My genius is misunderstood

You know when you're a small bit tipsy and you're holding the Lucy Special, three vodkas and a tonic in a pint glass? And you think taking your shoes off is totally acceptable behaviour for when you're sitting on a table in your local disco? And you think it is THE MOST FUNNY THING EVER to take a picture of your mate taking a picture of you?? And not just normal-funny, but really-fucking-inspired-funny? And you keep thinking 'wow, I'm so post-modern. Or something. I wish I'd payed attention in college. This could be, well, art!' You know? You know?

You don't know, do you. Pah.

Put your sweet fingers a little closer to the keyboard, it's hard to read between your lines

Roisin and her twenty years

My good pal Rois turned twenty last Tuesday. Here she is displaying her usual camera shyness. Or, as she likes to call it, 'fuck off, I know about you and your shitty website, fuck away from the face, Aughney.' I didn't turn in at her party until nearly one but luckily it was only just getting started. Much hilarity and penguin bars was shared all the same, and Emma tried to shove the whole birthday cake in my face. My arch-rival, Mark, he of 'she is such a biiiiitch!' fame, told me of his plans to study musical theatre in L.A. And Claire lay down on the floor and started singing All That Jazz. And Laura sat on her tummy and tried to tickle her till she farted. You missed out, my friends.

Claire and Laurs develop the little known 'tits and teeth' segment of Whigfield's Saturday Night

I've tapped out, ok?

I don't know if you know this, but I don't have much time for the sporting events of the world. Not that I don't know anything about them, mind you, but because I couldn't care less. Well, I could care less, I suppose, but it would take up more time and effort than I care to expend. Anyway, matches afford great opportunities to go to pubs, so I can't really complain. Sports control the ignorant masses, doncha know, and keep them busy so they can't plan a social uprising. So while you lot are off watching men and their various shaped balls, I am off planning social unrest. That and painting my toenails.

Case in point: Today is a Sunday, and in my book that means layabout-and-read-the-papers-and-think-about-what-colour-to-paint-my-nails-day. In between planning the revolution, obviously. To my mother and aunt Mercy, who is visiting, Sunday means lets-all-go-for-a-drive-and-look-at-old-churches-day. A dispute ensued, and the upshot of it is that the mother can not use 'I brought you into this fucking world' as an excuse to make me go look at old churches with her or I will laugh in her face. Since they left they have been ringing and texting me every half hour to check on the score in Wimbledon. Like the dutiful daughter and niece that I am, I have been stumping semi-naked from my sunbathing out the back to stare dumbly at the telly. 'The Swiss lad is winning. Two games to one.'

'Two GAMES?! What?!', they shrieked back.
'Listen, I can't tell the difference, games, sets thingys. Go away.'
'Wait! Check the GAA results!'
'No! Hell to the no. I have drawn a line in the sand, right when it comes to checking teletext for GAA results and I'm damned if I'll cross it. Go away.'

And that is where we stand today, my friends. No, that's not a terribly interesting or amusing story but hell, it's a Sunday. Even God rested on a Sunday.

The Cocoon

The silhouette for autumn 06, so I'm told. For anyone who ever said 'fuck, you know what this dress needs? Pockets, dude. Big, fuck-off pockets. Yup.'

See here and here if you don't believe me.

A Writer

'Interesting, but futile,' said his diary,
Where day by day his movements were recorded
And nothing but his loves received inquiry;
He knew, of course, no actions were rewarded,
There were no prizes: though the eye could see
Wide beauty in a motion or a pause,
It need expect no lasting salary
Beyond the bowels' momentary applause.

He lived for years and never was surprised:
A member of his foolish, lying race
Explained away their vices: realised
It was a gift that he possessed alone:
To look the world directly in the face;
The face he did not see to be his own.

Philip Larkin, Collected Poems (1988: Faber&Faber, London)

Two shattered women and a bright-eyed child have just sat down at the window table in the cafe. Both women hope to talk, for their minds to meet; at the same time they are aware that the offs against this happening are about fifty to one. Still they have decided to back that dark horse Intimacy, somewhere out there muffledly galloping. [...] After all, it's important to put up a decent apologia for your life; well, it is to other people, mostly; to come up with a convincing defence, to argue your corner. It's nothing but healthy, the way the sanguine mind does leap around looking for the advantages of any new shift in situation. And if you can't, or won't, you will be shunned. You will appear to be a whiner or a malcontent.

Cafe Society, Helen Simpson, Hey Yeah Right Get a Life (2001: Vintage, London)

Something Happened

This weekend in the normally peaceful and just village of Tramore, a vile and despicable tirade against humanity was waged. The town was gearing up for the annual Trafest, an event so widely anticipated in the South East it introduces many a quiver into the young music-loving breast. This years lined up featured such show-stoppers as ambisexual belter Jack L, strange, mystic trad act Kila and loads of other people Lucy has never heard of. As vibrant young maiden Lucy took her place near the bar of Connollys, Main St, on Friday evening to witness the musical stylings of her good mate Dave Clark, she glanced around her in obvious distress. 'Dude' she hissed to her friend, 'I know I look smoking hot tonight and all, but why is everyone in the whole bar staring at me? Have I loo paper on my heel? Are my girls showing? What?'

Her pal, the lovely Marie, opened both her eyes wide and pursing her lips, glanced up at the wall. Where Lucy spied the Germany v Argentina match playing itself out on a plasma screen above her head. 'I knew that. Fuck you, man,' Lucy grumbled and made her way to the bar for another drink.

Upon arrival she was thrown into a quandary. She really wanted a vodka tonic (for a change) but here she was at a festival (kinda) watching football (kinda). Shouldn't she be wearing wellies and drinking warm larger from a beaker? It just felt wrong, hearing the clink of ice-cubes. Dirty, even. So she plumped for a nice pint of Heineken. 'It's Dutch, and that is closer to Germany than I am right now. Also you get more of it', she reasoned in her imminently sane and balanced manner. But nay! Nary a Heineken to be had! 'Pumps out', snarled the teenaged barman. 'I think'.

The night continued on without obvious concern for the Heineken situation. Lucy, however was concerned when she and her good bud Laura rushed in to see Kila in O'Sheas on Strand St and went up to order tequilas ('Tequila at Kila! So inspired!') and beers. 'No Heineken' they were told and the ladies had to settle for the lowly Budweiser. 'Something's rotten in the state of Tramore, Laurs' muttered Lucy. Laura noticed not her friend's downright amazing use of literary references and instead eyed up the crumblies on the stage. 'Fear draoicht!' she whispered, starstruck. 'Quite.' Lucy said quietly.

Back up the street to the Vic and Lucy falls in the door of the crowded bar with a thirsty 'Heineken, please'.
'Hell no!' said the chirpy barmaid. 'But you can have a longneck of it!'

By now our heroine was positively growling. 'A longneck' she ground out 'is the same damned price and is volumetrically less'.
'Volumetrically? Is that a word?'
'Silence, bar wench! I have an English degree. I know this shit. Look the other way as I drain your drip-trays for...em, analysis.'

The next afternoon saw our sleuth hot on the case in Murphs, pointedly not watching England V Portugal. She spied a member of Murph's inner sanctum, Tracy, separated from the herd. 'Trace, me auld mucker, come 'ere and tell me stuff. Mainly, has Tramore's Heineken delivery been stopped at the border by the cops?'

'Oh, Lucy,' she said with a sigh, 'you dummy. Look at your Trafest listings.'
Lucy dutifully took the folded-up flyer from her pocket and frowned at it. Pausing only to smile at where she had taken a pen and written in 'Lucy Aughney & friends' over the listing in the Main Stage box she glanced dumbly back at Tracy. 'What? I don't get it.'

'There.' Tracy stabbed the top corner. 'What does that say?'
'Em, Guinness?'
'Exactly.'
'Which means...what, exactly?'
'They sponsor it, Luce. Which means only Guinness and Guinness owned largers on draft in Tramore for the weekend.'
'That is a travesty!'
'Dem's the breaks, my friend.'

And there you have it, one woman's quest for truth in an unjust, warped world. Because of commerce and big business, the people of Tramore were chained like oxen to the wheel of...Guinness. I hope, friends, when you read this, you will join me in raising a glass of Heineken to that devoted servant of honesty, integrity and grit, Miss Lucy Aughney.

Muy bonita

Rois, Moi, Jen, Annie, Sarah upon the occasion of Jenny's nineteenth birthday, 29/06/06

There! Look at us all! Aren't we just gorgeous? Roisin is the one hiding. She is a fearsome criminal who can not be seen on camera because of her fugitive status. And before you ask, yes, all the drinks are mine. It was fantastico. When I say 'fantastico' I kid myself that I can speak Spanish. I can you know. I can say 'I have a sister, she is blonde, I work in a book shop, I play tennis.' I learned all the important stuff you see. I kid myself though. I never play tennis. Fucking rackets way too heavy. I'd play badminton if you asked but I'd start laughing as soon as you said 'shuttlecock' and we'd never recover.