Read Online 1998 - Round Ireland with a fridge by Tony Hawks, Prefers to remain anonymous - Free Book Online

visit twice. The entrance to the town was marked by a small harbour and delightful views across Donegal bay.
    Brendan dropped me outside a B&B displaying a ‘Vacancies’ sign and we arranged to meet for a pint at his hotel later on. There was no need for directions; it was in Donegal Town and given the size of the place, that was sufficient information. There were probably vacancies at his hotel but I felt, and I think there was tacit agreement from Brendan on this, that we were starting to spend so much time together that the taking of different lodgings was somehow an important affirmation of our heterosexuality.
    I was greeted by the lady who ran the B&B as if greeting Englishmen with rucksacks and fridges was quite the norm. She had a wavering voice and spoke at a frustratingly dawdling pace in the manner of one who had only just got the hang of this talking business the previous week. In one agonisingly long sentence she explained how I could leave the fridge by the front door, how the shower worked and how she’d prefer it if I paid her in advance. By the time she’d finished it was nearly time to meet Brendan for that drink. I holed up in my tiny room and thought about my amazing day, what I would attempt tomorrow, and whether I’d ever been in a bedroom with less floor space.
    I only had time to do a quick circuit of the town before meeting Brendan. It was a shame I didn’t have a little longer because I could have done it twice. Donegal Town is tiny, with not much to see other than the castle, which appeared to be a nice old house with some fortifications thrown in just to get ‘Castle’ status.
    Brendan and I drank in three pubs, the last being far and away my favourite. From the exterior there had been very little about it to suggest it was a pub; net curtains, an old lamp and a faded old sign with a surname on it. In much of Ireland they don’t go in for grand pub names like The Coach And Horses’ or The Prince Of Wales’; they simply name it after the proprietor—‘Daly’s’ or ‘McCarthy’s’, the first indication of the more personal experience that awaits you within. I came to call these establishments the old boys’ pubs, where everybody talks to everybody else regardless of who they are, partly because the clientele are very friendly and partly because the clientele are very pissed.
    Just like an orchestra will have a Lead Violinist, most pubs will have a Lead Drunk. Or Drunk in Residence. He must have some arrangement with the landlord that he doesn’t have to pay for any drinks which he can still say. His main role seems to be to welcome newcomers with the emission of a loud wailing noise and by flailing his arms about like a drowning man, until his already precarious hold on his own centre of gravity is upset to the point of liberating him totally from his bar stool. This is where the Second Drunk instinctively reaches out with his left hand to stop him falling to the ground and continues drinking with his right, as if the whole manoeuvre has been carefully rehearsed. Which of course it has. Every night for decades.
    It wasn’t long before Brendan and I were embroiled in a conversation with the regulars, the theme of which was prompted by highlights of today’s Grand Prix on the TV screen behind the bar. I took a back seat in the discussion, largely due to an ignorance of motor racing and an inability to understand anything that was being said. As far as I could make out, the main thrust of it was the establishment of who came first, second and third.
    The Lead Drunk was now almost comatose, the exertions of his initial greeting for us having taken their toll. Many names were put forward and rejected but after ten minutes of animated debate, the fact that Schumacher had won and Eddie Irvine had come third was settled upon and those present seemed content with what had been achieved. Suddenly, and out of nowhere the Lead Drunk blurted out, ‘Who came fifth?’
    Everyone turned to him