Happy Full Moon

Today is not any old Christmas day.

Not since 1977 has a full moon dawned in the skies at Christmas. But this year a bright full moon will see in Christmas day 2015 - the Werewolves will be out wearing their Christmas jumpers!

Talking of Werewolves it’s also Shane MacGowan’s birthday (born 25th December 1957) and Santa has only gone and brought him a set of new nashers.

 
He was once dubbed as “the thinking man’s Liberace” by Radio 1 DJ Gary Davies, a bit over the top I think, but he did write some great lyrics and among my favourites is this:

It was Christmas Eve babe
In the drunk tank
An old man said to me, won't see another one
And then he sang a song
The Rare Old Mountain Dew
I turned my face away
And dreamed about you

Got on a lucky one
Came in eighteen to one
I've got a feeling
This year's for me and you
So happy Christmas
I love you baby
I can see a better time
When all our dreams come true

They've got cars big as bars
They've got rivers of gold
But the wind goes right through you
It's no place for the old
When you first took my hand
On a cold Christmas Eve
You promised me
Broadway was waiting for me

You were handsome

You were pretty

Queen of New York City

When the band finished playing

They howled out for more

Sinatra was swinging, 

All the drunks they were singing

We kissed on a corner

Then danced through the night

The boys of the NYPD choir

Were singing "Galway Bay"

And the bells were ringing out

For Christmas day

"Fairytale of New York" started life as a bet - Pogues producer Elvis Costello bet Shane MacGowan and co-writer Jem Finer, the band’s banjoist, that they couldn’t come up with a Christmas record that wasn’t slushy.

The song was originally written as a duet between Shane MacGowan and Pogues bassist Cait O'Riordan. However, O'Riordan married Costello and left the band in 1986, before the song was recorded. Costello was replaced as producer by Steve Lillywhite, who asked his wife, Kirsty MacColl, to record test vocals to help the band hear how the duet could work. They were so astounded by her performance she got the job. Before hearing MacColl, MacGowan had suggested Pretenders frontwoman Chrissie Hynde as a possible partner for the duet.

It was first recorded in 1987 and kept out of the number 1 slot by the Pet Shop Boys’ “Always on my Mind” or according to MacGowan, "by two queens and a drum machine"!

Ella Finer, daughter of co-writer Jem Finer, now often sings Kirsty’s parts at live concerts.

In celebration of these trivial facts here is the countries favourite Christmas song which has been in the top 20 every year since it's re-release in 2005, (look out for Matt Dillon as the NYPD patrolman who arrests the intoxicated MacGowan):

MERRY CHRISTMAS AND A HAPPY FULL MOON!

Hey Ho!

RIP "Iron Man" Murphy

Mick Murphy, one of Ireland’s most colourful sportsmen, has died aged 81.

Over his 80-plus years, the eccentric Kerry man was a cyclist, wrestler, boxer, runner, farmer, circus performer, fire eater, ventriloquist and bricklayer.

He lived in a simple home on his parents farm outside Cahersiveen, without electricity or running water, corrugated iron sheeting as windows and door and with few modern conveniences. He joked that he modelled it on a 'chicken shack'.

This basic lifestyle mirrored his race preparations, which included sleeping in hay barns, eating raw meat and even drinking cow’s blood. He trained using homemade stone weights in his self made gymnasium.

Murphy was known as ‘the Iron Man’ following his epic 1958 win in the Rás Tailteann cycling stage race. Taking up cycling full-time only six months before the 1958 Rás, Murphy, who was raised on a small farm at Sugrena near Cahersiveen, defeated far more experienced athletes in the race. Moreover, he continued to ride despite breaking his collarbone on one of the stages, in Co Kerry, having to be strapped to his bicycle to continue the next day.

He said he learned about drinking cow’s blood from the Masai warriors of East Africa, a ritual also practiced by Russian weightlifters.

Murphy pared down a knife into a sharp point and would pierce the animal in the thigh and drain a glassful of blood, which he believed gave him strength.

“Attack is the best defence. Attack after attack. I was a different breed. I used to attack and go away from the bunch. I have no doubt about it, I was the greatest solo rider in Ireland because I surged, I surged, I surged,” he said.

“We were known as the riff-raff of the road. The convicts of the road.”

 

His 1958 win in the Ras Tailteann, which at the time was one of Ireland’s leading sporting events, is the stuff of legend.

He came from nowhere to take honours having only taken up cycling six months before.

It was reported that he would ride up to 40 miles on his bike after a stage just to cool down and to find a field of cows so he could build back his strength with a cup of their blood.

Also during the ’58 race, mechanical failure forced him to abandon his bike on a stage to Clonakilty in Cork and so as not to lose time he stole a bike from a shocked local farmer herding his cows. The old boneshaker had no gears and was too heavy, but Murphy buried himself to ensure that he didn’t lose much time on the leaders and this kept him in overall contention.

Following the race he was arrested for the theft of the bike but was later released, without charge, following his overnight rise to fame and national hero.

After his third Rás in 1960 he never cycled competitively again. 

Earlier in his life he was left deaf in his right ear following a punch from a heavyweight in the boxing ring. Murphy was a far smaller welterweight.

His first sporting pursuit was wrestling and during an early stint in London he was a leading fighter on the English circuit.

He left school early in order to work and help his family, but his mother taught him to read and he devoured books all his days.

From 1972 until 1980, Murphy worked on building sites in Germany, where he returned after re-unification in 1990 to work in the country’s east.

As late as 1998 he was performing circus tricks such as sword swallowing, balancing ladders on his chin, fire-eating and walking on his hands, in London’s Covent Garden.

However, a work place fall off scaffolding whilst bricklaying the same year resulted in broken ribs and a collapsed lung.

This lead to his decision to return home to South Kerry following decades on the road around Ireland, Britain and Germany.  

In his latter years Murphy, born in the early 30s, walked with the aid or two home-made sticks and he refused to draw the state pension.

In an article in the Kerryman earlier this year, well-known Kerry broadcaster and journalist Weesie Fogarty paid tribute to his friend.

"He has brought me in the mind's eye to far away places as he recounted his experiences working with circuses, farmers, on the bogs of Ireland on the motorways of Germany and of course his memorable exploits on the bike," wrote Fogarty.

"Yes, he is eccentric, yes he is a loner, yes he is different, yes he dresses unlike others but he is one of the most charismatic, fascinating, enthralling, and strictly honest men I have ever been privileged to know."

Listen to Mathew Bannister paying tribute to Mick Murphy on Radio 4's Last Word

In recent years the legend of the “Iron Man” was been celebrated in film and writing. There has been an RTÉ documentary, A Convict of the Road; a film made for the Killorglin Archive Society called The Marvels of Mick Murphy; a play based on his life by UK-based Irish writer and actor Roddy McDevitt.

RIP Mick Murphy, a truly remarkable man.