I was down in the village last night for a few pints.

It was one of those very pleasant evenings where we brought our stools out even though we didn’t have to.  The sun was dropping low in the sky but the evening was still warm.  The air was heavy with the smells of the pine forest, heather and pipe smoke.  It was a lovely way to while away a few idle hours.

Conversation in the pub tends to wander about a bit.  It has on occasion been referred to as “The Parliament” as all the big decisions are made there.  We decide how the government should be running the country and generally setting the world to rights.  If the world’s governments listened to us rather than their various “advisors”, the world would be a much better place.

Yesterday was one of those sessions where the evening was too pleasant for serious debate and we just batted the breeze as it were, even though there wasn’t a breath of wind.  Eventually the topic got around to a bloke who lived in a neighbouring village.

This bloke was remarkable for his lack of remarkability.  He had only been in the pub once or twice in all the years I have been living here and was generally dismissed as being a “bit of an oddball”.  The reason he cropped up in conversation was that he had finally done something that was remarkable – he had packed his bags and without a word to anyone had moved up to an apartment in the heart of one of those snobby towns that make up Dublin’s sprawling suburbs.

What baffled us last night was why the bloke had moved.  Why would anyone move from the peaceful idyll of the countryside into the heart of all the noise and fumes that make up suburbia?  He was in his seventies, so it wasn’t like he had to be near work.  He didn’t have any family there that we were aware of.  The only theory that made any sort of sense was that he wanted to be near the shops, but then why didn’t he just move into the town nearby?  We were baffled.  We threw various theories into the pot but each theory was dismissed as being absurd.

In the middle of this debate, Sheriff wandered along to join us for a sup.  He got his pint and came out and sat on the window ledge.

“What’s the topic tonight lads?”

We told him we were discussing the bloke who had moved to the suburbs.  Being a member of our illustrious Boys in Blue, Sheriff was the one bloke who could possibly know the answer to our little debate.  He seemed to know everything else that was going on anyway.  We asked him why he thought the bloke moved all the way up to Dublin when he could have just moved into our local town.  What did Dublin have that our town didn’t?

Sheriff sat for a while pondering.

After necking a good two inches off his pint, he gave his verdict.

“Ah!” said he, “They have a much better class of a drug dealer up there.”