Now that the clock is ticking down on the account I should probably tell you all about the most exciting thing that ever happened to me.
It was back when I lived by the Coast. And as you remember, we had problems with smugglers using the caves back then.
That had been going on for a long time, it was just one of the things that happened down by the Coast. But suddenly things were different.
The smugglers used to go about their business quietly. Rowing skiffs full of contraband rum into the caves and so forth.
But one summer things changed. The smugglers started coming ashore and frequenting pubs and cafés and bistros along the Coast.
The smugglers started to ask the locals for secret information. They offered cash. I have to have dinner now so I'll finish the story later.
Mmm, that was a nice meal. Anyway, I was on holidays at the Coast with my friends Danny Dubstep, who was a DJ that mainly played Detroit House but the nickname had stuck, and Geoffrey who had a prehensile neck but we ignored it.
We were about fourteen at the time. Years old not stones. I have no record of what any of us weighed. But we were coming under pressure from the smugglers to hand over secret information.
We asked the local lawyer for advice on what to do. Due to cutbacks he was also acting as the local priest, police sergeant, mayor, accountant, steeplejack and chair of the Tidy Towns Committee, so he knew the score.
To cut a long story short we got recruited to act as double agents for the foreign spies AND the Tidy Towns Committee. I say we, but Dubstep Dave stayed out. He wanted to focus on his DJ career. It was just me and Geoff.
Life as a double agent is stressful. It might have been easier if we had ever discovered what country the foreign spies were from, but neither of us were any good at languages, so who knows?
I'm reasonably convinced they weren't Danish, because I don't think the Danes would bother with espionage. They'd just leap on a boat, row over and hit you with axes. So we can rule them out.
Sometimes we'd try to trick the spies with a cunning question like "You're obviously not Danish, so where ARE you from?" But they had prepared for this situation.
They'd point over your shoulder and say "Why is that donkey on fire?" So you'd turn around, and you'd be like WTF a donkey on fire? But there wouldn't be one. And when you turned back the spy would be gone.
But hey, sometimes you make mistakes in counter espionage. It's not rocket science. Shortly after this we accidentally gave the spies the secrets of Irish rocket science.
I know I have to ultimately bear some responsibility for my own actions in this shameful episode, but really, why was the Tidy Towns Committee of the Coast given confidential rocket science information in the first place? Exactly.
So, anyway, spies got information, blah blah blah, people died, blah blah blah, Ireland's moon mission never quite worked out, but none of this is the point of the story.
The point is that for a while the government was entrusting the most important intelligence operation in Irish history to two half witted teens, one of whom had a prehensile neck that we didn't talk about.
You know, and maybe this is a thing that we should be talking about as a nation. For a while the thin line between security and death was an adolescent gobshite who would have checked it all in for a chance to snog Bjork.
From this we can reach one of two conclusions;
1: Bjork was not a foreign spy
2: Bjork was a foreign spy who had some self respect.
1: Bjork was not a foreign spy
2: Bjork was a foreign spy who had some self respect.
Anyway, the Coast failed to be shortlisted in that year's Tidy Towns Competition and I had the foreign spies breathing down my neck, and Geoff was no help because he'd got into using his neck to do things awkwardly.
He'd use his neck to just about put a chain on a newly elected mayor and we'd be all like, Dude, that's odd, use your hands. But that was Geoff.
Anyway, after the incident with the rocket science fandango the government stopped storing many rocket science secrets with the Tidy Towns Committee for a couple of days, but the foreign spies were still there.
I realised that maybe perhaps the spies were definitely after something else. The rocket science secret stealing had been a front. Like the kind of thing that happens in successful novels by John le Carré.
This isn't a novel by John le Carré, it's just the truth. A truth that could be written down and sell loads. Just saying.
Maybe not as much as a John le Carré book, but probably at least three eighths as much. AT LEAST THAT.
So the spies had captured us and held us in a cellar. It was an ominous situation. Our prospects weren't good. Nowhere near as good as the prospects of a book that it three eighths as good as John le Carré.
But, you know, we made it. Just like the book would. That's just how things work.
And I know a lot of you are sarcastically retweeting this in a way that suggests you don't actually believe I was a teenage superspy, but that's your problem really.
I mean, a quick look at my academic record shows a sudden drop off in exam results that can only be explained by a career in espionage.
Unless I had a glittering academic career and the Tidy Town Committee covered it up so well that even I don't remember. That's entirely possible at this stage.
It all got very confusing in those days. I remember one time the foreign spies were shooting us, but there was a brass band passing by.
They had a few big drums. So we didn't notice the assassins. We did wonder why glasses kept exploding, but hey. it was the nineties.
Eventually DJ Dubstep showed up for a reunion. Straight away he was murdered through the head. That was when we knew it couldn't go on.
Anyway it was all very upsetting and that's why I never talk about it in public. Any questions?
So anyway, myself and Geoffrey were hiding behind a barrel in the cave. I missed a bit of this story, but we're on a deadline so bear with me.
The smugglers had several cases of luscious berries, but the foreign spies didn't seem interested in the berries. WHY NOT?
It turns out that the foreign spies weren't interested in our berries OR jams. What they were really interested in was the security around the Late Late Toy Show. This was serious.
And, in fairness, we were fairly good at protecting the Late Late Show. Our only slip up, and it was minor, was the time the Russians killed Tubridy and replaced him with a look alike.
There was five whole weeks where he hadn't learned English yet and the Late Late was awful. But nobody minds anymore.
The following week Dj Dubstep showed up again but this time he was a giant cyborg war machine and shortly afterwards we discovered that the rights to our lives had been sold to 2000AD.
I'd always been a fan of the comic, but it was a shock to have to live my life in eight pages of two dimensional comic strip.
One of the worst things was you only really got to say two things a month, and one of them had to mention the minor story arc. They were tough days.
Also, I missed being 3d. I mean, up and down and sideways are fine, but over there is also good.
Also I'd been asked to apply to be the professor of violent astrophysics at Trinity. You had to have at least three dimenions for that.
So, one night, when the artist was drunk. we crept out the side of the comic book and slipped back in to the real world. My companion was a giant talking bird who turned out to be unable to survive in the real world.
But at least I knew I was back in reality, and able to deal with whatever the issue I have to resolve before ten o'clock is. Oh yeah, the smugglers who are spies.
And that's a fascinating story. A story I'll tell tomorrow, over on @JohnMoynes
