Dermott Hayes's Blog: Postcard from a Pigeon, page 59

In Dubious Battle, a beckoning beacon

‘At last it was evening. The lights on the street outside came on, and the Neon restaurant sign on the corner jerked on and off, exploding its hard red light in the air. Into Jim Nolan’s room the sign threw a soft red light. For two hours Jim had been sitting in a small, hard rocking-chair, his feet up on the white bedspread. Now that it was quite dark, he brought his feet down to the floor and slapped the sleeping legs. For a moment he sat quietly while waves of itching rolled up and down his calves; then he stood up and reached for the unshaded light. The furnished room lighted up – the big white bed with its chalk white spread, the golden-oak bureau, the clean red carpet worn through to a brown warp.” In Dubious Battle…by John Steinbeck.

This was the book that gave me a start in writing. It was first book that taught me how to be a nighthawk with the other nighthawks in Edward Hopper‘s famous painting, where I could smell the coffee, the grease and the frying onions or, like Jim Nolan in the opening paragraph of John Steinbeck‘s 1936 novel, In Dubious Battle, sit in the clean, but faded, squalor of a boarding house bedroom in the flickering glare of a street front, neon sign.

Steinbeck’s book was written in 1936, in the middle of the Great Depression, and deals with how people, under pressure, work together. It is set against the background of the Californian fruit pickers’ strikes of the ’30s, of which there were 43 in all. It follows the progress of Jim Nolan, from a well read, out of work labourer to Communist Party recruit and then to committed activist, against the backdrop of a fruit pickers’ strike against exploitative and well organized growers’ associations.

Steinbeck often spoke of it as his favourite novel but check out the many online biographies of the Pulitzer and Nobel prize winning author and you’ll see hardly a scant mention of it. Ironically, US President Barack Obama has often credited it as his favourite American novel. Now James Franco, acclaimed American actor and activist, has made a film of Steinbeck’s book, unveiled this weekend at the Venice Film Festival.

Steinbeck’s realistic writing style was perfect for its time but it has endured, too. If Hemingway stripped writing to its bare essentials, Steinbeck, I believe, took that sparse framework and added colour. There was nothing wasted but his deft touch added shade, depth and dimension to his characters, place and context.

The copy I have of In Dubious Battle was bought by my father in 1967 and quickly annexed by me. It cost five shillings then, the equivalent of 25c today. That first paragraph dragged me in and from then on, I was gripped and like Jim Nolan, anxious to learn. By page 10 of the paperback, Jim lists off the writers he’d studied from the local library, in his efforts to educate himself. They include Plato, Bellamy, Herodotus,  Carlyle, Spinoza, Hegel, Kant, Nietsche, Schopenhauer and Marx. Soon, I was in the local library looking for the same authors but realizing, very quickly, they were beyond by eager, precocious but inadequate 11 year old ambitions.

They stayed in my mind and I soon found other writers, contemporaries of Steinbeck who wrote with similiar sympathies and observational abilities. They included Dashiell Hammett, Upton Sinclair, Sinclair Lewis, Damon Runyon and Raymond Chandler.

In Dubious Battle is a book about class struggle, workers’ rights, economic repression and capitalist exploitation. It’s also a wonderful book about hard times and the indomitable human spirit and willingness to help and support one another.

This is an ideal time for the release of such a film and I hope James Franco  has done it justice. The film has a sterling cast with , , , , and , among others.

If they’ve got it right, then it might help to refocus political priorities for American voters in the year of a contentious presidential election, an election where one of the single greatest irony is the positioning of an arch capitalist as the champion of blue collar workers and a likely future president of the United States.

We all have favourite books and I’ve often struggled with the notion of compiling a top ten list because I’d wonder who could I leave out? That list would certainly include Brian O’Nolan, James Lee Burke, Charles Dickens, John McGahern, William Trevor, Sebastian Barry, Raymond Chandler, Dashiell Hammett and Orhan Pamuk. But top of that list, without question, will be John Steinbeck and In Dubious Battle.

It’s an Ill Wind…

https://dailypost.wordpress.com/prompts/wind/

Waiting there on a pin point edge,

ripe, balanced, succulent fruit,

a huff, a puff of wind, it falls,

the bird’s on hand

fresh from his perch

to pick and peck the juicy produce

from thence return and deliver

the spoils to earth to grow again.

Nail Biting

“Take me home, please?” She says, he slams his hands on the steering wheel and stares forward, looking out over the lake and takes a deep breath. “Was it something I said? I thought we were having a good time?” “We were, are, it’s just getting late, and Dad was precise about the time, no […]

via Day Seventy-Eight – Take Me Home – Short Story — Twisted Roads of Madness

Badfish in Malta

AT TWO MINUTES BEFORE SIX IN THE MORNING, the steeple bells on the Lunzjata Parish Church chime ten times. I make a mental note: “What the…?” I am holed up in a 500-year-old house with stone walls two feet thick, tiny windows to contain the weather outside, an arched vaulted ceiling 25 feet high, and […]

via ANOTHER SIDE OF MALTA: DAY ONE — Badfish Out of Water

The father of children — Ordinary Handsome

The move to Wishing was the best thing. Frank Cobin wasn’t a big shot in town anymore, engorged with bravado and insolence. He was the stranger in town, and had no favor with the thin-faced men: the corner-men, the hustlers, the scammers, the casually dangerous. The move to Wishing was the worst thing. Marooned from […]

via The father of children — Ordinary Handsome

Unstoppable? Never.

bencaunt.freeserve.co.uk

“Unstoppable? Unstoppable? Are you having a giraffe?”

Lugs Finnegan is used to fighters mouthing off. It’s his job to get them fights and purses, he tells them, all they have to do is win.

“Lugs, are ye listenin’? Unstoppable, what’s that about?”

Lugs put down the list he was working on, the card of bouts for Saturday’s big meeting. He waits, knowing Rory Reilly was waiting for him to answer, he can feel the heat of his breath as he puffs it from his dilating nostrils, like a frustrated bull in heat and leather restraints. Ragin’ Rory Reilly, the fightin’ Irishman, hadn’t he named him, himself? He’s not even fuckin’ Irish and Rory Reilly, me bollix, what’s his name? Dai Eustace, a Welshman. He’d be fuckin’ Useless Eustace, if he hadn’t met me.

‘What’s wrong with you?” Lugs begins, defiant, “how many bouts have you won since I took you on?”

Lugs waits. No answer.

Reilly decides to ignore him. He waits for an answer for his own question.

Lugs continues, “how many bouts have you lost since I took you on?”

He waits. Reilly waits.

“None, that’s the answer. You haven’t lost a single one which means, now I can write this down for you, if you like? It means you’ve won every fuckin’ fight since I took you on, that’s what it means.”

Lugs waits.

“Answer my question.”

“What? Am I talking to myself? I’ve just answered your question: no-one’s beaten you because you’re fuckin’ UNSTOPPABLE. Do you get it, now or will I draw you a diagram?”

Reilly, a big man by anyone’s standards, almost as wide as he’s tall and at 80kg, not the heaviest but what he lacks in bulk he more than compensates in speed and strength, is a handsome man for a prizefighter. His head’s the shape of a Greek bust with his broad forehead and tight black head of curls and those soft green eyes that could melt stone. He looks at Lugs, does a double take, wondering if he’s heard right or if they’re even speaking the same language.

‘Lugs,” he says, “no-one’s unstoppable. There’s no such fucking thing as unstoppable.”

“Exactly,” says Lugs, apparently relieved they’ve arrived at an understanding.

Reilly’s even more confused and agitated now. He shakes his massive head of curls, shrouding Lugs in a mist of perspiration. Lugs ignores him and returns to the bout card.

Reilly stands looking at him, his eyes and eyebrows crimped together in thought. Then he takes the towel that was hanging from his shoulders, wipes his face and walks away, mumbling, head shaking.

 

5 Reasons why TRUMP will Win, by Michael Moore

Friends:

I am sorry to be the bearer of bad news, but I gave it to you straight last summer when I told you that Donald Trump would be the Republican nominee for president. And now I have even more awful, depressing news for you: Donald J. Trump is going to win in November. This wretched, ignorant, dangerous part-time clown and full time sociopath is going to be our next president. President Trump. Go ahead and say the words, ‘cause you’ll be saying them for the next four years: “PRESIDENT TRUMP.”

Never in my life have I wanted to be proven wrong more than I do right now.

I can see what you’re doing right now. You’re shaking your head wildly – “No, Mike, this won’t happen!” Unfortunately, you are living in a bubble that comes with an adjoining echo chamber where you and your friends are convinced the American people are not going to elect an idiot for president. You alternate between being appalled at him and laughing at him because of his latest crazy comment or his embarrassingly narcissistic stance on everything because everything is about him. And then you listen to Hillary and you behold our very first female president, someone the world respects, someone who is whip-smart and cares about kids, who will continue the Obama legacy because that is what the American people clearly want! Yes! Four more years of this!

You need to exit that bubble right now. You need to stop living in denial and face the truth which you know deep down is very, very real. Trying to soothe yourself with the facts – “77% of the electorate are women, people of color, young adults under 35 and Trump cant win a majority of any of them!” – or logic – “people aren’t going to vote for a buffoon or against their own best interests!” – is your brain’s way of trying to protect you from trauma. Like when you hear a loud noise on the street and you think, “oh, a tire just blew out,” or, “wow, who’s playing with firecrackers?” because you don’t want to think you just heard someone being shot with a gun. It’s the same reason why all the initial news and eyewitness reports on 9/11 said “a small plane accidentally flew into the World Trade Center.” We want to – we need to – hope for the best because, frankly, life is already a shit show and it’s hard enough struggling to get by from paycheck to paycheck. We can’t handle much more bad news. So our mental state goes to default when something scary is actually, truly happening. The first people plowed down by the truck in Nice spent their final moments on earth waving at the driver whom they thought had simply lost control of his truck, trying to tell him that he jumped the curb: “Watch out!,” they shouted. “There are people on the sidewalk!”

Well, folks, this isn’t an accident. It is happening. And if you believe Hillary Clinton is going to beat Trump with facts and smarts and logic, then you obviously missed the past year of 56 primaries and caucuses where 16 Republican candidates tried that and every kitchen sink they could throw at Trump and nothing could stop his juggernaut. As of today, as things stand now, I believe this is going to happen – and in order to deal with it, I need you first to acknowledge it, and then maybe, just maybe, we can find a way out of the mess we’re in.

Don’t get me wrong. I have great hope for the country I live in. Things are better. The left has won the cultural wars. Gays and lesbians can get married. A majority of Americans now take the liberal position on just about every polling question posed to them: Equal pay for women – check. Abortion should be legal – check. Stronger environmental laws – check. More gun control – check. Legalize marijuana – check. A huge shift has taken place – just ask the socialist who won 22 states this year. And there is no doubt in my mind that if people could vote from their couch at home on their X-box or PlayStation, Hillary would win in a landslide.

But that is not how it works in America. People have to leave the house and get in line to vote. And if they live in poor, Black or Hispanic neighborhoods, they not only have a longer line to wait in, everything is being done to literally stop them from casting a ballot. So in most elections it’s hard to get even 50% to turn out to vote. And therein lies the problem for November – who is going to have the most motivated, most inspired voters show up to vote? You know the answer to this question. Who’s the candidate with the most rabid supporters? Whose crazed fans are going to be up at 5 AM on Election Day, kicking ass all day long, all the way until the last polling place has closed, making sure every Tom, Dick and Harry (and Bob and Joe and Billy Bob and Billy Joe and Billy Bob Joe) has cast his ballot?  That’s right. That’s the high level of danger we’re in. And don’t fool yourself — no amount of compelling Hillary TV ads, or outfacting him in the debates or Libertarians siphoning votes away from Trump is going to stop his mojo.

Here are the 5 reasons Trump is going to win:

Midwest Math, or Welcome to Our Rust Belt Brexit.  I believe Trump is going to focus much of his attention on the four blue states in the rustbelt of the upper Great Lakes – Michigan, Ohio, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin. Four traditionally Democratic states – but each of them have elected a Republican governor since 2010 (only Pennsylvania has now finally elected a Democrat). In the Michigan primary in March, more Michiganders came out to vote for the Republicans (1.32 million) that the Democrats (1.19 million). Trump is ahead of Hillary in the latest polls in Pennsylvania and tied with her in Ohio. Tied? How can the race be this close after everything Trump has said and done? Well maybe it’s because he’s said (correctly) that the Clintons’ support of NAFTA helped to destroy the industrial states of the Upper Midwest. Trump is going to hammer Clinton on this and her support of TPP and other trade policies that have royally screwed the people of these four states. When Trump stood in the shadow of a Ford Motor factory during the Michigan primary, he threatened the corporation that if they did indeed go ahead with their planned closure of that factory and move it to Mexico, he would slap a 35% tariff on any Mexican-built cars shipped back to the United States. It was sweet, sweet music to the ears of the working class of Michigan, and when he tossed in his threat to Apple that he would force them to stop making their iPhones in China and build them here in America, well, hearts swooned and Trump walked away with a big victory that should have gone to the governor next-door, John Kasich.

From Green Bay to Pittsburgh, this, my friends, is the middle of England – broken, depressed, struggling, the smokestacks strewn across the countryside with the carcass of what we use to call the Middle Class. Angry, embittered working (and nonworking) people who were lied to by the trickle-down of Reagan and abandoned by Democrats who still try to talk a good line but are really just looking forward to rub one out with a lobbyist from Goldman Sachs who’ll write them nice big check before leaving the room. What happened in the UK with Brexit is going to happen here. Elmer Gantry shows up looking like Boris Johnson and just says whatever shit he can make up to convince the masses that this is their chance! To stick to ALL of them, all who wrecked their American Dream! And now The Outsider, Donald Trump, has arrived to clean house! You don’t have to agree with him! You don’t even have to like him! He is your personal Molotov cocktail to throw right into the center of the bastards who did this to you! SEND A MESSAGE! TRUMP IS YOUR MESSENGER!

And this is where the math comes in. In 2012, Mitt Romney lost by 64 electoral votes. Add up the electoral votes cast by Michigan, Ohio, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin. It’s 64. All Trump needs to do to win is to carry, as he’s expected to do, the swath of traditional red states from Idaho to Georgia (states that’ll never vote for Hillary Clinton), and then he just needs these four rust belt states. He doesn’t need Florida. He doesn’t need Colorado or Virginia. Just Michigan, Ohio, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin. And that will put him over the top. This is how it will happen in November.

The Last Stand of the Angry White Man. Our male-dominated, 240-year run of the USA is coming to an end. A woman is about to take over! How did this happen?! On our watch! There were warning signs, but we ignored them. Nixon, the gender traitor, imposing Title IX on us, the rule that said girls in school should get an equal chance at playing sports. Then they let them fly commercial jets. Before we knew it, Beyoncé stormed on the field at this year’s Super Bowl (our game!) with an army of Black Women, fists raised, declaring that our domination was hereby terminated! Oh, the humanity!

That’s a small peek into the mind of the Endangered White Male. There is a sense that the power has slipped out of their hands, that their way of doing things is no longer how things are done. This monster, the “Feminazi,”the thing that as Trump says, “bleeds through her eyes or wherever she bleeds,” has conquered us — and now, after having had to endure eight years of a black man telling us what to do, we’re supposed to just sit back and take eight years of a woman bossing us around? After that it’ll be eight years of the gays in the White House! Then the transgenders! You can see where this is going. By then animals will have been granted human rights and a fuckin’ hamster is going to be running the country. This has to stop!

The Hillary Problem. Can we speak honestly, just among ourselves? And before we do, let me state, I actually like Hillary – a lot – and I think she has been given a bad rap she doesn’t deserve. But her vote for the Iraq War made me promise her that I would never vote for her again. To date, I haven’t broken that promise. For the sake of preventing a proto-fascist from becoming our commander-in-chief, I’m breaking that promise. I sadly believe Clinton will find a way to get us in some kind of military action. She’s a hawk, to the right of Obama. But Trump’s psycho finger will be on The Button, and that is that. Done and done.

Let’s face it: Our biggest problem here isn’t Trump – it’s Hillary. She is hugely unpopular — nearly 70% of all voters think she is untrustworthy and dishonest. She represents the old way of politics, not really believing in anything other than what can get you elected. That’s why she fights against gays getting married one moment, and the next she’s officiating a gay marriage. Young women are among her biggest detractors, which has to hurt considering it’s the sacrifices and the battles that Hillary and other women of her generation endured so that this younger generation would never have to be told by the Barbara Bushes of the world that they should just shut up and go bake some cookies. But the kids don’t like her, and not a day goes by that a millennial doesn’t tell me they aren’t voting for her. No Democrat, and certainly no independent, is waking up on November 8th excited to run out and vote for Hillary the way they did the day Obama became president or when Bernie was on the primary ballot. The enthusiasm just isn’t there. And because this election is going to come down to just one thing — who drags the most people out of the house and gets them to the polls — Trump right now is in the catbird seat.

The Depressed Sanders Vote. Stop fretting about Bernie’s supporters not voting for Clinton – we’re voting for Clinton! The polls already show that more Sanders voters will vote for Hillary this year than the number of Hillary primary voters in ’08 who then voted for Obama. This is not the problem. The fire alarm that should be going off is that while the average Bernie backer will drag him/herself to the polls that day to somewhat reluctantly vote for Hillary, it will be what’s called a “depressed vote” – meaning the voter doesn’t bring five people to vote with her. He doesn’t volunteer 10 hours in the month leading up to the election. She never talks in an excited voice when asked why she’s voting for Hillary. A depressed voter. Because, when you’re young, you have zero tolerance for phonies and BS. Returning to the Clinton/Bush era for them is like suddenly having to pay for music, or using MySpace or carrying around one of those big-ass portable phones. They’re not going to vote for Trump; some will vote third party, but many will just stay home. Hillary Clinton is going to have to do something to give them a reason to support her  — and picking a moderate, bland-o, middle of the road old white guy as her running mate is not the kind of edgy move that tells millenials that their vote is important to Hillary. Having two women on the ticket – that was an exciting idea. But then Hillary got scared and has decided to play it safe. This is just one example of how she is killing the youth vote.


The Jesse Ventura Effect. Finally, do not discount the electorate’s ability to be mischievous or underestimate how any millions fancy themselves as closet anarchists once they draw the curtain and are all alone in the voting booth. It’s one of the few places left in society where there are no security cameras, no listening devices, no spouses, no kids, no boss, no cops, there’s not even a friggin’ time limit. You can take as long as you need in there and no one can make you do anything. You can push the button and vote a straight party line, or you can write in Mickey Mouse and Donald Duck. There are no rules. And because of that, and the anger that so many have toward a broken political system, millions are going to vote for Trump not because they agree with him, not because they like his bigotry or ego, but just because they can. Just because it will upset the apple cart and make mommy and daddy mad. And in the same way like when you’re standing on the edge of Niagara Falls and your mind wonders for a moment what would that feel like to go over that thing, a lot of people are going to love being in the position of puppetmaster and plunking down for Trump just to see what that might look like. Remember back in the ‘90s when the people of Minnesota elected a professional wrestler as their governor? They didn’t do this because they’re stupid or thought that Jesse Ventura was some sort of statesman or political intellectual. They did so just because they could. Minnesota is one of the smartest states in the country. It is also filled with people who have a dark sense of humor — and voting for Ventura was their version of a good practical joke on a sick political system. This is going to happen again with Trump.

Coming back to the hotel after appearing on Bill Maher’s Republican Convention special this week on HBO, a man stopped me. “Mike,” he said, “we have to vote for Trump. We HAVE to shake things up.” That was it. That was enough for him. To “shake things up.” President Trump would indeed do just that, and a good chunk of the electorate would like to sit in the bleachers and watch that reality show.

(Next week I will post my thoughts on Trump’s Achilles Heel and how I think he can be beat.)

ALSO: http://www.alternet.org/election-2016/michael-moores-5-reasons-why-trump-will-win

Yours,

Michael Moore

CRISIS, what Crisis?

https://dailypost.wordpress.com/prompts/crisis/

“OH MY GOD, Oh my God, oh my God.”

Jim and Abdul were in their customary spot for a sunny, summer afternoon, in the shade of the old cedar tree on the expanse of grass, garden and lawn they shared at the back of their properties.

They both sat on upright, rattan chairs, facing each other. On the rattan table between them, was, a pitcher of iced water with fresh lemon slices while they both nursed glasses of iced tea, one, Abdul’s scented with a healthy sprig of fresh mint.   They were both intent on studying the checkers board and the squeal of female distress made them both look up.

Jim, the older of the two, shifted his gaze from the checkers to peer over his bifocals, into the half distance, questioningly, as though the answer to the question he hadn’t asked, be found somewhere out there, in the air, beyond the comforting rim of shade cast by the tree.

Jim was sprightly, for his age. In his mid-70s, he affected the air of an older man, rigid and halting in his movements belied by the two mile hike he took, around the park near their house, every morning before nine and every evening, around 7pm.

Abdul, on the other hand, ten years Jim’s junior, walked with the aid of a stick, having lost his right leg, below the knee, in an explosion in Beirut, Lebanon in 1982. He avoided public forays, preferring, instead, to sit on his porch and drink hot or cold mint tea, depending on the time of day or year.

Abdul shared the same hint of confusion and question. Neither of them were used to such outbursts. Both were bachelors and lived alone in their respective houses, even if they were adjoining. Both employed female housekeepers, matronly ladies who attended to housekeeping duties including shopping and keeping larders stocked for all eventualities. Both ladies arrived at 10am but left before dusk. They took turns to prepare an evening meal that Jim and Abdul enjoyed together.

Both listened now for any further outbursts that might disturb their afternoon sojourn in the shade. Sure enough, the ‘oh my Gods’ were followed by an ear shattering squeal that caused Abdul to drop his iced mint tea, in fright, and Jim, the checker he was poised to crown.

Abdul levered himself out of his rattan chair, as quickly as his prosthetic right leg would allow, and proceeded to brush the front of his trousers with a napkin, to soak the spilled tea. Jim looked on, exasperated. They both shared a look without words that spoke of tolerance and dismay.

At that moment, the object of the squeals and howls of distress, emerged with a leap and youthful flounce from the back porch of Jim’s house.

“Uncle Jim,”, she squealed, again, causing both Uncle Jim and Abdul to wince, even though the decibel level was dialled down a fraction. “Uncle Jim,” she continued, arriving at the table in the shade of the cedar tree, “I have a zit that looks like a suppurating boil, what’ll I do?”

Barefooted, she was dressed in cerise pink, elasticated waist, Capri pants and a lime shaded, crop top that exposed her belly and pierced navel. The offending ‘zit’ she presented to her uncle Jim, tongue in cheek, to accentuate its offending protuberance. Jim, for his part, sat agape and silent. Abdul, forgetting his sodden trousers, flopped into his, still wet, rattan chair.

To say Jim was shook would be like saying Donald Trump has nice hair, a subject he and Abdul had discussed at length over lunch, along with the general catastrophic state of crisis in the country and the world, in general. Persy, his grandniece had elected to stay the night with her grand uncle Jim, primarily, he suspected, because his house was in the same neighbourhood as the dance she was going to that evening and also because, and this he didn’t suspect but knew, she could borrow her granduncle’s motorcar, his prized Porsche Targa 911, lovingly and lavishly restored with engineering perfection by Singer.

“Persephone,” he said, “please turn the dial down a little. It’s a placid afternoon and we’d like to sit in comfort and enjoy our drinks in this Elysian setting. A pimple is hardly something to get so worked up about. They happen. It’s natural. You’re a teenager.”

She listened barely able to restrain herself. Jim was well aware of this. First, he knew she hated to be called by her full name, Persephone and second, at 19, he knew she hated to be reminded she was still a teenager. But he was going to have his fun even when he knew it would cost him.

“Eeeeeek,” she squealed with a sound that reminded him of a wet finger being rubbed around the rim of a wine glass or a fingernail scraped on a blackboard. Abdul spilled his tea out on the lawn and slapped his glass down on the table. Jim winced but resisted putting his fingers in his ears.

“There is nothing you can do, my dear, the pimple or ‘zit’ as you call it, will have to run its course. I know you know you could squeeze it and then risk a horrendous explosion, followed by an angry red crater, on your face,” Jim explained with as much sympathy as he could muster.

Abdul felt ill and Jim could see him visibly blanch and unconsciously scratch his right leg, above the knee.

“You’ll just have to make do but I’m sure you’ll contrive to make the best of the siuation and, given your obvious attractive poise and elegance, be the belle of, well, whatever the event is you’re going to this evening,” he continued.

Pouting now, Persephone, gave her granduncle a long and beguiling, half lidded look, as she leaned her thigh against his shoulder and slipped her arm around him and said, “Uncle Jim, are you using your car this evening?”

“If I loan you my car will you promise to keep the keys on your person, park and drive it yourself, without, and this I must stress, without consuming alcohol or any psychotropic drugs or narcotics?”

“Oh Uncle Jim,” she squealed again, causing Abdul to wince, again and with that, she threw her arms around her granduncle, planting a sloppy, wet kiss on his cheek, with a flounce and a flit, was gone, almost as quickly as she arrived.

Abdul poured them both glasses of the iced, lemon water while Jim rearranged the checkers board. They settled in their seats, exchanging a look that said, crisis averted.

 

Signs of the Time#12

For this Signs of the Time I feature place names that often have nothing to do with the language they were originally intended for, regarding their snigger value in English. I’m sure there are plenty of place names in your neighbourhood that have warranted a chuckle. There’s a whole bunch in Ireland that’ve had me scratching my head in the past, like Hackballscross, in south Armagh. Here’s a few Irish place names and a couple of foreign place names, that might have you scratching your head. Scratching anywhere else might suggest a visit to the nearest medical clinic?

Muff, in County Donegal, is one of the best examples and there isn’t a joke about this town’s name they haven’t heard. So, don’t ask about the local diving club, Muff is close to the sea but the town is landlocked.

The success of the Fr Ted series has given the phrase ‘feck’ it’s own place in the Oxford English dictionary and raised Termonfeckin’s cool value on the snicker scales

But who wants to live in the towns of Fartsville or Poopsdale that have, what we used to say in the property journalism business, a crap address?

Then there’s some names, in political terms, that are just unfortunate, if unintended.

Or other place names, like this one,supplied by my old friend, Ronan Quinlan, from outside an old folk’s home, that might be called, a dead end.

 

Photos – into the west