I can't adequately express my disdain of lazy commentary, but the world is so often filled with inane, fatuous, trite drivel that ignores the difference between opinion and fact. I read too much of it in the papers every day. So when this absolute dickhead loudly described the Pope in terms of the Nazis, I was well beyond my stupidity quota for the weekend: I felt the most wonderful release when I realised patience with tossers is by no means necessary. Quite the opposite...
I spent the day prancing about town like the boulevardier I wish I was, meeting up for a pint in Neary's with a friend of mine, with whom I had a short story-writing race. We went to my favourite pizzeria, Pizza Stop, which is down a seedy little lane behind HMV on Grafton Street and anticipated an evening comparing stories and talking in lofty terms about our work. How were we to know that the occupants of the table next to us were full of finger-clicking-for-the-waiter's-attention gaucheness? It wasn't as if they had t-shirts to let us know. When their starters came out, one man's man's talk had already intruded our airspace . Then his pasta starter came out as a main course portion. His fingers clicked loudly as he squared up for a fight with a whispy Italian waiter who couldn't stop laughing at the sheer awfulness of this man. Well, there was drama, and 'it's just not good enough' - just short of 'do you know who I am?' No was my silent answer, and my world is certainly better for it.
My friend and I were dumbstruck. We strained to evesdrop, but the place was so small, we kept retreating to our corner with Parmesan in our ears. Their conversation started into the Pope and his predecessor. I could feel my stomach sinking with disappointed expectation. One of the occupants of our neighbouring table was Italian, and our loudmouthed 'Mr. Somebody' was clearly looking to impress him with his witty take on the state of the Papacy. 'We loved the old guy [cue John Paul II impression], but the new guy, we don't like him. He's got SS written all over him'. I knew he was going to say this. I just knew he was going to say something brash, boring and utterly offensive. And what's more, I carry a German bloody passport. 'I don't agree with that', the Italian politely mumbled.
Over at our table, I was incandescent, my friend just looked at me as if waiting to see if I would stick a fork in our neighbour's fat head or cry like a baby with frustration. Unfortunately for the entertainment value of this story, I'm more repressed emotionally than that. Definitely a westbrit, if ever there was one. In our tiny eatery, I got up noisily, banging my cutlery against the plate like my Da would do when I was a kid, before bollocking me out of it for talking back to mum. I asked the manager if there was another table we could sit at, and grabbed our coats before he could say a thing. Their conversation stopped dead in its tracks when we moved down to the other side of the restaurant. Our displeasure had been noted, and I could hear his plaintive 'whaat?'
The current Pope was twelve when the war broke out. He was 18 by the end of it. He is a man of certain conservative views that I don't agree with, even if I do go to church. He was liberal, then got old and with it, very conservative. He was God's Rottweiler for an age and a bit, and then had to play the fisherman once J.P. II's superstar Papacy came to its strange, sad end. And what's more, he's German. In the British and Irish media, that carries a whole load of baggage that makes it too easy for lazy journos and even lazier readers to make assumptions about people.
I wish I had the guts to tell him as such, to reason with him, or simply to tell him to shut up. But, hey, I've better things to do, and our pizzas - the best in Dublin - were getting cold.
