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June 05, 2005
The Apology
What a week it’s been in the electrifying, yet too seldom deplorable, exploits of yours truly. Several things have surfaced in the last seven days. 1. I cannot spell apology without the aid of the columnist’s best friend - the spell checker. Whoever created it should receive the Nobel Prize for Grammar. Weeks usually fly by like pigs about liars in my life but not this week. In the past seven days, through various ridiculous situations, it has been required of me to spell the word “apology” more than six times! I rarely make use of an exclamation mark but I feel the circumstances call for it. I mean there are only seven days in a week and for 90% of them I was failing miserably in trying to spell “apology”. I first approached it with an “a”. “APOL-LA-G” I said to myself. There’s definitely a “la” sound in there. In due course it was pointed out to me that the only “a” in apology was at the beginning. It was not pointed out to me however what apology was spelt with. This led me to the letter “e”. Phonetically I couldn’t actually hear the “e” sound but e’s tend to be like that. In any case, when in doubt, throw in an e. This casual motto does not work in theory as was pointed out to me once again by another person who could spell apology. So it came to be that I learnt how to spell “apology” upstairs in Coffey’s last Friday night. I was sat round a table with Scouser legend Paul Winters, guitar player extraordinaire Rich Clifford and cynical anthropologist Keara Kennedy. We we’re celebrating the success of “Sounds of the River” - the most inappropriately named tsunami benefit gig in the county. I had been hosting the gig which, by and large, had turned out to be quite good with the best of local Newbridge bands playing to a sold out Riverbank theatre. No major mishaps except for the introduction when band members were to run across the stage and I then would introduce the show but ended up with Hank “Lock up your daughters” Tree trailing behind the rest of the eager band members and tripping up onto the stage. Of course I didn’t notice this and started into my welcome note before I realised Hank was lying at my feet.
During the night we had planned to be a bit daring and between bands offer the audience an anagram. We offered them the word “tsunami” which was projected in big blue letters onto the stage. Oh how audacious we thought we were. We of course had no solution to this particular anagram but upon making my way back unto the stage intrepid audience members had actually come up with several solutions and embarked on shouting them out. So where was I? Ah yes, we we’re celebrating the night in Coffey’s when Keara told me exactly how to spell apology. This was no mere innocent spelling advice though. Keara Kennedy was after an apology. Not just the word but the meaning too. You see several weeks ago, right here, within the sacred paragraphs of this very column Keara made her Trains, Buses & Automobiles debut. Who knew that such a fleeting cameo would cause such a stir. You see, we had been gone to see Hanson perform in Dublin. Throughout the course of the evening Keara and I, went outside to have a smoke and in the column as I recounted the nights events this brief moment was mentioned. Keara, eager to read what at that point had become nothing more than a gossip column, had asked her parents to be sure and buy the Nationalist post haste. This they did. They bought it and turned to page six, and began reading only to discover that their daughter, who had seemingly given up smoking the previous year was still lighting up. She had been rumbled. Royally. In print. The pier de résistance of this thrilling tale is when her parents cut out the column from the paper and highlighted the sentence revealing she, in fact, smoked. Then they left it on the table so that the following day as she got up for college she would see it in all its blatant horribleness. That morning the Lord’s name was taken in vain. I’m certain of it. So after seven hundred and thirty three words of back-story, here it is: Keara, I whole-heartedly apologise and can only offer you this week’s column entirely dedicated to you. And dinner if you’re up for it . . .
Trains, Buses & Automobiles by Liam Geraghty appears every week in the Kildare Nationalist (page 6)
Posted by LiamG at June 5, 2005 10:31 PM