Life is brief
On the Mall this morning there was a guy discreetly handing out little 'saved'-type booklets. I understood this to be a breach of Council Regulations, but since I'm old and won't be around that much longer, it didn't seem worth worrying about.
Lovely dog, he said and offered me a copy.
I declined. He tried to engage me in conversation. But what's the point, eh ... ? We already know that he's going to Heaven whereas, being an atheist, I'll die roaring, so it's game, set and match to him. No scope there to 'elevate the debate' (as that cretin Joel Taggart says on Radio 'Ulster').
Time is short, he said.
I overlooked this ageist comment, and walked on. He's right, of course. When you're old the most sensible default state of mind is naked terror. You're going to cop it one way or another pretty soon, and it won't be pleasant.
This is one reason why I'm glad I don't have any friends among my contemporaries. The sole topic of conversation in a gathering of oldies is ... of course ... their failing health. Jesus, Mary and Josef K, but it's all about stents, and scans, and stair lifts, and knee replacements, and macular degeneration, and the 'waterworks', and keeping an eye on no. 2s, and altogether terrifying diagnoses of sheer awfulness awaiting.
As a coward, I devote myself to running, humiliatingly panic-stricken, away from all this. Time enough when the whip comes down, I reckon.
We are not Alliance
Every time I send a friend request on Facebook to Alliance Party candidates (even Naomi herself), it's rejected instantly. I don't get this. A quick look at my profile shows that I revile the Orange Order just as much as I malign the GAA.
So, what's not to like for them ... ? You can't get more measured, moderate, mature, and middle of the road than that. Alliance's ideal target demographic, surely.
Come on, Alliance Party candidates ... I mean, I wouldn't be voting for you, but that's beside the point . . .
CCEA Examination
English Language June 2023; Paper 1
Q1. Compare and contrast the difference in meaning between the following statements:
Tina Turner was a legend;
Tina Turner was a total legend.
Extra marks will be given if the candidate can also specify how, and indicate in what manner, Ms Turner was, simultaneously, 'unique' and 'very unique'.
(Do not attempt to write on both sides of the paper at the same time.)
Tarantula
My first novel ...
Soon in the morning
When Vic woke that morning, he couldn't have known what was in store. A few streets away his girlfriend Marjorie was dressing, similarly oblivious to what would unfold. Her roommate, Jenna, reminded her they needed milk. Nothing did Jenna suspect either, of what was to occur that day.
On his way out Vic caught a glimpse of himself in the hall mirror. He looked well. But even so, he still couldn't know what lay ahead.
The postman greeted him down the street. Nothing today ... ? asked Vic.
Junk mail only, said the postie.
They talked a little about last night's big match, innocently enough, neither aware of what was to come.
Meanwhile Marjorie was at her desk in Pulpit Publications, a vanity publishing outfit where she was sub-editor and proof reader. It was a shared office. John R was already behind his word processor.
Morning, he said brightly. John R was of the painfully cheery type. He had a thing for Marjorie, and intended to make his move that day. But there was no way he could have known what was about to happen.
Jenna left the flat and headed in the direction of Tower Flats, a run down and ramshackle building on the edge of an industrial estate. She was meeting Ivan Turner, the pastor of a small community church there. Housed in a dilapidated shop, Ivan planned to paint the walls today and she had offered to help. Ivan was a committed Christian outreach pastor, determined to offer the Flats population some relief, hope even, via Faith, from the bleak, eked out existence they endured.
Jenna had mixed emotions about Ivan. She admired his honesty and generosity, his willingness never to ask others to do, or suffer, what he wouldn't himself do or suffer. Yet she found the whole notion of 'faith' off-putting.
When she pushed open the door, Ivan was already hard at work, absorbed 100% in the current job, as always.
He looked over and smiled. He'd been there for a couple of hours already. He went back to his painting, totally unaware of what the day would bring.
Goodness, said Jenna, surprised to see him there so early, You never know what’s going to happen . . . !
The reason that none of them could have known what exactly was about to happen is that time, whatever it is, and relative to us, runs forward, not backward. So nobody really knows what's on the menu.
The end
. . .
(I'm currently working on a sequel. Synopsis: each character has a dream which is of great importance to them, but is boring for the rest of us, as other people's dreams always are, but they tell us about their stupid dreams anyway, so we skip those pages and hope the narrative picks up a bit, and if it doesn't . . . start a different book.)
Burning Emily Bridges behind me
Hats off to British Cycling ... !
They decided today to change their current men's category to an 'open' category, where trannies can compete against other male-born riders, while the female category will be reserved for those who were female at birth.
A guy who calls himself Emily Bridges has called this decision 'genocide' and Nazi-like. So he isn't one to overreact.
This man likes to compete against women, and having gone through puberty as a male, naturally he leaves actual women way behind in his slipstream.
In a 651 word statement reeking of manufactured, but hilarious, hysteria, he manages to liken this ‘violent’ decision to the Holocaust. I suppose the Jews must count themselves fortunate they didn't face the abuse he has. And it wouldn’t be the least offensive to them for him to point out how lucky they actually were.
Even worse, he claims to be so traumatised that he's entertaining doubts as to his own existence. All because he can't dominate women at elite level anymore. Furthermore, rather than race other men in the new 'open' category, he's thinking of giving up cycling ...
The sooner the fucking better, squire . . .
The Dream and The Nightmare
Photograph shows the dream.
Meanwhile, the reality:
All I've ever wanted, I said humbly to Jean, is one woman who loves, or even just barely tolerates, me enough to ask me to get the guitar out and play a while.
Well, she replied, don't bother on my account, I'm sick to death of that tuneless, clanking, tinny din ... you need to grow up and sell the bloody thing; it'll never be missed by music lovers. Now, put it away, and get me a cup of tea, like a good man ...
CCEA Examination
ENGLISH LANGUAGE; June 2023; Paper 2
Q1 Compare and contrast the difference in meaning between these two statements:
i) Tina Turner was a coloured woman;
ii) Tina Turner was a woman of colour.
(Candidates are invited to show how the first statement is racist hate speech - because it assumes 'whiteness' is not a colour, and therefore 'whiteness' is the appropriate and defining characteristic of racial colour allocation, whereas the second one certainly does no such thing, and is dead on. A £100 prize, sponsored by the Boney M Afro-American Cultural Foundation, will be awarded to any candidate who can devise a plausible difference between the two.)
. . .
Q2 Deconstruct, identifying their racist bias and inaccuracies, and then reinterpret the following sentences in contemporary inclusively diverse language:
i) Tina Turner was a black woman;
ii) Indira Gandhi was a brown woman;
iii) Dorothy Parker was a white woman.
Stop me if you’ve heard this one before
A frog goes into a bank and approaches the cashier. He can see from her nameplate that her name is Patty Whack.
Miss Whack, he says, I'd like to get a £30,000 loan to take a holiday.
Patty looks at the frog in disbelief and asks his name. The frog says his name is Kermit Jagger, his dad is Mick Jagger, and that it's okay, he knows the bank manager.
Patty explains that he will need to secure the loan with some collateral.
The frog says, Sure. I have this . . . And produces a tiny porcelain elephant, about an inch tall, bright pink and perfectly formed.
Very confused, Patty explains that she'll have to consult with the bank manager and disappears into a back office.
She finds the manager and says, There's a frog called Kermit Jagger out there who claims to know you and wants to borrow £30,000, and he wants to use this as collateral.
She holds up the tiny pink elephant and says, I mean, what in the world is this?
The bank manager looks back at her and says, It's a knick-knack, Patty Whack. Give the frog a loan. His old man's a Rolling Stone.
Apostle's Credo
Even if God doesn't exist nowadays, he definitely used to. Here is a photograph of him. But, alas, He died on 24 May 1963. Born (January 1918) Elmore Brooks, in Richland, Holmes County, Mississippi, the illegitimate son of 15-year-old Leola Brooks, a field hand. He became Elmore James, King of the Slide Guitar.
He earned minimal financial reward in his lifetime. Afterwards many, mostly white, guitarists made a fortune off his back, but were usually indifferent, or crafty, enough to ensure nothing much went to His estate.
He was no virtuoso; never a muso's guitarist. None of that B B King shit, as Bob Dylan warned Mike Bloomfield. Elmore style was primitive, feral even. His brief heyday remains sublime; ferocious slide guitar and hollered, anguished vocals. Austere, short, unshowy.
I was introduced to Elmore (not personally, of course) by Jeremy Spencer. Jeremy was in a band called Fleetwood Mac, with Peter Green. I was in a little group myself at that time. My chum, Jim, was its Peter Green (technically brilliant); I was its Jeremy Spencer (technically very limited and repetitive). Pretty soon, Jim had to go off and find a Danny Kirwan with whom he could actually play some music.
But not before he brought a Fleetwood Mac album, The Pious Bird Of Good Omen, round to my house. Spencer played two songs on it: Coming Home; and, The Sun Is Shining. Composing credit for both went to someone called E James.
A week later, thanks to Cob Mail Order Records, I had E James's own versions. I dropped the stylus into the groove. And . . . like many a born again Christian who has awakened in a field, with a hangover, and found Jesus in the ditch beside him, God spoke to me too. He unleashed a full bar slide to the 12th fret in open tuning, hollered, The sky is cryin', look at the tears roll down the street . . . and ripped in with a few more notes of wrenching slide guitar.
And thus it was I found salvation . . .
Bad news week
The Mall, Armagh. Sunday morning. Deserted. All the churches on The Mall are Prod. Good people in there, nevertheless. It's hard not to envy them, what with eternal happiness ahead of them, and so on.
But I am down in the mouth. And pondering. Bad news.
Consider a Holy Trinity of top writers I've admired most of my life:
1) Philip Larkin: poet, librarian, atheist; died 2 December 1985, aged 63; cause of death - esophageal cancer;
2) Christopher Hitchens: author, journalist, atheist: died 15 December 2011, aged 62; cause of death - esophageal cancer;
3) Martin Amis - novelist, essayist, memoirist, screenwriter, QPR fan, atheist: died19 May 2023, aged 73; cause of death - esophageal cancer.
Look at the cause of death: esophageal cancer. This is more than coincidence. Divine nemesis is at work. Be an atheist at your peril.
The die is cast. I look forward to meeting this trio of very, very funny men in Hell.
In memoriam: Martin Amis (25 August 1949 – 19 May 2023)
She knows all there is to know about the crying game
We sat down the other night to watch The Crying Game, if you remember that one. It was on RTÉ2, which, as I remarked to Jean the Protestant, she'd better get used to watching, since we’re almost there now.
Anyway, neither of us had ever seen the film before, believe it or not. First impressions were how embarrassingly bad some of the acting was, especially the British soldier and stagey, stilted, stylized, dreadful - as usual - Stephen 'You can't make an Irish film without me' Rea.
Nevertheless, I thought we might persevere, but shortly after the initial appearance of soldier's girlfriend Dil, Jean said crossly, Oh I'm away to bed ... this is awful and you can tell that’s actually a man anyway ... !
Spoiler bloody alert please, Jean ...
Hats off to the GAA ... !
Long ago, in fact, I learned what a positive force it actually is.
At St Colman's College I was, as you'd expect, in the A stream for my year. We were the tops. Yet from year one I was aware, paradoxically, that a significant number of my class mates were as thick as bricks. (Many of them came from Lurgan – maybe no coincidence ... ?)
During classes, teachers (especially the priests) never threw subject-related questions at them. They were never challenged, caned, beaten, mocked or humiliated, unlike the rest of us. Rough stuff on their part was greeted by authority with benign amusement. You were told to man up if they knocked you about.
Even though some couldn't string a sentence together, or were the type who - if you asked them to - would put their hand out to see if was dark outside, they regularly scored highly at in-house exams, and avoided relegation to the B or C streams.
So, imagine my surprise when I turned up to matriculate at Queen’s University after A levels, expecting to see all my old classmates. Other than a couple of Anglos like myself . . . nobody else . . . !
Aye, you’ve guessed. Those other lads were all on, or closely connected to, the College's Gaelic 'football' team . . . a squad of turnip-snagging, clueless, culchie, bully-boy inbreds. Educationally Sub Normal – or, to give them a less pejorative, more clinically appropriate term, Retards. And they winged it effortlessly through College simply because they were great at knocking the shite out of each other for Caitlín Ní Uallacháin and Pádraig fucking Pearse. Alas, though, even the Fenian Mullahs’ influence has its limitations.
Nevertheless, without GAA support and encouragement back then, those yobbo numbskulls would have become, at best, corner boys and Celtic supporters.
Sir Michael Praetorius
Yes, they were in Armagh. Where yours truly just happened to be busking ... !!
And a Royal minder asked me if I'd be ok with them stopping to have a chat on their walkabout . . . !! Good, quirky photo op for them, he said, bit of publicity for me the busker. It made sense ok, so I replied, Of course ...
Now ... I admit that I've been a bit anti-Royalist at times. But when the cavalcade arrived and they began to stroll about, shaking hands here and there, I admit, despite myself, feeling rather overwhelmed by the significance and opportunity of it all.
They reached me, and stopped to listen for a while. I played Mance Lipscomb's Charlie James Blues. Afterwards Charles said, Remarkable ability ... Is that what one calls Irish traditional music ... ?
I briefly explained what it actually is, and couldn't help but add that, even though I'd never have thought I'd hear myself say so, it was one of the greatest honours of my life to meet, and speak with, him and the gloriously fragrant Queen Camilla . . .
Actually, those weren't my exact words. My exact words were, Fuck away off back to Prussia, you Jerry carpetbagger, and take that hideous oul mare with you. The new, liberated-from-Brussels-tyranny, outgoing, dynamic, vigorously young Britain represented by a pair of walking antiques like yourselves ... Jesus, Mary and Josef K... you'd have to be a retard to tug the forelock to a sponging chancer like yourself ...
So, here I am, in a holding cell at the PSNI station, waiting for my solicitor to arrive, and hoping that Jean will be back in time (from meeting her chums in Belfast) to walk and feed Miss Lotte Lenya, and give Ivy her carrots and apple.
Voting for President Gas
For me, the fun has gone out of voting. The location at which we poll has been changed. Back in the day it was in a solid Prod area, and I so looked forward to sauntering in with the Irish passport as my photographic identification.
The tight-faced, scrawny oul bags at the desk would reach out as if it was a piece of clothing fresh from a leper colony, and hold it gingerly between two fingers, appalled at the filth they had to deal with.
Best of all was when it was a couple of good old boys. There'd be great mutterings like: Fenian bastard; or, There's no such fuckin' place as Derry . . . and so on.
But now, alas, we vote in a Taig Primary School gym, where the walls are covered with posters of young female fighting Fenians wielding hurls and strapping, baseball-capped lads giving the leather a lash up the middle for Éirinn go Brách. So I go in, flash the passport, and am greeted with cries of: Up the 'Ra; or, Wrap the Green Flag round me; or, Vote early and vote often . . . !
The worst I could do was get Jean to use her British passport as identification. That sickened their happiness for a second of two, at least . . .
Droll doll
I am sick of you, I said to Jean, you are always ordering stuff online, and you never, ever tick the boxes to indicate that you don't want them to post you offers, and catalogues, and the rest of their advertising crap. Consequently the porch floor is buried every day . . . !
Oh . . . ? said Jean. I never even notice it . . . don't worry, darling, you'll always be the only junk male in my life . . .
⏩Michael Praetorius spent his working life in education and libraries. Now retired, he does a little busking in Belfast . . . when he can get a pitch. He is TPQ's fortnightly Wednesday columnist.
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