The Man That Drinks The Brandy

A classy event this week. Normally I'm content to slum it with the hoi polloi, hang out with regular plebeians, feign interest in the little trivialities that dot-to-dot their dull lives together. Not his time. No, I said, I'm going to skip the weekly Soiled Mattress Club, and instead attend the Irish premiere of Ken Loach's Brit-baiting, 'The Wind That Shakes The Barley'. Fantastic flick. "Sign me now", I roared coming out of the pictures. "A Nation Once Again", "Ireland Abu", "Ooh Ah Paul McGrath", were some of my other bellicose chants before my girlfriend told me I was annoying the taxi driver.

The premiere was a splendid affair. Before you think I've lost my "man of the people" charms, don't worry, I can assure you I acted like a gormless buffoon the whole time, looking so far above my station, my ears were popping. Everyone was decked out in their full regalia, but I misunderstood 'Smart/Casual' to mean one of each. I wore a top hat and pyjama bottoms.

The mingling before the film started was unreal. Some of the best mingling I've ever witnessed. People sashaying around, dropping finely tuned bon mots, and disappearing again, to mill amongst the glitterati. I think the film's star Cillian Murphy (pronounced 'Sillian' according to Sky News presenters, the Sassenach bastards) really enjoyed our half an hour conversation about my World Cup Fantasy Football Team, especially the part about whether to replace the Mexican defender Marquez, with someone like John Terry. Not wanting him to disappear on me, I kept him in a headlock the whole time, and although some of his replies were subsequently slightly muffled, he seemed to be having fun.

Once we got inside the cinema, it got a bit boring. It was just like anyone routine trip to the pictures. I always quaff champagne and gorge quail eggs even if it's only Earnest Saves Lent I'm going to see. It was especially poignant to have Ken Loach, the film's producer and the lead actors introduce the film and parade the Palm D'Or, which they won at the Cannes Film Festival. I think they got it for winning the festival pub quiz.

So what about the movie? Well I'm no cineaste, but it initially seemed to be a most intriguing piece of work. Setting an allegorical tale about the Irish War of Independence in the lurid underworld of illegal car racing in day-glo Japan is certainly something I wasn't expecting. At this point I realised I had stumbled accidentally into The Fast And The Furious: Tokyo Drift, after a misguided venture to top up my plate of pigeon terrine. I gave it ten more minutes, before the sound of boy racers in the audience going "Brrrrrrrrmmmmmmmm, brrrrrmmmmmmmm,' drove me back to the premiere.

I rejoined it at a pivotal moment. Some Irish lads were about to make a daring raid on an RIC barracks. The moment was, however, thoroughly spoiled with what I thought it was an especially churlish piece of bad form. A band of Sassenachs mercenaries, led by Jeremy Clarkson dressed as Churchill and the Daily Mail editorial staff in Tommy Hats, marched into the cinema, lined up fifteen premiere patrons and executed them in cold blood. A very provocative gesture I thought, and at a most insensitive time. Did they have any consideration for the people outside trying to order popcorn over a hail of machine gun fire? I doubt it.

By the end, everyone was agreed that 'The Wind That Shakes the Barley' was a fiery and emotionally taut polemic. The general consensus was "Five Stars. Brits Out". We travelled en masse out of the premiere in our bespoke attire looking for someone or something to vent our pent up rage at. Unable to find any Black and Tans in the immediate vicinity, we were forced to purchase as much Ben And Jerry's Black And Tan flavoured ice cream as we could muster and gobble it up with a fantical, violent fervour. That'll show them, we all said collectively, with tummy's slightly aching and brain freeze setting in.

The Zeitghost