Suas an Luas

I know I'm a few weeks late with this, but I was in a bit of a moral quandary. Namely: Do I join the U2 "new album out, aren't we the greatest band of all time?" hype machine or try to ignore it, hoping it'll all go away?

I reasoned the latter was never going to happen, considering the thrall this annoying little Bono person and his three mates are held in. So here goes.

Seems the Cuban-Heeled Messiah claims he was nearly killed by a Luas. "I love the Luas, but the closest I've come is having one nearly knock me down," he's quoted as saying in a Hot Press interview.

"If I had to choose a method of rapid transport to be killed by, it would be the Luas," he quips. Which is nice - except there's one fatal flaw in this statement. The Luas isn't equipped with a bank of ego-deflating missiles. The poor tram would just bounce off him, causing utter carnage as it disintegrated after its run-in with the immovable object that is his sense of self-importance.

"The job of art is to chase ugliness away," he continued. "Let's start with the streets. Cars are ugly. Buses are ugly. The Luas is beautiful." Much as I hate to admit to agreeing publicly with anything Dr Bombast has to say, I have to on this occasion. It is beautiful.

In a city that's becoming increasingly miserable and identikit, it's a sleek, shining beacon of taste. If it was a car, it would be a brushed steel-plated Citroën DS, gliding through the vehicular dross with justified disdain for the stylistic abominations it's forced to share roadspace with.

Not that I've much use for it - it's useless for anyone living where I do along the Red Line route. During morning rush hour, by the time it gets to Rialto from Tallaght, it's so packed that I'd have more luck squeezing my head into a tennis ball than through its doors. And try getting on it at Jervis Street on the way home - unless you're wearing a suit of spikes that have been dipped in doggy doo, you can forget about getting to the single ticket machine, never mind actually struggling through the doors.

The whole sorry spectacle makes one feel pretty low after a rough day - you realise you're so far down on the pecking order you're jealous of a bunch of card-carrying Luasers. Still, it does look mighty pretty pulling off into the distance.

How fickle we are. A few short months ago, the whole of Dublin was wetting itself in anticipation of the Luas. Now everyone is bad-mouthing the beautiful beast. Nothing better than build something up, only for it come along and knock you down, eh? (Err, sorry. Slip of the tongue.)

Hate to say this, but I forecast it. Perhaps the incidents haven't quite happened on the same scale - I did predict drug dealers tying debt-welshing junkies to the tracks in their droves, after all - but a dozen or so crashes in a month is pretty impressive.

Let's get one thing straight. This is a very litigious society. So, before anyone starts dialling their lawyers, let me make it clear I'm not apportioning blame to anyone in any of these incidents. I'm even going to avoid silly puns about Luas cannons.

For all I know, aliens could have come down from above and moved the vehicles involved into crash positions, unbeknownst to all concerned. (In fact, that sounds a pretty good defence to me. Must file that one away for future reference.)

There is one simple solution to the problem - a slight modification to the yellow box. Rather than a mere few slaps of paint on the tarmac, the box should mark the edges of a trapdoor that opens up like the jaws of Hell when it senses the rules of engagement have been breached.

All miscreants who plummet therein will suffer the ultimate penalty - an eternity of listening to Bono rave about how not only is he incredibly humble, but he is in fact probably the humblest person to have ever lived, on any planet, ever.