Ask Audrey has been sorting out Cork people for years

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How’re oo goin on? The wife has gone mad altogether and decided that we’re having goose instead of turkey for Christmas Day. Worse again, she’s after falling in with a crowd of radical feminists in Dunmanway, who have convinced her that I should be in charge of the vegetables. What do you think I should serve with goose? — Jer Dan Joe, take a right after Dunmanway and keep going until you see a shop that still takes Green Shield stamps.

The best thing to serve with goose is another goose, because there’s never enough to go around. My posh cousin went with goose three years ago, after someone in Sunday’s Well Tennis Club told her it’s a sign that you’re not a norry. She had her Hugo’s parents over for dinner and all, the father is as high as you can possibly go in the bank. There was barely enough meat for two of them, let alone four. She said it was nearly as embarrassing as a Dunmanway man trying to pronounce thirty-three.

I’m up the walls here trying to think what I could get my Ken for Christmas. He already has it all — a huge house in Ballintemple, six-figure salary, and a forgiving wife who understands the au pair made it impossible for him to say no. (And not just because he wrote me a cheque.) Do you have any ideas on the last- minute present front? — Fionnuala, Ballintemple, he’s giving me a new set of boobs.

He makes my Conor look like a catch. That’s saying something, given my fella’s life-long battle with halitosis and earning a living. Have you considered a drone? I gave Conor one for his birthday in October and didn’t see him for a week. He was gone so long, I was able to invite Pepe from the local pizza place to come around and knead my dough. Pepe asked if there was any chance that Conor could be spying on the house using the camera on the drone. I nearly wet myself. Poor Conor can barely get the dimmer switch to work in the hall.

Guten tag. This will be our second Christmas in Cork. Last year was super great, except our neighbour Reggie called in for a drink at 3pm on Christmas Eve, saying this is a Cork tradition. I wonder is it also a Cork tradition to stay until 9pm, drink two bottles of my expensive Chablis and tell a very long story about how himself and his cousin Ultan set off the fire alarm in the RCYC? And how can I stop him from coming again next year? — Gerd, Berlin and now Blackrock, he also brought a piece of smelly meat in tin foil.

That’s spiced beef. Nobody actually eats it; we just bring it around to each other’s houses at Christmas time and say isn’t it great that we come from the greatest city on earth. I couldn’t possibly advise you how to keep Reggie at bay. As long as he’s at your place, he can’t be at mine. And nothing ruins Christmas quicker than one of Reggie’s sailing stories.

Hello old stock. I’m looking forward to calling over to my neighbour Gerd tomorrow for a Christmas drink. He’s a terrible bore himself (German), but his wife has a phenomenal set of knockers. I brought him over a lovely bit of spiced beef last year, but it nearly gave him a fit of the gawks. What do you think I should bring over this year? — Reggie, Blackrock, I have a cracking story to tell him about the time I locked the Commodore of Kinsale Yacht Club in the jacks.

That sounds like incredible fun Reggie. Would you not bring him over a drop of poitin? There’s nothing more Irish than sitting around half blind with a stranger on Christmas Eve after a blast of the quare fella. I’d safely say Gerd would be delighted to have you back every year, which is amazing news for all of us.

G’day. I’m flying back home from Australia tomorrow, to spend a few weeks at home for Christmas. Please tell me that Cork isn’t like I left it in 2013, full of litter and freckled Norries? — Declan, Bishopstown and Adelaide, do people still go to Mass?

You’ll find the churches are still packed in Cork around Christmas time. We’re all praying like mad for fog, so that gobshites like you can’t land at the airport. And we’re doing a lot of looking around to see if anyone has noticed that we’re wearing a coat that was in the window of Brown Thomas for €700. Not that you’d see anything as classy as that out in Bishopstown. Happy Christmas to the lot of ye!