OH NO! RYANAIR HAVE NEVER HEARD OF YOKO
POTTERING AROUND
FERMANAGH Lakeland Tourism has announced that numbers for tourist attractions in the county have been steadily increasing with Belleek Pottery drawing nearly 195,000 visitors last year, the Marble Arch Caves with 71,000 visitors and Enniskillen Castle, 65,000 visitors. The Cuilcagh Boardwalk – or Stairway to Heaven – has also become a star turn, with over 60,000 visitors. Which is exceptionally good going for a county that has a population of barely over 60,000.
The countryside is, as you might imagine, sparsely-populated, rural and bucolic; Fermanagh Lakeland, with its ethereal, mist-shrouded islands, wouldn’t disgrace a Constable painting. Ideal for your screensaver, too.
A few islands in Lough Erne are inhabited (by humans), some by wild goats. But we’re not sure who lived on Boa Island in Lower Lough Erne, nor what their game was. Cadaragh Cemetery on Boa is home to two extraordinary stone statues – the gloating Boa Man, also known as the Lusty Man (with reference to the nearby eponymous island), and the Janus Stone. Nobody really knows if the stones are pagan idols or early Christian statues – some estimates put their age at 2000.
So if they are of Christian origin, somebody must have nipped over very smartly with the news from the Middle East.
Pop along and see if you can throw some light on it yourself. You might even want to write a poem. Seamus Heaney did – called it January God. In the wet gap of the year/ Daubed with fresh lake mud/ I faltered near his power/ January God.
See? You don’t even need to find a rhyme for Boa.
Another famous Fermanagh landmark is the old Royal Portora School in Enniskillen.
Past pupils include Oscar Wilde and Samuel Beckett as well as songsmith Henry Francis Lyte – he penned Abide With Me.
There seems a wonderful symmetry that Waiting for Godot and Abide With Me should have emerged from the same school. It must be something to do with the landscape.
BORDERLINE CASE
THE AA manual is quite clear: ‘Entry into the Republic from Northern Ireland may be effected at any Frontier Post during the hours for Intermediate Crossings.
Motorists are reminded that if they are not already in possession of a certified Identification Form 29C (iiib) they must call at the Customs Station – open 9am-5pm.”
Throughout the advisory article there is much talk of road-blocks, vehicle searches, and Chief Frontier Officers ‘in familiar khaki uniforms’. It seems only a Stasi guard away from East Germany during the Cold War.
The information, of course, is from an old(-ish) manual – my Da’s 1961 Members Handbook, Ireland.
But with Brexit inexorably leading us towards what looks like a hard border, I’ll maybe hang on to it for a bit longer.
PLANE TALKING
LUCKILY I’d just read a tweet from Yoko Ono before arriving a trifle late at Stansted Airport. It said: ‘Time is a man-made concept. Therefore, ‘‘when’’ is not a relevant thing to think about. Just know that it will happen, yesterday or tomorrow.” When I offered these pearls of perception to the lady at the Ryanair gate she smiled benignly, yet sadly seemed to grasp the true meaning of this insight. Still it’s true what they say: if you don’t miss the odd flight then you’re spending too much time at airports.
BLOOMING SOW-AND-SOWS
POPPING over to London any time soon? Spring is ideal for visiting one of the great botanical extravaganzas of the world, Kew Gardens. Two-andhalf centuries of clearing, sodding, planting, weeding, mowing, coppicing and hoeing have made Kew the most famous horticultural show on earth.
There’s a new attraction – after a five-year £41m restoration, the Temperate House is to reopen on May 5. The largest surviving Victorian glasshouse in the world, it’s home to some of the rarest plants anywhere.
But it’s not just fancy flowers. Botanists carry out invaluable research at Kew, for instance into the fungal disease known as Ash Dieback.
I know – you’re probably thinking, “Ash Dieback; that sounds like an indie rock band. Didn’t I see them supporting the Pogues way back in the 1980s?”
No you didn’t. Ash Dieback is a disease that causes leaf loss and bark degeneration. But fans of hurling can relax. Scientists have been studying genetic factors which will help produce sturdy ash trees. The clash of the ash is safely in the hands of Kew’s botanical boffins (and no, you didn’t see the Botanical Boffins supporting anybody either. . .)
CRIMES AGAINST GASTRONOMY
A BRITISH man has been arrested in Washington DC in connection with a string of dining-and-dashing incidents. Charges laid before him include one count of scoffing a rack of lamb washed down with a $156 bottle of wine; he also enjoyed a shot of 34-yearold Irish whiskey costing $1,200. Our tourist then allegedly signed off the bill fraudulently.
As crimes go, it’s a little inelegant – no matter how much you want a vintage Irish whiskey, doing a runner has very little style. There are alternatives.
According to the Malaysian Chinese newspaper Kwong Wah Yit Poh, some six years ago a customer bought a first-class ticket from the airline – a fully flexible and refundable yoke entitling him not only to firstclass travel, but also free meals and drink in the VIP lounge.
He availed of this for almost a year, changing his departure time whenever he fancied a slap-up meal in pleasant surroundings. The passenger’s itinerary changed more than 300 times within a year, with the owner ‘fully enjoying the facilities at the airport’s VIP lounge in Xi’an in Shaanxi, China’.
The unusual case was uncovered by a China Eastern Airlines staff member. On investigating, he found that when the ticket’s validity was almost up, the passenger cancelled for a refund. At the time an airline spokesperson announced it was impossible to stop this act. It’s all in the airline’s terms and conditions, you see.
Whether this loophole has been closed, I don’t know; but I aim to find out. Also, if any other airline operates the same procedure.
So if you happen to spot me in the first-class Lounge at Dublin Airport, dining on organic handreared Languedoc pheasant cooked in Arbequina olive oil, come over and say hello, have a bite. Dinner’s on me!