So there I was on the train to Galway for the Arts Festival when the old guy next to me who made Cletus the slack-jawed yokel look like Einstein s smarter brother broke into Azha , fave song of Myles and other assorted sports kings of the past.

Azha pale moon was rising, above zha green mountain. The Irish tenor, head held together only by threads of saliva. Known and feared the world over. And in this case overlaid with adenoids. The carriage took it gamely but you could sense the annoyance. It was is adenoids that ad annoyed em.
Anyhow, shortly afterwards, there I was gazing out over Galway bay. The sun had sunk so low that it was up that lane beside the Quay s bar drinking a bottle of cheap wine. Nothing was happening until next day when the Festival officially opened. So I passed out in the hotel around midnight.
* * * * *
Boy, it s hot the next day. Gals stride around the city wearing nothing but a few light bandages. One trips by wearing a J-Cloth and a see-through t-shirt inscribed Little Miss Naughty . Eighteen, I reckon. Eighteen years in jail.
What I need is some of that salvation. It is the work of a moment to hit the press office, scam an artist s laminate and hie away to the Augustinian Church where those sons of Fun, The Blind Boys of Alabama soon hit the stage (or altar as they refer to it in these locales).
These blind boys are elderly African-American gents possessed of voices that reach up to heaven and make the rock of ages rock some more. Across the bridge there is no sorrow they explain in James Brownesque tones, Across the bridge there is no pain . The crowd feels none anyway and soon all from mewling babe to drooling dotard are up on their feet singing along.
My fave blind boy then says My uncle was a preacher and he preach real hard against alcohol. He say I like to get all the gin in this county an pour it in the river. And when I think of all the harm alcohol done, all the marriages it break up an all the fight it cause I want to get all the wine in this county an pour it in the river. An I want to get all the whiskey in this county an pour it in the river . Now brethren rise an sing with me Shall we gather at the river? .
All this and a suitably crazed If I Had A Hammer thrown in. As a local Hell s Angel remarked to me afterwards If mass was like that, I d be there every Sunday . As to whether I found de Lawd there I can only say that as Mr Adams remarked about his erstwhile chums, He never went away.
On the visual arts front there was the group cartoon show at Kenny s bookshop, Hung Drawn and Quoted an exhibition of literary cartoons and caricatures in which my fave gags were Richard Chapman s Irish Airman foreseeing his death (Man flying aeroplane saying Oh shite ), and Martin Rowson s vomiting Oliver Twist ( How was I to know the kid was bulimic? ). Stephen Dixon s 3D ceramics, especially his dustbinned Beckett and Mickey Mouse-knickered General, however, stole the show.
Down the road, renaissance man Joe Boske, whose posters for previous Galway Arts Festivals adorn so many of the pubs of the city (along with Boske) practically sold out his new show on the opening night.
I m wearing my more glamorous sister s clothes, a girl said to me as I gazed at one of the master s works. These are mostly about birds being surreal. I never had the nerve, I reply abstractedly. The mounting boards are green, a man remarks. The picture he is indicating features a waning moon. The pale moon is rising above the green mountin , I murmur, but nobody notices.
Next door Hans Hemmert s video runs on endless loop. The German artist dances in a giant yellow latex egg to the comic stylings of Linda and the Funky Boys. So do lots of pissed punters. What fun.
The Festival club is in De Burgo s night box, since 1999 officially the Garda club, and is open for business till late. I spot many citizens there whooping it up including Aprhs Match s Barry Murphy, Flo McSweeney, Willy Russell, and even the rector of St.Nicholas, where a sacred concert has broken attendance records. He and I bat around ecumenism and I try to persuade him to heed the Pauline admonition and take at first a little wine for his stomach s sake. He has other assignations.
Nevermind, for almost at once a young lady asks me the following question: What have George Michael and a pair of Wellingtons got in common? I give up, I reply. They both get sucked off in the bog, she explains. How we laugh.
I wonder if she is one of the dreadful girls that Judge John Garavan claims infest Galway s nightclubs. The judge, according to reports, went on to say that respectable young men can t meet respectable girls in clubs and that you won t find respectable people out at all hours.
How true. A respectable young man myself, I was forced to rub shoulders with off-duty guards after midnight. I d like to believe the story someone told me about Gardam raiding the Garda club one night, but it sounds too good to be true. And anyway there s a guy who looks exactly like Bob Dylan at the bar and for a moment I think I have a scoop. It isn t, of course. There s so many guys who look like Dylan, I say to dreadful girl. Except Dylan, she says. Yeah.
Too dumb to work too cool for school was the slogan on the t-shirt the fat guy in front of me in the queue for Shane MacGowan and The Popes was wearing. You re one ugly fucker, the guy next to him says. I m a woman, the large one replies. I say nothing.
Inside the Black Box Theatre one and all mill about throwing shapes in many different Shane t-shirts, drinking cider from plastic cups and smoking zillions of cigarettes. Ninety percent of the company is male. This is testosterzone.
A scant hour or so later in response to long moans of Shane-ooo the dentally challenged one sashays on with his entourage. The lad is in good voice tonight and the band rock to a point, although they re more than a tad ropey on The Irish Rover .
A Pair Of Brown Eyes goes over a storm, however, just a second before my cider goes over me as an over-enthusiastic young eejit elbows his way to the front. There is much rumourmongering about special guests being flown in from faraway England, but the surprise guest turns out to be (all together now) Shane s Mammy . Mrs MacG is quite the darling of the crowd and one would want a very hard heart indeed not to shed a manly tear as herself and her offspring waltz somewhat inexpertly across the stage.
As one and all commence dispersing in an orderly fashion, a young person spotting my laminate puts me the following question: Are you goin back with Shane? . Readers, the bright-eyed child thought I was With The Band .
Sadly I had to disabuse her and pausing only to sign Olaf Tyaransen s name in her autograph book, I made for home and that most Irish of states, O blivion.

Thanks: Connie, Ann-Marie, Kieran, Rose and Paul, D.E, and mostly James and Dolores.