Three men on a bed. Well, they're beside a bed - of oysters, and they're shelling for all their worth. Three champion shellers - Micheal Kelly from Galway, Tommy O'Neill from Carlow and Eamonn Preston - have arrived to open oysters and give us a taste of things to come.
We have oysters by the score. No one finds a pearl, but pearls of wisdom are dropped by some of the guests at the launch in Dublin of details of the 46th Galway International Oyster Festival: "They're very good for sore throats," offers Mairtin Davy O Coisdealbha, of Raidio na Gaeltachta fame and former periwinkle farmer from Indreabhan in Connemara, Co Galway. "People would have other ideas about them . . . but oysters are the only family planning in the Gaeltacht." The logic of his argument is crystal clear as the oysters slip down our gullets at Ocean Bar and Restaurant on Charlotte Quay Dock, in Dublin.
Mairead Cosgrave, the Millennium Pearl, says she has never eaten an oyster in her life. What? Quel horreur! All fingers point to the oyster virgin from Galway until she eats one. "An experience not to be repeated!" she decides.
Mairin Ui Chomain, the celebrated chef from Casla i gCo na Gaillimhe, closes her eyes for a second when asked about oysters. "O, mo chroi, oisiri," she says. As for a culinary tip for oysters? Well, she says, mentally scrolling down through hundreds of recipes, what about an oyster shot? Put a raw oyster in a shot glass and a tiny bit of what you fancy - whiskey, brandy, champagne, Guinness . . . "agus ta se go halainn".
Michael Whelan, Guinness's national sponsorship manager, tells us that 10,000 people will attend the festival and about 100,000 oysters will be consumed. Well, Bobbie Molloy TD, Minister of State at the Department of the Environment, says he has eaten two dozen at a sitting.
Other oyster lovers include John Rabbitt, publican and festival chairman from Galway and Paul Faller, a fourth generation jeweller from Galway and a former festival chair. It's the end of an era for Brian Brown, of Guinness, who's stepping down as Guinness head of sponsorship in December after 43 years with the company.
Meanwhile, the 2000 Clarinbridge Oyster Festival is in full swing at this very moment in Co Galway. The organisers of this long-standing festival, which shares its 1954 beginnings with the Galway International Oyster Festival (running from 21st to the 24th of this month) expect at least 2,000 people to pack into the Paddy Burke Marquee for entertainment and oysters this evening on the banks of the River Claren. Moran's The Weir will also be the site of further oyster gluttony. Down Galway way, they have no sense of moderation. It's sinful, it is.