Cars & Women
So, how's the car going? Well I don't have to open the boot with a penknife anymore and the ugly 'piranha' hole in the back is covered with a sign saying; 'For amazing CYBERSEX - and some songs - visit www.seanoneillsongs.com..... (sorry, I lied about the sex). Eleven euro did the job, ten for the sign which is silver plastic, so matches the car quite well, and one for some sticky Velcro to keep it attached. It must be working too as I've noticed that the site is getting about three hits a day - and only two are mine.
The reason I don't need a penknife to open it is not because it's fixed - it's actually worse if anything. I met a guy who had two visible and one invisible Mazda 323fs in his garden. The invisible one was concealed in the nettles and was never going to drive again. The bootlock looked similar and the guy offered to give me the one from that car and dove straight into the nettles to remove it. I was wearing sandals and as getting nettle stings on my feet is low on my list of 'things to do before I die', I left him to it. He went to a lot of trouble to remove it and even more to fit it to my car - while I pointed out that it was different and probably wouldn't work. It didn't and realizing that if shut the lid, I wouldn't get it open again, I blocked the catch receiver so that it won't actually close at all.
Nowadays, the lid clatters a bit as I drive, reversing on a windy day can be tricky as it can suddenly blow open, obscuring the rearward view. Storing anything irreplaceable in the boot is not a good idea either, especially when parking in the cities. The direction in which I park, relative to the direction of the prevailing wind is important too.
On Saturday 1st November, the day of my gig at Wexford Arts Centre, I drove from Ballycotton, in Cork, to Wexford - top down and sunshine all the way. The gig went well, although the posters billed me as a 'singer of folk songs and ballads', so I wasn't sure what the audience had come to hear. I only did a small bit, one operatic link, to show them what I was sparing them. I stayed in 'Shanagolden' B&B. Marie, the owner plays accordion, loves music and, according to a friend of mine will 'mug her guests for a tune'.
There was a trilogy of macabre plays on in the evening and the Arts Centre had put me down for a ticket. The weather became a bit more 'normal' for an Irish November during the afternoon - I was the only one busking - and by evening it was a lot more 'normal' - raining sideways.
Fortunately, I'd emptied out the boot at 'Shanagolden' and so when I left the theatre and emerged into the wet windy night, to find my bootlid blown wide open and the rain battering it's interior, that was all that got wet.
Sunday was spent, trying to sort out 'women troubles', in Dublin prior to going to the Holiday Inn for a 'reunion' of the writers' collaboration, organized by Donal McGuirk, to coincide with the launch of a monthly singer/songwriter night to be held there, on the second Sunday of every month, commencing in January 2004 - and we'll be able to SMOKE there, for the first two anyway.
Arriving in Galway (is my car allergic to Galway?) on Monday night, I stopped for cigarettes and the car door decided that I didn't have the password again and so I had to enter and exit through the roof for the next twenty-four hours. Why don't I get it fixed? I've tried. If I bring it to a garage, when it's working, they can remove the interior panel to see there's nothing wrong with it. If I bring it in, when it's not working, then they have to fiddle about with rods and hooks to get it to open so that they can remove the interior panel - to see that there's nothing wrong with it!
Fortunately, most of the time, it works and the car goes and goes and stopped! This is actually a rewind; it stopped a couple of weeks ago, in Camden Street in Dublin and not without fair warning.
For those who don't know - and do care, I will talk a bit about alternators - fast forward if you do know or don't care - or both. OK. Battery starts engine. Engine's inside stuff - going round and round and up and down - turns belt to drive alternator. Alternator's insides, turning, generate electricity to run the lights wipers, radio and all the other electric stuff AND keep the battery charged to start the engine, to run the....etc. If the battery isn't charged, a push will probably start the car. If the engine is f*cked, then the car won't go and if the alternator is gone, or weak, then the battery will be drained by the aforementioned electric stuff.
My engine is good and my battery was replaced, earlier this year - when my alternator was also showing signs of not being well. A repair was carried out, using a second-hand one and a different belt. It was good enough to keep things afloat while the days were long and the nights were short. I usually work until eight or eight thirty in the evening and once the days became shorter, I noticed that my lights didn't seem quite as bright as they should be - must sort out before end Oct. when the clocks go back (I hate it when the clocks go back).
In the last week in October, I ordered a new/reconditioned alternator - but not before I came to a halt, in broad daylight, in Camden Street. I had sensed the engine was struggling to stay going - right beside a rare, on-street parking space. It cut out as I pulled in.
I loaded the meter, did my business - see daughter, have lunch, see about getting Greek mobile phone fixed (another story) - and as I finished lunch, I rang the breakdown service, again, and they actually got to the car in less than the twenty minutes they said they'd be.
Sort of sorted, by the garage I was carried to, I put replacement back on the long finger. A few nights later, I finished work, in Tarbert, Co. Kerry, at about 9.30 and headed for my cottage, in the middle of nowhere and after 20 minutes, the lights dimmed noticeably and by the time I got to Newcastle West, were little better than candles. The radio is a good indicator as to how bad things are and did nothing when I switched it on to check and I still had ten miles to go!
These last ten miles are along a narrow but unusually straight road. Cars travel quickly and it's very dark. Not the ideal place to come to a halt - even if your lights are working. In town, under a streetlight, I switched off everything except the engine to get some charge into the battery - about fifteen minutes. That got me another five miles nearer home. The same thing, outside the set-back entrance to a house got me home. It was a scary journey and the next morning, I ordered the new part, which arrived to Buttevant, at about 5.45pm on the Friday of the holiday weekend - just in time to be fitted and just in time for the putting back of the clock.
That just about covers the car troubles, despite which October was probably my best month yet, in terms of CD sales. I think that this is just a question of luck and also the fact that I've been busying myself to avoid dwelling on the 'women troubles', in comparison to which, the 'car troubles' pale into insignificance. As I've said before though, this is supposed to be a music site so 'mind your own f*cking business'.
One thing I have learnt - I think - from the above is that; to work well, a relationship sort of needs a good alternator. Both people should by charged and energized by it. If the alternator is f*cked, then it drains both. Sh*t, I sound like yer one that used to be on the radio, 'isn't an alternator..... a lot like liiife'.
