I am by way of being the cosmopolitan one in the family. I have lived and earned my living in London, Paris, briefly, and New York and am seriously contemplating having a look at Sydney when i recover my full strength and energy. As you may gather, I am not an adventurous person. i don’t go looking for danger, I just like to get out of this cage away from the jam and the familial duties, both of which i love and hate at the same time.

I suppose I should tell you at this moment how i earn my keep, how I manage to wander as I have done around the world – not that it matters all that much, but people, you people always want to know so much irrelevant stuff. What? you ask? How? Why? When exactly did this happen? What was her motivation? Who? Whom? Whither? All those wonderful w.h. words that only we, the Irish, can pronounce properly. Writers tell you as much as they wish – that should be enough for you, but it seldom is. Anyway, i’m not really a writer; I always thought that I would like to be a poet. I would like to be able to write stuff like Roger McGough.

They don’t fuck you up, your mum and dad

(Despite what Larkin says)

It’s other grown-ups, other kids

Who, in their various ways

Die. And their dying casts a shadow

Numbering all our days

And we try to keep from going mad

In multifarious ways.

And most of us succeed, thank God,

So if, to coin a phrase,

You’re fucked up, don’t blame your mum and dad

(Despite what Larkin says).

Yes. I like the notion of a poem ending with a bracket. I also like to laugh from time to time. This sort of stuff makes me laugh. Not Larkin, I do have to say. Not Larkin.

I went briefly several years ago to an analyst – that was during my spell in London – and he tried to persuade me that i wanted to sleep with my father and somehow exterminate my mother. I found this quite confusing, so i stopped going to see him. No harm to my father, but i had seen sexier men around, I had actually lusted after and been to bed with younger and sexier men. I had no problems in that area of my life. Then I told him about my mother’s jam, and how I would be bereft without that but he didn’t believe me. Analysts don’t really care about things like jam. Roger McGough seemed more helpful and indubitably less expensive.

i am digressing … by the way, you may have noticed that I am having problems with some of the upper-case Is. I’m sorry about this. It has happened to me since my operation and I think has something to do with loss of self-esteem. Please bear with me.