Monday Miscellany
Dave Kenny on ‘Manity’ and How My Purple and Green Hair Made Me Want to Dye
“Tell them what an idiot you are.” That was the curt instruction from the woman who runs my life. “Write it down, so that other men don’t make the same mistake.”
I am nothing, if not compliant. So here goes:
Men are idiots. Fact. Scientists proved this early last year when they discovered that Man ’Flu actually exists. We exaggerate the symptoms of the common cold to idiotic proportions. We think we’re the stronger sex, but we’re not.
We’re also idiots who can’t accept that ageing is inevitable. The Harley Medical Group reported a 17% rise in calls from men seeking Botox treatment after Louis Walsh admitted getting work done. Men are idiots. Vain idiots.
The worst thing a man can do, other than wear a wig or get Botox, is to dye his hair. He is a preening knob if he does. He’s cheating. Besides, grey is manly, grey is wise. Grey is the colour of silver-back gorillas. I’ve an admission to make: I’m a preening knob. I dyed my hair last year. No, please don’t run away, let me explain.
Read more: Dave Kenny on ‘Manity’ and How My Purple and Green Hair Made Me Want to Dye
Ninja Mother
Your mother spends nine months carrying you around.
This is her 'L' plate time, she learns to avoid certain foods, fast drivers, hot sun, alcohol and nicotine.
Already you are number one in her life.
For the next five years, you will make her tired, irritable, increase her grey hair quota by at least 50%.
Her conversation skills will decrease, most of her sentences will begin with 'Be careful... ' and 'Don't...'
She will never sit down properly again.
Poetry in Pavements - Honor Molloy
I grew up in a house filled with music and jokes and song. A robust language rang off the walls as the family freely quoted Synge, O’Casey, Shakespeare, or Bubbles, one of the Dublin characters my father, John Molloy, collected. Both of my parents were theatre artists dedicated to preserving a Dublin vernacular that split a two-syllable word into ten, giving it a hundred new meanings. Back in the 60s, there was lively poetry to be heard on the streets and in the markets that was rapidly fading. So, the two of them took material straight from the mouths of the Moore Street dealers, buskers, down-and-outers with extraordinary language and stories.
My mother, Yvonne Voigt Molloy, listened in while propped up in bed in the Rotunda after the latest baby, over coffee in Bewley’s on Grafton Street, or she wandered through the market stalls pretending to check off items when she was really scribbling on the back of her shopping list. Earwigging, she called it. She typed these notes into short scripts which aired on Radio Éireann. These pieces focused on women’s lives, domestic scenes, and are a fascinating glimpse into common-day Irish experience.
So What Do You Do? - Lorraine Griffin
Yuck. The dreaded question.
But we all get asked it - in the pub, at weddings… in fact any social occasion where we meet new people.
Invariably, sweeping assumptions are made when you utter your reply.
An accountant? No way she could understand poetry, wear bright colours or ever belt out a boisterous Wham! number. An art teacher? Ah sure he’s hopeless with money, a bit dithery and into that whole Green thing. A builder? Uh-oh, watch him –you’ve got a total lad there, mad about football and beer.
It is human nature, and it’s a particular characteristic of this Fair Isle that we categorize and label people based on how they earn their daily bread. We slot them into the category and status that our perception of their profession allows. With speedy precision, we can guess what they earn, where they live and how they socialise. All neatly boxed-up, categorised and filed away. Job done (so to speak).
However, by only focussing on people’s jobs, we’re seeing only a tiny percentage of what they’re about. Such a simplistic view overlooks the fact that everyone has a set of interests, motivations and passions. And if they get to indulge these passions, and even better earn a crust from them, then they are truly the lucky ones.
Roots and Ribbons - Clar Ni Chonghaile
My seven-year-old daughter tried to “do” me the other day. “That’s how you talk, isn’t it, Mummy?” she said, all proud and punchy after imitating my accent. She did a fair job too, despite her own distinctly English tones. Her cheekiness got me thinking about roots and identity and what it all means now that I am so grown up I am growing down. I was born in London to Irish parents. We moved home to County Galway when I was about three. The next 17 years were Angela’s Ashes-lite. My childhood was ordinary but it seems the stuff of history books now.
We were seven children in a bungalow surrounded by fields of sinister cows and hawthorn bushes that rustled with robins. In the evenings, we lit turf fires, said the Rosary and watched an hour of telly. We were taught by nuns, we walked to school or, if it was raining, we watched from the sitting room window and when we saw a car coming down the hill, we rushed out to the gate. The driver would have to give us a lift. We walked for hours along the river; played camogie in lumpy fields mined with cow dung, moved cows from one stamp-sized field to another and went to the bog to make mini-wigwams out of drying sods.
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