Standing in a valley with vague ideas of our own grandeur. We're in a valley, motionless, wearing clothes brought to life by the breeze and this is grandeur.

We'll sing a song in a pub where a traditional band play. The song we sing will be sung in Eng after our Irish attempt descends into blaming each other and fighting and tearful apologies, and the long and short of it all is very short: we're drunk again.

The English song comes to an end in the study, with a woman we met in the pub. She holds a glass of whiskey as she paces from one end of the room to the other. If the rabbit and a piece of cotton wool got mixed up in transit, and I've been looking after a piece of cotton wool for the past few weeks, who's the bigger fool? And does that question make any sense? And if not, is the answer 'I am'?

"A haze of bright colours, everything we now know (she walked to one end of the room as she said this, stopped to take a sip of her whiskey and turned around) would seem to be predicated upon (she stopped at the other wall and turned around again) the fact, which in many ways is (she has no idea what she's talking about -- it's just something to accompany the walking) I thought it was a light bulb myself."

She put the glass down and got out her cigarettes.

My Cigarette Lighter, by me. That was the play I performed. A review in the paper said the rabbit was probably with a group of people by the mouth of the river, watching the ships go by as they form a plan to break into a department store at night. The review also said that the people in the pub were talking about us in Irish, and laughing a lot.

I put down the paper. When the rabbit's owners called to collect him that morning, they asked where he was, and I said, "A haze of bright colours, everything we now know would seem to be predicated upon the fact, which in many ways is, and always has been, and will be until they discover a way to get his head out of the bucket, I thought it was a light bulb myself, and I was right."

The rabbit was standing behind me all along. I refused to turn around. I stood there, in a dignified silence to accompany the standing. The idea I have of my own grandeur is vague enough to survive being outsmarted by a rabbit.

Band: The Plague Monkeys.

Album: Surface Tension.

Maybe not a great album, but there are certainly some great songs on it, especially 'Bloomsday' and the single, 'White Feathers'. The band were often compared to The Cocteau Twins. Carol Keogh and Donal O'Mahony went on to form The Tycho Brahe, which became Tychonaut. Carol Keogh also sings with Automatta.

Click here for the band's page on Irish Music Central.

Tychonaut's website:

www.thetychobrahe.com