Fluck

That's a phonetic spelling of the Irish word fliuch, meaning wet; which it was on Sunday, dripping wet, flucking soaking, a ceaseless bead curtain rattling through the leaves and onto my wide-brimmed leather hat (a present from Oz). I needed it that day, absorbed as I was in the textures and light of a half-flooded road in Ballsbridge. The road was near the American Embassy. As I drove home I noticed the inevitable camera, cocked on its pole not 30 yards from where I had been awkwardly creeping around (trying to keep the camera dry), kneeling, bending and shooting. No doubt my licence plate was duly recorded. How easy is it then? A simple phone call, a few, witheringly efficient taps on a laptop, and my life is a newspaper: black and white and read all over.

Nah, I'm not particularly paranoid. But just in case, here's a message for you guys, if you're reading this: I'm just a sometime writer and camera-nut, as one of Beckett's characters (Murphy?) declared, "A hundred percent harmless!"