M is for… Mole and McBride – aka. The Biters, howling at the moon on Place Your Bets.
Where do I start with these pair? Its a brief foray into the arena of the outlandish, really.
McBride is a truly remarkable wordsmith. His academic works, published under the pseudonym Dr. Edward Sweetowers, have received critical acclaim in various journals of English Literature, as well as being lauded in educational establishments around the world. I was fortunate enough to have an article written about some of the lyrics on the album as part of some impenetrable study into surrealist imagery in contemporary music. If there are no copyright issues I might try and get it up on this site… although its unlikely that anyone with less than a PhD in English Lit. will be able to make head nor tail of it.
Suffice it to say that he is a great man to have a drink with. Almost invariably he will come out with an eminently quotable remark or phrase, and it is up to the individual to make use of what he gets, as chances are it will never be repeated.
Mole is no different in the ‘quotablility’ stakes. He is well known for his invention of new words and phrases. Words such as Teeky Waff (a dubious haircut) have passed into common dialect in my old home town in Northern Ireland. People now sixteen years old use these words and have no idea where they came from. Mole is now a professional golfer living in Dublin, though rumour has it he is moving to Turkey.
I used to collect things on my little dictating machine, as discussed in previous entries. One particular night I brought it with me when I was out on a Guinness mission with Mole and McBride, knowing the chat would become unusual at some point in the evening. Surely enough, as the advertisments for Guinness itself predicted, all I had to do was wait.
The discussion:
MOLE: “How many roads must a man walk down before you call him a man? Fifty?”
McBRIDE: That all depends on what your definition of a man is…”
MOLE: “Fifty.”
McBRIDE: “…and that varies as much as varies the hairs on a pheasants back.”
May I refer you to the 29th of June entry or to the ‘Happytown Remix Engine’ to hear ‘The Biters’ in the flesh. They are also to be heard in ‘Place Your Bets’, when, at the end of the evening, completely sozzled, were recorded chanting on the way home, just at the top of High Street where the no-man’s-land of Hamilton Road meets the High Donaghadee Road, precisely one kebab from home.