As you may recall – there’s no law against it, after all – at the end of my last column, my wife, my son and I were travelling internationally, and had finally all managed to meet up in Dublin. Our luggage was also there, although my wife was not allowed to see hers for some reason.
My wife’s luggage arrived at Dublin with my son and me, a few hours after my wife (who had our luggage in her plane). Unfortunately, because nothing had gone wrong on the trip up to that point, something had to go wrong to satisfy the UN Charter on Things Always Going Wrong When You Travel.
This meant that my wife’s luggage was still inside the terminal. I asked the airport staff if I could go back in and get the luggage, which would involve turning around and walking maybe 30 metres, grabbing the luggage and returning, which produced raucous laughter among said staff.
No, I couldn’t just go and get the luggage, that was against the Established Procedures; I had to walk over to a phone on the wall, punch in my ticket number and wait until someone answered.
“How long will it take?” I asked.
“I’m not gonna lie to you,” the airport guy said, and walked off.
At this point one of our Irish friends, Colm, arrived to collect my son and me from the airport, and I explained the situation. Being an experienced traveller, Colm actually had a solution.
“I think,” he said, “We should go to the pub.” As an experienced Australian, I was familiar with this form of crisis management strategy and agreed to the plan. Fortunately, we were in Dublin, and they actually have a pub or two there, so the plan worked to perfection, apart from the fact that my wife still didn’t have her luggage.
The next day I phoned the airport to enquire about the luggage, where a helpful fellow told me I needed to go to the phone on the wall and punch in my ticket number. I asked if I could give him my ticket number, and he said that it didn’t work that way; he needed me to go to the phone on the wall, and wait until he answered THAT phone.
I thought I had misheard, so decided to check.
Me: “So, you’re the guy that answers the wall phone?”
Airport guy: “Yes.”
Me: “And then someone will get the luggage?”
Airport guy: “Yes, then I’ll get the luggage for you.”
Me: “So, you are the guy that gets the luggage? Can’t you get it now, and we’ll come out and pick it up?”
Airport guy: “What you have to do is, go to the wall phone and punch in your ticket number…”
At this point, I realised that if I was going to punch anything it wasn’t going to be my ticket number, and hung up. I asked Colm if he had any ideas.
“I think,” he said, “We should go to The Guinness Factory.” Given that his earlier strategy had worked so well, outside of the luggage issue, we quickly agreed.
The Guinness Factory is a remarkable building, shaped like a pint glass, which the tour guides claim is the largest pint-glass shaped building in the world, and I believe them. It is an icon of Ireland, their version of the Sydney Opera House, and to be fair I would have to say I prefer the Guinness Factory to The Opera House.
Yes, The Opera House has wonderful aesthetics, unique architecture and harbour views, but the Guinness Factory has free Guinness at the end of the tour. I suspect I am not the only Australian that prefers The Guinness Factory.
Inside, the Guinness factory looks like something Dr Seuss and Franz Escher put together after a hard night on the local product. Pipes and girders all over the place, elevators, escalators and ramps that don’t seem to lead anywhere in particular, and displays spouting endless facts, figures and historical milestones about Guinness, none of which I remember because, as I mentioned, there was free Guinness at the end.
In fact, there was more free Guinness than people needed, because everyone on the tour gets a pint at the end, even people who don’t drink. Enterprising Dublin locals have worked out that the cost of a tour ticket is less than the cost of a few pints of Guinness and are always on hand to help people finish any surplus. A practical people, the Irish.
The next day, we still didn’t have our luggage, but Colm dealt with this by another spectacularly effective Irish crisis management strategy – charmingly talking reams of pleasant, complicated, apparently relevant, complete and utter rubbish. Five minutes of this and we had our luggage and were on our way; something tells me that sending Colm and a few barrels of Guinness to the Middle East would do wonders for the situation.
Speaking of politics, at the time of writing Donald Trump has just led the Republican Party to a defeat so bad, even the English cricket team wouldn’t claim a moral victory. While this is a great day for the Democrats, it is a sad day for us humour writers, because it likely means then end of Donald.
Sure, that will mean the United States might get sensible government, meaningful foreign policy, less corruption and fewer pointless wars in far away lands, but we humour writers are losing the best source of material since Caesar played half-back for Rome. The Donald will be hard to replace.
Thankfully.
© Shane Budden 2026
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