Sunday Independent Comes With a Pint of Bitter.

Although I expect nothing better from a rag like the Sindo, the whinging wah-wah of Liam Collins and his 'The Plain Truth is the pub is dead' article left me rolling my eyes and laughing mildly at the self indulgent tone.

Poor Liam, floundering around like the last of the dinosaurs, knee deep in the gloopy mires of doom.

You see chumlies, Liam went for a pint and he didn't like the pub he was in, so-by his reckoning- all pubs are bad.

Got that? ALL pubs. Including your local. If you did enjoy a pint there over the Christmas you're clearly delusional.

Mind you we should hark this sage, this champion of the old ways. Clearly this man is an seer, a thaumaturge of great reckoning. You see, Liam knows. Liam sees all. Liam uses his omnipotent eye to proclaim all manner of things and who are we to argue.

Irish people cannot drink wine.
"The Irish problem with wine is that we don't stick our noses in it and swill it around in the glass for hours like the French, or sip one glass while talking endlessly like the Italians and then go home (or to the mistress)."

You see! We don't 'swirl ' it right, because pretending to know a bouquet is what defines a wine drinker. And god damn our ignorance, we're simply not fucking enough people on the side to understand wine. what the hell do we think we're doing? Wither the adultery of the true wine drinker?

Sure a lot of people drink wine too fast and too furiously, but I saw many an Irish person in Peploes on the green enjoy an excellent bottle of wine-and omigod some chat!- before leaving that lovely warm bar and heading off, soberly into the night. Last night in Mario's in Ternure most of the couples eating there had a ( singular) bottle of wine with their food, as well as sparkling water. What are they? Aliens? Johnny Foreigners? Oh my! Could they be Irish people enjoying a drink sensibly?
The out and out weirdos.

"Pity the poor tourists, lured to Ireland by the promise of sparkling conversation, witty rejoinders or even cantankerous but philosophical arguments about the great subjects of our time -- politics, religion, sport and Bertie's finances."

Really? Having sat in the Old Stand more than once over the holidays I heard many a great and bawdy row about politics, and one particularly fantastic spat where an old boy at the bar roared, ' Of COURSE he's as crooked as a corkscrew. but shure at least we know he is.' Irish logic to be sure and which amused the hell out of a group of Canadians who sat in the corner quietly sipping pints of Guinness.

"This unfolding disaster has been ignored by Failte Ireland and the authorities, but the unfriendly, profit-at-all-costs attitude of Irish pub owners is already wreaking havoc on the tourist industry, we just haven't woken up to the disaster yet.'

Yep, better food, better service, better facilities, cleaner toilets, central heating, those heartless bastards!

'Oh there are still a few pubs out there worth visiting, but as Dr Johnson said about the Giant's Causeway 'it's worth visiting but it's not worth going to visit.'

Oh dearlie me and bah humbug. Poor old sausage, poor old much put upon hack. Can't find a pub to have a bit of craic in? No fun to be had in Davey Byrnes, Mulligans, The Long Hall? The Morgue? Hogans? Solas? Houricans? The George? The long Stone? ( wild good fun the night I was there) Ah, poor thing. He must be right, I mean if a hack from the Sindo can't find entertainment then NOBODY can. Right?

Of course lovely Liam tops off his whinge by placing the blame of his social misery squarely where it belongs, those dastardly uppity women and those equally dastardly gays...

"Like the Irish language there will be a smattering of traditional pubs scattered around the country, struggling on in the old way and patronised by the few of us old enough to remember what it was really like.

And when we sit down for a pint we'll hear the ticking of the clock or the conversation of old men talking about the way it used to be before women got the Four Wheel Drives and it was OK to be openly gay."

Paramour! Fetch me my smallest violin, I feel a lament coming on!

'Aaaas I went out through Dublin City
At the hour of twelve at night
Who should I spy
But a buxom girlie
washing her her jeep by electric light
First she washed it,
then she filled it
with petrol bought
by her own cash
in all my life
I ne'er did see
a girl so happy nor so brash
Whack for the toor el
loor el laddy
Whack for the toor el
loor el lay'
Aaaaaas I went out in Dublin City at the hour of twelve at night
Who should I spy but a fluffed up dandy
wobbling home, dressed like a sprite
First he wobbled
then he straightened
then he cried
'Sheet I don leeeve 'erz'
In all my life
I ne'er did see,
as french nor drunken
as that queer
Whack for the toor el
loor el laddy
Whack for the toor el
loor el lay
Whack for the toor el
loor el laddy
What for the toor el
Loor el lay"

Here's a thought Liam, if you're not having ANY fun ANY where, I wonder- steady steady- now, bear with me here, I'm just saying now, don't get riled up or anything... but I just wonder if there might even-careful now- a smidgen of a chance the problem might not be Irish bars, the problem might in fact be you?