Punky's dilemma
So, asked Jean last night, any luck with all the friend requests you sent out on facebook ... ?
I have no need of friendship, I replied, friendship causes pain; it's laughter and it's loving I disdain.
And what about love ...? she asked.
Don't talk of love, I said. I've heard the word before; it's sleeping in my memory. I won't disturb the slumber of feelings that have died; if I never loved I never would have cried.
Thinking like that, you'll have nothing and no one in your life, she said.
I have my books, I said. And my poetry to protect me. I am shielded in my armour ... I touch no one and no one touches me. I am a rock. I am an island.
And, I added, a rock feels no pain, and an island never cries.
If that's all you can say, she said, I think I prefer the sound of silence ...
Mary had a little Psalm
Evensong at the Anglican cathedral in Armagh yesterday. Pleased to see that up on the hill they are still keeping out the riff raff. In my day anything below the dizzy heights of dentistry or car salesmanship wasn't welcome, but from the man and woman at C&A look, not to mention the entirely unwarranted superior social/cultural bearing of last night's congregation, I'd say the same high standards still apply. Not too surprised that I was the youngest person there, either.
A special little prayer to the Blesséd Virgin had, for some reason, been inserted into proceedings. That bemused me, since even 'high' church Protestants in N Ireland are, in the main, chronically and rustically 'low'. They take apparently humble, though nonetheless ostentatious, care to worship in the homespun, pretentiously unadorned fashion that they have told God Almighty He requires.
So along with tent missions, tin shacks and wooden tables goes a great disdain for Papist heathen fripperies, like candles or the Marian cult. Which is why I was tickled to see this prayer, even though, because I am an atheist, I couldn't be bothered reading more than the title. Credulous mumbo jumbo.
Jean was unacquainted with the soubriquet 'Our Lady'.
Catholics have many names for her, I said ... Queen of Heaven, Mother of God, Blessed Virgin, Stella Maris (Star of the Sea), Refuge of Sinners, Our Lady of the Sacred Heart, Theotokos (God bearer) to the Eastern Orthodox ... what do you Prods call the Madonna?
Mary, she said.
Don’t get a dog
I've been retired 11 years now. Before leaving work we had a course on how best to adjust to, and benefit from, retirement. But I was off that day. Consequently I left, wholly unaware that I was now a (senior) adventurer/traveller/beach bum/hopeless-romantic/seeker/daredevil/gourmet/artisan/connoisseur of pushing the envelope, trying everything once, living forever, and, of course, forever parroting 'Carpe diem'.
Partly due to this ignorance I ended up, one evening shortly after quitting work, with my son at a house in Moira. His girlfriend had a dog so he wanted one. In the back garden three cocker spaniel pups cavorted: two chocolate brown dogs, and a black bitch who was chasing the cat. My son named her Miss Lotte Lenya, soon broke up with the girlfriend, never mentioned dogs again, and went off to university in England. And I was left, furious, stuck with a dog just when action-packed, thrills-and-spills retirement dawned.
And so, 15 years later, I sit daydreaming on the sofa with her ... in my eyes, the ashes of a different retirement in which I snorkelled the paddy-fields of Vietnam, or whatever, like all my shiny, happy contemporaries. Meanwhile, the reality is I can't even bear to put her in kennels, and I wouldn't trade a second for a whole world of maxed-out crap.
Who are you ... ?
Stars in my eyes. I was busking in Armagh, and who should come along but Eileen King ... ! Yes, Ireland's Sweetheart of Country Music (it says on her facebook page). She insisted she had seen me before somewhere. I'd never seen, or heard of, her in my life.
So, she had to tell me who she was. I thought for a minute that she was the legendary Eileen Reid who fronted the Cadets, a 1960's showband.
She said I was a good picker ... ! I dread to think what the quality of her albums is like if she considers me a musician. Nevertheless, I asked her if she could get me a recording contract, or if I could go on tour with her, or if, at the very least, she would allow me to open for her at a show she said she was organising in Newtownhamilton next month.
I'm only 71, I said, I can still make it.
She didn't crack a smile. She suggested I go on her facebook page to see all the albums she had available for purchase. I'm guessing it's Five Little Fingers stuff.
Right, I said, I'll send you a friend request.
Immediately she demurred, faffing on unconvincingly about how her agent handles all that kind of thing. Lol ... Eileen King can't risk being stalked ...
Right, I said, I won't.
Auberon Waugh rides out
Off to the University of the Third Age to hear a lecture entitled All Men Are Dreadful. It was delivered by some specky little tugboat; a transsexual Quasimodo, perpetually enraged by her utter lack of sex appeal.
In the foyer afterwards several feminist groups had set up stalls. My favourite was Sisters Against Abortion (Except When The Foetus is Male).
On leaving I was importuned by one of the 'pro life' Catholic Feminists to sign some grubby petition; something about saving the lives of thousands of fully formed little Celtic supporters who would otherwise be 'killed' by Dr Mengeles in abortion clinics.
I looked at her earnest face, glowingly infused with certainty and faith and righteousness. I have tried to live my life in an ivory tower but its walls are being assailed by a tide of shite.
Fuck off, I said.
Oh, lucky woman ...
But how did Jean manage to find a gem like me, you ask, amidst the flotsam and jetsam, rocks and gravel, nutters and basket cases, losers and no-marks, wokesters and wankers, that mostly comprise dating site members ... ?!?
Easily done. After she'd input all her details, the programme asked, What are you looking for on POF? She diligently typed in, The man of my dreams, the love of my life.
Instantly, up came my profile, top of the pile ... !! The only one actually. On our first date we went for a pizza, and I think it was when I ordered a half pint of shandy in a dirty glass with mine, that she knew I was exactly the edgy, unpredictable, cavalier alpha male she longed for.
Hats off to Amanda Abbington ... !
First to be chosen for the new Strictly ... !
Unfortunately, though, a while ago she happened to remark: You cannot have a penis and [want to] be referred to as a woman.
Oh dear ... I wonder from where she got that absurd notion ... !?! Trans-fans everywhere are wetting themselves ... they can't 'feel safe' if she's on ... viewing boycott dead ahead ... !
Anyway, terrified of losing the gig (and her career, I shouldn't wonder), Amanda has issued a clarification. With regard to her extraordinary assertion that women don't have penises, she says: I made a stupid comment a few years ago. I was ill-informed. I apologised and did my research and I’m much more informed now. I’ve said stupid things, of course I have, and instantly regretted them. Everybody is learning.
One can only wonder where she 'researched' this matter. The Guardian, Pink News, the BBC, New Statesman, 'Scientific' American, Justin Trudeau ... I would imagine.
I think we should be shown the fruits of this match-winning research, so that we can once and for all nail the lying bigots-cum-concentration camp guards who claim women cannot be penis-ful.
What a pathetic fucking excuse for a woman you are, Amanda ...
You can get the Private Eye in Portaferry, but not in the city of Armagh
You can say what you like about Portaferry, but it's full of Taigs. And when in Rome ...
Up the 'RA ... ! I exclaimed gaily to the girl behind the counter when buying a newspaper the other day.
Eh ... ? she agreed enthusiastically.
Then over to Eurospar to have a look at what was on the 'cheap shelf'.
Wrap the green flag round me, boys ... ! I greeted the other misers clustered round the out of date stuff there.
Come again ... ? they chorused in happy endorsement.
Do you know what it is I'm going to tell you ... ? I asked an old salty dog, in peaked cap and puffing on a traditionally nautical-type briar pipe, down by the sea front.
What ... ? he said.
When the Englishman opens his mouth about Ireland, I replied, sure common sense flies out the bloody window, a chara ...
On your way, son ... ! he concurred eagerly.
Comrade Lotte Stakhanov
Here she is ... exhausted by her efforts to help in the big house move. There isn't a removal man, or workman, or anyone, whose way she hasn’t been in. She has wandered around aimlessly, going out, then going in, then out, then back. She has blocked doorways, halls, corridors, got herself lost, fallen down steps, fallen up stairs, got locked in the barn.
But despite this hefty workload, she still manages to turn up for meals and 'hoovering' duty ...
Can’t buy a thrill
There was this woman years ago I worked with. She was retiring, so we had a leaving do. She constantly sang the praises of Scotland. For instance, if you mentioned the horrors of the Famine she countered with how much more devastating the Highland Clearances had been, and how admirably stoical the Scots had been in the face of adversity, compared to the rosary bead clutching bog Irish, whinging and moaning, when they should have been wearing skirts or whatever. You see, a Protestant from Laois she was, and thus plus royaliste que la reine.
At the time of her bun party I was in big financial trouble. Unbeknown to my wife I had 'borrowed' a very large lump sum her mother had given us to provide for our son's education and general welfare, and frittered it away clandestinely on prostitutes.
As well, over the years I'd dipped heavily into my wife's personal inheritance to finance my midnight creeps, as it were. It was common gossip, so much so that a male colleague of mine, a man whose ambition was to own a big car, had a 'word to the wise' with me. Mulling over his half pint of shandy, he told me frankly that what he termed my 'tenth rate Woody Allen' appeal to a very small number of women was embarrassingly naff, especially when compared to his smooth-operator, lover man, 'raunch pad' approach.
To back this up he indicated that he’d never had an affair with my wife, even though he could easily have done so, had he wished, for, as he admitted to me, women were drawn irresistibly to him because he was dynamite in the sack and terminally bland out of it. I had seen this for myself; he'd squired an uninterrupted succession of appalling dimbos and fruitcakes.
He told me, man to man, to quit making a bollicks of myself. I was grateful for his advice because I respected him. On the way to parties he was always stopping off at chemist shops to buy condoms, and asking me if I wanted to replenish my stock, which, for some reason, I never needed to.
Anyway, on the night in question, hit hard by the loss of my nookie, I tore into the sauce, made an utter fool of myself, and was carried home stocious, quoting loudly from The Wasteland, and begging to be forgiven for bullying other staff, if it could be proved that any of my alleged 'victims' had ever been compos mentis, never mind competent.
But here's the heart-rending bit. A couple of weeks ago I met the Jockophile woman for the first time since that night. She confessed she had eventually heard all about me shamelessly shagging tarts and robbing my ex wife. Having heard my wife's side of the story, this woman's innate sense of fairness told her not to risk hearing any lies by listening to opposing versions. Nevertheless, she was not for taking sides, she told me. It wasn't just that she wasn't necessarily on, or not on, my side, she explained, but she wasn't not on my ex-wife's side either ...
This considered, mature appraisal humbled me, offering, as it seemed to, the possibility of future rehabilitation, dependant on my behaviour obviously, with the plain people of Armagh.
I was somewhat overcome and didn't know what to say, but I finally asked, And what the fuck has it to do with you in the first place ... ?
⏩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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