The old dear has finished her TV show and the house is up for sale – why has nobody told me, her only son? asks ROSS O'CARROLL KELLY
I’VE BEEN keeping a close eye lately – as I’m sure the rest of you have – on the birth announcements in this so-called newspaper. I’ve been wondering, what with the current economic blahdy blah, whether mummies and daddies in this part of the world are going to start moving away from names that make their children sound like Japanese car manufacturers.
I was thinking this especially last weekend, the morning after Leinster beat Harlequins, when I woke up in the well-toned, tennis arms of a girl called Mishauna.
I was wondering, is this girl the last of a dying breed? In these, I suppose, simpler times, are we going to see parents returning to traditional south Dublin names, like Orpha, Karenina and Ptolemy.
Mishauna, incidentally, marked the end of what I would have to admit has been a lean spell for me in that department. I would have thought, with all the doom and gloom there is around the place, that my services – like those of bailiffs and Subway sandwich franchises – would have been in greater demand. Weirdly, it hasn’t worked out that way?
Mishauna was the first girl I’ve been with in literally weeks. All you need to know about her is that she works in Specsavers and that she’s a health food freak, which makes her either an orthorexic optomologist or an optometric orthorexorcist – I can’t remember. You do the math.
Anyway, there we are, bank holiday Monday, chilling in her apartment – the Spirit of Negative Equity – when she storts banging on about my old dear and how she’s, like, a major fan of hers.
I’m like, “What, her books?” and she goes, “Her books, her cooking, her TV programme, her style – everything. She could end up being as big as Oprah,” and I’m there, “Yeah, especially if she keeps eating the way she does,” which is a cracking line, even I have to admit.
But I have to tell you, I’m left in pretty much shock when she turns around and tells me that she’s really going to miss her. She must cop my reaction, roysh, because she goes, “You mean you haven’t heard? She quit her show last week. Live on air,” and the next thing I know she has the remote for the Sky Plus in her hand and she’s scrolling down through all her recorded programmes, looking for what turns out to be the last ever episode of FO’CK Cooking.
The last time I saw the old dear, I have to be honest, was a week ago, when her mood would have best been described as all over the shop. Paddy Power published the revised odds for who’s going to get the Late Late gig and they’d all sorts of jokers in there – even Jonathan Rhys what’s-his-face at, like, a thousand to one.
The old dear wasn’t even included. And obviously, she wasn’t a happy rabbit.
So now I’m watching her last programme. From the day RTÉ told her to stort cooking food that better reflected Ireland’s new economic realities, I’m not sure her hort was ever in the show. She’s showing viewers how to defrost frozen vegetables and you can tell from the way she’s handling them – with, like, rubber gloves – that she’s only just found out they even exist? She’s not the only one. We’re talking little cubes of, like, carrot and turnip and potato and the odd pea, all stuck together in a big chunk of ice.
Mishauna points out what she swears is a tear falling down the old dear’s face. I tell her it could be the vodka sweats.
At the end, roysh, the old dear looks into the camera and goes, “Today, I’m very sad to announce, is going to be the last time you’ll ever see me on television in Ireland. . .”
She looks genuinely sad?
“When I was originally asked to present my own afternoon cooking and lifestyles programme, I informed the powers that be here in Montrose that I would not to pander to the lowest common denominator. Instead, in so far as one person ever could, I would seek to raise it. I like to think that along the way, especially with my pineapple and boisonberry couscous, my rack of lamb with mustard crust and my apple transparent, I succeeded in that objective.
“However, we cannot ignore the fact that we are suddenly living in a different country – a country in which a successful broadcaster like myself, who brings in tens of millions of euro in revenue for this station every year, can have her pocket picked of a few quid a week to satisfy the Recession Police in our national press. While being asked to work, I might add, with ingredients that, in normal circumstances, I would be ashamed to have even in the bin.
“So thank you for all your letters of support. And remember, just because the economy’s depressed, doesn’t mean you have to be. Happy cooking.”
Or as the Star put it the next day, “FO’CK That For A Game Of Soldiers.” I’ll bet fifty snots to your ten that One F came up with that one.
Mishauna happened to have the paper as well, you see. And it’s only when I read it that I realised what she was getting at when she mentioned Oprah. The report said the old dear was quitting Ireland for America, having decided some time ago to try to crack the States.
I’m thinking, why doesn’t she just sit on it?
But then I’m thinking, hang on, when was she going to mention any of this to me – as in her only son? I’ve got a right to know.
I get out of the scratcher, throw on the threads and say goodbye to Mishauna, though not without giving her someone else’s phone number first. I’m nothing if not a gentleman.
Then I point the beast in the direction of Foxrock. The whole way home, I’m shaping up for a row. But it’s a row that ends up never happening. Because the old dear’s not in the gaff. In fact, the only person around is a man hammering a For Sale sign into the front lawn.
rossocarrollkelly.ie