I'm sitting in an internet café, my laptop tethered to the wall by an ethernet cable. I've just downloaded about 10 different open-source programs for my mac, as well as two different PPC Ubuntu ISO images. Geeking out and chatting with Annie online.

Earlier tonight I had a Genuine Irish Experience.

I visited a "chipper".

A chipper is a very small fast food dive, the name derived from their specialty, fish'n'chips. This particular chipper was run by a middle aged Irish man, a bit round, a bit gray and a bit tired looking, but still cheerful and friendly in that endearing Irish way. The other staff were asians, which was appropriate since I was in the very heart of Dublin's 100-meter-long "Chinatown".

(Also in the very heart of Chinatown: two Polish shops, a Polish newspaper's office and an African shop. Maybe Chinatown is only a 100m stretch on the south side of the street?)

I ordered a pizza and stood there watching mobs of little girls run in and out of the shop, wearing their school uniform ties and skirts, giggling, ordering chips and talking rapidly to each other in some strange foreign language which sounded vaguely like English with an Irish accent.

About when I was starting to wonder whether this chipper was actually not a chipper at all, but some sort of underground hangout for 8-10 year old schoolgirls, my pizza emerged from the oven and the chipper cheerfully announced that it was hot and crispy, just the way he liked them.

As I paid the good man, one of the little girls ventured closer, looking up at me with a puzzled look on her face. She stared at the fresh, potted basil I'd bought at the supermarket a few minutes earlier.

"Mister?", she said. "Arye gointa eatthaplan?"

"What?" I replied, looking down at the tiny, unintelligable little girl.

"Are you going to eat that plant?"

"Wha.. oh, not right away. It's a spice, I'll use it for cooking."

She made a face.

"Did you do that mohawk yourself? Are you really going to eat that plant? It's a flower." I could tell she didn't quite believe the spice story.

"Yes, I did. It's a basil, it's good with tomatoes. Want a taste?" I asked, tearing one of the leaves off and offering it to her.

She made an even worse face. Apparently not. I grinned, popped the leaf into my mouth and walked out. As I opened the door, the little girl proclaimed: "You're a knocker, mister".

Her two little friends proceeded to join in, a chorus of tiny voices jeering "knocker! knocker!" as I made my escape.

As I carried my pizza and basil home, I wondered what "knocker" meant to those little girls.