I’m long enough on the planet to know there must be something quare happening to cause all these storms. The only place to go and find out what’s going on is the local university: the watering hole.

“You wouldn’t want to go out without stones in your pockets these days,” says Tom Walshe, “you’d be blown away.”

We all looked at the ground when Tom said this because, no more than myself, the poor man is carrying a bit of condition. Cantillon said what we were all thinking.

“Maybe a whippet like Percy Pipplemoth Davis might need a bit of ballast to keep him on the ground,” says he, “but there’s enough of you there to survive a hurricane, Tom.”

“Cantillon,” he replied, “you’re about as sensitive as a hedgehog in a jacuzzi.”

Pa Quirke intervened, always the man to divert us from trouble.

“I was reading in the paper the other day,” says he, “that these storms are caused by the wind farms, the way they’re sucking in the wind and blowing it around the place.”

I must warn you this conversation happened at about seven o’clock in the evening after a funeral that had been expected for a long time. It took place at that time in a drinking day when people have enough taken to render them incapable of driving a car or flying a jumbo jet but still capable of carrying a relatively rational conversation.

Of course, drink gives people an inflated belief in their intellectual powers and they become authorities on a range of subjects from Einstein’s theory of relativity to the disappearance of the warble fly. In fact, the warble was a recent topic of conversation in the local and there was general agreement that “the hoor is no loss”. We drank to his demise. It was in this milieu that our conversation on the causes of the recent stormy weather was conducted.

“And who, pray tell,” asked Tom Cantwell, “was the expert expounding on the wind turbines and their contribution to the current weather patterns?”

“Oh,” says Quirke, “’twas a fella called Horace McDermott, a civil servant with a layman’s expertise in all kinds of subjects. He has worked for years as a clerical officer in a number of departments and has poured tea and photocopied documents for a significant number of senior ministers.”

“Sounds like a man who knows his wind,” says Tom Walshe.

“Indeed,” says I, “it’s a quality to be admired in a man. Knowing your wind and your wind patterns is a cornerstone of self knowledge and conducive to the maintenance of lifelong relationships.”

“So what does this Horace person suggest?” asked Cantwell

“He suggests that we shut all these wind turbines for a month and see what effect it has on the prevailing winds,” says Quirke.

“In the name of reason,” says Cantwell, “it’s no wonder the country is in the state it’s in if fellas like this Horace and his horace shite are being listened to. Wind farms don’t create wind. There was wind ever before they existed and there’ll be wind after them.”

“Well, what creates wind?” asked Cantillon.

“Onions, beans, cabbage and bad porter,” says Quirke.

“Of course, gentlemen,” says Tom Walshe, our publican, “the latter is unknown in this establishment so citing it as a cause of wind in this part of the planet is spurious in the extreme.”

“Could we change the subject,” says I, “those of us with a delicate constitution could become discombobulated very shortly.

“As I recall, this conversation began with climate change so what has caused us to descend into the realms of the more base bodily functions?”

At this point, who walked into the pub but Councillor Percy Pipplemoth Davis, a man who has campaigned for the conservation of everything from snails to boohalawns. I had to excuse myself, the very sight of him causes my bodily functions to engage.

As I made my way to the facilities, I heard Tom Walshe call on the ever-ready Pipplemoth to add his two and fourpence to the conversation.

When I got back, he was in full flow somewhere north of Greenland hopping from one melting icecap to another.

When he finished his lecture, Tom Walshe turned to me and asked me for my opinion.

“In my considered opinion,” says I, “we should have ended this conversation after the 10th pint. Given our current state of inebriation, we are just about capable of ordering a burger and chips; making pronouncements on the precarious state of the planet is quite beyond us.”

“Jaysus, will you listen to Prof Poyndexter,” says Quirke, “you’ll be lookin’ for a seat in the Seanad next.”

Which brings us neatly back to the subject of wind. Lots of it. CL