Monthly Archives: May 2011

Heraclitus on Rivers

Posted on 14 May 2011 by joepassmore

Queen’s Part II

Heraclitus tells us that you cannot step in the same river twice. I know now for sure if I had my time again I would do things at University a lot differently.

And, in many ways looking back I consider the three wasted years, literally, in Belfast.

The wasted summers when in retrospect I should have travelled or done something of meaning. Instrad, a purely desultory summer spent in London living in a shithole in East London trying to pass myself off as a labourer. A shambolic, liquid, toxic and fairly pointless outing to America the following year. In reality I should and could have saved myself the money and hassle by staying at home. Or by doing America or Europe properly.

I spent my final year at Queen’s living in a chaotic three-story house in University Street with several close friends. Looking back it was some craic but was it. . .? It was memorable primarily for the lads that I lived with. Cormzo, Brogy for a while, Mad Dog, Fabe, Henrietta Ballbag and most bizarrely of all, a ginger haired Protestant from Bangor called Brent. And of course the late great Decky Coyle.

The old house backed on to The Queen’s Film Theatre with the bizarre outcome that we received free tickets to any film we wanted to go to. All because we let the manager park in our back yard. So if nothing was on the telly, out the back door to the QFT. The arrangement had the added benefit that the QFT was warm which was helpful when we had run out of gas, coal or wardrobe.

Those of the lads that had women they were happy being seen out in public with sober, sometimes took them there for a night out. To the rest of us, that sort of behaviour was a waste of a ticket. Occasionally fellas from other houses might look a free ticket for their own romantic nights out. They were usually rebuffed. And scoffed at.

Suffice to say, I did not attend the QFT with any girls. The ones I wanted to be seen in public with certainly didn’t have the same view of me. The others that I managed to impress were usually viewed through a fugue of beer in the Crescent Bar or the Elms. Certainly there was little question of going out on a date. Plus, any good impression formed invariably receded with the rising tide of a hangover .

By that stage our lives as students were pretty formulaic. Days spent in the library, studying, having the craic, eyeing up girls across the library table. Evening meals together with the other fellas, eating staples such as Spaghetti Bolognese (Dolmio had just been invented) or fishfingers, beans and toast. Then, passing time until it was time for another night on the piss. It was that regimented. We would go out. Every night.

Chasing women. The ones we chased weren’t interested. The ones we caught hardly worth the bother. And the feeling was entirely mutual it has to be said. They were maybe drunker than we were on spectacular occasions. The blind leading the blind drunk. Some of the lads pretended they had early lectures to get overnight guests up and out of the house before anyone spied them in the cold unforgiving glare of daylight.

One of my mates made off with a young lady from Fermanagh who didn’t notice the fact he had a piece of kebab meat in the breast pocket of his shirt. Whether he had already eaten it or not, even he didn’t know.

Serious levels of drink consumed. At various stages of value-for-money drinking, we discovered peppermint schnapps, tequila, southern comfort and others. Anyone ever drunk campari and pure orange? For some reason it was on offer and by God did we take up the offer. It was mildly palatable tasting like grapefruit juice. Down the hatch. I have never tasted it since.

I think of some of the people whose paths I crossed and whose paths crossed mine. I wouldn’t even bother apologising because I have never seen most of them again, nor do I care. I am sure the feeling is entirely mutual. You can’t step in the same river twice. Thank God for that.

Rich Beyond the Wealth of Kings

Posted on 14 May 2011 by joepassmore

Queen’s Part I

Last night on the way home from a match in Eglish in Tyrone I got to talking with one of our players who is a first year student in Film Studies at Queen’s. She was telling me about her course which involves watching and discussing a range of films and also experiences with her first year philosophy course.

As we talked it reminded me of my own time in the English Department at Queen’s. We were taught by Professor Devlin, a traditionalist in the sense that he wore a black academic gown when delivering his lectures. These were in my memory inevitably well attended, well delivered and highly accomplished. Word would go about for example after he had given a lecture that it was particularly good.

In particular I remember him delivering enthralling set pieces on Dorothy Wordsworth, Thomas de Quincy and Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein. I had the privilege also of being in his tutorial group for a two-term course on Romantic and Victorian Literature. We would sit in his study in the English Department in University Square overlooking the main lawn at the front of the Lanyon Building.

Professor Devlin in my memory had fairly rudimentary expectations of what we, as students should be bringing to the table in terms of our reading and understanding what we had read. I recall his scathing horror when a classmate replied to the question of what he thought of Silas Marner “I thought it was a nice wee book.”

He received a withering glare and wasn’t let off the hook with such an anodyne and pathetic response. Another friend related to me how in response to a similar question about Keats La Belle Dame Sans Merci replied that she was a very scary lady or words to that effect. I could imagine his response having witnessed him in action. I slagged the guy afterwards about the Nice Wee Book reply and he was visibly embarrassed at having given such a watery answer.

On one other occasion I was out for the night and on the way home one of the fellas in our company tried to bend back the bough of a young sapling that had been planted along University square. The tree snapped close to its base. It was a wanton piece of drunken foolishness which typified a lot of the behaviour at the time. The modern Holylands is not much better or worse, the difference being it attracts more attention. However you dress it up, the tree was finished.

I thought no more of the vandalism until the next morning in Devlin’s class. He brought up the subject of the trees, those beautiful saplings he called them, I particularly remember his use of the word sapling. He was irate and pointed out at the vandalised trees, comparing them to the scene in Wordsworth’s ‘Nutting’ where the boy ponders on the beauty of the Hazelnut trees before wreaking devastation.

I felt a severe pang of guilt by association. Not that I had snapped the young tree bough myself but that I knew who did it. We had celebrated the night out as some sort of night’s craic but here was the hangover of the morning after. Wordsworth’s words a ‘j’accuse’ of their own, directed straight at me:

“Exulting, rich beyond the wealth of kings

I felt a sense of pain when I beheld

The silent trees and the intruding sky.”

These sorts of escapades typified our lives as students. At the time we had days and nights of drink fuelled adventure. Looking back more than ever I feel the sense of pain and stupidity of some of our collective exploits.