Professor Tangney, rural pub saviour

I was delighted to see Professor Tangney of Edinburgh University on the paper last week.

Hailing originally from Macroom, the man has figured out how to successfully fuel a car with a sort of whiskey by-product.

Only a Macrompian could do what others deem impossible.

I’m not sure what brand of Irish whiskey he used, all I do know is that his Ford Focus never ran better.

Like Armstrong’s trip to the moon, it was a journey paved with glory.

The car sped along without a hitch of any kind.

Three cheers for whiskey, and of course for Professor Tangney.

Now that it has been clearly proven that the automobile isn’t adverse to a drop of the hard stuff, you’d have to ask yourself could a car be fuelled with a few pints of beer?

Well, I reckon (even though I’m far from a professor in biofuel at Edinburgh University) that your car would run very well indeed braced with a few pints.

For if a car can handle a decent drop of whiskey without a stagger, a pint or two would be no trouble.

And suddenly, just like that, the worry of the closure of the rural pub is at an end.

Because our pubs can now be used as refuelling stations for cars, jeeps and trucks, modified to take a few drinks on board.

Professor Tangney has, to my mind, saved rural Ireland from total ruination with his whiskey endeavours.

It won’t be long now when we are all refuelling down at the local, and God knows they could do with the business. Better again, you could always take a sup from the refuelling nozzle yourself if you were in any way parched.

What’s good for the car, could be just as good for the man. Provided of course that someone else is behind the wheel. Bad enough for the car to be tanked up, without the driver too.

Thinking more about the breakthrough, while taking a leisurely stroll through the wild hills of Kilmichael, earlier today, between you and me, I believe it would be highly possible to run your car on a bottle or two of local mountain dew.

Why the hell not?

Sure it might be the greatest fuel of all!

I maintain you’d get great mileage to the gallon if the right good stuff was administered. There’d be no stopping you.

My only concern, really, would be with regards to the following morning.

I mean, ’tis all very well to say that a car might run successfully on whiskey, beer and poitín, but what would the ill-effects be on the car over the long haul?

How would it be in the morning after the night before, so to speak?

Say you had to drive to Dublin on important business, on a mixture of beer and poitín. The trip up might go perfectly well, but I’d say ’twould be the shakey old drive back home the following morning.

A drive in a car constantly backfiring and blowing black smoke would be no pleasure.

A drive in a car that might have to stop on numerous occasions to relieve itself.

But if Professor Tangney is half as clever as I suspect, he might well at this stage have a car that can also be fuelled on a mixture of coffee and Alka-Seltzers.

So that early or late, drunk or sober, the car will always soldier on.