la finegaelerata

Morning in Ireland.

A lone wolfen poet driving along.

Some cafes already closed.
The staff in that one over there are gonna have to go back to bitch school.

An odd thought strikes me.

The cafes are closing down in the town of Newbridge.

We will not see them open again in our lifetime.

I stop for petrol.

The tired looking woman at the counter in the garage hands me my change.

Her hand is covered in a thin rubber latex glove in case she'd catch something from me.

Enlightened critical thinking or some other such viral infection.

"The government are putting the country on lock down," she informs me conversationally.

"They're what?" I say.

"They're sending in the army," quoth she.

"I wouldn't put it past them but how do you know this?" enquireth me cautiously.

"A soldier was in here five minutues ago," sez she. "He told me. They've all been called back to base. The announcement will come at 11am today."

I head to Lidl supermarket seeking provender. Is provender the word I want? PG Wodehouse would know.

Two staff members are busy spraying disinfectant on a stack of customer baskets.

I shake my head pityingly.

One hands me a basket.

"You won't catch anything off that," she smiles in what is clearly an attempt to reassure or seduce me.

"I need a basket with a handle," I explain, selecting a functioning basket.

Off I go down the aisles.

The place is busy enough for early morn.

And of course there are no toilet rolls.

So the rumours of a run on toilet rolls are true.

I find my way to the Easter egg stack and select a Cadburys.

You can't go wrong with a Cadburys egg.

Even in the zombie apocalypse everything seems rosier with a Cadburys gug.
Or perhaps that rosiness is the rash that is the first sign of the Corona Virus.
Ten seconds you buy a Cadburys gug.
Twenty seconds you sneeze.
Thirty seconds your head explodes.
David Cronenberge would have a field day.

At the counter I try some badinage with Sexy McSexx. (Anna Maria.)

"People are mad," I say. "They're panic buying toilet rolls. But what are they going to do for Cadburys chocolate eggs when the virus gets really serious?"

"More for us," she says.

Encouraging.

Back in Kilcullen I rambled contagiously down Main Street.

The American commentator Ben Shapiro has advised people to support local businesses during the present crisis, or shenenigans as I call it.

The nearby cafe was open but full of staff bitches (no customers) so although yearning for their big breakfast meal which is delicious, I couldn't go in there.

I contented myself with buttonholing a passing Padre on the street.

"Yer man is open," I said. "We should support him. His breakfast is delicious. But I can't go in because of the bitches."

"I'll go," said the Padre with a touch of self sacficising heroism.

"Did you have mass in church on Saturday evening?" I asked by the by.

"We did," said the Padre.

"I heard you were closed up," said I.

"You didn't hear it from me," said he.

And presently I saw him through the cafe window in splendid isolation being served by smiling bitches and tucking into the steaming hot breakfast which verily I thought my due.

My own crystalising thinking as evidenced earlier in the meditation about Newbridge's shitty bitch filled cafes, is that by the time Ireland's rump Fine Gaeler government has finished ordering businesses to close, many of those businesses will never reopen.

I wandered into a bookshop and bought The Inimitable Jeeves and a cup of hot chocolate. The Inimitable Jeeves is in the top three PG Wodehouse books of all time. The other two are What Ho Jeeves and The Code Of The Woosters. Oh and Psmith In The City.
Top four I mean.

Ben Shapiro advises people to purchase gift cards from businesses they wish to support.

I think it's a good idea.

If we don't have these people running businesses on Main Street, our country is going to be a whole lot more miserable eftsoons.

The proprietor of the book shop told me she'd heard an army man on the radio saying the rumours of a lock down were false.

"I think they're going to do it," I told her.

"I'm hoping to stay open," she said.

"I think they are going to force you to close," said I. "They've gone mad with their own power. They're like the President in Woody Allen's Bananas ordering the citizens to wear their underwear on the outside so his men can check it. It's a comic opera. They're not able to stop. The govenrment are no longer in control. The game is playing them now."