Sometimes I Have To Pinch Myself

A fortnight in the life. Sometimes I have to pinch myself to make sure that I’m awake, there’s so much crazy stuff that goes down between one issue of Hot Press and the next. It usually turns out that I am although I’ve been known to pinch myself while I’m asleep as well...

It’s one of the peculiarities of what we do. No one ordinarily breaks their life up into fourteen day parcels – you think in hours, days, weeks or months. But we embarked on that odd cycle years ago and we’ve had to live with it since. A weekend off, a weekend on. Except that I’ve always had a way of ensuring that the weekend off is also full of stuff that has to get done, the work that I can’t fit in during the other twelve days. And a football match into the bargain. No rest for the wicked. The phrase might have been coined for me.
This fortnight began with the presentation of a Lifetime Achievement Award by Magazines Ireland. When something like this is mooted, my first instinct is to look over my shoulder. They must be talking to the other fellow. Maybe someone who is around, em, longer than me. But, no, I was the intended recipient. And so we gathered for what was a very nice, genuinely warm and celebratory occasion, presided over by the Chairman of Magazines Ireland, John Mullins.
Getting up on your hind legs in front of a crowd, as is required in a situation like this, can be intimidating. Approach it the wrong way and it has the potential to turn events that should be a pleasure into a chore. More often than not in the past I have made the mistake of crafting speeches for public events. This time around I made a conscious decision to improvise. I had a few headlines in mind and a rough idea of what I wanted to say – and that was all. Given the context, I felt relaxed, spoke for ten or fifteen minutes and got a few laughs. It made me wonder about all of the careful weighing and deliberating I’ve done in the past, trying to get everything just so before I even started. But of course, if you don’t have a script, there is always the possibility that you’ll get stuck in a groove, like a rabbit in the headlights. At least with a bit of paper in front of you there’s something to fall back on...
I felt good going home. To be on the receiving end of other people’s generosity and goodwill is a privilege. Thank you to all concerned.

After that it was all downhill! Or rather up hill and down dale. And this was mostly in the centre of the city.
For a start, copies of Philomena Lynott’s My Boy were arriving in vast bundles, packed on palettes, from the printers. They had to be unloaded and shipped on to the distributors post haste. The pressure was on to get a bit of excitement going about the book. We wanted it to be a No.1. Philomena was due on The Late Late Show, which was a good start. Arrangements for a book signing had to be finalised with Eason’s. We wanted to fit a second one in with Hughes and Hughes. There was a radio ad to do. Or rather two: one for the latest issue of Hot Press and another for the book. Scripts to be written. And a voiceover to be done. I lashed out the scripts. Recording the ads, Stuart Clark would handle the issue. I took on My Boy. It’s a book I believe in. As long as I can convey that, I thought, it’ll work.
How were we doing with the Philip Lynott Exhibition? Interest levels were still high. Good. But you have to keep looking ahead to see what might be around the corner. Would St.Patrick’s Week be a help or a hindrance? What could we do to maximise the profile of something into which we’d put our hearts and souls and a lot more besides?
Those concerns were put in a different perspective when the word came down that Philip’s wife Caroline and his daughters Sarah and Cathleen had arrived in Stephen’s Green Shopping Centre. We knew they had been planning a visit but not when. I dropped what I was doing to go and meet them. Standing there in that first bright, open space at the Exhibition, amid the photographs of Philip when he was a kid, and the shots of him during the early days of the Dublin beat scene, and shaking hands with Caroline, who I knew briefly but not well back in the day and greeting his daughters, looking as bright and as lovely as you’d expect, was at once heartwarming and terribly sad. I didn’t want to say too much or to presume on them. They would need time to look around, and so I knew that leaving them to it was the right thing to do. It was a great relief to hear later that they had spent three hours there, enjoyed it hugely, and that they had decided to come back the following day...

The week is racing by. News from Libya that Gaddafi is digging in: ill-tidings for my friends from that part of the world. Press releases to be signed off. Editorial meetings. Marketing plans. Thursday and the launch of Electric Picnic: a chance to say well done on the bill: Arcade Fire is a coup. The possibility of the new Minister for the Arts, Jimmy Deenihan, coming down to the Philip Lynott Exhibition. The build-up to the Late Late. The PR crew trying to make sure that everything is covered. Then the unthinkable: horrific news of an earthquake off the coast of Japan and a tsunami in its wake.
The death toll rising. Who knows what the next hour holds?
Still the big wheel keeps on turning. You can’t afford to let up. We wanted two big book signings to kick the My Boy campaign off. After all, everyone in Ireland should read the incredible story of Philip Lynott’s sister and brother who were given up for adoption – and the extraordinary circumstances in which they separately found their mother Philomena again.
It seemed very odd then, that none of that got even a look in on the Late Late. Too weird for words. In fact the book wasn’t alluded to at all during the interview with Philomena. Out in RTE, our marketing manager Mark Hogan was working overtime. We spoke briefly. There was a plan: the book and the signings would be mentioned after the ad break. Fine. Life goes on.
Saturday afternoon. Hot Press v St.Brendan’s in Artane. How far removed is this from all the rest of what’s been happening during the week? Adam El Fridah and Mo Ragel, both of Libyan background, arrive with just minutes to spare, directly from a demonstration at the American Embassy. Fifteen minutes into the game I go up and win a ball in the air. Clash of heads. I get a smack in the forehead and immediately know it’s bad. Within seconds it feels like a cartoon bump, rising like a hard-boiled egg. I go off, put an ice pack and pressure on it.
The game goes on. No concussion so I get back into it. We play well in bursts but not well enough. Perspective. Relatives of two of our lads are in the firing line in North Africa and yet you get the same old bullshit aggression and silliness on the pitch. It’s a strange world and make no mistake...

Later. I’m told the book signing in Eason’s went well. There was a good day at the Philip Lynott Exhibition. On Sunday, it’ll be Hughes and Hughes. For me, a backlog of stuff to be written. A long day.
Monday morning dawned with a call from the Minister’s office. There is a window on Tuesday for him to visit the exhibition and do a photocall.
Within 24 hours, we made it happen. The buzz was a positive one. As it happened, a special needs group were going through just before the Minister. Philomena was there and signed autographs. The Minister, Jimmy Deenihan, is a straightforward, down to earth fellow and he chatted amiably with Philomena, with members of the press corps and with visitors alike. He knows the turf too and can talk comfortably about Philo’s legacy. In the glory days of the Kerry team he won five All-Ireland titles with, ‘Whiskey In The Jar’ was their anthem. He posed for pictures with Philomena and we took a few together. A quick tour to give him a feel for the scale of the exhibition and he was off to another meeting.
Tuesday night. The European premiers of Kiling Bono. On the way in I stopped for photographs. I wondered would anyone notice the black eye I was sporting from Saturday’s clash of heads.
How strange it is to see someone else playing you up on the big screen! And knowing all or most of the characters being depicted in the movie – and therefore being all too aware of how completely, well, untrue it all is. It’s a funny film and Ben Barnes and Robert Sheehan are great as Neil and Ivan McCormick. Director Nick Hamm has done a fine job on a small budget. If I knew nothing about any of it I might love the film but it is too hard to get away from the fact that Neil is not a sad bastard in real life. Or a fool. To say nothing about the depiction of yours truly!

It was hugely enjoyable catching up with Neil, who is a brilliant and hugely talented character, at the aftershow – along with Gloria, Ivan and a bunch of the other guys who were in Yeah! Yeah! along the way. I also chatted to the guy who played me in the movie. Fact and fiction finding a connection. You have to retain a sense of humour...
Wednesday, the word came in: My Boy had debuted at No.2 in the Nonfiction Paperback list. It wasn’t clear how many of our signings were included in the figures for the week but what the hell: it was a result. The challenge now was to keep the pressure on. Paddy’s Day was looming. The exhibition would be open. Impossible to know how it might do but we’d have to be ready if the crowds rolled in.
Present tense: let’s do another book signing on Saturday. Someone keeps asking me what’s going to be on the next cover of Hot Press? I don’t know yet. Are the ads for the book going out as planned? Is the Mick Wallace interview good?
This is what we have always called ‘a production weekend’. Saturday is a working day. Into the office early to edit as much as possible. Meanwhile, our third book signing is happening in Dubray on Grafton Street. Less packed than last week’s frenetic occasions, it’s strong and steady nonetheless and Philomena sticks at it like a trouper. In the afternoon I go footballing.
This time Adam and Mo don’t make it. At the rally of Libyan ex-pats in the centre of Dublin, word comes through that friends have been killed by Gaddafi’s forces. Horrific reality becomes impossible to ignore. But the game has to go on. A free kick into the opposition box. The keeper comes to punch it away. He gets me in the tip of the nose en route. Damn. It starts to bleed. Lovely. Just what I need! On the sidelines again while I get patched up. Elsewhere, people are dying.

Sunday morning there was an early start driving to the airport to put someone on a 7 o’clock flight. There was writing to be done. And on Monday we’d have to finish the issue. I worked late to get as far ahead of the play as I could.
Monday began in optimism. The Killing Bono feature started to take final shape. There were edits and rewrites to be done but it was manageable. The report on the Philip Lynott Exhibition also had to be finished. The production crew were in full cry. The cover proofs came back from the printers for approval. Valerie Flynn’s piece on Libya arrived: it was strong. The pictures were even stronger.
Could we use them? I went to have a look. They were some of the most gruesome images I have ever seen. Suddenly the workload seemed much bigger. The day wore on. It was late at night when I finally had to make a call. There was one photo we could use. It is painfully graphic but far less so than the rest. And it is justified by the context of the story. Everyone was in agreement. Pages proofs arrived in bundles back from the printers. I still had The Message to write. We finished after midnight and I still hadn’t started it.
Overnight I thought: that was a strange fortnight. Sometimes I have to pinch myself. So I did. And got on with it...