Sunday, January 14, 2007

The Angelus

The angelus

Do you know, I get a great kick out of the Angelus. Like repeats of Dad’s Army or Fawlty Towers, every time I watch it, I see something new and get a new laugh. By now you will have figured out that I mean of course the Angelus on RTE television – played on our plasma screens every day at 1800hrs, or six o’clock in the evening as most people I know say, just before the news and the weather. As distinct from the Angelus in an abstract, conceptual sense.

I have it on good authority that there is some sort of Media Skills Unit in Maynooth that looks after how religion is presented to us mere mortals on Irish television. It awards Masters’ to mumbling Monsignors in media matters, archdiplomas to archdeacons, and mere certificates to mere curates. It handed a lot of free ammunition to Dermot Morgan in his time, and lead to the creation of ‘Father Trendy’. And it seems, it has given us the Angelus. Isn’t it amazing how everything with no name in Ireland ends up being called a unit? Kitchen units, refrigeration units, kidney units and all kinds of units. There should be a units unit in Maynooth to keep track of them all. Anyway, back to the Angelus.

There’s a black fella who stops arranging flowers when he hears the first bong. He sets the scene for the whole act that follows. We are subliminally being fed a line that all black fellas are harmless flower arrangers, who are liable to become hypnotically entranced at any sort of repetitive bongs, which presumably remind them of the bongos of home. Nothing to be afraid of there. If you’re ever followed down a dark lane by a black fella, just stand still and say ‘BONG” and he’ll revert to being a flower arranger. As long as you go ‘Bong’ he won’t go ‘Bonk!’, basically. Presumably the fella who had his head cut off by his quare one in Dublin lately was watching the angelus and didn’t notice what was happening until he found himself buried in a flowerbed. Using ‘found himself ‘ very loosely there, because ‘himself’ turned up but the cranium is still out there someplace. Back again to the Angelus.

Next, there’s a Chinese girl, who also lets up on what she’s doing. I need hardly mention how enthusiastically the Irish have embraced the Chinese since we first met them. For God’s sake, there’s even a takeaway in Askeaton now, the last place God made before Ballyhahill and Carrigkerry. I think the reason we like them and the food they sell us a Chinese is because there’s probably little fear of them invading us. For a start, they’re a long way away, but principally the reason China doesn’t invade Ireland is that they wouldn’t all fit, and some of them would have to turn around and fuck off home again and it’s a very long way. The shaggin’ island is too small. Another good reason not to re-unite it – bejaysus, wasn’t Dev the cute hoor all along? Anyway, the Chinese girl cocks her head to one side at the second bong. Now it’s a well-known fact that the Chinese are notoriously inscrutable, so we’re kind of left sort of wondering what’s going on in her noodle at this critical juncture. Wonder no more. I rang her up and asked her, and she said ‘I was merely wondering was that a bong or a Wong?’. ‘Is that right?’, says I. ‘No’, she says, ‘not Light, Wong’. ‘So you’re Wong’, says I. ‘Light, Wong.’ Says she. And that settled that problem.

The next hoor had me baffled for quite a while. He’s the geeky-lookin’ dude playing the tin whistle who stops to say the angelus. Now, in my mis-spent youth, I passed many a fine week in McGann’s and Gussie O’Connor’s in Doolin, where they certainly know the correct protocols for traditional music. Nothing short of a large bullet to the back of the head would stop a proper Irishman playing his tin whistle once he started. There are fellas in Doolin who have grown long beards and fathered numerous children without as much as dropping a grace note in the Bucks of Oranmore, followed by Miss McCloud’s, the Maid Behind The Bar and the Blackbird. Mighty men entirely, and all thanks to the Russells, God rest them. So who is this hoor who stops playing to listen to the Angelus? He must be some sort of an Eastern European for sure. No Irishman, but assimilating himself into the culture. When in Rome, and all that. Very subtle, and top marks to Maynooth on that one. Someone should tell him about the exception to when in Rome. When in Ireland, never stop playing your tinwhistle for anything except to take on or discharge liquid cargos.

Finally though, we get to the best bit of the Angelus. Here’s this girlie, sitting at an angle of forty-five degrees on the edge of her fireside chair, in front of a tiled fire-place that silently screams ‘1968 Council House’ at you, as fast at you could say bale of briquettes. She has blonde hair and black eyebrows. Why is she sitting at that peculiar angle? There’s only one explanation – she must have piles. Why has she got golden hair and black eyebrows? To tell us something about her nationality. So, what race of people wear the colours of a tiger but have a shite health system for people living in Council houses? Y’all know the answer to that one.

She’s the embodiment of the Celtic Tiger. Take a bow, Maynooth. Black, gold and skint with a sore arse – you couldn’t have said it better in ten thousand words.

1 Comments:

Blogger C'est La Craic said...

Excellent post. Halarious!

10:56 PM  

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