by Roddy Doyle
— I’m all for it.
— I’m serious.
— Well, like – what’s there to think?
— Which one would yeh prefer? If yeh had to choose, like?
— Well, definitely not the balls.
— We’re too old for tha’ one.
— Really?
— Yeah.
— Fuckin’ great. How d’yeh know, but?
— Me cousin. He had to have a medical an’ they told him, an’ he’s the same age as us.
— That’s great. What’s left?
— Bowels.
— God, no.
— It’s not usually fatal.
— Don’t care. I’d prefer the lungs.
— That’s one o’ the worst.
— I don’t give a shite. It has more style.
— Wha’?!
— Okay. Listen. Say you’re chattin’ to a bird. Your missis has died or somethin’. Whatever – and you’re chattin’ to this woman. You tell her you have lung cancer, you’re home an’ dry. She’ll think you’re Humphrey Bogart. But tell her you’ve bowel cancer?
— She’s gone.
— Exactly.
— What about prostate?
— I’m not even sure what it is. What’s it do?
— Don’t know. Me cousin said it’s the one we should be worried about. At our age, like.
— What’s the test?
— Finger up the hole.
— Doctor’s finger?
— Yeah, has to be a doctor. It’s fifty quid extra for two fingers. The cousin said.
1-2-12
— WOULD YOU EVER let yourself be digitally enhanced?
— Wha’?
— Would you ever—
— I heard yeh, but wha’ the fuck are yeh talkin’ abou’?
— You’re chosen to be the face of L’Oréal.
— Me?
— Yeah. So—
— L’Oréal. That’s the butter tha’ spreads straight from the fridge.
— No—
— Wha’ would they want my fuckin’ face for?
— It’s not – You know fuckin’ well what it is.
— Go on. They’ve called to the house an’ asked me to be their face. An’ I’ve said, Yeah. Have I?
— Yeah.
— Grand. Go on.
— So they do the shoot – the filmin’, like.
— ‘Because you’re worth it.’ How was tha’?
— Very good.
— Did it give yeh the horn?
— Not really.
— Okay. I’ll put the pint closer to me lips. Because you’re well fuckin’ worth it. Better?
— I felt a bit of a tingle tha’ time, alrigh’. But annyway, they decide to digitally enhance yeh. Like they did with Rachel Weisz.
— Rachel – ?
— Stay with me. They decide to make yeh look younger.
— Wha’? Fifty-four, like?
— Forty.
— Fuckin’ great.
— Is it not unethical, but?
— What age is Rachel?
— Forty-two.
— Does she go for younger men?
— She might.
— Well then. Unethical, me hole.
12-2-12
— POOR OUL’ WHITNEY, wha’.
— Sad.
— Desperate.
— She was a great young one.
— She was forty-eight.
— But she was always a young one. D’yeh know what I mean?
— An’ forty-eight’s young these days annyway.
— True. She’s at home, fuckin’ devastated.
— Whitney?
— Stop bein’ thick. The wife. She felt a special – I don’t know – a link, I suppose. Our youngest, Kevin, yeh know – he was conceived after we saw The Bodyguard.
— In the fuckin’ cinema?
— No, we made it home. Well – the front garden.
— Nice one.
— We stopped at the boozer – here actually, upstairs. An’ the chipper.
— Romantic.
— Fuck off. The chips were her idea.
— The ride was yours, but, was it?
— No, no. She took the initiative there as well. Thing was, she thought the fillum was the best thing she’d ever seen an’ I thought it was a load o’ shite.
— Bet you didn’t tell her that.
— I forgot. So anyway, Kevin arrived the nine months later.
— Hang on. Kevin Costner.
— Exactly; yeah.
— An’ if he’d been a girl, it would’ve been—
— Whitney; yeah.
— Ah God. I’m sorry for your troubles, bud.
— Thanks.
24-2-12
— D’YEH KNOW THE way they’re thinkin’ o’ frackin’ Leitrim?
— I can’t believe I understood tha’ question. But, yeah.
— An’ you know what frackin’ involves, do yeh?
— Kind o’ – yeah.
— Well, young Damien reckons we’d find gas in our back if we fracked it.
— Does he?
— So he says. All the animals we’ve buried ou’ there. The hyena an’ tha’. Remember?
— I do, yeah.
— Well, he says there should be enough gas to supply our road. So, like – I left him to it.
— Hang on. Young Damien is frackin’ your back garden?
— Yeah.
— What’s he usin’.
— Her Magimix.
— Is she happy with tha’?
— She doesn’t know. She’s still over at Whitney’s funeral.
— So she went?
— She did, yeah. Cleaned ou’ the fuckin’ credit union. But I’m worried. About the frackin’, like.
— Why?
— Well, it’s – like – controversial, isn’ it? An’ dangerous. I don’t want to, yeh know, impede young Damien’s natural curiosity, but we could’ve gas comin’ out the fuckin’ taps. There was a fella, a geologist like, on Prime Time last nigh’. An’ he said we aren’t even spellin’ it right. He said there’s no ‘K’.
— Don’t mind him. He can just fuc off.
1-3-12
— SEE THE MONKEE’S dead.
— Young Damien’s monkey?
— Young Damien doesn’t have a monkey.
— Does he not? I thought he did.
— No, he doesn’t. Not yet an’anyway.
— It’s on his list.
— Yeah, but fair play to him. He wants to see if the wallabies survive first. No, your man from the Monkees.
— Davy Jones.
— The English one – yeah.
— The singer.
— Except – there now. What was their one really good song?
— Jaysis. Hey hey we’re the—
— No.
— Cheer up sleepy—
— No.
— Then I saw her face.
— Exactly. ‘I’m a Believer’. But he didn’t sing it.
— Did he not?
— No. Micky Dolenz, the drummer – he sang it.
— So you’re saying – wha’? We shouldn’t give much of a shite tha’ poor oul’ Davy’s after dyin’?
— No.
— Just because he didn’t sing ‘I’m a Believer’ an’ he happens to be English?
— No, I’m not—
— You’re fuckin’ heartless. My sisters used to love Davy Jones. He did more for Anglo-Irish relations in our gaff than anny of the fuckin’ politicians. Him an’ Tommy Cooper.
— I only said he didn’t sing ‘I’m a Believer’.
— An’ I didn’t sing ‘24 Hours from Tulsa’. Will you be as fuckin’ blasé when I die?
- - - -
— Well?
22-3-12
— YEH KNOW THE way there are no snakes in Ireland?
— Yeah.
— Well, it’s not true.
— No?
— Young Damien was tellin’ me. People who bought snakes but can’t afford them any more. They’re releasin’ them back into the wild. So—
— Yis went searchin’ for snakes.
— A boa constrictor.
— Where?
— Up the mountains. Pine Forest.
— Anny luck?
— Hang on. We brought one o’ the wallabies. As bait, like. An’ tied him to one o’ the trees. It was all very scientific. An’ we’re sittin’ there. An’ your man slides right up – an’ he coils himself aroun’ the wallaby. No complaints from the wallaby.
— Probably thought it was a woman.
— I was thinkin’ tha’, meself. She has her arms around you, an’ by the time yeh know she’s stranglin’ yeh, you don’t really care. So, anyway. The mouth – there’s no jaw. It just keeps openin’. Swallows the fuckin’ wallaby. An’ sits there, digestin’ it.
— That’s probably why the gangland guys bring the bodies up the mountains.
— Might be. But I was thinkin’. We’re sitting there, in this scenery. With the rain an’ the sandwiches. An’ the boa eatin’ the wallaby. Well, there’s no other country in the world where yeh’d get tha’.
25-4-12
— YOU KNOW THIS Norwegian cunt?
— The guy in court?
— Him – yeah.
— Breivik – or somethin’.
— Yeah.
— What about him?
— Yeh know the way he starts the day with the Nazi salute – his version of it, like?
— Yeah.
— Would you do tha’?
— No.
— Grand.
— Why would I start me day doin’ the fuckin’ Norwegian Nazi salute?
— So you’ll stick with the fartin’, yeah?
— Fuck off now.
— It’s hard to get your head around it, isn’t it?
— Wha’?
— Norwegian Nazis.
— We gave those cunts a hidin’ in 1014, an’annyway – in the Battle of Clontarf.
— Tha’ was the fuckin’ Danes.
— Same thing.
— Is it?
— Not now. Back then, but.
— Really?
— Yeah. Back then, ‘Danes’ referred to all the Nordies – annyone north of the airport.
— The fuckin’ airport?
— Where it is now, yeah.
— So – say – all the fuckers in Dundalk were Danes.
— Yeah. Except worse.
— How come?
— Well, yeh know the way the Danes – the genuine ones, like – left Denmark in their fuckin’ canoes, so they could pillage an’ rape everythin’?
— Yeah.
— Yeah, well, the Dundalk Danes didn’t bother leavin’. They just pillaged stuff they already owned and raped their cousins an’ their fuckin’ cattle an’ tha’.
— It hasn’t changed, so.
— Not much, no.
16-5-12
— SEE THA’, OVER there?
— Yeah.
— It’s the Opera House, yeah?
— Think so.
— The roof, like. Is it an accident or is it meant to be like tha’?
— How could it be a fuckin’ accident?
— Well, it’s opera. That’s wha’ goes on in there. Opera. Singin’, like. So you’d have Pavarotti, singin’ the World Cup song an’ tha’ – full blast. And other opera cunts as well. Belting it out. All fuckin’ day. So I thought maybe it’d do structural damage. The vibrations, like – eventually.
— No.
— Yeh don’t think?
— No. I know what yeh mean, but I’d say they wanted it like tha’. Deliberately fucked up an’ stupid-lookin’.
— D’yeh reckon?
— I’d say so.
— An’ there’s another thing.
— Wha’?
— It’s the Sydney Opera House. That’s its full name, like.
— Yeah.
— So, like – we’re in Sydney.
— Yeah.
— Well. How did we get here?
— Haven’t a fuckin’ clue.
— Somethin’ in the pints, maybe.
— That’d be my fuckin’ guess.
The author looks out his hotel window
18-5-12
— SEE DONNA SUMMER died?
— Did she?
— Yeah.
— That’s bad. Wha’ was it?
— Cancer.
— Ah well. Cancer of the disco. It gets us all in the end.
— I met the wife durin’ ‘Love To Love You Baby’.
— You asked her up.
— No.
— No?
— I asked another young one an’ she said, Fuck off an’ ask me friend.
— An’ tha’ was the wife.
— Her sister. An’ she told me to fuck off as well. So. Annyway. Here we are.
— Grand. She’d a few good songs, but – Donna.
— ‘MacArthur Park’. That was me favourite.
— A classic. Until Richard fuckin’ Harris took it an’ wrecked it.
— It’s all it takes, isn’t it? Some cunt from Limerick takes a certified disco classic an’ turns it into some sort o’ bogger lament.
— Someone left the cake out in the rain.
— They wouldn’t know wha’ cake was in Limerick. They’d be puttin’ it in their fuckin’ hair.
— An’anyway, they’d’ve robbed the fuckin’ cake long before it started rainin’.
— Is she upset about Donna – the wife?
— Stop. Jesus, man, we were just gettin’ over Whitney. An’ now this.
— Will she go over for the funeral?
— She’s headin’ down to the fuckin’ credit union.
21-5-12
— SEE THE SECOND-LAST of the Bee Gees is after dyin’.
— I used to have one o’ them suits.
— Wha’?
— One o’ the white ones. Like John Travolta’s.
— They weren’t a bad oul’ band.
— Wha’ fuckin’ eejit ever decided tha’ white suits were a good idea?
— Well, you had one.
— Fuck off. I had to – I’d no choice. The weddin’.
— D’yeh still have it?
— Not at all. The state of it – after the weddin’, like. It was never goin’ to be white again. Or even grey.
— They’d some good songs.
— They’d some big teeth as well.
— D’yeh know wha’? You’re a heartless cunt.
— How am I?
— The man dies an’ all you can say—
— Fuck up a minute now. Hear me out.
— Go on.
— The songs are great. No question. ‘I’ve Gotta Get a Message To You’, ‘Night Fever’, ‘How Can Yeh Mend a Broken Heart’—
— Did they write tha’ one?
— There now. I know more about them than you fuckin’ do. They’ll live a long time – the songs. An’ so will the teeth. Long after the rest of him is gone. That’s all I’m sayin’.
— So?
— Well, it’s depressin’, isn’t it? The teeth might last longer than the songs.
24-5-12
— DID YEH BUY any Facebook shares?
— For fuck sake, m’n. I had to grope behind the fuckin’ couch to find the money to pay for this round. Annyway, they’re way overpriced.
— I’m not even sure wha’ Facebook is.
— A social network.
— What’s a fuckin’ social network?
— There was a fillum about it.
— Legally Blonde.
— That’s the one. Anyway, it has millions o’ customers – users.
— How’s the money made?
— That’s the point. Ads. Little ads. But they’ll never make their money back. It’s like this place. It’s a social network as well, really
.
— This kip?
— People meet here an’ chat – LOL.
— Wha’?
— Never mind.
— There’s no little ads here, but.
— That’s no problem. We’d just all agree to put in an ad after everythin’ we say. Like, Will yeh look at the tits on your one – Fly Emirates.
— Gotcha. Go on.
— So this place might’ve been worth – wha’? – a million. Before everythin’ went mad.
— Okay.
— So then they sell it for ten million. It’ll never make sense. We’d never be able to drink the new owners into profit. An’ all the bankers an’ bondholders who bought Facebook shares at tha’ price are a dozy bunch o’ cunts – Vorsprung durch Technik.
30-5-12
— ARE YEH VOTIN’ Yes or No tomorrow?
— No.
— You’re votin’ No?
— No. I’m not talkin’ about it.
— But—
— I’m goin’.
— Hang on – okay. I won’t mention it.
— Austerity, me hole. The Yes crowd, righ’ – they want us to do wha’ the Germans want us to do but the Germans won’t fuckin’ do wha’ they expect us to do. Are yeh with me?
— Yeah—
— So, anyway – historically – doin’ what the Germans want yeh to do isn’t always a good idea. Fuckin’ hell, man, they could make us invade fuckin’ Poland the next time we need a dig-out.
— That’s a bit far-fetched.
— Exactly wha’ the Poles said in 1939. Annyway. There’s the No crowd. The anti-austerity brigade.
— Yeah.
— Have yeh ever seen a more miserable-lookin’ bunch o’ fuckers? They’re supposed to be against misery. Half o’ them don’t even have jackets – an’ they never fuckin’ smile.
— Mary Lou smiles.
— Only cos she has to.
— Wha’?
— The young Shinners have been trained to smile. So yeh won’t think they’re goin’ to kneecap yeh when you open the door an’ they’re on the step.
— That’s ridiculous.
— I fuckin’ agree. But it’s true. They’ve been trained to smile – by the Libyans.
13-6-12
— WHA’ D’YOU MAKE of the football?
— We won’t mention Ireland.
— Fair enough.
— Boys in green, me hole.
— We’ll move on. I thought Ukraine were a breath o’ fresh air.