In the early 90s, my brother opened a sandwich shop in St. Stephen’s Green, Bendini and Shaw. We were looking for a manager, and an Aussie guy, BB, presented himself for interview. A skinny little bugger he was, and I remember thinking that he was an excellent candidate, unlikely as he was to be pinching many of the sandwiches. But that wasn’t the reason he got the job. What impressed us was that when climbing the stairs to the interview room he took them two at a time. In my experience, there's a direct correlation between physical speed and mental agility. If you walk fast, you tend to think fast. Exactly what we were looking for.
Alas, despite BB’s Aussie magnificence and the immense popularity of the place, with queues around the block every lunchtime, mounting debts forced us to sell out to Insomnia. Our sunny Australian quickly transitioned from sandwich shop manager to legal clerk and came to work in my legal services firm. A fellow of more pleasing disposition you could not meet, and though he drank his own weight in Guinness at the weekend, he was always at work bright and early on a Monday morning cheerfully singing the chorus to 'Tie me kangaroo down'. An all-round good egg whose ability to turn his hand to anything, earned him the nickname 'the man who can'. Some years later I went into partnership with him in a vacation rental business I started in Amsterdam. There’s just something about those downunderers. It’s as if they carry the sunshine with them....Or do they?
At around the same time, my then-boyfriend and I became acquainted with two Aussie girls, Josie and Kim, who were working as baristas in a coffee shop that had opened close to our office. Dublin was a real backwater in the early 90s. In the few cafes we had, the coffee was a sad affair: drip coffee American style, served from a pot that might be on the hotplate for an hour, add your milk or not. Thus, a coffee shop selling such exotic treats as Lattes, cappuccinos, and mochas staffed by two beaming Australians, was something to be cherished.
@ablaze, who has something of a lighthouse fetish.
We hung out there quite a bit and became firm friends with the girls, or so I thought. Long story short, I had to go to see my mother in Bristol at short notice, and upon my return, I was met by a jubilant Kim with the news that Josie had slept with my boyfriend while I was away.
Never trust an Irish man with a Sheila, and vice versa!
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To incriminate the guilty, names have not been changed.
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