The old dear, in close-up HD, brandishing a tin-opener – this is scarier than ‘Saw III’
THE THING ABOUT these High Definition plasma TVs is, you buy them because, in the shop, you've seen some amazing scene off National Geographic – three lions horsing a wildebeest – or some dude heli-skiing down the side of a glacier. But of course you get the thing home and you end up just watching Coronation Streeton it, staring into the abyss of Blanche's nostrils while you're trying to eat your dinner. Or, worse, the old dear's nostrils – thinking, if you swung on one of those hairs, you'd hear the Christchurch bells.
She's showing the camera, like, a corn-on-the-cob? "Now," she's going, "when I want to eat sweetcorn – like most people – it simply has to be Fallon Byrne, with their wonderful, wonderful vegetable range, fresh, organic and locally produced. However, an alternative – if you've been made redundant or, like me, you've been shamed by the gutter press into taking a 10 per cent paycut – is now available." She holds up, like, a tin of sweetcorn. "This is what's known as processed food – and if certain people in this building are to be believed, it's going to be infor the next few years.
"Now, if you are like me, you'll be staring at this rather odd-looking, ribbed-aluminium can and thinking, 'How do I get the food– and I use the word advisedly – out of there?' Well, don't panic – you do it using one of these . . ."
I don't actuallybelieve it. She's about to show the nation how to use a tin-opener. Fifi starts whimpering at my feet. I grab the Merlot and give her a refill.
“Now, as recently as the 1980s, you would have found one of these things in most household kitchen drawers, though they obviously became obsolete with the advent of farmers markets and the drive towards fresh, agrichemical-free produce with fewer food miles.
“Now, this one is a classic butterfly can-opener. It features a set of jaws, which hold the can in place, while this little serrated rotating wheel here – can we get it up there on camera two? – punctures the can.
“Then – this is the difficult bit, but George Lee told me in the canteen an hour ago that we’re all going to get plenty of practice – you twist this butterfly-shaped wingnut and the serrated rotating wheel, as you can see, literally cuts through the metal . . .”
My phone beeps. Fifi barks. I’m there, “It’s only a text, Feef. Only a text,” except it’s not only a text. It’s another text – another text about him.
It's, like, why does everyone in the country want to rub my nose in it? So he captained us to the Grand Slam, lifted the entire mood of the country, then proposed to one of the most beautiful women in the history of, like, Ireland, by spelling the question out in flowers in the back garden on one of the windiest nights of the year. I happen to know for a fact that he had Luke Fitzgerald and Rob Kearney out there pegging around after the petals whenever a gust blew – but good luck to him anyway.
I just don’t get why, whenever something good happens for the goy, people’s automatic reaction is, oh, I must ring the Rossmeister General – see what he thinks? In other words, remind him of his own failures by comparison.
I'm not knocking Drico. It's, like, he knowsI'm a fan? As in, whenever we run into each other, he's always there, "I don't know howyou never made it in the game," and I'm always there, "You didn't have to say that but it is nice to get the recognition."
The major problem I have with him is that he’s raising the bar for the rest of us in a way that simply isn’t sustainable. The fact is, we can’t all do the things that he can do. Okay, to be fair, I can do a lot of them. But what birds have to realise is that we can’t all be heroes and that he’s an actual one-off.
But Sorcha sees Amy the other day. She was actually in the shop – they were even in talking – and the second she left, Sorcha was straight on the Wolfe to me, reminding me about the time I took her to Paris on our fifth anniversary of, like, going out together? I took her to the top of the Eiffel Tower, said I had a question for her, got down on one knee, then asked her to hold my croque martinwhile I tied my Dubes. I had the print of the ring she got for being head girl in Mount Anville embedded in my cheek for, like, weeks afterwards? In te confido. My jaw still clicks.
“I wonder what collective noun the press will use for them,” she went.
“As in, Brangelina, Tomkat, blahdy, blahdy blah. I suppose it has to be Bramy.” I was like, “I think that’s another reason our marriage maybe failed? Sorchoss sounds like Harry Potter’s Latin teacher and Rorcha sounds like a sexually transmitted disease.” See, I’ve always been a slave to the one-liner.
She was like, "Oh my God, whenare you going to grow up?" and she hung up on me, just like that, although I know that deep down what she was really thinking about were those flowers. Those flowers and those photos – how young, and how happy, and how, well, just focking great they look together.
The old dear's scraping the sweetcorn out of a pot and onto a plate. She eats a forkful and of course she has to pretend she likes it. She tries to smile but it's obviously fake. She looks like a monkey with hot tea in its mouth. Then, just before the credits roll, she announces – to the nation – that she's throwing her hat into the ring for the Late Lategig.
I actually laugh.
Then I think about texting him. Should have done it a long time ago, just to say fair focks for, well, everything. So I write one out but I don't send it. I think, maybe me and
Feef will have another glass of the red stuff first.
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