Dazed In The Life

I was at the Leinster match against Edinburgh on Sunday – a dour affair, 12-3 victory, blah blah blah but the fact is that the team are through to a quarter final against an opponent who won’t scare them – Harlequins – which is still two and a bit months away. There were some bright sparks, notably of course my schoolmate Rob Kearney who looks better and better with every game. His catching under the high ball has been exemplary, his kicking has improved immeasurably and his eye for an offensive running line is unmatched among his teammates right now. This Leinster Lion is soon to be a British and Irish Lion. Girvan Dempsey has been a great servant to Leinster and Ireland but it’s time to face facts: The future’s bright, the future’s Kearney.

The weather was pretty rotten in the RDS so I was well wrapped up and doing my best to contain body-heat when I was presented with the unwelcome prospect of someone donating an portion of their own body-heat to me. Yes, it’s that “2 Seats On The Aeroplane” question: An extaordinarily fat – not overweight, genuinely fat – man sat down next to me. And by next to me I mean he very nearly succeeded in sitting next to me on both my left and right sides.

Now, I’m able to tolerate many things, but being unable to sit properly in a chair which you have paid good money for on an unready-uncomfortable day is pretty tough to bear. There is very little one can do, however, short of emergency liposuction or a “Merchant Of Venice” job. Shylock could have drawn his entire pension from this guy. And this isn’t a case of me being size-ist – it’s the same as someone standing on your toes, or sneezing on you, in that they have caused you to feel discomfort. The only difference here is that a stumble of ones feet or a sudden sneeze are slightly less controllable than a bulging waistline. Common sense and genuine health concerns are being increasingly overlooked in Ireland, as witnessed by the increasing number of Irish teens who are, well, increasing. We only live once – don’t try living for two people.

A neat segue links the question of obesity to America, the so-called Home of Fast Food. And we had a very American visitor to the RDS for our half-time entertainment on Sunday: Robert Burck, the world-famous “Naked Cowboy”, is a busker in Time Square, whose act consists of him playing his guitar wearing only boots, tight shorts and a cowboy hat. A wet and windy January in Dublin isn’t the best place to ply that particular trade and his song was both brief and forgettable. And weren’t the cowboys to be found slightly further west than New York City? And surely they wore more clothes than Mr. Burck – cacti can sting, after all!

But nevertheless, the image of the Naked Cowboy is iconic. He was heartily cheered on and off the pitch and there was an awe-filled gusto to the way the man on the tannoy introduced our special guest “ALL THE WAY FROM NEW! YORK! CITY!!!” There is life in the New World yet. There remains a worldwide, and especially Irish, fascination with America and the holy grail of New York, the epicentre of that culture of hope and possibility. The White House, Congress etc. may all be in Washington but it is the New York skyline, the Statue Of Liberty, Time Square, the Subway, Broadway, these legendary landmarks to freedom, adventure and human flamboyance, which ignite the imagination.

America is dictating world culture to an unbelievable extent at the moment. The world’s political tides are pulled to and fro by the orbiting American satellite. And on the evidence of Sunday in the RDS, America is the still the hottest ticket in town, still the band we dream of seeing play live, still the celebrity we all want to shake hands with, still the true land of hope and glory. Heck, I’ve written plenty of posts about America myself over the last few months. Maybe it’s our Irish inferiority complex, our historical link to the states, the fact that we’re a little nation and they are our big brotherly neighbours across the ocean, who knows? But clearly, in hard times, we still look to America, to its icons such as the Naked Cowboy, to reaffirm our belief in human endurance and the impossibility of nothing.