WHAT perfect timing! The Eurovision Song Contest and the Guardian International Piano Competition starting on the same magnificent day, May 3rd, Magic!
Or, on the other hand, not. Not not not. Has anybody got an aspirin? Thank you.
Of course my head aches. Why shouldn't it? Poor John O'Conor going quietly mad while all these pianists for the Guardian International, and singers and backing groups and dancers and reporters for Eurovision arrive simultaneously at Dublin Airport, and all looking for their welcoming parties to direct them to where they want to go. What is to prevent the German Eurovision singer from being collected by the nice woman who has volunteered to collect the German pianist for the Guardian International Piano competition and is standing there holding a sign saying, `Welcome to the German contestant?'
"You look for me?" asks the German singer for Eurovision, virtually exhausting her entire repertoire of English - other than Boom Shang a Lang and Ding Dong a Long and, of course, vital for every would be Eurovision entrant, Wham Bam A Lam.
Dolly Parton lookalike
The nice little Dublin woman holding up the sign shies at the sight before her. The German girl addressing her is a teutonic Dolly Parton complete with large stetson over bleach blonde hair, is apparently wearing no more than a spangled sandwich over her private parts and is sporting a halter top which would seem to contain two thumbled bowling balls.
Hazel, the one woman Dublin welcoming committee strangles a croak of disbelief in her throat. God help us and save us, she murmurs inwardly. She had been told she was to collect Doris, a pale and mousy teenage hermit who, though a genius on the piano, was a functional mute and a certain virgin.
"Hello? Are you the German representative for the international music competition?" wheezes Hazel, who is a churchgoing Presbyterian whose interest in the piano is complemented by her organplaying at Divine Service.
`Yerman? Ja! Music? Ja! Bim bang a lang!" cries the German, shaking her tumbled bowling balls in delight. "Don't you rock me daddy oh."
Hazel digests this slowly as the bouncing bowling balls gradually return to the static. She has a teenage son, Neville, at home. Her husband Douglas, who lost his virginity to her on their wedding night in Portrush, has to her certain knowledge never once strayed from the straight and narrow. "Come with me," she says in a low voice, wondering whether she should stop on her way home and buy a firehose with which to repel the men in her house.
In one, she reflects could cut a swathe through the entire Dublin and Munster Presbytery.
"We go to hotel, Ja?" cries the German. "Bim bam a loo, baby! Groovy. Outasight."
Hotel? You'll be in for a surprise my girl, mutters hazel.
Astonishing, Hazel reflects a few minutes later as she totters towards her car, her arm being tugged from its socket by the handle of the trunk containing the newly arrived contestant's cosmetics, the visitor striding alongside her with the other handle. Behind them porters trot with a waggon train of luggage.
And this is the German version of a mousy hermit? God in heaven she wouldn't even be able to see the piano keys. Grimly Hazel resolves to buy a fireaxe for use on the mousy hermit if need be, and a few bromides for her men.
Battery powered aids
But Hazel is not nearly so surprised as Conor, the cool oadie waiting to greet Heidi, the Eurovision Song Contestant whose appetites for cocaine, E and various battery powered devices are already legendary and who, it is reliably reported, had the entire male cast of the Hamburg production of West Side Story in a single night, and the entire female cast by the following evening.
Conor instead is inadvertently addressing Doris, a small furtive dun coloured rodent of indeterminate age in a 1950s cardigan. He is lost in awe. What magnetic powers this creature must invisibly possess, perhaps only to be released after nightfall! He silently drives the silent little German to the Shelbourne hotel, just as Heidi, her jaw hanging open, arrives at Hazel's semi in Dundrum.
"Ding shing a ling," she murmurs as Douglas, who is repairing the gutter, sees her thumbled bowling balls emerge through the open car door. He promply topples into the cucumber glassframes, breaking his leg.
"Poor dear," says Hazel joyfully, before turning to her guest and declaring, "We'd better get you changed and off to piano practice at the O'Sullivans before you do any more damage."
"Piano practice? Voss is piano practice? Is gut, ja? Ein snort off of piano practice, ja, und then a nightclub, ja? Is gut."
Canape covering
Half an hour later, Heidi, perplexed, and now wearing a silver lame outfit, apparently with a small canape taking the place of the earlier sandwich, and her two thumbled bowling balls contained in a couple of translucent napkins, finds herself sitting at a piano in a suburban house in Blackrock, with not the least trace of cocaine or a nightclub in sight. "Boom loom a doom doom," she protests vigorously.
"Back in a couple of hours, dear," murmurs Hazel solicitously, shutting the front door behind her.
Meanwhile in the Shelbourne penthouse suite booked for Heidi by her New York agent Doris is capering in the hug private jacuzzi with Conor. She had been told by Frau Gallasch her elderly bearded music coac in Mannheim to accept wh ever Irish hospitality was offered. It would be bad manners to refuse, Frau Gallash had warned solemnly. Doris is now delighted that she obliged.
Conor the Roadie, capering alongside her, is thinking how utterly justified this woman's reputation is, despite her unpromising appearance at the airport.
"You want another snort?" he asks.
"Wham sham a lam" cries Doris, her heels in the air, sliding down the jacuzzi with glee. "God bless the Guardian International Piano Competition! Screw Leeds!"
"And Arsenal!" cries Conor in agreement. Or something on those lines.
In fact, the problem for the Guardian Insurance Piano Competition is not getting Doris confused with Heidi, because the Eurovision contestants, all spangles and hair spray, are probably unmistakeable, to the great relief of Hazel, and equally great regret of Neville, her son, who is sounder on ladders than his dad.
But the organisers have got a little problem. They have cars (courtesy of Dan Dooley car hire), but they urgently need drivers to transport the 60 contestants around Dublin for the duration of the competition and equally, they need top quality pianos for the contestants to practise on daily while they are here. If you can help in either regard, contact Laurie Cearr at.
Dublin 2082977. That means you, Hazel.