An Irishman's Diary

IT HAD somehow escaped me until recently that Red Bull, the vile-tasting but popular “energy drink”, is an Austrian product. I was finally enlightened on the issue while staying in a Viennese hotel last month and expressing bafflement at the contents of the mini-bar, which comprised two bottles of beer, some water, and no fewer than six cans of the aforementioned stimulant, in several varieties. Apparently they’re quite proud of it in those parts.

Maybe, even though I wasn’t drinking any of it, the high caffeine content of my mini-bar was part of the reason I didn’t sleep well in Vienna. The fridge seemed to be buzzing in more ways than one. But in truth, there was an all-too-obvious reason for my insomnia. Namely that I was in Vienna to give a talk. A – gasp! – hour-long talk, at the University of Vienna’s Flann O’Brien conference.

It had seemed an amusing idea a year earlier when the invitation arrived. In fact, as recently as a month beforehand, I was still nonchalantly dropping references to it in conversations, saying things like “sorry I won’t be around for that – I have to address a symposium in Vienna”, as if this was this was sort of thing that happened regularly.

But now the day of reckoning loomed and any amusement in the prospect had evaporated. The 4am wake-ups and associated cold sweats had started. Ditto the gnawings at the pit of one’s stomach and the starings at bedroom ceilings, hoping to see the outlines there of a witty intro, or a profound insight, or anything that would ease the anxiety.

On the eve of execution, as it were – I was on first thing next day at 10am – I went for a long walk, with the twin aims of clearing my head while courting physical exhaustion, thereby guaranteeing a night's sleep. And as chance would have it, among the attractions I encountered en route was the Third ManMuseum, devoted to the famous film.

There was an irony here in that, as readers may recall, The Third Manhas a comic sub-plot on the theme of public speaking. To wit: its hapless protagonist and author of dime-store westerns, Holly Martins, is invited to give a talk on the "crisis of faith in the modern novel". But by the night in question, entangled in the racketeering of post-war Vienna, he has forgotten all about it.

Hence the scene in which he is hustled into a taxi, driven recklessly through the bombed-out streets, and thinks himself about to be shot until he is instead delivered before a politely smiling audience of British ex-pats.

It’s a slightly hammy interlude, requiring us to believe that a taxi driver would ignore the panicked questions of his passenger and risk the lives of several Viennese pedestrians in the cause of a literary evening. Even so, the film-makers obviously couldn’t resist the joke, which subverts the famous finding that, for many people, the prospect of public speaking ranks second only to death as a cause of dread.

Anyway, the point is that reprieved from assassination, Holly Martins goes on to die on stage, or in any case to bore his audience to stupefaction. Which memory came back to haunt me on the night before my own speech.

In the event, the long walk earlier proved useless. Such was my certainty of waking up at 4am that, naturally, I couldn’t go to sleep at all. The mini-bar beers hadn’t worked. Nor had counting sheep. Nor did getting up and checking the fridge again, in case there was another sedative substance in there I had somehow missed. No luck. Even the water was gone: there was nothing without caffeine left.

Now, on top of worrying about the actual talk, I was fretting about what an entirely sleepless night might do to my note recall. Which was when a desperate plan occurred to me, involving the TV. While flicking channels earlier, I had noticed that another of Austria’s strange innovations is a late-night television programme featuring a Viennese tram.

It’s a cross between the old TV test card and Oireachtas Report. Nothing much happens and there is no commentary, just a repeating loop of the driver’s view from a tram as it moves through the city. Occasionally, you see a passenger running across the track. Or there might be a moment of suspense when the lines ahead diverge and you’re not sure which way the driver will go.

But such highlights apart, the tram just moves sedately along, from station to station. When it stops, you hear the doors open and close, then the buzzer, and it’s off again. Ad infinitum.

My plan now was to watch Tram-line TV until I fell asleep. Was it still on, I wondered? Sure enough, it was. In fact, the tram was just pulling into a station, where four passengers awaited. So, feeling soothed already, I settled down to watch, confident that five minutes of this would be coma-inducing.

A full hour later, unfortunately, I was still stone-cold conscious and riveted to the plot. There was no hope of sleep now, I knew. Maybe the problem was that the film reminded me of Holly Martins’ nightmare drive through Vienna, albeit that it was in day-time, on a tram, with no bombed-out buildings, and no pedestrians diving out of the way. Even so, it was as if the city was enjoying a warped joke at my

expense, in revenge for disdaining its famous modern export.

What felt like years later, I watched dawn break over the city. An eternity after that, it was morning. When it was time to leave for the university, I skimmed through my notes one last time. Then, before exiting the room, I opened the fridge and, from among its caffeinated delights, chose the full-sugar, cola flavour. It tasted terrible, but I hoped the audience had had one too.