HECTOR in the palm of my hand

I love anyone with an obsession. Not a half-hearted passion, but a full blown, slightly mad, boarding on needing a psychiatric referral obsession. I have lots of obsessed friends. One or two are obsessed with horses; a couple with golf, my own husband is obsessed with the GAA, my daughter with Striclty Come Dancing and my son with Hot Wheels.

I am a bit fanatical myself about Hector Ó hEochagáin on 2FM. It’s hard not to be. He is a serious music head and plays the kind of stuff that makes you want to leap and dance about the kitchen like you’re twenty-one again. This morning he played a song that I haven’t heard since I was in a nightclub in 1993.  I was head-banging by the toaster; it goes without saying that my teenager daughter wasn’t impressed. Whatever.....

But this week, whilst visiting a friends house, I came across a seriously, truly, madly, deeply possessed fan. Actually, she has to be the most fixated person in the country. She maybe only thirteen but she is a genuine Super Fan. The object of her affection? There are two of them, they came in a pair because they are twins. Of course, it has to be John and Edward, aka, ‘Jedward’.

Since they were kicked off X-Factor last year, they have become something of a phenomenon amongst the twelve to fifteen year old’s throughout the land. They have become millionaires and have reportedly bought two Ferrari 458 Italia models costing over £250,000 each, despite the small problem that they can’t even drive. What ever you like to say about them, they have made the most of their time on X Factor and are stretching out their five minutes of fame to what I suspect will be a lifetime.

The girl in question is Alice and what she doesn’t know about Jedward is not worth knowing. She showed me a bracelet and matching earrings. “Do you like them?” she asked. I looked closer and saw that on one earring was John’s head and the other, Edward’s. The bracelet had charms hanging off it, each bearing a tiny photo of the twins. Intermixed with the photo charms, small silver hearts with ‘I LOVE JOHN AND EDWARD’ engraved in the tiniest lettering. “I got them off the internet. A girl in York made it, just for me”.

I was invited to go up and look at Alice’s bedroom. I opened the door and entered what can only be described as ‘The Shrine’.  Floor to ceiling, posters of the twins. Close up shots of their faces, shots of them topless (and each revealing a surprising six pack as it turns out). She had baby photos, communion photos and stylish black and white magazine shots. “Do you like these?” she asked, holding up a pair of Jedward shades that she had made by pasting their photos onto the lenses.  She couldn't see a thing out of them but who cares? She was seeing the world through Jedward tinted glasses.

Being a Super Fan she has seen them eight times and at Christmas, will have seen them nine times when she goes up to see them in pantomime. “In fairness, they put on a good show,” said Cliona, her mother. She should know, she has seen them as many times too. This woman deserves a medal for bravery.

“Look at this”, Alice handed me a scrapbook. Since the beginning she has kept every paper clipping, every photo and news reference to her super heroes. It was laid out so neatly, so beautifully, that it was a magazine in itself. “I’ve been to their Dads house too” she went on, turning the pages as she told me how she went to Rathangan and passed by the family home. Then, a shocking story. “There is this Justin Bieber fan who went and had his face tattooed on the palm on her hand. Imagine that!” she said, holding up her two hands.

“I read that the Bieber fan looks at his face there on her palm and kisses it when she is sad” Alice went on, looking longingly at her palms. I put a call out to any tattoo artists reading this, do not do this. It would not be funny. Alice would spend her whole week with her head in her hands, kissing her palms. She’d never get any homework done.

Alice entered a competition recently. "You had to dress up as Jedward" she said. Sadly, didn’t win. But she did chase their coach up the main street in town a few months back. “I just missed them” she said. But she does have one up on millions of other Jedward fans. She touched John’s hand at a concert. Afterwards she wore a glove on the hand for two weeks. Like a Kildare Micheal Jackson, she wore it to school every day. “It got a bit smelly after fourteen days".

Next she showed me a poster that she had written and held up at her last concert. “John read it OUT!” she told me, her eyes, lighting up. Her mother, Cliona, nodding knowingly all the while. You see they have something in common. She is an obsessed fan too. She is mad about Brandon Flowers from the band The Killers. “I’ve a flag in my bedroom that he actually touched” Cliona told me. She went to see him at the Academy, threw a flag at him and waved it around before throwing it back. “Friends tell me that I should have it made into a pillow”.  She was deadly serious.

I asked Cliona if I could see her bedroom but she wouldn’t let me. I suspect that she has wall-to-wall posters of Brandon Flowers there.  But wouldn't the world be a duller place without Super Fans like Alice and Cliona?

As for me, I am off decorate my bedroom with posters of Hector and get my palm tattoo done tomorrow after the school run.

http://2fm.rte.ie/hector/