MY MOTHER went to college with him. Ian Dury, not Elvis. She was drawn to his mischievous character and quite fancied him, if truth be told. It was the way he wielded his disability, like a dagger pointed at the vital organs of the world. “You’d never take someone like me home to your parents,” he’d proclaim, referencing the polio and the way it had left his body disfigured. She never told him, but it was his profanity more than the polio that put her off.
The juice of the carrot, the smile of a parrot
A little drop of claret – anything that rocks
Elvis and Scotty, the days when I ain’t spotty,
Sitting on a potty – curing smallpox.
Reasons to Be Cheerful, Part 3, by Ian Dury
I’m not sure Dury would have cared much about Blue Monday – the most depressing day of the year, according to one psychologist. He could be a very angry man but Reasons to Be Cheerful, Part 3 is one of the most authentic calls to appreciate the small, surreal stuff every day.
The most depressing day of the year was doubly depressing for me, as it turned out. The week before, I had written an article about ways to combat Blue Monday, including going to the PepperPot cafe in Dublin’s Powerscourt Townhouse for its cheering Blue Monday special. I wasn’t laughing when the article appeared because it turned out I’d messed up the date. I wrote that Blue Monday was next Monday, the 24th, when in fact it was the 17th. You know that feeling when you mess up badly at work (if you are still lucky enough to have a job, that is) and everyone finds out and your stomach goes into a spin cycle of mortification? I felt like that on Blue Monday. Times a thousand. With knobs on.
And I’d been feeling quite good up to then. I don’t usually get seasonal affective disorder (SAD). That is, it doesn’t just strike in the winter season. I can tend towards SAD in the spring and summer too.
I took a week off work recently, to get a bit happier I suppose, but more importantly to get calmer, quieter and – my personal Holy Grail – more equanimous. I didn’t go anywhere more exotic than Parnell Street and it didn’t cost anything except a few items scooped up from the dregs of the sales. I sat in a coffee shop for four hours alone, just thinking. I met friends for sausage sandwiches and cake. I stood for a whole morning in a computer shop getting niggling technological problems sorted. I did all of this and more. It was one of the best holidays I ever had.
I wandered wherever the mood took me. And inevitably, because I seem to be one part adult human to two parts teenage homing pigeon, I ended up in Sandymount one day. The holiday had allowed me some quality time with my mother during which she had mentioned a blemish on her face she wanted to get rid of. One of the places offering specialised treatments was a clinic at 8 Sandymount Green. We laughed because that had been our house – well, not our house exactly, because the new owners knocked it down, but the site where she raised eight children, where I grew up. On this day, I found myself walking in to what used to be my sitting room but is now a reception area.
I asked the receptionist about the treatment but I couldn’t stop staring at the fireplace, a modern one standing in the place of the one my father built by hand. I confessed to the receptionist that I was a bit distracted because I used to live there. She understood immediately, being a reader of this column. She took me on a tour of the house, starting with the back garden where she left to give me “a moment”.
I took one. I sat and stared at the water feature located close to the tree where my father took his life. And, yes, I cried but they were happy tears at the thought of him being accidentally commemorated in this way.
Anyway, this is all by way of saying sorry to Irish Timesreaders who were misled/irritated by my silly error. I repeat: Blue Monday does not fall this coming Monday, although the lovely people at the PepperPot are still going to reprise it with a special of a seasonal salad with a free mood-enhancing cookie thrown in. They are calling it the "Not Blue Monday Special". I like to think Dury might have approved.
THIS WEEKEND: Róisín will be curled up for several hours with Don Draper, having been belatedly seduced by Mad Men. I feel like drinking 10 martinis and smoking 50 Lucky Strikes after each episode. I may not, as a result, make it past the season one box set.