The Irish Stonehenge

I was in Kerry, Ireland on holiday. 

The thing about being in Ireland is that it is a country of extreme weather, you can be bathed in bright sunshine in the morning, and hidden in a blanket of thick freezing fog by teatime. It's like England in spring, all year round. 

I was staying in a cottage, in a small village surrounded by the most amazing countryside od ever seen. The beaches on the west coast of Ireland amazed me. The purest white sand beaches I've ever seen, but devoid of people and cold. I saw a pure white horse standing in yhe shallows early one morning. A sight that was almost so stereotypically Irish that I wondered if an advert was being filmed there. It wasn't.  

One day the fog hung thickly in the air. I had planned to go to a picturesque village in the hills called Sneem, but with the views hidden it seemed pointless, and with the hire car due to go back in a few days it seemed more sense to make use of it. 

I remembered seeing a poster in a cafe about the Skellig ring, I'm sure I'd seen a picture underneath showing a neolithic stone circle, much like Stonehenge, so decided to go look for it. I drove to where I remembered seeing a road sign for it the day before, and set off on an adventure. 

In the early 90's there was no Google Maps avaliable to me, and possibly even before sat nav.  You'd go out with an idea, a rough map, and lots of hope that you'd find the right way.

I soon found the brown sign pointing right, with "Skellig ring" written on it, so following the instruction turned and continued on, looking for more signs. 

The fog was beginning to descend more now, so I hoped we would find the monument before I got lost somewhere in a cow field. 

After about five miles of travelling down the small winding round, I saw another sign pointing left. 'Skellig ring', so followed it. 

I thought to myself It must be close now, I'd been drivimg for at least for half an hour. 

On I travelled through the fog, signs pointing one way and the next, up onto high hills, and down into valleys. 

I could see the tarmac of the road in front, and cars eyes on thr road refelting the cars hwadlihhts as i drove, but not much more. 

After 2 hours I hadn't found it, and passed a cafe that looked familiar. 

Had I see that cafe earlier today? Am I driving in circles?

But I carried on, I really wanted to see the irish Stone henge. 

Another hour of driving and following signs led nowhere. Where was this ring? Did it even exist? Or is it a joke on gullible tourists like me? 

I pulled up to a cafe. Defeated. 

Maybe I'd driven past it somewhere in the fog? 

I ordered some tea and food and sat there feeling beaten. 

When the waitress arrived with the food, I asked

"Do you know where the skellig ring is?"

"Of course," she repiled, she looked puzzled. 

"Where is it?"

"It's outside," she said and pointed to the window outside. 

Had O missed it? Was I parked outside the very thing I was been looking for? 

I looked out of the wondow, I couldnt see much because of the fog, but I could vaguely make out the shapes of trees standing in an open field.

"Is it over there in the field?" I pointed across the road.

"No, it's right there," she pointed just outside. I was confused. What was I missing here? 

"Is it... some stones?" I asked nervously 

"No, it's the road."

She went over to the counter and returned with a leaflet. 

Which read, The Skellig Ring is an often-overlooked scenic drive/cycle that covers a breath-taking 50km...

It was the road! The fucking road I'd be driving on for hours WAS the skellig ring! The road I could barely see due to the fog, the famed beautiful views encapsulated under a white blanket. 

The best views in the west of Ireland, and I'd seen absolutely nothing if it.

The Thora Hird Workout

    I sat on the chair, waiting for the timer to start. 

    Bleep...bleep..bleep. 

    I hit pause. Exercise can wait for a moment. 

    I'll be fifty-four in two months' time, and in the past few years, I have done zero minutes of exercise. Zero. Walking to the biscuit tin and back doesn't count, apparently. I walk every day, at least 7000 - 10,000 steps, or so my smart watch tells me. It's not real exercise, though, nothing that makes me sweat, or get out of breath, or cause endorphins to rush through my body. 

    It's not all through laziness and apathy. Last year, I slipped a disc in my back, a herniated disc, as the doctor later called it. It was, without a doubt, the most pain i have ever been in. It hit me in the middle of the night as I tried to reach the toilet in our ensuite, a muscle spasm left me immobilised and gripping the door frame with white knuckles,  unable to move forwards or backwards without searing pain shooting through my body. My wife had to help me to the toilet, twenty years ahead of when this should have happened.  

     The next morning, when I tried to leave the bedroom, it happened again, and unable to reach a wall, i fell to the floor. I lay there, my face pushed into the carpet pile for around twenty minutes, just breathing deeply to regulate the pain before calling out for help.

     When I was slightly more mobile I got an appointment to see the doctor. He gave me a fact sheet on stretches and exercises I could do to improve. The sketched character on the fact sheet had a smiling but confused face. It reminded me of Thora Hird in the adverts for stairlifts you used to see at the back of Sunday supplements. Behind the eyes were saying, "How did it come to this?"

    I said to the doctor I was thinking of going to see a chiropractor to help to mend my back. He laughed. "If chiropractor services worked, don't you think it would be offered on the NHS?"

    I went anyway, and after a few sessions, it did feel better. My left shoulder blade, which had dropped by two inches due to the herniated disc, was now almost level again. My back, once twisted, was now straight again. I could finally walk without pain. 

    But I couldn't run, I couldn't exercise. The slightest jog would leave a strange sensation in my back, like it wasn't completely joined up, like a bolt was loose somewhere. And lifting anything heavy was out of the question.

    To be honest, a sedentary life suited me. Exercise has always been a chore, even when I was younger. I used to run 5k once or twice a week, and the only thrill I got was from finishing, the act of running itself I found boring and difficult. I like moving around, I don't like to sit still for too long if there's something to do, but exercising, of my own free will? Nah, you're alright. 

    But having caught an image of myself on the playback of the ring doorbell, and seeing that I looked older and fatter than I had visualised myself, I knew something had to be done. Something had to change. 

    I can run small distances now, for a train at the station, after the dog when he runs off, without any negative effects, so I know I'm ready to do something again. Something only small to start with. 

    I found a chair exercising app for older people, with stretches to help my twiglet brittle back and signed up. 

    So after procrastinating and thinking of a million other jobs I should be doing instead, I sat on the highbacked dining room style chair and opened my the app. I was reading through the list of exercises when my six year old son took a photo of me on his tablet. In the photo, my face is smiling but confused, just like Thora Hird in that advert from years before. 

    I thought to myself, "How did it come to this?"

Pleased to meet you

 

Most people have no issues with greeting people. You have to sidestep them as you enter bars and restaurants. Every day, everywhere. Strangers and groups of friends air-kissing and shaking hands like there is no tomorrow.

 "It's lovely to meet you."

 "I haven't seen you for ages."

 "Let me introduce you to..."

 Shake shake, hug hug, kiss kiss.

 For me, it's not so easy. When I meet someone, I have a second of awkwardness, not knowing what to do next. I wonder if I should be shaking hands in a work situation. Or in a social setting, kissing on one cheek, or two, or that half handshake half hug thing that men sometimes do to greet other men.

 It's all very confusing.

 I once tried a both cheeks' kiss, and due to my hesitancy and uneasiness I accidentally kissed the recipient on the earlobe. The memory of that still makes me shudder.

 I use these examples as background for the strange thing I did once when I bumped into someone in the street and greeting them went horribly wrong.

 I had just left the office in Noel Street, and my mind was on what to buy for dinner that evening and what to watch on my long commute home.

At the edge of Carnaby Street, I bumped into our office cleaner, Austin. a lovely kind man who called everyone boss but knew very few other English words. I was walking towards the tube station, and he was heading the other way back towards the office to clean the emptying workplace.

We both said hello and smiled as we approached each other, but then he stopped in the center of the pavement. He wanted to tell me something I thought, so I stopped too.

This is when things went wrong.

 He raised his hand towards me. In hindsight, I now understand that he was pointing towards the office; to say I’m on my way into Noel Street to clean up the debris from you and your colleagues day. But that second of greeting awkwardness took hold of me, and as his hand started to move to point, I thought he wanted to shake hands, so I also reached out my hand.

 There was sudden confusion in Austin's eyes.

There was a sinking, uncomfortable feeling in my stomach.

He looked down.

I looked down.

 And the sight that greeted both of our eyes was me holding Austin's outstretched finger.

We both looked back up at each other and then looked down again at the improbable sight.

 I searched my brain to try to think of a reason why I would be holding his finger like this. I could laugh and say it was a joke, but too much time had already passed to claim it was a joke.

The puzzled look on his face seemed to burn into soul, and as my logical had brain deserted me, muscle memory took over.

I shook his outstretched finger like we were shaking hands. Acting like shaking a finger at the edge of soho is a normal thing that normal people might do.

 Then I released his finger, and we both took a big step backwards. pushed apart like opposing pole magnets repelled from each other.

 I think I mentioned something about the weather, the default conversation setting on anyone from the UK, before we both hurried away.

The next time we bumped into each other, in the office, I'm grateful that he acted like nothing unusual had occurred out in the street that day, but I made sure I took a different route back to the station from that day on, just in case.

A Lunchtime Jerk

Outside the shop, my heart thumps in my chest like it wants to explode. I already know the feeling of humiliation I feel will stay with me for a long time and leave me in a cold sweat, haunting me in quiet, self-sabotaging moments for years to come. I Will have to avoid this shop from now on, scratch it out of existence in my brain. It was my favourite lunchtime spot, but no more. I can never go back.

Friday Lunchtime. 12pm. There is a jerk chicken shop on the road next to where I work. It has changed hands and names a few times, but the food has always been exceptional. Jerk Chicken, rice, and peas for £ 9. It’s not somewhere I visit every day, but as an occasional Friday lunchtime treat, it’s perfect.

The shop is, as always, filled with twenty-something trendy people. When I step inside, I feel immediately self-conscious. I want to fit in, to feel good enough to belong, but I know I’m not, and I don’t. I stand in my grey suit in the doorway, feeling like a relic from working days now past.

The man who works behind the counter is exceptionally cool; he may also be the owner. He is wearing a full black Adidas tracksuit. Run DMC style. He has long dreadlocks hanging down. His sunglasses are always on; I don’t think I’ve ever seen his eyes, in fact. This man would make Samuel L. Jackson, Lenny Kravitz, and Bob Marley look like nerds. If you look up cool in the dictionary, you’ll find a picture of this man looking away from you nonchalantly. Let’s call him Mr Cool.

I wait patiently in the queue while, in the background, an R&B song plays that is far too modern for me to recognise. The 20-something woman in the queue in front of me is singing along quietly under her breath. The bass thuds, thud, thuds along with my increasing heartbeat, as my anxiety increases by the second. I don’t feel like I belong here.

My turn comes, and I step up to the counter, shyly ordering my jerk chicken with rice and peas. I hand Mr. Cool a ten-pound note and stand by the counter.

Although I can not feel any eyes on me, I feel judged by the younger clientele as they eat their lunch. I feel both invisible and inconspicuous at the same time, so I quietly stare at my shoes and wait.

I was nudged out of my nervous daydreams by my lunch being placed on the counter in front of me. I look up, and Mr. Cool is standing there. Fist held out towards me.

It was a shock. I felt like the room had fallen silent, although I’m sure I was imagining it. I knew, though, that his stance meant I had been accepted. Somehow, I had gained his respect.

 I slowly put my hand into a fist and hesitantly raised it, pressing it gently against his. This must be how contestants on Bake Off feel when they receive a Paul Hollywood handshake. I fist-bump Mr. Cool.

But something isn’t right. He looks angry, his face screwed up in disgust. He even lowers his sunglasses for the first time, the first time I have seen his eyes, and they look at me in anger, leaving me in no doubt that I have caused his reaction. What have I done? Have I done the fist bump wrong?

“No, mate, it’s your fucking change!” he opens his fist to show me a pound coin inside; he then slaps it down on the counter angrily.

I feel my face flushing and the low murmurings of laughter building behind me.

“I um, I um.” I splutter. My brain searches for words to ease this situation, but none come to mind. My brain has shut down in panic.

The laughter builds all around me, and all I can think to do is to turn and run. Flight rather than fight.

Outside on the pavement, I realise that my lunch and change are still sitting on the shop counter, but I was not going back in to get it. Never again.

Shockolate Biscuit

“I can’t believe it’s true.” I say to myself incredulously as I grab another biscuit from the packet, tearing at its wrapper to get inside.  I dunk it into the steaming hot cup of tea, waiting impatiently for the chocolate to melt. Usually, the chocolate melting into a cuppa would annoy me to no end but today was different. Today, I needed the truth.

As the chocolate melts away, I see the sight Phil has promised. Mind blown.

I feel like Charlton Heston at the end of The Planet of the Apes, seeing the statue of Liberty half-buried in the sand. The truth had been there in plain sight all along.

"You maniacs! Damn you all to hell!"

 I phone Phil immediately, just as he predicted I would in the pub earlier. Our usual chat about football, music, and spreadsheets (Phil works in Accounts, too) had been detonated by the biscuit bombshell he had dropped onto our conversation.

 "I told you it was true." I can hear the smugness in his voice. "It's been public knowledge for years; I can't believe you didn't know it already. Everybody knows that a penguin biscuit is just a bourbon biscuit coated in chocolate!"

 After the call I think about it more and stare intensely at the brown tea-drenched rectangular shape on the plate in front of me.

Is it really a bourbon though? Yes, the trademark holes are there in the top half of the biscuit, but it doesn’t actually say Bourbon on the top as Phil said it would. Does it still count as a Bourbon?

 There was only one authority I could go to in order to get the answers I needed... McVities themselves.

I headed to their Twitter page (no one calls it X Elon, grow up!), and I sent them a message

But then scroll down their page, and see that someone else had already asked them this same question in 2018, and they had answered it definitively.

So, the biscuit part is from a Bourbon, but the filling and chocolate are not. So, maybe 50% Bourbon?

 The next day, I phone Phil and explain to him that "a penguin is only 50% Bourbon, at most."  The line goes quiet for a moment, so I continue "50% does not make a penguin a bourbon. Come on Phil, admit that you were wrong."

 He refuses.

 After the call, I sent him a clip from The Office TV show to illustrate my point. It's a talking head scene, where David Brent is talking to the camera about Mr. Spock’s parentage, to settle an argument on whether Mr. Spock is an alien. Mr. Spock is 50% Vulcan, 50% human.

This is the transcript of that scene.

 Brent: "It's like saying I've got a new pedigree dog breed. It's half Alsatian, half Labrador". I go on to Crufts, I go, "Can I enter this dog in the Labrador section?" "No." "Why?" "Because it's not a Labrador." "Correct." "Can I enter it in the Alsatian section?" "No. For the same reasons. Now get that dog out of my sight." "Thanks, I will. You've proved my point." And that's Crufts...

 The two blue ticks appear on my WhatsApp message, meaning he has seen my message, and watched the clip. I settle back into my armchair. Phil's fast reply moments later though, pulls me back out of my self-righteous bliss.

"Yes, but my point is that you were surprised by it. It's 50% more bourbon that you were expecting to find in a penguin, and we both know it's that 50% you'll be thinking of every time you eat one from now on."

And he was 100% correct.

Home Town Tales Part 1

 "I'm not racist, but..."

    I was moving into a new flat, full of excitement and the possibilities of moving away from home for the first time. This was my first interaction with a fellow resident, and at this point, I realised things would not be as idyllic as I had imagined.

    Many residents of that block of flats I lived in back in the 90s were what you could describe as characters. I'll tell you about some of them, but first, some background on where I had moved to. 

    In 1994, I moved from the sleepy town of Broxbourne to a tower block in Hoddesdon called Tower Heights, a few miles away from the house I grew up in. Tower Heights was a concrete structure built in the '60s that once may have been considered glamorous, but 30 years later, it was considered an eyesore. It was like Nelson Mandela House from Only Fools and Horses had blasted off from Peckham and landed in the Hertfordshire market town of 40,000 inhabitants.

     It was also considered unsightly and contained many people the town's primarily conservative populace would think of as undesirables, such as council and housing association tenants. I always felt the arched eyebrows of judgment when I told people where I lived, even if nothing unpleasant was said afterwards.

     Although most town residents wanted Tower Heights torn down, it's still there now in 2025. In 2015, they removed the ageing shopping centre it once sat in and built a Morrisons underneath instead. The Tower seemed to defy logic and gravity for a year, standing on stilts as the construction occurred underneath. 

    Despite (or maybe because) we knew the town of Hoddesdon felt animosity towards our home, Tower Heights had a community feel. This helped bond the residents and gave us a 'no one likes us, we don't care' attitude. 

In the Space song neighbourhood, lead singer Tommy Scott sings Oh they want to knock us down, 'cause they think we're scum, But we will all be waiting, When the bulldozers come, In a neighbourhood like this you know, It's hard to survive, So you'd better come prepared, 'cause they won't take us alive.,

Once you were through the run-down shopping centre and into the stark grey concrete lift lobby, with yellowing curly lino and dead rubber plant, you were in a safe space, away from all judgment but your own. All in it together. 

     The building was famously home to a celebrity from the '70s, Lena Zavaronni. She had bought that flat with money from her days in the spotlight but then considered it a prison once her fame waned and anorexia took hold. She lived above me, in fact, but that is another story. 

     There was the old man who, in winter or summer, wore a thick brown woollen overcoat and deer stalker hat, the flaps of which covered his thick mutton chop sideburns but did not cover a lustrous moustache,  waxed into twirls at each side. Sherlock Holmes, if the consulting detective work had dried up, and the opium had taken hold. He always had a frightened look in his eyes, like a rabbit caught in the headlights. 

     At the very top, on the tenth floor, was the weed grower and dealer. He wore a military jacket and long brown hair pulled back into a ponytail. He looked like every Vietnam vet from 80s war films, although he was from Essex. Everyone knew what he did, but no one ever reported him. He was one of us. 

    Then there was Chris Pig, who lived on the floor and flat directly underneath me. A regularly boozed-up skinhead who was obsessed with pigs. He was a local celebrity to the pub-going folk of the town. You would hear him before you saw him. He would shout "PIIIIIIG" as he entered a pub before a chorus of people shouting, "PIIIIIIG" would return the greeting, like a porcine Norm from Cheers. His kitchen window sill, which faced out onto the walkway of the fifth floor, was filled with pig ornaments, large and small. On many occasions, I would hear him crash through his front door at midnight or later on a Friday or Saturday night, put on Bob Marley's No Woman No Cry, his favourite song, which he would blast out, singing along, but with his own lyrics of "no piglet, no sty..." Although made of thick concrete, the walls carried a lot of noise from neighbours at night, so this song would often be my lullaby at the weekend. 

     And then there was Trevor. I met him when I first moved in, and during that first conversation, I realised he was not the sharpest knife in the drawer. 

"Have you tried that new pizza place down in the shopping centre yet?" He said to me, peering at me with beady rat-like eyes. This was his opening line to me. 

We stood in the lift, an undetermined puddle between us; it could be a lager. It could be piss, but from the stench, my money was on the latter.

"No, I haven't." 

"Don't bother, don't bother, " he replied, looking at me for a reaction, waiting for me to ask why. 

"OK, I won't," I replied.

"You know the one I mean, don't you? The new one in the centre, next door to the Indian. They share a kitchen, I think."

     I remember thinking, Please don't take this conversation where I think you are taking it, not today, not as I'm moving in. Please. But then he did. 

"I'm not being racist, but.." 

     Here we go, then, I thought to myself, and I wondered what he would say next to a complete stranger. 

     "I'm not being racist, but my pizza just tasted of curry. Don't get me wrong, I love a good curry, but I don't wanna taste it on my pizza. Do you know what I mean?"

I didn't want to enter into this conversation; I didn't want to make an enemy on my first day, but I also didn’t want to ignore him, so I asked the only question that popped into my head.

"What kind of pizza did you order?" 

"Chicken tikka." He replies.   

I laughed, thinking he made a joke. But he looked back at me with incredulity. He was deadly serious and obviously an idiot. 

    We stood silently, and I watched the floor numbers count up to floor 6. The lift pings, and the door slides open. We both get out, and I realise he is my next-door neighbour. Welcome to your new home. Welcome to life in Tower Heights.