Sergeant Pluck on the Theory of Atomics

"Did you ever study atomics when you were a lad?" asked the sergeant giving me a look of inquiry and surprise


"No" I answered


" That is a very serious defalcation" he said, "but all the same I will tell you the size of it. Everything is composed of small particles and they are flying around in concentric circles and arcs and segments and innumerable other geometrical figures too numerous to mention collectively, never standing still or resting but spinning away and darting hither and thither and back again, all the time on the go. These diminutive gentlemen are called atoms....

"They are lively as twenty leprechauns doing a jig on top of a tombstone.....

"Atomics is a very intricate theorem and can be worked out with algebra but you would want to take it by degrees because you might spend the whole night proving a bit of it with rulers and cosines and similar other instruments and then at the wind-up not believe what you have proved at all ...


"Consecutively and consequentially you can safely infer that you are made of atoms yourself and so is your fob pocket and the tail of your shirt and the instrument you use for taking the leavings out of the crook of your hollow tooth. Do you know what takes place when you strike a bar of iron with a good coal hammer or with a blunt instrument...

" Ask a blacksmith fr the true answer and he will tell you that the bar will dissipate itself away by degrees if you persevere with the hard wallops. Some of the atoms of the bar will go into the hammer and the half into the table or the stone or the particular article that is underneath the bottom of the bar...


"The gross and net result of it is that people who spend most of their natural lives riding iron bicycles over rocky roadsteads of this parish get their personalities mixed up with the personalities of their bicycle as a result of the interchanging of the atoms of each of them and you would be surprised at the number of people in these parts who are nearly half people and half bicycles...

Sergeant Pluck's Atomic Theory rates as one of my favourite literary creations. I thought it was high time I shared it with both of my readers in the hope of getting them on to buy the Third Policeman. They won't be sorry!

More to follow

You Tube Vids inspired by the Third Policeman

Photo Hunt - books

Book Spines

Book cover

The theme for this week's Photo Hunt is books.

The second photo is the cover of the Folio edition of my favourite novel - the Third Policeman by Flann O'Brien.

Why the Poor Mouth?

Siting at the computer for any length of time is very uncomfortable so I am not overly keen to put together anything but short posts at present. Not being in the mood even for a short post I thought I would repost a couple of posts from over two years ago which explain why I call the blog the Poor Mouth and why I call myself Jams O Donnell:

The header above the title of this blog comes from a Gaelic expression An Beal Bocht or the poor mouth. To put on "poor mouth" means that you are exaggerating the direness of your situation in order to gain time or favour from creditors. It can also simply mean grumbling.

But why choose such an expression? I did so because I love the expression but also as a tribute to one of my favourite authors the late, great Irish novelist/humorist/civil servant, Flann O Brien. (Aka Brian O Nolan, aka Myles na gCopaleen).

Flann O'Brien

The Poor Mouth was originally published as An Beal Bocht in 1941, the only one of his novels to be written in Gaelic. It only appeared in English translation for the first time in 1973 – seven years after his death. I would have called the blog An Beal Bocht but someone had beaten me to that name


The Poor Mouth is set in the fictional village of Corkadoragha, a place which knows suffering an poverty in spades, It is a place were the torrential rains are more torrential, the squalor more squalid, the hopelessness more utterly hopeless than they are anywhere else in Ireland.

It is the story of Bonaparte O'Coonassa who, like the other characters spends the bulk of his time lamenting the fate of the Gaels whose lot it is to live a hard, miserable life. But it is certainly not a miserable book. It is very readable and very, very funny!

The Dalkey Archive Press edition of the Poor Mouth

It is a wonderful tale in which you learn about being a child of the ashes, Ambrose a pig the size of a house, Sitric O Sanassa (the excellence of his poverty was without comparison in all of Ireland) and the awful Sea Cat a harbinger of misfortune that looks uncannily like the island of Ireland. You also discover the origin of the name Jams O’ Donnell and why when an Irish person says calls you sir they could be insulting you!

O’Brien actually wrote the Poor Mouth as a parody of Irish literature such as Tomás O’Criomhthainn, whose work dwelt very much on the hardship of Gaelic life. In addition it was intended as a swipe at the patronising attitude of “Irish Irelanders” towards rural Gaelic speakers –as evidenced in one glorious scene where Gaelic enthusiasts mistake the grunting of a pig for melodious Irish simply because they cannot understand it! Needless to say it caused a storm when it was published.

Even if you have never heard of Tomas O Criomhtnainn and couldn’t care less about the attitude urban Gaelic enthusiasts towards the residents of the Gaeltacht, the Poor Mouth is a wonderful read. I would stongly recommend you find a copy of the book as its likes will certainly never be there again!

Further Reading

Gaelically Gaelic by Eric Mader-Lin (From Necessary Prose)

Flann O’Brien: A Postmodernist When It Was Neither Profitable Nor Popular by Robert Looby (At the Scriptorium website)

The No Bicycle Page

A Pint of Plain

The famous poem by Myles na gCopaleen (aka Brian O'Nolan and of course Flann O'Brien) performed by Eamonn Morrisey. A belated birthday celebration of one of my favourite authors (5 October)

Alcohol: the Demon Drink or the Workman’s Friend?

As I have mentioned in previous posts I receive a daily helping of William Topaz McGonagall, courtesy of McGonagall Online. Today’s offering is a plea for temperance, written, of course in William Topaz’s inimitable (or should that be excruciating ?)

A NEW TEMPERANCE POEM, IN MEMORY OF MY DEPARTED PARENTS, WHO WERE SOBER LIVING & GOD FEARING PEOPLE

My parents were sober living, and often did pray
For their family to abstain from intoxicating drink alway;
Because they knew it would lead them astray
Which no God fearing man will dare to gainsay.

Some people do say that God made strong drink,
But he is not so cruel I think;
To lay a stumbling block in his children's way,
And then punish them for going astray.

No! God has more love for his children, than mere man.
To make strong drink their souls to damn;
His love is more boundless than mere man's by far,
And to say not it would be an unequal par.

A man that truly loves his family wont allow them to drink,
Because he knows seldom about God they will think,
Besides he knows it will destroy their intellect,
And cause them to hold their parents in disrespect.

Strong drink makes the people commit all sorts of evil,
And must have been made by the Devil
For to make them quarrel, murder, steal, and fight,
And prevent them from doing what is right.

The Devil delights in leading the people astray,
So that he may fill his kingdom with them without delay;
It is the greatest pleasure he can really find,
To be the enemy of all mankind.

The Devil delights in breeding family strife,
Especially betwixt man and wife;
And if the husband comes home drunk at night,
He laughs and crys, ha! ha! what a beautiful sight.

And if the husband asks his supper when he comes in,
The poor wife must instantly find it for him;
And if she cannot find it, he will curse and frown,
And very likely knock his loving wife down.

Then the children will scream aloud,
And the Devil no doubt will feel very proud,
If he can get the children to leave their own fireside,
And to tell their drunken father, they won't with him reside.

Strong drink will cause the gambler to rob and kill his brother,
Aye! also his father and his mother,
All for the sake of getting money to gamble,
Likewise to drink, cheat, and wrangle.

And when the burglar wants to do his work very handy,
He plies himself with a glass of Whisky, Rum, or Brandy,
To give himself courage to rob and kill,
And innocent people's blood to spill.

Whereas if he couldn't get Whisky, Rum, or Brandy,
He wouldn't do his work so handy;
Therefore, in that respect let strong drink be abolished in time,
And that will cause a great decrease in crime.

Therefore, for this sufficient reason remove it from society,
For seldom burglary is committed in a state of sobriety;
And I earnestly entreat ye all to join with heart and hand,
And to help to chase away the Demon drink from bonnie Scotland.

I beseech ye all to kneel down and pray,
And implore God to take it away;
Then this world would be a heaven, whereas it is a hell,
And the people would have more peace in it to dwell.

William Topaz is firmly in the temperance camp. However, the great Flann O’Brian takes a contrary view about alcohol. In his view it is truly the workman’s friend:

The Workman’s Friend

When things go wrong and will not come right,
Though you do the best you can,
When life looks black as the hour of night -
A PINT OF PLAIN IS YOUR ONLY MAN.

When money's tight and hard to get
And your horse has also ran,
When all you have is a heap of debt -
A PINT OF PLAIN IS YOUR ONLY MAN.

When health is bad and your heart feels strange,
And your face is pale and wan,
When doctors say you need a change,
A PINT OF PLAIN IS YOUR ONLY MAN.

When food is scarce and your larder bare
And no rashers grease your pan,
When hunger grows as your meals are rare -
A PINT OF PLAIN IS YOUR ONLY MAN.

In time of trouble and lousey strife,
You have still got a darlint plan
You still can turn to a brighter life -
A PINT OF PLAIN IS YOUR ONLY MAN.

So there you have it. McGonagall sees alcohol as a demon, while Flann considers it to be the balm that soothes the ills of the working man. To be honest I must go with Flann on this issue but only in moderation of course. Sadly O’Brian did not treat a pint (or 12) of plain as just a friend; it was also his lover and constant companion....

The Poor Mouth, Jams O’Donnell and my avatar

I’m not in the mood to post anything new this morning so I thought I’d just recycle a couple of posts from last year which explain why this blog is called the Poor Mouth and where the name Jams O’ Donnell comes from.

In my blog header I explain that the title of this blog comes from a Gaelic expression "putting on the poor mouth" (An Beal Bocht) which means to exaggerate the direness of one's situation in order to gain time or favour from creditors. It can also simply mean grumbling. I I love the expression but the blog title is intended as a tribute to one of my favourite authors the late, great Irish novelist/humorist/civil servant, Flann O Brien. (Aka Brian O Nolan, aka Myles na gCopaleen).

The Poor Mouth was originally published in Gaelic as An Beal Bocht in 1941 and only appeared in English translation for the first time in 1973 – seven years after his death. (I would have called the blog An Beal Bocht but someone had beaten me to that name). The |Poor Mouth is set in the fictional village of Corkadoragha, a place which knows suffering an poverty in spades, It is a place were the torrential rains are more torrential, the squalor more squalid, the hopelessness more utterly hopeless than they are anywhere else in Ireland. It is the story of Bonaparte O'Coonassa who, like the other characters spends the bulk of his time lamenting the fate of the Gaels whose lot it is to live a hard, miserable life. But it is certainly not a miserable book. It is very readable and very, very funny!

The Poor Mouth is a wonderful tale in which you learn about being a child of the ashes, Ambrose a pig the size of a house, Sitric O Sanassa (the excellence of his poverty was without comparison in all of Ireland) and the awful Sea Cat a harbinger of misfortune that looks uncannily like the island of Ireland. You also discover that when an Irish person says calls you sir they could be insulting you ( “sor” is the Gaelic for louse)

O’Brien actually wrote the Poor Mouth as a parody of Irish literature such as Tomás O’Criomhthainn, whose work dwelt very much on the hardship of Gaelic life. In addition it was intended as a swipe at the patronising attitude of “Irish Irelanders” towards rural Gaelic speakers –as evidenced in one glorious scene where Gaelic enthusiasts mistake the grunting of a pig for melodious Irish simply because they cannot understand it! Needless to say it caused a storm when it was published. It does not matter if you have never heard of Tomas O Criomhtnainn and couldn’t care less about the attitude urban Gaelic enthusiasts towards the residents of the Gaeltacht, the Poor Mouth is a wonderful read. I would strongly recommend you find a copy of the book as its likes will certainly never be there again!

So why Jams O’Donnell? The name comes from an episode in The Poor Mouth when Bonaparte O’ Coonassa’s attends school for the first time:

“We all gathered in the schoolhouse. We all sat on benches, without a word or a sound for fear of the master. He cast his venomous eyes ever the room and they alighted on me where they stopped. By jove! I did not find his look pleasant while these two eyes were sifting me. After a while he directed a long yellow finger at me and said: “Phwat is yer nam?”

“I did not understand what he said nor any other type of speech which is practised in foreign parts because I had only Gaelic as a mode of expression and as a protection against the difficulties of life. I could only stare at him, dumb with fear. I then saw a great fit of rage come over him and gradually increase exactly like a rain-cloud. I looked around timidly at the other boys. I heard a whisper at my back: Your name he wants!

“My heart leaped with joy at this assistance and I was grateful to him who prompted me. I looked politely at the master and replied to him: Bonaparte, son of Michelangelo, son of Peter, son of Owen, son of Thomas's Sarah, grand-daughter of John's Mary, grand-daughter of James, son of Dermot…

“Before I had uttered or half-uttered my name, a rabid bark issued from the master and he beckoned to me with his finger. By the time I had reached him, he had an oar in his grasp. Anger had come over him in a flood-tide at this stage and he had a businesslike grip of the oar in his two hands. He drew it over his shoulder and brought it down hard upon me with a swish of air, dealing me a destructive blow on the skull. I fainted from that blow but before I became totally unconscious I heard him scream:

Yer nam, said he, is Jams O'Donnell!

So there you have it. I hope you sleep easier with this knowledge in your head. It’s like will never be there again….

While I’m at it my avatar is of course not me. It is a photo of the late, great Robert Newton Calvert. The image is from around 1976 when he was lead singer in Hawkwind. Robert recorded several albums with Hawkwind, first appearing as a poet on the Space Ritual. He appeared on an off until the late seventies when his increasingly eccentric behaviour became a liability. He also recorded several solo albums, the most famous being his concept album about the Lockheed F-104G Captain Lockheed and the Starfighters, several plays and poetry collections and a novel called Hype. He died of a heart attack in 1988 aged 43. I never saw him with Hawkwind but I was fortunate enough to see him perform live a couple of times not long before his death.

Further Reading on Flann O’Brien

Gaelically Gaelic by Eric Mader-Lin (From Necessary Prose)

Flann O’Brien: A Postmodernist When It Was Neither Profitable Nor Popular by Robert Looby (At the Scriptorium website)

The No Bicycle Page

Further information on Robert Calvert

Spirit of the Page, an extensive site devoted to all things Calvert.

If you would like to hear Calvert live the Steve Pond’s Inner City Unit website has his 1986 Carlisle concert available as a free download. It is well worth checking out