ONE F rings me Thursday morning. Says some friend of his from the PAYE Daily Worker – or whatever rag it is – is ringing various RTÉ celebrities, trying to embarrass them into saying they'll take a pay cut. Wants the old dear's number, writes Ross O'Carroll-Kelly
I’m there, “Dude, my old dear’s number is, like, a state secret. You’ve no idea how seriously she takes that whole privacy thing. It’s 087-223 . . .” and I give him the full thing.
Then I have to tip downstairs, of course, to watch the show.
Waiting for me, at the kitchen table, is the most hilarious sight I’ve ever seen.
Every morning, bear in mind, for as long as I’ve been alive, the old dear has had a nine o’clock hair appointment for – at the very least – a blow dry. So you can imagine the laugh I have when I cop her, sitting in the kitchen, with a towel around her neck and latex gloves on – doing her own hair.
I kid you not.
The pen is only Padraig, of course, because there’s bleach and all sorts of other shit involved. I pick up the box and sort, like, snigger. “This is all a bit WC,” I go.
And that’s when I realise that she’s actually crying? “Bloody paparazzi,” she goes. “They’re outside Foxrock Hair Design. They’re outside Pamela Scott. They’re outside the Lord Mayor’s Lounge. Waiting – just waiting – to get a shot of me, living it up on the licence-payers money.” I laugh. “Reduced to this,” I go. “I think I’m beginning to see the funny side of this whole I suppose recession thing.”
She doesn’t get a chance to answer, because her phone rings. The tune is, like, Michael Bublé. It’s like, please! “Hello?” she goes.
Whatever’s said, roysh, she’s immediately not a happy camper about it? “How! Dare you!” she goes and I honestly haven’t seen her this angry since some kid mistook her for Twink coming down the steps of the Westbury two Christmas Eves ago.
She’s there, “What I earn is my business and nobody else’s.” Of course, I can only hear her side of the conversation. But I can, like, guess the kind of shit that’s being said on the other end.
“Well, I didn’t bloody cause it . . . No, I am not prepared to take a paycut . . . I don’t care what Miriam’s doing . . . Or Marian . . . Well, if that’s what they’ve decided, then more power to them. They do their thing, I do mine . . .” Her voice is all high-pitched and she’s got liquigel and developing crème dripping down her face.
“I mean, why am I getting this call,” she’s going. “Why not Rachel Allen?” This is one of those things that’s actually too funny? I whip out my phone and stort filming it. It’s, like, this has to go on YouTube.
And not a moment too soon either because it’s at that exact point that she suddenly loses it – and we’re talking in a big-time way.
“Share the pain?” she goes. “Share the pain? Let me tell you something about pain. Yesterday, I did something I’ve never before lowered myself to do. I bought – oh, I can hardly bring myself to say the words – a permanent hair colour kit. The girl on the checkout was a fan of my books – have you any idea how demeaning that was for me? I had to tell her it was for my maid.
“And you talk to me about sharing the nations’ pain? I’m sitting here, rubbing this blasted . . . concoction into my hair. I happen to have a sensitive scalp and, let me tell you, it’s burning – burning my head – and you sit there, whatever tabloid it is you’re from, and you talk to me about pain.” I’m laughing so much, I can hordly keep the camera steady.
“I happen to be one of the country’s most celebrated cooks. Avoca Handweavers have taken four – four! – of my recipes and Jenny Bristow has referred to me as her guru. Her words – read your RTÉ Guide, dear.
“Oh, but Cathal bloody Goan has me cooking food that, if I handed it out at the Mansion House on Christmas Day, I’d expect a class action from the city’s derelicts and vagrants.
“So you can take your bloody sackcloth austerity and you can stick it up your . . . well, I wouldn’t like to say the word in a family newspaper – whatever kind of families it is you’re pandering to.”
I don’t know what the bird on the other end says then but the old dear ends up having another eppo.
“Greed?” she goes. “You say the word like there’s something wrong with it. Do you think you look down on me or something? There’s nothing wrong with greed! Let me tell you something – you and whoever reads you – if it wasn’t for the greed of people like me and my estranged husband, there would never have been a Celtic Tiger. You lot would still be breathing through your mouths and eating cauliflower morning, noon and night . . .
“Yes, that’s on the record!”
I nearly have an actual hort attack I’m laughing that hord. This is going to be 2009’s Zip Up Your Mickey, I can guarantee you that.
I get, like, a long, lingering shot of her boat, guck still dribbling down it, steam practically coming out of her ears, then I aim the lens at the box from her permanent hair colour kit.
And the closing shot turns out to be the punchline, because the camera’s picking up what she clearly doesn’t know yet but will in, like, an hour’s time when she gets out the hairdryer. I put the camera right up to it, making sure to get in the two words on, like, the front of the box.
It says Radiant Ruby.
www.rossocarrollkelly.ie
