Tuesday 12 February 2008

I know what I know, if you know what I mean...

I have a gig at the end of the month. As it is in a club I have never visited, much less graced the stage of, last week I bravely boarded the number 77 bus into Town to check it out.

The 77 can be a bit of a knacker-fest at the best of times so, naturally, I left the MP3 player at home and ventured upstairs into the blue, smokey, haze to engage in a spot of ear-wigging. And what fun it was.

For the uninitiated, the back seats in the top deck of the 77 bus are something of a meeting point for the local scanger population. Although they may never have met before, united by the common bonds of wasterdom and blow-smoking, they chat openly about the hardships of life. Things like social welfare payments, the price of Dutch Gold and optimum glassing practices. Occasionally you will also get the absurd gem like this one.....

There were 2 lads holding the fort at the back of the bus - we'll call them Anto and Whacker (for that is, in all likelihood what they were actually called).

For what its worth, I did toy with the idea of using phonetic spelling but sure you can drop the trailing t's and pronounce 'th' as 'd' yizzer-selves 'n all 'n anyways. (Dis dat deeze an' doze. Dat's de way de T-H goes). Ok, I'll give it a shot - translations available on request.

Anto: Where are ye from yerself?
Whacker: Old Bawn.
Anto: Aw yeah. Bleedin' deadly. De yer know Robbie McCann?
Whacker: Nah... well I'd know him to see if ye-know-war-a-mean.... we smoke a birra blow togeder an' da.
Anto: Ah righ'. Incidentally [yes I know its 4 syllables but he did actually say it], do you know who invented hash?
Whacker: No.. go on... who?
Anto: [Like some wise old sage, with a knowing nod of his head] Only Adolf bleedin'Hitler.
Whacker: No way! [Presumably at this point he was thinking, "If I'm ever on 'Who Wants To Be a Millionaire', I'm having Anto as one of me phone a friends. He knows loadsa stuff"]

(The title of today's post is brought to you courtesy of 'What I Am' by Edie Brickell)

7 comments:

Anonymous said...

It was - my mate jonty told me...

Anonymous said...

You can tell it was Adolf because he was such a laid back, easy-osey fella. Poster-boy for hash, he was.

The Bad Ambassador said...

sheepworrier - jonty? That's positively posh! You have to be either Anto, Whacker, Deco, Rashers, Spud or Maccer. At least that seems to be the rule.

sam - That and the irrational hatred of cultures other than his own. The 2 lads later complained to each other (and anybody who would listen) about the forriners taking their jobs. I'd say they had barely done an honest days work between them!

Caro said...

I lived in Dolphin's Barn (was very down on my uppers) one unmemorable summer and worked out in Tallaght so I got the 77 out every day. Very entertaining.

I'm desperately trying to cling on to Edie Brickell as you've put feckin Tiffany into my head you sadistic b*******

The Bad Ambassador said...

Caro - While sneakily trying to put a song, an annoying song at that, in your head may have been my intention in a previous post, it was certainly not the case in this instance.

Dolphin's barn eh? (If you don't know it that's like about 4 Beruits). You must be doubly hard then?

Caro said...

It was only for a summer, Dolphin's Barn is not the best place for a culchie without any gold creoles from Elizabeth Duke. Ah yes I remember it well... the bus stop would be full of people, the bus would pull up and only one or two would get on. The others were all there to *ahem* chat or something...

As a money-saving exercise it didn't really work, we spent more money on taxis than on rent...

The Bad Ambassador said...

Ah yes, the people "chatting" at bus stops.

And there was always seemed to be one of their number on crutches for some reason?