Ask Audrey: What’s the story with people who don’t like jazz?

All my life I’ve dreamed of living in Crosshaven. Anyway, my aunt died recently, thank God, and left me a tidy six figures in her will. (All those afternoons watching Daithí and Maura with her in the retirement village really paid off!) So, I’ve started looking at a few houses down in Crosser. Do you think the yachting crowd will accept me? (My father plays darts).

It’s a dream come true, for your neighbours in Greenmount.

Sorry to burst your bubble, but Crosshaven is about as classy as eating Ferrero Rocher in the back of a Ford Capri. The real yachting crowd would sooner be caught getting off a bus in Turners Cross than viewing a house in Crosser. I asked my Posh Cousin to sum up the problem with that part of the world in one word.

She said Carrigaline.

Hello old stock. My oldest and dearest friend Hoggy was away last weekend, looking at a yacht in Croatia. Never one to miss an opportunity, I had crack off his wife at a charity thing up in Hayfield Manor. She turned me down, because she’d heard that one of the occasional tables in our third reception room is a flatpack. (I must have a word with the wife Marjorie about her scrimping.) Anyway, I’m worried that I’ll bump into the bauld Hoggy when I’m out jazzing at the weekend. Where could I get a good disguise?

– Reggie, Blackrock, I wouldn’t mind looking like a mad old werewolf.

Well at least you won’t have to buy a mask. Anyway, I asked my Posh Cousin. (Very busy this week.) She said you’re in luck because it’s Halloween.

I said why. She said, if you want to blend in around Cork this weekend, just dress as a 45-year- old woman squeezed into a Wonder Woman Costume.

I said what’s scary about that?

She said, everything.

Come here, what’s the story with people who don’t like jazz? I do be looking forward to it like mad, every year. There’d be nothing like drinking Beamish for breakfast and then down the pub to catch some fella with a drum machine, singing Living Next Door to Alice. What’s not to like, like?

– Dowcha Donie, Blackpool, I do be

regarding myself as an aficionado.

I do be imagining you trying to pronounce it.

Ana Fisheee naaaaah dough-ah? Like you, I love this time of year. Nothing beats being forced to drink Guinness all night while sitting next to a luvly, luvly couple from Leeds who say, “I’m right upset they won’t play When the Saints go Marching In, that’s our favourite, isn’t that right Clive?”

I asked my jazz purist nephew what he thinks of the festival. He said there are pockets of good stuff if you are willing to travel around. I said, where.

He said, Berlin. Cheeky.

Hey. I started dating this bogger guy from Mallow just to upset my parents. (Dad’s family are old-money up the ying yang, they snigger at poor Simon Coveney for being such a chav.) Anyway, get this, I’ve fallen for my bogger boy!! I know, seriously. (His dad fixes Opels.) Hang on, stall the beans, there’s a problem. He finishes, like, every sentence with “you know that kind of a way.” I’m losing the will because of it. How should I suggest he, like, stops?

– Claire, Montenotte, some mornings I wake up and fly to Brazil. Seriously. Brazil.

Such a shame you keep coming back. Don’t ask me why north Cork people are so fond of saying “You know that kind of a way.”

I dated a Newmarket guy once as part of an anthropology experiment in UCC.

he only thing he used more than “you know that kind of a way” was an industrial strength breath freshener. (It was like kissing silage, do you know that kind of a way?)

The woman who does my nails is under the impression we’re friends and has invited me to bring my four-year-old, Antoinette, to her daughter’s birthday party. It’s in one of these warehouses where kids bounce up and down for an hour, while their mothers sit around discussing two-for-one deals in SuperValu. (Imagine!) I wouldn’t bother going, except she’s a genius with nails, it’s a big thing in her homeland of Romania, or is it Mexico? Anyway, I just know they’re going to give my daughter poor-people food. Do you think they’d object if I brought a handful of macadamia nuts?

– Monica, Rochestown Road, we have a completely unhindered sea view.

Congratulations. I’d love to be able to see the mudflats of Mahon from my place.

I’m almost certain there would be objections if you brought that food. From Antoinette. And it’s not worth losing your nail lady.

When I see a foreigner working hard, I can’t stop admiring them, via binoculars in the case of my Italian plumber, until he got the court order. (Fabulous hands.)