My pal's gone and got herself a wee dug.
My pal's gone and got herself a wee dug. When I say wee, Treacle is meant to be a pup but is bigger than some fully grown canines. I'm no great fan of the dog, it has to be said, particularly since the events that took place in the park off Balmuildy
Road in 1982 when I had to fend off an enormous and borderline rabid Alsatian with nothing but a Scrabble set and a half-eaten Crunchie. I have to say, Treacle is lovely. Cute, attentive and well behaved. But having a dug is pretty much like having a baby. Planning a beer or a small meal requires military precision and the evening becomes centred around the dog. Soon I can imagine the dog will be deciding where we drink and what we eat. The difference is kids leave home to travel or work. A dog apparently is for life. (But not a social life).
Simple minds think alike What is a game? It is a competitive event between two or more parties, each attempting to win, to be champion at the cost of the other. There are the victors and the vanquished. Perhaps I should have thought about this before entering into the gladiatorial arena they call the dating game. It seems to me that dating is best suited for a time in life when one's empty-headedness is exactly matched by another's empty-heartedness. The late teens and early twenties are the perfect years to deal with the mindless stupidity of dating; individuals like pin-balls being shunted, shuffled and shocked amid flashing lights and sharp sounds, from one daft stranger-liaison to another. The forgiving factor is that youth allows lessons to be learnt and experiences to be expunged. Like muscle memory, emotional memory can be developed and formed and built on.
If only the same were true in one's forties. The arena is yet more complex and challenging in one's fifth decade. Compromise is a word seldom used by young folk, in inverse proportionality to us oldsters. A twentysomething me would not consider stepping out with a beautiful, intelligent, cheekbone-endowed young barrister solely based on the fact that she is a vegetarian. When I say she is a vegetarian, she is a proper, hardcore, card-carrying vegetarian; she doesn't even eat fish and feels queasy around a sausage. I am willing to work with this huge incompatability factor. (Clearly no compromise needs to be made in the area of heated debate, political thinking and various models of reform for the penal system.) However, stepping out is what I find myself doing.
It was all going so well. But then I found out that she a) hasn't watched any of the Godfather films, b) really hates football and, c) when asked about her musical tastes muttered her embarrassment about being stuck in the Eighties (she then changed the subject to the problems with various Criminal Justice Bills of late.)
I have to confess that this threw me, in quite spectacular fashion. The vegetarianism in and of itself could be enough; now a lack of appreciation of Michael Corleone's desire to legitimise his business interests and avoid Joey Zaza combined with no desire whatsoever to discuss the up-and-coming challenges Arsenal have without a world-class holding midfield player had taken this nascent relationship to the very edge of the precipice. What might push it over the edge into oblivion threatened to be is the rather elliptical reference to Eighties music.
Kindly she agreed to watch the Godfather movies with me whilst eating a plate of lentils and salad. The football thing did not have such an instant solution. I pushed her on her seemingly embarrassing musical tastes as I hovered over the iPod, considering what album to play next. She seemed unwilling to impart the information. Bearing in mind she is a highly trained legal professional this wasn't going to be easy. She finally confessed to liking Simple Minds. I was enraptured; a band not only from my home town but a band that I too love. Her next confession was about a deep love of Deacon Blue. Hurrah! Raintown is my middle name. And to complete the triumvirate she mentioned the amazing Del Amitri.
This girl isn't even Scottish yet she loves the music I love, the music I grew up with, the music that formed me. Her vegetarianism seemed to be forgotten for a moment;
perhaps our shared joy of Eighties Scottish bands can be the meat in our sandwich, so to speak.
Counting down until joke's on meThe clock is counting down. Forty two. Not the answer to the Universe, the number of days before I have to get on stage in Edinburgh and entertain a roomful of paying public with stories of derring-do and cooking. The idea of doing my first ever stand-up show is rapidly becoming a reality and I can't disguise being slightly nervous about the whole thing. I have been hugely busy with preparation for the event. Hours have been spent selecting colour coordinated turbans and aprons. And there is every chance I will be performing the run in a kilt. At some point soon I should devote a few minutes to actually writing material for the show. I'm sure I'll get round to it eventually.
History never ebbs awayI spent last weekend in Dublin, exploring the length and the breadth of the beautiful River Liffey. I hadn't been to Dublin since my teenage years when my much beloved Malaysian cousins had studied there at The Royal College of Surgeons. I had been to school with the children of Irish immigrants so Ireland had a certain enigmatic appeal for me, having heard so many stories about the country, mostly from my friend Jacqueline Sharkey who now lives there, tucked away in Donegal.
Clearly Dublin has changed immeasurably since my teenage meanderings. But what I hadn't been fully aware of on my first visits was the country's colonial history. Wandering around the streets one soon remembers that, like India, Ireland was occupied by the British, was marked and changed by Empire. With India, the geographical distance has meant that the influence of Britain
on the subcontinent has diminished over time. The same is not true of Ireland. The existence of an annexed portion of the island, regardless of one's beliefs, means the British legacy will always be present.
The complexity of Anglo-Irish relations endures to this day. North of the Liffey is regarded as the true Dublin, the working-class and now cultural heartland. South Dublin, where the then occupying British chose to base themselves, is still seen as the part of the city that has a good conceit of itself.
Walking the cobbled streets of Dublin, we are reminded how history, be it personal or civic or national, will always be carried with us.
