Leinster Wax and Munster Wane

Was that Heineken Cup semi-final last year a glitch from an over-confident team or the first sign that a great team was in decline and that Leinster had overtaken them. The evidence of this week's matches suggests that the latter is true. Leinster, without their brave new outhalf, were sensationally good. They have added a formidable pack to their brilliant backs. Elsom and Jennings were not missed as the backrow of Heaslip, McLaughlin and O'Brien ran amok. Nacewa was behind a lot of the creativity, aided by D'Arcy and Horgan - O'Driscoll didn't need to perform his normal miracles. I can't see them losing to anyone except perhaps Perpignan.

Munster on the other hand were defensively lax and stolid in attack. The pack did well, especially Leamy and Quinlan but the backs could do nothing with all the possession. Howlett missed tackles, Mafi ran into trouble, Warwick was undistinguished. It all looked stale and flat. Only that O'Gara found his kicking boots they would have lost to an admittedly very impressive Perpignan side. I think their glory days are over for a while.

De Valera's Fault - Again

Reading extracts from the recent report on clerical sex abuse confirmed what we'd discovered earlier in the report on the physical abuse carried out at industrial schools by nuns and brothers. The religious orders treated their schools and churches like seraglios - if they weren't beating those in their charge, they were buggering them. And in either case these acts were carried out knowing that the law would not intervene. For in the Ireland designed by that spoiled priest De Valera (a regular visitor to his old friends the Redemptorists (Ok, Ok, the Holy Ghost fathers - same shit different name) in Blackrock), the state deferred to the church. The Gardai knew their place in the pecking order. Who can forget that image from the past of Bertie in the Dail on Ash Wednesday with an ostentatious display of ashes on his forehead. "Remember man thou art but dust" could apply now to his reputation. And of course we must remember John McGahern's sacking on moral grounds from his teaching job, not to mention the Mother and Child debacle. Rome ruled. Casey and Cleary fornicated. The priested peasants doffed their caps.

Recent Reads

Ship of Fools by Fintan O'Toole: Read this book and weep at the way we have allowed a collection of crooks and thimble-riggers to ruin us. O'Toole's polemic would inspire a revolution if had a critical mass of people in the country who actually read serious books. It is an expose of the cosy and corrupt cartel that runs this country. He's particularly good on the Ansbacher debacle and the abject failure of the Central Bank to police what was going on - even the sainted Peter Sutherland gets a slap in this section. The ruling classes, politicans, bankers, and the professions blatantly laundered their money off shore and the Central Bank turned a blind eye. When it became too obvious, the government introduced tax amnesties lest the great and the good suffer the wrath of the Revenue Commissioners. He also examines the disgraceful sale of Eircom at a time when we were trying to build a knowledge economy. There's lots of colour in this truly depressing book - most notably when describing the vulgar and ostentatious displays of wealth by the political elite and their paymasters in banking and the building business.


Blood's a Rover by James Elroy: Elroy's staccato mannered prose is only bearable in short chunks so this is the kind of book you dip into. Also, the narrative is so fractured that you are constantly trying to orientate yourself as the action constantly shifts locations and personae. But it's worth persisting with as every now and then you encounter perfect pithiness in the language - usually of a scatological nature: James Dean is "hung like a light switch", Sal Mineo "has a well travelled chute" (don't ask). Real live characters mix with the fictional ones so we encounter Howard Hughes, J. Edgar Hoover and Sal Mineo along with sundry killers, junkies, CIA operatives, and mysterious molls. The time is around the Robert Kennedy asassination and the action moves from LA, to Las Vegas to Haiti.

The Death of Bunny Munro by Nick Cave: Mildly diverting. Way too many masturbation scenes. Lively language, monstrous character, tedious story. And what's so special about Avril Lavigne?

Blood River: Tim Butcher: Surely to God it's impossible to write a boring travel book about the Congo in its current state? Butcher manages this unlikely feat. You get none of the sense of danger, violence and the randomness of life in is this benighted country. You do get lots of boring historical padding.

French Farce

For God's sake get over it. It's only a bloody football match - where randomness rules. It was bad enough having a Taoiseach who had a schoolboy crush on Manchester United, now we have one who goes bleating on about replaying a match just because the referee didn't spot a blatant foul. A bit of dignity and perspective Brian please. I recall Munster being cheated out of a Heineken cup final by the hand of Neil Back a few seasons ago. They took it on the chin and moved on - shit happens in professional sport. Quelle surprise.

Read it and Weep

Anyone who cares about language, who relishes the pinpoint appositeness of a particular phrase, should read the novels of Nabokov and the non-fiction of Martin Amis. Here we have a fine example of the two juxtaposed from last Saturday's Guardian:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2009/nov/14/vladimir-nabokov-books-martin-amis

The snippets from Nabokov's novels and Amis's felicitous phrase-making combine to make the tastiest of appetisers for their main courses.

Read it and weep for your own shortcomings as a writer.

Last Gasp at Croker

Instead of the customary brace of pints we started our rugby international day with a couple of mojitos at the Cuban stand in Jury's - part of some International Bazaar for charity. And then a taxi to Croke Park for Ireland versus Australia. It was unseasonably warm, dry turf, no wind, blue skies -ideal conditions for a good open game. And what a treat it is to have such a stadium. Aside from its visual impressiveness, it's easy to get to your seat, the pitch of the stands give you great theatre, and the facilities are a huge improvement on anything an Irish sports fan has encountered before - plenty of toilets for a start, and a chance to enjoy a warm Bushmill's.

The match itself was highly entertaining with Ireland snatching an unlikely draw in the last move of the game. They were on the back foot throughout after conceding a soft try in the first minute. This came through ring rustiness perhaps - although the speed of the Australian defence had as much to do with it as O'Gara's pass and O'Driscoll's fumble. Australia kicked intelligently and kept Ireland pinned back for a lot of the game, they also dominated in the scrums - with our lads getting poor ball as they retreated. But elsewhere we were more than a match for them. Kearney was excellent (apart from some poor kicking - too high, no length), O'Gara solid enough, and the ageless David Wallace a hero in attack and defence. But Paddy Wallace is a weak link, an insubstantial figure in a substantial team. Bring back D'Arcy for God's sake.

And what a pompous tosspot Jonathan Kaplan is. I listened to him on the ref audio channel lecturing the players like schoolboys, and getting great deference in return. Give me Nigel Owen any day. And of course we get the usual debacle around resetting the scrum and the completely arbitrary penalties at the breakdown. What a f***ing mess the current rules are.

Poppycock

Is it my imagination or has the whole poppy wearing thing got out of control? Remembrance Day is the 11th of November but this year people in the UK seem to have been wearing them for weeks - and they're still at it. This surely debases the currency. Also, it's become so pervasive you would wonder has it become compulsory? Does wearing it mark one as more patriotic (like the US flag pin during Bush's time)? Even the bloody football teams have jumped on the bandwagon. And of course you can't appear on TV without it - even in the most vacuous of entertainment shows. Now it would be churlish to argue with sparing a thought occasionally for those who died in the service of their country - even in a war as foolishly engaged in and as spendthrift of life as the First World War. However, we in Ireland, and not just Derry, can't help but feel a bit queasy about the whole business.

Kidney's Choice

For the first international of the season the Irish rugby team to play Australia almost picks itself. The only doubt is in the centre because of D'Arcy's poor recent form. But I think that Kidney will pick him because of his tackling, rather than move in Fitzgerald or Bowe from the wing. Earls will be on the bench. Here's my guess: Kearney, Bowe, O'Driscoll, D'Arcy, Fitzgerald, O'Gara, O'Leary, Healy, Flannery, Hayes, O'Connell, O'Callaghan, Wallace, Heaslip and Ferris.

And you'd fancy them to run Australia very close, if not beat them.

P.S. H'mm, close enough. But I'd quibble with picking that lightweight Paddy Wallace in the centre.

Man Seeks Quiet Local with Good Pint

There is a sacred time every Sunday, an islanded hour, when I like to find a quiet corner in a public house and read the Sunday papers. An essential part of the experience is the accompanying two perfect pints of plain. And then home for dinner. In this vale of tears surely that's not too much for a man to aspire to.

But I am finding it increasingly difficult to achieve this modest aspiration in my neighbourhood. Take last Sunday. The pint in my local (Fitzgerald's) has deteriorated of late and besides the big match (Chelsea and Manchester United) means that it will be heaving with soccer fans. Finnegan's is a fine pub but its Guinness has never been great - and I hate that renovation they did. I have a grudge with the Queen's (an incident with the red-blazered basilisk that owned the place) and I never liked that weird little speedy bar man in the The Club. So I settled on The Ivory where I know the pint will be perfect, and there's usually a quiet corner. And indeed the pint is excellent but there's no quiet corner - I think they've added a few TVs. There were five or six of them blaring the bloody match. The place is crowded with the gormless, mouths open, intent on the irrelevancy of the Premier League. I can't settle so I depart in exasperation after one pint - papers half read. Maybe I should move to West Cork. It wouldn't happen in Hackett's.

Hope at Last

The impossibly gorgeous, the impossibly exotic, Hope Sandoval appearing in Dublin. It's as if we had a visit from a unicorn. I have been an ardent devotee since the early Nineties when she sang with Mazzy Star. She went quiet in recent years but now has re-emerged with Colm Ciosog from My Bloody Valentine and a new band called the Warm Inventions. She graced us with her presence in Vicar Street last Saturday. A chance to experience that erotic and ethereal voice in the flesh.

What an extraordinary concert it was. The entire gig was performed in darkness with the band occasionally illuminated by the surreal films that were projected onto the back of the stage throughout the show. We caught glimpses of Sandoval's striking looks, her long skinny legs emerging from a layered white lace skirt, and the silhouette of her impressive embonpoint in a tight black top. But glimpses only. She spent a lot of the gig with her back to the audience noodling with a zylophone while she sang and when she did face the audience she had her hand over the mic at face level so her features were obscured. But the voice was as entrancing as ever. And the band and the film meshed with it perfectly to give us a memorable show.

Kidney Failure

I'm surprised that Declan Kidney hasn't selected Alan Quinlan in his 39 man squad for the autumn internationals. How can Quinlan be good enough for the Lions' squad 6 months ago and not good enough for the Irish squad now? Could Kidney be making a statement about foul play? Does this mean that Shane Jennings' Irish career is also over? But then he has picked John Hayes. So maybe there's the more innocent explanation that he's looking towards the future.

It's Official: Men Get in the Way

For years I've been labeled a backwoodsman and sexist brute for my single-handed campaign against men attending the births of their children. It's women's work I maintained - man's place is in a nearby pub. But from the early Seventies it became the norm rather than the exception - a by-product of feminism no doubt. All over the land ashen-faced males grimly did their duty, often distracting medical resources in the process. They came out afterwards speaking of mystical experiences rather than telling the truth about the abattoir it really was. Also, let's fess up lads, you never look on your partners in quite the same way again. The mystery is gone.

Now I see that my slightly dodgy rationale has been backed up by the much respected French obstetrician Michel Odent. He was being interviewed on of all places the Tom Dunne show on Newstalk. He had such a wonderful hammy French accent that I thought at first it was one of Dunne's spoofs - but no, it was the real thing. He maintained that men should not attend births for two reasons: it made the woman tense and so slowed the production of oxytocin, the happy hormone that makes the mother forget the trauma of the birth and helps breast-feeding; and it robs the woman of a lot of the feminine mystique she enjoys in man's eyes, an eventuality, Odent contended, that could have consequences later for the couple's sex life. His contention was that woman is best served by having another experienced woman, or mid-wife, with her. So relax lads, you're off to hook. Tell them Mr. Odent advised you.

A World Undone by G. J. Meyer

This is as good a primer for the First World War as you'll encounter. It covers everything from its origins with the Serbs troubling the rump of the Austro-Hungarian Empire (a boil that was lanced with the assassination of Archduke Ferdinand) to its conclusion with the redrawing of the map of Europe. It's particularly good on the political posturing and personalities that led to the whole debacle - military gung-hoism trumped political dialogue. It's brilliant on context. Besides the main action you get potted histories of the Ottoman Empire, the Romanovs, the Hohenzollerns, and the Austro-Hungarian Empire. It also shows, notwithstanding all the guff we read about the Somme, how the Brits stood back from a lot of the engagements and let the French and Russians suffer the cost. The casuality statistics confirm this scenario.

Mayflower by Nathaniel Philbrick

Not exactly a page turner like "In the Heart of the Sea" by the same author - but a revealing slice of early American life. There is not much on the voyage itself, the book concentrates on the fight for survival in the first few years. This fight was initially against starvation and then against the indigenous Indians that they were supplanting. There was not much to give thanks for on the first anniversary of their landing, half of the 102 that sailed were dead from scurvy and malnutrition. Their religious preciousness was soon forgotten in the battle for food and land. The most abiding impression you get is how amazingly resourceful they had to be after arriving in virgin New England: building, farming, trading, and fighting. A lot of the book describes various battles and skirmishes - mostly of course from a pilgrim perspective as the Indians left no records. The pilgrims had a nasty penchant for sticking Indian heads on spikes for the delectation of the populace. While the Indians were great men for the scalping. The book is strong on anecdote and character but a little weak on the broader picture - the role of England, the French, the other colonies etc.