Severe Jam Damage

April 2001
Mandovi River, Goa

The heat here is excruciating. Our little boat provides no relief from the unrelenting sun. The air is searing, each breath scorches our lungs. Throat and mouth scalded by hot air, our skin drips with sweat, melting. Along the river even the trees are dipping branches. The mangroves look wilted. The water is filthy, mud-swirled and crawling with crocodiles. It doesn’t stop me wanting to dive in, anything has got to be better than this awful heat. But the water is the temperature of a warm bath, full of parasites, and anyway I’m too weak. Myself and CityGirl are still recovering from a three-day bout of dehydration sickness. We thought it was a really bad hangover, the staff at the hotel knew better, offered to call us a doctor.
We laughed them off the first two days, ‘it’s just a hangover’ and we took to our beds like old women, then after a third night of fighting over the facilities we relented. An English guest found us staggering and convulsed in the hotel lobby, gave us some rehydration salts, told us to be careful. Now we don’t go anywhere without a pre-mixed bottle of Electrolyte.
But this isn’t anywhere. It’s nowhere. Slap, bang in the middle to be precise. We are on our way upriver along the border of Tiswadi and Ponda provinces. There is nothing to be seen here apart from vegetation and the odd fisherman. A canoe keeps pace with us for a while. It’s long and sits low in the water. The prow is packed full of provisions. The Goan version of the weekly run to Tesco. The boatman waves at us, his head covered, face crinkled. He shouts hello and the noise echoes back across the river.
‘Nameste.’
We return the greeting and he smiles, so wide it almost splits his face in two. Then he paddles on ahead. Slicing through the murky liquid, leaving us in his wake.
We cut our engines, complete silence now. The only sound that of the light slap of the river upon the shore, and the brief breeze blowing through the mangroves. But the wind doesn’t last long and then there is nothing for a while. On the riverbank a crude stone slab looms out over the water. Our guide tells us that this is a holy place, the slab a sacrificial altar. But it has been years since it was last used, although in this case ‘years’ translates to ‘at least 30′. The locals soon realised that human vivisection is bad for tourist trade. CityGirl has stopped talking, we are all restless and weary, legs cramped and muscles sore. But it is too dangerous to try to stop here and stretch our legs. The crocodiles slide langourously into the water, stone eyelids the only thing visible above the waterline. They swim around us, lazy in the sun, mildly curious. As we head back into the middle of the river, they drift off into the shallows, digging into the cool thick mud to lie and sleep and watch the next passerby.

And now something from the weird and wacky section of the Grauniad:

Leo Sheridan, 72, a respected accident investigator who has worked for government and industry, said he had received intelligence from sources close to the US government’s marine fisheries service confirming dolphins had escaped.

‘My concern is that they have learnt to shoot at divers in wetsuits who have simulated terrorists in exercises. If divers or windsurfers are mistaken for a spy or suicide bomber and if equipped with special harnesses carrying toxic darts, they could fire,’ he said. ‘The darts are designed to put the target to sleep so they can be interrogated later, but what happens if the victim is not found for hours?’

Shades of Douglas Adams here methinks.
more

In Conversation with Anthony Bools
On Dublin buskers, Nick Drake, drunken crime sprees and the dangers of glottal stops.

January 05, Maguires Pub

(F/X Squealing feedback and noise, two voices can vaguely be heard in the background, there is a particularly ear splitting screech and abruptly the feedback stops. Booster has just yanked the headphones off the recorder.)

ER: Uh, ok, you could do that as well.
AB: That’ll stop the feedback… So yes, the Park (Stephen’s Green) was the highlight of the year for us.
ER: Ken was saying that there was a bunch of kids got up before you and half the crowd disappeared because they were so crap.
AB: Yes they were punk… ish. They were crap, they broke two – they borrowed some of Ken’s gear and they broke it. (Laughs) It’s kinda funny cause Ken is so particular about his stuff. Actually it’s not funny at all that they broke it.
ER: Mmm, well you wouldn’t appreciate it if they broke your guitar.
AB: Ahh no, I’d kick their fuckin’ heads in, but like that it happened to Ken was sad – the man with all the toys y’see, the man with all the gear and then they broke it, was a brand new one actually a wireless thing. No, but they were shit yeah, they left, when we came on the sun came out and the people came back. Weird.
ER: Speaking of which, you know who I always see on Grafton St outside Marks and Sparks and Brown Thomas, is those lads who were on ahead of you at the May Day thing.
AB: Yeah, they’re always – that’s what they do. (Thinks for a moment) I was at a party with them once!
ER: Really?
AB: I arrived at this party and they were all in there jamming and I was like ‘oh my god, what the fuck am I doing at this party!’
ER: It wasn’t until after Mayday that I saw them busking together on Grafton St. Because before it was always the tall guy always busked by himself and then all of a sudden after - the shorter guy – I call them Busted.
AB: The throwback haircuts!
ER: Yeah. They’re all busking together.
AB: They come and go (buskers.) It’s cool to be dirty. They are all wasted! I mean a couple of weeks ago I was walking up Grafton St, there was a girl she puts on an American accent but she’s definitely not, I had to tune her guitar for her cause she couldn’t get it together - man.
ER: What? Did you have your guitar on your back?
AB: She recognised me, I didn’t have my guitar. You go around Dublin and you think nobody knows who you are, but everyone’s so cool they won’t even acknowledge you. They know you’re there, but they won’t say hello.
ER: It’s like that guy from Waterford, you know the guy with the blonde hair? And he’s got the blonde –it used to be a Mohawk.
AB: (directly into mic) Booster raises his eyebrows archly.
ER: It used to be a Mohawk but he’s got it all shaved on the sides and he wears it in a ponytail now, but he wears these yellow cat’s eye contacts.
AB: Don’t know him, what does he do?
ER: He doesn’t do anything I’m aware of other than walk around town in a long black leather coat and wear yellow contacts.
AB: I’ve never seen him.
ER: Oh you must have seen him, cause everybody knows him. Anyway I ended up at a party one night and he was there.
AB: Your schedule and mine don’t correspond.
ER: Yeah, obviously.
AB: My timing is different. But it’s like that, people you see every day you wouldn’t say hello to them. I know when I see those guys who did the Mayday thing and they’re busking I ignore them. In fact I try and walk behind them so I’m not in their line of vision. I think they are talented men, they play well, they can sing.
ER: They always seem to be doing Beatles covers - every time I walk past them they are doing Beatles covers.
AB: There’s one guy he wears seventies shades and has stupid hair.
ER: (laughs)
AB: He does Nick Drake as well.
ER: Ohh yes.
AB: Which is interesting, considering nobody knew who Nick Drake was until I bought an album and next thing everybody in the fuckin’ country had it.
ER: Don’t be so precious, I knew who Nick Drake was before you.
AB: You’re from Canada.
ER: Lived there.
AB: No, seriously, 15 years ago I was listening to the Lilac Time - Steven Duffy - and he said ‘don’t buy any of my albums go out and buy a Nick Drake album’ so I asked around ‘does anybody know who Nick Drake is?’ Nobody in this town knew who Nick Drake was. This town - maybe you did, maybe you’re different. You probably did.
ER: Yeah.
AB: Fifteen years ago - so I went out and I bought a Nick Drake album, I recommended to a couple of friends, next thing you hear people doing Nick Drake tribute nights and I’m not invited – I’m like ‘you fuckin’ bastards!’
ER: (Laughs)
AB: Fair play, I wish all the success he can handle in his grave. One good thing about Nick Drake is um, he is good, he is brilliant, and more people should hear his music, but it was written into his record contract – he was never going to get a lot of money from his records- but in the original signing of his deal there was a clause put in that his records would never be deleted they would always be available. Meaning that in every shop, everywhere there will be at least one copy of a Nick Drake album. They are never going to go out of print. You know the way you try and buy an album from some artists and if they are not that successful the album won’t exist anymore?
ER: Mmm
AB: His will always exist. It’s brilliant isn’t it?
ER: Yeah, can writers do that?
AB: Yep, you can, it’s a similar contract.
ER: Cause you know there are so many books that you read twenty years ago and when you go back to buy them you find they are out of print.
AB: I’m sure you could do the same kind of thing even if very few people cottoned on to you at the time. For somebody with the foresight to say ‘this should always be out there, just in case.’ You know Sylvia Plath comes and goes in and out of popularity.
ER: God, I read the Bell Jar.
AB: (snorts)
ER: Jesus, Mary and Joseph I thought I was depressed and – but it’s not even a depressing book it’s just ugghhh.
AB: It’s not a very good one (giggles) Tell you what though I liked one of her books of poetry, one of her collections, and the more I found out about her the less I liked her, and subsequently the less I liked her poetry. And the more I found out that depressed people around the world championed her - I think really you shouldn’t know about an artist. You should just take the finished product whatever it is, the finished work you should appreciate and leave the rest out of it. Particularly with poetry or music. Painters are different to a degree; sometimes their lifestyle contributes to their work. But like, some drugged up middle class white girl in 50’s America you really don’t need to know her family history.
ER: Well that’s the thing; she attempted suicide so many times.
AB: Attempted suicide is a joke. Emotionally it’s very hard to kill yourself, but physically it’s very easy. If you want to attract attention there’s other ways. You could stand naked in the street and shout ‘Heeeey! I’m depressed! Need some help here! I wanna be popular! Meet me down the pub in an hour!’
ER: Yeah, or climb up Buckingham Palace in a Batman suit.
AB: There are ways.
ER: It’s weird being in here when it’s so empty. Last time was just before Christmas and we were in the snug all squashed in, must have been about twenty of us. It’s a company thing – remember the company I worked for a few years ago?
AB: The ice rink?
ER: (laughs) No, not that one. The company before it and they used to do a pub-crawl every year and they still do it. So I got hauled out on that the week before Christmas. But it always ends in tears though.
AB: Why?
ER: I don’t know, I think maybe it’s just the amount of drink taken. One of the guys was actually trying to steal something from every single pub. And in this pub he actually – he had a screwdriver with him
AB: Oh he was trying to take a picture or something?
ER: Yeah, he managed to get one of the pictures off the wall here. He had a knapsack and he managed to get one of the pictures off the wall.
AB: (laughs) And did he get something in all of them?
ER: Yeah, I think he did, he had to get something different from each pub, so it wasn’t like he could get a load of ashtrays or glasses or whatever.
AB: A beer mat wouldn’t do really? We used to do things like that when we were teenagers.
ER: Well that was the thing.
AB: Drinking is great though usually.
ER: Sometimes it is.
AB: I think it’s great.
ER: In what way?
AB: Never done me any wrong. Any time I’ve ever gotten into trouble with drink it’s cause I’m an idiot. Different people in different ways I suppose.
ER: I’ve never gotten into trouble from drinking; I’ve just woken up the next morning feeling shite. I remember one time we were out drinking and you kept saying ‘The first time I met you, you were really quiet, I thought you were really boring’ and all this stuff.
AB: Oh really?
ER: Yeah, but I was –
AB: You’ve been very quiet recently.
ER: Yeah, I have.
AB: I’m supposed to be sorting myself out. But I’m like…into what?
ER: Morph.
AB: I do not want to go and turn into something I don’t want to be. Which is what a lot of people want to be – want to be something like themselves. I don’t see anybody around me that I would aspire to being like. Do I want that job? Do I want that role in life? Do I need that position? Do I want to get married? Should I have a mortgage?
ER: That’s the thing; you’re sort of made to feel like you have to.
AB: I actually don’t feel I have to, but I feel like I’m being made to feel – people are putting pressure on me and it’s not my lifestyle. I don’t want it. Why the fuck should I feel bad because I don’t have it? And I do feel bad because I don’t have it.
ER: No, that’s true, because even people with me ask why did you live in town? Why do you rent? Well it was close to all my friends who live a hundred yards down the road.
AB: But then your friends left you and they all fucked off and got married and you’re left there on your own in the pub.
ER: Mm, yeah have to go off and do a sitcom - Move to LA. Do a sitcom by yourself. Joey.
AB: ‘How you doin?’ I could do that.
ER: Did you see it on Monday night?
AB: No, I have a life. But you live in the sticks you can’t even watch TV.
ER: We’ve only got 6 channels and we’ve got all the Welsh channels.
AB: Is it Kee-mru or See-mru?
ER: Kee-mru?
AB: See-mru?
ER: Kee-mru?
AB: See-mru?
ER: Can’t remember now. All I know is that the double ‘l’ is like- (makes choking sound)
AB: I once nearly choked to death on a vowel in France. They had to call an ambulance. I was trying to pronounce ‘Jean Paul Sartre’ in a French accent. When I was a vandajur.
ER: A what?
AB: Vandajur
ER: Ok, I’m even worse at French than I am in Irish.
AB: It’s French for ‘low-life who picks grapes.’
ER: I’ll have to believe you; I don’t even know how to spell it.
AB: Person who works on a vineyard. Vandajur. Beaujolais.
ER: Vin… (thinks) Vin du jour?
AB: Don’t make me analyse it, I’ll forget how to spell it. It’s eh, Vin de jour
ER: Isn’t that ‘wine of the day’? Yeah V-I-N -
AB: No it makes no sense to me at all now. It’s like when you repeat a word over and over and over.
ER: Yeah like ‘knife’. ‘Knife’ is one of those words.
AB: ‘Fermanagh’ I have problems with. Knife, knife, knife, knife, knife, knife, knife.
ER: If you think the way it’s spelled - if you picture it in your head. Anyway, I’m getting another pint, you having one? What does this thing say - we’ve been talking for an hour?
AB: The best bits are when you’re gone.

I went to see Green Street last night. Not bad, but not great either. Elijah Wood doesn’t make a convincing footballl hooligan. Then again I wasn’t convinced by his role in The Faculty either, a case of stereotyping? Shall he be ‘hobb’-led forever? (And yes, I know that The Faculty was before LOTR.) Not that I am one of the slavering masses who believe that Elijah ruined niddle-earth, unlike my movie mate who took enormous pleasure in seeing ‘Lij (as he’s known to friends apparently) get the shit kicked out of him on numerous occasions.

12 hours later I’m still not sure if the movie was trying to glamorise life in the Firms or if it was a morality play (in much the same way that Trainspotting was an anti-drug film) or if it was just meant to be a story with no ulterior meanings. Which would turn this entry into the equivalent of a high-school vivisectionist, dissecting Shakespeare and Joyce for the elucidation of the bored masses.

It’s worth seeing I guess. Interesting enough, a couple of things rankled. The main English character who befriends young ‘Lij has a terrible London accent. I’m not sure if the lad is originally a Geordie or somesuch and was having trouble with the wide-boy geezah or if the director had his eye on the international market and didn’t want to alienate the viewers. (read: ‘Merkin’s.)

Go see if you think Elijah deserves an arse-kicking, avoid if you’re squeamish.

I’m currently searching the web, looking for a cheapo city break holiday for October. After a week of looking at every godforsaken, seizure-inducing-get-yer-cheap-holiday-here-guvnor websites, after searching out every possible hotel review complete with cockroach counts, after looking at weather maps and judging climate for the time of year, after searching out all the top city break destinations, after starting with a short-list of Paris, Venice, Amsterdam, Prague and Barca I have finally decided to go to Rome.

Or maybe Krakow.

I’m beginning to hate the internet, there are far too many hokey little websites out there and not enough of them are in euros. I’m in Europe and I’m going to Europe, so why are there only 3 main travel websites that provide Euro prices? eh? eh?
Anyway, suffice to say I’m confuzzled, and it’s looking more likely that the final decision is going to be up to me. Which I hate, as I’m crappy at making decisions especially when other people are involved. I’ve taken two weeks off and my travel buddy is responsible for arranging the details for the second week away, which I am more than happy to leave with her. (We’re going to the sun, which at this time of year means er, the Canaries.)

Here’s the good and bad of both cities as I see ‘em:
Rome is two hours away which would give us more time in the city and less time spent in the air.
Krakow is not that far away but due to crappy Aer Lingus \ Ryanair destinations we’d have to fly via Malpensa which means 7 and a half hours travelling time there and 6 and a half back.
Rome has Italian food.
Krakow has Polish food.
Rome will still be mild enough.
Krakow will be brass-monkeys.
Rome has cheap flight and accomodation but is more expensive drinks \ food \ tourist trap wise
Krakow is more expensive for flight and accomodation, but is cheaper drinks \ food \ tourist trap wise.
Rome has the Colosseum.
Krakow has Auschwitz.

Decisions, decisions…

This is rather a cool little applet

Plug in your name and see when you were popular. For those wondering, my name peaked in the 80’s at 360 out of 1000.

So I’m sitting on the bus this morning, dressed in black as usual. My hair is currently a delightful bright red so at the moment I look like a fuckin’ traffic light, but shorter. Yesterday on the way out to lunch one of the young fellas in here asked me if I was going for the fairground attraction look, then said ‘Ahh well, sure you can do that kind of thing here when you don’t have to meet customers’. The silver-tongued divil! Amazingly he has a long-term girlfriend. Anyway I digress, so there I am on the 7b and this fella gets on and sits beside me.

He’s also wearing black and is naturally ginger (ie. Orange)

I’m sure we looked fabulous. People probably looked at us and thought we were some weird American tourist couple, you know the ones, the kind who wear matching anoraks.

bah!

It’s official.

As of next week i will be living with a couple of students. The brother in law insists he’s not a student as he is getting paid on his course. Which is fair enough, lugging fire hoses around in the sweltering heat dressed in asbestos jackets should be considered more as training rather than schoolin’.
T’other filthy has no such excuse though. She IS going back to college, full-time and her protests that ‘I’m a DANCER’ hold no water up on Walton’s Mountain.
‘Ara, gowan, sure you’ll be holed up in a tree down in the glen if we turn our back on you.’

So should I expect koka noodles for dinner now? Beans and toast for a special sunday lunch, and pots and pots of tea?

Oooh the possibilities.

I was watching Sky News last night, and the pics from New Orleans are truly horrible. People without water or food crying ‘George Bush where are you? Please help!’

The Mother figures this will be the end for GW. (Gormless Wonder) Organisation for the evacuation and care of people down there seems to have been really bad. Considering they could predict almost to the minute when Katrina would make landfall and they were aware that there were still x number of people who wouldn’t (or couldn’t) get out of the city they should have been laying in supplies from weeks ago.

GW on telly last night asking Merkin’s not to buy gas unless they really needed to. Fuck the gas Bushboy, what about the thousands of people with no food or clean drinking water??

I’ve also been following the Interdictor’s blog for updates. Makes for some tough reading when you think that the US is a first world country. People are being raped and murdered, bodies are being left to rot in the streets. It’s like a bad Hollywood movie script.

This one is doing the rounds of email \ discussion board lately…

White people find things.
Black people loot.