Miss Caroline Morahan, and Her Fabulous Role in Irish Life

The facts, from what can be pieced together from my own recollections and the Garda files, are these: on New Year's Eve, December 31st, 2005, I, An Spailpín Fánach of the County Mayo, was summoned for "emergency coffee" by my very dear friend, Nessa Nic Lir. Nessa had been having a very bad day and needed cheering up, so we repaired to that joint on Grafton Street that isn't Bewley's, even though it looks like Bewley's, feels like Bewley's, and charges through the snout like Bewley's used to do. Go figure. Anyway, Nessa ordered a skinny chinny whinny chino, with skimmed milk, marshmallows and chocolate powder sprinkles. An Spailpín Fánach had tay. We got down to business straightaway.

"I hate her so, so much," said Nessa. "That fat cow."

"Ara musha whist," said An Spailpín, comfortingly. "You don't really. You only think you do."

"You don't understand. You'll never understand. I hate hate hate hate hate her."

"But she's done nothing to you, Nessa. You've never even met her. You've only seen her on the telly."

Nessa glared at me. "That's not the point. You don't understand. You'll never understand. You're such a pig!"

"Well, there's not much I can do about that Nessa. I'm trying to be your friend, but I just don't see what you've got against Caroline Morahan. It doesn't make any sense to me. She's just some girl on the telly, that's all. A fairly fit one, but - what the Hell is that? It sounds like a tuba. Who plays a tuba in Bewley's? Even in this strange ersatz neo-Bewley's that we find ... er, Nessa? What are you doing?"

My companion had pushed her chair away from the table, a mad and unearthly light shining in her eye. She stood up and began to pace the floor. People began staring. An Spailpín Fánach started dreading the worst. The tuba was getting louder and louder - Dum dada dumdum, dum dada dumdum...

Nessa began to speak. Dum dada dumdum, dum dada dumdum...

"Dear God, you made many, many size thirteens. I realize, of course, that it's no shame to be beef to the heels, like the Mullingar heifer. But it's no great honour either! So, what would have been so terrible if I had an RTÉ contract?"

Dum dada dumdum, dum dada dumdum...

"If I were a Morahan,
Ya ha deedle deedle, bubba bubba deedle deedle dum.
All day long I'd biddy biddy bum.
If I were Caroline.
I wouldn't have to work hard.
Ya ha deedle deedle, bubba bubba deedle deedle dum.
If I were a biddy biddy Mor-,
Yidle-diddle-didle-didle -ahan."

"Ah God Nessa, this is going to be a scene, isn't it? People are staring."


"I'd have gowns and frocks and shoes by the dozen,
Each bought on account at BT.
And I'd always wear the most exotic furs.
Paris and Rome would be my destinations
- Although Dublin's where my heart would always be -
If I had a rack like hers!

"The Horse Show in summer, in all of my glory,
Soaking up the sun in Dublin 4.
Looking at all the horses, the greys and bays.
In the evening on the town going dancing,
But there's only one boy I want to score -
Who else but Philip Boucher Hayes!

"Oy!

"If I were a Morahan,
Ya ha deedle deedle, bubba bubba deedle deedle dum.
All day long I'd biddy biddy bum.
If I were Caroline.
I wouldn't have to work hard.
Ya ha deedle deedle, bubba bubba deedle deedle dum.
If I were a biddy biddy Mor-,
Yidle-diddle-didle-didle -ahan."

"I don't believe this, I really don't. What will Sister Mary think in the Convent?"

At that point in time of course, Sister Mary's opinion was about as relevant as An Spailpín Fánach's. The café crowd had separated into two camps - the ones who joined in con brio, and even shouted along with the "Oy!"s at Nessa's punchlines, and those that bore hats, coats and scarves to their breasts, and beat a hasty retreat to the exits. And so, as Bertie Wooster used to say, the long day wore on. Oy!

"I'd drink champers and spritzers with that rugger set
And I'd spend a lot of time in Donnybrook -
When I'm not working hard in RTÉ.
And later in the night when I'd meet Brian O'Driscoll
I'd say 'So long Glenda, take a final look
Because Ireland's call is calling now for me!'

"But you know, it's not all glamour.
I'd be a serious journalist - I'd have a qualification from - whisper it - DCU!
And I'd walk the geo-political stage - in the most fabulous shoes, of course...


"I'd read Chomsky and Pilger and even Robert Fisk
And the nature of jihad I'd investigate
You'll have never ever seen a harder worker
Til we do Off the Rails from war-torn Palestine
And I find a arab female who doesn't look so great
And I say 'now's the time to pimp this burqa.'

"Oy!

"If I were a Morahan,
Ya ha deedle deedle, bubba bubba deedle deedle dum.
All day long I'd biddy biddy bum.
If I were Caroline.
I wouldn't have to work hard.
Ya ha deedle deedle, bubba bubba deedle deedle dum.
If I were a biddy biddy Mor-,
Yidle-diddle-didle-didle -ahan."

Pandemonium, as you can imagine. Grow men weeping. Old ladies snuffling into their hankies. An Spailpín Fánach, hypocrite to the last, was telling all and sundry that yes, Nessa is a very dear friend and he had always encouraged her to be A Star. Sweetness and light all round, in fact, except for some young fella who was trying to make a few pound doing Blue Oyster Cult covers on Grafton Street. Realising that a showtunes revival wasn't going to help that endeavour, in he goes to Bewley's and tries to do mortal harm to Nessa, swinging his axe like it was an actual axe, instead of a second-hand Strat that fell off the back of a lorry. And bounced a few times.

Nessa wasn't sharing her spotlight with anyone, least of all some pikey. She went for him karate-style, a la Miss Piggy in the Muppet Show, and both fell in kicking, biting and gouging heap. Other punters picked a side and then dived in themselves, until a full scale riot was in effect, and had to be stopped by a battalion of coppers and two Russian sailors, who were only in town because one of them was on a promise from some babushka from back in the Motherland, now resident in Parnell Street and working as a dancer, of all things. We're all up before the beak for the Hilary term, and as I sat in my cell with my new friends Pavel and Igor, I wondered: Who the hell is Caroline Morahan anyway, and why is everybody suddenly talking about her? What does she do? Because one cup of tay, impromptu showtune performance and several blows dealt and taken later, I still have no idea.

Culture, Satire, RTÉ

Hand Me Down Me Crystal Ball - An Spailpín Fánach's Sporting Preview for 2006

An Spailpín Fánach reads in this morning's Sunday Times that Michael Foley advises the people of the County Mayo to be patient. "With a Connacht title well within their grasp and a panel and management surely capable of delivering at least that, it's hard to see a problem."

All-Ireland finalists hoping for a provincial title fifteen months on? Nothing like shooting for the moon, is there Mick?

An Spailpín was bitterly disappointed to see the appointment of Mickey Moran as Mayo manager, and was bitterly disappointed on two counts. Firstly, An Spailpín is a Johnno man, and cares little who knows it. Secondly, it's as clear as mountain poitín that the County Board wanted O'Mahony as manager, or else their shafting of the most successful Mayo manager ever doesn't make much sense. Incompetence is something that always troubles your correspondent, and watching the County Board thrash about trying to appoint a manager after Johnno realised that they were offering the position of whipping boy rather than county manager was depressing in the extreme. If you've ever seen a pianist trying to bang out Gershwin's Rhapsody in Blue while wearing boxing gloves you'll get an idea of the level of subtlety at which these bozos operate. A lesson for all political conspirators out there: when you're planning your coup, make sure you have the successor ready in the wings before the body of the incumbent hits the floor. Or else the result may be Mickey Moran.

It seems, from reading the press, that Mickey has a magnificent reputation in the country as a coach. How odd that this magnificent reputation never lead to Mickey's name being touted as a new Dublin manager, whenever that most glamorous of posts was in the offing. One can't help but wonder who propagates this Mickey-is-a-great-coach shibboleth, but I would bet a sneaky fiver on it being Mickey himself. Or else, perhaps, his mother.

Mickey Moran, supercoach, has won one, 1, national title, a national league with Derry (I think) in 1995. That places him on the same level of achievement as Pat Holmes, who at least had the bonus of actually being from Mayo and serving her football cause with honour and distinction when-ever he wore the green and red. Pity about his management career, but nobody's perfect. The danger with Mickey is what I suspect was the problem with the Pat Holmes era, in that the manager was not picking the team. I don't think Mickey is going to pick the team either, to be terribly honest. I think it's going to be picked for him, and if Mickey has any objection to that, it may be suggested to him that he take a peek at his expenses cheque, and see whose name appears at the bottom. Mickey then faces the agonising choice of following the money or saying screw the gelt, I'm here for the honour and glory of the sweet County Mayo, and damn the consequences. Our prayers will be with him during his long dark night of the soul.

Hopefully all this will seem as ridiculous come high summer as An Spailpín's confident prediction that Galway would win the All-Ireland in football last year. But, do you know, I doubt it? I don't think Mayo will be in trouble in the league, as which-ever division exactly it is that Mayo are in is clearly the weaker of the two first divisions, with no real shortage of gluggers in there. Mayo will be whacked in Kerry of course (how those chaps hold that '96 semi-final against us), but should get enough points in between times to survive, and maybe even get another League semi-final scutching in Croker such as that delivered by Armagh last year. But come Championship and playing for keepsies, Mayo supporters should be heading for Carrick-on-Shannon in fear and trepidation - provided they escape the fleshpots of London town, of course. Leitrim's playing resources are slim, but how bravely they stretched those resources last year, and what bad beats, as the poker players say, they suffered last year. Luck turns, and if they can keep the panel together, the ball has to hop Leitrim's way soon. On a purely selfish note, An Spailpín can only hope it won't be at Mayo's expense.

On an unselfish note, if Leitrim are to beat Mayo in Carrick next June how wonderful it would be if Roscommon were to be their opponents in the County Final. Not because I think everybody should have their chance - I do not, who do you think I am, Joe Higgins? - but because such a marvellous rivalry exists between the two counties, and what an occasion it would be, an occasion for rural Ireland, the real people of Ireland, those poor faceless souls whom we call brother, sister, father or mother, who are never represented on RTÉ or in the newspapers. Those poor dumb slobs, that forgotten majority after whose sisters you've lusted, brothers you're played football against, whose mothers taught you and who's fathers gave you work in the summer. Those people that stood by you in good days and bad, and whose last act for you will be walk with you to the church when you're on your very last day out. I think those people deserve a day out, and I think a Connacht Final between Roscommon and Leitrim would represent the ne plus ultra of that demographic. By the Tuesday after the game I would be heartily sick of both of them, of course, and fervently wishing a plague on both their houses, but what can I tell you? It's New Year's Day, and the sun has been shining. Even Spailpíní have hearts.

As regards other codes, looks like the rugger team is buggered. An Spailpín watched Leinster and Munster in the Celtic League on telly yesterday and the difference in class between Felipe Contrepomi and Ronan O'Gara at stand-off half was deeply depressing. Other insights were available too - Shane "Shaggy" Horgan is as slow as a greyhound that's eaten half a stone of sausages, and the only reason Gordon D'Arcy looked good two years ago was because he was in the reflected luminescence of Brian O'Driscoll's incandescent genius. D'Arcy has other problems too - Dorse is currently in very real danger of losing out to blindside flanker Cameron Jowitt for the best hair in Kiely's of Donnybrook. Where did it all go wrong, Dorse?

I hope the Welsh win the Six Nations again, I really do. They got no justice from Sir Clive on the Lions tour, but weren't they just thrilling against Australia in the autumn international at Cardiff? And they had to play without their starting centre partnership of Shanklin and Henson. As a nation Wales has its issues of course, but as a rugby team they still remember what the game is supposed to be about; that's courage, dash, adventure and glory, and not seventeen stone wing forwards thundering into each other like bumper cars in a run-down carnival.

There was a time when my generation used to measure the passing years in terms of World Cups. That seems less viable now, after such a poor 2002 World Cup. The worst German team ever getting to the finals, North Korea and Turkey in the semis? What ever happened to the notion that this is the Great Stage where genius burns brightest? Somebody's agent must have objected. Still, even if it's a poor World Cup it's still the only one we've got, and An Spailpín Fánach will be investing a pensive pony on the hosts to win once more. For three reasons. Firstly, hosts traditionally do well in World Cups. Secondly, in Bastian Schweinsteiger Jerry surely has one of the great nomen qua nomines of the World Cup - Richard Wagner would have belted out another Ring cycle on the sheer Germanic strength of this young man's name alone. And finally, if Germany wins it, imagine how it'd piss off the Tans?

FOCAL SCOIR: An Spailpín Fánach urgently counsels all sensible men and women to have nothing to do with Ryder Cup. Waves and waves of propaganda will crash and thunder all around you as September approaches, but you must be strong and remember, it's only a competition if both sides want to win. Tiger Woods has done little to hide his distain for the Ryder Cup, and if the Yanks don't have Tiger they don't have a team. The Ryder Cup is the sound of one hand clapping, and another feeding frenzy for the rich and privileged in Irish society to get richer and more privileged. Have nothing to do with the worship of their ersatz golden calf.
Sport, GAA, rugby, Ryder Cup

A Chroí Athbhriste ag an Spailpín Fánach

Scríobhadh ins an dara sliabh Parnassus seo cheana féin gurbh iad Podge agus Rodge an t-aon beirt amháin ar chlúdach RTÉ Guide na Nollag a chuirfeadh an Spailpín cuireadh chucu le linn na Nollag. Ambaiste, táim tar éis a gclár speisialta an Nollag a fheiceál anocht - nó na píosaí beaga ab fhéidir liom a fheiceál gan tinneas a chur ormsa - agus mar sin táim chun mo chuireadh a thógail ar ais. An tseanseafóid chéana ar chraoladar, agus na réalta RTÉ ag cigilt a ngoileanna eadarthu féin. Mo thrua do mo chean bocht gan chiail, nár shíleas go ndeanfaidís an feall mar a dheantar i gcónaí i nDomhnach Broc.

Téigí amach amárach agus na reiceanna ar shíul agus ceannaígí is iomai leabhar ab fhéidir libh. Léígí iad agus sibhse sa bhaile arís, agus ná bacaigí leis an teilifís lofa fhealltach arís. Seo é tairne deireanach na cónra.

Gaeilge, RTÉ, culture

Chavs in Space - the New Doctor Who and the Death of the Clubland Hero

A tall figure, dressed in a travelling cape and deerstalker hat, strides quickly through the fog-shrouded streets of Victorian London. Mr Sherlock Holmes, the internationally-renowned private detective, has just heard word, via a source in Limehouse, that Professor Moriarity, the Napoleon of Crime, is even at this moment in the final stages of a scheme that will be his criminal masterpiece, and only Holmes and Dr Watson, late of the Fifth Northumberland Fusiliers and the Berkshires of the Indian Army, retired, can put a stop to it. Quickly, Holmes bounds up the steps to the rooms he rents with Doctor Watson at 221B Baker Street, and burst in the door.

"Get your hat and coat Watson," he cries, "the game's afoot! We don't have a moment to lose!"

"I'm afraid it's quite out of the question," replies Doctor Watson.

"Eh?" says Sherlock Holmes, in that mental state to which he so seldom sank, complete bafflement.

"It's my dear old mum Holmes," continues the Doctor. "You see, she's never got on with the neighbours on the left 'and side of the 'ouse, the Braitwaites. She's always got on well with the Threepwoods on the right hand side, having them round for tea and a bit of a sing-song at Christmas, but this year things have come to a head. You know my cousin Gertrude, that works in 'Ull in the labour exchange? Well, she's marrying this young man that's she's been seeing, 'Erbert, nice chap, met him at the funeral of dear old Uncle Fred ..."

"I'm sure Watsonian Family Politics is a fascinating field of study Doctor," replies the Great Detective through clenched teeth, "but Moriarty is cooking up his most nefarious plot yet - he must be stopped!"

"That's exactly what my dear old mum said about Doris, Mrs Braitwaite," replies the Doctor, unperturbed. "If she's told me once she's told me a thousand times, 'John,' she'd say, 'I 'ate to speak ill of another 'uman being, but that Doris Braitwaite is a complete cow.' Well, I couldn't believe it. She was very upset, mum was, and now it's all got much worse. I say Holmes, where are you going?"

The great detective storms back down the stairs and back into the pea-souper. When you're all that stands between civilisation and the infernal triumph of the Greatest Criminal Intellect the World Has Ever Seen, you really don't give a toss about Doctor Watson's dear old mum.

A penny which has yet to drop for the makers of the New Doctor Who, who insisted on dragging Rose's harridan of a mother into their Christmas special, the jewel in the BBC's Christmas Day crown for this year. The Doctor may claim to a be a Time Lord from the distant planet Gallifrey, but in reality he really is another Clubland Hero - one of the gentleman adventures of England between the World Wars, in the Indian summer of the Empire. The Clubland Heroes stem from Sherlock Holmes, and reached their flower in the adventures of the likes of Richard Hannay, Hugh "Bulldog" Drummond and that dude with the monocle that Dorothy L Sayers wrote about.

HC McNeilie, who wrote the Bulldog Drummond stories under the pseudynom "Sapper," was a fascist in many ways, but he certainly knew how to tell a story. McNeilie wrote once that a good adventure story should be a like a good golf shot - it should begin with a bang, soar for the middle part of the tale and then drop like a stone to a climax. Anything else is a distraction. Consider a situation where Hugh Drummond has got word that Carl Peterson has just kidnapped Gwladys, only daughter of Professor Montague Forsyth, and is holding her captive until the Professor hands over the formula for his top-secret nerve gas to Peterson. Does Hugh go charging in to rescue this flower of English maidenhood from the clutches of her (invariably hook-nosed) captors, or does he sit on his hands in the car while Algy or Jasper of whomever of the boys is inside in the house reassuring his dear old mum that he won't get hurt saving the world and that his under-garments' state of cleanliness is immaculate?

I bloody wonder.

The whole idea of going on an adventure is that you leave mum behind. It's not a bug, it's a feature. The writers of the new Doctor Who's insistence at dragging Mrs Tyler along is only taking valuable story-time away from the Bug Eyed Monsters, and people tune in to see the Bug Eyed Monsters, not somebody's whiny old mum. If they were looking for whining, they've have tuned to Eastenders, wouldn't they?

Mark Lawson and his Newsnight Review Panel nominated the New Doctor Who as one of the television triumphs of the year, causing An Spailpín Fánach to raise a quizzical eyebrow. That the new Doctor Who has been a commercial success is demonstrated by the fact it had its own Prime Time Christmas show, previously the territory of Delboy and Rodney, and Eric and Ernie before them. However, popular does not mean good, as the X Factor underlines with soul-destroying regularly. The new Doctor Who is a success in the sense that it's by no means as bad as the sad way the so-called "Classic Series" finished up, but that doesn't mean that hammers aren't being dropped.

Christopher Eccleston's casting as the Doctor, for one, was a mistake. If you want a guy to play some wrist-slitter out of a Thomas Hardy novel or something cheery about Scousers on the Dole, send for Chris. Otherwise, you need to start thinking Grant - Richard E would be a glorious choice, while a left-field but potentially marvellous casting would be Hugh Grant. Not the stumbling Hugh Grant of Four Weddings, of course, but the bit of a boyo Hugh Grant of Bridget Jones' Diary. Eccleston's casting was part of a political subtext in the new Doctor Who, that was to be a defiant clenched fist against Received Pronunciation and Class Bias and that sort of thing. Which is all fascinating, interesting and worthy of debate but it's no damned use to Gwladys in Peterson's basement, or the innocent and peace-loving planet of Xantantin, about to be terraformed the Daleks, is it?

Because the Muse Calliope is nothing if not capricious in her favours, the new Doctor Who team may have discovered a pearl greater than all their tribe in David Tennant, who made such a bravura debut tonight. The man has huge potential to be a Doctor for the ages, but before he can the creative team in Doctor Who have to decide to whom they're pitching, and tighten up the slack a little.

As is, the Doctor Who writers are inclined to pitch to two distinct and separate groups - children, and the sort of pale and sallow young men that argue about the canonicity of various elements of Doctor Who on the Wikipedia entry. Miserably, this results in jarring changes of tone, as different bones are thrown to the different constituencies. The writers need to realise that you can only serve one master, and cut that cute stuff about the flatulent aliens. Children just aren't grateful and, as Russell T Davis himself said, Buffy has changed everything when it comes to fantasy TV writing. In fact, Davis and his team may have made their biggest mistake in not consulting longtime Doctor Who fan and friend of An Spailpín Fánach Brian, who remarked to An Spailpín that the correct televisual model for a 21st century Doctor Who would be The X Files, thus furthering its ties with another progenitor from BBC past, Professor Quatermass. But maybe Russell T. Davis was too busy trying to sneak in that bit in the final episode of the first series where the Doctor kisses Captain Jack on the lips to bother about consistency of tone. We all have our little agendas, don't we, Russell? Besides, Brian wouldn't be about to come on board as a consultant without a big spond upfront. Lucre comes before Art with that man.

An Spailpín Fánach will continue to watch the new Doctor Who, although the uneven tone, Mrs Tyler and Mickey and the rest of those missed opportunities will be as vinegar and wormwood to him. And in case any of those Wiki-writers arguing canonicity are feeling a little hurt that I had a cut at them, I'm a guy that spent a hour on Christmas Day writing 1300 words on Doctor Who. I'd say An Spailpín could be a bit sallow in the gills himself.

culture, Doctor Who

Nollaig Shona Díobh Go Leir

Neither cool nor topical I know, but just think of what I saved on stamps.

On the Cover of the RTE Guide

Have you seen the cover of the Christmas edition of the RTE Guide, currently in the shops? For those of you that haven't, let me describe. The cover of the RTE Guide featurs some of RTE's best and brightest, all in festive mood with a glass of vino in their paws, toasting the holiday season and us, the Plain People of Ireland.

The stars whom RTE have chosen to dazzle us are Eddie Hobbs, consumer watchdog and self-appointed Nemesis of "Rip-Off Ireland;" deviant glove-puppets Podge and Rodge; Afternoon Show presenter Blathnaid Ni Cofaigh; 2FM DJ and "National Institution" Gerry Ryan, and the inevitable Kerry Katona.

Now, is it just me, or is it a weird reflection on the tax-payer funded State broadcaster that the only ones of that entire bunch whom An Spailpín Fánach would even consider letting into the house are Podge and Rodge?

Clive James on "Sludge Fiction"

There's a marvellous article in today's Times Online, taken from the Times' Literary Supplement, where Clive James reminiscences about the books that he read as a child, and how they inspired him to life as a lifelong reader. Anyone that's spent a goodly part of their childhood with the nose stuck in a book, oblivious to all around, will empathise and be delighted. Not least if you spent that childhood reading the same stuff as Clive, which is Biggles, Bulldog Drummond, Sherlock Holmes and those sort of shams. Marvellous.

The role of what Clive's English teacher described as "sludge fiction" is often under-estimated in literary circles, where it seems the butterflies flit from John Banville to Tommy Pynchon and maybe a touch of De Maupassant (in his original French, naturellement) thrown in for a breather. This is not An Spailpín Fánach's experience, as An Spailpín Fánach, like many of his contemporaries, is inclined to leaven the wheat somewhat by carefully tempering my exposure to heavy dudes with a good shot of sludge. I'm a big John Buchan man ("You inferal cad! I'm going to give you a damned good thrashing!" I mean, where would you get it?) and I am not ashamed to admit that I have read every James Bond book. An Spailpín Fánach's current guilty secret is that he is slowly working his way through Peter O'Donnell's Modesty Blaise ouevre. Ripe as bedamned, but strangely compelling.

Guy Bolton, who collaborated in writing musical comedies with Jerome Kern and PG Wodehouse in New York in the 1920s, once said of Wodehouse that he had read more books not worth reading than any other man alive. That was part of the secret of Wodehouse's great talents, but also that he leavened that with great big chunks of juicy Shakespeare and Tennyson.

Of course, one does rather need to tread carefully, as a lot of the stuff that's masquerading as sludge out there is, in fact, not masquerading at all, but in deadly, stinking, earnest. Your humble narrator once found that out the hard way.

An Spailpín Fánach is a big fan of Newsnight Review, the Arts Show on BBC2 at eleven o'clock every Friday evening - tape it sometime if you can't tear yourself away from the Late Late. The panel can be a bit of a curate's egg (nothing like Bonnie Greer declaiming the PC gospel to see An Spailpín breaking off at a run for a few swift stouts), but poet and critic Tom Paulin is usually very reliable for something interesting. Anyway, a number of years ago, the panel were reviewing a book called "Ralph's Party" by Lisa Jewell, Ms Jewell being then in Britain what Cecelia Ahern is now in Ireland, a bit of a publishing phenomenon. Tom Paulin was in raptures about Ralph's Party - it was such a breath of fresh air, it was so lightly written, it made the heart sing. And yadda yadda yadda from the normally quite stern TP.

Reader, I bought it. And over two or three hundred pages I discovered that spending too much time in the groves of academe had slowly drained the oxygen from Tom's brain. Ralph's Party is not very good at all. But you can't win 'em all, and even as I speak, I can take full comfort in the fact that Ms Blaise is waiting for me at home, hair casually tied back a chignon, all set to take me to Tangiers on another caper. Can't wait.