To quote a little girl with pigtails and a gingham petticoat: "A place where there isn't any trouble? Do you suppose there is such a place, Toto? There must be. It's not a place you can get to by a boat or a train. It's far, far away. Behind the moon, beyond the rain . . ."
Okay, it's not that far, but you'd be hard-pressed to get there by train in this country. Jane Cregan from Iarnród Éireann explained to The Last Word (Today FM, Mon-Fri) why a train left Heuston for Limerick on Sunday evening with just one passenger, leaving 300 commuters on the platform as the train pulled away. (No offence, but Limerick wasn't the land of blue birds and ruby slippers I was referring to earlier.)
The lone passenger was visually impaired and had been helped on earlier. Cregan told Matt Cooper it was the first time in "living memory" - hers, mine or the collective? - that this happened and blamed "human error". By jinkers, it was a cracker of a story if only for the sheer comedy of it.
I Googled "Jane Cregan" to check the spelling of her name and was swiftly directed to the Bebo page of Jane Cregan, "currently working in Corporate Communications for Iarnród Éireann". (What were the chances?) Her site - at the time of writing - is freely available online. Cregan likes Finding Neverland and Walk the Line. (How appropriate.) She is scared of roller-coasters. (No fear on slowcoach Iarnród Éireann, then.) There is also a delightful photo of a woman who is either on a dancefloor singing her heart out or shouting instructions to angry passengers on a crowded platform. I'm still not quite sure which.
On Tuesday's Drivetime (RTÉ Radio 1, Mon-Fri), Olivia O'Leary delivered an essay on the once-radical PDs, just the kind of toxic nostalgia that gets me going: "They badly needed some ordinary Joes, I suggested once, just like Gay Byrne had his ordinary Joe, Joe Duffy, who then was a reporter on Byrne's morning radio show and gave him much-needed street cred. At a conference a week later, a few PDs tackled me. The very notion of them needing a Joe Duffy, they laughed. Well, you might ask, who has a bigger national presence now?" She added, "Who was in power all those years and who was it who spoiled the children?" It's true. We - if I may be so presumptuous - are marred for life.
Mary Wilson revisited another tale of yesteryear: Rudy Giuliani and his political career. Beneath Wilson's quiet authority, I sense a tickle of mischief in her voice, which keeps me listening.
In Florida, the warm-up man was getting the crowd going for Giuliani's rally. (I'll be the crowd, to save on parentheses.) "Gimme an R!" R! "Gimme a U!" U! "Gimme a D!" D! "Gimme a Y!" Y! "Whatyagot? The next president of the United States!" But that doesn't spell Clinton, Obama or McCain. Of the next US president, Giuliani shrieked: "I think your decision will be the right one!" I hope so. He should now be sitting pretty in Florida with the other retirees.
John Voight, Brangelina's father/in-law, said Rudy was an angel from God who saved New York after 9/11. Giuliani? This is a man who, with his PR wings on, fought to protect Purdue Pharma, which made the notorious OxyContin. This medicine was crushed and abused as a potent recreational drug by American teens and the company ultimately had to fork out $600 million (€405.5 million) for misleading patients and doctors. An opportunistic angel in hyena's clothing is more like it.
Also retiring is Peggy Moloney, but under happier circumstances. Peggy worked at the post office in O'Callaghan's Mills, west Clare, without a holiday for 39 years. Ronan Kelly's The Curious Ear: Peggy the Postmistress (RTÉ Radio 1, Sun) documented the last days of the post office's 159-year existence. "By jinkers," Peggy said. (Yes, 'twas she who taught me that lovely expression.)
This was the lost world I'd yearned for: ticking clocks, cups of tea, elderly neighbours on the mat for a chat, unrepentant sighs about a life lived modestly and without complaint.
Peggy's penultimate New Year's Eve was celebrated alone: "I said to the television Happy New Year and I had a shake of the holy water around the house. I had nobody with me and it made no difference."
Peggy has retired, but Cathleen Callaghan, from Quinn's Pharmacist in Crossmolina, Co Mayo, once crowned the friendliest shop assistant by the Western People, hasn't. She told The Ray D'Arcy Show (Today FM, Mon-Fri) that her secret was knowing customers' names and saying hello when they walk through the door. Who knew? No time machines or near-empty mystery trains necessary. See? It's not that difficult to live in a world without trouble and strife, after all.
I also have it on good authority that when Cathleen's call came through to the studio, Ann Gleeson, researcher on D'Arcy's show, happened to be wearing a glistening pair of ruby sneakers.