MY FATHER NEVER REALLY GAVE OUT MUCH ADVICE to me when I was a boy, but his occasional dry quips about events and my capacity to deal with them have stuck in my mind as if set in stone. When he was entrusted to teaching me how to lace my shoes, he showed me his already laced shoes, gave me my shoes and told me to “work it out”. I was four. I remember asking him what ill results would befall if I didn’t learn this skill, and his response was; “Nothing. People will just go about saying that David can’t tie his laces.” I was distraught at this thought, and immediately set about the task.
HE ALSO TOLD ME, THIS BEING IN LIVERPOOL, never to go into Chinatown late at night with any money in my pocket, never to kill any animal for sport or amusement, never to make fun of anyone afflicted with an illness or deficiency, never, ever, to raise my hand against a woman, never to swear in front of my mother or any domestic servants, never to judge people on the basis of the colour of their skin, never to let success be my God and never, under any circumstances, to lend money to an Irishman. “Always give them the money”, he used to say. "Everyone feels better and the result is the same in the end."
MOST OF THESE TEACHINGS MADE PERFECT SENSE to me as I was a young man, although it is only now that the last of them is starting to ring true, and, happily, it does not involve me. Due to an anomaly of legislation, while I may be resident in Britain at the moment I do not pay taxes there; thus, unlike the rest of the population of the UK – each of whom will be “lending” the Irish seven hundred pounds in 2010 – I will not have to contribute towards the Irish crash.
NO IRISHMAN OWES ME MONEY, but, unfortunately, as I have lived in Portugal for a large number of years, the same cannot be stated of the Portuguese. Several people have asked me for some money in the past, and no one has made any attempt at paying it back. On the one occasion when I accosted the miscreant who was in debt to me he stated (I translate), “If you lent me the money it is because you have money”, meaning, I imagine, that it is the duty of those who have money to give it to the snotty unwashed who do not have any. Ireland has now been forced to admit its shame; if Portugal, Spain and Italy have to follow suit one wonders what will happen to the Euro project. Why shouldn’t we just make all of these people unemployed, give them all a guaranteed minimum wage of 400 Euros per month (which is more than most of them earn anyway) and just leave Britain, Germany, Finland, Sweden, Holland and Denmark to work? Isn’t this more or less what happens now?
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