50 Shades, Love/Hate and a little spot of bad language, lads

TWO men in a pub, having a couple of pints...

Man 1: I see your man Roddy Doyle has a new book out.

Man 2: Really? The lad who did The Commitments and The Snapper movies and, what do you call it, The Van, with Colm Meaney? Has he taken to writing books now?

Man 1: You ejjit, he’s always written books. Those were books that what were turned into movies.

Man 2: Ah, I see...they must be good books so, given that the movies were so funny. So what’s this new one?

Man 1: It’s called Two Pints.

Man 2: Really? Like we’re having here? What’s it about?

Man 1: Two men talking, over a couple of pints.

Man 2: That’s gas. Hang on. Doesn’t your man in “De Paper” do the same?

Man 1: Who are you on about?

Man 2: Cooper. That fellow off the radio who writes for the Examiner. He does the same every now and again with the piece he writes on a Friday, when he doesn’t do all that stuff about economics and politics and boring stuff like that. He writes a conversation between two guys having a pint. Makes it up, like. I’d say he must be going mad all the same so with your man Doyle.

Man 1: Why?

Man 2: It’ll look like he just copied Doyle. And copied him badly.

Man 1 (laughing): You’re right. Doyle is class, a great writer. And Cooper’s just some lad off the radio who talks a lot and writes a bit.

Man 2: The only thing I’ll say for him is that he doesn’t write all the foul oul’ language that Doyle has in his movies. The words he has them say are only terrible in some of it. You’d be embarrassed to be watching it on the telly with the young ones at home. You’d be tempted to turn it off.

Man 1: Ah they hear far worse. And speak it.

Man 2: Jaysus, some of it is fierce altogether boy, all this effin and blinding. I don’t know if you need all of it.

Man 1: It’s authentic.

Man 2: Authentic, me arse.

Man 1: You’d think he’d know a lot of it having gone to the Mon.

Man 2: Doyle went to the Mon? I thought he was a Dub.

Man 1: Not Doyle, you fool, Cooper. You’d think he’d have heard some of it there and would put it into his stuff.

Silence as the men sup their pints.

Man 1: Funnily enough Cooper said nothing to him about it last Friday.

Man 2: Last Friday?

Man 1: Yeah, to Doyle, they were on his radio programme. Matt was interviewing him about the book and he never said he did the same thing in de paper. Must have been too embarrassed. Don’t blame him.

Man 2: Did he like the book?

Man 1: Seemed to, yeah. Said it was very funny.

Man 2: What else did they talk about?

Man 1: Love/Hate. You know that thing that’s on the telly on Sunday evening, about the scumbags in Dublin? Great show.

Man 2: Feck it, that’s vicious it is. I can’t watch that at all. See the bit where they dropped the keg of beer on the head of the IRA lad? And when the IRA thug bit another lad on the cheek? And last Sunday when the lad went to the front door and got shot and his mot came out and saw the killer and they stared at each other and then he shot her and the kid crying in his bed upstairs? Jesus, I can’t watch that at all. I turn it off as soon as it comes on.

Man 1: You know all the best bits for someone who says he doesn’t watch it.

Man 2: Well herself doesn’t like it, but I’ll be damned if I switch over to that Celebrity, I’m Getting Out of Here, or whatever it’s called rubbish over on the other channel.

Man 1: Love/Hate is class. The best bit of telly RTE has ever done.

Man 2: The Guards aren’t too happy about it I think. They think it glamourises crime.

Man 1: Where in the name of God did you hear that?

Man 2: It was on the news there the other night. Some politician brought it up with the Garda Commissioner when he was in Leinster House answering questions about rising levels of crime and what they’re doing about it.

Man 1: What? But what has Love/Hate got to do with real crime? It’s a bloody drama.

Man 2: All I’m telling you is what I heard. The commissioner, what’s his name, Martin Callaghan?

Man 1: Callinan.

Man 2: Right. Well some senator, a Fine Gael lad, Martin Conway I think, asked him if the programme was impacting criminal activity.

Man 1: Impacting? Impacting criminal activity? What does that mean?

Man 2: I don’t know, I wasn’t there, I’m only telling you what I heard. Anyway, Callinan said that it was an interesting question but he wouldn’t like to try to gag RTE. He said he’d fail miserably if he tried.

Man 1: What are you on about?

Man 2: I’m just telling you. He said, what was it, look I’ll get it on my phone here, look it up on the oul Google.

Pause, as he scrolls down his smartphone.

Man 2: Yes, here it is. He said it was a truth that what society “sees and hears about reflects the reality of what is happening on the street”. He said the debate about whether fictional representations are a “good or a bad thing” could be never-ending, and he threw in a bit about people giving whatever information they have about gangland crime to the gardaí.

Man 1: It’s a TV show. It’s not a documentary.

Man 2: But you said yourself how good it is.

Man 1: Because it’s real to life. But I don’t think it’ll set people off throwing beer kegs at each other’s heads.

Man 2: It must have been an empty one.

Man 1: What?

Man 2: The keg. The way he lifted it. You’d wreck your back if you tried to lift a full one like that. It must have been empty.

Man 1: I’ll give you a copy of it.

Man 2: Of what?

Man 1: Two Pints. The Doyle book. You’d get a bit of a laugh out of it.

Man 2: Sure I never read books.

Man 1: It’s short. You can read a chapter here, a chapter there. You don’t have to read it all in the one go.

Man 2: Will I be offended by the language? Will herself give out if I put it by the bed, say it’s inappropriate?

Man 1: Beside her 50 Shades of Grey?

Man 2 (looking around anxiously): Will you shut up? I told you not to say anything about that.

Man 1: Every man here in this pub, his woman has read it. It’s nothing to be ashamed about.

Man 2: It is. Time to put the foot down with them. What the hell has gotten into all of these women? It’s embarrassing what they want. I’m dreading when the picture comes out. It’ll be like when Sex and the City was made into a movie and they all went to the cinema dressed up like your wans in New York, like a bunch of young wans on the pull.

Man 1: Can you imagine how they’ll dress for 50 Shades so?

Man 2: Jesus no, not in public.

Man 1: They’ll be confiscating the whips and chains at the cinema door.

Man 2: Did you see some poor bloke got divorced by his wife last week, I think it was in Britain, because he wouldn’t do the shit in the book for his wife.

Man 1: Language, boy. You’re getting as potty mouthed as that Roddy Doyle.

* The Last Word with Matt Cooper is broadcast on 100-102 Today FM, Monday to Friday, 4.30pm to 7pm.