My Christmas Tale

So that's the end of that then, eh??!!….

Christmas and New Year fly by in the blink of an eye, or at the very least a drunken squint.

So here is a brief (!) summary of the festive season and what we all got up to:

Leaving from a frosty Eindhoven airport on Thursday 22nd Dec. at 19:00, I returned home for the festive period, arriving into Dublin airport at around 20:00 local time, with a horse's head under my arm, as well as some presents for the family.

The horse's head had been given to me by a friend, but it was nowhere near as sinister as it may first sound, although considering the true nature of this gift, it might have been better for the macho ego in me had it been of the ilk made famous in the Godfather movie.

In fact, the horse's head (plus body and accessories) was a lovely lilac affair that would soon belong to the Barbie Doll of my friend’s niece. Apparently the shops in Ireland had run out of stock and I had to deliver one over from Belgium to ensure that the Christmas sparkle continued in this young girl's life.

As arranged, I met her brother, in Dublin airport arrivals hall and we made the 'transaction'. I was glad to see him – my friend had suggested that if her brother was delayed then I should just go to the airport information desk and leave it with them, apparently oblivious to the notion that a young man with a Northern Ireland accent leaving a package in Dublin airport might raise a few suspicions...

I also bumped into another friend, who had flown in from Charleroi airport, arriving more or less at the same time as me. This was different (and if I must say - a relief) compared with what we had first expected – she had originally thought that she and the three kids and all their presents were going on the Eindhoven flight with me. I was therefore spared the job of chaperone, father and luggage carrier rolled into one. How she managed is beyond me.

Having wished them all the best for Christmas and New Year, I set about finding my father, not normally a difficult task in Dublin airport. Thanks to a no smoking policy ANYWHERE in the building, there is a large congregation of lost souls to be found huddled outside the terminal building of which my father was sure to be amongst.

I sparked up myself and looked through the crowd of people for the friendly face.

He was nowhere to be seen.

The first pangs of fear started to take grip. Perhaps he'd forgotten and was already on his way up North. The last bus “Up North” was at 20:20. I checked my watch. My watch told me it was 20:20. I cursed and put my cigarette out and returned to the terminal building.

I wandered aimlessly for a couple of minutes searching the sea of faces for my father.

Thankfully, he found me and it was only when he was about 10 feet away and waving like an over-enthusiastic jack-in-the-box that I finally noticed him. Hearty embraces and patting of backs ensued and then we started the 2 and a quarter hour drive up home - there was no time to spare.

Every year, my brothers and our friends organise a meal, colourfully titled “The Spanker's Ball”. Nothing too fancy, it's in our local, and as well as the 3 course meal, there are ballots, prize-giving, speeches, followed by a 2-piece band attempting to play cover songs, a male stripper(!) and alcohol. Lots and lots of alcohol.

Resigned to missing the food, we certainly wanted to ensure that we were there in time for at least some of the booze.

About an hour into the journey I received a call from my mum. It was obvious that she had been already embracing in the Christmas Spirit.

"Is that you???"
"Yes mum, it is"
"Are you on this island?"
"Yes mum, I am"
"Ohhhhhhhhhh Loooooooooovvvvveely, my oldest and dearest is on his way home!!"
"Well, that's the thing - I'm going to go to the pub for a few drinks with Daddy and meet up with the brothers and the rest of the lads"

There was a silence. I feared the worst. Christmas as the eldest child of divorced parents can be a tricky thing. Somewhat of a political minefield even.

"That's ok - we'll come up to the pub as well!"

Certainly not the response I was expecting but I went with it. It was Christmas after all; the season to be jolly. Surely the whole family would get along ok?

As it turned out, we all got along swimmingly, all of us being united in our amazement at just how drunk by younger brother was. Worst I've seen him in a looooonng time. Daddy left around midnight because he had work in the morning. I then managed to lose my Mum and stepfather (not sure how that can be possible, in such a relatively small place such as our local). Then my youngest brother did a disappearing act as well, leaving one brother his girlfriend and myself. It had also been her Christmas party so she had been quite merry by the time she got into the pub but I think the thought of taking my brother home in the state he was in soon sobered her up.

I was all set for a few late drinks by way of a lock-in but thanks to my brother’s inability to sit up straight, never mind talk properly, the two of us decided to take him home in a taxi. After being told we'd have a 45 minute wait in a taxi, we were resigned to walking home, eventually getting him home sometime after 02:30.

I phoned mum to say that I was going to walk down from Daddy's but she sent a rather the worse-for-wear step-father up to collect me in the car. Not too sensible but it saved me a 20 minute walk in freezing conditions.

That night, the three of us made a huge dent in the house’s alcohol supply for the Christmas period. Talking and chatting until 07:00 in the morning, a sure sign that none of us are getting any more sensible with old age!

Friday lunch time and with the power bestowed upon me of an Ulster Fry-up, washed down with the elixir of life that is known as Lucozade, I took my mum's Nissan Micra and braved the Christmas shopping on the streets of Belfast. I didn't have to get everything but there was still enough on the to-do list to make me nervous enough.

Still, it was a lot milder back home than it had been in Belgium - the sun was shining, it was Christmas time and I was back in my home town. All was good in the world. I took in the scenes around me, pleased to be back amongst "my people" (I hate that use of phrase), getting a buzz when I heard all the Northern Ireland accents that surrounded me. I smiled at passers by and enjoyed the apologies from people that bumped into me; something that Belgians have long since forgotten to do.

I took time to go to some clothes shops that I like and I treated myself to a few items of clothing. Oh, how I'm good to myself when I'm Christmas shopping for others! I make no excuses for this - there is just something I like about the clothes back home compared with Belgium. Perhaps it's the less serious approach to fashion in the UK, or just the fact that colours do range beyond black and grey…

Unfortunately on the shopping-for-others front things weren't going so well. Queues in the music and video stores were unbelievable. This was a problem, because all the presents I had to buy were….music and video related.

Things were to get worse.

When I finally did manage to get a sales assistant's attention, each store I tried didn't have all the things I wanted and I didn't want to join a queue for just a couple of the items.

Beaten but not finished, I returned home, confident that I'd get everything the following day, Christmas Eve. Today had just been a reconnaissance mission and I was starting to feel a wee bit tired from the night before and a wee bit battered by the Christmas shoppers.

I returned to mum's and had fish and chips from the fish and chip shop at the bottom of the town and officially the best fish and chip shop in Northern Ireland (and 5th in the UK) and then went to bed for a few hours, to prepare for the night ahead. An evening in the pizzeria at the top of the town with my dad, step-mum, their 9 year old daughter and her wee mate, as well as the two brothers and their better halves, followed, of course, by drinks afterwards in the local.

Needless to say food and wine consumption exceeded necessary amounts and as we dined the shop next door fell victim to an armed robbery. Merry Christmas, Northern Ireland style. (the perpetrators, a father and son, were later caught in their car a few miles outside our home town).

After the meal, we said goodbye to my step-mum, the kids and my younger brother (who had allowed his fiancé a few late drinks so that he could go and relieve Mum + Stepdad of babysitting duties).

She stuck the pace for a short while before she became wracked with guilt. The other brother’s girlfriend took that as her chance to make a break for the border, leaving my brother, dad and I to prop up the bar, which we did most valiantly until we begged to be locked-out rather than locked-in.

I went back to the brothers - which is like a building site these days, as he undertakes a complete renovation of the property. Why he can’t do one room at a time is beyond me. We subsequently fell asleep watching a DVD - I don't remember which one, but there is a good chance Sylvester Stallone was in it…

Following lunchtime the following day, I had promised to take Mum into Belfast to do her shopping, which also allowed me to finish mine off.

So, as we arrived in Belfast, we said our goodbyes and arranged to meet in 2 and a half hours. There was nowhere near the same amount of people in Belfast compared to the previous day - the people of Belfast seemingly better organised than my mum and me, so I managed to get the presents organised in double-quick time, before sitting admiring a young jazz quartet for half an hour giving decidedly jazzy renditions of Christmas songs. Excellent stuff.

Still - with an hour and a half to kill, I did the only thing that I knew that would not involve spending a lot of money on more clothes - I went to a city centre pub and had a couple of pints of Guinness. I was a sucker for the advert outside, proclaiming “Come inside for the Best Pint of Guinness in Belfast”. I can't say that I was disappointed. The pub, “Kelly's Cellars”, has a nice feel about it, and I was amazed that I'd never been in it before, although, to be fair, it is in a bit of a republican stronghold. The benefit of the peace process, eh?

As I still had 20 minutes to kill and two pints of the black stuff inside me, I headed off to meet mum, but could not resist the temptation of an inviting virgin, whose beguiling charm and promises of untold treasures diverted me from my destination.

A Virgin Megastore that is.

One mad dash around the shop, and I had purchased 8 DVDs and a couple of CDs:

DVDs
-----
SAW
Hitchikers Guide to the Galaxy
Base Moi
Animal Factory
The Secretary
Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels
Straw Dogs
House of a 1000 corpses

CDs
---
Robbie Williams
Gorillaz

Like I say - I'm good to myself, eh? To be honest, when the sales are on in the UK, the prices work out cheaper than in Belgium and I never buy Cds or DVDs in Belgium. The DVDs were only between £2.99 and £5.99. (I sound like I’m trying to justify myself)

Anyway, we met up and got out of Belfast and I went for my usual post-shopping nap, before going to Gran's for the usual Christmas Eve get-together with the "outlaws”.

Gran was looking frail but still has her wits about her. Lord knows what she makes of us coming into her tiny little living room and shouting and messing around, but it's been tradition for decades now, so there's nothing she can do about it!

After having done that we headed to the centre of our universe, ‘the local’, where the party was already in full swing. It was just like old times - with mates and family. We all joined in with several renditions of the best Christmas song ever, "Fairy Tale of New York" and whilst there were plenty of Shane McGowans, it has to be said that there were not so many Kirsty McColls about the place…

The party continued down in a mate’s house into the wee hours, before I thankfully got a taxi to my mum's around 04:00. I say thankfully because I don't think that I could still be in my home town and walk a further distance from one house to another. The town is increasing in size and apparently is the "fourth most popular place to buy property in the UK".
I was of course told this by people who live in their own property in the town and have yet to receive official confirmation from the internet, so I'll hold judgement on that one. Still, the place is expanding at a frightening rate and I didn't mind the double taxi fare to get me home. It was 4 below freezing when I set off in the taxi. The walk back to my mum’s would have been a good hour.

Christmas Day

In the past we’ve gone to Mum’s around lunchtime, opened presents, eaten early and then gone to Dad’s and done it all again.

Circumstances (and a little family politics) meant that my family decided that they would do something different this year.

My step-father was working Christmas Day from 11 until 16:00, so our Christmas dinner was delayed. The step-mum was going to prepare a buffet for the following evening, Boxing Day. This meant that things went at a lot calmer pace this year.

I was up at Daddy’s for 10:30, to open the presents from his side of the family. The onset of adulthood has ensured that the presents we open on Christmas morning don’t have the same sparkle as they once did. Also, in the past, we would have opened presents from “Daddy Santa” but this year in a break with tradition, we decided that those presents would be opened the following evening down at the step-mum’s. (I tell ya - organised with military precision these broken-home Christmases!!)

This resulted in the morning being spent playing on the playstation and eating a fry-up as prepared by the brother. Even the early morning cans of Harp didn’t make an appearance until long after noon. Gran wasn’t up to the usual visit to see us, thanks to the icy conditions, so they skipped the traditional, “let’s go laugh at and play with Harry and the weans’ (see: http://www.peevish.co.uk/slang/w.htm for that translation) presents”

All in all, a calm Christmas morning, although it’s worth noting that in spite of their being no snow for a white Christmas, thanks to the heavy frost from the night before, there was a good covering of white frost around the town.

Present count: Socks, sweater, ice-pack hangover cure, chocolates, a football quiz book, a prank that laughs hysterically when it senses movement – good for use in the bathroom on unsuspecting victims and a frog massager. That’s a massager in the shape of a frog, rather than a massager for frogs.

Around 14:00, we headed down to Mum’s to “help out” with dinner. Although, to be fair, the only thing that I helped with was perhaps emptying a couple of bottles of wine, ably assisted by Nana – that woman drinks like a fish - set anything down in front of her and she’ll drink it!

The step-father got a flier from work, so he was home by 15:30, not that it made that much difference, with Christmas dinner, I get the impression it’s a lot like a big steamer boat - once it’s in motion, it’s hard to change direction.

So, around 16:00, we all sat down to Christmas dinner – Nana, Mum, the step-father, the younger brother, the youngest brother and his fiancé as well as the new addition to the family – their 6 month old son, “The Wee Man” although to be fair, there’s nothing too wee about him these days.

Apparently the proud parents – because the mother is Scottish - have come to an arrangement. If he turns out to be a footballer, Northern Ireland can have him, but if he’s a rugby player, Scotland can have him. Well, The Wee Man could well be doing second row for Scotland in 20 years. You heard it here first.

Food, drink, entertaining stories and a bit of a sing song from The Wee Man complete and we were ready to open our presents. This year, the youngest brother got to play Santa and deliver all our presents. We humoured him and said it was so that he could “do it for The Wee Man’s first Christmas” but to be honest, it’s because he’s the only one of the three brothers that has the belly for it these days…

Present count: A great haul for me – receiving a DVD, a couple of books, a Norn Iron supporters pack including commemorative “Norn Iron 1 – 0 England” calendar, Allure aftershave, a stylish shirt and a limited edition “Champions of Europe 5 times” Liverpool watch

At around 19:00, the party started to wind down. The young family were the first to leave and they offered Nana a lift home but she had half a glass of red wine in her hand, so there was no way she was for shifting just yet.

After a while, the other brother went up the road to spend Christmas evening with his girlfriend’s family and Nana eventually relinquished control of her wine glass long enough for the three of us to put her in a headlock and wrestle her into the car, so that he could take her up the road and put the drunk to bed.

This left the three of us with the Christmas evening ahead and a peaceful house. There was only one thing to do - get the cigarettes out, turn the music up, open some more wine and put the world to right.

Around midnight, we retired to watch a couple of Pat’s DVD’s – the two funniest men on the planet – Billy Connolly and Peter Kaye. Although, I don’t remember much of the second DVD, the next thing I know awakening in my bed in a blind panic thinking it was the middle of the afternoon and I had already missed some of the festive Boxing Day football.

Boxing Day


Suffice to say, no need for panic and after another fry-up and some Lucozade, I was off down the town again, this time to another pub, the best place in the town to watch football.

Several big screens and TVs dotted over the premises, and coupled with the fact that they have Arabic satellite boxes as well as British satellite boxes, ensures coverage of even some of the more obscure games.

4 pool tables, cold flowing Carlsberg, and some of the town’s finest fuckwits complete the scene.

I took my place at the bar and watched 3 of the lunchtime games at once. (Who says men can’t multi-task, eh?) After that the afternoon games commenced and I was joined at the bar by the wee brother and my da (if only I had seen them coming but they sneaked up behind me).

Boxing Day afternoon and in the Protestant working-class community of my home town and the three games that they were showing - Liverpool, Glasgow Rangers and Manchester United.

The owner must have thought all his Christmases had come at once. The bar was packed out and the atmosphere was jolly. Especially when it looked like Liverpool and Rangers where going to do the business – until Rangers conceded a late equaliser. Let’s not speak of that other team. A few drinks with a couple of my da’s mates completed the afternoon. Two funny men (and the three of us aren’t too bad in the old humour stakes either!)

After that, it was back to Mum’s for a quick change, grab the rest of my gifts, said goodbye to them because they were both working the night shift that evening and then back out again to go down to dad’s for our “second Christmas”

A lot of fun was had - all the ingredients were there - more presents, more alcohol, good food, funny people …. and a karaoke machine. I’m not sure how much the neighbours enjoyed hearing Jeff Wayne’s The War of The Worlds musical at 01:00 but we sure had a great time.

Although perhaps with hindsight it was not a good idea to let the wee brother loose on one of my presents.

Let me explain:

One of my presents was a remote controlled helicopter, so at about 10pm, we took it out for its maiden flight. History will show that it was not a successful one. My brother overcooked its take off and it went into a terrible spin, crashing back to earth before it had even had a chance to enjoy its new found freedom from its packaging.

The rotary blades came off and it hit the ground with a sickening crunch. Daddy and myself tried valiantly to repair the craft (the brother was most conspicuous by his absence at this stage) but even with some ingenious use of chewing gum, the helicopter flew no more that night. It remains at my father’s in the hope of a repair job, but I fear the worst. Perhaps I’ll get it back in time for my birthday.

Present count: Included a couple of books, a box of magic tricks (the brother had better watch out) and one slightly damaged remote control helicopter.

I said my goodbyes to my father et al and I left in a taxi for mum’s sometime after 01:30 and as I sat in my mother’s oddly quiet kitchen, considering the madness that had ensured the few days previously, I poured myself a nightcap and started to read The DaVinci Code, thinking that at long last I’d better see what all the fuss is about.

I’d got into it a few pages but stopped reading and just sat there, enjoying the quietness of the house and the draw of my cigarette and the sip of my red wine.

Perhaps it was the alcohol but I was content with my lot in life.

With my flight back to Eindhoven the following afternoon (or later that day, depending on your viewpoint), my time back home was coming to a close but I had had another mad few days in the warm, loving bosom of my dysfunctional family and friends – and had loved every minute of it.

It might not be everybody’s cup of tea when it comes to family life - Lord knows we’re far from perfect but it seems to work.

I know it works for me.

So as I said my goodbyes in the morning after breakfast and got into my step-father’s car to start the first leg of the 8-hour trek back to Antwerp, it was not with heavy heart for I had accomplished my Christmas mission:

To go home, enjoy my family and friends and let them know I love them.

Out of sight, out of mind? You must be joking!

Best Wishes for 2006!!

Goodbye Georgie

OK Folks,

Another afternoon, another blog – more to pass the last couple of hours of my working week before Christmas - than to entertain all three of you out there that read this thing.

Although - that's not entirely true. I have been looking to write this one for a while and started it and finished on many occasions but the combination of being busy in work (imagine that?!) and getting up to mischief in the evenings has caused the delay.

As some of you may already know, a couple of weekends ago, the streets of my beloved Belfast saw sights the like of which it shall never see again.

Tens of thousands of people of all ages, from all walks of life and from all colour and creed, braved the terrible weather conditions to say goodbye to their hero, the Belfast Boy, Georgie Best.

Some of you may have seen it on TV; I went over there to be a part of it.

As the news of his inevitable death filtered out, I wrote my own fumbling attempt at a tribute to the man and put it on my blog.

I also went to the website of The Belfast Telegraph, Northern Ireland's biggest selling daily news paper and left a small tribute along with tributes from hundreds of others.

It was obvious that his death had touched a lot of people although just what happened in the days that followed probably took everyone by surprise - none more so than the Best family themselves.

Speaking for myself - I had never before mourned the death of somebody that I didn't personally know. I'm not some sort of sentimental, funeral groupie who gets all dramatic and starts using phrases like "isn't it such a tragedy?", "what a waste", etc. etc.

Princess Di, Freddie Mercury, Bobby Ewing - their untimely deaths, whilst perhaps leaving me with a certain feeling of sadness (apart from Bobby's) - didn't cause me to stop and think about what a loss to me personally, their deaths were.

Georgie's passing, however, really struck a nerve.

Now I know there are plenty of people out there who would say that he was a waste of space that drank himself to death, somebody - who through the kindness of a donor - got a second chance at life and fucked it up.

As far as I'm concerned, these people can go away and catch themselves on (to use Belfast parlance).

I had no time for the people that were so quick to kick him while he was down when he was alive. I am frankly disgusted by the people that crawled out of the woodwork and stuck the boot in before he was even put in the ground.

But still - even with all my love for the guy, I still did not feel compelled to go home for the funeral.

At least not yet.

On the Friday he died, I braved the blizzards and went out to the sticks to have a night out in Geel with some friends. We sat around a table getting all dewy eyed whilst sharing Our George Best Stories.

The manager of the bar, a fella named Colin and a friend of ours, had obtained the song "The Belfast Boy" - George's very own theme song (how many footballers can boast that?!) and on occasion, the bar was reverberating to it's beat long into the wee hours.

And then things started to get weird.

We sang our songs from the Emerald Isle, we drank our Guinness and we told our stories. Colin, a fella from the "Rebel County" of Cork and I, from Belfast, Northern Ireland united in our Irishness by the passing of one of the greatest people our island has ever produced.

Then, the conversation took a rather surreal and unexpected twist.

"I bet you I can grow a better George beard than you"
"No you can’t"
“Prove it”

And so – it came to pass that we decided that we would both try and grow a George Best beard.

(Look - it was 5 in the morning and it's just one of those bets that drunken boys make at that time, OK?)

I then ended up spending the rest of the weekend "on holiday" in this wee town with the strange name. ("Geel is the Flemish word for "Yellow") At least I think it's wee - I can’t really admit to stretching my wings much beyond the pub during those 36 hours.

On the Sunday evening, back in my snug apartment nursing a battered and bruised body from the excess of the weekend, I checked my emails and things got even weirder.

There was one from my family informing me that I had been published. My dream had finally been realized - my writing was in print!

Even better than that though, my tribute to George Best had been published in Saturday's Belfast Telegraph - a memorial edition dedicated to the loss of our hero.

But it got better.

An excited voicemail from my brother informed me that I was in the centre pages of the newspaper along with several other tributes from around the world.

And it got better still.

The sub heading in big, bold type across the bottom of the inside double pages was my quote!

Needless to say, I was chuffed to bits.

I then read some online newspapers and was amazed by what I was reading. Having effectively cut myself off from the real world for the best part of the weekend, I had no idea of the reaction to Georgie’s death. Suddenly they were talking about hundreds of thousands flocking to the streets of Belfast for the funeral.

Needless to say, I got caught up in the emotion of it all and the next morning I booked myself on a flight with Ryan-sometimes-in-the-fucking-air from Charleroi to Dublin. Leaving on the Friday afternoon, I was going to be home for a couple of short days to say hello to my family and goodbye to Georgie before returning to Belgium (is Boring) on the Sunday afternoon.

The inconvenience of arriving at Dublin was softened by the fact that my Da, who works in Dublin during the week, was able to pick me up. The somewhat long and mind-numbing drive up to our home-town was a special occasion for me that I shall treasure for years, the two of us talking animatedly and with great reverence about the wonderful George Best and catching up in what was going on in each other’s lives.

As far as we were both concerned, this was not a sombre occasion to mourn the death of one of us – instead this was going to be a celebration of the man, the legend - the working class hero from Belfast who’d “done good”

As he dropped me off at my mum’s I said my goodbyes and made arrangements for the morning. My brother and I were to meet at my dad’s house at 07:00.

I can’t get out of my bed on a workday at 07:00, never mind the morning after my first night back in the loving arms of my family - arms that are all too often laden with wine, beer, whiskey and Irish coffees.

The conversation continued long into the night with Georgie as the main topic of conversation. Even my other brother – not a great fan of the beautiful game (I know, I know Dear Reader – a helluva shame) got caught up in the whole occasion.

At 5 in the morning (there’s that time again), the youngest brother took himself off to bed. After all – he had to drive the 2 miles to our dad’s place at 07:00.

My other brother, supported ably by my mum and step-father battled bravely on through the night, deciding that we’d feel the worse for sleeping and indeed, the youngest brother’s demeanour as I woke him up 2 short hours later confirmed this.

And so it came to pass that my father, my brothers and I, met up at 07:30 on a cold, dark, damp Saturday morning to take the short journey to the austere location of the service, Stormont parliament buildings, Belfast.

After a little bit of illegal parking (which involved moving a few police cones out of our way), we made the short walk to the gates leading into Stormont and were amazed at the site that greeted us.

It seems we weren’t the only people who had woken early to take their place in the queue in the damp, dark Belfast winter morning air.

Thousands of people were queuing waiting on the gates of Stormont to open and as we followed the queue from its start to its seemingly infinite end, we realised that we were going to be a part of history.

For far too long, Belfast makes the headlines for all the wrong reasons. Here, the city was united by one common goal. To come out and pay their respects to a man whose life had touched us all.

We eventually found the end of the seemingly infinite queue and after standing around for the best part of an hour as a dull morning dawned over Belfast, the queue started to move - the organisers deciding to open the gates early due to the numbers of people that had already turned up for the funeral.

As we filed slowly towards the gates of Stormont, I noticed that bus shelters lining the funeral route had been transformed overnight to carry giant stylised portraits of Best pictured at his ragged, 1970s peak; more handsome pirate than professional sportsman.

As we neared the gates, we paused briefly to look at the hundreds of tributes that lay there in the form of flowers, cards, football scarves and shirts and flags from all backgrounds.

In this shrine to Best, I spied two things in particular, that caught my eye.

The first thing was two football shirts hung on the railings side by side - one from Glasgow Celtic and the other Glasgow Rangers – as indicative a symbol as any to show how the man crossed the religious divide in his homeland.

The second was a Northern Ireland flag. On the flag was the message:

“Maradona Good, Pele Better, George BEST”

I cursed myself, wishing I had thought that one up.

I was awoken from my thoughts when I heard a distinctive English voice:

“As you can see behind me, the thousands of people file somberly past the temporary shrine to George Best that has been set up here at Parliament Building gates.”

I did a double take before I realized what was happening.

The TV company Sky were broadcasting live and I had just walked past in the background, no doubt looking like somebody from another planet but at least looking the part in my green George Best No. 7 shirt. I was later to find out from friends that this clip was used by Sky News at the top of every hour for their news headlines.

It’s not often that I get published and on Sky News in the one week.

It’s only then that I realised the enormity of what was taking placed. I looked up into the skies and saw half a dozen helicopters flying overhead - some police, others TV crews.

At various vantage points, TV camera crews were setting up, trying to get a good view of proceedings.

On the roof of the Stormont Hotel across the street from the gates, we saw several members of staff struggling to unfurl one of the biggest flags I’ve ever seen. OK so it was Man United but it was no less impressive when displayed to its full extent from the roof to the ground of the 6 story building.

And then we reached the gates of Stormont and looked up the mile-long hill to Parliament Buildings.


Already there were several thousand people inside, lining the route but we decided to keep on walking to get as far as we could.

Three huge screens lined the route, to ensure that everyone got to see as events unfold. We made a bee-line for the one furthest away and closest to Stormont building and got into position around 09:30, almost two hours after arriving in Belfast.

We had arrived.

As we waited for George’s last trip, the organisers played marvellous footage of the man in his heyday – a truly awesome sight to behold.

Just then, I was approached by a woman in her 40’s to see if I would mind posing for a photograph.

A surprisingly less frequent occurrence than you may think.

It seemed that my efforts to grow the beard and the hair combine with the George Best shirt had actually paid off. I put my arm around the woman and posed for the photograph, taken by her rather pissed off looking husband.

“Er, no we don’t want that, it’s just the back of your shirt we’d like, with Best 7”

Typical.

Shortly after that, the skies started to open and a very heavy rainstorm swept Belfast and soaked us to the skin. It seemed rather fitting for the occasion – the tears of Belfast skies mixing with the tears of its people.

At 10am, with the Stormont gates already shut to stop more people arriving, across the city at the family home in the Cregagh council estate the coffin was taken to the waiting hearse. Spontaneous applause erupted from the crowd, a fitting tribute to the man described by Pele as the greatest footballer the world has ever seen.
The giant screens erected along the driveway at Stormont beamed out live pictures of the cortege’s progress, and as the procession entered the gates, the gloom was momentarily lifted by the flash of hundreds of cameras and mobile phones, while applause rippled up the hill. Attendants had to clear away hundreds of scarves and flowers tossed on to the hearse. More flowers crowned the vehicle. Inside, Best’s coffin was draped in an Irish Football Association flag.

Inside Stormont, 300 mourners gathered in the Great Hall to pay tribute to the footballer, friend, husband, father and brother. Among them were both Best’s former wives, Angie and Alex, plus Manchester United manager Sir Alex Ferguson and Best’s father Dickie.

Personal eulogies were read by Bobby McAlinden, a friend from his youth with whom he ran “Bestie’s” bar in California, and by Best’s friend and fellow Man Utd player Denis Law.

It was a nice service – a mixture of humour from Law, honesty from McAlinden, the medical from the Professor and then of course the sadness from his son Callum and his sister, Barbara.

Best, the beautiful boy of the beautiful game said he always wanted to be remembered for the football.


On this performance, it would seem he got his wish.



BTW - For the record - Colin's beard was better - although it has to be said that there was a distinct dodgy gingerness to it…

simply THE BEST

The world goes to sleep a lesser place tonight.

This afternoon, in a quiet London hospital room surrounded by friends and family, the shining light that was George Best finally burnt out - his body finally giving up its brave battle to stay alive.

There was never a name more apt for a person, because, George – “The Belfast Boy” – was, quite simply THE BEST footballer the world has ever seen.

An artist - with the football as his paintbrush and the football pitch as his canvas – George Best dazzled the world with his breath-taking skills: mazy dribbles with both feet, powerful shots, deft touches, superb balance, tenacious tackling, a lion’s heart, he had it all – there really are no superlatives too great for this footballing genius - superlatives that get thrown about too easily in this modern-day era of the football superstar with big wallets and even bigger egos - most of whom wouldn’t even have been fit to lick George’s boots.

On top of all that he was unbelievably cool and handsome.

From having no football icon, no style guru, no pop star to worship, the people of Northern Ireland suddenly had all three overnight. He was - and still is - a God, revered by his people.

I’m not going to say a lot on the matter, I’ll leave that to others more capable than I am but I want to use this blog to share some of my thoughts with you.

I remember as a teenager reading George Best’s autobiography “The Good, the Bad and the Bubbly” where one of the opening lines read: “I am the greatest player that ever lived.” I remember reading it at the time and after that thinking that was a bit big-headed until you read the next sentence – “That’s what Pele said and who am I to argue with him?”

Now as you all know I’m a Liverpool supporter. But some of you may not know the reason why I’m a Liverpool supporter and how Manchester United’s George Best played a big part in it. You see - when my da was growing up and kicking football, all the kids WERE George Best. There were no other footballers on the planet. And therefore everybody supported Manchester United.

My da and his mate decided to buck the trend and started to support Liverpool, to wind the rest of their mates up - a legacy borne onto me as well (including the winding up of Manchester United supporting mates).

When I recently told a football-knowledgeable mate of mine, and a life long supporter of Manchester United (do those two things go together?) he had a good old chuckle to himself and said “See?! It’s always about Manchester United!!”

Well in this case it was ALL about George Best but it wasn’t that my da didn’t like him – far from it. We may have been Liverpool supporters but there was never, ever a bad word said about George Best. He had his faults. Lord knows he had his faults, but the people of Northern Ireland loved him like one of their own. And let’s face it – he was one of us.

George Best, the boy from the Protestant working-class housing estate in the Cregagh area of Belfast had given the people back home more than just a footballing icon that they would be forever proud of, long after his death.

At the height of his game, he also gave the people of Northern Ireland hope at a time when his beloved homeland was staring into the abyss with the madness of the Troubles just about to start.

Nobody could have foreseen the tragedy of the following 35 years.

As Northern Ireland became a battleground where the price of a life became less and less with each murder, George Best was fighting his own war - a war against himself and his inner demons. Disillusioned and deserting the beautiful game at the criminally young age of 26, he was already battling against alcoholism.

Over the next three decades his life went on an amazing roller coaster ride - a ride which has been well documented by the world’s press as he made front page news for all the wrong reasons.

But I’m not here to talk about that. I’m not even here to talk about the football (and that’s saying something). I am quite simply here to say that I’ll miss the guy. It’s a weird thing mourning the loss of somebody I didn’t know personally but that’s the way it’s been with George. We all lived his life. The highs and the lows.

I discovered this piece of text this afternoon which I think sums up the football perfectly. Former Observer sportswriter Hugh McIlvanney described him thus:

'With feet as sensitive as pickpocket's hands, his control of the ball under the most violent pressure was hypnotic. The bewildering repertoire of feints and swerves, sudden stops and demoralising turns, exploited a freakish elasticity of limb and torso, tremendous physical strength and resilience for so slight a figure, and balance that would have made Isaac Newton decide he might as well have eaten the apple.'

He was only ever truly happy when he was on the football field which is rather fitting considering the joy he gave to millions of people world-wide.

Let’s hope that as I type this blog, God is getting ready for a kick-a-bout, because it’s about time the Big Man Upstairs got a chance to see first hand the talent that he bestowed on that shy, little boy from Belfast.

George Best
R.I.P.

Lord of The Ring

Just a quickie.

Two years of bloody road-works on the ring of Antwerp and still the traffic going into the Kennedy tunnel is as bad as it ever was. I contemplate this as I am about to leave the office and join the thousands of cars trying to get through what has to be one of the most congested tunnels in the world.

Not since the days of Charles Bronson squeezing his fat arse through freshly dug escape tunnels in The Great Eascape have I seen congestion like it.

And don’t even get me started about the road-works IN Antwerp. I’ve never seen anything like it in my life. Each morning as I drive out of the city, I make a silent prayer to the saint of lost causes (Alex McCleish) in the hope that I’ll find my way out onto The Ring.

Honest to God – it’s like some magical mystery tour.

I’m all for a city developing and growing and improving its traffic system but come on guys! Somebody must be having a laugh out there!

Changing one way streets into two-way streets overnight, creating dead end streets at the drop of a hat, changing the direction of one way streets to the opposite direction without warning and then sending you down streets following diversion signs, only to find that at some point they just decided to stop providing signs anymore, turning the whole escapade into some sort of a sick, twisted version Treasure Hunt.


Bring back Anneka Rice’s pert buttocks.

All is forgiven.

The Internet and Christmas - Here we come!!!

One of the great things about the proliferation of PCs and the internet in our everyday lives is that it makes the world seem just that wee bit smaller for a wee country boy from Ireland living on the continent, away from family and friends.

For instance, I can sit here in the office at the client site, quite feverishly beavering away at the keyboard looking to all intents and purposes like somebody that’s actually Doing Some Work when in fact I’m emailing family, friends, or, as in this case, writing for my blog.

However - unfortunately for me, this easy form of communication that I have at my disposal only serves to add further weight to the “I am a bad son / brother / mate” theory because, when you get down to it – I am terrible at keeping in touch.

Long gone are the days when my dear NaNa would greet the early morning post with a flutter of hope and expectation that there would be hidden within the bills and junk mail a letter or a postcard from her eldest grandson – the Intrepid Explorer, sharing a little anecdotal tale from some far flung corner of the world, like Duffel, for example.

Or even just a simple “Hello Nana – I hope you are keeping well. Lot’s of Love. Me”

But no.

Nothing.

Then - just when she had come to terms with the fact that her eldest grandson was, in fact, a Selfish Twat, with far too much going on in his little corner of the world that he couldn’t find the time to write anything to her, fresh hope arose like a phoenix from the ashes of her disappointment in the form of EMAIL.

Through the magic of the internet, messages could instantly be sent and received from anywhere on the planet.

Except to or from my Nana’s wee bungalow back home.

But never fear! My mother came up with the solution. They would get email!! Hurrahh!

Cue much rejoicing in the family. Here we were, truly throwing ourselves with wanton abandon into the 21st century! The technological age was waiting for no man, woman or indeed, Nana and we were making bloody well sure that we were getting on that super-highway along with the rest of the world.

Except - it didn’t quite work like that….

Wary of the demons that lurk in the internet’s darker recesses and let’s face it – even some of it’s most public of places, mum was not keen on the idea of bringing full-blooded internet capacity into the home.

And who could blame her? I mean – take last week for example…..there I was doing some research for an article on my two favourite birds - robin red breasts and blue tits that I was planning to write and I have to admit, I was shocked and stunned at what I found.

So in order to avoid “all manner of filth” coming into their home – a compromise was reached and they purchased a rather snazzy Amstrad telephone with email capabilities.

Perhaps some of you know the phone that I mean but perhaps for those that don’t, I should, at this point, explain just what “email capabilities” referred to.

Basically, we are talking about a rather quite gorgeous all-singing and all-dancing telephone (phone book, speaker phone, big display) but with the additional feature of a keyboard.

A keyboard which is roughly the equivalent size of a nicotine patch – a patch which I can tell you, you will be in more than desperate need for by the time you type anything out of any great length on the damn thing.

So tiny are the buttons on this thing, that you are totally unaware of the quite convincing Mr. Magoo impression that you’re doing as you squint, hunched over the phone, as you search hopelessly to find the desired key. And then - even when you do find it, you end up suffering the ignominy of pressing three (wrong) buttons at once before embarking on a crusade to find the delete button to undo all your typos.

It is more frustrating than a Chinese finger puzzle, played outside at the North Pole, wearing nothing else other than your undergarments and a grimace.

But here’s the thing folks.

Did you think that stopped my Mum from emailing me paragraph after paragraph of tales and updates from back home?

Of course it didn’t.

Did you think it stopped my mum from bollocking me on a regular basis?

Not a bit of it.

On regular occasions, my inbox would suddenly become weighed down with a dose of motherly advice, covering such diverse subjects as looking after myself, staying out of trouble, eating healthily, not drinking so much, not partying so hard, sleeping more, exercising more, smoking less, stay away from that weird girl you introduced us to last. That sort of thing….

And all was good in the world again.

Nana could receive updates through her daughter about how I was getting on “on my travels” and I was able to keep up to date with family life back home. They even had the dubious pleasure of receiving my blog updates, delivered electronically into their little Amstrad telephone.

How they all managed to read it, I’ll never know.

Or maybe they don’t.

Hey! Wait a minute…..


And then – disaster struck.

Those Bloody Thieves (BT) decided to raise the phone bill to exorbitant prices and began to charge an arm and a leg for the privilege of receiving forwarded jokes, spam mail and the regular disappointment of another day going by with no communication from that Selfish Twat living over in Belgium, for I am ashamed to admit that the advent of email didn’t improve matters that much.

Deciding to cut their losses, the Amstrad was reduced to seeing out the rest of its days as a normal phone with a few useless add-ons - a bit like a skateboard with a car stereo.

Faced with the pressure of having to actually pick up the phone and start phoning home on occasions when I wasn’t actually looking for something, or having to actually post letters and post cards again, I was in a dilemma.

That is - until last night and a little phone call with back home produced a surprising development….

They were contemplating on buying a PC!!

Pretty mundane stuff I expect for most of you out there, but ground-breaking stuff for my family I can tell you.

Apparently unlimited internet broadband access is actually cheaper than what is charged to send emails on the phone, so mum was prepared to bite the bullet and get “hooked up to the net”.

The conversation also turned to Christmas and it was then that a wonderful plan was hatched between us all.

Being of the computer nerd persuasion, it will probably come as no surprise that I have two laptops in my possession. Ok, so one is mine and one belongs to my employers, but you get the idea – and I’m sure you can see where this is going here….

So it is with great personal pleasure I will be arriving home this Christmas with a laptop for home under my arm.

This is already a huge relief to me - that’s my mother and step-father’s Christmas presents sorted in one fell swoop!

Only another 10 to go.

To a totally committed anti-shopper like myself, the whole prospect of Christmas shopping makes me feel nauseous. This was in no way helped recently when I received an email from my youngest brother (ok – so I exaggerated the whole “I’m crap at keeping in touch with home” story). In this email - dated three weeks ago I might add – he casually informed me that he had ALL his presents bought!!

Here comes that nauseous feeling again…..

I’m sure if my mum had a choice, she would prefer me to come home with a nice homely bride under my arm; somebody who loves me for who I am and who wants to look after her eldest son but in the absence of anything remotely like that, she’ll have to make do with a second-hand laptop.

I’ll just have to make sure I take all the porn off it first.

Greetings from "Mijn Stamcafe"

Dearest Bloggees

(or whatever terminology they’ve come up with for those people unfortunate enough to be on the receiving end of what us bloggers deem interesting enough to put finger to key and share with you).

I know it’s been a while (would you expect anything less from me?) but I thought I’d get in touch because something is burning deep inside of me, and it’s not the Hungarian goulash effort that I just prepared for myself, but something much more spiritual (and hopefully a little bit more healthy).

Just how the hell are you doing?

Are you keeping well?

No really – is everything ok in your world? I mean - are you happy in yourself (to coin a phrase from back home).

As this is a one-way communication medium, I sincerely hope so and will have to assume so, unless you take the time to tell me otherwise.

And this brings me to my point.

It may come as a surprise to you but this medium of conversing does indeed provide an opportunity to make this into a two-way experience.

A little visit to my wee corner of cyberspace (http://www.belgiumisboring.blogspot.com) is all you need to do to make this a two-way interaction by posting a little response to my blogs.

Of course, for the growing numbers of you that have registered with this blog in order to receive my updates directly and conveniently into your email’s inbox, (albeit in a sporadic nature) this is not the case and frustration must surely take over your every waking moment.

And not just frustration about being unable to share your innermost thoughts with a faceless humble scribe that feels the need to share his with you.

For instance, I know that some of you receive these little rants in the form of a close to unreadable lump of text, which I can imagine must be just more than a tad frustrating for you.

But can you imagine just how frustrated I must feel?

I spend time and effort putting the damn things together and no matter what I do to ensure that it arrives to you in the manner that it was intended; you still end up with what is basically a horrifyingly difficult-to-read lump of crap (and that’s even before you decipher what I have decided to share with you)

The fact that you endeavour to decipher it at all is a constant source of wonderment for me and I feel humble as a result of it.

But the burning question for me is - just why do you put yourselves through the heartache and undeniable frustration that this experience causes? I can only hope that it is because you enjoy what I write (as I said – I can only hope) but I have to ask why put yourself through the misery?

I pride myself on the fact that I passed my GCSE English.* I think I know when a paragraph should finish and a new one should start but reading my blogs you’d swear blind that I was incapable of writing a wish list to Santa, never mind something that could (potentially – but why not aim my sites high?) be read by anyone with a connection to the internet.

Of course – for those of you that this provides a (welcome?) distraction from work, it makes a lot more sense to suffer the email in it’s received form, rather than have some nerd in your employer’s IT department finding you accessing a website with “BelgiumIsBoring” in the title.

Especially if you are working in Belgium.

So having said all that – go to the website, leave a comment, share a little bit of love. This blogger gets lonely and it would be great to hear from you.

I think you are all lovely.

This is your chance to prove it.

Thanks for reading.
Your Humble Scribe.

* - Am I the only person amazed by just how many forms of the English language Bill Gates and his cohorts think there are?

In this edition of Microsoft Word that this text has been lovingly crafted on, I am reliably informed that there are 18 different forms of the language, including Canadian, American, Irish, Trinidadian and Tobagan and Belizean.

Is that all really necessary?

I mean – surely it couldn’t have been too much too ask the invading forces of the British Army to at least leave a dictionary behind as they were raping and pillaging?

PS – In case you didn’t know – “Mijn Stamcafe” is Flemish for “My local” – a lovely little bar across the street from where I live.

It’s a real ‘Flemish locals’ bar. This means that men, women, children and pets (of all ages) rub shoulders in a relaxed atmosphere; that Flemish is very much the language of communication, smoke hangs thick in the air, the cold Stella flows indefinitely and anyone of an Arabic persuasion are most definitely not welcome, never mind the quiet Irish computer nerd sitting in the corner beavering away on his laptop.

I brought my laptop into the bar tonight to do some work in an atmosphere I thought conducive to creativity – but not (originally) for this blog – I actually came here to do some work for a presentation I have to give next week but got a little distracted by a combination of the burning desire to get all of this off my chest, the fact that I hadn’t written anything creative for quite some time and of course the aforementioned indefinitely flowing cold Stella.

The Company Weekend - 2005

The time is 08:08 CET, Friday morning, precisely and I have been in the office since 07:30 - and what do you know? - There were already two other people in the office before me. Grrrrr…..

I feel the need to explain the reason why I am in work so early….just in case you think I wet the bed or something.

The reason, in fact, is two-fold:
(1) This weekend is the annual company weekend and I want to get away early because the traffic will be horrendous this evening.

(2) The whole country of Belgium is on strike today and I want to get away early because the traffic will be horrendous this evening (see point 1 for reason for wanting to get away early).

Yes it's the company weekend. Hurrraaaahhhh. 60 hours in the Belgian countryside with a bunch of IT computer geeks and their spouses and sprogs.

I can hardly contain my excitement.

Actually the place we're staying looks very nice : http://www.blogger.com/ but I have a certain amount of trepidation when it comes to these sort of things….Perhaps if I share the agenda with you, you'll get a feel for my predicament:

Friday
check into hotel from 14:00 onwards
19:30 - evening meal
21:30 - fun quiz

Saturday
07:00 - 10:00 - Breakfast
10:00 - 12:00 - Clown for the children
12:30 - Lunch
14:00 - 18:00 - Golf clinic

Sunday
07:00 - 10:00 - Breakfast
11:00 - check-out of hotel room

Perhaps you're already on the same page as me but if not I'll explain further….

First of all, should I state for the record that I think it's great our employers go to this trouble every year. It can't be easy coming up with venues/ideas to try and keep employees/spouses/sprogs entertained in the middle of nowhere in Belgium for a whole weekend.

However, I feel the need to point out a few things:

The fun quiz.
The idea of a fun quiz with my colleagues quite frankly scares the shit out of me. Some might say that this is just sour grapes on my part - I have, after all, been the host of the quiz for the past two years and yet for some inexplicable reason see me being relinquished of my position this year.

Not so.

I'm actually looking forward to being on the other side of the questions - heckling the quizmaster, even though, considering that the quiz master is also my boss, this would not be the wisest of career moves. I feel that it is my God-given right to heckle after being on the receiving end of quite some abuse over the past two years.

There is, however, the small matter of the quiz being in Flemish. Whilst my Flemish ability has improved somewhat in the past year or so, I fear a situation where I will only be consulted upon by my team mates once they have exhausted all other options.

Oh how special that will make me feel.

The Clown.
Call me an old-fashioned stick in the mud or even a killjoy if you will, but I think clowns are seriously disturbed individuals.

There is something deeply suspicious about a middle-aged man covered in make up, wearing colourful clothes and playing with small children in the name of "entertainment". The fact that this will take place in the Belgian countryside only makes me even more nervous, given the country's somewhat dubious past.

Golf "Clinic"
Can somebody please inform me just what the hell this is? All I know is that I am booked in for a two hour session tomorrow afternoon.

I was not aware that my golf was in need of medical attention - especially considering that - with the exception of a couple of rounds of "Crrrrrrrazy Golf" and a session of pitch and putt in a shit-covered field among the Wicklow Hills a few years ago, my golfing experience is practically zero.

Indeed I have had more attempts at such obscure ridiculous notions as snow-boarding, white-water rafting and going sober for a weekend than I have at playing a round of golf.

There is also the fact that I as the only non-Belgian and as an Irishman I am worried that I will therefore be regarded as the golfing "expert" of the group. I just don’t know if I can live with the disappointment on all those people’s faces when they realise that I couldn’t hit a barn door with a banjo, never mind an inch wide ball in a straight line for a couple of hundred yards.

The disco evening
First off – I am not a dancer. I don’t like doing it – never have done and never will. This may come as a shock to anyone who has seen me on a night, dancing on podiums, singing on stage, or doing a combination of both.

Ever since my pubescent years the word disco has always managed to instil a fear in me that not much others have. Indeed from the Allen Hall discos at the local church, where I would get my first experience of dancing with girls, to the Newtownabbey Tech discos organised at the Kilwaughter House Hotel, where I would get my first experience of under-age drinking, to every wedding disco, where I would get the repeating experience of acute embarrassment of dancing with family.

There are some things in life that are relatively easy to get over but the sight of your auntie and uncle doing the Lambada, her in her stockinged feet, him with his tie tied around his head looking like a pot-bellied Rambo is just one of those images in life that stay with you to your grave.

But surely I’m not alone when I think that a disco with colleagues must be one of the most excruciatingly embarrassing things that a person should have to face…..ever.

On top of all of this, I probably do not need to point out that this weekend is a football fest, with my wee team looking to build on their glorious humbling of the English three weeks ago, by entertaining the Welsh on Saturday.

A choice between supporting Norn Iron and taking part in a golf clinic? Well – there simply is no choice.

Throw in the fact that I have a ticket for an English speaking comedy night in The Hague and I’ve got more than enough reason to avoid clinics and discos.

Having said that, this evening could turn out a great laugh and I’ll end up staying for the weekend.

Either way, I’m sure you’ll find out how I got on.