Is it Still a Snog Fest?

When I was a teenager - before the Dublin Post Office has bullet holes in it - New Year's Eve was a very big deal.

It wasn't about looking forward or even about looking back, not about old friends, old memories or even 'Old Lang Syne'.

It was about snogging. Pure and simple.

Maybe it was just me but, back in those 'wilderness years' of 15, 16 and 17, kisses often seemed to be in bloody short supply.

New Year's Eve offered itself as a teeming oasis in the midst of this Kalahari of consensual lip-contact. Dec 31st was a free-for-all. Everybody could kiss everybody, no-holds barred.

And, boy, they did.


We all used to rush to a place called 'The Baymount' in Strandhill. This club/dance hall/den of innocent iniquity comprised two extremely large halls which were interlinked by one tiny set of double doors. The object of the night was to pass through these double doors from one hall to the next as many times as possible.

This was made interesting because both of these two halls were absolutely jammed to the rafters with revelers. Getting through that link-door on those nights was as close as you could come to another human being without risking an unwanted pregnancy.

And the kissing... (almost) everyone you met that night wanted to kiss and be kissed. It was as close to a Bacchanalian Wine Fest as I am ever likely to see.

Maybe it still is? Maybe all that ruthless snogging is still going on out there?

I sincerely hope so.

I'm completely happy to stay at home this New Year's Eve and attempt just one kiss, round about midnight.

But, if it's still the case and you're still the right age, stock up on that old Cherry Chap-Stick, go somewhere crowded and just... pucker up.

You may as well. It could turn out to be another Kalahari year.

Some Thoughts Upon Hearing of the Death of Paul Newman

Paul Newman passed away today, may he rest in peace. He was a great film actor, a superstar and a cultural icon. He also carried with him an air of integrity which set him apart from many of his peers.

The passing of Paul Newman makes me feel my mortality a little more than other deaths have done. At Eighty Three, he was not a young man – he has lived a full full life.

But I feel I knew him as a young man, I really do. My earlier years were punctuated by those youthful features and those blue blue eyes. Other famous people have died and their deaths have made me sad but they were always old, weren’t they?

Paul Newman seemed to be young when I was young and now he has become old and passed away from us…

… and I feel my mortality more keenly than I normally do.

Paul Newman was like a child in ‘The Hustler’ in 1961 – and I was just getting ready to be born. If I was there when he was so young, how much time is there left for me?

It’s not morbid to contemplate this, I think it’s good. If there’s laughing and loving and living to be done then now is the time to be doing it – it’s best that we keep that in mind.

So thanks, Paul and God Bless. You’ve thought me some things along the way and now, in dying, you teach me to live a little more.

Adieu.



“Newman's second law: Just when things look darkest, they go black.”
Paul Newman –1925-2008