Fairy tale of New York in Glasgow

Watching The Story of A Fairytale of New York on BBC2 tonight brought me back to the band's last night of a week of shows in Barrowlands, Glasgow, when they heard the song had reached no 2 in the charts. It was December 23 and the last night of a week of sell out shows. The Pogues were at their peak with a song we all knew, was a thousand times better than The Pet Shop Boys' version of 'Always on my Mind' that pipped them for the Christmas hit. But the news of their being eclipsed didn't dampen their spirits. On the day of that final show, we attended the baptism of Pogues' manager, Frank Murray's children before heading
To see Glasgow Celtic play Aberdeen in a home game. There was, as you might imagine, a fair amount of refreshments consumed. And it continued through the show that night. The last show of a tour, the end of five hectic nights in Barrowlands, the final act in a quest to mark their place among the best in the world; second place disappointed, but didn't dampen their spirits.
We piled on the bus after five encores and headed for The Holiday Inn where the party continued. It was topped off that night when Shane took to the baby grand piano in the foyer of the hotel and, joined by Kirsty McColl, they sang the song. And we all sang it with them. And we cried and laughed and cheered.
I heard them sing that song many times and in many places and, though it remains my favourite Christmas song of all times, it will never be as good as that night.

Reggae Music making me feel good now

After a night filled with the sounds and images from the lives of two legends of 20th century music, Woody Guthrie and Roy Orbison, it's inspired an exploration of the music that soundtracks my life but particularly, the influence of reggae.
The progression from Woody Guthrie or Roy Orbison to reggae might seem quite a leap, musically at least. But then both Guthrie and Orbison came from grassroots folk traditions; country music in the case of Orbison and folk music for Guthrie. Both, in turn, fashioned their own, unique style and voice from those foundations.
Reggae music came from a dancehall culture and the ability of Jamaican musicians to fashion their own versions of the American rock and roll, country and Gospel music they picked up from US radio broadcasts in the '50s and '60s.
Two of my favourite reggae versions of classic songs are John Holt's version of Kris Kristofferson's 'Help Me Make it Through the Night' or Toots and the Maytals version of John Denver's 'Country Roads.' But if you dig around, you'll find reggae versions of anything and everything, including Beatles' songs.
My first memory of hearing and seeing reggae performed was watching Millie Small sing 'My Boy Lollipop' on Top of the Pops. That was in 1964, about a year after I'd first seen The Beatles and The Rolling Stones, my two all time favourite bands. Millie's voice was quite shrill and almost childlike, immediately appealing to an impressionable 8 year old but it was the irrepressible dance rhythm that won my heart.
It would be another four or five years before I encountered reggae and this was with the birth of the skinhead movement in England. Now the irony of why a white and racist gang movement from England should champion a musical style from the Caribbean has always confounded me but at least they put reggae back in my consciousness. Songs and artists from this period - the late '60s and early '70s - that stand out for me, are Desmond Dekker with 'The Israelites' and Max Romeo's banned 'Wet Dream.' Then came Bob Andy and Marcia Griffith's cover of an Aretha Franklin song, 'Young, Gifted and Black' that rose to 11 in the charts in 1971 and Derrick Harriot's version of Pete Wingfield's 'Eighteen with a Bullet.'
But it wasn't until 1973 when I first encountered Bob Marley and The Wailers. I was working in a pub in Paddington at the time and on a day off, I took a stroll up to Portobello Road to browse the market stalls. Back then, Notting Hill had a thriving West Indian community and the walk from Praed St to Portobello brought you right through the heart of it. I remember hearing 'No Woman, No Cry', everywhere and I became obsessed by it. My only regret since then is that I missed out on a chance that summer to witness Marley's first shows in London. I did manage to catch the groundbreaking 'The Harder they Come', the first Jamaican reggae movie starring Jimmy Cliff, in a small cinema in Notting Hill and believe me, it was an awakening for a whole raft of reasons.
The following year I landed a copy of Natty Dread, the first album released as Bob Marley and The Wailers. I remember pouring over that album with my friends, a packet of Rizla and a bag of 'erb.
That summer I was working in Denver, Colorado and decided to hitch hike to New York to hook up with my mates from the UCD Freshman football team for a brief tour of New England. On the road I couldn't escape Eric Clapton's version of 'I Shot the Sheriff' which was being played off the air on FM radio stations, coast to coast. Reggae had suddenly hit the big time.
When I got home I discovered the original version of 'I Shot the Sheriff' on Burnin' by The Wailers, released in 1973. It only fuelled my thirst for reggae and the music of Marley and his companions. Soon I had Catch a Fire, the original vinyl version which I own to this day with it's gimmicky Zippo lighter cover. Two years later the band released Rastaman Vibration. But before that I was in London again, working in The Hog in the Pound on Oxford St where I got to know a Jamaican born dancer named Sylvia who danced topless in the basement bar, two nights a week. Sylvia brought me to Jamaican speakeasies and yard parties in Notting Hill where my love and appreciation of reggae music and the culture that surrounded it, blossomed and expanded.

After that there was no stopping. I bought albums by u Roy and I Roy, Dillinger, Culture, Max Romeo, The Upsetters, The Heptones and The Abyssinians and countless others. Soon, I could discern ska from rock steady and dub from dancehall. I bought a single by a band called Dirty Work from Belfast, a reggae version of The Rose of Tralee. Then The Stones released Goat's Head Soup, recorded in Jamaica and I took that as a sign. When they followed that with Black and Blue, I knew I was on the right track. Meanwhile, The Wailers' split up after Rastaman Vibration with Bunny Livingston retreating to his Roots and Peter Tosh became more militant. I bought their solo albums and admired The Stones' patronage of my heroes but the real magic lay in Bob. When the first shows were announced for the tour to launch Exodus, I knew I'd be there.
The show was in the old Rainbow Theatre, near Finsbury Park. I met a friend from Belfast the day before the show. We'd met a few months earlier at a Desmond Dekker show in a small club in Dublin, attended by reggae fans and a large group of, by now paunchy and nostalgic, skinheads and suedeheads. Peadar was from Andersonstown and spoke with his own unique accent that was a peculiar blend of Jamaican patois and West Belfast twang. There wasn't a political bone in Peadar's body but he couldn't escape where he came from. He called it 'Babylon' and we both understood what he meant. All he cared about was the music and the two eight foot high cannabis plants he'd grown and nurtured from seed in the back garden of his parents' house in A'town. He was looking forward to going home to harvest. But first, the concert.
The previous eight months had its hardships for Bob Marley, too. The split with his old mates, Bunny Wailer and Peter Tosh, was, by all accounts, acrimonious. Bob had also become entangled in Jamaican domestic politics and he received a near fatal wounding when his Kingston compound was shot up by a rival political gang. He moved to England to record Exodus. Jamaica's loss was the world's gain.
Denim work overalls were a fashion de rigeur in those days, if you were a slave of hippy fashion and not a punk. They were baggy and comfortable and extremely useful for carrying your stash at a concert. Back in those days you could smoke indoors, even in a theatre so before we marched off to the show, we got rolling. I managed to squeeze half a dozen spliffs into the pen and tool pockets, chest height, on my overalls. But when we got to the show, we found the London Met surrounding the theatre in an over the top security response. There was no trouble but when we got to the door, the theatre's security staff were conducting body searches. The 6'4" Jamaican bouncer who patted me down, stopped on my breast pockets to enquire what I had in size. 'Spliffs,' I said. "That's cool, mon," he said with a smile, "we're only searchin' for weapon."
Although the number of white people at the show could fit in a phone booth, there was no trouble and Peadar and I were pleased to find our seat allocation put us in the fourth row, front and centre. The atmosphere of anticipation was electric. And no-one was disappointed. Marley danced onstage in blue denim shirt and matching trousers and for the next two hours he never stood still as, fired by the ground bass sound of Aston 'Family Man' Barrett, the vocal back up of the I Threes and the artful lead guitar work of Junior Murvin, he delivered a master class in reggae music.
Exodus was anticipated to be an opportunity for Marley to rant against the oppression of the political chicanery and thuggery that made him an exile. Instead, it became an international battle cry for reggae music and a paean to peace and love, too. They sang all the classics like No Woman, No Cry, I Shot the Sheriff and a stomping version of Peter Tosh's Get Up, Stand Up but it was the new songs that entranced, thrilled and won over the adoring audience from the title track, Exodus to the pastoral glory of Three Little Birds and the loving lullaby of Waiting in Vain and then the exploratory rootsiness of Natural Mystic and the final statement of One Love, a declaration of intent and purpose.
Four years later, I caught Bob Marley again. This time it was for one of his final shows in Dalymount Park. He was dying of cancer but just as before, he never stopped moving for the show's near two hour length.
In the preceding punk years, Marley brought reggae to a world audience and the music itself blossomed and found new protagonists such as Steel Pulse, Black Uhuru, Aswad and even UB40. The nascent Two Tone movement found its roots in ska through The Specials, The Selecter and The Beat and even punk found inspiration in reggae through, most notably The Clash's recording of Junior Murvin's Police and Thieves and the very obvious influence infused in many of their songs from London Calling and the heavy dub tracks of Sandinista. Punk and Reggae teamed up for many memorable shows in the Rock against Racism movement.
Thirty years later, Jimmy Cliff has brought it all full circle with an incredible interpretation of The Clash's Guns of Brixton on his 2012 release, Rebirth.
In the intervening years reggae has become an international musical dialect, employed with alacrity and enthusiasm by artists throughout the world. And Jimmy Cliff, a man who was in there at the very beginning, is the appropriate spokesman for its long journey through the years. In the song, Reggae Music, he claims his position with the track's spoken opening lines, 'In 1962 in Kingston, Jamaica, I sang my song for Mr Leslie Kong, he said, let's go record it in the style of ska...' and then the chorus, 'Reggae Music gonna make me feel good, reggae music gonna make me feel alright now...'

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=boPCNaFPrso
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jfui3DjgfrM&feature=related

Hats

Does anyone know about men's hats in Ireland anymore? Back in the day, buying a hat was easy.

I started wearing my hat, a grey, snap brim trilby, in 1995. I remember the day and the circumstances. The editor of the Evening Herald had just rung me and confirmed my appointment as the paper's diarist, writing a daily column about the city and its denizens and what they got up to of an evening. He asked me to report for duty that day and have my photograph taken for the column's masthead.

Since I'd already spent the previous two weeks writing the column under a self styled pseudonym, 'John Newman', I was familiar with Independent House on Abbey St so when I got there, I went straight up to the photographers' studio at the top of the building. The snapper on duty told me it would only take a minute and he went about fiddling with the lighting and setting up the profile shot. Then I got a flash.

I had just finished reading and reviewing Neal Gabler's  'Walter Winchell: Gossip, Power and the Culture of Celebrity', a biography of an American journalist who, it is widely claimed, was the first gossip columnist. Sweet Smell of Success, an American noir classic starring Burt Lancaster and Tony Curtis and which was loosely based on Winchell, had long been safely ensconced in my Top Ten List of favourite movies.

'Can you wait five minutes?' I asked the snapper, 'there's something I need to do.' Before he answered I was out the door and descending the stairs, two at a time. I ran out the front door and turned left, heading for O'Connell St. I ran across the road and straight in to Clery's department store. Back then, the store had a proper hat department with old men in neat suits and measuring tapes. Quickly scanning the rows and rows of hats in different colours sizes and shapes, my eyes found the hat I wanted. I asked the attendant if I could try one on and he said,'fire ahead' and pointed me to a mirror.
The first hat I tried was too small, the second one, a perfect fit. The attendant stood beside me, attentively. But he took the hat from me and, with a deft and practiced twitch of his wrist, snapped the brim, explaining 'this is a snap brim trilby.' I looked at him in horror. 'Have you another one the same size?' I asked, explaining, 'I don't want the brim snapped.' He sighed and found another hat, unsnapped, and gave it to me, a perfect fit. I paid him and left. In the studio in Independent House, I put on the hat and smiled, 'you can take my picture now.'

The hat achieved all I wanted it to do, and more. I realised, as a diarist, I needed an edge. Winchell worked at night, on the beat of nightclubs, restaurants, theatres and hotel lobbies. I wanted to do the same, to become the eyes and ears of the paper's readers, so when they picked up their paper the next day, they would read an account of the city's social nightlife less than twelve hours after it happened.

I didn't wear my hat on the 'Dublin' side or the 'Kildare' side, as the hatters' and practice believed or advised. I wore it back on my head, unsnapped. I broke the rules but for a purpose. I thought if I wore it too slouched, it might cover my face and give me a sinister or hidden appearance. Wearing it back and unsnapped, left my face open and myself, approachable. It also gave me an identity. People 'knew' who I was when I attended an event and that made it easier for me to approach them. As a journalist, I felt a reluctance to relinquish my anonymity but in the nature of the job I was taking on, it was a necessary sacrifice. My hat got me in doors and that's where the stories were.

It had its ups and downs, of course. As the paper played up my name for finding 'scoops', they played up the association and once advertised three exclusives in the Dairy as 'a hat trick'. Eventually, they changed the name of the diary to 'The Hat.' Me and 'The Hat' were synonymous.

There's a strange thing about hats and public perception of them. Forty years ago and more, almost everyone wore a hat. It was part of your wardrobe, as much as a pair of socks. Then people stopped wearing them. My hat was an exception and for some odd reason, people felt the urge to grab it, steal it, wear it. They never asked and it led me to believe it was an enormous discourtesy, simply bad manners. Yet confronted with their social aberration, one was greeted with blind, incomprehension, as though I was speaking unintelligible gibberish.

On the other hand, as I've said, it got me noticed and it got me in doors. At the black tie  opening night of Riverdance in Radio City Music Hall, New York, a leading Irish socialite approached me and introduced me her own gathering of close friends who included the CEO of one of the world's best known insurance companies and the president of a leading international bank. It was a case of mistaken identity. My first clue was how she introduced all her companions to me, indicating I was so famous I didn't require introduction. This was confirmed at the interval when the bank president approached me with his programme in hand and asked me to autograph it for his granddaughter who, he said, was a big fan of my music. I signed it, 'Close to The Edge.'

Another time while I attended the launch of a book about then World F1 champion, Damon Hill in London's impressive Natural History Museum, I was approached by a slouched, grey haired man, wearing a hat and accompanied by three children, I gathered were his grandchildren. 'Excuse me,' he said, 'are you The Edge from U2?' 'No, I'm not,' I told him, adding, 'but right now, I wish I was, Mr Harrison.'

At the gala, star studded opening of Planet Hollywood on St Stephen's Green, the celebrities were coralled in the Conrad Hilton on Earlsfort Terrace before they were transported by waiting limos to the red carpet which began outside the College of Surgeons. Pat Kenny stood on a flat bed truck outside the floodlit entrance of the restaurant and announced the celebrities as they arrived to take the walk down the carpet, cheered by the celebrity spotting public, lining the way. In the Conrad, I was approached by Arnold Schwarzenegger who shook my hand and, leaning close, said, 'I love your hat.'

I shared a limo to the event with singer Michael Ball and his manager. When we emerged from the car, there was a very brief silence before Pat Kenny announced Michael's presence but in that second a local wag could be overheard asking, 'who's dat with The Hat?', prompting Michael to joke it would be the last time he'd give me a lift in Dublin.

The hat could be a nuisance, too and I took to not wearing it when I was on holidays or out with my young, growing family. It could be an unwelcome and frankly, ironic, intrusion.

These days, there's a revival of hats even if everyone opts for that 'porkpie' 'wideboy' look so loved by Hollywood's young and trendy arrivistes. But in Dublin, the real hatters have gone and hats are sold like party treats without any notion of their fashion culture. After buying my first hat in Clery's, someone introduced me to Mr Coyle's shop on Aungier St. It was an old school men's haberdashery where string vests and studded collars could be bought alongside a staggering collection of hats of every shape, size and style. It was a mecca of hats.

Mr Coyle supplied all the hats for the Micheal Collins film and delighted in explaining the subtle differences between a proper bowler and an 'Anthony Eden.' Head to Toe, the RTE fashion show, once approached me to talk about hats and I insisted the interview was done in Mr Coyle's shop. He was delighted. Unfortunately, he was an elderly gentleman and when he died, a great tradition in Dublin died with him.

Thoughts on the novels of James Lee Burke

James Lee Burke's Dave Robicheaux novels are never 'typical' crime novels. First, there's Robicheaux, a disgraced, former NOPD Homicide lieutenant turned sheriff's detective in Iberia Parish. Robicheaux is a good man with a chequered past; a Vietnam veteran and recovering alcoholic who carries traces of post-traumatic stress disorder and an unspecified, but lingering, guilt from the eruption of his parents' marriage, his father's death and his mother's violent murder at the hands of corrupt, NOPD detectives. His background is working class,backwoods, Louisiana Cajun. He's Catholic. He runs a bait shop and bayou cafe when he's not detecting. He has problems with authority, is single-minded in his pursuit of wrongdoers, corporate polluters and the antebellum remnants of the southern ascendancy.Robicheaux, although an essentially good man, has a violent streak. Some of Burke's other novels, like Two for Texas, are historical explorations of the complex forces that combine to make up Robicheaux's contemporary environment; Louisiana's sub-tropical swamplands, struggling to survive against the elements of natural phenomena like hurricanes, corporate greed and pollution and the complicit dealings of corrupt politicians, police and the Mafia.<br />Into this milieu in 'In the Electric Mist', he introduces a story about a violent and sexually perverted, serial killer, an alcoholic, Hollywood actor with psychic leanings and a sociopathic, Mafia boss turned film producer. The actor taps in to Robicheaux's own psychic inclinations by introducing him to the ghost of a one legged, one armed, Confederate general who, along with his ragged bunch of soldiers, haunts the swamps around his home.
Now he's worried it's just a dry drunk dream or living nightmare or has he conscripted himself into a new struggle with the Confederate dead, to fight the forces of evil, whether corporate, criminal or perverse or combinations thereof, that threaten his life and the lives of those he love as well as the environment they live in?
I've read everything I could find of James Lee Burke's and I'm a fan. 

Yay or Nay, it's all deja vu to me

'Investment, Stability, Growth', 'Austerity, Debt, Unemployment', the rhetoric makes it hard to distinguish the 'yes' from the 'no' side of the argument in Thursday's upcoming Fiscal Treaty referendum. I haven't met anyone who can tell me, with any accuracy or understanding, what they're being asked to vote for or whether they understand that though they're voting for one specific thing, their decision will alter a bunch of other things in our lives.
When I decided to put my thoughts on this subject in my blog, I never thought putting my thoughts in words could be so difficult, either. In fact, I was three quarters the way through my first draft when a drop down window suggested I had 'logged out' and would I like to 'log in' again? I said 'yes', since it seemed the logical thing to do as I had no recollection of 'logging out' in the first place and simply wanted to get back to where I was. But, as these things go, opting for a 'yes' meant I lost everything I had already written.
No-one thought to consider the consequences of their actions when the so-called captains of finance and property development were riding the pig's back with our money and future prospects over the past 15 years but the democratically elected political leaders, in whom we entrusted our future well being, were quick to pledge that trust to bail out the profligate bankers when things got rough. There has even been a subtle change in language. Now 'we' are paying back 'our' debt.
I don't own a house or a car, never mind a holiday home in Croatia or Marbella. I don't have investment properties in a ghost estate in Mullingar or any other 'desirable' site in backwater Ireland. I pay my taxes, live frugally and within my meagre means.
Ireland was a sorry sight in the 1980s. The young and talented fled this country in their droves and settled, often illegally, in the suburbs of New York, San Francisco, Boston or Sydney. They came back in the '90s, lured by the promise of 'investment, stability and growth', slowly but with increasing frequency and, for a while there was growth and a surge of belief in a country that could lift itself out of the quagmire of poverty and destitution. Ireland became synonymous with ingenuity and innovation. Then the rot set in. My mother had a great phrase about people who got 'notions' about themselves. She'd say 'shit hit with a stick, flies high' and, as gravity teaches us, all things will fall.
The notion that if we're 'good' and vote 'yes', we'll be given a bag of sweets and can aspire, in some vague and distant future, to sit at the table again, with the 'big people', is anathema to me. I say, 'where's our pride?' and 'we've done it before, we can do it again.' A 'no' vote guarantees as much uncertainty in our future, I believe 'short term', prospects as a 'yes' vote pretends not to. I think a 'no' vote is more honest.

When is Truth, Fiction or Fiction, Truth?

I believe, as a writer of fiction, that whatever I write, regardless of how close an account it is to a real event, it remains, for all intents and purposes, fiction. Now that's a very broad and some might argue, indefensible statement. How can the reader discern the fact from the fiction, for example?
There is a contradiction inherent in all fiction writing. One one hand, the novice writer is encouraged to stick to what they know and are passionate about and then, write about that or, at least, draw their inspiration from that well. On the other hand, a writer must never get too close or emotional to their own writing since their task, and duty, to the reader, is to help them suspend their disbelief and doubt and find their own 'truth' in the fiction they're reading.
Fiction, the noun, according to most dictionaries, is 'literature in the form of prose, especially novels or short stories, that describes imaginary events and people.' Such a definition might exclude the 'fictional' works of half the world's greatest writers, I think. Few can doubt the fictional nature of Kurt Vonnegut Jr's Slaughterhouse Five, surely, since it relates a story of alien abduction and an alien race called The Tralfamadorians.
At the same time, the hero of the story, Billy Pilgrim, is a young American soldier who, like Vonnegut, survives the bombing of Dresden because he was working, as a POW, in an underground meat locker. Pilgrim, however, unlike the author, begins to experience life out of sequence, frequently revisiting scenes. He also meets the Tralfamadorians along the way.
Could James Joyce have conjured Leopold Bloom from his imagination or any of the other central and incidental characters who populate Ulysses or his book of short stories, Dubliners, had he not been an inhabitant and keen observer of the denizens of his own native city? I think not and I'm sure there are characters in many novels who may cause some disquiet in the lives of real people and acquaintances of the authors.

James Lee Burke, one of my all time favourite authors, frequently draws his characters from his personal experience. Burke is a multi-award winning writer of crime mysteries, best known for his novels involving Dave Robicheaux, some time deputy sheriff of New Iberia parish in Louisiana, full time recovering alcoholic and former NOPD homicide detective. He's also done series involving first, Hackberry Holland, recovering alcoholic and former Congressional candidate, Texas Ranger and public defender turned sheriff of a small, dusty town on the rim of the Tex-Mex border and then his brother, Billy Bob Holland, a public defender and environmental champion, transplanted from Texas to Montana. He's also published a number of historical novels set in the American civil war and all written from a Confederate army perspective. His observations are panoramic and insightful, always erudite and frequently painful in their honesty. Just what you'd expect from a man with an alcoholic and academic past who has worked as a teacher, a journalist, an oil worker and among down and outs in Los Angeles' skid row and who grew up in Louisiana and now lives in Montana. Read the Introduction to 'The Convict and Other Stories.' It's called Jailhouses, English Departments and Electric Chairs. It is a revelation for any aspiring writer that nothing is guaranteed or written in stone, except the writer's own unquenchable thirst to write. 'Jolie Blon's Bounce', one of Burke's most highly acclaimed and successful novels in the Dave Robicheaux series, was turned down more than 100 times before it finally found a publisher.  
I spent more than twenty years working as a journalist when the essential imperative, both legal and moral, was to ensure, as far as we could, what we wrote was factual and truthful. An author has a different objective. It may be their intention to inform; they may desire to entertain but, in my estimation, their real task is to alter the reader's point of view. I don't mean 'opinion'; I mean, literally, point of view. If a writer can give the reader the facility to see something from the point of view of a different person, of another age, another race, even another gender; then they've suspended their disbelief and achieved their own goal.
A popular novelist once told me a very personal story about himself that, while not doing anything wrong, made him look, well, gullible and human and not the worldly wise author of crime fiction he was. He was aware of my role as a journalist but he gave me the story. There was drink taken, I must admit, but the story subsequently appeared in a newspaper. The author was appalled and, frankly, outraged. He never denied it nor did he seek legal redress, as one might expect he might.
Instead, a character appeared in one of his subsequent novels, bearing my name, complete with two 'ts'. That character was a dog, a friendly, if rather dozy golden retriever, if memory serves and its owner bore the name of the third person who witnessed my conversation with the author and his revelations.
What you write becomes fiction when you set it in print, if that is your intent and design. It is the reader who must decide if it's worth reading.

A writer will find inspiration anywhere. They have to look and see, that's all. Then they have to write.

Shades of Nurembourg

Did you read the full text of Cardinal Sean Brady's defence of his position regarding his role in the investigation of Brendan Smyth's appalling record of child sex abuse? 'Only a note taker,' 'no authority over (Fr) Smyth. It all smacks of the pathetic excuses proferred by Nazi party functionaries at the Nurembourg war crime trials. 'I was only following orders,' was a popular refrain back then.
Cardinal Brady had direct knowledge of Smyth's criminal activities and abuse of children. He spoke to his victims and was given the names and addresses of many more. Smyth went on to continue his abuse, north and south of the border and even, for a while, in the United States.
Yet, despite having this knowledge, Brady hides behind lame excuses such as Canon Law, 'those were different times,' 'I was only a note taker,' and he had no power over Brendan Smyth.
Well, excuse me, Cardinal, but as I read it, you had first hand knowledge of a criminal activity and failed to bring it to the attention of the proper authorities. That makes you complicit in the same crime, as far as I can see.
And then there's the victim who did come forward and was put through the most appalling interrogation by the 'note taker' and his accomplices. How dare they put a frightened 14 year old through such an ordeal?
Those were different times, it's true. My father once told me about the first time he encountered the parish priest of a country town where he had just begun to work. The priest backed him up against a wall with his walking stick and demanded to know who he was? If a priest tried that today, he'd have the stick broken across his own back.
There was too much deference shown to the clergy in those days which allowed people like Smyth to abuse their position and the vulnerable under their care. The church's actions in the past usually involved keeping the offending cleric offside and out of the public eye. More often than not, they simply shunted them off to another parish where they'd continue their abusive practices until they were moved on, yet again.
The Nazis kept meticulous records when they filled their death trains with the Jews of Europe and then those 'note takers' had the audacity to claim they hadn't committed any crime but were simply 'following orders.'
If you were aware of a heinous crime like the abuse of children and did nothing to stop it or have the perpetrators and their criminal activities exposed to the civil authorities, the very least you should do is have the moral fibre to admit your mistake and resign your post as this nation's Catholic primate. You lead no-one. Your office is a puff of smoke.

Peats' returns

One of my recent blogs asked the question, Who remembers Even Stevens? and was prompted by the sudden announcement of the appointment of a receiver for Peats Electronics, one of those family run businesses that is as much a part of the cityscape and family lore as the GPO and summer trips to the seaside.
Now, joy of joys, I see Peats will return to business, slimmer but still alive and kicking. Apparently, all round goodwill from creditors, customers and suppliers has prompted them to regroup. Some of the shops have already re-opened and more will open on stream. So all's well etc and how refreshing it is to hear a Lazarine story in these days of crash and burn.

Have you ever seen an alien?

Like everyone these days, I like to watch the Discovery channel when I have a bit of free time. What the hell, you might discover something, eh? But when I was watching daytime tv, I became fascinated by a debate between a former police officer and a sceptic regarding a controversial ufo sighting in Britain in the early '80s. It made for some amusing, passing interest, between flicks, viewing. Later that night, I watched a detailed analysis/denial of that same 'so called' viewing on the Discovery channel. The seceptic dismissed the testimony of a British army Lieutenant Colonel as a trick of the night and blamed it all on a flickering lighthouse, five miles away. The Lieutenant Colonel and the police officer have written a screenplay and a movie appears to be in the offing. Then, one day later, I sat down for a pizza in my local pizzeria and was confronted by yet another ufo/alien sighting.
This one defies description, though. Apparently, as many as seven car loads of witnesses attested to viewing the weirdest sight of their lives - a 12 foot tall alien strolling down a highway in northern Italy. No phones would work; no-one got a photograph and there has been no official outcry. Hardly surprising, since the area of Udine in Northern Italy appears to be an area of particular interest to/for UFOs in the not so distant past.
So check out this report and look into Udine UFO sightings for yourself and let me know what you find...http://www.ufodb.com/ufo_news/ufodbnews.php?code=132

Who remembers Even Stevens?

Who remembers Even Steven's? Even Steven's was a three story retail clothing store on Capel St, back in the late '60s and early '70s. Jimmy Saville, the late Top of the Pops dj, drew headlines when he shopped there in 1968. But for many other people, Even Stevens was an eyesore.


With its floor to roof, colourful psychedelic mural, Even Stevens said 'THE '60S' in a way that was unmatched by any other store in Dublin. As a result, it was a mecca for Ireland's youth, seeking hipsters, kipper ties, velvet jackets and loud, paisley shirts. Walking through the doors of Even Stevens for the first time, was like walking into Aladdin's Cave. London had its Biba; we had Even Stevens.


Every place has its time and Even Stevens closed. There's a shop like Even Stevens in everyone's life. But that doesn't guarantee them longevity. Many of the shops of my youth have disappeared. Few people can remember there was not just one, but three department stores on Sth Gt George's St alone. There was another on the Quays. They were so monolithic, they looked like they'd never go away.


Peats was one of those shops that was always there. In this case, Peats was the place to go if you had a problem with your stereo or your radio or you wanted to upgrade to sound surround, a smart tv and whatever else the growing world of telecommunications could offer you, in a commercial package, for, of course, the domestic market. Now it's closed. Few people registered its departure; just a simple notice posted in the window of the three generation, family firm's Parnell and Dame St shops. Fifty years of being part of the city scape and psyche, gone in a trice and, no doubt, a shed full of debt. So it goes.

A friend of mine was shocked when I told him. He'd just shelled out €2,500 for a state of the art smart tv. He wasn't happy with it. Now he's stuck with it.

You tube, you die...a little

I watched a man drag himself into a Hell of his own design and circumstance and heard someone say, 'we should shoot this for YouTube, it'll go viral'. The man crawled from an alcove of an alleyway in broad daylight, less than 50 metres from Grafton St, one of this city's busiest shopping thoroughfares. In his wake, he left the discarded remains of his 'works'; scorched foil and a throwaway syringe. He was a tall man, ruddy faced and once, considered 'well built'. Now he staggered, bleary eyed and nodding, an open, scabbed, scar over his left eye. He took two steps and then fell flat on his face. We could hear the loud splat where we stood, at the door of a pub, less than 25 metres from where he lay. Then there was silence. His clothes were dark and grimy with dirt. Now as he lay in the lane, his arse was exposed, his jeans having worked their way down his hips, not by design, but circumstance. His body blocked the laneway. It was mid-afternoon and the 'footfall', as the property agents like to say, of pedestrians was frequent. Taxis streamed around the block's one way traffic system to compete for the needs of shoppers and guests in the nearby five star, luxury hotel. Now, they stopped and watched, before completing a three point turn, to go back the way they came. Remarks were made. 'It's a fuckin' disgrace.' 'Someone should call the Guards.' 'He needs an ambulance, not the Guards.' 'I wouldn't touch him with yours.' Then, 'we should shoot this for YouTube. It'll go viral.'
The prone and obliviously half naked man, began to stir. He raised himself enough to crawl on his hands and knees, towards the footpath. One hand reached out to grasp the earthenware pot of an olive tree that stood outside an Italian restaurant in the lane. His other hand steadied him while he eased the pot towards the edge of the footpath. It looked as though he planned to use the plant pot for leverage, to get to his feet. He eased himself up so now he knelt, like a prayerful supplicant. One hand rested lightly on the plant pot. The other fumbled at his waist. Then he began to piss, loudly and copiously, into the plant pot. When he finished, he levered himself upright, until he was standing again. His audience were silent. Some of them turned away. He fixed his trousers and covered his paper white buttocks that looked like two half moons, kissing. He walked away, oblivious and unaware of the scene he'd set, the audience he gathered. His moment of infamy passed unrecorded; just another moment of destitution, forgotten.

Postcard from a pigeon: Where the sheep have no shame...

Postcard from a pigeon: Where the sheep have no shame...: Last year I was asked to write an introduction for (yet another) book about U2. The intro was to reflect on the band's 30 years in the music industry. Here's what I wrote...

The boy on the cover of U2's debut album, Boy, looks at the world with wide-eyed innocence and curiosity. Thirty years later, the girl in the title song of U2's 2009 album, No Line on the Horizon tells the singer, 'time is irrelevant, it's not linear.' This ode to the infinite nature of creativity might be interpreted as wishful thinking for these now ageing rockers but for U2 fans it was a reassuring signal of the four Dubliners' continuity.
No band has sought inspiration in the zeitgeist of their generation more than U2. While many of their songs have explored their own souls' dark journeys, they have found reflection in the lives of their worldwide army of fans and the life and times of the world that surrounds them.
The '70s is not a decade we reflect upon with a rosy glow of nostalgia. The first major oil crisis of the last century set the tone for a decade marked by strikes, international hijackings, rampant inflation and progressive rock.
In Ireland, violence in the north east had reduced to sectarian, tit for tat murders while the IRA exported terrorism to the streets of British cities. Closer to home, security issues were so pressing, State intervention was perceived as invasive and oppressive.
Was it any wonder punk came along? The revolutionary cry went up; out with the old, in with the new. It was an exciting time to be making music, living in Dublin. A whole scene grew up around the Grafton St corner of St Stephen's Green. There were few venues for emerging punk bands and those there were, were overbooked. U2 were just minor players in a scene inspired by new policies of 'do it yourself' but occupied still by the old guard in new clothes.
The band of likeminded classmates put together by Larry Mullen got their first gigs in local northside venues as The Hype, playing Bowie covers. By the end of 1978, a browser in the Dandelion Green flea market could catch them playing Saturday afternoon free gigs in a partially flooded stable.
Participation was a byword for U2 as they embraced the audience that ventured to embrace them. Their music was an invitation as well as an evocation to and of their collective angst. In the boiling pot of this incestuous Dublin scene, the involvement of some members' of the band in the Shalom group, inspired devotion and derision. A rival group emerged calling themselves The Black Catholics, opposed to all things U2.
In the grand scheme of things, it didn't amount to a hill of beans. U2 had a plan to become the biggest rock and roll band in the world and when they met Paul McGuinness, they found the man who might have the moxy to realize their dream.
McGuinness was a Trinity graduate who had dabbled in music management already with Celtic rock outfit, Spud. He was well read and admired and emulated Brian Epstein and Led Zeppelin manager, Peter Grant, the two cornerstones of world domination and megastardom. He had dabbled in the world of advertising and commercial production and understood the power of image and the value of intellectual copyright.
The deal with Island Records was mutually beneficial. Although Island had considerably success in the '70s introducing reggae and Bob Marley to a worldwide audience, carving its own niche in the prog rock scene with Jethro Tull as well as tradrock and troubadours with Cat Stevens, Sandy Denny, Richard and Linda Thompson, among others, it failed to make any impression on the punk or new wave scene.
For Paul McGuinness and U2, it was a canny alliance. Island was cash rich and inclined to allow creative freedom and development room. And, as it turned out, it was needed. U2 was not an overnight success. It took more than three years of hard slog, thousands of road miles in hard touring and countless, nameless motel rooms before some faint flicker of light and hope appeared. Heavily in debt and suffering the doubt raised by the rock and roll lifestyle against their own personal convictions, the band almost split after the release of their second album, October.
They persevered in adversity. Even the setback of Bono losing his lyrics for the album while they toured inspired them to compose on the hoof. The singer 'wrote' his lyrics at the microphone while producer Steve Lillywhite was mixing the track. The album was not a commercial success but, in retrospect, it helped shape how they worked in the future.
The picture of Peter Rowan, the boy on the cover of U2's first album, Boy, changes significantly on the cover of War, the band's third studio album. He's growing up. There's an inquisitive anger in the eyes. The album announced U2's arrival as a band with something to say. They now had a distinctive sound. The Unforgettable Fire laid the foundation for what was to follow.
As the first album with the production team of Daniel Lanois and Brian Eno, it was greeted with suspicion by U2's American fanbase. But it consolidated a sound that was already manifesting itself since October and made a creative virtue of the band's willingness for impromptu experimentation.
All of this came to fruition with The Joshua Tree, a massive album exploring the journey of the soul through a material wasteland, the American hinterland, drunk on imperial power and lust. Suddenly U2 were on the cover of Time magazine and on top of the world.
Hardly overnight success but it allowed them to buy bigger homes and stay in better hotels. As individuals, they were rock stars without portfolio. They felt like pretenders.
Rattle and Hum, the double album and feature film that followed The Joshua Tree, was panned by critics as pretentious, presumptious and arrogant. It was misinterpreted. U2 wore its creative heart on its sleeve. When Boy was released in 1980, Bono declared they had no influences as though they'd emerged in a vacuum. But what was simply an assertion of the band's singular creative vision, would come back to haunt him. In Rattle and Hum they sought to explore, absorb and pay homage to the heritage that informed their own music; blues, soul, country and gospel. It was no wonder that at the end of the subsequent tour, significantly on the last day of the decade, in the Point theatre in Dublin, The Edge declared the band's intention to go away and reinvent themselves.
Ironically, the world around them was in the same process. As Gorbachev's Perestroika movement edged the Soviet Union tentatively towards more democratic freedom, the promise overran the reality and the walls, quite literally, came tumbling down. As though a corked steam kettle had popped, popular unrest and impatience spilled over into direct action. The Berlin wall was torn down, brick by brick. In Czechoslovakia, writer Vaclev Havel lead the 'velvet revolution' and in Poland, Lech Walensa was leading a popular move to democratic freedom and independence.
U2 chose Hansa studio in Berlin to record Achtung Baby, arguably the band's creative zenith and the point where the band's creative output and the zeitgeist coalesced. From the opening track, as the U2 locomotive chugs out of Zoo Station and Bono declares 'I'm ready for what's next...' It was as though the '80s had never happened and Rattle and Hum was someone else's nightmare. In the '90s U2 grew up, as a band and as individuals.
It was a period that was not without cringing embarrassment as they embraced the new dance culture and Zoo became the argot of post modern irony. Bono as Macphisto could order pizzas for an audience of thousands and phone Bill Clinton for a natter about world peace. In the end with POP and the subsequent tour, their emergence from a giant lemon was too reminiscent of Spinal Tap for comfort. They appeared to choke on their own post modern joke.
But what artist cannot embrace failure? Failure, in U2 terms, meant earning millions less than expected from what they produced. The only 'loss' they could suffer now was creative and the three albums the band released in the 'noughties - All that you Can't Leave Behind, How to Dismantle an Atomic Bomb and No Line on the Horizon - have found them returning to basics in different measures and with varying results. In the meantime Bono has become a world statesman, at home in the company of world leaders. Adam has been through rehab and just recently married. The Edge is in a new marriage with a second family. Larry Mullen has a family and just recently launched himself in a new role as a film actor. They're boys no more.

etiquette, manners and profits

Have you noticed how people look askance when you open a door for someone, male or female; say 'please' and 'thank you' to strangers or even pause and hesitate in consideration of how one's actions might affect another? Do you stand, chatting, with a couple of friends, in the middle of a footpath?
How many times, in a busy working day, do you wish footpaths had traffic lanes, that there were slow lanes for tourists and day trippers and right and left lanes for oncoming pedestrians?

Your thoughts are on your purpose, its important and essential nature and you seethe at the apparent disregard of others.
I remember a time when people left their front door keys in the lock, milk was left in glass bottles on your doorstep and church doors weren't padlocked.
Nowadays, it is common practice to 'demand', without 'asking' and some people will even click their fingers or whistle to get attention.
When did we lose respect for ourselves and each other? Why do we get angry at beggars for begging? Most of the time, they are misfortunates who have fallen through the cracks through illness or by their own misdeeds, so what harm or injury can they do us?
We had a little book of etiquette, we studied in school. It showed us how to behave, socially; which fork or spoon to use at the dinner table and how to address people of importance and standing.
It didn't teach us respect. We learned that from our parents and other figures of authority in our lives.
So what went wrong? The answer could be very difficult and complex. It could also be very simple. Greed and the all prevailing imperative of profit is what has brought us to this sorry state.
When we've abdicated our respect for our own environment, the air we breathe, the land we farm, the waters we fish, then we've lost respect for ourselves.
Take a bit of time, soon. Go to a farmers' market with no preconceived notions of hippies in wellies chewing rubbery tofu. Everyone talks to each other. They remember you. They discuss the quality of their radishes. It will give you hope.

the whys and wherefores of writing

I bought a collection of short stories last night by the American writer, James Lee Burke. It was the last of Mr Burke's books, to complete my collection. It's called The Convict and Other Stories. In his Introduction: Jailhouses, English Departments and the Electric Chair, he writes about his own experience as a writer; the rejections, the defiance, the drinking, the teaching and then his inability to learn.
James Lee Burke is not only one of the most successful detective crime writers alive today, he's also one of the best living American writers. His powers of description are breathtaking and he can stop you breathing with the emotion of a moment. He stands with John Steinbeck and Kurt Vonnegut Jr as my all time, favourite American authors.
I've learned from all three of these writers and many more. One of the first lesson any writer learns, is to become a reader, then, an observer. Sometimes, after reading someone like Burke, I'd begin to think there was nothing I could write about to match someone like him. Louisiana, Texas and Montana - his favoured locations - just seemed to have that much more going for them. John Steinbeck wrote about hobos and the dust trail from the Texas panhandle to the Californian fruit fields, migrant workers and underground agitators. Kurt Vonnegut wrote about soldiers and aliens. Desperation set in if I thought about my own paltry settings.
Then I realized I wasn't looking at things from the right angle. I could say James Joyce taught me that, but I won't. I've read big chunks of Ulysses and the short story collection, Dubliners. But it took me four weeks to get through 15 pages of Ulysses on my first attempt. Brendan Behan and Sean O'Casey taught me a valuable lesson. Stories are not just on your doorstep; they're in your head. You have to get them out. I've got more pleasure out of reading John McGahern, William Trevor, Sebastien Barry and Joe O'Connor. These are writers who understand scene and setting. Roddy Doyle has the same talent.
Reading can satisfy writers, but it also makes them restless. Restless, to get their own words and thoughts down in print. And that makes the difference between a reader and a writer. Every reader will entertain the thought of being better and more able than a writer, to capture the moment of their lives that encapsulates their thought processes and sums up their existence. It is the writer who writes it.

Clams and prawns

I went out looking for some fish today, not because it's Friday but because I like eating fish. I got a fish I'd never heard of in my local fishmonger yesterday. It was called a tilapia and the fillets had a reddish hue and were quite firm. The fishmonger said they were firmer and sharper flavoured than a lemon sole. He was right and at €1 a fillet, it was not just delicious, it was good value, too. I had to google the tilapia, of course, and I found out it was the most farmed fish in the United States and the fifth most important species of farmed fish, globally.
Is it my imagination or are there more people eating fresh fish these days? The Irish have always made a big deal about being surrounded by fish but we never appear to consume as much as we could, and should. Cod, haddock, ray and salmon will always have their enthusiasts but now, they've been joined by mackerel, sole, tilapia, squid, sea bream and bass. You can even buy fresh tuna, sardines and swordfish these days, in most good fishmongers.
And it's not just foreign travel or gourmet tv shows that are widening our horizons. There are plenty of good Chinese supermarkets in Dublin now and their fresh fish sections are expanding. This morning there were razor clams, fresh prawns, soft shell crabs, red gurnard, snails and sea bass on sale.
Improvements and commercial imperatives have brought massive changes in fishing, too. Nowadays, trawlers are like floating factories and fish arrives ashore these days, dressed, filleted and even cooked. That certainly appears to be the condition of the North Atlantic prawn these days. I've been trying to source the juicy little devils, unshelled, cooked and frozen but so far, I've only succeeded to find them shelled, cooked and frozen. Until, of course, I went into my local Chinese supermarket and there they were, all pink and lovely and ready to be eaten. So what else did I get on my travels? A handful of clams, just enough for some tomato clam sauce and spaghetti with just a hint of chilli. Better get cooking...

Self publishing...not a natural state

All this self publishing malarkey is going against the grain, in a strange way. First, I've never been a joiner. I played football in college but I never joined the debating groups, the chess club or the drama society. I didn't mind supporting things, going on the odd march or engaging in stimulating debate over a couple of pints. But I drew the line at signing on the dotted line.
Which is why self publishing and all that goes with it, doesn't sit well with me.
First, you have to get your twitter on. Then you have to have a blog and a website, not to mention the Facebook page and maybe a YouTube account. And then there are the specialist clubs, the writing forums and the facilitators you must engage to get things done for you.
I've always been a loner, as much out of circumstance as inclination. As a journalist, I worked as a freelance for many years and later, when I worked for a newspaper, the job I did was largely left in my own hand.
Joining clubs implies compromise, in some way; certainly, accommodation. The best writing club I've joined is Splinter4All, a party of like minded souls in a mutually supportive writers' forum. Unfortunately, most of them are personal friends; their critique can be indiscriminate and inadvertently patronizing. But of all the writers' groups I've joined; Red Room, Writing4All, Writing.ie or writing.com; Splinter4All remains the best.
Clubs are, by their very nature, well, clubs. People 'club' together and become cliques. Participation is essential to survive and not be shunned but participation can imply compromise too.
I need to get it about that I've written and published a book of short stories, available to anyone with a laptop, tablet or smartphone, who can afford the price of a cup of coffee.
I believe in the power of the word and 'word of mouth' is how, I hope, to get my book about. Everyone reads. I just want them to take half an hour to read me.
http://dermotthayes.com/dermotthayes.com/The_Story.html
https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/137450
http://www.amazon.com/dp/B007CK9LY2/ref=r_soa_s_i...BE 

Old friends

I always loved that Simon & Garfunkel song, Old Friends. I think it had another name, too, a forward slash '/' Bookends. It evoked the sounds and sights of an Autumn evening, sitting on a park bench. 'Old friends, sat on a park bench like bookends.' It's a sad song but there's also a great degree of comfort, too. They're comfortable in their friendship and that's the value of old friends; you can trust them. I ran into Keith Duffy last night just as I got off work. I've known Keith since Boyzone's first 'public' appearance, a sort of showcase, in PoD, back in the early '90s. He went on to become a very famous pop star; then a tv soap star in Corrie and an accomplished athlete, completing triathlons and Iron Man competitions with distinction and raising substantial sums of money and awareness for his charity, Irish Autism Action. This year, he has plans to compete in three marathons, attempt a world record cycle from Mizen Head to Malin Head and another six day cycle around Ireland with a bunch of his pals from Manchester United. Even more impressively, Keith has just completed a five month stint touring Ireland in Druid Theatre's production of John B. Keane's classic Big Maggie. The man has earned his bones, so to speak. But more importantly, he remains an 'old friend,' without changing and always someone you can trust and in who's company, I will always feel comfortable. So here's to you, Keith...

Leap of Faith

Yesterday was a long day of learning. I published my first book as an independent publisher and also my first ebook, too. I did this because it was the cheapest and most convenient way to self publish but also because I believe epublishing is the way forward.
I've been reading about it for some time and stories about the successes of digital publishing have been making their way into the mainstream media. One of the stories that swayed my opinion, was sent to me by Zak Martin in Spain, in this link.http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-13853728
Further reading indicated there were even more people reading books on tablet readers than I ever imagined.
As all things like this, though, there's a gap between the future and the present that requires a leap of faith.
First, I'm surprised how many people expected I would have copies of a printed book to hand them. I'm surprised how many people can't get their heads around a free reader app available from Kindle for iPads, iPhones and MacBooks http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/kindle-read-books-magazines/id302584613?mt=8. It makes sense from Kindle's point of view. There's intense competition among the electronic book retailers to capture readers. So it's a good time for readers as books are available at very attractive prices. Postcard from a Pigeon, my collection of short stories, costs less than a cup of coffee, but you'll enjoy more than one cup of coffee reading it.  http://www.amazon.com/dp/B007CK9LY2/ref=r_soa_s_i...BE
My next step is in promotion and marketing, hence this blog site; my personal website, http://dermotthayes.com/dermotthayes.com/The_Story.html, my Facebook site, https://www.facebook.com/dermott.hayes and my Twitter site, https://twitter.com/#!/hannibalthehat
They're all part of the epublishing process but I think, ultimately, the final test is in word of mouth. So long as I can get these stories into readers' hands, I believe they'll tell their friends and more people will read them and create a market, future books will help to satisfy. Well, that's the Leap of Faith, innit? 

Publishing your own book is a bit like teaching your child to ride a bike

Publishing your own book is a bit like teaching your child to ride a bike...once you let go, they're on their own. I let Postcard from a Pigeon go last night. It's now available for sale on Amazon Kindle at http://www.amazon.com/dp/B007CK9LY2/ref=r_soa_s_i...BE and it costs less than a cup of coffee. Now that it's out there I know I'm going to fret about it but there'll be more. This is just the beginning.
There are a bunch of stories I wrote before that I lost in computer crashes down the years but, as Kurtis Blow sang, these are the breaks.
I served a cheeseburger, fries and coke to Michael Madsen, poet and actor, in Bruxelles of Harry St, last night. I hope that was auspicious. He's now a follower on the BruxellesHarrySt Twitter site. Seemed like a nice chap. Didn't say much but he finished his burgher!

Reflections on a day...

If you haven't died a winter yet, things are looking up. That's one of those phrases stays in your mind from another, unspecified, time and place. You never have to look further than the headlines to find something depressing to dwell on. That's why they say no news is good news. It may all sound like trite banalities but those old sayings have a ring of truth in them.
I work as a waiter and bartender in a city centre pub and I'll tell you, things are not looking good when even Americans count their change and don't leave a tip. There is the persistent story about someone telling visiting Americans that tipping is neither common, nor expected in Ireland. I've often wondered about the source of that story and believe I found it once in an inflight magazine or maybe one of those glassy magazines Bord Failte or the Department of Foreign affairs used to distribute. Whatever the source, I've got an old saying for them: TIPPING IS NOT A CITY IN CHINA.
So after work last night, almost weightless for the lack of change to jingle, I dropped in to say hello to say hello to a friend. He was down in the dumps because he was having a hard time bust his friend's ashen remains out so he could bring him home for burial. How dead do you have to be to get buried today? I wondered. But that's another story. He was watching the protestors stop the Co Laois Sheriff carry out an eviction on a You Tube video that really should go VIRAL.
Here are a bunch of Irish people doing what they really love to do; argue points of the law, defy authority and listen to themselves. Brilliant. Pat Shortt couldn't have written a better sketch but this is deathly serious and soooo right. There was a bounce in my step after I saw this. It renewed my faith in my fellow human beings.
More about how dead you have to be etc in the next blog...http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PpUjl4LvQM8

Happy days - my numbers' are here

Happy days, I hope. The road to self publication is long and winding but if you take it at your own pace, read the signs along the way, things can work out. In the past six months I've experimented with a few software packages, trying to find the one that could do all the things I needed for self publication on the internet. By trial and error, I arrived at Scrivener, a Mac friendly package that can turn out .epub, .mobi and PDF formats, to cover the demands of most of the digital publishing world.
Once a new thing appears - in the past ten years and most immediately, in the past three years, digital publishing has appeared - and many people said, a bit like 'the talkies', I suppose, that it would never catch on. Those same people are now pondering what type of tablet they should buy. But equally, as the success stories in self publishing have mounted, so have the number of services being offered to those wide eyed, punk pioneers who want to get their publication out there and in the hands of Kindle, iPad and God know how many other digital readers. They will take your writings from a scruffy, digital manuscript and turn it into a shining jewel which they will then launch, with a fanfare and a fair wind, onto the choppy seas of the world wide web. Of course, they've got to pick a pocket or two along the way so if you want that digital conversion done, you'll pay; if you want a cover design, you'll have to pay and so on and so forth.
I look on this whole self publication thing from a punk point of view. Back in the day there was no internet to market your products. Kids who took up guitars played their own shows and raised the money, through gigs and fanzines, to make their own records and when someone heard them, they passed it on, if they were good and then they got a following. Most importantly, they got paid.
Then along came the internet and a new phenomenon for those musical pioneers: a means to put out their music to like minded souls without ever having to bother with the 'music industry', the multi-million corporate giants who were all about profits and the bottom line and forgot about nurturing talent.
Musicians learned a very simple lesson; if you own it, you can sell it and the profits are yours. Colin Vearncombe, aka Black, is a case in point. He withdrew from the corporate music world but continues to make great music which he sells through his own website.
Now I've set up a website. My first book - Postcard from a Pigeon and Other Stories, a collection of 18 short stories - is completed and ready for publication. This morning my ISBN numbers arrived. These are (International Standard Book Numbers) and they're sold in batches of ten and more to publishers. So I've set up my own publishing imprint, Hannibalthehat Books and all my books will be published under that banner with the numbers I've bought.
Postcard will first be available on Kindle for 90 days, to avail of a special offer they've forwarded to those first time writers. So here's to happy days...

Tangier Alley

Since I began living in and around Dublin's inner city in the mid '70s, I've been fascinated with the street names and the pictures and stories they can conjure. In the Grafton St area alone, there's a Lemon St, a Swan Yard and a Tangier Alley. There was once a 'Flint's Croft' between Harry St and South King St. Many other streets have disappeared; such is progress. As a general rule, most of the older street names refer to the prevalent trades practised in their vicinity so what might you make of those three above; Lemon St, Swan Yard and Tangier Alley?
I thought I'd have a go at it but instead of some historic musing, I decided I'd simply use the names for locations and let their ethos do their creative work. A murder or a robbery in Tangier Alley has far more cachet than a bag grab on Suffolk St, don't you think?
Here's some other names: Bull Alley, Cow's Lane, O'Curry Road, Engine Alley, Fade St. OK, I don't think I'd touch the last one after the reality tv show of the same name but the others certainly have possibilities. And I know of an Ebenezer Lane somewhere in Dublin 8.
Anyway, all this came back into my consciousness today while I was trawling through some back catalogue hard disc files and lo and behold, 22,000 words, six chapters or 54 pages of an unfinished novel: Bad Dreams of Tangier Alley!

Postcard from a Pigeon and Other Stories

Postcard from a Pigeon and Other Stories is a collection of 18 short stories that draw material from the past 50 years of Irish life. You can read about me and this book on my website, dermotthayes.com, where you can read excerpts from a selection of those stories. The book will soon be available for download from my website and through Kindle/Amazon

writing

Ok, so here's the story so far. I have osteoarthritis and my fingers are very sore, my knuckles are swollen but I continue to write because that's what I want to do. Since I began my life with a typewriter keyboard, the kind that dominated the newsrooms of national newspapers, I tend to, er, pound the keyboards. Yes, even in these days of ultra sensitive Apple keyboards, I pound. And that's not good for the arthritis, either.
we all do illogical things. We wouldn't be human if we didn't. We wouldn't be Klingons, either. We just wouldn't be very interesting. So we smoke cigarettes and we drink alcohol. We take pleasure in a Big Mac or a Whopper and I still love a full, Irish breakfast. Bring it on.
I've been writing all my life but have always found excuses to avoid it when I could. Illogical, eh?
A teacher I had once told me I could be a writer and I believed him because, not only did I want to, but because I believed it before he told me. I got knocked back a few times later and never met a teacher like him again. So I went into journalism, almost by default. I was pursuing a career in teaching and academia but my heart was never in it. Journalism, I loved and enjoyed until the headlines began to write the story and facts became an inconvenience.
Twelve years ago I began to explore my potential as a writer by writing short stories. I always loved the short story format - the idea of jumping in and out of someone's life and circumstances, in and out of a place; a short visit. It was appealing. I began to write short stories but I rarely showed them to anyone. Then I sent a story to a new Irish magazine and the editor and publisher called me and said he'd like to publish it and he did and I was thrilled. It was better than a front page, lead story, exclusive!
Now I have a collection of 18 stories and I've put them together and plan to publish them, myself. I hope, someday, if you read this, you'll read my stories. Check it out at dermotthayes.com. The book is called Postcard from a Pigeon and Other Stories, published by Hannibalthehat Books©2012