sham 19 March 2012
It may not have escaped your attention that this weekend hosted the St Patrick’s Day celebrations. It happened to fall on a Saturday this year but even when it doesn’t the date for the parades and shenanigans is just shifted to the nearest weekend, a bank holiday declared, and all hell breaks loose. And if my mathematics are correct, all Christmas babies can date their conception back to this time in March – proof also, perhaps, that Jesus was Irish and a Paddy’s Day baby…please don’t feel this is blasphemy, it’s just a theory I’ve developed based on semi-solid scientific fact…
This year was tinged with some sadness for us Irish as we failed to beat our ancient sporting foe, the English, at rugby – it smarts quite a bit as we’re not rubbish at rugby.
And it seems the shamrock is, well, a sham…
Now, I don’t need to point out that the name is accurate in as much as the plant is clearly not a rock, not even close. But it seems it kind of doesn’t exist at all! Various professorly boffin types have asked citizens to send them samples of what they consider to be shamrock at times over the past decades and all are in fact clovers – the yellow clover being the one that is most commonly thought of as shamrock. The reason this imposter and its cousins have ‘got away’ with the ruse for so long is that they don’t flower until later in the year (at which time it’s clear that they’re clover and not the nonexistent shamrock) so they look all shamrocks in March. Shocking. Nature is a slippery madam and no mistake…
The cats refused to wear green for the celebrations. They, too, are madams.
