Ask Audrey: She wants to put you in a cheap nursing home, we’re talking retired postmen

Audrey has been sorting out Cork people for ages...

Hi, we’re going on holidays to France with my sister and her husband this year. They’re as cheap as trainee hairdressers, always on the look-out for a bargain. (He’s from Kanturk.) Is it okay if we refuse to eat in a cheap restaurant with them in case we get spotted by someone from Posh Cork? Anne-Marie, Monkstown, I spent a fortune on new sunglasses.

You’d do anything to hide your lazy eye. Trust me, you are never safe from Posh Cork on holidays. I was caught coming out of Lidl in Marbella by the former goalkeeper of our hockey team in school. Five minutes later, she had a video of me up on a Facebook page called St Angela’s Girls Who Went a Bit Norry. When I got home, wasn’t there a food-parcel from my former classmates outside my door, with a note saying, “Please don’t contact us or greet us on the street?” The parcel was in a Lidl bag and all. Fair play, I thought that was a lovely touch. Vicious, but lovely.

Dear Madam, I have been instructed by the people of Killorglin, Co Kerry, to request you cease your shocking attacks on their intellectual capabilities. Your claim the definition of an intellectual in Killorglin is someone with a beard that passed the Inter Cert is both untrue and, indeed, sexist. I would appreciate a reply confirming you have performed your last slander on the town and furthermore, I am in a position to offer you €500 if you could instead focus on Cahersiveen, which is widely regarded as a safe space for clowns and ludramans. Yours, Don O’Sullivan-Harte, BCL (Hons), Killorglin.

Dear Don, I am surprised and indeed saddened that you consider my observation to be sexist in nature. While the term bearded might exclude women in other towns, I can assure you this is not the case in Killorglin. This fact was brought home to me in no uncertain terms during a recent visit to the town, when a bearded individual I met in a pub was later found to have nothing worth talking about on the meat and two veg front.

Yours in disappointment, Audrey.

How’re oo goin’ on? Herself came back from mass last Saturday night and she either had the holy spirit in her, or else a half a bottle of gin. (It can be hard to tell.) Anyway, the upshot is she decided we must start helping out the poor misfortunates. (The rappers and celebs call it giving back, apparently.) So, I’m due to give a talk to some refugees in the hall on Tuesday night. What should I say? Dan Mick Mikey, head out of Drimoleague and breathe a sigh of relief.

The first thing I say when I meet a refugee these days is, sorry about the recent weather. They say, no, it’s still better than being carpet bombed for six days in a row. I say, wait until you see November. The main thing I’d say to a group of refugees in your part of Cork is, sorry for your troubles. You could have been housed in some place civilised, but instead you are down here in Grimoleague, listening to a nervous little man who smells like something died in his wellies. (No offence.)

Top o’ the begorrah to ya. I’ll be arriving in Cobh via cruise boat with my wife, and want to take a trip to see my ancestors’ farmstead in the lovely county of Waterford. What in the name of bejaysus do you think I should see? Larry O’MacMoriarty III Jnr, Chicago, but my heart is in Dungarvan.

Sorry to hear that. A quick tip for any visitor: if you want to be taken seriously in Ireland, never put the words ‘lovely county’ and Waterford in the same sentence. The scenery is nice enough, but the locals are a fright. I heard that, after a visiting Harvard professor from Harvard spent an afternoon in Tramore, he went home and told his brainbox friends they might have to rethink the theory of evolution.

The best thing about Waterford these days is they got a new cycle path. So, there’s a decent chance they won’t bore you to death about their blaas. (That’s a bread roll for people with low expectations.)

C’mere, I’ve started seeing this fella recently. It do be going fine on all fronts, except he have the kind of breath that would remind you of Kinsale at low tide. How can I tell him this without making him feel like a langball? Karen, Blarney Street, he tells me has his own teeth.

What a catch. I had a similar problem with this hot Italian I fancied at work. I was afraid to lob the gob in case I passed out, so I asked him if he ever tried a Fisherman’s Friend. He said no, but he tried a fisherman’s wife when her husband was out at sea. Italian men — you just wouldn’t be up to them.