A lot to be said for a good shout

Not enough people shout out loud any more.

There was a man once who did not like silence and so he used to shout every so often just to make the blood flow a little faster in the veins of all who heard him suddenly give voice.

He called it "having a bit of gas", gas being fun, not exhaust fumes from a metal pipe, or, the inside of a domestic cooker, however temporarily visited.

He specialised in attending public meetings, on any subject at all, just so long as there would be a moment of quiet in which he could interject some noise.

And some jaded listeners.

Annual general meetings were always a good occasion, especially when the election of a committee for the following year came about.

Silence always fell then, it still does, when everyone's eyes settle on anything except the top table where a welcome awaits those with nothing else to do but serve on the committee.

It was then he came into his own for he would suddenly shout aloud to the exasperation of the committee formers and the consternation of those new to the experience.

He would shout nothing discernible at all, at times; other times, he would invent a title of a book or film.


If the chairman was wearing a nice green shirt and was called Wally de Winter for example he would call out:

"The Case of the Green Shirt, by Wally de Winter," he'd shout. "Has anyone seen that yet?"

He used to encourage all about him to join him in "Letting a shout, for a bit of gas,"

At which point someone officious would move to eject him.

He would demand that his freedom of expression be respected and glorious mayhem would ensue.

No.

Nobody shouts enough, any more.


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Training Apaches

The scissors platform is raised high above the swelling mob on the big wide avenue that is the backbone of Phoenix Park.

On it are a man and a woman facing in opposite directions.

The day is warm for a foot race but this pair tell people they will warm them up for the event.
Many seem overjoyed at this news.

Humans jump up and down in response to the shouted commands from on high.

It's hard not to believe that, to a visitor from Mars, humans are a strange species, not to mention to any passing Messiahs, during Lent.

Mass obedience to shouted instructions is the order of the day.

These people have raised funds or paid an entry fee to participate in all of this.

They seem to think it very important to warm up when told to do so.

After all, they will run 10 kilometres around the leafing roads to arrive back here, warmed up and panting, to receive a goody bag of branded goods from various sponsors.

Camera crews are positioned around the course to relay the participants' efforts to a television audience happily sitting down to Sunday roast at home.

Everywhere you look, in hollow or glade, atop mounds of green grass, people gather in bright colours to prepare for the event. They stretch bits of their bodies in different directions to make them more supple.

It is difficult not to think of them as wild Indians preparing to descend in marauding groups on the capitalist intruders all around them.

Would the race entrants move faster if they were told the Apaches were after them? Someone should take a breath and shout a warning.

I may, when the elevated people cannot see who the mischief maker is in the crowd of jumping people.

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Kissing Charles Aznavour

The woman is kissing Charles Aznavour on the wrong street in Dublin. She is much younger than he and he seems to be accepting her admiration with benign patience.

It is early morning and I wait politely for her to conclude.

She has asked me for directions to a conference venue.

She and a male companion, not Chuck the singer, are on a street parallel to where they should be and have declared themselves to be lost, to me.

I know where they should be and begin to say so when passion overtakes the woman who takes leave of Monsieur Aznavour now that I have become her guide.

The third person in the relationship tells me they are enroute to a very important conference where a great many important people will gather to hear more important people speak to them about a matter of great importance.

I lose interest when he tells me his own area of interest is in the nuclear field. He waits for a suitably admiring reaction from me; but I am heading home from a session with a physiotherapist for a damaged small finger on my left hand.

My finger hurts from a leap from a high wall and the consequent treatment and I could care less about nuclear.

To no response, I tell him the 18th century building we are standing beside was once a city hospital. I tell him where he is going, The Royal Hospital at Kilmainham, is modelled after Les Invalides in Paris, to no response.

By now, Charles is peeling the woman away from his presence.

She smiles shyly at me as if I am party to a great secret; but I now see it is not Charles Aznavour at all, but someone else.

I don't know who he is and wonder if he is French at all, or, just someone she mistook for another.

 I wonder who she thinks I am, as I take leave of them to catch my bus home. 

Nuclear.

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