SQUINTER’S still on the wagon, you may or may not be surprised to hear, which means that when the weather turns nice and it’s everybody out into the garden, it’s still a zero-alcohol beer instead of full-fat.
Sunday and Squinter opens the fridge and helps himself to an ice-cold Corona Zero, or rather Corona Cero, which is what the Spanish label says.
He picks the magnet bottle opener from the side of the fridge and with a hiss and a ‘pffft’ the bottle top falls on to the kitchen worktop. And simultaneously a waft of released gas and air delivers into Squinter’s nostrils the heady scent of… weed.
You might call it grass, or pot, Daddy-oh. Maybe you call it ganja or herb or dope. But whatever name we prefer for herbal cannabis we are here in Belfast – as in cities all over the world – used to the same familiar scent.
Squinter had often remarked to himself in the past that bottled beer, when opened, emitted a very distinct, sweetly strange, non-beery smell, but none of the zero gear that Squinter’s tried so far has had such an immediately identifiable pong as the popular American brand Corona. Quite simply, it smells like marijuana in liquid form. Or at least for a few seconds anyway.
Professor Google agrees with Squinter. And he goes on to point out a very understandable reason for the scented similarities and the reason is that the hops used to make beer is a botanical cousin of marijuana, or hemp. They share certain terpenes, ie naturally occurring chemical compounds. But thankfully – or perhaps some might sadly – the terpenes in hops share only an odour with weed and not its psychoactive kick.
Amazing the things you pick up while walking – and Squinter walks a lot. Over the past five years or so Squinter on his evening post-work rambles has noticed that the clingly, sickly smell of grass has become much more common on the highways and byways of Belfast. And he’s noticed that North Belfast is the weed capital of the city. You won’t walk far along the Crumlin Road or Antrim Road or through Ardoyne, upper or lower, before being hit with a waft of old wacky tabacky.
Or at least, Squinter has up to now thought that’s what the smell was. Maybe he’s wrong. Maybe they’re just inordinately fond of Corona Cero on the other side of the West Circular.
Cheers!
Man.
Dodgy days
AS Sir Jeffrey Donaldson prepares to face a lengthy spell in prison after being found guilty of 18 sex abuse charges, including rape. against two minors, we sat down with a veteran DUP figure to talk about what kind of man his former boss really was...
Did this verdict come as a surprise to you?
Not at all. I always knew there was something deeply dodgy about him.
Did you tell anyone of your deeply dodgy worries?
No, I kept them to myself, but I always kept my distance from him.
Is that why you went to America with him four times, European capitals eight times, the Caribbean three times, Israel twice and an African safari once?
Fact-finding trips only. Purely business. And I never brought the kids.
Did you watch any hotel ‘premium movies’ with him?
I can’t really remember, but if I did I always made sure to sit on the other bed.
What was it about him that sparked the deeply dodgy fears that you’ve only mentioned now the guilty verdict is in?
Just the way he conducted himself. He kept his personal life very private and wouldn’t share any family information like the rest of us did. We’d all be talking on Monday mornings about the fun we’d had at the weekends and he’d just listen with that weird little smile of his that always gave everybody around him the willies.
But haven’t your variously described him as “a real people person”, “fun-time Jeff” and “the ultimate communicator?
Me?
Yes. Says here. Look.
Let me take a photo of that and I’ll get back to you.
When did you first have an idea that Jeffrey Donaldson had a sexual interest in minors?
Same time as everybody else.
So the first you knew was the day he got arrested?
Sort of.
Sort of?
Come on, we’re all men of the world. You’re always suspicious of anybody who wears that wee lapel fish, aren’t you?
Are you?
Hell, yeah. Huge red flag.
Did you tell anybody about your suspicions?
When you say anybody else…
Colleagues, the police?
No, no. I just kept it to myself. And for Saturdays down the golf club of course.
Has the party done a debrief on the Donaldson thing yet?
A what?
A debrief. A look into what was known, what wasn’t known. Who knew what and when? That kind of thing.
Why on Earth would we do that?
Well, some very difficult questions are going to be asked now that the verdict’s in.
They are?
You bet your boots they are. In fact, they’ve already started.
Sorry, can we do this another time? There’s somewhere I have to be and people I have to see.
