AGAINST THE ODDS:Vinny's Saturday nights may have changed forever after he gets blown away by the Tesco checkout girl with the golden voice

HOLDING THE shower nozzle in one hand and a rather skimpy towel around his bulging belly with the other, Vinny Fitzpatrick cleared his throat and let rip with a blast of Durham Town.

For three minutes or so, he besmirched Roger Whittaker’s Top 20 hit of the late 60s with his own distinctively Dublin version, like none other heard before. Thankfully, on this Bank Holiday morning in Clontarf, there was no one around to hear it either.

Vinny had long admired the easy-listening style of the Kenyan-born warbler, even if he never said so publicly, and certainly not to the lads in Foley’s for that would have invited ridicule.

(That there were two errors in the song he was neutering – Durham was a city not a town, and it was situated on the River Wear, not the River Tyne – he kept to himself. Some things were best left unsaid).

As he screeched ' leaving, leaving, leaving, leaving, free' for the final time, it struck Vinny that popular music had never once entered the realm of Foley's bar-room banter in more than 25 years.

Racing, football, golf, gambling and The Dubs were the staple diet of discussion; the five-a-day if you like. Politics only got a look-in around election time; women and song hardly ever.

It wasn’t that the lads didn’t like women; far from it. It was just that they felt the fair sex had their place, and that place was nowhere near their customary corner pitch by the telly in Foley’s public house.

Had any woman, even Angie if truth be told, dared enter their world, especially of a Tuesday or Sunday night when the lads were in full flow, there would have been ructions.

Vinny held this thought far better than he held any note as he shaved, noting sadly the alarming length of the many hairs now sprouting from the top of his bulbous nose.

He did his best to remove the tendrils with his old Remington but only succeeded in nicking a nostril which caused blood to spurt all over the shop.

As he toddled down for a late breakfast, Vinny's mind went back to the weekend when he had been coerced to watch The X Factorwith Angie and her 17-year-old daughter, Emma. At a subliminal level, it had probably explained why he had burst into 'song' that morning.

Vinny had a vague notion of the original x factor having something to do with human chromosomes but now knew it was firmly linked to a hugely popular ITV television show searching for the indefinable ‘something’ in aspiring singers.

As he parked himself on the couch on Saturday night, armed with the first of many cans of slightly chilled stout, and a large packet of cheese-flavoured Doritos, he made his initial error; he opened his mouth.

“I hear there’s a Tesco checkout bird from Ballyfermot in this. Is that tokenism or what?”

Angie had hissed at him to shut up while Emma, who had never quite warmed to her stepfather, ran an imaginary dagger across her throat in a gesture which needed no explanation.

Vinny sipped and munched for a bit before chipping in again. “Look at yer man Cowell. What a gombeen. If he was a chocolate bar he’d eat himself.”

Angie squeezed her husband’s arm and said “hush” firmly but Vinny wasn’t finished yet. “Louis Walsh looks younger now than he did 10 years ago. You’d wonder how he does it.”

At that, Angie turned to her husband and resorted to language she knew he understood. “You’ve got a yellow card already, Vincent. One more word out of you and it’s a red and the spare room tonight. Do I make myself clear?”

Vinny nodded sheepishly and for most of the next 90 minutes, the silence was broken only by the ads, of which there were many.

During the breaks, Vinny learned this was the seventh X Factorseries and, worryingly, both Angie and Emma could reel off the former winners – Steve Brookstein, Shayne Ward, Leona Lewis, Leon Jackson, Alexandra Burke and Joe McElderry.

(Vinny could recite the winners of every Grand National and Gold Cup since 1966 but said nothing).

He also grasped quickly that his wife and stepdaughter were rooting for one contestant more than any other, Mary Byrne, the so-called ‘bird from Ballyer’.

When Ms Byrne appeared, Vinny sat upright and paid attention. He wasn’t sure what he had been expecting but it wasn’t a lady of considerable girth who had turned 50.

There was something about Mary that connected with Vinny like an electric shock.

Like him, she was no spring chicken; like him, she was carrying a pound or two overweight; like him, she worked hard for a living in a job many people turned their noses up at; unlike him, she had a voice like a diva.

Vinny was hooked.

When Mary finished her rendition of I Who Have Nothing, he was up off his trotters, applauding loudly – he even unleashed one of his piercing Trapattoni-like wolf whistles.

“What a girl,” he cried, his eyes shining. “What a performance. She gets my vote. Do we text, phone or what?”

Angie and Emma grinned at one another: they had not been expecting this.

“Calm down love,” said Angie. “All 12 acts sing and then the voting lines open. We’ll know the result tomorrow night.”

Vinny was aghast.

“Tomorrow!” he exclaimed. “But I’ll be out with the lads tomorrow.”

Angie flashed her husband one of her dazzling smiles. “You could always stay in and watch the results with us, especially if the progress of Mary means so much to you.”

Vinny’s jaw dropped, which wasn’t a pleasant sight. Sunday nights in Foley’s with the lads was the longest-standing ritual of all.

It was usually a six-pint weekend wind down but this being the Bank Holiday meant at least a gallon of porter, and curried chips on the way home. Did he dare pass it up for the results of The X Factor? If the lads found out, he’d be slaughtered.

As he dithered, Angie ended his misery. “It’s alright, love. It’s all over by 9pm so you won’t miss your tee time at Foley’s.”

That Sunday night, as the lads dissected the Wayne Rooney shenanigans, the implosion by moneybags Man City against Arsenal and the imminent arrival of the National Hunt season, Vinny had drifted in and out of the conversation, his mind seemingly elsewhere, which it was.

Mary Byrne was through to the last 10 in The X Factor, even though she was called out as the ninth survivor, a tortuous process that had seen Vinny on his knees in front of the telly. Vinny knew where he'd be next Saturday night, and the Saturday nights after, please God. Mary Black and Mary Coughlan had better watch out; there was a new Mary on the block.

Vinny's Bismark

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