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| Laughter Lines (the Director's Cut) | |
| By Bagheera | ||||||||||||||||||||||||
| 30 March 2006 | ||||||||||||||||||||||||
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For those of you who are not lucky enough to live in the area where the Liverpool Echo can be bought, this is the first piece of writing I've actually been PAID for! Okay, it was only a tenner, and they edited almost half of the story away to fit it in, but I made it into the "Top Ten" stories chosen and PUBLISHED!!! The Liverpool Echo has a steady circulation of c. 25000+ per day Later note to self: remember to double-check for Bold/Underline formatting before posting ....... !! (Sorry for the apparent "shouting" in original posting!) Laughter Lines.... Every summer seems to be one unbroken series of music festivals throughout Ireland, with songs and Guinness flowing in equal measure. We weren’t quite the “eleven long-haired friends of Jesus in a chartreusse microbus” immortalised in song by CV McCall that year (1975), but our Dormobile could easily have doubled for the Scooby Doo Mystery Machine. The customised paintwork had been designed primarily to disguise the encroaching rust patches and had a musical theme which we considered appropriate for a touring six-man folk group. We were in the second week of our tour, visiting different venues each day. We’d played a one-night stand at Inch in County Kerry and had rough and ready travel directions for a festival near Enniskillen. By early afternoon we were on a country road with no other traffic and a distinct lack of road signs. Ahead of us, however, we spied a man walking towards us: surely we could hope for directions from a local resident? We were confident that we weren’t far from where the festival was being held ........ “Sure, now, an’ it’s not so far” we were told “ ..... but I’m not the best one to tell you!” “If you carry on the way y’r going, about a mile or so ..... ” We took this with a shovel of salt: we’d been in Ireland long enough to appreciate that “a mile” was a very subjective, flexible measure. “ ....... you’ll come to a fork in the road, and on your left there’s a house. You’ll see someone sitting on the porch, with a dog at his feet. He can tell you how to get there ..... ” We thanked him politely, and carried on. We weren’t sure whether we’d had our collective legs pulled, or if this was just a way of avoiding admitting that he didn’t have a clue about where we were heading for. But sure enough, we eventually reached a fork in the road. On the left was a house, and on the porch in front of the house there was, indeed, a man sitting on a chair with a dog at his feet. Once he’d made sure that we were looking for Murphy the Publican (as opposed to Murphy the Post, or Murphy the Farm) he gave us precise and easy instructions to follow. We arrived in good time for a generous Irish pub meal (washed down with the inevitable dark stuff). By the time we’d finished eating, the pub was starting to fill up with the village regulars, and inevitably everyone who came in had had to pass the unmissable “team bus” outside the front door. Even without the telltale customised paintwork, nobody could possibly have failed to see the heaped musical instruments on display. We were made to feel very welcome by everyone, and heavy hints were soon being dropped about entertainment. That was when the ‘serious’ drinking started. It wasn’t too long before we realised – somewhat to our embarrassment – that we were in effect singing for our (liquid) supper. Despite protests, we were not allowed to pay for any of our drinks that evening, and the craic was indeed ‘mighty’ all night. Every song we played was favourably received, and I swear each number sounded better than the one before it. We were also hard pressed to keep pace with the supply of glasses arriving on our table, but we had to keep up appearances and did our very best. Doors and windows were propped open to keep the temperature and humidity levels bearable: I doubt there was even a single village resident anywhere other than in the pub and its immediate environs – and I’m including the children of the village, who sang just as enthusiastically as their parents but were models of good behaviour. Our spokesman and lead vocalist had the opportunity to speak to the landlord during a brief pause between songs as the clock approached midnight. “Are we causing you problems with licencing laws? What time do you close here?” Mine Host took off his glasses, polishing them on a bar towel before replacing them and making a great pantomime of looking at his wristwatch before announcing, seriously: “September.”
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Factual error swiftly amended!! 
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