‘Tis Lent
When Alfie Byrne, Lord Mayor of Dublin, met Mae West in Hollywood, she is supposed to have said, come up and see me sometime.
Alfie, always the gentleman, declined her offer by saying he couldn’t because ‘was Lent. Not one to be daunted, Mae just looked at him and purred, well when you get it back, come up and see me sometime.
Such is the urban folklore in Dublin. And maybe it was true but Lent is usually the time for giving up stuff and I am going to attempt to give up drink for forty days and forty nights. Well that’s not quite true because St Patrick’s day fall in between much to the rescue of Irish all over the world. That day we feel free to break out in honour of our patron saint of course, no other reason.
Now I wish well to all to the people of New Orleans, good to hear you are keeping your spirits up and your city alive. I hope to get there some day soon. Until I do, I am going to have a big old Pina Colada, party on down with John Kelly on the radio and leave you all with one more silly joke about Lent in Ireland.
I suppose it’s knda sad where you comment on yourself, but if anyone out there is interested..there are actually 46 or 45 days in Lent.
It came up in conversation today and I never knew, just thought it was a long time. It seems that it’s 40 days and Sundays are extra. Never knew and so did lots others, that’s lasped chatolics for ya.
They also talk of flexi-lent. That is people who say are going on holidays during lent and start a week earlier. One guy was saying how he has factored the 40 days, around the rugby games and leving sundays in. Flexilent, could it catch on?