IS MOLLY ALIVE ALIVE O... AND IS SHE EVEN A DUB?
FISHY TALE
‘THE seat of ye citie is of all sides pleasantsome, comfortable, and wholesome. If thou wouldst traverse hills, they are not far off. If champaign land, it lieth of all parts. If you wouldst be delited with freshwater, the famous river called the Liffie runneth fastly by. If you wille take view of the sea, it is at haunde.’
Beautiful, expressive words written about Dublin.
Now, I expect you’re wondering who penned them, and when.
Well, wonder no more – it was me! Just before I got my new spell checker.
Now I only mention this because Molly Malone seems equally steeped in legend. She is part of Dublin folklore and, as you probably know, she can now talk. Using smartphone technology you can now have a conversation with one of Dublin’s best-known stone inhabitants.
Fáilte Ireland’s Talking Statues project allows visitors to ‘take a call’ from statues ranging from Molly Malone to Oscar Wilde by using their smartphones.
But hot on the heels of this technological marvel comes some unwelcome news.
It seems as if Molly Malone was a character invented to send up the Irish, according to new research into the roots of the song. Even worse, experts insist there isn’t any evidence to prove that Dublin’s most famous female ever lived in the capital.
For Goodness sake. They’ll be trying to tell us next that Danny Boy didn’t exist, or that Elvis Presley didn’t have a pet hound dog.
A BRUSH WITH FAME
AN exhibition of documents at Rome’s State Archives has thrown vivid light on the tumultuous life of irascible artist Caravaggio. He had frequent brushes with the police, had a macabre, perverse imagination, and led a short, brutal, debauched life underscored by frequent brawls and doomed love affairs. Honestly! Some people have all the luck.
BREW HA HA
THE cost of coffee beans has plunged because of over-production. A recent good harvest means that the price for a pound of coffee is under a dollar, which is three times cheaper than it was in 2011. There had been a subsequent drop in prices around the world. Well they’ve dropped around the world except for the coffee shop near my house, who obviously didn’t get the memo.
The coffee culture, of course, took some time to, er, filter through to Ireland. Today you can queue up in a café in Dublin and hear people asking for double soy latte, skinny double mocha latte and the like, whereas before about 1980 it was probably against the Constitution to drink any kind of coffee unless you were a toff.
So, for your further edification here’s some coffee facts so that you can hold your head up high in Ireland’s coffee society. A case of bean there, done that: ÷All of the fifty or so countries producing coffee lie in the tropics. Temperature and rainfall are mission critical. Between 23 and 28 degrees C are required, with a dry period of some three months. To paraphrase Peter Cook, I need hardly point out where Ireland is deficient in this scenario. It is in the dry period department, to the tune of three months. ÷According to folklore, coffee was discovered by an Ethiopian goatherd, chap by the name of Kaldi. He noticed his animals were getting frisky after nibbling the berries from a certain tree, so tried some himself. This could well have some basis in fact, because wild coffee is indigenous to Ethiopia. ÷The Kaldi story seems to be akin to the origins of alcohol, discovered in similar fashion somewhere in ancient Ireland. A party of stone-age Hibernians stumbled on the juice of fermented vegetable matter, drunk it, and then found they could cheerfully challenge a giant elk to handbags while their pals giggled themselves silly behind a rock. However the next day for some strange reason nobody felt quite up to a full stint of hunting and gathering.
÷Coffee, then, has some time to go before it catches up with booze. But just remember – those who drink beer think beer. But those who drink coffee think great thoughts; Voltaire, inset, was on 50 cups a day. Just makes you think!
FIN DE SIÈCLE
AN increase in the number of sharks around the Irish coast is causing some alarm. A study has revealed ten new species of sharks, such as hammerheads and blacktip sharks, could already be sampling our coastline due to warming waters.
The great white shark, inset, one of the most efficient predators in the world, could be among these new visitors, with several sightings. So, warmer waters, more people in the sea, more great white sharks about. Hmmm!
The great white, or Carcharodon carcharias as it likes to be called on formal occasions, is capable of speeds up to 35mph, and is able to smell one drop of blood in one million drops of water. Pretty impressive!
Scuba divers have been advised to adopt the ‘buddy’ system – in other words never venture out into deeper waters without a friend. Which is good advice – unless, of course, the shark is also operating the buddy system, in which case you’ve both had it.
TRAVELLER’S TIPS
PART 342 of an occasional series.
Dogged readers of this column will recall that I dispensed the Rule Number 1 of travelling some time ago: always take half as many clothes and twice as much money as you think you’ll need.
Today I want to talk to you about ticketing. Readers will remember that buying an airline ticket any time up until the 1990s meant a trip to your local friendly travel agent.
Every town in Ireland used to have at least one. The major cities even had luxury showcase offices on some of the most expensive real estate in the world.
In Dublin, PanAm had offices on Grafton Street; in London US airlines occupied a swathe of property opposite Trafalgar Square. TWA was situated on Regent Street, Aer Lingus had a more modest affair on Charing Cross Road.
But the advent of the e-ticket in 1994 mostly spelled the end for these travel showcases. In their heyday at these plush offices, you’d be issued with your ticket – which looked like a minibooklet, with flight times, terms and conditions, and details of something called the Warsaw Convention. This was nothing to do with the Cold War – it concerned liability for international carriage of persons, luggage or goods. Still, it gave you something to read waiting to board.
Flying back then was a different world. You could do things unthinkable today – like arrive early for a flight, and be ushered onto on an earlier one. Or even get the day completely wrong and still be allowed to fly without financial penalty.
Of course, you paid for the privilege. The fare from Dublin to London could cost a week’s wages.
Today your ticket will be a piece of A4 paper which you’ve printed out and issued to yourself. And should you get the date, destination or your name wrong you’ll pay very dearly for your mistake.
So here’s the advice: firstly, if you’re booking online, make sure you’ve got all the details correct. Date, time, destination. Don’t laugh – the airlines call the financial penalty for correcting mistakes ‘a tax on the dim-witted’.