Men of a certain age, such as myself, usually harbour few ambitions, and those we have are usually modest enough in scope; but none quite compares with my desperate and passionate yearning never to enter Dundrum's new shopping centre.
This apparently irresistible, manic craving is so great as not to be in the usual range of human appetites. Indeed, it is more akin to the rampant sexual lust of a stallion, but of course, in reverse.
I am a male. The title of this column probably gives that little secret away. And healthy men do not like shopping, unless it is for electric screwdrivers, books, and possibly magazines containing pictures of naked women. But we do not browse through heaps of underwear; we do not caress socks as if the sensation were sexually arousing; we do not hold shirts up to ourselves and ask: Does my bum look big in this? We prefer to buy a pair of shoes two sizes too small and cripple ourselves rather than linger for one hundredth the time that it takes so many women to decide that, no, they won't be buying any of the 240 pairs they have spent a most enjoyable weekend trying on.
Meanwhile, the poor, despairing shop assistants are running around in small circles on their hands and knees, barking and biting lumps out of the chair-leg. Then, of course, they remember that the next weekend the woman-shopper will be back looking for a pair of runners, but will leave with eight pairs of shoes, half of which have heels you could knit a sweater with and which are so unstable that the woman wearing them has to be supported by scaffolding. Imelda Marcos bought so many shoes not because she was Imelda Marcos, but because (a) she was a woman, and (b) because she could.
Women enjoy shopping. Men do not. It's almost as simple as that. Possibly homosexual men do, but I doubt it. I say this with some authority, because last week I discovered I was homosexual. Scientists somewhere or other have discovered that homosexual men have a poor sense of direction, very like women. I have a dreadful sense of direction, which must mean either that I am homosexual, or that I am a woman. But I can't be the latter, because I don't like shopping. Therefore I'm homosexual and can use the word "queer", and go cottaging and cruising and develop a taste in buns, though in my experiences most cottages have rising damp, I dislike boats, and buns were never the same once Bewleys dropped the almond of the species.
I'm partial to scones, though: does that count? Sorry, sorry, sorry. A long way from my utterly pathological phobia about Dundrum. But news of the opening last week wrung the withers of my soul, not least because it appears to have rather resembled the Oklahoma land-race - if, that is, that great contest for territory was between female hippopotamuses. Did the time of the opening coincide with a break-out from the hippo house at Dublin Zoo? Or is that region of Dublin 14 so called because the bellies of the natives resemble Lambegs, and after people have had sex, they declare - with some elephantine satisfaction - that they've just done drum? Either way, I haven't seen as much avoirdupois on legs since I got stuck in the communal showers at the Tokyo Sumo All-Japanese Wrestling Contest, a tale which the world is not yet ready for - though I might throw in the observation here that these Sumo lads have got tiny, tiny. . no, no, on second thoughts, perhaps not. One never quite knows when one is going to run into a posse of Japanese wrestlers. You never want to annoy fellows who travel cargo and wear double-H cups. They could create an unpleasant moment or two.
Even more significant was the revelation that the opening of the shopping centre was blessed by church leaders. Maybe there was some confusion and they were there to bless mammoths rather than Mammon.
Certainly, the papes turned up, as did the Cyrils of the CofI and the Methodist Normans, probably singing their little Wesleyan heads off, and the burly Presbyterian Alistairs, all to perform the baptism of Europe's largest shopping centre. Offhand I can't remember whether the Jews, Buddhists or Muslims were also there. The official justification for all this was that the churches should be wherever people are. Really? As it happens, the Shangri-La Lap Dancer & Exotic Massage Parlour is looking for a chaplain. Perhaps the done drum crowd might suggest some dog-collared volunteers to spread their spiritual balm over Luscious Lucy and Gorgeous Georgia as they weave their manual magic. And those eager shoppers at the vibrator counter at Anne Summers could probably do with a quick blessing or two before they rush home.
The reality is that it's over. Just about every commentator has remarked on done drum being the cathedral of the new religion, and the cliché is true. We know that the next stop is the sabbatical shop-over: the super-sized family spending all Sunday waddling slowly around a shopping centre like pods of vast cetaceans browsing their way through a particularly rich pocket of plankton. The ecumenical presence was less a blessing than a hand-over. The baton has moved on. Goodbye, Christianity.