By Brendan O'Connor
Sunday May 11 2008

THURSDAY

SO, there's Salman Rushdie walking into the Merrion Hotel, and just as he's heading in the door, the Viking Splash Tours bus comes along and, just at that moment, the people on the back of the lorry do one of those threatening roars they encourage them to do.

I feel bad. Salman, presumably, isn't aware of Viking Splash Tours, and how is he supposed to know that the roar wasn't aimed at him, it was just a thing they do? Imagine if you were feeling in any way put upon by things, like really bad reviews for your new book, and then a large amphibious vehicle filled with people came along and roared at you. Still, at least they were only Vikings.

FRIDAY

THE wife has been doing a bit of celebrity-spotting of her own. She saw that guy, David Coleman, who presents 21st Century Child on RTE in the supermarket, or somewhere. Now, the thing is, without stating the obvious, you'd think the wife would know better, but she goes up to him to talk to him about the show. I stress, she doesn't know this man. He is apparently polite and chats away. It's a great old show and all, but like I say, you'd think she'd know to leave the man alone. "I hope you just told him he was great," I said. She said she did, which is OK. At least she wasn't drunk around Talbot Street in the middle of the day and didn't start haranguing him to listen to her sing and then call him a stuck-up w***er when he tried to get away, or anything.

TUESDAY

THE thing about Ryanair is that they expect all of us to be perfect. No human failure or excuse is allowed in Ryanair's world. Two minutes late for check-in? Tough luck. They don't care why. Any mistake in the way you booked your ticket? Tough luck. They're not interested in your sob story. The messy reality of human lives doesn't exist in Ryanair's world.

Which is all very well, until they lose the child's car seat in Malta and I apply the same logic back to them and suddenly it's all excuses and reasons why things didn't happen. Not only did they lose the seat, they then also promised us they would get it to us the following morning and they didn't. They also promised us they would ring us in the morning and they didn't do that either. Three layers of incompetence. They had all kinds of bullshit excuses for all this which is a bit rich coming from the people who aren't interested in anyone else's excuses.

I kind of felt sorry for some of the people who work for Ryanair though. Given how Ryanair treats human beings, I'm sure a lot of people do what I did and tend to be fairly strict back when it's Ryanair who cock up. I actually threatened to ring Liveline. I feel sorry for the company's head of customer services, Caroline Green, too. She clearly hasn't much power. Having told me twice on the phone that she would compensate me, she then had to send me a fax saying she wouldn't be doing so. You might say that all managers in all organisations are over-ruled all the time, but I felt it was a fairly demeaning way to have to do business. And you know what? Ryanair is not actually that much cheaper. Ryanair's problem now is that it has forced all its competitors to become as cheap as it is. And its competitors are generally nicer.

SATURDAY

TODAY I'm flying Aer Lingus, thank God. Initially, I didn't understand why we were going to Munich for the stag party. But gradually it becomes clear. In Munich -- perhaps all over Germany, for all I know -- it is socially acceptable, practically encouraged, to drink giant beers at any time, in any place. So there's no chance we're all going to look like a bunch of lager louts, we just look like people who respect the local culture and are trying to integrate -- when in Rome, and all that, if that's not confusing the issue.

So far as we could figure out, most activities in Germany involved giant beers. Then again, I was probably looking at the place through amber-tinted glasses myself and I didn't exactly seek out a gym or anything during the few days. It is entirely possible that, when they are at the gym, the Germans do not have a giant beer welded to their hands, though I can't say that for certain. Indeed, you could argue that given that the only places we go to are beer gardens and beer halls it is perfectly possible that we got a skewed view of German life. There's no question, though, that any time seems to be beer time in Germany. So, we set to it with gusto.

There was no golfing or any of that malarkey that men get up to when they go away together to stave off the drinking until some kind of reasonable time, like after lunch. In deference to our German hosts we got straight down to beer. Indeed, the groom, when he arrived a few hours later than us due to him coming from Cork, was quite alarmed to arrive and find us laying into the beer. The fact that the Germans favour two pints in one glass didn't help the situation. I think their secret might be that they just have one or two of them. I don't think the idea is that you sink them methodically for three days.

So, we drank beer and we talked about beer. We even had a cultural veneer on it all. One of the party, who had been in Munich before, took us to the oldest beer hall, the biggest beer hall, the smallest brewery, etc, etc. Every stop had some kind of a historic significance. It was practically archaeology, if you looked at it in a certain way. Between beers, we enjoyed the local cuisine, which seemed to involve lots of meat. Half a chicken is a popular meal in German beer halls and gardens. Indeed, it seemed to be the only alternative to the vast array of pork products on offer, which ranged from sausages of all colours, to knuckles of pigs. As someone commented at one point, it was essentially like a kind of medieval banquet, without, I hasten to add, wenches.

SUNDAY

DAY TWO and I was expecting to be suffering this morning, given I haven't been drinking much recently. But this is another great benefit of the German beer -- it doesn't appear to give you a hangover. This we put down to the quality of the beer, and this obviously helped us to view the whole outing as not only being a historical tour, but also being a kind of health detox. There was the slight depression and heebie- jeebies that can come after a big night on the beer, but that is nothing that can't be fixed with more beer.

The inevitable happened at today's beer garden. It was a beautiful sunny day and we were in the biggest beer garden you've ever seen. It was Sunday and all the Germans seemed to be on a family day out -- drinking beer and eating half chickens by the lake. Two of the lads swear they saw a guy cycling along on a bike, drinking a giant beer. Life was good. I was having a few quiet ones before catching the plane home. I have responsibilities now, so was only supposed to do one night. But naturally we were having such a great time that it was deemed wrong I should leave. I have to admit the expense of changing the flight and missing my baba for a second night was all worth it to see the head of a successful internet company singing Losing My Religion to a bunch of Bavarian hillbillies and barflies in the most unlikely karaoke bar you've ever seen.

MONDAY

DAY THREE and things are winding down. The Cork contingent has gone home but us Dubs have an evening flight. We toy with going to Dachau. I'm not kidding. With the depression of a double hangover, on a stag party, we were planning to visit a concentration camp. Perhaps we could have looked in on a psychiatric hospital as well, just to really cheer ourselves up. Naturally, we were speaking made-up German by this point, so it's not like our cultural sensitivities were at an all-time high.

There was a very real danger that one of us -- though not me, obviously -- was going to "ironically" do some class of Hitler salute or Basil Fawlty-style antics at Dachau. Some guys would have gone go-karting or to a titty bar, we were going to go to witness the ultimate example of man's inhumanity to man. Sense prevailed in the end and we went to a beer garden for the afternoon to chow down on meat products and have a leisurely few small ones. We actually ended up sorting out the meaning of life. You may not be surprised to hear that giving up drink was key. Then, having had an airport beer we boarded the plane and I said goodbye and good riddance to Germany. It was all too German for me and I won't be back.

TUESDAY

THE horror, the horror.

- Brendan O'Connor

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