Well we certainly could hear her but gladly she made this her insistence point and hung up. The idea right now mid-Friday afternoon – just having been to the doctor with Tara, my own chest paining – of having to listen to this woman would have been frightful. Frankly, I needed rest. I’d slept some last night, but rather erratically. Tara being feverish – fighting a throat infection – tossed and turned the whole night through and was tracing buses and trams and trains across the ceiling by the skylight. My first impression had been that she was still dreaming. Now I’m more inclined to believe she was being just a little bit delirious. Nothing like a fever to push the mind to other streams of consciousness…
Arriving into Barcelona all those years ago, 44°C on the roadway sign, me huddled up in a thick blanket shivering with a soul deep chill, I can only reminisce to the comedic concerning my mind’s wanderings.
The gay guy at the petrol station who would have gladly taken me home. No doubt he had a cure for my fever.
The campsite we stayed at where I marked, like a wagon rut, a trail between the tent and toilet, each time a pot to hand in case both ends decided to erupt at once. They didn’t, then, to my knowledge but I’m certain they would have had I forgotten the pot.
What a place to have been. An arse-hole ripped from posterior propulsion, sitting grimacing, looking through tear-filled eyes at a lap full of vomit! Not that I was getting the satisfaction of a projectile puke by then anyway. Bile, and blood vessels bulging – ah, what sweet memories.
As for the city itself, well, I have the occasional figmented memory, flashes, though in all sincerity, beneath the brief returns I have at once an underlying and overwhelming appreciation for the toilets in that city, especially the McDonalds on Las Ramblas!
The bus that takes me over the hill from Paseréti to Kolossy tér is a tale of two cities within the confines of an even older one, Buda.
What I mean by this is, well, this! Over my side, where I jump the bus there lies the relatively sleepy suburb, albeit Hűvösvölgyi út which is an artery bleeding both ways. A few feet off, however, and one can capture the comparative solitude whether passing low beyond the tram tracks or high beyond the 129 bus’s last port of call this side of town.
On the other side, the yang to this ying, is the positively busy hub around Kolossy with many’s the bus passing through either up Szépvölgyi út or along below on Lajos utca. The tram, No. 17, also dissects the area and with the road, and pavement, works ongoing in this sweltering August, the place truly is a hive of activity.
But let me tell you about Disneyland, or Noddy Town, or whatever it was my student coined in reference to Kolossy tér. It is a place with facilities, provisions to both commerce and fun, and together where applicable. However, it has never quite captured my undying interest. Given the choice of Anya’s, later Tina Turner’s, bar on Podmaniczky utca in the 6th district, Pest, or any of the places here, whether dives or fancy, I’d have leaned towards the former. It was all about the atmosphere, and this Buda haven lacked of all this.
That said, today in my leisure I walked over from Pacsirtamező utca, through the Timár utca stop, itself Flórián tér directed – I, however, about facing going the opposite way and as I strolled along Lajos, the pretty girls from the Szolarium out smoking, the old women dragging trolleys laden from the market, I began to notice the söröző-s this side, not the Bécsi út side, of the Kolossy complex. Perhaps the casino and the Leroy always put me off there, but here, suddenly I found myself pondering a drink, the tables outside a definite lure. I didn’t stop this time. I passed them on. I’d made up my mind to go home quickly to my little flowers, but the seed had planted itself – for another day.
Passing Café 5 on the corner of Szépvölgyi and Bécsi I glanced at an alluring menu: 990 huf for a 2 course meal and thought, definitely another day.
Bouncing back over the hill now and on up to the Bölöni György stop on the 29 I’m beginning to notice a growing importance to this once tedious transport line.
There is a house in New Orleans, there may even be a hotel in California, but if there is any sense to be made of any of this try NAV, post-APEH, Budapest.
When I first tempted the threshold I turned and fled and if only I had listened to these base first instincts, and stayed the hell away, but as the man said, there are only two certainties in life, Death and Taxes, and here I am fighting the mortal battle while playing to my idiocies as a semi-honest man. On one of the hottest days on offer, topping 40c, I find myself in the foyer (!) of the Kertesz utca NAV office, the shade is welcome even if the air-conditioning comes in the way of the coolness exuding from the security man’s tub of ice-cream.
Ticket to hand and my number called I go delving into the mystery finding within a beast of a machine set in the middle of the room freshening up the interior. If this is hell, well, apart from the seeming shabbiness, it isn’t at all bad but I’m aware of the old adage – don’t judge a book by its cover – but as with previous experiences my temptation to explode into a rage is mostly down to my lack of understanding ( so that’s why there are so many conflicts in the world!). Again the lady borders on the edge of Job, patience tested by my continual expressions of “Nem ertem”. Now where people criticise the office staff at any tax branch anywhere in the world I have to come to their defence and say – listen it’s a bullshit job working for bullshit consecutively corrupt governments, and having to deal with people’s discontent day to day. Noone wants to pay taxes, not even administrators I imagine, but it is not their fault that the system has the average Joe running ragged. They are not the financial consultants, policy drafters, the experts credited with calamity. They have been duly employed to offer the buffer between the people and the shit (as are politicians but more on that later) and if shit floats then we, the hapless taxpayers, are face down in the deep-end with the same civil servants stepping on our backs to climb up. The problem is, they, too, are caught in the chaos and are being swept away on the whim of the bastards floating on top, who seer in the light while their putrid stink rises. In the sewers the rats don’t bother to dress smartly. On the oceans of power the stink of corruption is a badge of honour and up there nobody needs to hide who they really are. It’s just us, the drowners, who feel compelled to play with masks while casting accusations. “Oh they’re corrupt!” we scream but on the filter of leagues this merely bubbles to the top as another unanswered request. To them who reside there this is redundantly pretty. They are not fishermen, not interested in the depths and so we may pilfer our happiness for the remnants of hope, ordering this energy into another ream of hot-air-rising.
Redundantly pretty. That’s all. And just in case you thought it could change – remember we all stink up there so take heed and grow gills. Stop trying to support them with the banality of our existence.
On that note let’s remove ourselves to election time, and those moments when the bigger fishes* drop low to ‘dirty’ their filthy hands with the propostioning of the electorate. I say fishes here because they are not the boatsmen, merely the bait, ironically. They have only the capacity to aspire. Up where they are it’s brighter and closer to the stink…
What says you? Cast in the darkness with justice abounding or on a cruise conscious of the depths of depravity beneath? Trick question! If you’re up there you’re not thinking down here. But let me realign…
Come election time, come the chance not to change and revolt; toppling, sinking and rising on the crest of a new wave – this at best is just the inversion of power. The only true revolution allows for the acceleration of decadence and the collapse into the depths of everything. Only from the ground can we build a foundation and this is the flaw of everything. If you truly despise the system destroy everything it ever represented, represents, and will have the potential to represent. To allow tit-bits to favour you is to allow the germination once again of the festering seed, or rather to kill the daffodil but leave the bulb. And please, I don’t want to hear the “but that’s such a pretty flower”. If you’ve missed the analogy drink cyanide – one less dope when all comes to pass. In the real revolution the pretty, the ugly, the insane, the destitute, the intelligent, criminals, addicts, fools, the best, the worst, shall all be considered first as this – equal! And from that premise we must then move forward rationally towards a better society. Nothing is for the betterment of humanity if it doesn’t include all humanity**.
Ah, but I may have strayed. So apart from the bad news conveyed by her, the lady in APEH, now NAV, that I dealt with was a sweetheart, a darling. She even had the gall to compliment my Hungarian. Now that took courage. In truth I understand more than I once used to*** but please, no more compliments, no, oh you shouldn’t have…OH, you didn’t!
Leaving Kertesz utca and strolling into Pertu Cafe on Dob utca, I have indeed found a rhythm, a rhythm increasingly indicative of the understanding of my position. Unless I want to be drawn into immorality I must strengthen myself against the temptation, and even when those around me may fall victim to the aesthetic, I must be strong enough to enjoy life on my terms. As we in the drowning department are under the illusion that our voice matters, them in their boats in that stinking hell hole up yonder are also deluded into thinking we really care.
Choose not to care about them and one day they’ll have to submerge themselves deep enough that they shall really be in our domain. Until then, civil servants beware. You are test subjects till the cowards come along.
Viva la revolucion…whichever one you may choose.
* Fishes as a plural can exist and whereas it may usually be defined as the different species rather than the number of individuals it has its biblical usage in the Miracle of the Loaves and the Fishes, so there!
**Your Honor, years ago I recognized my kinship with all living beings, and I made up my mind then that I was not one bit better than the meanest on earth. I said then, and I say now, that while there is a lower class, I am in it; and while there is a criminal element, I am of it; and while there is a soul in prison, I am not free.
*** “Alas, how terrible is wisdom
when it brings no profit to the man that’s wise!
This I knew well, but had forgotten it,
else I would not have come here.” Sophocles
The tram that runs through the heart of Pest is the Combino, a worm like creature that betrays it owners by such description, and I’m under no illusions about people power; this is the government’s toy on loan to us and at any time available to be removed. When first purchased it couldn’t be held on the tracks so these had to firstly be reinforced. Now I’m loath to suggest that this was a lack of foresight on local government’s part. Call me cynical, but for me the idea of sensible thought at all was absolutely secondary to profit. There is little urban planning that is purely altruistic. Sometimes there is on offer more than lip-service but this is partially due to a significant lobby. Here in Budapest the Critical Mass gang may have had some hand in coercing the coffers of the local politicians (taxpayers money actually) but in Ireland, at least Cork, even that was presented almost as a pie in the face. The half arsed attempt to create bicycle lanes there was insulting.
Now a few pretty laneways in Budapest for our two-wheeled compatriots doesn’t amount to a victory if looked at from the greater perspective – the Combino again. After ‘readjusting’ the tracks it was soon realised that, well, in the summer these metal corridors of transportation stink of body odour (b.o./ be oh!) and coupled with the intense heat generated they were a punishment. My times in the confessional were a Funfair in comparison but, of course, on the latter issue I was one of the lucky ones!
“Bless me Father (!) for I have sinned…”
“Haven’t we all, my boy, haven’t we all!”
“Really Father now what have you…”
Not to have taken the initial plunge into the funds and bought the air-conditioned versions WAS money-saving but in the long term money-wasting. Installing air-conditioning into these models later would prove much more expensive than the first outing, and maybe even less efficient functionally speaking.
Dumb? Yes, if you thought they’d been thinking but let’s be honest, they hadn’t, they aren’t, and they never will, at least not when it comes to us. To accuse them of erroneous judgement is to attribute to them a humanity that is laughable. And all this without one mention of the Metro 4. Good God! Good luck!!!
“A masik kusz, nem szeretem!” Tara announced defiantly.
She didn’t like the ‘other’ bus. Well, I knew what she meant. A funky-blue bus – air-conditioned – has arrived in Budapest and appears sporadically on our bus route, 129. That I, and Tara, both, prefer the older, smellier, rattlier models is to understand our traditionalist values…hehe.
The new one as we entered was immediately declared wrong by Tara as I lowered her into her seat. Was it the A-C? Maybe. The constant beeping, however, I fear was the real culprit, and the fact that there is that blackout on the windows. Her view was obstructed – she being every bit the explorer already, this was tantamount to blindness in front of the Greats (visual artists I mean though Pele or Messi would necessarily apply).
We suffered the journey, needless to say, songs and reassurances doing the bare minimum to provoke subsidence, and yet the truth was plain to see. She was unhappy. On the way home later, an older model, still expressed some reservations but this may have only been due to the lingering memory.
Next time she missed the funky bus deliberately with Andi and it crashed. Maybe she knew. Later the following day she began to profess a love for all motorised vehicles, at least as long as they fell within the range of securely familiar. No fancy schmancy. At least not till she turns three and wants to impress the Kindergarten ‘bastard’!
Homeward bound on the newer model now I find myself curiously inclined to wondering – what is it that is fundamentally wrong. The seats though tiered are more coach like which provides the comfort. There generally seems to be a more logical layout even for the prams, but something in that intercity feel only to the suburbs may be a little disconcerting for the tormented traveller while furthermore the air-conditioning is not exactly tip top, well not down the back at least. I’m beginning to feel the nausea as once I did on the school mini-bus we had, all huddled in together on those day trips to the beyond. Heat stuffiness, vomitessness. I’m merely implying a discomfort but I’m willing to heed my daughter’s senses more than the rationality as proffered by those in the know. Haven’t some of those clowns also condoned GM foods – those soulless, tormented miscreants, whose eventual suicide is their only true gain. The yields initially astonishing are recorded, in fact, as depleting rapidly in each subsequent year. The super pesticides used, and flaunted airborne into neighbouring non-GM fields, are developing an environment where super-pests are slowly but surely ensuring the death of everything.
Our technology, I fear, has only given us the illusion of comfort because it tinkers with our memory and encourages us to think that we cannot live any other way. Now where did I put my phone? I know: I‘ve got a map app on it and GPS, but really what use is that if I can’t even find the phone. And no, I don’t have that whistle-and-it-beeps key-finder either! Damn-it! Well enough of this. Here’s my stop…
I passed a comment on the way up the bare stairs on entering the building which houses this establishment “It’s like an extended McDonalds”, all tiled to the top floor, but even so running to the American diner on the first floor one is confronted by greatness – pictures of Rory Gallagher accompanying you to the first floor landing. To get beyond this, however, to Suas on the second floor requires a little more hiking, and it’s a lonely trek, the walls sterile, unwelcoming tend to intimidate. Well, okay I’m verging on demented exaggeration but, perhaps, it was the lack of oxygen to the brain by the time I’d reached the top step that had me in this delirium. On the other hand only ‘fit’ people drink here, that or people desperate to soak in the rays while the sun was flaunting itself.
You see Suas, meaning ‘up’ in Gaelic, is indeed just that but what is its forte, unless you’re a masochist or regular gym-goer, is that it is a rooftop bar open to the elements, and on this particular day this was a good thing. How could one resist – how could one even dare! To say that I had surrendered a Saturday afternoon, originally set aside for shopping, to this sheer decadence is to know the man.
I was sold. I would have sold my grandmother’s bones to have advanced my position but it didn’t come to that. A table for three directly under the sun was acquired and, waiting for the drinks to arrive, I sat back to take it all in. My reflection in the darkened glass, which divides the inner weather-proof pub from the garden area, smiled with approval. This is Cork but I would not be deterred by that, just because I oft times before lacked the confidence to embrace the beast. Dark shades on dark thoughts (would not prevail). I smiled even more broadly.
My friends, pints in tow, arrived. We chatted, allowing the heat and the people to wash over us. Put to task by one of my buddies we explored the finer art of charm, inviting a table of ladies to assist. Drinks flowed, time passed – and the pockets emptied! Upstairs, up market! But as was proffered, we don’t get weather like this usually so why not splash out a bit.
However, whereas I have also enjoyed an occasional night here in the winter it was with smokers and always outside. Ask me to revel inside and I would be loath to agree. There are much better places indoors; much better, much cheaper, and on the ground floor.
“We do. Cheese n Onion, Salt n Vinegar, Smokey Bacon?”
“Cheese n Onion.”
“Right.”
“Choice! What a curse. But we’d be complaining if we didn’t have it.”
Situated off Morrison’s Island on the Southside, but more importantly on Douglas Street, this place is one of those which have managed development well. It’s taken to having a beer garden in a style which suggests savvy while at the same time keeping an interior which to all intents and purposes could still be old school. Beyond the first partition, just after the bar, it does tend towards a tidier affair than perhaps it was in “The Torch” days but then again Ireland back then felt different and not just upholstery speaking. These days leather, wipe clean, seats are much more in vogue and sensible to boot.
That a beer garden is bigger than a pub is either a sign of optimism concerning the weather or, more significantly, forward thinking on the part of those in charge when the smoking ban first came in. There is a covered area for those willing to sit it out in all seasons (in one day!) as well as an open to the sky section which can, however, be quickly covered over too by a tarpaulin when things really get rough. And when in need, these guys are like to the rigging, hoisting it all up in commendable time.
Now unless I forget to mention it this place is one of those thoroughly adaptive sorts, retaining the old style while moving with the times, and while this may sound repetitive, what I am alluding to here is the menu table-side. It has sandwiches hot & cold, soups, baked potatoes, pizzas, along with a selection of beers beyond the norm – the recently risen craft beers. It is refreshing to come back to a Cork forever on the up in terms of taste, but shur isn’t it also the berries to return and sink some of the old reliable Beamish too. You can take the man outta Cork but not the Cork outta the man!
The pizzas are offered at 10 euro for a 12 inch while the cheapest soup is 3.50 euro. There are cheaper side dishes, like wedges, which will suffice if it’s not posh you’re pretending at. And well speaking of posh, the Pizza and Wine menu is separate, and this, my friend is why I’m impressed. Not because it satiates my cravings to snobbery, which I do fear exist, but that again a place than can look like this, homely, Irish, still dares to serve it up. And so, nevertheless, here I sit crisp packet crumpled before me and a half a pint of Beamish remaining.
I always remember “Pub Grub” signs as a kid and was inclined to the idea that this was to be taken literally, the ‘grub’ part I mean, such was my impression of the fare on offer, but if this more recent lean towards taste is what the Celtic Tiger has done to this country then, even if I can’t resurrect the beast I can at least contribute to the remnants of the dream .
