She was loaded with bright angels.......

As briefly mentioned elsewhere on this blog, my paternal grandmother (dead, evangelical) would often speak in tongues to the family dog. (Sometimes the dog was the family, in fact, holding us together, giving us a point of reference, a distraction, a subject matter with which to fill the air – we heap a lot on these poor creatures, don’t we?) This caused delight and revulsion in unequal measure.

The revulsion (and unease) came flowing quite freely from the stunned into silence majority, whilst the delight, fair to say, was all mine. But what’s not to like? It was A Spectacle. I like spectacles. (Although I don’t like to see couples argue in the street. No.)

The dog, of course, remained thinking “biscuit?” throughout – or did she, who knows? She may have been thinking "at last" (blimey) – and we may only guess as to her true feelings regarding these edge of the seat and there goes Christmas communications. And my dad (not dead, atheist), far easier to read, would sit or stand, bathed in a Pale Ale sweat, with a bitterly unfunny paper hat on his head and stare with an open, frozen hatred. Quick, get the camera.

This loathing realised its fullest expression, perhaps, when he finally got round to stealing her life-savings and leaving her to die in (an approximation of) poverty - one of his less stylish thefts, that. And but for the intervention of my mum, I suppose, she may very well have died in this poverty, too. She (my mum, that is - still going strong, agnostic, virgin) helped her out in various ways, gently guiding her towards whichever exasperated god she was bothering at the time and easing her off to the dead space. My mum, of course, is a good person, whereas my dad, it seems fair to say, is not. (Help me, but I surely sound like George Bush, simplifying the enemy, making everything seem black and white? Deary me. “Ma fellow Murkans, Daddy al Quaeda is a tourist, he threatens our way of life, us folks is just gonna have to untie in the face of him…...”)

Ah, but he could be devastatingly funny, my dad, an unusually dangerous gift. In the wild, angry hysteria that preceded a visit either to or from his mum, he would lay us to waste with his venom, topping every transcendental rant with an “oh, how I hate her”. You can’t say that about your mum, we protested, perfectly smithereened, but he could and he did. And if we continued to protest (and by “we”, I suppose, I mainly mean my mum), he would just keep driving round the roundabout until we were pressed to the windows in nauseated delight, a catastrophe of limbs, begging for mercy and accepting that yes, in fact, he could say such things and please let’s just get to Dundee. Where oh where were the police?

But this stuff is a bit hard to resist as a child, isn’t it, which is a shame, really, because I’ve a feeling it jaundiced our view of this particular granny (and I’m sure my sisters would agree).

Somehow, and this seems to happen a lot, I’ve ended up with a whole heap of her belongings (but no cash!) and the tightly wrapped silence that dead people's doo-dahs bring with them. Quite why the belongings of dead people should keep landing in my lap is as yet a bit unclear. It may be that the deads expressly asked in their wills that I look after their stuff in the meantime, or it may just be that I’m a dithering tosser who stares for too long in these particularly morbid games of pass-the-parcel. I digress. Or maybe it’s a regression, in fact, as I dip my spade in the past? (Oh. Unfortunately, I just made myself smile. Cardinal sin.) Either way, I don’t really mind.

(And talking of regression, I have all of her cassettes in which she is to be heard being led through her past....in fact, never mind. Excruciating.)

Fair enough, she was maybe a rather difficult person in many ways, it just seems a bit cruel to outline the reasons for this, however, as she no longer has the right of reply. She was certainly very strong, that's for sure – and not just in the head, either, but physically, too. If she tackled you at football, for example, you stayed down. If you stayed down too long, though, crying into the mud for a mummy or a juice, she’d gazelle straight back and tackle you some more. (She’d have made an elegantly ruthless central defender in Serie A, I fancy.)

Anyhoo, if looking at pictures of the dead granny of a perfect stranger is your thing, well, you're in luck. Here she is, from beyond the grave and from one of her many, many photograph albums, looking impossibly glamorous. Beautiful, you must agree? She’s become an absolute joy to have around the house, all of a magical sudden, and I’m no longer sure what I’d do without her - or what I ever once did, come to think of it.

(Plus, bargains galore, hurry while stocks last, deletions imminent etc....here she is:

As a young girl, with her mother and father.

Languidly ignoring a child with an impossibly large head (could be my dad, it would make sense - although it could also be his brother).

Posing for the old tourist/waiter shot with a conveniently frumpy friend.

Posing outrageously on the beach (but such glorious legs – is it okay to say that? Must be. Is it?)

Paying a visit to The Family Home in the seventies.)

Who am I talking to? This is starting to feel something or other.

I'm too sexy for my hurt

Four years, one month, twenty-seven days, eighteen hours, twenty-three minutes and twelve, thirteen, fourteen…..seconds. The counting never stops and I miss alcohol so very much that it sometimes leaves me winded and aching and five steps north of desolate. But can you imagine going to Alcoholics Anonymous (esp. the American version)? Oh dear, never. Well, maybe just to wind them up a little, I suppose. Come on, they're a bit earnest, no?

Me: Hello, my name's Jamie and I'm an....a...oh, this is difficult...I'm an......my name's Jamie and I'm....I'm an alchemist.

Drunks: Hi Jam....what? You cheat! Burn him! Burn him!

Me: Ha ha ha, losers, you people should get a blog and save yourselves the bus fare.

Drunks: Kill him!

I’m not surprised that some people go all religious and turn to God when they stop drinking, really, because the pain of the dark and empty space it leaves behind is often simply agony and demands to be filled with something, anything. You can feel it. The space, I mean. It’s physical. It’s a hole. How on earth did I not know this space was here beforehand? I can feel the tingle as brighter lights try to get in, an elevation, a hope, a terrible bliss, I suppose, but I’m minded to keep the door shut, it seems, as I’ve come to enjoy the pain and, in more self-pitying times – okay, always – I kind of feel I deserve it.

Talking of tingles, I had some Mormons round (in Glasgow, probably 1995 or 1996) and once we were all seated and they’d looked at my books and told me that no good would come of it, I was told to look into the eyes of one of them. So I did. Why not? He seemed hygienic.

Anyway, he assured me I would feel a tingle when he said a certain word or words and that this would be the holy ghost or the holy spirit or Jesus or Joseph Smith himself or…..I don’t know, I was hungover..….entering me. The hallelujah moment, in other words. (They always look so surprised when you invite them in, don’t they? But I love talking to these guys and, like I say, they look so terrifically clean. You actually don't mind them sitting on your furniture. Also, if you happen to have read The Book of Mormon, which I have, you’ll notice a passing panic (or is it suspicion?) flicker in their eyes. But that’s fine.)

So he said the word or words and, sure enough, I felt the tingle (and very nice it was, too).

Did you feel it?

No.

Oh.

Well, come on, it’s a cheap trick and I could do it to you or you or you. They shouldn’t need these huckstery deceptions in order to sell old Joseph. But they prey on people and it makes me seethe that they might dupe someone less attractive than me into believing this awful bullshit. (I mean the trick itself, if you please, this is not a comment on their beliefs, although I confess to finding it particularly hard to stomach the provenance of the Mormon faith - for which I am bound to be sorry.)

Where was I? Yes, the tingle. Delicious. But they stuttered a bit and lost their composure (whilst remaining perfectly fragrant) and rather shortly made to leave, asking only if it was okay if we all said a prayer – which it was. Again, why not? Where’s the harm? Then they blessed the house and told me to marry my girlfriend (should I just take the one wife, you cheeky wee bastard?) and we parted on friendly terms. So that was nice.

And then on September the 29th, 2005, I was heading to the off-licence (in Cork city) to buy wine or gin or rum or lighter fluid and suddenly simply stopped. No warning. I just stopped. I felt a bit, well, tingly, so I turned around and went straight back home (without buying the wine or the gin or the blah blah blah, obviously). Only I didn’t go straight back home, it seems, because I’ve recently been told that I was gone for two and a half hours. I remember everything: going out, stopping, feeling tingly, turning round, going home. This should have taken ten minutes.

Now, I’m very prone to trances, it’s true, but nobody thinks to call the fire brigade unless I go electric. Please, though, two and a half hours in the middle of the street? How shatteringly embarrassing, how very far short of stylish. And not wishing to be too spooky about it all, of course, but did the brighter lights perhaps already get in as I stood, stock still, like a stupid little cry-baby tosser? Am I maybe a Mormon without even knowing it?

Anyway, the point is: well done me. No, straight up, I’m pleased with myself. I’ll take my hallelujah moments just wherever I can and so, I feel, should you. Actually, I insist.

This was nice, wasn’t it?

On days like these

Do you like Bartók?

Well no, not really, I find it’s often hard to make oneself heard over the jukebox. Why do you ask?

What?

Give it a minute. Are you there? Good. Hello. I also like to imagine an elderly gentleman going into a record shop in Glasgow and tentatively asking an assistant:

Do you have any Bartók?

Why yes, Sir, but not very much. Ahem....[clears throat]....."you spill ma pint, ya wee fanny?"

What?

Yes, these things shouldn't appeal to me. Or to anyone much at all, really, but there we are. Unrealistic dialogue holds a fatal attraction.

Sorry, but I came across the above exchanges whilst going through some stuff and so, in the absence of having anything sensible to say - what's to say, after all? Ireland is stormy and flooded; I met a lovely dog on the beach yesterday; Jerusalem may be a problem; I feel loss and relief having come to a decision (you pushed me too far at the wrong time, well done); Ayer’s revised principle of verification isn’t in the news again; my new shoes arrived in the post (you kind of know you've taken a wrong turning somewhere in life when your shoes arrive in the post); I’m home from Edinburgh, back in the hills of Ireland, cultivating a rustic image and frothing like a depressed Nazi (Heidegger chic), and Scotland beat Australia at rugby - I decided, as ever, to aim low.

I’d like some of those, please.

Small, medium, large, extra large or simply extraordinary?

Four packs of simply extraordinary, please.

Marry me.

Deal.

Hmm. You’ve got be quick, I find, in these unrealistically snappy and childish dialogues or you may just miss out on the chance of marriage. But would you actually want to marry a lassie who sold Speedos from the back of a van?

[No.13 in a series of 13 too many]

Grace a sushi zoo, surprisingly famous

People set up stalls to sell food at the various agricultural shows (here) in West Cork. And that’s fine. I’ve become irrationally addicted to agricultural shows this year (a welcome chance to stare at animals: cows, people, ducks – a wide variety, anyway) and it’s always nice to look at food. So this is a pleasing combination, nothing to worry about.

However.

At just about every show I’ve been to – and my hoppity agitation has heightened with every single sighting - I’ve seen the same guy selling sausage beneath a sign that reads:

Frank’s Chorizo Sausage
As seen on TV

(Surreptitious – well, would you feel entirely comfortable taking such a picture? - and thus poorly composed evidence here.)

Yes, but on what, exactly, Frank? Crimewatch? Sausages From Hell? When Sausages Attack? How Pretty White Babies Die: Frank’s Chorizo Sausage – The Silent Killer In Our Midst?

I mean for crying out loud, why do people blithely assume that “as seen on TV” is a good thing? Would you ever just get a grip, please? And so help me Mary, but the queue was out of sight - Out. Of. Sight. - and I just bet that far too many of those people had been convinced by the seeming validation of a TV appearance by Frank’s chorizo sausage. I pity the fools, I pity them. And even those people who may initially have failed to notice the sign will soon enough be seduced.

Customer: I’ll have six of your chorizo sausages, please.

Frank: You do know that they’ve been on TV?

Customer: Ah, ya rascal, Frank. Gwan then, I’ll take a million.

Frank: That’s the spirit.

You bandit, Frank. You terrible, terrible bandit. Those are rational people you’re destroying.

Deep breaths, deep breaths. But then I’m trying to concentrate on the “Heifer born between 1st September 2006 and 31st August 2008 not in milk (also open to the progeny of a foundation shorthorn cow and sired by a registered Bull)” awards and my eyes keep on wandering back to Frank’s infernal stall. Does he not know that the highest placed heifer in classes 169 and 170 will compete for The Desert Perpetual Challenge Cup? No. He. Does. Not. Frank’s too busy raking it in to care, the callous beast. And his till is by now so wildly overflowing that he’s having to store money in his mouth to keep it from blowing away.

Customer: I’ll have six of your chorizo sausages, please.

Frank: Oo oo oh ah ay ah ee aw ee ee?

Customer: Ah, you’re a born salesman, so you are, Frank. Gwan then, I’ll take a million.

But nobody’s asking any questions. Nobody. The very first thing I’d want to ask Frank is what programme his sausages were on. Wouldn’t you?

Me: Alright, wise guy, what programme were your sausages on?

Frank: When The Thinnest And Best Celebrities Eat Sausages And Truly Savour Them And Then Recommend Them To Their Attractive Friends – Ireland.

Me: Hmm. What channel was it on?

Frank: Bravo2+6

Me: Damn. You could be right.

Well he could be, couldn’t he? What the feck do any of us know now that we’ve forty zillion channels to choose from? Besides, if Frank is even half the cad I think he is, he’ll have spent long hours perfecting the believabilty of his answers to such a line of questioning.

I don’t really know how, precisely, but this is all somehow linked to unthinking unhappiness (as opposed to a well thought out depression), violence on YouTube, the stupefying veneration of celebrity, fame for the sake of fame and the Wikipedia intellects of the can-do, must-have, surface-smart generation. Someone clever needs to write a book.

(I know, I know.)

A marbled normality, confused

My dad, an abysmal human being in almost every respect, once told me a magical tale which, for various reasons, was rapidly and permanently placed in the semi-sacred pile marked Do Not Touch.

Sometimes you don’t feel inclined to look at a good story too closely, do you, lest the thing turns out to be untrue? It just feels better and easier to shut out the alternatives and keep faith in the original version. Normally, of course, there should be no fear of being completely wrong about anything at all – and I’ve had many, many opportunities to put this assertion to the test - because the act of discovering what’s right and true is both exciting and a sufficiently rewarding consolation.

Sooooo.....in a story familiar to most fans of classical music, the young Mozart, he assured me, went to Rome and heard a performance of Allegri’s Miserere. At the time, apparently, it was forbidden for this music to be performed outwith the Sistine Chapel - some things are too sacred, it seems. The child genius saw far beyond this, however, and saved the very day. In a spasm of divinity, he memorised the music and wrote it all down, thus freeing it from the strictly jealous confines of the Vatican.

I was young and indecently stupid, but even I could see that this was an astonishing triumph. The piece of music was not only very beautiful, it also lasted forever. Mozart must have been superhuman, I reasoned. It was a joyful story and I needed to hear it again. And again. Details, man, details.

He must surely have been wearing fantastical purple shoes created by wizards and the queen? And he had green flowing hair and a brooch and he simply drew one long breath as the music was sung and then gently exhaled stars from his mouth and they landed on the paper perfectly and..........

Dad: And so when Mozart arrived at the Sistine Chapel.....

Me: Did he have golden wings?

Dad: What? Of course not. Don’t be ridiculous.

Me: I saw you with Mrs Hunniford.

Dad: ....all heads turned to marvel at his golden wings.

Me: Good. Good.

Anyway, I was reminded of this when I recently discovered that Barack Obama’s favourite character from The Wire is Omar Little. If you haven’t seen The Wire this won’t mean anything to you, unfortunately. It seems fair to say, though, that it is The Best Thing Ever and that Omar Little is also The Best Thing Ever.

I only found out that Obama watched it whilst “researching” Baltimore - the city in which the series is set – online. This information delighted me and was thus also promptly set aside in the pile marked Do Not Touch.

It’s a tiny example of strange behaviour, common to most people, I imagine, but I didn’t want to read any more articles in case someone, somewhere, said something along the lines of “see that thing about Barack Obama liking Omar Little? Entirely untrue – guy doesn’t even watch the show”.

It just feels good to know that America is in the hands of a man capable of liking Omar Little. (Less good to know that I still indulge the art of dishonest non-discovery.)

Stripped of childish embellishments, however, the pared down Miserere story remains untouchable. Whenever I come across something that seems about to suggest that the tale is apocryphal I simply try to blank it or put my fingers in my ears and hum loudly. Unedifying, perhaps, although it sometimes feels very necessary - because it’s nice to avoid disappointment and because some things need to be true.