I like lists. I made one last week using a sheet of headed paper the government sent me, a carpenter’s pencil I found behind my ear and a Robert Roberts coffee stain. You can try this at home yourself. Use a tea stain if you want. Or a biro. The choice is yours.

First on my list - the garden centre. Howya getting on, Breda? I need a television plant. [Blank silent stare]

Maybe I should explain. Maybe you should. Right. I have this big TV wall bracket thing and I want something to put on it. It looks very bare. I was considering a plant. Did you consider a TV, Primal? I did for years but now I ‘d prefer looking at a plant. I might be killing the sale here, but did you consider taking down the bracket? The wall would have to come with it. I like having the wall there for hanging things on. Like TV brackets? Yeah. If I ever get a second plant, I’d need a second bracket wouldn’t I.

Next on the list - the post office in the local shop. Can I have a €50 whatchamacallit, a Musketeer voucher please? A what? The vouchers that you can use in any shop. Oh, an All-for-One voucher. There you go. That’ll be €52 please. What? €50 worth of stuff costs €52? That’s scary. I’m afraid so, Primal. Is there anything else I can frighten you with?

Actually there is. This. That’s your shopping list, Primal. Look again. A shopping list with a coffee mug stain. Robert Roberts? Yes. Java. Very nice too. But look what it is written on. Ah, a TV Licence renewal reminder. I’ll do you up one now. No! Stop! I don’t want one. You’d better. That’s a 4th reminder. They’ll be at your door and you’ll be fined for not having one. No I won’t. I don’t have a telly. [Second blank silent stare of the day]

So what do you watch in the evenings? A pot plant. You watch a pot plant. Well not watch really. More look at. The wall-bracket where the telly used be is soon to have a pot plant on it. It’s in the car. How does that work out when you’re having a pint? “Hey lads, anyone watch that aphid last night? Something else huh?” And you won’t get Comfort conditioner in a 2l size here.

Look. Can you just tell them I don’t have a telly? They wouldn’t believe me. Why don’t you just write that on the back of the reminder and send it back to them? Tried that the last three times and it didn’t work. Try it again. Can’t - my shopping list is on the back. Sorry. Can’t help ya, Primal.

Okay. Thanks anyway. Hey, what you mean about the Comfort? I read it on your list. The 750ml is the only size they do here. It’s only a small shop remember. You’ll have to go to the supermarket. So you’re saying this shop is too small for Comfort? Something like that. Anyway, good luck now - there’s a queue behind ya.

It wasn’t on the list so I added it - a pint. The pub was deserted. Suited me fine. I’d read the paper in peace. The barman’s eyes lit up with the prospect of someone to talk to. It wouldn’t be my favourite Mediterranean country but as far as Mediterranean countries go it’s okay. I suppose you’re right, Rob - and I went back to my paper. I see you’re reading the paper there, Primal. Keeping up with current affairs and world news and all that. Well, I’m trying to but someone keeps disturbing me. I suppose it’s all on about the Lisbon thing and all that. Look, Rob. Why don’t you turn on the telly for yourself. Nah, I’m fed up with it. Nothing but racing and soccer and all that. Pity I dropped the car home - I have a grand pot plant in the boot you could be watching. [Third blank stare of the day]

He shuffled off. Finally some Comfort in this town. I checked the telly listings. Sure enough, a gardening programme at 8. I have the best thing in reality TV.*

*I needed ammunition for blank stare number four in case he came back.

Contrast these three snippets from recent Irish newspaper articles. (Headlines underlined)

Katy on life support after heart attacks

… Katy’s failure to respond to treatment is viewed as so serious that doctors have ruled out moving her to a more acute hospital in Dublin … Close friends revealed Katy was …

Read the full piece from the Irish Examiner.

Tragic Katy dies in sister’s arms

… Katy’s heartbroken parents were also at her bedside … A team of consultants are understood to have examined Katy in Our Lady’s Hospital yesterday afternoon.

Read the full piece from Irish Independent.

Top model Katy French dies in Navan hospital

… Ms French (24) was taken to Our Lady’s Hospital in Navan … French celebrated her 24th birthday …

Read the full piece from the Irish Times.

Spot the difference? Top marks if you noticed the third one is journalism. I don’t know what you’d call the other two, but certainly not journalism.

The Irish Times is the only paper that has covered this saga impartially and professionally over the last few days. They have not lowered themselves to the lovey dovey style of familiarity the others have.

And rightly so. I didn’t know this woman. I never heard of her until this happened. You probably didn’t either unless you read society/gossip columns and their ilk. Being seen at parties and functions doesn’t achieve anything. It doesn’t stop wars, feed the hungry, advance life-saving technology. Not even help old ladies across the road or cats down out of trees. Nothing. So why the familiarity?

There are few exceptions for reporting on a first name basis. One was the Robert Holohan case. A child was missing and later found dead in a ditch. The whole nation empathised. The whole nation worried. The whole nation was united. Lines like “Robert is now missing three days” were acceptable. No, we didn’t know him, but it was as if we did, because we could imagine what his family and friends were going through. Our genetic programming triggers protective responses where the young are concerned. “Robert is now missing three days” = “A helpless child is now missing three days”.

This is not the case here. Despite its flaws, it would seem the Irish Times is the sole surviving newspaper in Ireland.

I got a call yesterday. One I was expecting really. An elderly relation had just passed away.

She reared a large family and I have always been close to them, but closer to one in particular. I let things settle for an hour after his brother had broken the news to me then phoned him.

- Howya. Ya all right? Larry called me with the news.

- I’m grand. Why? What news?

[Panic! What do I do now? What do I say? Two big size nines straight into my gob. Think quick, Primal]

- Hello! Hello! Can you hear me? … You’re cracking up on me. … This phone’s shite … If ya can hear me I’m going to move down the road … see can I get a signal … call you back … five minutes.

I hung up. Shaking. What happened there? I began to doubt myself. Did I get Larry’s message wrong? Was the woman still alive and just because I was expecting to get a particular phone call that’s what I heard?

No I couldn’t have gotten it wrong. Larry never rings me. Why else would he ring me now? No, I did hear right.

I was refusing to believe the glaringly obvious. In such a big family someone always gets left out. Larry probably assumed Máire rang Pat. Máire probably assumed Fran had.

But what was I to do now? Do I call Larry back? Do I call Pat and tell him he should phone home? I decided to let it go. No matter who I phoned it would spark a row. I just had to hope Pat would put two and two together. He did. And while he guessed the news, at least he didn’t officially hear it from me.

Yesterday took me to a town south of here I hadn’t been to in a long time. A pleasant drive. Fine weather. Good roads. I seen very few idiots, which means I have no new stuff to post on ShiteDrivers.com. But that’s a good thing.

I just had to pick up a cheque. Collecting cheques is my second favourite activity, beaten only by lodging them. I had an address: the name of a road.

The snag was this road is actually a new business park. It is not signposted and everyone I asked was new to the town and hadn’t a clue. But I figured I had reached it when I seen a sign for Rosslare. Don’t laugh - this is Ireland. Interpreting our road signs is a black art you develop over time.

Now to find the office in this jungle. Golden rule: Never phone ahead for directions. Never. Doing this causes cheque books to fall into some parallel universe never to be found again. The element of surprise is key. You have to sneak up on them.

I stopped at the first office I came to and got directions and an erection from the (sizzlingly hot) receptionist. As I left, I heard my name: Primal, be the jayzez! If it isn’t the Sneeze himself. What are you doing here? I had a pain in me arse trying to find a place, came in here to ask, and now I’ve a pain in the front of me trousers from yer one at the desk. What are you doing here? Oh yeah, she’s a stunner right enough. She does it for me too. Anyway, this is my office. This what I’m at now. Com’on in and we’ll have a coffee.

It is about 15 years since I met Dan face to face. We were in college together. Mostly in the college bar. He took me to the canteen, pausing to introduce me to his wife - who was filling in for the receptionist. The temporary blood displacement switched to my face.

I’d been keeping tabs on him in the papers over the years and knew a bit about his company. So once the kids? ages? ever hear from so-and-so? questions and the remember the time stories were out of the way we got talking shop.

I read you’re doing well in Canada and Italy. The Post said actively pursuing overseas opportunities. Very snazzy. The last time you pursued an overseas opportunity it was that German girl who shared a house with Noelle Garvey. A strange combination - the countries, not the girls. How the fek did that come about?

Well my ex-boss, Gerry, was in Toronto on holidays and met a guy on a golf course who was bitching about pumping money down the drain trying to solve a problem. Gerry gave him my email and three months later we had the golfer’s business and six other sites in Ontario. You didn’t tell the papers that? Fek, no. That wouldn’t look right on the business pages. We down-played the golf course bit and played up the subsequent ‘wins’, as they call them.

Italy was a different story. A lad flying from Dublin read a piece about us in the in-flight magazine and called us the minute he hit the tarmac in Rome. I flew out the following morning and we had the site up and running a week later. Must have been a bitch of a job finding Italian speakers to support it from here in just five days. How’d you get around that? It was summer time and we offered a few school teachers mega bucks for a couple of weeks to get us up and running. Not for the papers either. Nope. We told them we had a pool of foreign language speakers to draw from. Which was true in a way - one of them is our young lad’s swimming instructor.

I left Dan an hour later with plans for pints made, collected the cheque and headed home thinking about all I’d learned.

· The old adage about the impossibility of getting lost in Ireland with a tongue in your head no longer applies.
· There’s always a catch with hot and chatty receptionists. If something’s too good to be true, then it isn’t.
· Never believe what you read in the papers.
· No matter how big or how small, business is all about contacts, luck and coping with the unexpected.
· Tesco now do a 3l drum of milk. Oh, I forgot to mention that bit didn’t I.

UPDATE: Sex: Male. Weight: 3.9kg. Name: Oisín. Rank: Brigadier General. Serial Number: 17082007KE

I’m in Kathy’s. They phoned me to come over at 4:00. And they were on the road to the baby-factory at 4:30. So the waiting is either over or just beginning depending on what way you look at it.

Either way, Kathy is smiling through it. She nearly cried when the specialist mentioned inducing the baby. She won’t have to go through that now. And there’s no worry about traffic. This time of the morning is what the estate agents go by when advertising property - Only 40 minutes from Dublin. Easy access to the M50. All true at 4:00 in the morning.

I’ll update you during the day when I get news. Well, there’ll be one update with sex, weight, name, rank and serial number. This is not a Twitter type thing.

The only part of the plan going awry is the mural project. Seán lost patience and started on his own last weekend. So the materials have been confiscated.

We’ll just have to think of something else.

There are some things in this world you never see. Like an ugly baby or a small rat. Our upbringing dictates that we squeal oh, (s)he’s gorgeous and jayzez, it’s feking huge respectively. The exception, of course, is a baby rat.

As I wrote in Snippets #9 below, my great friend Kathy is expecting her second - not rat, the other one - on Wednesday and I am on call to take care of her first, Seán, while she does the whole grunt, deep breath, push, scream thing. Then, when she has her bag packed and heads off to the hospital, for whatever she has to do there, Seán and I can get to work on that kitchen wall mural he’s been planning. He has been thinking about it for weeks now - he sits on the floor for long periods with a crayon in each hand, with one eye on the wall and one on his mum. I’m guessing he wants it to be a surprise. No point making a start while she’s watching.

I’m looking forward to the project, but the waiting is killing me. Not least because we’ve just had a long weekend and being art-director-on-call I couldn’t risk a single beer. Ireland may have had the wettest weekend on record/CD/DVD/Download but I certainly had the driest.

Now before anyone jumps down my throat about all the worry daddy is going through, let me point out it was all his doing. I didn’t have it in for him, so to speak.

To exacerbate things, all the lovely-baby doctors swore on their stethoscopes that Kathy would be anything up to a week early. (They obviously never arranged to meet her for lunch). Hence I’ve had my crayons in the boot of the car since the middle of last week.

I’ve had the phone on tone and vibrate at night in case I sleep through the call to arts. And it’s kept fully charged. Some meetings have been rescheduled as they are too far away. An overnight case is packed. I continually check there’s plenty of fuel in the tank.

Kathy is wondering who is actually having the baby.

Well I suppose it will all be worth it the day I get to blubber oh, (s)he’s gorgeous. It can’t be long now - I seen a rat down by the river yesterday and jayzez, it was feking huge.