A strange postcard this. It reads: "What odds whether the couples walk and look at the Moon or walk on the Moon and look at the Earth. Just so long as there's somewhere left to walk, to sit, to cycle and something left to look at." This Christmas card was from "Addictions, by D.J. Enright (with apologies to Eric Cantona)".
Depicting Santa cycling towards a Tour de France finish in Cork with the Shandon steeple in the background, and a sign showing that Paris was 841 km away - the card, posted by Cork Corporation, said Joyeux Noel. Why wouldn't it?
Too many cards at Christmas can spoil the house. This one was different, though. It concerned the fact that the Tour de France will have Irish stages this year - and, for the first time, one ending in Cork. Big business is anticipated. There have been seminars, think-ins, everything you could imagine to make the historic event a most profitable one.
Cork Corporation has established a special office to deal with the event and plans to run a festival around it, bringing in all the towns around the city, from Youghal to Ringaskiddy.
The Cork stage will finish at the Carrigrohane Road on July 13th at about 2 p.m. Gardai in Cork estimate that some 250,000 people will be present to witness the event - an occasion, says the corporation, which could bring more money into the city than the Guinness Jazz Festival.
And when the jazz festival is put at £8 million over the weekend, the arrival of the tour stage cannot be dismissed. It should be a colourful occasion.