But bad publicity or no bad publicity, a new shopping centre is still a new shopping centre and by God, if half the town wasn’t attracted to it like moths to a flame. Its all that people are talking about. Its become a new choice for small talk. "Awful weather out there isn’t it?" "The traffic is bedlam! I spent half an hour trying to get into Dunnes Stores," and now "Have you been to the Whitewater yet? Its very big." Very big it is, missus. Feckin’ huge. Like a mountain or something. The other most common Whitewater comment at the moment is how its like "stepping into Dublin when you go in it and stepping back into Newbridge when you exit it." Well that’s a comment and half, my friends. Not only is the Whitewater "very big" but it’s a flippin’ transportation device to boot.

The name of the place is causing all sorts of speculation on its origins as well. Enough in fact to have Ray Darcy ponder aloud on air that "maybe its because Kildare’s county colour is white and the Liffey flows through Kildare so - White water." Well fair play to Ray. It’s the best explanation since the one where they called it Whitewater because it’s their feckin’ shopping centre and they can call it what they like. The young local males seem to be disgruntled by the dominating presence of women’s clothing boutiques in the place, for they are not women and what want have they for women’s clothes. There is, however, an outlet of that bastion of tracksuits - Champion Sports just in case there was any chance of the town being corrupted by high fashion. Newbridge will continue to wear Nike runners.

The food hall in the Whitewater is also being described as "very big" by locals and people are reported to be enjoying queuing several days for a bagel. The presence of music store Virgin and Irish book giants Eason’s has been welcomed by those who can hear and those who can read. A huge gaping chasm is said to occupy the space where the Whitewater’s promised cinema was to be housed. Several small children have been reported to have fallen in.

Not easily distracted by big new shiny things like most Newbridge folk were, protestors made there presence known through various techniques such as shouting and wearing t-shirts bearing there cause which attracted a TV crew who, it seems, are not only attracted by the opening of big new shiny things but also by the opening of mouths shouting about the opening of said things. Despite their rescue efforts down the chasm, no cinema was to be found and no brick of it was even in sight. Protestors are alleged to be keeping vigil outside the Oscar Cinema where its play bill rather sinisterly states "CLOSED FOREVER." Some believe it is now haunted. For the most part, reaction to the Whitewater, apart from being "very big", has been good. Like the Spire in Dublin, its too late to complain about it anyway - the things built. Sources say that all the public can do now is to urge the County Council to pull together funds to construct a Giant Ball of String. The County Council has stated this plan as "ropey."

Downhill from here by Liam Geraghty appears every week in the Kildare Nationalist

Liam: So how are you finding Dublin?

Easter Bunny: It’s colder that what I’m used too but overall a relatively nice city. Perhaps relatively is too strong a word.

LG: Colder that your used too? Where are you from?

EB: Well, me personally, I’m from Long Island, NY, but the whole Easter operation is based in Mexico.

LG: Mexico?

EB: That’s what I said. Where did you think I was based? The North Pole?

 LG: I wasn’t sure to be honest. Speaking of the North Pole, what’s the relationship like between you and Santa Claus?

EB: He’s not into trans-species dating.

LG: That’s not what I meant…

EB: Oh…? Oh! Yeah, right, relationship wise, um, well, we really don’t see that much of each other. People always act as if Santa is the head honcho or something. As if he’s higher than me, you know? We do practically the same thing. We both travel around the world delivering gifts to children.

LG: Have church abuse scandals made any difference to the fact that your delivering gifts to children without any real apparent motive?

EB: What are you implying? I can’t speak for Claus but I know that I do this job not out of the goodness of my heart, but for a salary. It’s a full-time occupation. I’m employed by a holiday committee.

LG: You’re employed? So anyone can apply to be the Easter Bunny.

EB: Well it helps if you’re an over-sized pink rabbit but they can give you hormones to develop you if, let’s say, you were an overly ambitious hutch rabbit.

LG: Has a human ever taken on the position?

EB: When the Equality Act came in, the committee were forced to let other species apply for the job. An eccentric man from Ohio was hired once but didn’t last long. A couple of week’s maybe. He started doing holiday conventions in Japan for extra cash and that’s not allowed in the contract. There was a lot of ill feeling over the whole thing. That guy fell into a vat of chocolate in one our factories.

LG: Suicide?

 EB: Well, there’s an ongoing investigation by the holiday fatalities unit so I really can’t comment anymore.

LG: Are fatalities regular in the holiday business?

EB: More than you’d expect for a normal corrupt business, but I can’t really comment on that either. In fact, that was off the record.

LG: Too late. So who actually makes the eggs? Do you have elves like Santa?

 EB: Are you kidding me!? Santa hasn’t used elf labour since the scandal of ’93.

 LG: Scandal?

EB: He was practically running a sweatshop. The authorities warned him that they’d take severe action if he didn’t start paying his staff regular salaries. They were just bluffing of course. I mean whose gonna throw Claus in the slammer? It’d be a mistake of epic proportions. We’d have kids revolting across the world. Definitely not a good situation to be in.

LG: So who works in your factories?

LG: Actually you went off the point and began talking about an elf scandal.

EB: Ah yes, the elf scandal. It was a terrible…

LG: Your doing it again. What’s the problem? Are you running a sweatshop too?

EB: Our staff conditions are perfectly legal for the country they’re based in.

LG: Mexico?

EB: No. Mexico is where my office is based.

LG: Where then? If it’s all legit then surely you can tell me?

LG: I’ve a feeling it will.

EB: YOU B*****D!

At this point the Easter Bunny stormed out of the room. Upon leaving the building he attempted to steal an ashtray from the lobby. Security pursued him at which point he burst through the revolving door out onto the busy road where he was hit by a bus. He’s said to be in a stable condition and should make a full recovery by next Easter.

Downhill from here by Liam Geraghty appears every week in the Kildare Nationalist

I’m sitting in a small office in the Oscar Cinema, Newbridge. Boxes of sweets are stacked in small towers along the floor. Adorned upon the red stripy wall are framed movie posters from by-gone eras. ‘The Outlaw’, ‘Sunset Boulevard’ and Orson Welles’ ‘The Magnificent Ambersons’ to name but a few. Sitting at a cluttered desk is the cinema owner, Michael Roycroft. But how exactly did he become the owner of the cinema that was once known as the Palace? "I was always interested in films. I suppose that is the first thing. Anyone going into the movie business must be interested in films and unsocial hours. When I was in school we had a film club. That’s how the whole thing started for me. Then of course when I went into secondary, they would have been stuck the odd night for somebody to show films so I took an interest in projection and sound and all that type of thing," he explains. "In the early seventies, I got more and more involved when you had, what we would have called a revival of cinema at that time. Old cinemas that had closed down were now re-opening, if you like and this was in pre-video days and DVD days. So I got involved in the opening of refurbished cinemas."

The wall to the right of Michael is covered in a menagerie of old photos. I spot an old black and white photo of Michael, Paddy Melia and none other than Tom Hanks! What was that all about? "That was about Tom Hanks first film called ‘Splash’ which was released in 1984 and he came to Ireland to promote the film. A few of us got to meet him. We had lunch with him and I found him to be one of the nicest people I had ever met. Very genuine. I’m not sure if he’d even remember me at this stage of his career. He’s done so much and he’s gone into so many greater things, winning Academy-Awards left right and centre. But ‘Splash’ was his first. That’s almost twenty years ago. It is. It’s twenty years next year. But that explains the photograph of Tom Hanks."

I’ve always wanted to go up into one of the projection rooms so I put my wish to Michael who’s only delighted to oblige. We arrive at a little door. Michael opens it up to reveal a small wooden stairs leading up into the projector room. I follow him up there to see a large tower projector facing a small window looking out into cinema one, the largest of the three screens in the Oscar Cinemas. One or two small movie posters are stuck to the wall and various movie memorabilia are scattered around the room. "A great deal of films must have passed through this room over the years," I say haphazardly. "Oh very much so. God yes," replies Michael as if every film he’d ever seen had suddenly flashed across his eyes in some sort of horrifying vision. "Thirty years of it. Don’t even ask me to tell you how many films! You’re probably familiar with all this yourself, are you Liam?" says Michael referring to the projector. I point out that I haven’t the foggiest so Michael proceeds in showing me how a projector is set up.

"I’ll make a little bit of noise while I turn this on," he says. Noise is an understatement, I’m thinking. He switches a few dials and a sound, not unlike a car engine, begins humming. "I’ll just turn on what we call the tower. This is our feature film," says Michael pointing to the immensely large film reel. "That is approximately 115minutes long. I’m now just going to strike up the bulb." I hear a strange noise. "I’ll just let that go for a second and then we’ll run the machine and we’ll let you see the system in operation." I ponder out loud what film he’s going to put on. "This is the ads actually," Michael replies. "So I won’t actually get into the film. We’ll just run some of the ads to let you know how the system works." Damn! My secret agenda to see "Harry Potter" before anyone else is foiled. The reel begins to start spinning. Slow at first but then faster and faster. It sounds like a small airplane is about to take off. I wonder out loud about really long films? Do they have two reels? "Yes, if you had a picture like ‘Harry Potter’ or ‘Lord of the Rings’, yes. You’d never be able to fit it all onto the one spool. You’d have to take an intermission. Again, the multiplexes would have a different projection system than we have so they wouldn’t be using what we call a tower. They would use what is called a ‘cake-stand’.

Michael begins to turn off the projector so we can hear again. "So what we’ve done here now is cooled everything down and we can now pitch off," says Michael as he begins to feed the film back into the spool. "Just bare with me now for a moment because as I say it’s not like video or DVD. You have to rewind by hand." It’s at the end of my tour of the Oscar Cinemas and I can see the job is certainly something Michael enjoys very much, but what is the main attraction? "Well I suppose the fact that I get to see the films first. It’s a nice little perk," he says smiling. Michael Roycroft is one lucky man.

Downhill from here by Liam Geraghty appears every week in the Kildare Nationalist

We’re getting some good rain spells, aren’t we? The type that fall when your to far away from the house to go back and fetch your umbrella. I like that type the best I think. It spit’s a bit first. You wonder why you wore that jacket that doesn’t keep the rain off when it was clearly going to rain at some point. And then it does and what can you do, eh? Not much but keep walking. Keep walking and maybe it’ll stop. And it does. For a while at least. But when you come out of the bank it really starts to come down. Shhhhhhhh is the sound it makes. Shhhhhhhhhh. You wait in the porch of the bank with someone else. You watch as every one else runs from the streets. Even the cars seem to have disappeared. When the lights begin beeping for pedestrians you run out of the bank doorstep and you hear that other someone say "brave lad" as you run through the rain and into Penny’s to buy an umbrella. "You must sell a lot of umbrellas at times like these!" is what you think of saying to the girl at the till but you don’t. You rip the tag off the umbrella and open it up. Its not very big but then either are the drops of rain. Its only there are so very many of them.

Not to worry, you say. Nothing to worry about. By the time your near home it becomes apparent that this umbrella was designed for heads. To keep heads dry, because as far as you can feel, your soaking. The left sleeve of your jacket has got it the most but its seeping into your shoes too which is uncomfortable at first but then isn’t. When you get home you leave the umbrella in the porch to dry. You take off all your clothes and change into new ones. You don’t wish you had brought an umbrella. You wish you had never gone out in the first place. Yes, I like those types of rain spells. On certain days, very elusive and rare days the afters of a rain spell like that can rival the rain spell itself.

The sky has to be largely free of clouds, completely free really. And it needs to be blue. A bright blue or even, if your lucky to have just had a rain spell before twilight, a bright pink. With those conditions just right the roads shimmer blue and pink. The colours, locked in puddles and in floods and in everywhere the rain water has settled. The blues and the pinks bounce off walls and car bonnets and everything is still. Like a battlefield after a battle with the blood staining the ground. Beautiful. Those aftermaths and afters are worth happening upon. This wind we’re having - gusty, no? The winds got gusto I say. There are gusts of it. Hard to appreciate on a biting icy day, wind, but now its ok. When you walk out of a stuffy train or supermarket and right into it but its cold but what do you care, huh? Your warm! And the wind cools you. Its nice to walk in wind like that. Ah yes, rain, bits of sunshine and gusts of wind. Weather to walk in. To see. To run from. To love and hate. Funny weather some say when they mean unusual. And if that’s the case, if ‘funny’ should be substituted for ‘unusual’ then ought not the person be talking about when it rains frogs?

Downhill from here by Liam Geraghty appears every week in the Kildare Nationalist

 I’d see two of them, golden yellow, hanging in the centre of a platter of dark green leaves. I’d stand there for a while. Watching them. Then they’d start to grow until they started to look like oranges but they’d grow and grow and keep growing. And just when they looked like they might explode I’d turn and start running down the mountain. Weaving in and out of the thick crop. Kumquats everywhere. I’d keep running and running until the mountain started to slope. The kumquats would start dropping off the branches. Thousands of the little yellow beans flying through the air, hitting the ground, bouncing and then tumbling. And every time, every single time, I’d loose my footing on one and fall backwards, smashing my head on a rock. I’d awake then and my little sister would be at the end of the bed watching me.

My father’s father had been a kumquat farmer too. It was all you could become in Beilun, my father would tell me in the evenings. I had no choice, he’d say. Back then we couldn’t just leave and do studies like you can. He’d tell me this next to near every night and every night I’d listen carefully like I was hearing it for the first time. My father had been harvesting all his life. Forty-nine years. It was hard to tell if he liked doing it. He knew all there was to know and how to do things like any master of a craft but did he enjoy doing it? I just don’t know. I thought to ask him some days but couldn’t do it. What if he said no. What if he said no I don’t like doing this but yet I’ve been doing it for the past forty-nine years. And then what? We’d probably both be embarrassed and when we got home my mother would be able to tell something was up and she’d ask what was the matter and that would only make things worst. So I didn’t ask.

One thing I did know was that I didn’t like it and I’d tell my sister that sometimes. She’d always go and get an old leaflet we had on the benefits of kumquats and give to me when I told her that. She liked kumquats and she knew how important they were to the family so she wanted me to like them too. I’d read the leaflet out loud for her. "Fragrant in taste, enjoy the effects of stomach-appetizing and aerating, thirst-quenching and sleepiness-allaying, phlegm-reducing and cough-relieving, and odor-preventing and lung-moistening of the kumquat." I miss her. I miss my mother and my father and I even miss the stupid dog. I only see kumquats in the supermarket now. When they’re in season. Six apiece lined up in a little plastic tray. Country of origin Beilun, New China.

Downhill from here by Liam Geraghty appears every week in the Kildare Nationalist

My favourite writers manage, with the utmost concern for their readers, to stay out of the best-seller lists. At least they do in Ireland anyway and for that I am grateful. Contrary to what you might think one might write at this point, I’m going to tell you the names of my favourite writers. Not all of them of course. One must keep some things to themselves and considering the writer I admire the most passed away some years ago, they won’t be losing out in publicity sales of their books. In fact, even the writers I’m about to supply you with the names of, won’t benefit greatly from being mentioned. This is because I’m certain that only a very small number of people (one probably, two at a stretch) will actually go and seek out these books that I have yet to mention. I know from experience that recommendations from strangers in newspapers are very hard to believe. Then again I’m not recommending these books to you. If anything I recommend that you don’t purchase these books.

The first of my beloved authors is Daniel Handler. Handler is an interesting choice for one of my favourite writers as he is known by a great number of people - only they know him as a one Lemony Snicket, the writer of A Series of Unfortunate Events. While Lemony Snicket’s books regularly appear on the children’s best-seller lists, Daniel Handler’s two published adult novels remain largely unknown to the greater pool of readers. The Basic Eight is a terrific satire on American culture, dealing with teenagers in particular. The other is Watch You’re Mouth which the blurb rightly describes as "the best incest comedy you’ll read all year." Handler has a wonderful style complemented by his creative story structures. For instance, while the first half of Watch You’re Mouth is told as though it were an opera, the second half swivels radically to continue the story through a self-help book.

At an onstage interview with McSweeney’s editor and writer Dave Eggers, Handler once told the audience of how much his writing has been influenced by Lorrie Moore, especially by her novel Anagrams from which he read an extract for them. "The most embarrassing thing about re-reading Anagrams for this evening was realizing that I’d stolen from her again," he said. "I stole from her in The Basic Eight and I stole from her in Watch Your Mouth. It’s a short book," he continued. "There’s only, like, five words left that I could steal. And I’ve written a new novel, which will be out next year, that is stolen completely from Anagrams." "And what is the name of the new novel?" Eggers asked. Handler, after a brief pause, replies "Adverbs." And that particular book is to be released in April.

The thing about discovering a writer who is largely at the beginning of his career is that they don’t have many books, and so the wait for each new book, to be completely melodramatic, is excruciating. Furthermore, if that particular writer isn’t swimming in the mainstream or even dipping his toe in the little stream you’ll find yourself obsessively trying to hunt down a copy of the book as soon as possible. It goes without saying that my copy of Adverbs is already ordered and waiting to cross the Atlantic. The other thing about Handler is not just his writing but his persona. In all interviews he’s so incredibly sharp and amusing that you can’t help but fall in love with him.

For instance, when asked did he have any favourite questions that kids have asked him, Handler answered, "This kid at a reading the other day asked if I had a hot tub, and I said no. So he said that neither did Christopher Paolini - Christopher Paolini wrote Eragon, a popular children’s series. I said, well, that’s why Christopher Paolini and I had never been in a hot tub together, because every time we were together we’d say your hot tub or mine, and we’d both have to say we didn’t have one, which is why Christopher Paolini and I have remained total strangers rather than hot tub partners." If his literary works and sparkling wit wasn’t enough for me to love Daniel Handler he also occasional plays accordion with one of my favourite bands, The Magnetic Fields. In fact in writing all this this I realise that I still want to keep him and the rest of my favourite writers to myself but it’s late, I’m tired and I’ve a dentists appointment in the morning, and so I don’t have the energy to delete what I’ve just written and write something else in its place. I’m just going to have to trust you. Don’t buy any of his books.

Downhill from here by Liam Geraghty appears every week in the Kildare Nationalist

 I make myself a cup of tea. It’s my third this morning. In my favourite mug. The one with Mickey Mouse on it. I don’t know why I like it, I just do. Someone’s at the front door now. I can hear something large dropping and the porch door sliding closed. Must have been the post man. And it was. I take the package into the kitchen. It’s for me. Inside is a book. An awfully big package for a book, I think. The book is called "Not Like I’m Jealous or Anything: The Jealousy Book." Edited by Marissa Walsh, it says. A little three-eyed green monster is staring from the cover. I begin to read the introduction where Ms. Walsh tries to list all the things she is jealous of. She lists people with iPods, people who hang out all day and write and paint and people who spend their summers on Cape Cod. I try to think of all the things I’m jealous of as I flip through the pages of the book. I needn’t think too hard when I see the contents. On page 78 is an essay entitled "The Driver: Me and Marty Beckerman" written by a friend of mine, Ned Vizzini. Just under that, on page 88, is a listing for an essay called "Why I’m jealous of Ned Vizzini" by yet another American friend of mine, Marty Beckerman. Instantly I know what I’m green with envy over.

 I’m green that my two friends, both writers, have achieved enough success for them to appear in an anthology where they both write about how jealous they are of each other’s success. I close the book and finish my tea. Damn them. Dublin writer Claire Hennessy crosses my mind just then. She had her first book published when she was twelve and has had five books published since. Damn her too. Damn them all for realising that in writing, waiting for inspiration to come is fruitless. It took me years to realise that. I must write something today, I think. Yes, really I should. I’ll have another cup of tea and I’ll go write something. So I have another cup and I go upstairs and switch the computer on. It purrs pleasantly at being awoke. I put an old notebook on the desk and sit my mug on it. I must now write something. Ah, but first a little music, and a little dance perhaps too. Yes. Something by Jeffrey Lewis I think. That will do just fine. So I listen and I dance a little and I drink some more tea. Now I’ll write. So I write. And I write. And I can scarcely believe that my mind is clear enough to write more than a paragraph. Then a foolscap. Then two. Two is plenty for now, I say. No need to exert myself on such a fine morning. I’ll write two more pages tomorrow and the day after I’ll do the same.

I then remember something Ned Vizzini once said to me. We we’re talking about Cecelia Ahern’s success in the literary world. I mentioned how at first she was greeted with a myriad of begrudgery and jealously from a lot of people in Ireland. Especially from embittered writers. Ahem, I thought. "When it comes to Cecelia Ahern and PS I Love You," Ned said, "you shouldn’t waste you’re time being jealous. I have lot’s of problems with jealously; I get jealous of everybody. I was particularly bad last March when Marty (Beckerman) got a blurb from frickin’ Hunter S Thompson, but my Dad told me, Ned, jealousy is a waste of time; you just have to worry about what you can control."

Ned paused before continuing. "And I throw that back at you. If you think Cecelia Ahern is a bitch for writing a big-time novel when she was 22, then write one yourself and out-bitch her. I have a lot of friends who write that stuff (chick-lit) and they’re not that bad - it’s best to keep an open mind." I remember this and think yes, yes you’re right. And then I remember something the novelist Martin Malone once told me. He said I’ve got youth on my side. That I should write and write and to stick with it, that I shouldn’t abandon it. I should pursue it. He’s right, I thought. He’s right. And Ned’s right too. So I put my hands to the keyboard and start typing.

Downhill from here by Liam Geraghty appears every week in the Kildare Nationalist

I remember how, being small, I would always look in the mirror and try to imagine myself older, in my twenties. I could never do it. I could never get my head round the concept of growing up. My days we’re spent playing spies and rounders and games we’d just invent ourselves. I look at the poster beside them. A huge image of a bottle of Jack Daniels. Jeff bought it for me on his birthday. He seen it somewhere and thought I’d like it. I was really pleased about it. How even though I’ve slight obsessive compulsive tendencies and don’t like putting posters up on my wall, I put this one up anyway. Because it didn’t signify whiskey more than it did a thought, a kindness, a spontaneous gesture.

I look further to a plywood board with a couple of photos tacked to it. One of me smiling as a baby with someone wriggling my toe. A photo of Lucky our little dog when he was sick. We laid a huge orange quilt for him on the kitchen floor to sleep on. Then onto the shelves and balancing towers of books upon them. Books I’d be given. Books I’d bought on the strength of their covers alone. Regretting doing so in some cases but delighting in most. My favourite books. The one’s I love to much to ever recommend to anyone else. Then to the books with inscriptions written in them. Some just a standard phrase or greeting from a tired author but others more special. More personal, from a friend. More kind gestures. The books written by friends. I chuckle a little. Thinking about the times when I bump into authors in Credit Union queues or out shopping or at the bar. I like it. I think of the people who have sent me books from another country. Books that crossed the Atlantic.

My eyes move down to the pipe I got in Slovenia one time and to the small tin of McCrystals’ Snuff resting beside it. The snuff was a present from a friend I know longer see. He remembered me talking about snuff one day and weeks later he saw some tins of it in a tobacco shop front in Clare. I look at the pile of DVD’s which I’ve stopped buying. How they represent almost nothing. They’re quantity illustrates a gap I was trying to fill, a gap that sometimes felt like an abyss. I look to the door which I’ve turned into a sort of ongoing collage. Some posters from a reading series me and a friend put together. Some postcards of Tintin and James Bond and The Rocky Horror Picture Show and Alfred Hitchcock that my parents brought back to me once. A bright blue ticket I kept from a time when me and a comrade had gone to see Bret Easton Ellis. We stuck around until every last person was gone so we could talk to him alone.

Near the door handle a letter from a girl in San Francisco. I stuck the letter up because its one of the few letters I have that isn’t typed and whose penmanship is beautiful. To it’s left a package that arrived in the post one morning out of the blue. Instead of a regular envelope it was sent in one of those green and white envelopes you usually get when you collect you’re photos from the chemist. And it held a short story and some music. A most wonderful gesture. Looking closer now my, beside locker. The lamp shade titled slightly so the light spills over my bed for when I’m reading into the night. A stack of albums. Charlie Parker. Eels. The Magnetic Fields. Music is my tonic. Administered by dancing alone to it. No need to discuss it or analysis it for now. Just listen and dance to it. Stand alongside Brel, duet with Bobby Darwin, conduct the Tokyo Symphonic Orchestra, jam with the Blues Brothers. Below the CD’s are some freshly printed pages. Various collected blog’s of people that require further attention. Then back to the bed. Pillow propped up against the head board, head propped up against the pillow.

Downhill from here by Liam Geraghty appears every week in the Kildare Nationalist

I sympathise with Maeve Brennan and can appreciate her sentiment. In fact there is nothing more I’d like to have written this week than of my own untimely death. Of how, after a lethal cocktail of headache tablets and whiskey complete with a little yellow umbrella, I over-dosed on St. Valentine’s Day morning over my type-writer. The person who discovered me would have found a note instructing that I be buried wearing my best velvet blazer and a list of people who were not to be invited to the funeral. Yes, that is what I would have preferred to have happened but as with many things in life the preferable is not always the practical.

You see recently more and more people have been plucking up the courage to pass comment to me on this particular column. Everyone from People I Know to Strangers have been throwing their two cents in my face. Granted, none of these comments are entirely negative and so one would imagine I should be quite pleased. But I’m not. Allow me to explain it a little more clearly.

These people, the ones passing comment, are reflective of the great Irish public who in the great Irish tradition have an opinion that is deemed worth telling someone however inconsiderate telling that person may be. For example, there are a number of readers out there who have told me they like reading this column when it’s passing social comment. They do not, however and in the strongest of terms, like reading about anything vaguely humble or humorous. They can not understand why someone would want to read about a happening that they weren’t present at.

On the other side of the fence are people of the exact opposite nature in reading habits. They enjoy light humour based on real experiences but can not abide or see the sense in reading about an issue or debate about current affairs. Further more, both sides insist that I immediately stop writing the type of column that they personally don’t like and continue to write the types of column they do like. And while the bee is still in my bonnet, people suggesting subjects for columns is something I just can’t abide, especially when it’s less "suggesting" and more "ordering" and expecting to see their proposal brought to life in the following weeks paper. Or worst still the people who think I should write about something different but, amazingly, have no idea what this different thing is but insist that I should certainly be writing about it.

I like to think of this column as one might a trip to the circus. The clowns may be funny and the putting of ones head into the mouth of a lion may be serious but in general each circus is entirely unpredictable. I am the ringmaster who knows that you can’t please all of the people all of the time but that unfortunately the people themselves don’t know this. As another Irish columnist, John Waters, once said, "I write a column, on a weekly basis, and submit it for publication. If people wish to read it, that’s fine; if they like what they read, that’s great. But if not, no problem. It is not part of my job description to make myself available as an intellectual punch bag for people who have got out of the wrong side of the bed." Again I can appreciate John Water’s sentiment as I did that of Maeve Brennan’s.

The problem with writing a column for a regional paper is that you tend to live amongst a lot of you’re readers and tend to bump into them quite a lot. This arrangement leads to laziness in opinion. Whereas if you were suitably annoyed about something in a national paper this annoyance would push you to go to the effort of writing a letter to that paper as I have done on occasion. Most of the people who have made comments to me wouldn’t be bothered to go to all this effort of putting pen to paper and paper to envelope and envelope to post box. So why then do they feel so compelled to pass comment when they see me walking along minding my own business in daily life?

In my experience I’ve found that people generally find it pleasing to pass comment even though they have not put a lot of thought or effort into what they are saying and, in fact, often just say something for the Hell of it. It never fails to surprise me of how entirely devoid of tact people can be and at the end of the day, despite my best efforts to persuade you other wise, I am only human with feelings too.

Downhill from here by Liam Geraghty appears every week in the Kildare Nationalist

The answer, a lot of people seem to be saying, is to just go to Dublin. What’s the big deal, they say? Just drive up to LiffeyValley and shut up, they say. Why are you asking me anyway, they say, I’m only the janitor? It’s like this folks. Imagine the scene. It’s the late eighties. After falling out of trees all morning, all my friends and I want to do is catch the Saturday matinee of "Ferngully: The Last Rainforest" in the Oscar. We swindle a fiver off our parents, walk down the town to the cinema, load up on E colourings and watch a movie. Bing, bam, boom. Just like that. So what is it like for the kids of today? Well after falling out of virtual trees on the Playstation all morning, the Newbridge kids of today have to persuade their parents to jump in the car, spend an hour or so in traffic getting to LiffeyValley, pay roughly fifteen euro for a ticket and a tub of popcorn and spend the next three hours watching Harry Potter. And people expect parents to make this pilgrimage to Dublin every week? Are you out of you’re mind or just fabulously wealthy?

Newbridge needs a cinema like monkeys need bananas. What else are the young people of Newbridge supposed to do? In case you haven’t noticed Newbridge isn’t exactly a metropolis of recreation. I guess young people could take up sports like skating and roller blading but then again they have no skate park and are looked upon as if they have multiple nasty diseases. Maybe they could get involved in the arts but then again the great resources that we have in the Riverbank Arts Centre are being neglected by people who have the power to put them to good use. I guess young people could start a band, as it seems to be the one area that Newbridge serves well. Ironically though that fact is only because of the dedication of the various young singers and musicians who put a lot of effort into organising gig’s for everyone. Apparently the Whitewater proposes to build an 8-screen cinema separate from the complex on what effectively would be a corner site at the Athgarvan road junction. Assuming they get planning permission for that, we’ll be looking at another year or two before that’s even built. Maybe longer, who knows? Without a cinema there won’t be comedy. There won’t be fantasy. There won’t be romance. One things for sure though – there’ll be murder.

Downhill from here by Liam Geraghty appears every week in the Kildare Nationalist (pg.6)

Stage One of Several Stages

Contrary to what popular makers of various character based-cereals would have you believe, a full delicious breakfast cannot be condensed into a small bar dispensed from a sweet machine. It can only be fully appreciated when it’s eaten at a leisurely pace - meaning this: You must, whenever possible, call in sick to work/college/school in order to enjoy the full healthy benefits derived from a leisurely paced breakfast, or the LPB as it is called. The following sub-steps in Stage One of Several Stages will illustrate how to do this.

(1.) Stay in bed for as long as you wish and ignore any alarms that attempt to influence you’re decision to get up. Except for smoke alarms.

(2.) Always begin with a bowl of you’re favourite brand of cornflakes. This will help you wake up.

(3.) Prepare tea and toast.

These are crucial to a proper breakfast and so you must get this sub-step right, e.g. don’t screw it up. Despite popular theory and old wives tales white bread makes for better toast than, say, brown bread. Only scientists who have studied which breads are healthiest to consume eat brown bread. Are you a scientist? I didn’t think so. While you’re white bread is toasting boil the kettle for you’re tea.

Neat tip: As you’re boiling you’re tea, prepare for everything that goes with it - milk, sugar, spoon, character-based mug (eg. Kermit the Frog, Mickey Mouse, etc). Once you have added upwards of one spoonful of sugar and have lathered you’re toast (slightly burnt) with butter (both sides optional but recommended) sit down at a table/couch/video rental store and eat. At this point you may wish to flick through you’re favourite newspaper looking for that column of whose writer, you can tell by their photo by-line, has a slender yet handsome and some would sat manly body.

Stage Two of Several Stages, (although less stages than if you started reading at Stage One but more stages than if you had started reading at, say, Stage Three)

The exciting, yet ultimately disappointing, Stage Two deals with lunch. Lunch is like the word "genre." It covers a broad range of foods (unlike the word "genre" which covers a broad range of films) and therefore offers you scope to be a little bit adventurous but not in the way that Indiana Jones was adventurous. Unless of course you’re lunch, let’s say a sandwich and a glass of milk, were at the heart of a temple which you had to infiltrate with the help of you’re oriental side-kick and possibly a nightclub singer played by Kate Capshaw.

Lunch is also a good time to try that new restaurant you’ve been meaning to try but just haven’t got the time or money or street smarts to find in a city that’s too big anyway.

Stage Three of Several Stages, (a stage which was nominated for several stage of the year awards but won none of them and is pretty darn bitter about it)

 Dinner, some say, is rather like breakfast and lunch only it is eaten at a later time of the day. Recommended dinner dishes include Roast Potatoes and Turkey, Roast Potatoes and Chicken and Roast Potatoes in Turkey while easting Chicken although you’re chicken in Turkey may have a slightly blocked nose, headaches and sore throat. Alternatives to cooking your own dinner is to order food from a local food making establishment and have it delivered to your home. Unless of course you live next door to one in which case ordering food and having it delivered to your home would be rather silly now, wouldn’t it?

Stage Four is the conclusion of Several Stages that begun with Stage One, (Fatties in particular like this stage.)

 This stage does not deal with the popular however old-fashioned time known as "Tea Time". It does, none the less, deal with what you should eat in between meals, on the bus and in the middle of the night. Microwave popcorn is a modern and popular choice. Marvel at how a flat bag can magically grow and grow in you’re very own microwave but don’t marvel so much as to get lost in this magical event and not notice how the bag is now on fire. Other suggested "snacks" include apple pie, apple juice, apple sauce, apple flavoured sweets but certainly not apples themselves. So there you have it. Starting from now, why not try out this diet which guarantees (Legal Note: Does not guarantee in the slightest.) that you’ll be looking slimmer in no time!

In fact why start now when you could be told all this information again only in tele-visual format by me in person on your TV with my new DVD - "GET FIT WITH GERAGHTY." Order now and you’ll get a book of food coupons - absolutely free!

 The NATIONALIST has five copies of "GET FIT WITH GERAGHTY" to give away.

Simply answer the following question:

 How many stages are in Liam’s get fit diet?

 (a.) 4

(b.) 64

(c.) 6400

Send you’re answer and contact details to The Kildare Nationalist, Edward St., Newbridge, Co. Kildare.

This is not a wind up.

(Editors note: If it is we'll print Geraghty's home address next week and you can go round and kick some sense into yourself.)

Then again, who could blame this person for their remark when my fiction is largely kept in an old green binder hidden beneath a pile of comics at the end of my bed. I guess I keep it hidden because it feels more personal than anything I’ve ever written for a newspaper or a magazine. Even though what you’re reading now is fact, somehow the lives of the characters in my short-stories appear more real to me. Strange that. Of course, I’ll be honest too. Apart from the pure satisfaction of writing itself, I’m somewhat taken with the outlandish romantic notions of what being a writer is. These notions see me huddled up over a typewriter banging out pages. Reading them. Scrunching them up into paper balls and throwing them at the wall. Then writing a masterpiece of a sentence and smoking like Michelle Pieffer in The Fabulous Baker Boys. God, they smoked a lot in that film. Then I’d have to exile myself from Ireland, as all the great writers do. I’d move to Paris. Find myself a little apartment. Drink whiskey. Write. Drink a little more. Write a little more. I’d probably befriend a prostitute. Yes. That’s exactly what I’d do. Befriend a prostitute.

Of course, there are others out there who would do much more in order to climb the literary ladder. Take for example a one JT Leroy who took centre stage in one of the most intriguing literary mysteries in recent times. JT was a young rent-boy who made a break from a terrible life in West Virginia and ended up in San Francisco where he became a drug addict. Yet JT was saved from all this by a couple named Laura Albert and Geoffrey Knoop. After seeing a shrink, JT managed to turn his horrendous youth into a thriving career as a writer. He published three critically acclaimed works of fiction noted for their stark portrayal of child prostitution and drug use. All this time JT won over friendships and trust with celebrities and well-known authors like Dave Eggers who offered him financial assistance when he announced that he had been infected with HIV. Who could blame the now 25yr old JT for being a tad reclusive? Whenever he appeared in public he was always wearing a wig and sunglasses. But as it turns out this young man wearing a wig and sunglasses is not a man at all.

In fact JT Leroy didn’t even exist in the first place. Laura Albert and Geoffrey Knoop, the couple who had apparently rescued JT from his terrible life, were behind his creation. Knoop had his half-sister take on the role of JT whenever he needed JT to appear in public (with the wig and sunglasses of course) and quite amazingly almost all of San Francisco had been duped. That is until someone recognised her. Accounts vary to why the couple would do such a thing. One source I’ve read suggests that the couple we’re unfulfilled rock musicians who concocted the character of JT Leroy to gain access first to literary circles and, later, to celebrities. I’m fascinated that people would go to such lengths. As you can imagine there were a lot of angry people in the aftermath of that hoax.

It reminds me of a "picture-novella" I once read called "It’s A Good Life, If You Don’t Weaken" by Seth. The blurb on the book suggested it was an auto-biographically piece and Seth was given much acclaim and praise having put his story down so wonderfully. Only trouble was that, again, it wasn’t auto-biographical at all. Several years later Seth just announced it was entirely fiction and he just fancied calling it auto-biographical much to his original adoring critics scorn. I guess for me, I’ll keep my fiction to myself for a little while longer.

Of course, it all comes back to what Hemmingway said really. "The only thing that could spoil a day was people. People were always the limiters of happiness except for the very few that were as good as spring itself." Much later that day after that horrid conversation where I had been called a journalist and not a writer, I received two messages from people who may be as good as spring itself in cheering me up. One was from Kerrie who texted me saying "I got caught reading you’re article in work. Damn you Geraghty! I shake my fists at you!" The other text pleased me the most though. It was sent to my phone by a one "Daffy" at 2.30am and read "I have just been in Tesco, reading you’re column for free. I was ejected before I could finish it. How does it end, for the love of Sonic, TELL ME!" Yes. I do believe I’ll be content with the column. For now anyway.

Downhill from here by Liam Geraghty appears every week in the Kildare Nationalist (pg.6)