There are two Stewarts in Ann-Marie Kelly’s life. One is a snail and the other is her boyfriend whom she plans to marry in September. “The snail is one of several who seem to come out in the basement, although I don’t know where they come from. I called this one Stewart to remind me of my boyfriend while he’s away,” she explains. I’d rather she explained that to him than me.
And the other snails? “There’s one I call Suggs because he has a kind of spiky head, and I’m a big Madness fan,” she tells me. Indeed she is, for the Madness fandom does not stop at the naming of pet snails - there’s even a poster of the band in her house. “I have that poster for years and I always bring it with me wherever I’m living. It shows Madness posing in a tube station and I suppose it reminds me of my childhood,” she says.
Ann-Marie rents the house in Bayview Street near Croke Park on Dublin’s northside from her friend Gavin who spends a lot of his time in London. She’s only here during the weekdays, heading back to her house in Abbeyleix for the weekends. As a result, she’s not afflicted by demented hordes of GAA fans heading to and from Croker. But living close to the stadium actually has some advantages: “I can see Croke Park from my attic, and before U2’s gig last year I was able to hear The Edge doing a soundcheck and playing the guitar parts for ‘With Or Without You’. Actually, whenever I’m here during a concert I can hear it very clear.” So this women could sell tickets to her attic and put Aiken Promotions and MCD out of business in one fell swoop (although I forgot to warn her that Billy Joel is coming soon...).
The house is a three-storey affair with the attic, where Ann-Marie usually sleeps, and a basement where she keeps her CD collection and listens to music. Her collection includes a lot of current tracks she’s been listening to as part of her stint sitting in for Tom Dunne on Pet Sounds, but she’s also been reaching back through Kate Bush’s back catalogue because she’s a big fan, and she has quite a bit of ‘60s stuff like The Kinks. “I’m also getting into Boy Kill Boy, I think that’s a great album,” she says.
But what’s this, Boney M’s Greatest Hits? “Er, well, I don’t remember buying that. It must have been left behind by somebody after a party,” she argues a little defensively. It’s funny the number of Boney M albums that get left behind after parties. Must be the only way of getting rid of them.
Her house could hardly be described as gleaming from top to bottom but it’s clean, with piles of CDs and newspaper remnants, Sunday supplements and magazines strewn about. Kelly is an avid reader, and singles out Annie Proulx’s novel Shipping News as a favourite, “But I usually prefer thrillers,” she adds. “I went to the recent Capote film and I was disappointed with it, so a friend told me I should read his In Cold Blood and I think it’s really good.” And then there are all those wedding magazines and booklets. She’s obviously taking this wedding lark seriously.
The house is also adorned by an old-style record player that plays 33 rpm vinyl records (ask an older reader to explain this to you) and a jelly-bean machine of the kind we used to stumble upon in amusement arcades and dodgy fish and chip shops. “The record player still works and it belongs to Gavin, the owner of the house. As for the jelly-bean machine, I’m actually a bit of a jelly-bean freak. In fact I like sweet things, although I try not to eat them. But for the wedding I’m trying to think of interesting sweets to put at every table,” she says.
There seems to be a radio in nearly every room and a TV, but do they get much use? “Because I’m on air on Today FM so early in the morning I usually go to bed at about 9.30 at night, which is a bummer because it means I have to miss a lot of gigs. And when I get up around maybe 1 o’clock I’ll switch on the Today FM news and catch up on what’s happening in the world. I listen to the radio a lot, but it’s hard to switch off from work and I often catch myself thinking why did the DJ do that or say this when they’re broadcasting.”
And the TV? “I don’t really watch much television. I prefer to watch DVDs like Goodbye Lenin.” She also explains that Stewart (the boyfriend, not the snail) has been playing her some of the VH1 essential DVDs: “Yes, we’ve watched ones on Led Zeppelin and Rod Stewart, but the one I liked best was The Band. That was really good,” she recalls.
Ann-Marie doesn’t play a musical instrument or do any DIY, but she does play badminton: “ I love badminton, and I can play it in the back garden here. The shuttle-cock sometimes goes over the fence but the neighbours don’t bother me about getting it back.”
Apart from the snails there are no pets. “I wouldn’t mind having a dog, but since it’s not my house it’s not really a runner at present,” she says. She enjoys coking Italian and Spanish omelettes and home-made lasagnes, but her friends accuse her of being a messy cook. “I’m probably a bit messy when I’m cooking, all right. But the food I make is never messy and they always eat it anyway, so it must be good,” she stoutly argues.
She also has a tendency to leave cupboard doors open when she’s cooking, another trait that has not gone unnoticed by her friends. I wonder if there might be some psychological implications in this habit. She ruminates on this for a while and then admits that it might be symbolic of “letting demons out.” She could have been serious too.