We are delighted to present the latest in a new series of Courtenay’s Columns, exclusive to Radiowaves.fm. Almost twenty years since the very first article, Pat is back with more musings, ponderings (and any other synonyms you can think of) along with memories from his radio past.
Pat currently presents ‘Afternoon Drive’ on Dublin’s Radio Nova, having returned to our shores in 2010.
In this article, as the Qatar 2022 World Cup continues, Pat brings us more memories from Italia 90 with 98FM…
Adventures in Italian (sort of)
CAUTION: Breakfast Radio may be injurious to your health if undertaken over prolonged periods. It’s not just the inhumanly early wake-ups and depressingly short Sundays. It’s not just the over-consumption of coffee, nor the committed Breakfast jock’s close acquaintance with breakfast rolls or left-over pizza as post-show prep fuel. One of the biggest threats to the health (and to the wallet), is the ready availability of lunch. OK, often there’s loads of work stuff to do so the day’s all used up by the time you’re done; but when there’s not (and the weather’s no good for golf), lunch! With wine!
On the Italia 90 OB in Sardinia for our England encounter I was constantly frustrated in my attempts to have lunch. Prep for next morning would usually eat well into the afternoon, meaning I couldn’t…eat well into the afternoon. Back then, Italy really didn’t do late lunch. You had lunch at lunchtime. After about 2:00pm there was little hope.
Also, things could go wrong, like the day an important cassette tape actually snapped. “We didn’t bring splicing tape? Are you serious? Where am I going to find splicing tape in Cagliari?” How, in pre-Google days we managed it I have no idea but I found myself in a taxi winding through near-vertical back streets to a home studio with Mamma cooking downstairs and two lads without a word of English but a ready supply of splicing tape. Job done, couple of cold beers and a few “Forza Irlandas” later, back to the hotel, lunchless once more.
It was now a grim obsession. There we were in one of the most interesting places in the world for food and I had to settle for crap. The good stuff was always just out of reach.
The next day, I was determined. Managing to co-ordinate Our Man Aidan Cooney, Peter “MacGyver” Gibney and Elaine Geraghty, we headed out. I was adamant it had to be somewhere full of real locals – which was why we ended up in a small, crappy-looking, fluorescent-lit backstreet bar with Formica tables, a football match on a telly bolted to the wall, and workmen. The plastic-coated menus hadn’t a hint of explanation in English as to what anything was. The only course of action was to zero in on an Italian word you recognised, point and smile.
Not me.
The better for a glass or two of the house red, I was completely engrossed in attempting conversation with the regulars. They were chatting away with me, smiling and laughing, while I was inwardly delighted at how well I was coping with a language I really knew nothing about.
Unbeknown to me, while I’d gone to “use the facilities”, the other three had discovered that the locals spoke quite good English, so they’d connived to make me think they didn’t. When I came back, everybody was in on it, the regulars were saying apparently outrageous things to me, cracking up laughing while my lot struggled to contain their mirth. The tall, grey-haired, businesslike owner came to take orders. The others sensibly pointed while I struggled with a word I’d never seen before. Obviously, you want to know what things are before you eat them. Three, four, five attempts to explain to the foreigner (to the delight of the audience) and the boss got fed up, threw his order book loudly on the table, put his two hands up above his head and went, “Eeee aaaw!”
So I had the asino.
A bit tough but tasty enough.
Next time, go directly to jail.
© Pat Courtenay/Radiowaves.fm.
First published November 27th 2022
