Alone and in The Dark - My Best Saint Patrick’s Day Memory

Saint Patrick’s Day has always been a fairly low key day for me.

I’m not a big fan of parades and I’m not a big fan of excessive drinking either so that immediately removes two of the key elements from the equation.

That’s probably why my favourite St Patrick’s Day memory has nothing to do 'shamrocks' and 'crock’s o’gold' and such. In fact, for probably the last time, it’s that movie again.

On 17th March 1981, I was living in Sherrard Street in Dublin and going to college. 'No college on Paddy’s Day though, so the choice was go to Mass or go to the Parade.

The Parade was quite good… for a parade.

But afterward, the families all dispersed, the shops all shut, and ‘The Flight of The Doves’ was on the telly at home. There was nothing else for it, it simply had to be a movie.

Luckily there was a new film just released that I wanted to see and it was on at the Screen on The Green. I walked through the dregs of the revellers in the beaming afternoon sunshine.

The cinema was deserted except for the ticket lady. I bought a ticket off her and went in. There was nobody to check my ticket, the shop was closed-as-hell.

The cinema was pitch dark. I stumbled into a seat which was thankfully empty. As the gloom cleared I saw that finding that empty seat was no great trick, the whole auditorium was completely deserted. I watched the previews and the ads and waited for some other people to come in but nobody ever did.

A short while before the feature was due to start, a phone started ringing somewhere in the building. Nobody rushed to answer it. Fearing that it would spoil the movie , I went and found the phone in a little empty office and answered it myself.

“Hello?”

“What time is tonight’s show?”

I checked a chart on the wall.

“Eight Thirty.”

“Thanks.”

Then I went back and watched the movie, all alone in the huge cold theatre on St. Patrick’s Day 1981.

Man, I loved that movie so much that day.

I’d offer a prize for someone to name the film but that would just mean that the answer to every quiz I ever did here would be ‘Body Heat’.

Have a happy St. Patrick’s Day - whatever you may do.

The Four Settees Challenge

It's that time of year where lots of people are out straining themselves for good causes. 'BBC Children in Need' has a bunch of celebrities off climbing Mount Kilimanjaro... or is it mounting_ no, never mind.

Even here, locally, there's a gang of fine folks about to climb our lovely mountain Croagh Patrick for seven days running. That's it in the picture and that dot on the top is a church) I mean seven days in a row, they're not actually running up it, though that's been done too.

Not by me though.

Am I the only one who thinks it's a pity that all the really good fund-raising activities have to be directly related to extreme physical activity?

People run marathons, swim bodies of water and generally knock themselves out in the name of making a little dosh for good causes.

I would like to join in and perhaps engage in an activity to raise some money for such things but, believe me, I ain't gonna make it the end of anything calling itself 'The Four Peaks Challenge'.

Perhaps somebody could organise a 'Four Settees Challenge' where people are sponsored to sit on a variety of oversized soft furnishings for an extended period?

I could give that a go.

Or how about the 'Four Very Long Subtitled Foreign Movies Challenge' wherein the protagonists have to sit through... well, you get the idea.

I want to help... really I do.

I'm just not up to much at the moment.