General selection – Frank McNally on national stereotypes, Greek (and table quiz) heroes, and a stamp of greatness

At one of the dinners during the World Journalists Conference in Korea last week, our guide Sharon had to help sort 50 international press people into various food groups: halal, vegetarian, etc.

Glancing at my badge, she announced: “Ireland – you are general” and pointed me to a table where I had the company of journalists from Hungary, Bulgaria, and (more surprisingly) Kazakhstan.

It was a little disappointing to find myself declared general: being particular sounds like more fun. Then again, I made up for it elsewhere.

On another night, dinner was in a pub that specialised in fried chicken. So once more, Sharon had to get a count of those who would partake of the main offering, “chicken and beer” – the vast majority – and those who were teetotal or vegetarian.

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Dutch gold – Frank McNally on a weekend in idyllic Amsterdam

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And all right, I may have played down to a national stereotype when ordering “chicken and extra beer, please”. But this time Sharon noted my preference with the words: “Ireland – you are dangerous.”

Of course, being a generalist is a prerequisite for writing a daily column. It also comes in handy at table quizzes, where having a headful of useless information can make you a hero, however briefly.

Just back from Seoul last weekend after a 20-hour journey, I remembered with a groan that I had committed to attending the Theatrical Cavaliers charity quiz – an annual fixture among Dublin’s dramaturgical classes, held this year in aid of the Gaza Paediatric Care Initiative.

The Teachers’ Club was packed for the event: 42 teams shoe-horned together. I was literally rubbing shoulders with the great Beckettian (and Joycean) actor Barry McGovern at one point, even though we were at different tables. And food groups featured there too.

It was a dual quiz. There was the main competition, for which teams conferred in whispers, while between rounds there was also a raucous spot-prize quiz, in which individuals competed to shout answers.

But inevitably, someone forgot which was which. And when another team round began with the question “What do you call to some who eats no meat except fish”, one woman shouted triumphantly “pescatarian!”, to general amusement and particular mortification.

I’m almost embarrassed to say our team won the main event. And although it wasn’t crucial to the result, another food-related question made my night.

In a “Know Your Onions” round, we were asked in which Asian country had green onions emerged as a political symbol during a recent election. Whereupon, through the fog of jetlag, I dimly recalled mention in Korea of a recent election there.

I hadn’t heard that, in a supermarket walkabout during a campaign dominated by inflation, President Yoon Suk Yeol committed a gaffe by grossly underestimating the price of green onions, which his opponents then satirically seized upon.

But that specialist knowledge was unnecessary. The general, gleaned from a trip halfway round the world, was enough for a point.

Speaking of Beckett, the most spectacular thing I saw in Korea was a library: a beautiful, four-storey one that formed the centre-piece of a shopping mall.

Libraries are a standard feature of the Starfield mall chain, I learned, but this was their masterpiece. And as I rode up and down escalators looking for the best picture angle, it seemed reassuring that books should be so important in a temple of consumerism.

But then I noticed that the architects had prized form over function and that, while lovely to look at, most of the shelves were inaccessible.

From an upper balcony, for example, I spotted a certain Foxrock-born writer on the front of a Korean anthology. Unfortunately, it would have required specialist climbing equipment to investigate further. In the story of his life, Beckett was again beyond the reach of general readers.

Next to declaring a Republic there, the most patriotic thing an Irishman can do in the GPO these days is launch a new stamp.

This great honour befell me on Wednesday last when I jointly unveiled one in a centenary commemoration of the Freeman’s Journal, which bestrode Irish life for 161 years before closing in 1924.

As I said in my talk, it seemed a sad irony that a nationalist newspaper dedicated to liberty should have folded just as a Free State was born. On the plus side, it had at least lasted long enough to be immortalised in modern literature, via a chapter of Joyce’s Ulysses.

Mind you, as I also reminded the audience, that was a mixed compliment. Reflecting the book’s Homeric structure, the newspaper episode is called “Aeolus” after the Greek ruler of the winds.

In the original Odyssey, Aeolus puts the winds in a sack and lends them to Odysseus and his crew for safe-keeping on their journey back from Troy. Then, when almost home, the crew mistake the sack for treasure, and stupidly opening it, blow their ship back out to sea.

So the journalists in the Freeman’s office of 1904 are Greek heroes, up to a point. But as they stand around debating the issues of the day, by Homeric implication, they are also a bunch of windbags.