DUBLIN, IRELAND - FEARFUL BOASTERS: "Children are great boasters, because they feel tiny and insecure, because the great world towers above them; and anyone who grows up so completely that he grows out of boasting will have a lot of adjustments to make before he is fit for the Kingdom of Heaven."

Those words were written by John D. Sheridan more than fifty years ago. And I don't know about you, but I could do with taking another look at them. Because my attitude to those who boast is one of intolerance; intolerance without giving a thought to the fact that my prejudice might be contributing to the collapse of the only world that person has. By opting for the company of those modest self effacing people who don't boast, I'm only taking the easy option.

I am rejecting those who lack confidence and/or self-esteem and who need that little ego boost which boasting obviously gives them. Maybe I can excuse myself somewhat on the grounds that I grew up in an era when the majority agreed with Thomas Carlyle that "People ought to be modester", and in an area where anybody ranking below the schoolmaster who pronounced certain words properly or carried a fountain-pen was thought to be getting above their station.

I'm not suggesting that those few words are going to change your attitude to boasters, but they might do something for me. So the next time someone says to me "My son the engineer is coming home." or "I had terrible trouble parking my new four wheel drive outside the Shelbourne", even if I am still intolerant of them, wouldn't it be nice if I could give them an ear?

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MOODS OF A WOMAN :
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MOODS OF A WOMAN
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An angel of truth and a dream of fiction
A woman is a bundle of contradiction
She's afraid of a wasp, will scream at a mouse
But will tackle her boyfriend alone in the house

She'll take him for better, she'll take him for worse
She'll break open his head and then be his nurse
But when he's well and can get out of bed
She'll pick up the teapot and aim for his head

Beautiful and keenly sighted, yet blind
Crafty and cruel, yet simple and kind
She'll call him a king, then make him a clown
Raise him on a pedestal, then knock him flat down

She'll inspire him to deeds that ennoble man
Or make him her lackey to carry her fan
She'll run away from him and never come back
But if he runs away, then she'll be on his tracks

Sour as vinegar, sweet as a rose
She'll kiss you one minute, then turn up her nose
She'll win you in range, enchant you in silk
She'll be stronger than brandy, milder than milk
At times she'll be vengeful, merry and sad
She'll hate you like poison, and love you like mad

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MOODS OF A MAN
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Horny.

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MOONSTRUCK: Recently while listening to Peggy Sweeney singing "Oh The Pale Moon was rising ... "

If I were the moon I'd feel a bit peeved. OK, the rising of the moon is well documented. Poets revere it, artists immortalize it and it even seems to have played a significant role in Ireland's fight for freedom. What with shining on dying rebels and casting it's beams over shining pikes. And didn't Lady Gregory have plans to " ... all change places at the rising of the moon"? Once it rises majestically into the night sky we have numerous requests for it to "guide the traveler his way". " ... shine on the one I love" and many more. 

But when did you last hear a romantic ballad about "The Setting of the Moon"?

I'm after scanning a list of jigs, reels and hornpipes and I couldn't find one tune named after the aforementioned phenomena.

You can go through every housing estate in Ireland and you won't find a setting moon depicted in a wrought-iron gate. It is inspiring when "rising over Claddagh", Dancing on Monan's rill" or even hiding: "behind the hill". (Although the latter position can draw some criticism.)

(An old friend of mine ... ....was walking in Ballinastockan one dark night when he, involuntary, left the road and dropped a few feet into an unfenced field. On extricating himself from the briars, the, more printable extract of his comment was: " ... ....you'd be shinin' of a bright night".)

Why is there not one word of praise for the moon going down? Surely there is some form of moon-loving flora, which "turns to her God when she sets". Well if there is Thomas Moore mustn't have known about it. Coleridge was there as "The moving moon went up the sky", but he must have retired before it went down the same.

Why don't we see a beautiful Colleen with an Irish Wolfhound, at a round Tower backed by a beautiful moonset?

Have you ever felt compelled to write about the setting moon? I must say I haven't, because in all fairness I have to say I haven't ever seen a moon set. And come to think of it even my philosophical friend in West Wicklow, who was somewhat of a nocturnal rambler, didn't say he had ever witnessed the lunar setting. ( He did once claim that America was farther away than the moon; on the grounds that you can see the moon...)

So maybe the oppressor got the celestial bodies mixed up. Perhaps it was the MOON that didn't set on the Empire!