Everybody was Irish on March 17th.

Now I would like to be able to write something groundbreaking interesting, but the sad but true fact of life is that most of the world is generally just screwed up, not screwed up AND exciting.

For some unknown reason my girlfriend S. and I decided to see a film before embarking on green beer extravaganza. It was not meant to happen. What was that obsession to see gay film on the day of much-loved catholic saint? Where is the world going? The film on love life of Phillip Morris was sold out everywhere in the centre and thank God we decided not to explore London suburbs. So it was the pub time.

O’Neill’s was completely packed. Jameson & Ginger was not to be as Ginger ale was no longer available. S. ordered a bottle of cider for both of us (what? Some people amaze me.) Obviously, it was gone within 5 minutes. I was more generous and ordered a glass of red for her and a pint of Guinness for myself. The queues were massive and while waiting for our orders, this 28-year old Irish bloke John and I started chatting. “You can call me Sean”, he answered to my comment that John is not necessarily a proper Irish name. And he was not wearing anything green that would establish that he was Irish. “But I am”, he assured me in this perfect Irish drawl which I wouldn’t be able for the life of me to reproduce in typed words. My knees went weak.

John (aka Sean) was with his [Irish] friend with the impossible Irish name. They were fresh from Dublino (where else?) and decided to join our all-girls company. Half of the stuff they said escaped me (thanks to the Irish songs blasting from the nearby speakers, thanks to the banging of shoes of the dancers to the songs and thanks to their beautiful accent). At some stage one of them went to the bar to buy more drinks failing to ask any of us girls if we wanted anything (at that stage S. was mouthing to me that she was waiting for one of them to offer her a drink). The second Irish guy (maybe his name was Cillian? Maybe not) started to abuse his iPhone, texting and phoning somebody, and then suddenly both of them grabbed their coats, excused themselves, but promised to be back with another [Irish] friend of theirs who was at the nearby pub.

And just like that they were gone. No numbers. Not even facebook. The girls and I stayed for that short period of time which was enough to come to the following conclusions (helped by more Guinness and cider and Jameson on rocks): 1. Cillian (let’s leave his name alone) had a son a picture of who was his iPhone screensaver; 2. Both of them, most probably, had jolly Irish gals for girlfriends (or maybe wives – you never know if the absence of the ring on the ring finger is genuine), even though John/Sean, according to S., was really digging me.

And then we went home. To our separate homes. Every one of us still single. Although I was in the company of a Guinness glass that I shamelessly stole as a souvenir. The tube was full of drunk and merry and green scary people (in that order), but all of us were quite excited to be on the same train.

I was calling my friend Pippa a few times throughout last night only to find out that she was enjoying herself at home with a few cans of cider (Swedish, for that matter). I swore to her and she swore to me that with a bit of [Irish] luck this time next year we are going to be highly hangover somewhere in Dublin. Actually, make it Belfast.

Oh and one more thing. As I get older I realize that Guinness is not that bad, actually. Yes. I think I am a fan in the making.