Some years ago I had a friend called Andy. He was an odd chap. Rather too curious about the lives of other people and partial to wrapping bits of his body in clingfilm for days at a time until the dampness caused a strange fungal mould which he would then scrape off and use in his cooking.
He was determined to live life differently and in the 80s became one of the very first Irish people to move to Luxembourg before it became one of the most popular emigration destinations. He settled in the hilariously named town of Differdange which many of you will recognise as the name of an STD picked up in various parts of South-East Asia.
While there he was focussed on living life as the Luxembourgers did and this involved taking part in their customs and traditions instead of forcing his own on a population not yet ready for that kind of change. So he found work in factory which manufactured cassette tape covers and the little metal bits that hold the rubber on at the top of a pencil.
He took part in the local community activities and fairs, the old Luxembourgian traditions bringing joy into his life. For example, on the last Thursday of every month they would form teams to scour the woods for a red squirrel and the first one to paint the entire tail of the animal with white emulsion would win a boiled pheasant, a traditional delicacy of the area.
And at Easter time parents would hide brightly coloured eggs on cliff faces for their children to find and Andy was very much involved in the clean-up and splinting side of things.
However, after some time he grew a bit homesick. He dreamt of his friends back in Dublin and longed to hear an Irish voice again. There was an Irish bar in the town but it was run by a crotchety Iranian and populated entirely with disaffected Walloons. He heard rumours that there was another Irishman in the town but he had never seen him.
One night, after drinking rather too much gooseberry ale, he was walking home through the narrow streets when he saw something out of the corner of his eye. A green shirt. It looked like an Irish football shirt. He thought he saw the name ‘Grimes’ on the back of it and he knew no Luxembourger would have that word on the back of a shirt for in the local dialect it meant ‘To insert a brush handle in one’s anus’, a custom much frowned upon since World War II (although underground Grimseing clubs could be found if one looked hard enough).
The green shirted man appeared to be pushing a wagon of some kind. Andy staggered through the streets hoping to catch up with him but took a wrong turn and ended up some hours later in Northern France. He returned home and was filled with a desire to find this person. He spoke to colleagues at work but as they were all abstemious types who did not go out in the evenings they were unable to help him.
Night after night he went out and soon, speaking to people in various bars in the town, he had information that the person he was looking for sold Mexican snacks from a portable transportation device, the likes of which had never been seen in the country before. There were all kinds of rumours about this mythical man. That he was a war criminal, that he had a cloven foot and a hand which more closely resembled a paw than anything human, that he had been a founder member of Kid Creole and the Coconuts and even that he was the heir to the throne of ‘Oesling’, the nothern region of the country where it was perfectly legal for a man to marry up to five times as long as at least two of the women were his first cousins.
Yet nobody could tell him if the proprietor of this mobile food contraption was Irish.
He scoured the streets, night after night, but had no luck in finding him. Andy was upset, not only because he wanted to find another Irishman but because he would, from time to time, get the faint odour of tacos or burritos or crispy tortilla chips. He had practically given up hope when one night he turned the corner and there, right before him, was a ruddy faced, ginger haired man in an Ireland shirt selling his Tex-Mex wares.
“My God”, said Andy. “I thought for a time you were merely a figment of my imagination”.
“Not at all”, said the man. “Sure amn’t I here in front of ye and if I wasn’t in front of ye where would I be?”
“And you are Irish! Oh heavenly joy”.
“Aye, I’m as Irish as Flann O’Brien getting the length off James Joyce”.
“I can’t believe this. It’s so great to have another Irisman to talk to at last. This country would leave a longing in you, for sure”.
“That it would. Like Brendan Behan going ten minutes without a pint or calling Samuel Beckett a cunt”
“Well, I’m so pleased to meet you. My name is Andy. And you?”
“Oh Andy”, said the man handing him a complimentary bag of snacks, “I’m Nacho Paddy”
Jesus, took me several readings before I linked the Oh, Andy bit to the last bit.
Then it clicked.
Fuckin’ hell, you’ve a grand life, all the same.
I don’t get it.
And I’m not fucking reading it again
That’s rather tenuous to say the least.
I’ve been sitting here for 10 minutes trying to get that one.
Oh God. There’s even the mention of kid creole in the post. you cunt Twenty.
Think, Kid Creole and the Coconuts
Think, Kid Creole and the Coconuts
Who?
Is this some reference to some sort of obscure eighties song?
Gay.
Ah, indeed it is.
I’ll just explain it and ruin the mystery of the post here.
In 1982 Kid Creole and the Coconuts sang a song called “”Annie, I’m Not Your Daddy” which was a #2 hit in the UK and a #45 hit Germany.
Obviously.
fuck sake
Jeesus that was convoluted to say the least. Still funny an’ all ‘n anyways
You’re a wonderful thing, Twenty-y,
Aye, aye, aye.
:-)
I bumped into him the night he was selling some southern fried racing birds. Apparently he had lifted them off the transporter that very afternoon. It made me chuckle. I said to him ‘You stole pigeon? ha ha ha ha!’
Oh man, that is obscure!
Seems a bit dodgy to me.
Oh man, that is obscure!
*rubs eyes, checks again*
“Oh Andy, I’m Nacho Paddy”
Feck me!
Touché
Jesus. That was a tough one. Think the substitution of the P in paddy for the D in daddy made it a lot tougher.
Fuckin’ brilliant !
I have a vision in my head now of a big fat man in an interesting position with a young slim blond woman. He keeps on repeating:
Who’s your Nacho Paddy, huh? Who’s your Paddy?
Jesus Christ in a chicken basket.
one surpasses oneself once again,fucking A, but i still had that puerto rican cunt and his coconuts.
meant to say i still HATE that fucker kid creole
“Flann O’Brien getting the length off James Joyce.”
That’s one for the ages, Twenty.
Classic.
My father tells these kinds of stories. Leads us to believe we’re about to hear something profound and then hits us with a punchline so I should have known better. Still, a fun tale.
Anyone named for a fruit and cream topped sponge cake is bound to be a tad unconventional, but Joyce? Surely not..
Beautifully put though Twenty, beautifully put.
Hahaha (sorry,no t’internet yesterday,but i got it first time! Hurrah!)
These are so fucking terrible, yet beautiful in a macabre way. Like a middle-class, and deeply troubled businessman finding himself finally in the field of horrendous rape.
I like that.
“Like a middle-class, and deeply troubled businessman finding himself finally in the field of horrendous rape.”
Would said deeply troubled middle class business man be the one giving or receiving the rape? Changes everything
peadar Says:
July 28th, 2009 at 10:21 am
fuck sake
More of an Amaretto man yourself is it, Peadar?
Now all we need is August Darnell and Cory Daye to show up.