An Irishman's Diary

YOU probably think that being caught “between a rock and hard place” is just an expression: a figurative predicament implying difficult alternatives, not an actual location in which you could ever find yourself. That’s what I thought too, until an incident earlier this summer involving a camper van.

Until then, the nearest I’d heard to the phrase describing a physical reality was in Irish diplomatic circles. I’m told that seating at the UN General Assembly is alphabetical, so that Ireland is always placed between Israel and Iraq. Or “between Iraq and a hard place”, as diplomatic wags like to put it.

But one night in Magdeburg last June, on the way to Euro 2012 and already lost for the umpteenth time while searching for a campsite, I drove my rented camper van down a narrow suburban street, apparently missing the sign that said “Sackgasse” (German for “dead end”).

Too late I realised the street went nowhere. So now I faced the prospect of having to reverse back out, in the dark, in a vehicle about as suited to reversing as the space shuttle, and with only inches to spare from the wing mirrors of the BMWs parked on either side.

When I noticed there was a small turning area at the street’s end, therefore – albeit one designed for cars rather that family-sized camper vans – I decided this was the safer option – even if it involved performing a 53-point turn. And so I had edged the van more than half-way round the bend, still facing forwards, before a fatal flaw in this plan became apparent.

From the direction of the van’s right-side blind spot, in a place where I had seen only tall grass, there was an ominous scraping sound. Investigating which, like the captain of the Titanic, I now discovered a metre-high boulder hidden in the grass, thanks to which the van had been holed below the mudguard-line.

The damage itself was bad enough. So was the challenge of extricating myself without making things worse. But as I walked around the vehicle, surveying the situation, what made it even more grim was the realisation that I was stuck in a cliche.

The rock was severely limiting my options on one side. On the other side was the fence surrounding the Sackgasse’s end. It was only a wooden fence. Yet it was nonetheless immovable. There could be no denying it was a hard place.

The operation that followed was among the most fraught driving experiences of my life. Aside from the fact that, whichever way I turned, there seemed to be only centimetres of leeway, there was the added problem that from the driver’s seat, I couldn’t see the rock.

So I had to do what mariners have always done with rocks – put a lighthouse on it: or in this case my 12-year-old son. He stood on the middle of the boulder, with orders to shout if the van’s headlights got too near the shore-line underneath. His mother, meanwhile, manned the fence.

In this manner, to the percussive accompaniment of “Rock!”, “Fence!”, “Rock!” – and a few similarly Anglo-Saxon-sounding expressions from myself – I eventually waltzed the juggernaut around until, after only 10 minutes or so, it was facing out of the road again.

Driving away, I sensed that the van and I had both been scarred by the experience. But at least they could fix the van. If I never see a Sackgasse again, it’ll still be too soon.

WRITINGabout other German words here recently, I implied there was no English equivalent of Schadenfreude. On the contrary, Niall Kiely reminds me. There is a perfectly good Graeco-English word, epicaricacy, meaning the same thing.

But what I’d like to know is whether there is a word, in either English or German, for the opposite emotion: innocent joy in another’s good fortune. There surely should be. Yet so far as I can see, one has to resort to Buddhism to find a term – mudita – that fully expresses the concept.

I only ask because I experienced such a feeling at the Aviva Stadium last Friday night. Late in the second half, with the score at 5-0 to Germany, I had to leave my seat and descend to the ground-floor press room. Doing which, I would normally have sympathised with the man who has to operate the dedicated media lift, missing entire matches.

On this occasion, though, I congratulated him on his luck. Whereupon he told me that, anticipating the debacle that was still unfolding on the pitch, he had placed small bets on three possible score-lines, all involving heavy Irish defeats. He even showed me the dockets, predicting Germany to win 4-0, 5-0, and – for whatever reason – 6-1.

Back in my seat, later, I hoped for his sake that Ireland could keep the score to five. But then the Germans made it 6-0. And as the final whistle approached, my disappointment at the result was only worsened by frustration on behalf of my friend in the lift. Why had he been so foolish as to think Ireland could score? Then, of course, we did score: a last-gasp goal that meant nothing except for one man, who had €5 on the result at odds of 100-1. I hardly know him, and it still made my night. But apparently there is no word for the inner glow I had, even in German, unless readers know otherwise.