Scared Chimps, A Frightened Vulture And Flying Tools

More now on my career as a path digger on the Cave Hill here in Belfast. One of my first jobs - well it was more of a place for me to attend and pass the time of day - was to help dig a pathway from the north end of Cave Hill to the southern end. Government sponsored relief schemes were set up at the height of the troubles here in the north of Ireland to get the unemployed, underemployed and the unemployable off the streets to keep them from turning to other activities such as high jacking buses and burning them, participating in riots or joining one of the multitude of paramilitary groups which had sprung up overnight. Though after seeing some of the characters when I first became a fully trained path cutter, I don’t think even the paramilitaries would have given them a second thought. But these lads soon departed and we were left with nothing but the best.
This was in 1972 and most of our squad were Catholics and we would assemble in old Bellevue Zoo situated at the north end of the hill. We had two little wooden huts which we used as our HQ. One hut contained our precision tools: sledge hammers, picks, hammers, wheel barrows, 5ft long bars for dislodging stubborn rocks etc. The other hut was our supervisor’s office where he kept his time sheets and newspaper. It was also where Roy the store man, tea maker and champion cross word puzzle solver smoked his pipe.
One winter’s morning I was making my way to the site with the rest of our crew on our regular bus, it was so regular we were always ten or fifteen minutes late reporting in for work. Getting off the bus and entering the zoo we were greeted by the site of our tool hut in splinters and Roy sitting on the step of the other hut with his head in his hands.

He stood up as we approached him and he told us that as he opened the door to the office a bomb exploded in the tool hut next door sending splinters of wood and the afore mentioned tools soaring up the sloping hill of the zoo. The tools became instant shrapnel.
As I looked around the place there were pick heads, twisted spade and shovel heads and various other projectiles imbedded in grassy knolls, on the cages of the animals and in the mesh of an aviary which housed some class of a vulture. It was standing on a tree branch and quivering and shaking from shock and I could hear the screeches of the apes and monkeys.
Undeterred Enterprise Ulster our employers where commited to complete that path come hell our high water because if the project was called off they would be out of work and back on the dole along with us. But they got to keep their little desk jobs because we were relocated from the zoo up into the woods of the sloping Cave Hill. We found a little thicket, gathered wood, built a fire to boil tea and to keep us warm. And that was our location for the next few months. Working and resting outdoors much like our ancestors did during the Famine when they worked on relief schemes digging roads to nowhere.

Apart from the quivering vulture, no other animals were injured during the recalling of this event.

Here, Blow Into This

Taking part in a TV commercial to promote your company or its products sounds exciting and ego inflating. Who wouldn’t take advantage of this kind of opportunity? Sure, you would be the envy of all your friends and the talk of the district. People in your local pub would come up to you, slap you on the back and shove a drink into your hand. Then what?

Do you get blottered and stagger to your car and swerve and manoeuvre your way home? Well you and I probably wouldn’t but that is exactly what thirty year old policewoman Geraldine Donnolly of the PSNI was doing when she was involved in a collision with another car and breathalysed. She had 140mg of alcohol in 100ml of blood. The legal limit is 80mg.
To add insult to injury it has since emerged that she had taken part in a TV commercial called “You’ll Get Smashed If You Drive on Drugs” highlighting the dangers of driving while under the influence. The advertisement campaign is due to air in the weeks leading up to Christmas and she also did the voice over for the piece.
Now she and her voice have been edited out of the commercial at a cost of £9,000.
Last year, 2006 was the worst ever for the PSNI with no fewer than twenty two officers being convicted of the same offence. And this is in a time of relative peace. I shudder to think of the number of RUC officers at the height of the troubles who found themselves in similar circumstances and I also think on the numbers who may have shown up for duty with the whiff of whiskey on their breath and a hip flask in their pockets.

The Irish Wake

The traditional Irish wake is still alive and kicking -pun intended- but I must state here and now that it has been dramatically watered down. The three night home vigil is still in vogue but gone are the times when a wake was an occasion of seeing off a loved one in the form of a three day party with wine -sorry - Guinness and song.
As I was growing up in Belfast I was obliged to attend many a wake of dead relatives and my most vivid memory is of seeing the deceased laid out in a sombre brown shroud, hands folded and secured with a pair of rosary beads for the trip to the Afterlife. My second most vivid memory is that of copious amounts of drink in the form of alcohol readily available for all and sundry, but mostly it was the men who took advantage of these offerings. The women sat in or stood around the kitchen while the poor misunderstood men folk commandeered the living room where the deceased rested and would proceed to drink Guinness or beer and whiskey and tell one and other stories of the newly departed. Alcohol and Irish wakes went hand in hand and woe be the family who didn’t provide the refreshments on such sad occasions. They would be the talk of the district as disappointed mourners made hasty exits and headed straight home for an early night or sauntered into the nearest pub. In fact I got my first taste of alcohol at my grandfather’s wake when, at the age of five or six I was offered a sip of the black stuff from a tipsy uncle. The room erupted into laughter at the expression on my face.
At my own father’s farewell there were crates of the black stuff in our hallway and one of his workmates planted himself on a stool beside the stuff for all three nights of the wake. There were dark mutterings about his selfishness from my family and myself but no-one chastised him, meanwhile visitors were getting merrier in the living room and more than one mourner left in the wee hours of the morning with a song on his lips.
But those days are gone.
The three day home vigil is now a more dignified affair in that the drinking has to wait until after the funeral when mourners are invited, at the graveside to attend a function at a local pub or club. These arrangements are much more suitable for all involved as women are no longer confined to the kitchen drinking tea and eating sandwiches while gossiping and everyone can let their hair down and singing is not discouraged.

And no-one gets to annex a three day supply of Guinness by sitting on top of the crates.

Pirates Of The Mundane

Police in Belfast have rescued a six foot high fibreglass pirate that went missing from a business somewhere in the city. The wayward seafarer was spotted in the middle of a roundabout in Andersonstown, west Belfast yesterday . The Johnny Depp look-alike (almost) was taken into custody and is suffering the indignity of spending time in the cells of a nearby police station until the owner can be located.

Pirate: “Ye ever been to sea Billy?
Billy “ No cap’n but I been blown ashore!”

Butt It's An Airport

The Civil Aviation Authority has closed City of Derry Airport over safety concerns. As well as poor drainage on the runway and in the apron areas of the tarmac the CAA are worried about the lack of bird control at the airport and are concerned about bird/engine collisions. They have recommended that someone be given a land rover to drive around the airport omitting signals to repel them. Stating the obvious a CAA spokesman said “Birds can get stuck in the engines”. No kidding Sherlock. Other worries are trees and lamposts.
Ryanair has cancelled all its flights at the airport but British Airways have scheduled their flights to operate from Belfast International Airport and have told passengers to book into Derry Airport as usual and they will then be bussed the seventy or eighty miles to Belfast.
Meanwhile at Belfast International there is a crisis of a different sort. Since the No Smoking Ban came into effect passengers are having a last desperate puff outside the terminal and discarding their cigarette butts on the ground despite the fact that there are four designated smoking areas inside the airport. Which reminds of one time before the smoking ban was introduced and I was in the departure area seeing someone off. A female member of the cleaning staff was smoking as she walked along and the cigarette fell out her mouth. She casually picked the fag up off the floor, popped it back in her mouth and continued smoking!

Looking Down On You.

A Dye Job.

A man with a cash deposit box was approached by two glue sniffing Belfast men at a Larne retail park and after threatening the victim with an iron bar they made off with the box, hopped into their car and made a speedy getaway in the Ballymena direction. Within minutes they were leaving a trail of red smoke as they speed up the road. Other motorists could see the pair engulfed in a chemical haze. No they hadn’t come up with a new class of glue to snort but instead one of the desperadoes had busted open the cash box and the car was immediately swamped with red dye.

The undoubting duo pulled into the nearest filling station to buy a pack of wipes to spruce up before their anticipated spending spree. Meanwhile they were being captured forever on the station’s security camera. By the time they reached Broughshane the fugitives realised the money was ruined by this red stuff and the box with it’s contents was dumped into the Braid river.

At Antirm Court sentencing was adjourned until next week.

High Drama At Stormont

Stormont has only opened for business and a mysterious occurrence has put the fear of God into at least one junior minister at the newly formed assembly. Speaker of the house William Hay was thoroughly interrogated by Ian Paisley junior about an alleged incident which seemingly happened on “March 12th at 10am when apparently there was an effort to set fire to the boiler room of this house”?
But before Mr. Speaker could clear his throat to respond Ian junior in a state of high drama continued “Could he also bring forward any other reports of incidents that have appeared to have breached security including an attempt to destroy one of the washrooms in this house?” At last, Mr. Speaker finally spoke but did so cryptically, only adding to the drama “As members will appreciate there is an ongoing police investigation and it limits me from saying more than I need to”.

Switch to sound track from a who-done-it movie ……….who tried to broil the boiler…….who carried out the experiment to burn down the washroom............will the services of Belfast Firefighters be needed in the coming days?

Stay tuned for further developments.

Hidden Treasure.

So you are about to go out for a drive with your girlfriend in her flashy car one evening and, well, you decide to take along your stash of cocaine for the trip. So where do you secrete this precious cache: in the glove compartment, in the boot/trunk or shove it under your seat?
The answer to all of the above is no. You shove it down the front of your jeans.
That's what a guy did recently in Belfast a High Court judge was told. Police stopped the car and noticed a "large package" between his thighs. Knowing the end was nigh our Belfast rouge retrieved the treasure and flung it at the feet of the cops, had a go at them then made a run for it. Needless to say he was arrested and the judge, refusing him compassionate leave to attend a family occassion said "I hope the child has a very happy day on Saturday but her mum's partner will not be attending".
Some judges' just don't have a sense of humour or an ounce of charity in them.

He Is Here, There And Everywhere.

A discussion overheard by myself as I entered my flat/apartment building in the Newlodge area of Belfast a few days ago. Three young boys were passing by and talking, actually it was a one sided conversation. The kids were aged around eight or nine. One of the boys was animated and excited as he related to his friends what could only have been a Damascus Moment for him after apparently being involved in a road traffic accident. "See God.... God is everywhere, he's here right nigh beside me and you" and pointing to his other friend reassured him also, "he's beside you too".
And to add authority to his sudden devotion to God he declared, "He even knew when I going to get knocked down"!

Russian Boats And Bananas

The very first job I had after leaving school was working at Belfast docks unloading cargo from the holds of ships. I was known as a casual docker because I could only be given work if the port was really busy and all the union men were allocated jobs first then we temps were allowed to work alongside the union dockers - that would be a Longshoreman to you Americans.
Ships of course came in from all over the world. We worked on ships from Russia brining in timber, rubber and tea chests from India, trinkets from China, booze from Dublin (believe it or not), more timber from Sweden, engine parts from parts unknown because some ships entered port without flying their national flag or even a flag of convenience.

Before the work began unloading a newly arrived ship, the union men and us casuals had to congregate in a giant shed. Along the length of one wall was a raised concrete walkway, along which stood the foremen who were called Gangers. Each ganger was allocated a ship to unload and it was here in this shed that they each picked their crew. They would space themselves along the length of the walkway looking down on the men hungry for work and they would call out “Russian Timber”, "China Boat", "Rubber Boat” and the men would decide which cargo they preferred to work on and lined up at the feet of the ship’s Ganger. As each man walked forward he was handed a little plastic disk, chits they were called and off he went to his assigned ship.
One really busy week at the port there was a lot of work available and word got around Belfast and hundreds of casuals showed up and the Gangers were inundated with pleas for a chit and men were straining and reaching over one and other trying to grab a chit. Luckily I was given one by a Ganger who took a liking to me, probably because I was so young and scrawny. Getting fed up and probably feeling guilty about deciding which men were going to get work that day, he flung his last handful of chits into the air and men went scrambling after the flying discs. Once the plastic circlets hit the floor pandemonium broke out with men degrading themselves by scrambling after them individually or forming what resembled a rugby scrum. This was 1970 when the rest of the western world were receiving their cargo in containers. Disgraceful.

One day I was given a docker’s hook and put to work on a timber boat from Russia. It was January and the exposed lumber was caked in Russian ice and a few men were sent to work to pry the ice off the wood using crow bars and levers. One of them was a friend of mine called Billy Flynn and as he made his way across the slippery top surface and he was told to be careful by the Ganger. Getting to the side of the secured lumber Billy found himself standing high above the side of the ship with dark, cold water beneath him. He was a big guy and he promptly dug the flat end of his crow bar into the ice, put his weight into it and levered the ice away and just as promptly went flying backwards head over heels. It seemed like forever before I heard the splash of Billy smacking into the water. There were yells straight out of a Pirate Movie, “Man over board”. He was quickly thrown a line and hauled to the dockside and was manhandled up onto dry land. He was taken into the ship’s interior and from there sent home for the day. I can’t remember if he was payed for the day or not.
There were quite a few characters working on the docks and it seemed that everybody had a nickname. If you weren’t given a nickname, you felt that you were not one of the boys. Some guys earned their moniker by chance, a mistake while working, or preferring to accept work on certain cargo ships, like Rubber Head for example.
One old hand earned his permanent title one day as he was driving out of the docks. A customs inspector or bunky as they were known to us was doing spot checks on vehicles in order to recover goods that were mysteriously disappearing once ships hit port. “What’s your name sir?” asked the bunky. “Reilly” replied the docker . “Can I see in your boot?”.
Getting out of the car Reilly opened the trunk of his car and there in the boot compartment was a box of bananas.
Forever more he was known as Banana Reilly and the title was handed down to his son when he joined the ranks of the Dockers.
Years before this, I encountered Banana senior while I was was walking my little black mongrel of a dog and he asked me “Is that your dog”? Proudly I answered "Yes,Banana" quickly he quipped back “Aye…it looks like you”.

Time In A Cage.

I wrote in an earlier post about the time I worked for Enterprise Ulster, a work scheme designed to keep young fellas like me off the streets at the height of the troubles here in Belfast in the early 70's. One location I worked on was Cave Hill, a sloping mount overlooking north Belfast. Our project was to dig a path across the hill from the old Bellevue Zoo location to Belfast Castle.
Being a relief scheme, this working environment had a casual feel to it. Well that’s how we labourers looked upon the work. We had two little wooden huts: one to use as a lunch room, and the other to store tools in. For some reason our small HQ was moved into the grounds of the zoo itself. Looking back on it now I can see this was done for security reasons, to give us an enhanced feeling of protection from marauding terrorists: This didn’t prove to be the case but that is a story for another day.
Being inside the zoo proper gave us ample opportunities to gape at the animals during our lunch and tea breaks and all times in between. I must point out this was before I developed my opposition to the entire concept of imprisoning animals for voyeuristic humans to stare at. (blah, Blah, Blah).
But anyway, if I remember correctly the monkeys and apes were located at the top of the zoo’s sloping grounds. One particular ape was imprisoned in a tiny cage, far too small for this wild but seemingly benign primate and one could easily reach over a small concrete barrier and hand it food which it would gently take from your hand and eat while looking at you with what resembled a look of gratitude in his eyes.

One of my co-workers, Paddy was particularly fond of animals in general and in this creature in particular and he would feed it with his leftover lunch and maybe the odd piece of fruit.
Paddy carried around with him an old antique watch and chain which he would swing enticingly before the ape’s eyes and the poor captive seemed mesmerised by the shiny object. One morning Paddy, Roy our store man/tea maker, and myself were at the cage and Paddy, against our advice decided he would give the primate his cherished watch, chain and all, convinced that after a close up inspection of the heirloom it would be handed back to him in one piece and still shiny.
After perfunctory inspections which included a few attempts to eat the watch the ape began tossing the time piece by the chain like a priest swinging a censer of incense at his congregation at Mass. Then he proceeded to dismantle the watch by prising the watch open and taking out the delicate Swiss workings and dropping them on the floor.


By this stage Paddy was animated and bordering on the furious and began yelling at the bewildered beast which began mimicking him and quickly became hopping mad and started flinging the watch pieces out of the cage at us. Almost in tears Paddy began picking up the pieces, looked at them and tossed them back into the cage then began laughing at the antics of the ape and probably at his own misguided judgement to entertain a primate with his family’s heritage.


But Paddy continued to feed the animal with his leftover lunches and fruit.

I Used To Be Indecisive............

........................but now I'm not so sure.

Don't Have a Stroke Belfast.

Over fifties having sex? Huh? In the north of Ireland of all places? The British Heart Foundation (BHF) is currently running an advertising campaign with a series of “light hearted” billboard posters that urge the over fifties to “get active and stay healthy”. Among the usual, gardening and washing the car activities is a plea for people in this age group to have more sex. The billboard shows a naked man giving his wife a cuddle on a beach.
Now, folk in Belfast and beyond have never been known to jump the gun but a few have been firing off prematurely and their target is the local Chest Heart and Stroke charity (CHS) who have been inundated with complaints about the “explicit nature” of the sex related ad. People are assuming the CHS are responsible for this “in your face pornography” as one complainant described it.
Now Andrew Dougal director of Chest Heart and Stroke has asked the BHF to remove the posters saying “the nudity image belongs to a shock school of health promotion”.
Betty McBride, director of BHF policy and communications, said the charity decided to take a “novel approach” to target the over-50 age group.
I wonder if she will be handing out some free novelties like viagra for example? I wouldn’t volunteer to get naked and cuddle/shiver on an Irish beach but the viagra would come in useful. It would stop me from rolling out of bed for one thing.

Barack Obama's Irish Roots.

While much has been written about Barack Obama’s Kenyan origins, his European ancestry has been largely ignored by the American media and by both the professional genealogists and the recent converts to the world of online sources and dusty annals. Now records have been unearthed at the home of an elderly parishioner who died recently in Ireland.
The files have been sourced by a Church of Ireland rector and confirms that Mr. Obama descends from Moneygall, Co. Offaly. The tiny village holds a few shops, a Catholic church, a GAA pitch and no doubt all of the above are out numbered by the obligatory bundle of pubs. The only other source of entertainment in Moneygall is watching the traffic on the N7 national road between Dublin and Limerick that has bisected the settlement.

Canon Stephen Neill from the nearby town of Cloughjordan delved into the senior Democrat’s past after a Salt Lake City, Utah genealogist told him about the possible connection. It is believed Obama’s third great grandfather, Fulmuth Kearney sailed from Ireland to New York, aged 19 in 1850. Newly discovered sources show that other members of the family emigrated in the 1790’s. Canon Neill said “There were summary documents going back to the early 1800’s and late 1700’s. The legwork wasn’t huge to be honest. I found a lot of these Kearney entries”.

Belfast Festival Of Fools And Other Folk.

The international Festival of Fools, an amalgamation of street performers from around the world arrived in Belfast last Thursday 3rd of May and runs until tomorrow Monday 7th. I had never heard of this motley crew before but they put on a good show in downtown Belfast on Saturday. I managed to take in a few of the performers. There was Nakupelle Presents: Monkey Bizness and he performed
outside Castle Court drawing large crowds many of whom hunkered down onto the sidewalk to watch the act in comfort. And it was nice to see people smiling and happy and relaxed. Even the weather was nice. Still unaware that this was only one part of the festival I found myself scratching my head as a troupe of eccentrics came walking along Donegall Place in single file.
A tall figure bringing up the rear and taking giant steps carried a placard which read “Misguided Tours” on a long stick held high above his lanky frame. Leading this group was a shorter man with a bullhorn who would stop randomly and point with his brolly at a building and proceed to give an impromptu and humorous rant about the insignfigance of the building and architecture and continue to suggest why it should never have been built in the first. Then he crossed the road with his disciples dutifully following in single file. A manhole cover caught his attention and he got his crew to form a circle around it and quickly shoppers and the curious joined in. According to this guy, there was a definite aura arising from the sewer beneath his feet and he walked over to the crowd and taking a young lady by the elbow marched her to the covered sewer to experience this phenomenon. Needless to say she was totally embarrassed and speechless. Then off they trotted down the nearest street.

Not a part of Festival of Fools I came across these two merry men and I got a snapshot of them as they discussed tactics for the rest of the day.
They staggered across the road, and cars and buses swerved to avoid a calamity and the sound horns where reaching for the heavens. While I was waiting for my girlfriend outside Primark one of these guys came running out of McDonalds at a stagger with his arms filled with Big Macs and French fries. Dozens of the fries came bouncing out of their little containers and spilled onto the road. I was distracted by this turn of events and didn’t get a pic of this guy’s epic escape as a road sweeper with an English accent stopped to tell me that the Linfield v Dungannon soccer came had gone into a penalty shoot out and he was listening to the game on a small radio which he clutched to his ear. Staring at the French fries lying in the middle of the road he declared “I’m not picking them up”. Then he went on to tell me about the time one of his workmates had stolen his brush and shovel. But he said he had plans to get even with the bastard. “he won’t know what hit him when I’m finished with him”. I turned back towards McDonalds and the second of the two guys came out of the fast food outlet looking a bit chastened as he was no doubt left
to pay for the meals his pal had absconded with. Then he stopped , probably trying to remember who he was with. The road sweeper didn’t need to worry about picking the McDonalds fries from the ground because within seconds a flock of seagulls swooped from nowhere and gobbled up the mess in no time.

A great Saturday afternoon was had by one and all.

Belfast Can’t Keep Pace With Dublin.

Ten years ago US psychologist Robert Levine, from California State University, suggested that walking speed provides a reliable measure of the pace of life in a city.
And now research commissioned by the British Council found the speed at which people walk had increased by 10 per cent in the last decade and that Belfast lags behind Dublin in the frenzied street races.
Dublin is the fifth fastest in the world - higher than London and New York and they have the evidence to prove it because teams with stopwatches timed 35 men and women as they walked or, would that be sprinted a 60foot stretch of pavement? Dublin romped home in the British Isles event with a whopping 11.03 seconds and Belfast volunteers took an embarrassing 12.98 seconds to finish the walk. Singapore topped the world table with an incredible 10.55 seconds.
But the good news is that Belfast outclassed Edinburgh who could only clock up 13.29 seconds and Cardiff were soundly defeated with a miserable 16.81 seconds, leaving one to wonder why the British Council even considered the Welsh capital for this specialist event.
But how were the walkers/runners handicapped? I have a sneaky suspicion that the Belfast male contestants were motivated by the lure of the pub at the end of the end of the 60ft finish line while female members were burdened with Primark bags and Argos catalogue books while trying to light up a cigarette at the same time and finding a moment for a wee bit of gossip.

Come on Belfast we can do better than that. We have to train up and get into shape for the next stopwatch event in ten years time. Guys come on, switch to light beers and you gals let's see more coordination while balancing all those heavy shopping bags and for goodness sake take off all that hideous orange stuff you cake your faces with, it only adds to the pounds and keep the talking to a minimum.

Source: Irish News.