KILLING TIME

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I was heading to keep an appointment, but I was a bit on the early side with a little time to fill so I thought I'd take a walk around the block.

The first thing to catch my eye was a European flag flying at half mast. Being a curious person I wondered what was up. Had Mr. Juncker or Mr. Tusk foolishly taken to the air in a Boeing 737 Max? Had it finally dawned on people that Boris Johnson was going to bring the EU crashing down about our ears? Had the Third Secret of Fatima been revealed and had it turned out that Charles de Gaulle had been the Second Coming, died, but not risen again?

Clearly something momentous had happened since I last heard the news on the radio this morning.

So I went in and up to the desk. The young lady was very pleasant Could she help me?

Yes, why is the European flag flying at half mast? I was met with a blank stare of incomprehension. So I explained that flags were usually flown at half mast following a death or major tragedy and I was not aware of any such thing on a European scale since I left home this morning.

At this point her all-knowing male companion at the desk decided to stick his oar in and rescue the young lady who was clearly at a complete loss. It's the wind he says with an air of definitive pronouncement.

At that point I just gave up. I said I hoped the matter would be rectified in due course and complimented him on at least flying the flag the right way up.

The wind, my arse. Let's be charitable. Maybe whoever was raising it had to answer an urgent call of nature in the middle of the operation and the trivial matter of completing the task slipped their mind thereafter.

By this time it was getting near my appointment which was in the Gresham Hotel so I headed in that direction.

I was hanging around in the foyer when I noticed the magnificent creature you see above. I got to wondering was it a male horse, a female horse, or maybe even a transgender horse. I was tempted to peek but felt a bit embarrassed in these plush surroundings.

The Gresham was once among the poshest hotels in town and the cultural memory lingered. I know the guy from then newly founded Gault Millau guide, whom Harry Owens and myself once accompanied around the town on his mission of discovery on a Bord Fáilte tab, ended up describing it at that time as a "cavernous hole". Nevertheless the feeling that you were not actually entitled to be there persisted.

Then I thought of a wheeze. There were lots of hotel types in badged suits flitting about the place, so I thought I'd ask one of them. Is that a male or a female horse, says I. The instant reply: it's a HORSE. No luck there then.

After a pleasant lunch, my curiosity had really got the better of me and I peeked on the way out. All I can say is that the externals suggested a male horse but in these changing times I would venture no further than that.

But I had been observed and this led to an interesting conversation on the pavement outside with a very nice lady who had been brought up in Pearse Street long ago when the word gender, if it occurred at all, was only to be found in a book on grammar.

So there y'are. That's Dublin for ya. A good conversation is never far away.