Before fake news
At primary school one day, our teacher explained the meaning and origin of the word 'fuckers'. He didn't say the word, of course, but just pointed out that in the Second World War British infantry on the Continent had good reason to fear the murderous strafing of German aircraft, many of which were made at (requisitioned) Dutch aircraft builder Fokker.
On constant alert, the moment enemy aircraft were heard, the cry would ring out along the marching columns, Here come the Fokkers ... !! Which soon became the pronunciation we know today.
And it was the same man who sparked my interest in Irish history, and, in particular, the Easter Rising of 1916. One sunny Friday afternoon, in weekend winding down mode, he recounted how, during the Rising, Boland's Mills in south Dublin, were seized by members of the 3rd Battalion of the Irish Volunteers led by Éamon De Valera. Perhaps as few as 100 - 130 poorly armed Volunteers were involved. These bold boys even raised the glorious green flag with gold harp, on the roof.
Imagine the effect of this on the imagination of an 11 year old, from an impoverished working class background, where even piffling luxuries were impossibly remote. Yet here was a crowd of lads who, and for the sake of Caitlín Ní Uallacháin, could feast on Kimberley, Mikado, and Coconut Creams, while opening up on the Brits. Get in there, boys... !
Well, time passes, and I never really warmed to that oul schoolmarm Dev, but my allegiance to, and love of, Boland's has never wavered ...
Blonde on Blond
My top speed on the bike yesterday was 45.5 mph ... ! Ok, with a strong tailwind. But going so fast that cars didn't bother overtaking me. What man can say he has failed in life, if he's done that?
I've failed in life, I said to Jean.
Yes, I went on, hopeless husband, flawed father, useless in the sack, career flop, ramshackle guitar player, no friends, impractical, lazy, boring, self-obsessed, opinionated, wimpish upper body development ...
True, she said, but on the plus side, you still have some of your own hair, and it's a nice shade of blond ...
Who knows where the time goes ...
Did I mention I had a son go up to Cambridge ... ? Gonville and Caius. Senior Organ Scholar. I did, did I? Right, keep your hair on ... Jesus, just because you could only get into the Ulster University at Coleraine ...
I myself went up to Cambridge at the same time as Bertrand Russell and Wittgenstein.
We were sitting in Russell's rooms in Trinity one evening and Wittgenstein noticed that a clock on the mantelpiece had stopped.
It hasn't worked since I've been here, said Russell.
Wittgenstein glared at it for a minute, and lo and behold, the damned thing started!
What's going on ... ? said Russell, taken aback.
Wittgenstein just smiled, looked at the clock again and said, Ve haf vays of makink you tock ...
Capt. W. E. Johns
Anyway, I went over to visit my son once. Somewhat eventful journey. As the pilot was giving her the gutty down the runway at Belfast 'International' (mind that tractor!) Airport, he was caught short and had to hit the jakes to drop a log.
The co pilot was already in there, boking his ring up (vertigo). It was too late to abort. Crushed metal infernal maelstrom imminent!
I was sat up front and a member of cabin crew noticed me reading The Portable Atheist.
Wow! she gasped. You know no fear! There's nobody in the cockpit. Will you take control of this crate, you non-believing, sexual firestorm, while the skipper does his No. 2s ... ?!?
What could I say? Cometh the hour, cometh the Man Whose Philosophic Aspect Refuses Allegiance Not Merely To A Definite Concept Of God, But It Refuses All Servitude To The God Idea, And Opposes The Theistic Principle As Such.
The rest of the story is legend at Stansted.
No happy ending, however. I get off the train in Cambridge and get the City One bus to my digs. But the driver tells me that my Translink Bus Pass isn't valid over here! For fuck’s sake ...
Straw houses in the Promised Land
Miss Lotte Lenya is despondent. She hangs her head. Like me, heatwaves don't suit her. She's black (mostly), so doesn't reflect the heat. I'm reddish with blond hair, so I don't tan, I stroke.
She pads, exhausted, slowly up and down a short stretch of the lane, has her breakfast, and collapses on the sofa. If I want to go out on the bicycle, I must be on the road by about 7 30 am. Any later and the heat will cause me to cowp over into a deep ditch. And I know I'd never be missed.
But as I tore through Keady early this morning the sun was already hammering down mercilessly on my Carlsberg-advert type helmet, and I seemed to be riding into a dense, humid wall. Probably the best one in the world.
At home later, when I had regained full consciousness, I watched A Place In The Sun. But the dream of ending my days in rural Italy, in a little village commune with its own Don Camillo and Mayor Peppone, evaporates in this heat.
As David Hume noted, 'In general no course of life has such safety (for happiness is not to be dreamed of) as the temperate and moderate, which maintains, as far as possibility, a mediocrity, and a kind of insensibility, in every thing ... '
Temporarily like Achilles
Along came a singer-songwriter/busker. In answer to his inevitable first question, I said I made it a point not to write my own stuff, since B Dylan had stolen all my best ideas.
Unasked, he took out his guitar and sang a self-penned tune, entitled Seeing Love. The chorus went:
I'm done with seeing to, and seeing through,
I'm now just seeing ... that I'm still in love with you ...
Like many a logical positivist, I've had it up to here with, and am cruelly indifferent to, discerning, razor-sharp rehashes of getting the big E from some girl who has wised up. Nevertheless, when he eventually finished, I reminded myself that nowadays all must have prizes, and exclaimed, Great stuff ... !
But who knows what it actually was ... ? Anyway, this seemed to suffice.
I never busk here, mate, he said, scanning the street, and packing away his guitar, not enough people around to make it worth my while ...
The taxes on the farmer feeds us all
Miss Lotte Lenya ran away across the fields yesterday, after a rabbit, and didn't return for over two hours. Bold girl.
Some inbred, mutant, ignoramus farmer (Central Committee Directorate 21/04 prescribes this as the scientific terminology for these tight fisted, overbearing, arrogant, ignorant, illiterate, redneck twats) might have got the imbecilic impression that she was 'worrying' his sheep, and shot her. Naturally, I would then have killed him. Or it. Or whatever state of biological indeterminacy has been reached after generations of sheep shagging, whinging, praising the Lord in a dreary tin hut on Sundays, and God knows what else.
And the judge (like myself, an urbane satirist and hipster) will say, Release Mr Praetorius immediately, and torch that wretched hunchback's shack ... !
Hats off to R Crumb ... !
Here they are ... the men who 'come with the dust and are gone with the wind'. But for them I'd be wearing a baseball cap, up for the match, eating the altar rails, and listening to diddly-diddly shite on the car stereo.
These cartoons were originally done in the USA during the 1980s, as collectable and trading cards, by artist R Crumb. 36 in total, there are 24 shown here.
In all my years busking, whatever else was said - and there's been plenty - only one person dissed the music itself. My technique and delivery, but not the stuff I try to play.
Why not? you don't ask. I'll tell you anyway. Because the legacy of these men, and women (Memphis Minnie shown here), can never be either in or out of fashion. Nor can its value and significance or enduring influence be up for debate. Everything is settled, for a primitive boogie is deep within us all, somewhere ...
So let us now praise not so famous men (and women), enshrined in their primitive, unchanging, ragged, untutored, heart-stopping glory ...
The shite of the Earls
As a (lapsed) Catholic, nationalist, and (lower case) republican, I find it truly galling to be described, by some unionists, as a 'Gael' ... ! To imply that I, of all people, wear an American baseball cap; think that Mickey Harte and his manly mates are not yahoos; give my children lumpen and unpronounceable names, and kit them out with hurls and in hideous O'Neill's jerseys; dance at the crossroads after Sunday Mass with a shower of GAA retards; worship 100mph diddly-diddly shite, and Christy frigging Moore; believe that Oscar Wilde went 'too far'; and, holiday in Donegal so that I can be with like-minded wooden-heads.
I’ll never have that recipe again
It's that time of year. The big field has been cut. I took Miss Lotte Lenya in there today. I wanted to have a word with the crows, many of whom nest in trees to our left. Their early bird squawking annoys Jean, though it's never bothered me; as a lapsed Catholic, I have more profound stuff to be cross about.
You walk a fine line though. Nesting in that same line of trees are wood pigeons, even a few robins and various other small fry. So, how to persuade the crows to feck away off, but simultaneously assure their innocent neighbours to sit their ground ... ?
A quare conundrum, I said to Lotte.
A terrible hard pancake, she replied.
When my son was a nipper this field was his domain. On sunny mornings he'd get me to hoist his bike over the gate, and off he'd shoot until all you could see of him was the white dot of a Lil' Bell helmet slipping below the slope of the field. And that was that, for hours.
In the hedges and sheughs all around it now are the remains of his hides and forts. When the weather is very dry, some of them still look snug and are very discreet. So much so that, if I had my time over again, I'd suggest one or other of them as rendezvous points for my Plenty of Fish first dates ...
Do you remember, J B Keane ... ? The Field ... ? I've always thought that the film version would have been ten times better had Richard Harris sung McArthur Park and Didn't We.
Not ferry funny
In Strangford for the ferry, and it was, as usual, raining; the few people around were, as usual, gloomy, silent and grim. I popped into a shop for some chocolate, costing, as usual, a small fortune; the shop assistant, an old battleaxe, barely acknowledged me.
A few minutes later we had crossed to Portaferry. Here the sun was splitting the trees. People were laughing and talking. Coming ashore, I met friendly greetings, open faces, and all-round good will. I nipped into a shop to buy a drink, which was competitively priced and great value for money. The woman behind the counter was vivacious and elegant.
I can't help but wonder if this graphic contrast between the two places is because everyone in Portaferry is a Taig ... ?
Poetry Corner
Homage to celebrity
Now we know
God's no longer with us,
the gates of life swing open;
step inside, love.
Approach no altar;
we ourselves divine,
for the dogs in the street
adore us.
The hand of fame
upon my shoulder,
I scratch forward
oozing a sacred wholeness.
Philosophy Corner
As soon as absolute truth is supposed to be contained in the sayings of a certain man, there is a body of experts to interpret his sayings, and these experts infallibly acquire power, since they hold the key to truth. Like any other privileged caste, they use their power for their own advantage. They are, however, in one respect worse than any other privileged caste, since it is their business to expound an unchanging truth, revealed once for all in utter perfection, so that they become necessarily opponents of all intellectual and moral progress — Bertrand Russell, Has Religion Made Useful Contributions to Civilization? (1930)
⏩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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