Adam Faith, Fergus Finally and a low smarm count

One day a certain party by the name of Preference Purcell sends word he wishes to lunch with me.

Preference is not this man’s first name and never has been, but he is called Preference because it pleases him and he is such a man as you want to please, being permanently in the know and a good fixer.

Preference knows which first preferences were cast in any constituency in any election. This knowledge allows him to invite people like me to lunch and stick me with the bill, which he does twice a year or oftener, depending on how hungry he is feeling.

When I arrive at the hostelry of Preference’s preference, it being a very posh hostelry indeed, the maitress d’ takes my mobile phone from me, which is something I resent greatly and comment upon when I sit down between Preference and Harry the Hack.

“I would not complain about phone removal, if I was you,” Preference says, pointing out that Fergus Finally is seated only a couple of tables away. “Fergus Finally is easily riled and when riled is known to foam home and throw telephones.”

“It is a vile slur on Fergus Finally, that foam remark,” says Harry the Hack, who has clearly been in the bijou bar of the hostelry before coming to the table and who appears to be bereaved, although nobody I know belonging to him has died.

“Nonetheless,” says Preference, who can sum up a multi-syllable at will, “A phone got thrown on one famous occasion and with phones becoming so cheap and portable you want to give a wide berth to someone with a phone-throwing default position.”

Now, Fergus Finally is recently recruited to Rabbit Pat’s gang, which is smart moving by Rabbit Pat and gives an opportunity to Alan the Duke, who takes over Fergus’s old job in a high-flying PR outfit. (Since neither Duke nor Finally strike me as being natural born schmoozers and spinners, it is surprising to find such guys going into a business which reputedly runs on smarm, they being low in the smarm count.)

Harry the Hack allows he is depressed because nothing is happening and Adam Faith has died. These sound contradictory, but Harry the Hack is not a man you argue with when he is well tore, and although he is currently just frayed, well tore is clearly his desired destination.

So I ask if he is a fan of Adam Faith. He says he cannot stick the singer alive or dead but they were born on the same day and so he has déjà vu of death. It also irks him that he cannot remember the title of Adam Faith’s hit song, although a distraction is provided by the Lithuanian waiter wishing to know if Harry requires cracked pepper on his salad. Preference says it’s far from cracked pepper Harry the Hack was reared.

Harry’s main problem is that scribes of his age were brought up on conspiracy, crookery and political cosh jobs. They like to feel they must duck entering a building and check under their car when leaving. They miss the adrenalin rush of ambient assassination.

“Which is why Biffo will be the new leader,” Preference says, discovering goat’s cheese in his starter and giving up on it. Preference is from a townland where goats are a source of dirty jokes, not cheese. All this consensus stuff must end, he tells me and Harry, who has taken on a glass of white wine and shows signs of winning although he has dipped his cuffs in the butter and opines that butter should not travel on a slab of marble but in a proper dish.

Preference says partnership is kaput, too, although he does not use that word, men like Preference being given to more vigorous terms. We need, he says, to stiffen our moral fibre and stop going to lap dancing clubs. Never mind lap-dancing clubs, Harry the Hack says, what was Adam Faith’s big hit?

“Biffo has a brain,” Preference announces.

This, I think admiringly, is how you get to be an Elder Statesman. You don’t get distracted by dead singer’s song titles and you state the obvious like it was new minted. As I am thinking this, I find both Preference and Harry looking at me expectantly and because I have not been paying attention, I blurt my belief that Biffo, as well as a brain, has lips such as many a girl would undergo collagen injections to equal. This does not go down well, Harry the Hack being somewhat squeamish and by no means wishing to consider injections into lips of any kind.

He says the electorate is lying in the long grass for Fianna Fail with “Government Jet” tattoed on them like Julia Roberts has Jackie Healy Rae tattooed on her arm. I think myself it is Angelina Thingummy who I doubt is on tattoo terms with Jackie Healy Rae, but Harry is flying on outrage and alcohol and I am not about to contradict him. He says Government is arrogant, the Boy Minister is running out of fingers for dyke-plugging and Brennan will be brought low by gridlock. He also says plastic bags only go so far and the ASTI will settle Dempsey’s hash. Plus, he says, Dundalk Dermot bears watching, athough he does not say for what.

By the time the Lithuanian waiter offers Harry the Hack capuccino, Harry is sufficiently trollied to take the offer amiss and be mollified only by the waiter’s promise to check in the kitchen what Adam Faith’s big hit was.

“Wait for the next election,” Harry the Hack tells Preference, wagging two fingers at him. (His index finger is no longer self-supporting.) “You lot will be out on your ear.” (Although he does not say ear.)

“The public’s memory is shorter than Ceanráin O’Colon’s sense of humour,” says Preference smugly.

“That’s what the Tanaiste said, once upon a time,” says Harry the Hack. “And look what happened to her.”

"Precisely,” says Preference, which impresses me, this being a word with enough S-bends to challenge a man with more than a bottle of house plonk in him. “She’s gone further up the poll.”

Harry gets very upset about the Tanaiste going further up the poll and says this failure of the electorate to live up to their responsibilities is why he’s thinking of getting out of journalism and going into PR instead.

“What do you want if you don’t want money?” the Lithuanian waiter asks and Harry moodswings into great good humour because this is Adam Faith’s big hit and he says I am to tip the waiter generously. Which I do. The waiter says “Go raibh maith agat,” and Preference starts trying to get him to join Ogra Fianna Fáil.

With apologies to Damon Runyon.