SOMEONE TRIED to burn down the Deportment of Finance last night. I find this out when I flick over during the ads in Xposéand there's herself, with that ridiculously beautiful face, looking all sad and disappointed, like a usually cool teacher who's suddenly prepared to keep the entire class back until the guilty porty owns up, writes ROSS O'CARROLL-KELLY
Someone tried to burn down the Deportment of Finance last night, she says.
A “petiddle” bomb is Ronan’s guess. “You can give up yisser oul’ shite about devices,” he tells her. “It’s pettidle, Shadden, sure as I’ne sitting here, drowning in your eyes.”
I ask him how he can tell and he says from the pattern of the scorch morks on the window frame. “Sham overfilled it as well,” he goes, then he shakes his head, like his pride is somehow offended. “Fooken amateur hour.”
Someone tried to burn down the Deportment of Finance last night. And I’m suddenly remembering the anger in Café en Seine when someone said that L’Ecrivain was doing a five-course dinner, including a bottle of wine, for €125 for two.
“At those prices,” Chloe went, “you could end up sitting next to literally anybody,” and then she shook her head, looked up at the big Moulin Rouge ceiling, and went, “How much more?” presumably to God, who she’s inclined to stort believing in after five bellinis.
And, a few hours later, someone tried to burn down the Deportment of Finance.
My memories of the night are, it has to be said, pretty sketchy. But I do remember looking at JP at one point and thinking how miserable he looked, staring at the muted television, clutching his pint of Gerard and not even raising a smile when Jonny Sexton sent that kick wobbling over the bor. I turned around to Fionn and said it was hord to believe it’s the same happy-go-lucky goy who tried to tell the Advertising Standards Authority that Clonroche was only 30 minutes from Dublin City Centre.
“His finest hour,” Fionn agreed. “His evidence lasted three days,” and then he laughed. “He really was born to sell houses.”
Of course, three years on, Hook, Lyon and Sinker is now an all-you-can-eat Chinese buffet, Clonroche is still closer to Paris than it is to Dublin and JP and his old man are forced to earn a living carrying out repossessions. There’s, like, no doubt a light has gone out in him. He told me that on Thursday they went to a house in Glenageary to repossess a hot tub and a bouncy castle. He said he could just about handle the kids crying – but the adults . . . Then his voice just, like, trailed off and Fionn said we needed to watch him.
Sorcha, I remember, arrived in at some point, not a happy rabbit. The bank is on her case about the 200 Ks she borrowed to remodel her shop on Kitson, some place she fell in love with in Hollywood, because she spotted Stephanie Pratt coming out there, laden down with bags, with the paparazzi chasing her skinny orse all the way up Robertson Boulevard. So the Sherman gave her the moo, but now they’re suddenly worried that she might have overreached – especially with her not having sold a focking stitch since the clocks went forward.
"They want me to reduce my prices," she went, and I gave her one of my – it might not be a word – but not-commiting looks? Because on this one, I'm happy to bewith AIB.
“They want me to sell off all my stock,” she went, “for, like, 80 per cent off! Those Casadei strappy sandals in bold red that I was waiting for – oh my God – for, like, forever! The black Rachel Comey dress that goes amazing with those Zanotti pumps and that statement necklace I showed you! Even the neutral seam detail jodhpurs, which are – oh my God – so rare, they’re practically vintage!”
“I hope you told them,” Sophie went, “you’re not, like, H&M!”
Sorcha said, oh, she told them alright. She said that every day that she sees a Sale sign up on Grafton Street, she wonders what kind of a world she’s brought her daughter into.
And, a few hours later, someone tried to burn down the Deportment of Finance.
I don’t remember a lot else about the night, except Fionn saying that Castlerock is down, like, six teachers this year, which means they’re all so busy that they may have to pull out of the Maths Olympiad and possibly even the Emmanuel Liturgical Musical Project.
“Then with the paycut we’ve all agreed to,” he went, “one or two have had to take on evening jobs in grind schools. There’s a lot of anger out there.”
Then – yeah – someone reminded me that it was, like, a year ago to the day that Oisinn porked his famous black X5 at Dublin Airport, leaving the keys in the ignition, and took off for who knows where, leaving a whole heap of debt behind him. I must think about him 10 times a day, wondering where he is, whether he’s happy and what he’s even calling himself these days. And, I admit, it makes me angry that a member of the 1999 Leinster Schools Senior Cup team is out there somewhere, alone in the world, for no good reason, except that he owes nearly 48 million to six, I suppose, financial institutions.
“Here,” Ro suddenly goes, “are you putting Glenda back on?” and I immediately snap out of it and flick back to TV3. He smiles at me, I think the word is slyly? “She’d put the smile back on anyone’s face, wouldn’t she, Rosser?”
I hold my hand up to give him possibly the most deserved high-five of all time. He slaps it and a pain suddenly shoots from my palm, through my wrist and up my orm, so bad that it pretty much takes my breath away. I look at my hand and there’s, like, a patch of shiny skin between my thumb and the base of my forefinger.
Someone tried to burn down the Deportment of Finance last night.
rossocarrollkelly.ie