Schmidt Happens

by Ross O'Carroll-Kelly

smells like pretty strong hash – insofar as I’m a judge of working-class drugs.

‘It’s not racist to say that Cork people are lazy and refuse to pay their fair share of taxes in society! They’re not an ethnic group, Ross, no matter how much they like to think they are!’

‘If you showed Dermot Bannon the inside of your head, he’d say the design was focking minimalist.’

‘There’s a standard test,’ JP goes, ‘that estate agents use to decide whether or not a house is situated in what can be called a “desirable area”.’ It works like this. First, you ring the Feds and you tell them that a man wearing a balaclava and carrying a knife is climbing through your kitchen window. Then, when you’ve hung up, you ring Domino’s and you order a twelve-inch pizza with everything on it. The rule is that if the pizza shows up before the Feds – as is almost always the case in Terenure, I’m reliably told – then you couldn’t in all honesty describe the area as desirable.’

‘It was Dad, for instance, who first christened Stoneybatter “Dublin’s Notting Hill” and who came up with the idea of calling Greystones “Ireland’s very own Hamptons”.’

‘She’s the President of the Students’ Youn Yodden, Rosser. She’s throying to make her meerk is all. Huguette was the wooden what got clapping baddened in UCD.’ ‘Clapping?’ ‘That’s reet.’ ‘You’re saying clapping is banned in UCD?’ ‘It’s joost in case it thriggers some wooden to hab an anxiety attack.’ ‘So what do people do instead of clapping?’ ‘Thee do jazz haddens.’

People who go to Blackrock College believe fock-all unless they hear it from a teacher in the Institute, where most of them end up eventually

‘Oh,’ I go, ‘so you’re totally unaware of the link between soccer and petty crime? One is a gateway to the other! Look up the focking stats!’

Suddenly, she’s looking at me, going, ‘Ross? Ross O’Carroll-Kelly?’ and it tells you everything you need to know about the kind of life I’ve led that I end up having to go, ‘No, sorry, it’s a case of mistaken identity.’ She laughs. She goes, ‘It is you! I’m Sasha Graham! Holy Child Killiney?’ I’m like, ‘Sasha Graham Holy Child Killiney? Oh my God!’ Yeah, no, I recognize her now. She took me to her debs back in the day. One of the many. I’m there, ‘So what’s the Jack?’ And she goes, ‘Married. Two kids. Successful business. Degree and a Master’s. House on Albert Road.’ Holy Child girls are like that. You ask them how they are and they end up reading you their focking LinkedIn profiles.