Round the Bend

Tick tock, tick tock, tick tock

ALWAYS TURNING CORNERS

I need to sleep

The pesky air conditioning unit is doing nothing to cure my temporary insomnia. Off and the room is a furnace. On and it sounds like the room is about to lift off. We're in the wee hours of the morning and it's still 20-odd degrees outside. The beer from earlier on is starting to wear off and I don't want to be awake for that.

I'm thinking tired thoughts. It was a day for shorts but I wore jeans. For tuna melts but I had a club sandwich. Silly thoughts.

So I watch CNN, I drink a €3.50 bottle of water from the mini-bar and I read that Radge is straight.

It's a surprise, I have to admit.

Cash Blow For Clubs

I wrote an article the other day about a competition called the Setanta Sports Cup - a cross-border football competition sponsored and financed by the broadcaster. The participating clubs, north and south, were each due to get a €10,000 cheque at the draw. However said draw was postponed and no cheque was forthcoming. For obvious reasons. Setanta's collapse had left some of the poor clubs in a financial pickle, I wrote. Or something along those lines.

Then I remembered Radge and other former Townsend Street comrades.

That article hasn't sat well with me.

Gazza-umped!

Hello.

Lord Gaylord Limpalong here.

Banjaxed my ankle last week playing five-a-side. What's worse is the fact that I was the one who made the tackle. A bit of a wild one. Tried to wrap myself around someone, ended up standing on their boot, foot went one way and leg the other... kind of like a Gazza on Gary Charles effort (circa 1991).

There are so many parallels.

Old Wheelie

I Want To Ride My Bicycle

I Want To Ride My Bike

I Want To Ride My Bicycle

I Want To Ride It Where I Like

Well, around to the local Spar for lunch, then up to the Blanchardstown Centre to buy some pirate paraphernalia and then home.

First time in ages on old Wheelie. I may even be motivated to cycle into work. One day.

Moist

I wake up in a strange bed. Alone. Feel like I'd more than five beers the night before so the coffee is strong and sweet. Hits the back of the throat and rushes straight up to the brain.

Just like I'd hoped it would.

Already sweating. The sun is out and that bitch is staring right at me. Still in yesterday's clothes, which turned into last night's bed-clothes. The 'Barack And Roll' t-shirt quickly getting moist under the bitch's angry glare.

Onto the road - a fine new stretch of motorway. A/C rushing cool air at my face, my feet, my moist areas. Two hours and 41 minutes from Cork to Dublin, including a poxy 20-minute delay in Shabbeyleix. A new day-time record.

The FA Cup final watched, a shower had and it's down to the parents for a sausage and bacon sandwich. Then it's off to Tallaght with the old man.

Shamrock Rovers score against the run of play. Get fucking in there Twigg you beauty. Shamrock Rovers miss a penalty. It's okay. Drogheda United never score...

Drogheda United score. Jammy fuckin defensive shambles of a goal. Four minutes to go. I'm moist again. This time it's an angry kind of moist.

The rest of the evening is of lesser consequence. Home, TV, some burnt microwave popcorn.

Then I retire. This time to fall asleep in a familiar bed. Alone.

Superman

Went boozing with Superman the other night. Bruxelles and Keoghs. He was telling me of his crimefighting ways; bringing down evil villains with his super powers of crime prevention.

Superman has ditched the cape for some more inconspicuous detective garb. Can't well be setting up a drugs sting with your red y-fronts outside your pants now, can you?

He runs marathons now, does Superman. A few a year. And the Man of Steel is hoping to compete in an Iron Man contest next year.

Superman revealed his powers a long time ago when, in college, he was attacked from behind by two rapscoundrelous hoodlums. They were desperate to impress the girls, one suspects.

But Superman locked them both in headlocks with his arms of steely muscledom and from that point on the ladies would swoon for one man only. Superman.

Well girls, you wouldn't be so swoony if you saw this Superman confronted with his very own version of Kryptonite.

Five pints, two bottles and he was jelly.

Unfortunately much crime went unfought that night.