
Her poached eggs and tomatoes are to be savoured as well.
Great wee hotel, great welcome, and at thirty five quid for the night all in, it was ‘jist magic’.
As I looked out the cleanest room I have ever been in, back down to the station, the Priory Hotel lay pulsating in its rough hewn, come -and-get-me, hard-to-get promising sort of way! Somehow I knew that behind those dust ingrained curtains and peeling paint lay an experience with an edge. I would have to visit this obvious monument to the misanthropes of the world.
So about three hours later having separated body from belongings, eaten in a Chinese buffet (eat as much as you can for ten quid) called Chapter Eight (and brilliant that was too) I retraced my steps to the railway precincts and entered Dover’s answer to the OK Corral. He spotted my hooped shirt and in an instant had wripped a St Patrick's day tricolour from the bar and swathed it roundmy shoulders.
Flynn’s from Mayo, but as well as running 13 pubs in twenty six years has also spent ten years in the clink and owns a stud in Tipperary. His brother won £17,000 quid at Cheltenham that morning, but he had only won a grand. He hated running pubs and while he put up with ‘customers’ they were really only a necessary evil. He was going to place all he had spare on two horses tomorrow (Barber shop and Exotic Dancer)! Anyway he had sold up now and was heading back to Ireland, Dublin this time, where he had three pubs already. Those were turning over £250,000 a week and anyway money wasn’t everything.
I learned all of the above from Jo, the head barmaid – in fact the only barmaid.
From the moment me and Flynn had struck up our rather one sided conversation, I had listened intently but the deep deep Mayo accent and the habit of making a sentence into one word left me breathless and unenlightened.
If it hadn’t been for the raven haired Jo’s translation, I would be telling you about the town’s version of neds and chavs.
Anyway I never paid for a pint; after all I was wearing a Celtic shirt (and a fine ‘6 pints of Guinness’ it was Flynn) – and Flynn’s Cousin had played for Celtic and a fine full back he was too. (I won’t name him for the moment since the fellow lives in the Gorbals and some of the stuff needs confirmation)!
At this stage of the evening Flynn was taunting some ‘Marines’ with the heroic history of rebellion in Ireland, and they were all laughing in the way that people laugh when they want to dismember you and your mother! After all it was she who was miserably at fault for giving breath to you!
And there was I standing in the middle with a tricolour wrapped round my shoulders and Flynn having a great time.
Even God decided that that wasn’t funny!
I don't know if anyone's wish that the ground would open up and swallow them whole has ever come true, but while not specifically requesting divine intervention, fortune of fortunes, a drip of (possibly holy) water hit the floor and within a second the ceiling caved in as about twenty gallons of the self-same-stuff crashed into and around the (swimming) pool table.
What happened next?
Ah that’s being saved for Sunday best but believe this; Flynn is larger than any character I have ever met.
And let's be honest that was only Dover!
More to come but the ferry is about to dock and Calais here we are!
Gloire Gloire, Les Celts sont ici!
Matt
“Aye that’ll be shining bright?” I questioned to myself as I headed towards the ‘SF Rodin’ and the definitive start of the journey to the centre of Celtic consciousness or possibly my own unconsciousness.
I hated being right. Especially as it meant pain for me and to be fair he had only missed out three wee words. So really it was a sin of inadvertent omission rather than one of deliberation!
Unfortunatey the three words were erse, feckin, and my! As in……..
“Feckin ten minutes, my erse”!
“Ten minutes maybe, for a normally constructed man with the requisite specification of limbs and joints, but not for me – the human tortoise/snail – depending upon your phobias or tastes”
It had always been obvious just why those overburdened creatures of Gods mischievous sense of humour were so slow, but obvious in the same way that daylight comes from the sun is obvious. But the sheer undertaking and understanding of how the universe functions in the way it does only becomes really important when you become personally involved in making sure that the light just keeps on coming, plants grow, snow melts and Jimmy Calderwood gets a tan!
For the moment I’ll leave that to God, as I was having enough trouble attempting to walk along Marine Parade in Dover with all my possessions and accoutrements loaded and packed within the bulging, straining straps and flaps of my heroic backpack.
Snails and tortoises now have my unbound admiration.
Thirty minutes later and I suavely and coolly entered the travel centre via the auto-start/stop revolving doors and fifteen seconds later, having ignored the signs that said ‘keep walking’, I left the same travel centre this time on my back, propelled by the unstoppable sweep of the same auto-start and slightly less efficient auto-stop revolving door.
Profusely tendered apologies that ‘the automatic safety stop was intermittently inoperative”, stemmed neither my embarrassment nor the unstifled guffaws of the waiting, watching passengers. The suavanometer and coolguage plumbed the bottom of their scales and I only hoped that the sniggering mockers of my affliction weren’t travelling on the same ferry as me!
Mind you after my one day and evening in this final stepping stone to Europe and all its potential, I should have learned how to deal with adversity and embarrassment.
I had met the master; his name is Flynn; he comes from Mayo; and he owns the Priory Hotel!
I’m saving the whole story up for later, but believe me if you ever have the fortune to find yourself at Dover Priory railway station. Then under NO CIRCUMSTANCES miss the opportunity of Dover’s answer to ‘From Dusk to Dawn’, looming like some praying mantis, scooping its victims into its voracious mandibles.
I had arrived at the station on March 12th three hours late and had decided to stay overnight in Dover rather than rush to get the last ferry!On reflection I am glad I did this, but at the time I was well and truly tired, hungry, pished off, and a wee bit of the opinion that Britain not only conspires to prevent people from entering the country (unless they are free of all curry stains, have made their money by pillaging the poor, or are indictable on charges of causing crimes against humanity), but also pulls strings and levers, derails trains, causes road crashes and generally does everything possible to prevent anyone leaving the country (unless the have never eaten an onion bhaji, believe in equality of opportunity and contribute to Amnesty International - in which cases they will provide first class accompanied air travel, possibly a big whack of cash, and maybe even a change of identity if necessary to speed the unwanted on their way. The even have invented a new term for this largesse – Extraordinary Rendition).
Anyway I had slipped through the net of the normally impeccably efficient security service’s beady eyes and had been delayed at every possible opportunity finally arriving dishevelled and dyspeptic in Dover (now that beats 'Down and out in Beverly Hills’).
It’s a strange but welcoming wee town which probably feels the pull of Europe more than most since its whole economy and existence is now based upon the ferry system that keeps its arterial sustenance pumping through its vital organs – the Bureau de Change and the B&Bs.
It’s said that during the second world war, German Generals with binoculars or very good eyesight used to point their beady eyes at the lookouts on the tops of the white cliffs where the Home Guard were correspondingly ‘watching them, watching us, watching them’.
Personally having stood both at the top and bottom of those same white cliffs, I tend to think that the Krauts (vernacular of the time applied only to those who gave the orders) were thinking “I vunder vot ze idiots are doing at ze top of zose hills. Vy vood anyvun vish to try and invade zer unless zey were totally mad. Zey must be planning zumzing else, zo keep your eyes on zem”! (apologies to allo allo!)
Anyway, having arrived and exited from the station I looked around and, my back pack feeling like another body stowed on my shoulders, was totally underwhelmed to see that the handily placed St Albans hotel – “ideally placed for the weary rail traveller” - was exactly where it was designed to be…..right at the top of about 50 steeply rising steps. It wouldn’t have been that much worse if it had actually been in St Albans!
However, I state this without a word of a lie.
This wee diamond of a hotel is well worth the climb, oxygen and muscle spasms.
It is run by Theodora, a young lady who I would imagine is in her early thirties with a smile that could bring world peace and eyes that could put the stopper back on Pandora’s box.
Her poached eggs and tomatoes are to be savoured as well.
Great wee hotel, great welcome, and at thirty five quid for the night all in, it was ‘jist magic’.
As I looked out the cleanest room I have ever been in, back down to the station, the Priory Hotel lay pulsating in its rough hewn, come -and-get-me, hard-to-get promising sort of way! Somehow I knew that behind those dust ingrained curtains and peeling paint lay an experience with an edge. I would have to visit this obvious monument to the misanthropes of the world.
So about three hours later having separated body from belongings, eaten in a Chinese buffet (eat as much as you can for ten quid) called Chapter Eight (and brilliant that was too) I retraced my steps to the railway precincts and entered Dover’s answer to the OK Corral. He spotted my hooped shirt and in an instant had wripped a St Patrick's day tricolour from the bar and swathed it roundmy shoulders.
Flynn’s from Mayo, but as well as running 13 pubs in twenty six years has also spent ten years in the clink and owns a stud in Tipperary. His brother won £17,000 quid at Cheltenham that morning, but he had only won a grand. He hated running pubs and while he put up with ‘customers’ they were really only a necessary evil. He was going to place all he had spare on two horses tomorrow (Barber shop and Exotic Dancer)! Anyway he had sold up now and was heading back to Ireland, Dublin this time, where he had three pubs already. Those were turning over £250,000 a week and anyway money wasn’t everything.
I learned all of the above from Jo, the head barmaid – in fact the only barmaid.
From the moment me and Flynn had struck up our rather one sided conversation, I had listened intently but the deep deep Mayo accent and the habit of making a sentence into one word left me breathless and unenlightened.
If it hadn’t been for the raven haired Jo’s translation, I would be telling you about the town’s version of neds and chavs.
Anyway I never paid for a pint; after all I was wearing a Celtic shirt (and a fine ‘6 pints of Guinness’ it was Flynn) – and Flynn’s Cousin had played for Celtic and a fine full back he was too. (I won’t name him for the moment since the fellow lives in the Gorbals and some of the stuff needs confirmation)!
At this stage of the evening Flynn was taunting some ‘Marines’ with the heroic history of rebellion in Ireland, and they were all laughing in the way that people laugh when they want to dismember you and your mother! After all it was she who was miserably at fault for giving breath to you!
And there was I standing in the middle with a tricolour wrapped round my shoulders and Flynn having a great time.
Even God decided that that wasn’t funny!
I don't know if anyone's wish that the ground would open up and swallow them whole has ever come true, but while not specifically requesting divine intervention, fortune of fortunes, a drip of (possibly holy) water hit the floor and within a second the ceiling caved in as about twenty gallons of the self-same-stuff crashed into and around the (swimming) pool table.
What happened next?
Ah that’s being saved for Sunday best but believe this; Flynn is larger than any character I have ever met.
And let's be honest that was only Dover!
More to come but the ferry is about to dock and Calais here we are!
Gloire Gloire, Les Celts sont ici!
Matt
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