The Emerald Isle Newsletter 6
And Finally
Hi Everyone
Here it is, Day 16 and I don’t have the UK money system under control yet. The paper money is easy. I’m talking about the coins. I had a handle on the one pound coin but blew my confidence early by mixing some of them up with Euros (they look similar). If you give a euro instead of a pound to a merchant in the UK he or she will fly into a rage, call a Bobby with a hat and he will drag you to the tank while you try to explain that it was an accident and it will cost one hundred pounds to bail yourself out or ten days in the tower.
So a Brit who is travelling with us kindly gave me a few tips. The coins are all decimal fractions of the pound except for the two pound coin. And the smaller the coin the less the value except the two pence which is bigger than the five and the ten pence which looks like a nickel. Two fifty pence coins will buy a pair of pleated pants at Poundland, but they will be poorly produced. ……what?
If you’ve been following you’ll recall that a few days ago I fell asleep sitting up on the bus with my mouth wide open like a turkey in a rainstorm, except facing down instead of up and drooled on the front of a favourite T-shirt……. You know what’s coming. I did the same thing on the airplane but didn’t realize it until after I had spoken to a very nice elderly lady who was sitting next to me. In order to have a proper conversation I had to shift around in my seat so that I was facing her. For fifteen minutes at least she had to avoid staring at a glob on my shirt that I’m sure was saliva and may have included some remnants of a tomato and cheese sandwich I purchased at the airport in Bristol. I didn’t notice until later when I got up to leave.
And I haven’t a clue why I just told that story……….
Before I move on I should mention that the Republic of Ireland uses the Euro. England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland still use the Pound Sterling and as far as I know are the only members of the European Union to keep their own money system. They’re happy they did and now a lot of them want out of the whole thing. BREXIT…….I’m sure you’ve heard of it. A national referendum is coming soon and the populists (the same kind of short sighted, moronic, pseudo political movement that gave us Rob Ford and is currently giving the United States Donald Trump) are gaining speed aided by the British tabloids and newspapers.
Belfast Day 16 Show 10
Belfast. Bleak, forbidding, ominous. Looking from every angle like a faded black and white photograph. Soldiers in battle fatigues carryinghigh powered rifles, armoured vehicles patrolling sepia streets with skittish people scurrying around, even a “hello, how are ye” under suspicion. Snipers, visible on the roof of the airport. Two complete frisks with intense questioning just to enter the hotel.
That was how I remembered it. I was in for a big surprise.
The first picture (not taken by me) makes modern day Belfast look like Hong Kong. An illusion. Some trick of perspective I guess. But it does convey an idea of the massive new development in the city. The second picture is of the area where we stayed in 1981 that I took after sound check on Tuesday. The large grey building is the Belfast Europa. On the corner is the Opera House and next to it is Grosvenor Hall. We played at one of those places. Exactly which one is currently under dispute. Back in 1981 this whole area that you see here was a tangle of barbed wire, soldiers, armoured vehicles, security checkpoints and befuddled residents trying to go about their daily activities. I took no pictures of the ugly scene in Belfast because to do so risked getting a shove in the back and confiscation of the camera. The official reason for no photography was that the IRA and the Loyalist paramilitaries would use pictures they’d taken of various people and places to plan bombings and assassinations. Lame. More likely the British army was attempting to block any non official reporting and they weren’t shy about it. A Canadian journalist who was travelling with us found out the hard way. He got, literally, a rifle butt to the butt.
The “Troubles” began in 1968 and seem to have ended with the Good Friday Agreement in 1998 but an IRA ceasefire in 1994 was what initially sparked investor confidence as the economy soared making it one of the fastest growing cities in the UK. Belfast quickly, almost unbelievably, reinvented itself. Just a few of the many examples are the large sleek modern buildings housing among other things hotels, a 10,000 seat arena and a concert hall that line the western end of Belfast Lough and the Lagan river. This tends to make the city unrecognizable to someone (me) who hasn’t been there since a lot of people were still kicking the shit out of each other.
I just thought of something………… this isn’t a complete non-sequitur, stay with me. The other day, in Southend, I was sitting in the dressing room trying to enjoy a rare moment of show-day peace when suddenly a loud commotion began in the hallway. It sounded like two people squaring off to kick the shit out of each other (there’s your delayed segue), with some of the vilest language I’d ever heard outside of a band rehearsal. I had to investigate. It turned out to be Warren, our tour manager, getting lessons from the promoter in how to pronounce a certain three word phrase (nope, you gotta guess. Cryptic clues a-comin’) in the various Brit accents. The finer points of stress, prosody, inflection and melodic variation as pertains to Cockney, Estuary, Scouse and Posh accents were demonstrated repeatedly and executed, in response, I have to say, rather well by Warren. Here’s a clue: It was used frequently in a drunken, improvised comedy skit by Peter Cook and Dudley Moore that included references to light aircraft and Joan Crawford…………….Okay, I’m playing with you. There’s no way you’re going to get it with that clue. Try this: The texting acronym for it is YFC. Belfast has done well for itself but there’s still an undercurrent of tension: an identity crisis for the Loyalists and I’m guessing a sense of unfinished business for the Republicans. I got into trouble the second night here for opining to the guys that the whole island was Ireland divided into two countries. Also, that it’s not improper to say you’re in Ireland when you’re in the North. This came up because Gord had said onstage that he was happy to be back in Ireland. There were some locals (who were also guests of someone in our organization) that Rick met later in the hotel bar and he mentioned this to them. One of those guests was a lady who was perturbed by this and made a trip across the room to have a word with me. She asked me if it would bother me if someone said I was American rather than Canadian. I replied that in fact I am North American, and she interupted instantly to remark that it wasn’t the same thing. In some ways it is similar but I saw her point. We resolved the issue somewhat and ended up chatting amiably for a while. She was really very nice but at first I thought she was going to punch me in the nose.
I want to say that after some thought, I’m going to stay with the concept that the whole thing is Ireland geographically but that it’s been partitioned into Northern Ireland and The Republic of Ireland and that’s a fact that shouldn’t offend anyone. But the subtleties of language do change and I will publish any opinions anyone has on the issue without debate (unless asked a direct question), on my web page miketheheff.com which is under construction until at least the end of next week.
The show was great that night with a very appreciative sellout crowd. We were on a roll and we knew it.
Dublin Day 17 Show 11
The reason why this newsletter took a while is because of Dublin. I wanted to collect my thoughts and I still haven’t. I’m already overdue by eleven days so here’s a quick overview:
- Take all I said about the progress of Belfast and triple it for Dublin.
- Perhaps there’s something to this notion that we carry remnants of our ancestors experience in our genes because to this third generation
descendant it was like going home. - We did some great shows on the tour but this was by far the best. The sell out audience roared its approval at every opportunity and finished
with a standing ovation. I’m asked frequently what has been the highlight of my many years with Gord. It was Massey Hall for a while, then
Royal Albert Hall, then Carnegie hall. Now my answer will be the Bord Gais Energy Theatre in Dublin if I can figure out how to pronounce it. - Dublin’s modernization doesn’t appear to have been at the expense of history and tradition.
- I was there for twenty-four hours. What do I know?
- My appreciation for a lot of places we visit is initially skewed by the pressures of performing. The really important places and events
take me a few days to a few weeks (proportional to how much they end up rocking my world) to process. - There will be more about Ireland plus archives of the UK-Eire newsletters on my new web page. I expect to have the first part of this ambitious
project up and running before my next trip which begins in Denver on June 17.miketheheff.com