Bejeezus

Were you thinking of going out tonight?

Don’t bother.

It’s that day of the year when Brits adopt somebody else’s culture and all in the name of getting hammered.

Who was St. Patrick anyway?

He apparently drove the snakes out of Ireland, a full fifteen centuries before the car was even invented. He did this without wearing a massive green foam hat, drinking eighteen pints of Guinness or listening to what my mother calls “diddly-diddly music”.

He also invented the potato.

It is of course St. Patrick’s Day every day thanks to this country’s billions of Irish-themed bars. Painting the walls green, nailing an old bike to the wall and wishing customers “top o’ the morning” – regardless of the time of day – is seemingly all that’s required to create a genuine Irish feeling. Make sure there’s some penny whistle stuff on the jukebox too, for added authenticity.

All day today you will hear people talking about “the craic”, despite nobody in the world actually knowing what it means.

If you do go to the pub, just hope that nobody decides to emulate some of Ireland’s less-friendly antics and don a balaclava whilst blowing the place up.

The rest of the world also enjoy celebrating it. The fifty percent of Americans who don’t claim to be Italian are Irish and they’ll be eating Guinness-flavoured apple pie and pretzels until the small hours.

The Australian prime minister has recently been accused of patronising the Irish in a speech where he made them out to be a nation of drunkards. This from a man who is the leader of a nation of convicts. He wore a green tie when he said it, so it’s ok. Remember that Guinness comes out of the tap the wrong way in the Southern Hemisphere.

I wonder if the Irish get their own back on us with their own St. George’s Day celebrations? They could wear morris dancing outfits, down pints of tea and greet each other using faux Hugh Grant voices before embarking on a spree of binge-drinking and xenophobia.