Trust the Dublin Taxi Drivers

One of my great discoveries in the past was that you could freeze milk in the waxed cartons (that you could never open, and when you did, the milk sprayed out everywhere and you never quite managed to find all the drips until they began to smell and you have to do a major clean) and use it when you needed it. Fantastic! I don’t know it seemed in ‘those days’ that I was constantly running out of milk and in ‘those days’ shops were not so customer friendly that they actually opened when you needed them to. Of course, you could always look at that another way and say that shops were closed at reasonable times so that shop workers could have a reasonable life and not be forced to work shifts at all hours of the day and night because of the grasping nature of the large supermarket chains who want to rule the world – but let it pass, let it pass.

Anyway. I have a new discovery. You can book in for your flight on the internet and print out your own boarding pass AND go to the head of the queue with all those mothers (with suspiciously old ‘children’) and demand preferential treatment! Getting to the front seats and the seats by the emergency exits so that you can have leg room without the canaille pushing past you to spend ten minutes putting their putrescent bags in a varied selection of over head storage compartments before they finally get their rotting carcases out of the way and allow real human beings to pass. I always think that air travel brings out the best in me.

The look on the faces of those cretins who start queuing at the gate as soon as they arrive in departures as we few, we precious few sailed past them waving our printed boarding passes like bejewelled peacock fans to waft away the miasma from the great unwashed was worth double the price of the seats. Talking of the price of the seats: coffee at Bristol airport. We had four coffees and a small piece of Belgian brownie. The total cost was more than a return ticket to Dublin. Something, surely, is wrong.

What’s really wrong is that my parents and grandparents did not have foresight. My grandparents could have met up with the dealer Vollard and bought Picassos and Cezannes at cost price and bequeathed them to me; my parents could have invested in Habitat and sold out at the right time; and I could have bought that painting that I like the look of in a newspaper some time ago and I would now be the possessor of ‘A Bigger Splash’ by David Hockney. I could have done it. I really could have bought it. I don’t want to talk about how much it is worth now.

So, the start of the journey to Dublin was most satisfactory, and the journey itself (with spacious leg room) meant that I did not have to fracture my legs to get them moving at the end of the flight.

If you travel with Ryanair from Bristol to Dublin you are decanted into a rather makeshift looking terminal at the unfashionable end of the airport. Civilization is reached by trekking through the longest portacabin in the world. Your trek is not made any more encouraging by the look of desperate exhaustion on the faces of the people who are making their way to the unfashionable end of the airport. I never thought that the sight of a stretch of pseudo marble flooring with those vindictively uncomfortable airport chairs would be so welcome. It meant that we were almost at the taxis.

The taxi driver who took us into Dublin (as well as the hysterically funny driver who took us back) lived up to the Irish blarney hype: fluent, funny, welcoming and informative. Who could ask for more?

The courtyard of Trinity (thanks again Hadyn – what a sensible suggestion) was filled with people listening to a crossover concert and the accommodation office didn’t seem fixed up to actually deal with guests, but things were soon sorted out and we went to our cells, sorry, rooms which were at the far end of the campus.

All of Dublin took it in turns to pass our room and make a considerable amount of noise; it reminded me of a student hostel in Madrid which previously had been the most uncongenially noisy place in which I had stayed. Dublin, late on a Friday night makes Madrid appear provincial!

Out for a meal. Friday night: Temple Bar. The whole of the United Nations seemed to have the same idea as our good selves and the place was packed with a cacophony of linguistic vocalizations. Our choice of Gallagers was inspired: good atmosphere, exceptional service and delicious food. The memory of my Atlantic Seafood Chowder will remain with me for some time to come. Guinness is not, and never will be my favourite tipple, but when in Rome, and so . . .

During the night every rubbish cart in the western hemisphere decided to rev the engine, load and empty and process outside our room, thank God I am not used to the ‘dark stuff’ and was able to drift off into a Guinness induced slumber.

Breakfast was in the Buttery Restaurant at the other end of the campus from the halls of residence in which we were staying. One thing and another meant that we were not early for our meal so everything was gone and closed within a minute of the advertised closing time, and with a Proustian memory moment I suddenly remembered the closing of the refectory in Swansea University when I was a student living in Neuadd Lewis Jones where the harridan Nikky wielded a voice of toughened gravel against those benighted profaners of the deadline time of 8.30 am who crept snail like from their pits.

The smell of university refectories is universal: not pleasant. It’s partly the furniture: utilitarian (without Benthamite consideration); functional without comfort, and angular without compunction. But, during the Time of Conferences, the university food managerial mind muses that a single, strategically places jug of cheap flowers on a harsh plastic table will transform the place into a plush hotel to tempt Bono to buy. At the risk of sounding obvious, it doesn’t; indeed it merely emphasises the cheap without the cheer and makes it even more appropriate for a circle of catering hell. All that because I didn’t have the full breakfast (which I had paid for) in spite of being a full minute before curfew. Bastards!

As is usual with our happy little group, any attempt to take a Bus Tour inevitably brings the rains: this excursion was no exception. Cowering from the elements on an open top bus, we fled into the Guinness Experience which, as luck would have it, was the stop which coincided with the rains.

You have to admire the company for making almost something out of definite nothing. You do not do a tour of the Guinness factory; instead you ascend through a series of educational constructs before you get to the promised pint. To be fair, there is a tasting station about half way through where you can imbibe a mouthful to speed you on your way.

The highlight of this visit for me was not the final drink in the glass viewing tower, drinking while chatting to an American couple who had been happily divorced for eighteen years, but who were visiting Dublin together because “he pays,” no, it was the glass bottomed waterfall feature which was exactly the sort of thing that I wanted in the back garden - though I would have settled for something a little smaller. It did have some sort of meaning, the oats or the barley or the grain was being washed or roasted or boiled or something according to the educational panels, but who cares when you could walk beneath a glass roof of swirling water and then look through a curtain of water with various lighting effects. I took many photographs, be thankful you only have to look at one!

Then it was lunchtime and, hugging walls trying vainly to shelter from the stormy blasts we eventually took refuge in a sort of Italian restaurant which will not feature in our ‘Where to eat’ list. But it did, as they say, fill a gap.

Although exhaustion and terminal foot fatigue were taking their toll we did go to the National Gallery of Art (with the usual choir of moaning Philistines) and I did my usual hysterical tour. An extraordinary El Greco with a background which looked like hurried stage painting and an unexpected Chardin. With others. Then off to more delights.

Our second night’s meal was Spanish, in La Paloma. We excitedly chose various tapas until we noticed that they were not served on a Saturday evening. However, the main menu gave plenty of scope for interesting eating: deep fried, breaded Manchego with onion chutney followed by scallops with tomato and brandy. Delicious. And expensive, but not that expensive if you change the euros into pounds and then think about what you could get in Wales – in other words kid yourself.

The night was quieter. Well, it would have had to have been, the only way in which it could have been noisier was to have the bloody rubbish machines in the room with us.

The Book of Kells was the first stop after (a full, proper, and in time) breakfast. I know it’s an important codex but they have had to do a lot of work to make the viewing of two pages significant. Much more impressive was the long library, as I mentioned to Toni, that was the sort of place that I had in mind for Spain. Fond hope.

The visit to Saint Patrick’s Cathedral was made just that little bit more difficult by our being there on a Sunday morning when a service was in progress. The idea of having a cup of coffee seemed good if impractical as there seemed to be a complete dearth of such establishments in the vicinity. The enthusiastic contribution of a passer by, telling us that all pubs closed at 12.30 spurred us into finding a strange little café staffed by Orientals. Our order (simple and clear) was not fully understood and my asking for milk for my tea produced total bemusement. It appeared that they had adopted the interesting idea of placing little jugs of milk on each table so it would be readily available for customers – in the heat, hour after hour. It takes all sorts.
The search for fridge magnetics for Carme, Laura and ourselves was successful so that was Dublin done and dusted!

The trip back was tiring; it is, after all, quite difficult to manage when you have something like forty Lear Jets to get off the ground after the Ryder Cup. Everything was delayed and even the delight of having our boarding passes clutched in our hands (thank the Lord for internet cafes) didn’t lessen the tedium of waiting for the bloody plane to take off. Even the delay in getting out of the car park in Bristol seemed designed to drain liveliness from all of us. The only thing that kept me going was the thought that Paul would have to get up at five o’clock in the morning to get to a conference in Llandudno by 10 am on Monday!

So, eighteenth century Dublin is behind us: fine buildings mixed with rougher, inclement architecture; fine food and rotten weather. At least we won.