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Serious Name Droppin'

Think of these seismic name changes: Cassius Clay becoming Mohammed Ali; Cat Stevens becoming Yusuf Islam; the artist formerly known as The Artist Formerly Known as Prince (or, more correctly, Love Symbol #2!) becoming Prince again.  Peking becoming Beijing, Bombay becoming Mumbai. Mars becoming Snickers. Ballymun Avenue becoming Glasnevin Avenue. Many more besides!

People and places change their names or have their names changed for them for all sorts of rhymes and all sorts of reasons. Some, for example, simply might not like the sound of their existing names - Elton for one didn't like Reggie Dwight and Michael J. Fox just couldn't handle being bland ole Michael A. Fox! Others may feel that a different name better reflects their status in life - as Archie Leach did when he became Cary Grant or as Del Boy Trotter did when he became Derek Duval! Others still think a nattier name raises their profile a notch or two on the ole cool-ometer - why else would Mick Barratt have become Shaky or Bernard Jewry, Alvin Stardust!.

Yes, names change because times change, circumstances change, reasons change and people change. And in the case of this here blog we're not immune. In the past weeks and months the scope and direction of what's been written on these pages has changed a good bit - enough for the name The Dualist to no longer really reflect or complement the content. While I set out originally to write a blog to promote the book I wrote this summer, it's no longer just about that and, as such, I don't feel comfortable writing under a misleading moniker or using a scope that's so narrow.

So from today The Dualist blog will change its name to better reflect the source and nature of its content and will now become simply The Bag's Blog - and it's aim will be to be just that, a bag of blog covering a multitude of sins! That said it will be a bit messy and time-consuming to create a brand new template from scratch to cater for the new name so the address won't change immediately but will come in time - i.e. when I get round to setting it up. Meanwhile folks, many thanks again for taking the time to stop by and have a browse - the exercise would be pointless without your support and encouragement.

More soon ...

Coo ca choo it's ... Barney Jewry!

'By-kart' Revisited!

I was spinning along at a brisk 15 kmph on the main road the other day wondering whether to have either the waffles and bacon or the vol-au-vents for dinner that evening when out of the corner of my right eye I caught a glimpse of a man drawing level and then whizzing past me on a Dublin Bike. You could tell by his demeanour that he was enjoying the ride, the giveaway being not so much the grocery items that danced in the basket in front of him as the smile that was plastered on his face as he zoomed along - a face, I was surprised to realise, I'd seen before. Now, I'm good on faces it has to be said, but it also has to be said that I'm rusty enough on contexts and situations, so it took me a few seconds for things to fall into place. But they did.

You might remember a tall tale I told y'all there not so long ago about me trying and failing to help a non English-speaking Asian gent in his efforts to hire a Dublin bike from a station down in Grand Canal Quay. The famous Mister 'By-kart'!

Well, no word of a lie, it was the exact same chap!

So, I thought, he's done it! He's finally done and got his bike! Fan-tastic! I felt a surge of delight for him and his prize and said to myself that I really should be a good tourism ambassador and catch him up and personally congratulate him on his dogged determination and remind him of our previous encounter. So off I sped and within ten seconds I'd caught up with him at the traffic lights ahead. Small problem was that he was in the centre of the road waiting for the oncoming traffic to pass so that he could go right, down Barrow Street, while I was in the left lane headed for Ringsend. But as there was no traffic between us at that moment all I had to do was pull up by the kerb, give him a holler, offer up my best wishes and be on my way.

'I see you got your Dublin Bike in the end,' I shouted over to him and beamed a big smile of congratulations as I waited for his light bulb to switch on and for his thumb to go up. But he wasn't as good on faces, or indeed on situations, as me. Useless in fact and by way of a reply he merely turned his head towards me, scrunched up his face and gawked over at me either in bewilderment or as though I'd just asked him out on a date. Whatever it was, all he said in reply was: paal-don?

So I tried to explain the story to him, about the bikes and about having met him before, but as soon as I spoke, a number 77 bus passed between us and drowned out my words and blocked our lines of sight. Then as I tried to move my bike forward to see around the bus, the ongoing traffic cleared away and he was off on his journey into thin air - without as much as the waving of a hanky or the mouthing of a goodbye. So there he was once again, 'my by-kart friend who wasn't' with his Dublin bike that was, gone, and with them my best wishes crushed to pulp like grapes underfoot!

After that what could anyone do but opt for the vol-au-vents?

The famous Dublin ByKart!