FRIDAY
Then and now…
In Longford for the Joe Finnegan Show, where I join Deputy Cathy Bennett and Cllr Paddy O’Rourke to discuss fuel prices, the Trump visit, the 9/11 anniversary and the GAA integration row.
Growing up in Rooskey, Longford was the ‘go-to’ town for us; it had a certain glamour to it!
Nowadays, any visit to the Shannonside studio gives me an opportunity to go down memory lane in the form of a nostalgic walk through Longford Town.
This usually involves browsing in Newsround, a coffee and a stroll. Today, I reflected – not for the first time – on how much the shopfronts have changed, even if some landmark premises from my youth are still there, such as the Longford Arms Hotel, the post office, the quirky Denniston’s shop (and many more).
But the old Odeon Cinema, where I watched the James Bond movie For Your Eyes Only (1981), with Sheena Easton singing the haunting title track, has long since been succeeded by the ultra-modern four-screen Omniplex. Across the street, Mollaghan’s shop on the corner, a favourite when we were children back in the day, now lies dormant.
Keogh’s traditional pub, buzzing with humorous chatter when my father and I called in on a Friday afternoon in the late 1970s, stands silent now, where conversation once ebbed and flowed to the rhythm of everyday life.
Familiar old solicitors’ offices (the solicitors themselves not necessarily old) also evoke memories.
As I continue my walk, a woman emerges from a house in a dressing gown, accepts a package from a delivery driver – the engine still running – and does a code confirmation on her iPhone. These are three things we didn’t do – receive deliveries, wear dressing gowns outside, or live by iPhones – when Roger Moore was in his pomp as Bond in For Your Eyes Only.
Like the seasons, all towns change, the passage of time unrelenting.
FRIDAY
25 years after 9/11
It’s hard to believe that 25 years have gone by since the event that shook the world – the 9/11 attacks in the US. The grotesque audacity – and scale – of this barbaric act of terrorism was without precedent.
2,966 people lost their lives in the attacks that fateful day, while an estimated 6,000 more have since died from 9/11-related illnesses. It was a day that changed the world, most obviously in terms of security, international travel and the way we perceive the threat of terrorism.
In Roscommon, throughout Ireland, and across the world, people watched in horror. This weekend’s commemorations, including in Ireland, are poignant and fitting events. It is so important that we continue to remember the victims, their loved ones, and all those whose lives were forever changed by the events of September 11, 2001.
SATURDAY
An eerie coincidence
It was a small thing, but a strange thing.
In 2014, I experienced a somewhat eerie coincidence in the vicinity of Ground Zero. Having spent some time visiting the 9/11 Memorial – a very moving experience – we popped into one of the many shops nearby.
After browsing for a while, I bought a few items. I handed the assistant a $50 note. The assistant handed me my change: nine dollars and eleven cents.
$9.11. Nine Eleven.
Of course, it was a simple coincidence, but it was striking. I gather there is even a word for our propensity to see meaning in things like this: apophenia – the human tendency to perceive meaningful connections, patterns or messages in random or unrelated events.
And that was what it was. A coincidence. Nothing more. Millions of people visit Ground Zero, and over the course of a week, thousands of purchases are made in the surrounding shops. While the odds of it happening are apparently about 1000 to 1, sooner or later somebody was bound to hand over $50 and receive $9.11 back.
The funny thing is that knowing all this doesn’t make the moment any less memorable. For a few seconds, standing there with nine dollars and eleven cents in my hand, it felt as though the universe had made a tiny, perfectly timed reference to the place I had just been visiting.
It hadn’t, of course. It was a small thing – but it was a strange thing.
SATURDAY/SUNDAY
Trump visit
Well, the sometimes surreal visit of President Trump was a great success… especially if you’re an Irish Whiskey-exporting, staunch Irish Republican who backed Shane Lowry to win the golf…
MONDAY
Names and faces…
It’s small things that end up frustrating you.
Today, it appeared that a man in the distance was giving me a friendly wave, so I waved back. It then struck me that I didn’t know him. Worse still, it dawned on me at that exact moment that he mustn’t have been waving at me at all. Presumably he was waving at someone else. My embarrassment was minimised as this quite tall man proceeded to get into a quite small car and drive off, our brief bonding moment mercifully spared any further exposure.
This reminded me of the other day, when I met a man whose name I know, but couldn’t think of on the spot. Fortunately, as we chatted on the street, I realised – with pleasure, I must admit – that he seemed to be struggling to think of my name too.
This meant we were essentially involved in a tense scoreless draw. As we chatted, I discreetly raced through an imaginary file of names in my head, hoping to land on his. Frustratingly, his name never came to me, so I couldn’t get the upper hand. Thankfully, he didn’t think of my name either, and we both bluffed to the end, finishing our conversation with some mutual mumbling along the lines of ‘Good chatting to you’.
When he was gone, I raced through the alphabet in the hope of inspiration, and finally his name came to me, like an oasis materialising in a desert. Needless to say, I’ve been obsessively keeping an eye out for him ever since.
TUESDAY
Quoting Groucho…
After all this understandable talk of 9/11, we need some humour. So I’ll end by randomly quoting the great Groucho Marx (again).
In A Night at the Opera (1935), Groucho, as the irascible Otis B. Driftwood, is on a dinner date with the wealthy socialite, Mrs Claypool (played by Margaret Dumont). The date hasn’t been going well – not that Groucho has any self-awareness about that. Mrs Claypool is showing remarkable patience, but is clearly relieved when the waiter arrives and hands Groucho/Otis the bill.
Groucho/Otis looks at the bill, then at Mrs Claypool: “$9.40? That’s an outrage! If I were you, I wouldn’t pay it!”
