Seachain an duine a bhíonn ina thost

There I was, sitting on the couch, doing my dissertation and half-watching the awful Desperate Housewives. It finished, and I realised there was a programme about Flann O'Brien on the other channel. WHAT was I doing watching Desperate Housewives when that was on? Thankfully I managed to catch the last half hour of it, but I'm annoyed I didn't see the first half hour too.

Interesting fellow, Flann O'Brien. They showed some of what is apparently the only filmed interview of him, and he's pissed as a fart. Complete alcoholic, but when he was feeling sober, so wonderfully lucid. If you haven't read any Flann O'Brien/Brian O'Nolan/Myles na gCopaleen, do it now. I recommend The Third Policeman, then At Swim-Two-Birds if you speak any Irish, but if not you might find the short satirical pieces easier to grasp. Try The Best of Myles.

And in a nice piece of synchronicity, Wikipedia quotes one of his first letters to The Irish Times (which resulted in his long-running column Cruiskeen Lawn):

I am no judge of poetry — the only poem I ever wrote was produced when I was body and soul in the gilded harness of Dame Laudanum — but I think Mr Kavanaugh [sic] is on the right track here. Perhaps the Irish Times, timeless champion of our peasantry, will oblige us with a series in this strain covering such rural complexities as inflamed goat-udders, warble-pocked shorthorn, contagious abortion, non-ovoid oviducts and nervous disorders among the gentlemen who pay the rent.

Now go read some Myles/Flann/Brian. It's wonderfully fantastic.