LUDIC LOG

"Evenin', Palladius!"

"Evenin', Kevin."

"What can I get for ye this sunny day?"

"Wusky, my dear."

"The Bushmill, I assume?"

"No indeed. Give me the Glenlivet."

"Palladius! You don't say so."

"I just can't take it anymore, Kevin. Not another gory day of it. Look at them all, out there on the streets of the heavenly kingdom, drinking that green watery piss. It's a livid abomination."

"But surely. The Glenlivet?"

"Well, why not? What did the people of Ireland ever do for me? Packed away from Rome to convert those ridiculous Celts. Who was the first on the island, that bags of a show-off Patrick? No sir! It were me. Your man Palladius. I built three bloody churches in that dump of a bog Wicklow and what did I get for me troubles? Not one solitary disciple and then bang, off to Aberdeen (and did they know how to treat a man of the cloth with respect? the hell they did, but at least the food was good and they weren't about to kick me in me pants for trying to do a good deed). Two years later, that Syrian missionary-come-lately Succat strides into town and scoops up all the glory."

"Sure and you're not one to hold grudges, man."

"I can't help it, Kevin! You know he weren't even Irish."

"Well, nor are you, be fair."

"But he was Welsh. You know how them boys are."

"I still can't believe you'd forsake the drop, though. They make a fine tipple and no mistake. I can see how ye'd not celebrate the holiday..."

"Holiday hell! They can kiss me saintly arse."

"...but there's no point in being a poor sport about it."

"Poor sport! Poor sport! His whole act, ye know...here's my question: how is it done? The man's a fraud from cap to toe, you know that, don't you? That whole hogwash about the snakes."

"Oh aye. Don't get me started on that. Patrick cudgels a lot of them blue-pointed savages senseless and they change it in the book to snakes so they can make him the hero. But I toss one blonde baggage off a cliff for tryin' to tempt me, and a bunch of troublemakin' revisionists are calling me the patron saint of domestic violence."

"You know he's the patron saint of Nigeria, too, ye know."

"No! Why's that then?"

"He invented the e-mail scam!"

"Ye're a bitter man, Palladius."

"I can't help it, Kevin. I hate to see a man rise to high station on the strength of some trumped-up miracles. You and I, we earned our canonization."

"Oh, I've had me share of talking up by the auld official biographers."

"Ye don't say it."

"I do. I didn't live to be a hundred and twanny. I was sixty if I was a day. Bloody intestinal parasites."

"Aye, they were a dark cloud even in the good times."

"And I didn't have an otter who caught salmon for me."

"No?"

"No indeed. What I did was, I ate salmon and otters."

"Aw, no one's blamin' ye, man. I suppose that story about the bird egg was a lot of smoke as well."

"No, as it happens, that one is true."

"Not really!"

"As I live and breathe. Well, as I used to live and breathe, anyway."

"So a blackbird laid an egg in your hand and you just stood there not moving until it hatched?"

"Yes."

"But...but why, man?"

"Well, it was the fifth century, Palladius. There wasn't much to do."

"There's truth in that and no mistake. How about that Glenlivet?"

"I do believe I'll join you."