Paddy Murray: Ireland, the world and beyond

Not a Snowball's Chance in Hell

2010-01-09T14:30:00.003Z

It snowed.
There might even have been a couple of inches of the stuff in Dublin.
And yes, it's been cold, though not in Malta where our Minister for Transport Noel Dempsey is currently sunning himself.
Anyway, it snowed and we had ice and fog and frost.
And yet another national crisis.
Following hot on the heels of the economic collapse (international problem, not our fault says the government) we had the floods (global warming, not our fault says the government) and now the big freeze (climate change, not our fault says the government).
Soon to come will be public service strikes (not our fault, blame the unions, the government will say) summer drought (see above) winter gales (see above) and half a million unemployed (see above).
I can say one thing for certain.
If I ever plan to have a piss-up in a brewery, I will not be asking any members of our current government to organise it.
I see snow on a rope in the back garden. I will not be asking any of them to kick it off.
Because they are inept. They have proven themselves unable to face any of the challenges thrown at them.
They prevaricate, they procrastinate, they delegate. But they don't actually do anything.
There is only one thing for it.
I'm off to build a snowman with Charlotte.
Note the word 'build.'
I wonder if there's a grant of any kind going?

How To Prevent Cycling Accidents

2009-12-08T15:42:00.003Z

It's a worry, isn't it?
We hear, every day, of cyclists being involved in accidents of one sort or another on our roads and, indeed, our footpaths.
For years, people have been trying to figure out how to solve this problem.
Well, I had a eureka! moment.
All of a sudden, the solution came to me.
And it's this.
WHY DON'T THEY LEAVE THEIR BIKES AT HOME AND GET THE BUS?
Simple, really.
If there are no cyclists out there, there will be no cyclists to knock down.
From a motorists point of view, there will be no cyclists to be knocked down.
I am referring, specifically, to those who completely ignore red lights.
I am referring, largley, to those who think that cycling and listening to music is a good idea.
I am referring, generally, to those who seem to believe that cycling on the footpath is their right.
I counted today. Fourteen times in less than half an hour cyclists sped past in front of me.
I tell a lie. Two of them almost sped into me. And it was THEY who gave ME daggers.
In that half an hour, I also spotted three cyclists riding merrily along footpaths.
Three quarters of all those I saw had earphones presumably blocking out all sound of other traffic, people roaring, car horns, police sirens and what not.
I saw one bicycle abandoned outside a shop in such a way as to present a hazard to all and sunday entering or leaving the premises.
As for cyclists at night, wearing dark clothing and carrying no illumination whatsoever, I don't have time or space to go there.
Anyway, I think my solution would solve the problem of cyclists and accidents.
It would also support public transport.
And it would mean the country's motorists and pedestrians were a lot less nervous as they went about their business.
And it would mean our 'Green' Ministers would have to think of some other wheeze for their next photoshoot.
Anyone fancy seeing them strapped to a windmill?

No Real ads from the Real IRA

2009-12-02T13:54:00.000Z

I have noticed, around my neighbourhood, a few notices stuck on lamposts urging one and all to join the 32 County Sovereignty Movement.
Snappy name, that.
Anyway, it's a kind of mundane ad for a terrorist organisation. Dull. Unexciting.
And, frankly, not at all getting their point across.
I mean, what they do is support the Real IRA in every way they can.
So, really, shouldn't their ad look a bit more like this?

*********************

DO YOU WANT TO KILL PEOPLE?
FANCY MURDERING SOMEONE – AT NO RISK TO YOURSELF?

We will show you how to:

Plant bombs, run away, and set them off by remote control.
Chuck pipe bombs through the windows of houses
Fire guns from a safe distance – safe for you, that is!
Join gangs armed with baseball bats to attack individuals (no crowds, they might fight back!)
Ruin lives
Set Ireland back 100 years and
Allow you to tell your children you’re a killer.

SO. ARE YOU THICK?
ARE YOU UNCIVILISED?
ARE YOU COMPLETELY BRAINLESS?

Well, you’re our man.

Women are more or less welcome too as long as they're a bit of fun an, you know, willing.

So get a move on.

After all, it IS the year 1162

Think I'll start again!

2009-11-21T15:22:00.002Z

It's been a bit hectic around here this year.
Can't remember a week when I didn't have to see a doctor though I am remarkably well.
Charlotte is three and a half now and kind of full time.
Work is pretty time consuming too.
And of course, in my spare time, I edited Fearless and Bold, the coffee-table style book published to mark the 150th anniversary of Blackrock College. (www.blackrockcollege.com if you want to order it!)
But I think I'll revive this.
Next week.
We'll get going again.
See you then.

Bankers and Politicians Are Recession Proof

2009-01-05T08:45:00.003Z

There are bonuses and pay rises being dished out at Anglo Irish Bank.
Life goes on as normal for the bosses at AIB and Bank of Ireland.
Our TDs, the ones to whom we pay vast sums in salaries and allowances, are still on their Christmas break, and are still not putting their heads above the parapet when it comes to making a sacrifice or to lead by example in our current economic crisis.
In other words, those who caused our problems, and those we pay to solve our problems, are breezing through this recession without a care in the world.

And it is all our fault.
Because it is we, the people of Ireland, who took our eyes off the ball.
It is we who allowed TDs to accumulate allowances and salaries and nixers (like junior ministries and committee chairmanships) over the years.
It is we who failed to question each greedy move they made to fill their own bank accounts with our money.
And it is we who failed to tackle our banks, to question they way they do business.
To make them accountable.
Now, we have the appalling vista of the highly-paid dopes we elected to the Dáil giving bags of our money to the even more highly paid dopes who have managed to run the country's banking business into the ground.
How much of the €1bn we are giving to Anglo Irish Bank will go in bonuses and pay rises to the clearly inept management of the bank?
We are unlikely to be told.
How much does Anglo Irish owe to AIB and Bank of Ireland?
We don't know and, by not telling the truth about the situation, all three banks are, effectively lying about it.
Those who run our banks have proven their inability to do the job.
A child could run a bank during good times.
But it takes brains and skill to run a bank when times are tough.
Times are tough. And it is clear that those, still left in charge of our banks by the government, have neither the brains nor the skill to do the job.
They certainly have the nerve and the wit to look after themselves and each other.
Much like our politicians.
They have demonstrated an utter inability to deal with the current crisis.
But, thanks to their large salaries, the are all but immune from the economic mess we're in.
So don't be expecting miracle solutions.
Taoiseach Brian Cowen says it will take four or five years.
Of course it will.
And if I was in his job with its massive salary and endless perks, I wouldn't be that worried either.
Politicians and bankers are recession proof.
It's the rest of us who will suffer.

What Is TRULY Valuable

2008-12-30T14:37:00.002Z

What is the most valuable thing you own?
I suppose, a few months ago, most of us, in Ireland anyway, would have said, our homes.
For reasons which weren't quite clear to us, houses we bought four or five years ago - ordinary, small, terraced, Edwardian houses - doubled in value. Or more.
For some, talk of the value of their homes became a reason for hosting dinner parties, increasingly lavish dinner parties washed down with expensive wine which may, or may not, have been worth what was paid for it.

Our cars - mine is an exception - were or are valuable too. Many who made money bought cars which could not be driven, legally, at even half the speeds of which they were capable. Sports cars stuck in traffic jams.
Now, though, we've all begun to think.
For a start there are now 100,000 fewer people working. By the end of 2009, that figure will be 200,000. By this time next year, there will be more than 300,000 people in Ireland without work. Many of them will be the husbands of wives without work and the wives of husbands without work. Many will have bought their homes not long ago and watch them halve in value.
Suddenly, we realise that where we live is just bricks and mortar - and something for the bank to manipulate to make profit.
And cars are just for getting from A to B.
Suddenly, we realise that these things have no real value. A cost, yes. A value or a worth, no.
Because the most valuable things I have - and I own neither - are my family and my friends.
Spike Milligan once said: A Friend in need is a pain in the neck.
He probably wasn't wrong.
But in the tough year or years that lie ahead, family and friends will become increasingly important and valuable for us all.
And it won't necessarily be in a material sense. This recession will hit everybody bar those who got us into it - greedy bankers and inept politicians.
Family and friends will become valuable because, if you're lucky, they'll be there.
They'll listen. They'll support. They'll talk. They'll love.
And you won't get that from a house or a car.
You won't get anything back from your 'valuable assets'.
Family and friends are extraordinary things - if you have them.
And if you don't I can only pray that, at least, you find friendship somewhere.
The older I get, the more I come to appreciate how lucky I was with the parents I had and with the siblings I have.
I realise how lucky I am with my friends, some of whom have been friends for almost all my life.
And do you know what?
Times aren't easy and haven't been, what with bone marrow transplants, losing a good job because of my health and now a recession which will make it tough for all.
But the value of having a wonderful family and good friends, well, that's multiplied by a factor of 100 a times like this.
And the great thing is, it never, thank God, ever falls victim to the vagaries of economics or politics.
It just keeps on rising.

Why I Love Christmas

2008-12-24T08:49:00.002Z

I am one of those who genuinely wishes it was Christmas every day.
Notwithstanding the downside - greed, rudeness, drunkenness, puke on every footpath and the inevitable disappointing tv output - it’s a wonderful time.
And it’s wonderful not just because of children, though they really do add a special dimension.
I loved Christmas long before Charlotte arrived. I just love it infinitely more now that she’s here and, well, kind of aware what’s going on.

I love Christmas because some, not all, people are nicer to each other than they normally are.
I love Christmas because, even if the actual television out put is lousy, I can choose to watch some of my favourite movies like It’s a Wonderful Life and Breakfast at Tiffany’s and Hard Day’s Night.
I love Christmas because I like buying presents.
I love Christmas because I like receiving presents.
I love Christmas because - especially now that I’m in a kind of isolation (seven months on from the bone marrow transplant, I’m not allowed into pubs or restaurants or crowded places) it’s good to see friends when they call around.
I love Christmas because I love the decorations and my wife Connie is the brilliant at it.
I love Christmas because there’s loads of rugby on.
I love Christmas in Ireland when it’s mild, which it is, which means we can go for a nice walk on Stephen’s Day.
I love Christmas because, in Ireland, we still choose to call it Christmas and not ‘Holiday.’ We do so because we are not afraid to do so.
I love Christmas because it reminds me of the joy of friends and family who are no longer with us. It’s wonderful to remember them at a happy time.
I love Christmas because of what it is, a celebration of the birth of Christ whose message is one of love and joy and peace.
I love Christmas because even the likes of Richard Dawkins and Christopher Hitchens, those professional atheists, can’t ignore it.
I love Christmas because it reminds us of the gift we have been given by God, the gift of his Son, of life, of opportunity.
This is my 55th Christmas.
And I regard each one as special.
This one in particular is special.
It is special because I will spend it, in relatively good health with my wife Connie and our beautiful daughter Charlotte in our home in Dublin.
We are all facing into a tough year.
But we will, with God’s help, survive and come out strong when this man-made, greed-driven recession ends.
Have a happy Christmas.
And even if you don’t share my faith in God, remember that the message of Christ is for everyone, not just those who believe.
Be nice to one another.
And peace to all.

Wrong In Every Way Possible

2008-12-20T22:40:00.002Z

WRONG: Sean Fitzpatrick

An Irish banker, who has overseen the value of his company slump by 90 per cent, hid a loan of €87 million in a rival financial institution every year for eight years.
And, he says, he did nothing wrong.
Now, whether or not what he did broke the law or not - and if it didn’t then it is the law is sadly lacking - he certainly did something wrong.
Morally wrong.
Ethically wrong.
In fact, what he did was wrong in almost every way imaginable.

This is the guy who said, before the budget, that we should all feel some pain because of the economic situation, a situation his bank, and the world’s banks, created.
Now, he’s all sorry.
Sorry, that is, that he has been caught in his subterfuge, sorry his deceit has been uncovered. sorry he’s been rumbled.
But will it make any difference to him?
Not a jot.
Will he suffer?
Not a bit of it.
Will he now know what it’s like to be poor?
Not a snowball’s chance in hell.
Because these people, people like Sean Fitzpatrick, don’t inhabit the same planet as the rest of us.
They life on planet greed. They are - still - disciples of the “Greed is Good’ God of Gordon Gecko.
We all were, to a degree.
We were paying €3 or more for a coffee on the way into work in the morning. And we didn’t think it too much.
We were paying €5 for a pint and not complaining.
We were jumping taxis for trips of less than a kilometre, paying for movie channels and never watching them, buying gadgets we didn’t need and never used, buying ‘labels’ to wear at exorbitant prices when equivalent clothes cost less than half the price, we were buying ‘exotic’ foodstuffs and learning to like them, we were buying wine by the price - because we assumed that if it was expensive it was good.
On that subject, a man I know who works in the wine department of a supermarket, told me that they often price lousy wine, wine they know won’t shift at €5.99, at between €10 and €15 because people who know nothing about wine buy in that range assuming what they’re buying is ok.
Anyway, we fuelled bastards like Fitzpatrick by pandering to our own egos.
Crap artists sold for sums vastly above what they were worth, because people paid what galleries asked.
We paid €100 or more to see gigs in lousy venues.
We bought cars with gizmos we didn’t need.
We bought pricey furniture because we wanted to show off.
We wasted our money.
And now, it’s all over.
I, like many others, have to take a pay cut.
But I have a job.
Which makes me lucky.
Sean Fitzpatrick currently doesn’t have a job.
But he still has money. More money that you and I would have if we won the lottery.
Won it twice a week for a month.
Because that’s how unfair it all is.
That’s the way of it.
The bad guys win.
And we pay the price.

The Sad Naked Greed of Ireland's Legislators

2008-12-18T19:08:00.001Z

The entire world is in trouble.
And it is generally agreed, that, well, greed is what has caused the problems for us all.
We - I - have pointed the finger at bankers. And they are, without any doubt, guilty.
But here in Ireland, there is another group which is as greedy. Another group that appears to be in utter and total denial. Another group which seems to believe that it should make no sacrifice whatever in the current climate. Another group that says one thing and does another.
And that is the group of people made up of our elected representatives.

We have 166 TDs, Members of Parliament, men and women elected almost two years ago to represent us in the legislature.
They receive, on average salaries of more than €100,000 a year. Some earn considerably more having been elected a long time ago.
On top of that, they receive an allowance for actually turning up every day.
This size of this historic payment depends on how far it is they live from Dublin. More than 25k - and you can be sure hundreds of thousands of ordinary citizens live considerably further away than that - and they pick up around €150. Tax free. Every day.
And incredibly, if they live closer, they receive a payment of a bit more than half that to COMPENSATE them for not living further away. Can you believe it?
They receive tax free allowances for their phones.
They can mail 21,000 items a year, free. They often use this allowance to send Christmas cards to constituents they don’t even know.
They also receive financial help to run their constituency offices - offices that exist largely as part of their re-election campaigns.
Many TDs use state money - our money - to pay members of the families to do this work.
And they receive travelling expenses.
And they receive general, unvouched expenses. That is to say, that unlike the rest of us, they do not have to provide receipts. They just claim the money. Tax free.
Some claim up to €80,000 a year - tax free (I don’t mind saying that again) and on top of salaries of €100,000 or more.
So.
How many TDs have suggested that, as tens of thousands of people lose their jobs. as tens of thousands of others are forced to take pay cuts, as families lose their homes, as people struggle to keep their heads about water, that they, our public representatives, should look at cutting some of what they get?
Correct.
Not one.
Not a single one.
We do not have one TD, one public representative who thinks that what they are getting is, in the current situation, a bit much, a tiny bit inequitable, a wee bit unfair.
Immoral.
We do not have one TD, socialist, Christian or otherwise, who thinks they should give up one red cent of what they get, paid for by us.
We do not have one decent person, one with a conscience, one with the tiniest bit of moral fibre which would nudge them in the way of saying: This is wrong.
They live in their own world of short days, long holidays and, compared with the rest of us, wealth.
And it is desperately, terribly sad that it is so.

Bad People

2008-12-16T16:18:00.005Z

Bernie Madoff is a crook
And the only difference between Bernie Madoff and many other bankers is that he got caught.
The irony is, he was caught by the dishonesty, incompetence and sheer irresponsibility of other bankers.
If the boom had gone on, he would have gone on.
Bankers have been exposed all over the world as people who cared little and still care little about anything other than themselves.
Those running companies which have gone under - losing pensioners everything, losing the only savings some poor folk had, ruining lives - left with millions. And left without a care in the world.
They've done ok. They've still got their myriad homes, yachts, cars - whatever money can buy.
They didn't lose. They rarely do.
Indeed, in Ireland we had bankers who have presided over a 95 share collapse in their companies, telling our government how to run the economy.

(That is not to say that the government couldn't do with help running the economy. A 12 year old boy doing basic mathematics could probably provide advice sounder than that which the Irish government is currently receiving.)
It is the blinding arrogance of the bankers, and I think our Irish ones in particular, which irritates so much.
Their behaviour, their incompetence, their dishonesty, their greed has seen unfortunate shareholders see the value of their stock vanish. But yet, the bosses say they are doing a good job.
They lie continuously about their bad debts. They loaned money to people who clearly were never going to be able to pay it back. The money was loaned on the basis solely, of property values rising for ever and ever, something they clearly couldn't do.
And they cling onto their jobs, paying themselves vast sums, handing themselves bonuses, presiding over what are now mythical empires, vast wealth that exists now, only in their heads.
They wait and wait for the turnaround, the bounce back - unaware that as long as they are running the banks, there will be no turnaround, no bounce back.
It is in jail they should be.
Or better still, in the stocks on O'Connell Street for us to through rotten fruit at.
Let he who is without cash throw the first tomato.
And that will be me.

Sometimes Blogs Are Nothing To Write Home About

2008-12-11T22:29:00.000Z

There are many good reasons for not updating a blog every day or even on a regular basis.
A close examination of some blogs is proof of the pudding.
Many bloggers blog when they have absolutely nothing to say.
Now, I could have spent the past week rattling on about how the Irish Government completely and utterly overreacted to a minute amount of dioxin in a few pigs.
(According to the European Food Safety Agency, eating the ‘contaminated’ Irish pork every day for 90 days wouldn’t pose any risk. And yet, it appears to be perfectly legal, to stand outside a public building and blow deadly smoke into the faces of people trying to enter or leave.)
But everyone was rattling on about it and, well, to be honest, I’m rattling on about it in my column in the Sunday World next Sunday and I don’t want to cheat by duplicating in one what’s on the other or on one what’s in the other.
And to be quite frank, after almost four weeks in hospital with an infection, picked up from my two and a half year old, Charlotte, I’m pretty bunched.
(It was a 48 hour bug which, for her, lasted - oh - about 48 hours. For me, it’s been five weeks so far and I’m still not the better of it.)
So apologies.
Or maybe not.
Better write nothing than just rattle on for the sake of it.
Like some do.

The Government Breaking Dodgy Hairdo

2008-11-28T07:01:00.002Z

Harney: Did that hairdo cost $400

A hairdo could be at hand to save the Irish Health Service.
Yes indeed, despite clinging on when her party dissolved beneath her; despite passing the buck on every occasion tragic errors were made in diagnosis and people died; despite acknowledging that things are a mess and that the aim is to have a good health service - not now - but in the future; despite being roundly criticised for planning a two tier private and public system which will allow entrepreneurs make money from the illness of Irish citizens; despite planning a new children’s hospital in an area with not one green space and in a location crippled with traffic; despite planning to close St Luke’s Hospital, the only cancer hospital in Dublin with beautiful green spacd around it; despite making such a plan without informing those who have raised millions for St Luke’s thereby allowing them to continue their fundraising not knowing what’s going on; despite planning eight new ‘Centres of Excellence’ without one of them being planned north of a line from Galway to Dublin; despite it all, it’s a hairdo that could undo Health Minister Mary Harney.

Ireland’s State Training Agency - FAS - is already embroiled in scandal.
For reasons that aren’t quite clear to anybody, it’s now former boss, Rody Molloy, seemed to believe that when he flew to see some project at NASA in Florida on which some Irish apprentices are working, he was entitled to a first class ticket which cost about six grand.
No. We are not training astronauts or planning our own space programme. Well, as far as I know we’re not. (Gee. Hadn’t thought that maybe, what with this government, I mean... Nah. Not possible)
This, in turn, he traded in for two business class tickets so that he could bring his wife in comfort.
He had already placed a colleague, who had a multi-million euro advertising budget - on sick leave for months over questions that need to be answered regarding that money.
And, at the end of it all really, he was facing something of a torrid time at a Dail (Parliament) Committee looking into FAS and some of the other, many state agencies.
So he quit. And didn’t turn up.
But one of the things to emerge, not at the committee, but in the media, largely through Senator Shane Ross in the Sunday Independent is that, on one of these Florida junkets - ministers went on five of them - someone got a hairdo for $400 or more.
The hair, it appeared, was done some time in 2005.
And so, when the question of the hairdo was raised in the Dåil, Ms Harney sat there. She way well have been scratching her head.
Fact is, the previous year, it was SHE who had that hairdo. And she knew it. And she kept schtum.
FAS is unravelling. And there is little doubt that it will not be the only state agency exposed in the coming months.
Why nothing ‘til now?
Because hunter and gamekeeper are equal in FAS.
Five trade unionists. Five business representatives on the board.
And they will all, please God, be undone by a hairdo.
And a dodgy one at that.

Right Now, 703 Hours To Go. SO FEEL CHRISTMASSY!!!

2008-11-24T16:54:00.000Z

Is it Christmassy at all this year?
To listen to a lot of people ‘round me - and I AM in hospital - it seems not.
And I’m not talking about other patients. Nurses, cleaners, caterers. They all say there’s something missing.
Yes, the lights on Grafton Street are - at last - magical, they say.
Yes, the tree on O’Connell Street - entirely made of eco-friendly lights - is stunning.
And no, Brown Thomas have not turned off the music from their window display despite some busy body apparently complaining about ‘noise pollution.’ Kind of idiot who would have called health and safety to the stable in Bethlehem...
Something, they say is missing.

Nobody can quite put their finger on it.
It’s not the ‘downturn’ in the economy.
It’s not the recession.
It’s not the inept government.
It’s not the income levy.
It’s not the medical card scandal or any other scandal.
It’s not watching the documentary about Bertie in which he reveals himself - accidentally it has to be said - as a greedy, grubby, grabby, less than honest, ruthless egomaniac, created by and surrounded by a distasteful mafia of thugs and manipulators. (Mind you, when I put it like that....)
But I know what it is.
And I’ll tell you why people don’t feel Christmassy.
It’s inside them.
I feel Christmassy. I’m stuck in hospital and I feel Christmassy.
Because I’m the guy who says, on Stephen’s Day: Only 364 days to go.
I’m the guy who on Thursday will stop counting the days and start counting the hours.
I’m the guy who gets so excited I’ll soon be in need of blood pressure tablets.
And I was like that long before little Charlotte arrived to make things ten, twenty - a hundred times more exciting.
It’s Christmas, for God’s sake.
And while it is of course overly commercial these days, I for one can enjoy that aspect of it and still remember what it’s actually about.
It is about one of the most exciting, wonderful things that ever happened on this planet.
It is about joy.
It is about hope.
It is about love.
It is about how wonderful life is.
So, please. Tell me.
How can you NOT feel Christmassy.

The Most Embarrassing Thing To Happen To Anyone Ever And It Happened To Me

2008-11-22T11:01:00.002Z

If there is one thing you learn by being a ‘regular’ patient in hospital, it is to leave your dignity at the door.
If you don’t, every time they have to do something unspeakable to you, you will suffer more than is necessary.
For years, I tried to keep my dignity. Difficult when you’re having a barium enema or a colonoscopy.
It was actually in hospital, that the most embarrassing event of my life - and I would suggest if it happened to anyone else it would qualify as their most embarrassing moment too - occurred when I was just twelve years of age.

I had been out in the magnificent Powerscourt Estate in Enniskerry for the day, with the Blackrock College scout troop.
We had been building a rope bridge over the river.
And big eejit here, volunteered to climb a tree to secure a rope.
The rope was secure all right.
The branch on which I was standing was no such thing.
It snapped. And I fell maybe two metres landing with a thump on my coccyx - that little bit at the base of the spine which, I am told, used to be a tail.
I managed to hike back to the bus with the other boys.
But once I was home, the pain became progressively worse. And so my father drove me to Stephen’s Green, then the site of St Vincent’s Hospital.
We headed for Accident and Emergency - but our path was interrupted by a doctor, known to my father, who redirected us to a private x-ray facility.
My father was less than gruntled. Now he had to pay even though, in those days, there was no waiting in A&E.
I was told to wait in this little cubicle - and after a little while, a female voice called my name.
I emerged to find a pretty woman, aged about 20 or so and dressed in a kind of green overall.
“Patrick Murray? she asked.
I confirmed my identity.
“I will be doing your x-ray. So. We’ll get ready.”
Now, in those days, boys of twelve were actually boys of twelve, not twenty like today. So I had no interest in this woman - other than being slightly embarrassed by having to deal with her in the first place, by having nobody else present and having to make conversation with her.
“Right,” she said after filling in some form or other. “Into the cubicle, take your clothes off and put on this gown. She handed me a blue gown.
It might as well have been Joseph’s coat of many colours.
Because one phrase was rattling ‘round my head.
“Take your clothes off.”
I wanted to die. I wanted to faint. I wanted to go home.
I went into the cubicle, dazed.
I removed my clothes and put on the gown.
“Are you ready?” she called.
I nodded.
“Right. Up on the table and lie on your back first,” she said.
I lay up on the table and she moved the big x-ray above my head.
“Now,” she said. “Open the gown.”
She said “open the gown.”
I couldn’t believe it. Open the gown.
I closed my eyes and opened the gown.
I lay there. Naked as the day I was born.
Me. Twelve years of age. Naked in front of a woman. And a pretty one at that.
I wanted to cry. I wanted it all to go away.
Then I thought I heard a stifled giggle.
I opened my eyes and saw her with a look on her face that suggested she was a) amused b) surprised and c) terribly sorry for me.
“Ah,” she said with a voice that suggested I was a little bit pathetic.
“You could have kept your underpants on.”

LEADERLESS

2008-11-18T12:27:00.003Z

We in Ireland are without leaders.
As the rest of the world figures out what to do about the current economic crisis, our lot is dithering and prevaricating. And as that happens, it's all going down the pan.
So we reacted quickly to protect the banks.
Did it save jobs? No.
Did it put manners on banks?
No.
God help them, Bank of Ireland only made €4m a day in the first six months of the year. And it's still paying vast sums to its bosses.
Mind you, we're still paying vast sums to ours. Your average TD is pulling in damned close to €200,000 a year when you take in unvouched expenses, turning up money and what not.
Is there, do you think, something amiss when the world's (you'd have to say self-styled_ Top Twenty Leaders decide that the best way out of this mess is to borrow and spend and our lot decides the best way out is to stifle the economy by raisins both direct and indirect taxes.
The end result will be, we can presume, that we prosper while the rest of the world languishes in poverty or...
Well, if I had money I'd not be putting it on us to prosper.
So why are our leaders not leading?
It is largely because they don't know what to do.
They clearly don't want to recapitalise banks for fear of offending them.
The banks don't want the government/us to have a shareholding - and so they continue their lie that all is well.
It's like they're afraid what we'll find out if we're allowed in the door.
And the reason for that is, they're afraid what we'll find out if we're allowed in the door.
They have been throwing our money about recklessly and they can't get it back because it no longer exists.
And what's this nonsense about not super taxing the super rich? What in God's name have they done for us except take our money and invest it abroad?
If they are tax exiles let them be tax exiles.
And charge them every time they land in the country, not for more than 100 days of whatever.
Charge them vast sums. Tax them. Get the money back.
And if they don't like it and they don't come back, whose loss is it?
Our non-leaders are in awe of the rich - no wonder the dosh they've throwing about generally in the direction of politicians and political parties.
At least, I think - hope - we have the good sense to send that right wing, borderline fascist, friend of the anti-immigration Euro sceptic Declan Ganley packing off back to Britain, the country the passport of which suited him for years.
Please.

Back In Hospital - But Every Cloud...

2008-11-16T12:46:00.002Z

You're probably fed up with me writing about being in hospital.
Not, I can guarantee you, as fed up as I am being in hospital.
Fourth time this year.
If you follow this blog, you will know that I have had a Bone Marrow Transplant.
That happened in May.
The reason it happened is because, in January, I had the most awful tumour on my foot - I have a thing called Cutaneous T Cell Lymphoma - and a rare version of it at that - and it was decided, by me, on advice that the transplant was the way to go.
So that was on May 14.
And it was, more or less a breeze.
Now, when you have a serious medical procedure and it is 'more or less a breeze' you should look in the mirror, tell you're self you're a fool and get yourself ready.

Because if it's a breeze it either a) hasn't worked or b) the hurricane is on the way.
And the hurricane was on the way.
100 days after the transplant, I received a thing called DLI - Donor Lymphocyte Infusion. That's when part of the donor's blood is put directly into mine.
The purpose is, partly, to provoke a little bit of rejection. Which it did. Because a little bit of rejection means that the new bone marrow will begin the battle against the old and, hopefully win.
The battle is still raging.
But on top of that, my little daughter Charlotte got the vomiting bug, a 48 hour thing.
And brains trust here decided the best place for her, was in the bed beside me.
That's despite being told to avoid crowded places in case anyone in the crowd has a cold or anything else I might pick up, me with my immune system less mature than my two-year-olds'.
So crowds, I avoided, but the two year old with the bug, I pulled close beside me to comfort her.
And I got her bug.
Hers cleared up in 48 hours, as 48 hour bugs have a tendency to do.
Mine is with me three weeks so far and being viral, has every chance of extending its stay for another three or four.
My doctor doesn't get angry at me often.
But on this occasion, she was seething.
You see, I think she was operating under the illusion that I had a brain.
So here I am, stuck in hospital. Again.
And if there's one good thing about it, it's this.
I have no appetite.
And so I'm not eating the food.
Every cloud, they say...

It's The Small Things

2008-11-15T10:44:00.000Z

Did you ever get annoyed about small things?
You know the way.
You walk in to your supermarket. You know you need mushrooms. And so you go to where the mushrooms are. Only they’re not.
Because some genius has moved the vegetables to the other side of the supermarket, and where there once were mushrooms, there is now a large supply of dairy products.
Except for the milk. Because they moved the milk.

Now, this all happens after you had trouble finding a parking space because the last one for parent and child - your child is right now sitting in the trolley trying to reach those dairy products - was taken by a smart-arse in an SUV who, when asked where his child was hadn’t the wit to say in the shop with his mother but instead came up with that age old retort: f*** o**.
You watched and you waited and found three more parkers in parent and child spaces who were entirely without children.
Two used the same retort.
The third apologised.
Small things.
It’s a small thing too that our national television station here, RTE, has, in an effort to squeeze in more ads, has taken to chopping the credits from the end of movies.
No closing music.
No wondering if that mafia guy who was in that brief scene is the same guy who starred in three episodes of Friends. No finding out who was singing what song or what the song was.
Just a graphic - THE END. That’s all.
And sometimes it comes so quickly, you miss the last few seconds of the movie.
Small things.
Like resoluble packs of rashers.
They’re not.
If they don’t rip when you’re opening them - they invariably do - they just don’t stick back when you go to stick them back and you end up wrapping the entire thing in cling film.
Small things.
Like ads that insult your intelligence by comparing it with washing powder.
“Contains intelligent stain seekers.” No it doesn’t.
And ads that make up scientific names.
And ads that have women comparing their washing. Or people dancing in kitchens.
Or dubbed ads.
I will never buy anything that has been pushed at me with a dubbed at.
Or those blackmail ones. Buy Ariel and we’ll supply a litre of clean water to African children.
Buy Pampers and we’ll supply vaccines to African children.
No. I won’t buy your products.
Just bloody do it. You have the money.
Small things.
Like celebrities endorsing things.
Does anyone actually believe they’d be endorsing shampoo and washing powder and perfume and clothes and furniture if they weren’t paid to do it?
Does anyone actually stay in whatever hotel it is because Lenny Henry does? Or buy dishwasher tablets because Aynsley Harriot does?
Sad.
Small sad things.

Your Bank Is Defrauding You

2008-11-11T11:33:00.000Z

I think the vast majority of people in the world have learned no longer to trust banks.
Here, they have cocked up more than often and had to repay money to customers.
One bank was even advising its customers to tax dodge - and one of the people doing that is now, astonishingly, an elected member of the Dáil. Third World behaviour or what?
Anyway, I am trying at present to expose, through the newspaper in which I work, the current fraud being perpetrated by Irish banks on their customers.

You see daily, how banks and stockbrokers and financial institutions of all sorts and kinds, trade shares and currencies on the worlds exchanges.
They can move billions in nanoseconds. Shares can rise and fall by huge percentages in the blink of an eye.
And yet, and yet....
If you use the banks’ online services, something they encourage you to do, you will find that things there aren’t the same at all.
Because if you wish to transfer money from an account in one bank to an account in another, it takes an incredible, unbelievable and frankly farcical three days.
Well, some of it does.
Because the account from which the money is being transferred, is debited immediately. In one of those nanoseconds.
And for three days, the bank holds onto that money or, rather, probably invests it at the inter bank rate along with the tens of thousands of other sums, large and small, which are being transferred from an account in one bank to an account in another.
Look at this nonsense explanation from what is laughingly called Ireland’s ‘Financial Regulator.”
“All online transactions would have to go through the clearing system for security and fraud prevention purposes. Online transactions consist of a matching of a debit and credit. The debit is paid immediately and the credit is normally paid immediately if it is destined for an account in the same bank. However, the credit might take several working days if it is destined for another bank.”
Nonsense. Rubbish.
And if it was true, we could all cripple the banking system by asking them, under the Data Protection Act, what they did, how they did it and what they found.
Am I really expected to believe, that when my partner transferred €200 to me - and it was taken from her account in one of those nanoseconds - that someone or something spent three days checking for security and fraud prevention?
And even if they did - which I can assure you they didn’t - why was it necessary to take the money from her account until the procedure was finished?
Because they snaffle the money, that’s why. Because they steal it for three days, that’s why.
And we’re the mugs.
We’re the fools as usual.
And I think something should be done about it.
Bad enough what the banks have done to the world.
No reason to let them away with this.

Economic Analysis Which May Not Be Correct But Is Easy To Understand

2008-11-10T15:18:00.004Z

I studied commerce in college.
No. Wait.
I tell a lie.
I was in the commerce faculty in college.
I actually went to seven lectures during the entire year. (Well, there was this girl, and she was free during my lectures and....)
And I didn't like any of them.
So maybe that's why this whole world economic situation has me utterly baffled.
OK. I get the bit about how our government made a complete hash of things by chucking money at its builder and developer mates to build houses and apartments which, it turns out, nobody actually wants.
And I get the bit about how, even through we were, briefly, amongst the richest countries in the world, we managed not to build a decent road between either Dublin and Cork or Dublin and Rosslare/Waterford.

We did manage to build a road to the border. But that had nothing to do with infrastructure. That was, wasn't it, to do with something called 'the peace dividend' or some other such rot.
But the world is in turmoil. Nobody seems to have money. Those who have it - banks don't you know - are holding onto it like grim death and won't lend it to anyone.
Thousands are losing their jobs in Ireland. Hundreds of thousands in the US. Millions, apparently, in China.
You see, with my basic knowledge of economics (it was my best subject. I got 25 per cent) I know that the money is still somewhere.
It's possible that there is a large stash of it in the safe of our former 'leader' Bertie Ahern.
But really, it is somewhere. It's not like someone burned it.
It's not like a euro or a dollar or a pound suddenly went the way of the Zimbabwe dollar and became worthless.
The money is about.
And so we can guarantee all the bank assets we like, chuck our money at them if we wish and cosy up to their overpaid, underachieving, cruel, greedy bosses and the good it will do it is nil.
We want the money.
We want it back in circulation.
We want developers to release money even if they have to sell land and buildings at a loss. Make them do it. That's what banks do to unfortunates when they take their homes from them. They force them to sell because they want their money.
Well, we want their money.
If governments can't force banks to release money, to realise assets to get money, to behave, well then, what's the point in democracy?
What's the point is us voting?
What's the point in Barak Obama if he can't make banks do what they should do, what they morally must do?
That's it.
Economic analysis from a buy who got 25 in economics, 15 in maths and 0 - yes zero - in accountancy.
Makes sense to me.

Farwell McCain, Palin, Hypocrisy, Spite and of course Dumbya

2008-11-05T17:03:00.004Z

And so, it's farewell to John McCain and Sarah Palin and the dumber than dumb Dumbya and the odious Dick Cheney.
While the election of the first African American to the Presidency of the United States is wonderful beyond the dreams of most who remember the bad days of apartheid in America, the election of Goofy would have been preferable to the election of John McCain.
He presented himself as a kind of honest John. But he's no such thing. He knew all about the bile being spread by his supporters. He knew and did nothing. Until he thought it was doing him damage.
In fairness. he did one good thing.
He chose Sarah Palin as his running mate. Thank God he did.
The damage she did him was fatal.
What a dope.
If anything had happened McCain, had he been elected, had he popped his clogs, there would have been yet another idiot running the United States.
God help us, it might even have become a tradition. Things have a habit of becoming traditions quite quickly in the States, don't they?
And thank God too that the selfish egomaniac Ralph Nader didn't register at all this time. His 'open letter' to Barak Obama after the results were confirmed is bitter, nasty and ungracious.
Having cost Al Gore the Presidency, you would think Nader would hide under a rock.
But no. Off he was again trying to do damage.
Anyway, you have to laugh at Sarah Palin.
Seriously.
You do.
She thinks a) she's going to be the Republican candidate in four year's time and b) she's going to win.
Not a snowball's chance in a hot oven.
Not only does she have an IQ in single figures (which doesn't mean she's not cute enough to get where she's got), she is a bad ad for everything and anything decent, American and Christian.
She is part of that Christian fundamentalist movement which is every bit as dangerous as any other fundamentalist movement. And that's very.
It's over now. The winner has won.
And while there is much about Barak Obama to admire, while there is much to hope for under his coming presidency, there is much he says and does to which I, and others who laud his election, are opposed.
But you can't have everything.
And change won't just be the change Barak Obama wants.
For now, let's just enjoy the fact that McCain and Palin are consigned to history as footnotes.
That Dubya can go off and spend his dotage playing with Play Doh. If he's up to it.
That Dick Cheney can go off and count his ill gotten gains and shoot a few more of his mates.
And maybe, just maybe, the world might be a better place.

Scared and Enthralled by the USA

2008-10-27T16:05:00.004Z

❍New York. Welcoming, tolerant... but elsewhere

Isn’t it astonishing how America, or more accurately, the United States of America enthrals and scares so many people at the same time?
It enthrals because it has and is everything worldly. Huge cities, stores bigger than some small Irish towns, people larger than life.
It scares because, well, some of those people...

How can it be in a country which produces so much genius, that there are vast swathes where ignorance reigns?
How can so many people believe in guns?
How can so many people hate men other than white men?
How can so many people have so little interest in the world around them?
How come so many people don’t even know there IS a world around them?
How can the country which produces some of the best television and cinema in the world also produce the worst?
How can a country so deeply Christian be so utterly irreligious?
How can a country so welcoming of diversity be so intolerant?
It is that diversity itself, I suppose.
But it is more.
It is the innate selfishness of so many who know so little about so much.
Obama is a Muslim.
(As I write, there's a big lump of a Cuban American being interviewed on Sky News. He says he knows Obama is a Muslim because he wants to take from the rich and give to the poor. Eh, do you think, by any chance that guy's been in the sun too long? Or maybe, not in his Christian church long enough?)
He is a terrorist.
He isn’t even American.
Not to mention Dick Cheney, Sarah Palin, John Bolton
What the hell is it all about?
The US is the guardian of the world. Thank God it isn’t. But why do so many millions of Americans believe it is?
World War II?
Well, of course the US helped to win the war. But they haven’t exactly covered themselves in glory militarily since, now have they?
Korea, Vietnam, Grenada (even Ireland would have won that one) Iran, Iraq twice, Afghanistan, Colombia, Chile, Central America....
Sometimes, loving America, as I do, isn’t easy. It’s embarrassing, actually.
What’s really sad is this.
When I was a kid, a teen, I hoped Ireland would, one day, be more like America.
The music. Beach Boys, Jimi Hendrix, Lovin’ Spoonful...
The movies. Breakfast at Tiffany’s, The Thomas Crown Affair..
The buildings. The politicians - before I knew too much about them.
Now Ireland IS more like America.
But the worst of it.
Because it is now, on occasion, largely and certainly as regards the young, greedy, inward looking, trashy and cultureless.
God, I need a visit to New York.

How I Wish i Was Dire Enough To Be Published

2008-10-20T19:47:00.006+01:00

They say there's a book in everyone.
And I'm sure there is.
The problem is, most of the books that are in everyone are dire. Bookshops are full of dire books. You know the type. The ones that end up being made into television movies.
Dire television movies.
Or worse, dire television series.
There's a book in me. Not about me. That's a pamphlet.
But there's definitely a book in me

And the thing about the book that's in me, is that it's more than likely going to stay there.
Because, for reasons that are difficult to comprehend, publishers seem to prefer publishing dire books.
Now, I'm not saying the book in me is a Booker Prize winner.
I'm not even suggesting for a second that it would make the best sellers' list. And I mean the top 100 not the top 10.
I'm just saying it would be better than some of the stuff that's out there. The dire stuff.
What's really galling is, that the authors of the dire stuff a) make pots of dosh and b) swan around as if they're some kind of gift to literature.
It's luck, at the end of the day, isn't it?
Someone in the agent's office, or some editor in the publisher's office kind of likes something that's sent in. Something dire.
And the wheels are set in motion.
PR takes over, launches are launched, talk shows are talked and before anyone knows where anyone else is, the dire book is being hailed as, well, maybe dire, but successful.
I've read quite a few dire, successful books in my life. Finished one of two of them.
But God, I've seen some dire television movies. Dire plot. Dire dialogue and - they do match these things up well though - dire actors.
Again, though, some dire writer gets paid.
OK. Yes. I got the rejection slips.
And I know most successful authors have drawers full of them. 'Specially the dire ones.
I'm quite prepared to have a room full of them - as a successful author possibly bordering on the dire but not quite there.
I'm just peeved that I don't know the secret of a) getting published and b) being dire enough to get published.
Looks like the book is staying in me for a while.

All Politics is Corrupt

2008-10-13T18:31:00.002+01:00

It's a bit scary. It's very sad.
But it is, unfortunately, a fact.
ALL politics is corrupt.
It has to be.
That's how they get elected.
Now, saying that all politics is corrupt, doesn't mean that all politicians are bad people, are immoral people.
Many of them firmly believe that the things they say and do are justified because they firmly believe they are the best people to do good for the masses.
But it rarely turns out so.

Is there a country on earth, for example, where politicians are paid a sum even vaguely close to the average wage in that country?
Is there a country on earth where politicians aren't chauffeured about the place like royalty?
Is there a country on earth where politicians don't look after themselves in relation to pay, expenses, perks, comfort and the trappings of their offices?
No. Not as far as I can tell.
Politicians promise what they know they can't deliver on the basis that a) everyone does it b )nobody expects delivery and c) sure that's how you get elected.
In power, they make decisions which are a)wrong but popular because it helps the re-election campaign - which begins the minute the last election is over.
In power, they cosy up to business because good business is good for the country. It's also good for forking out vast sums to political parties and brown envelopes to the most unscrupulous of the politicians.
And in power they attempt to do things they are utterly incapable of achieving and utterly unqualified to undertake.
The result is what we have now. Politicians worried about their economies - but as worried if not more worried about their own futures, worried about offending banks, worried about offending business.
Their world is a closed one, one in which nobody is more important than they, where nobody matters more than they.
One in which banks with bosses earning vast, unimaginable (for most) immoral sums are bailed out and the little man pays the price.
Who bails out those who were given loans irresponsibly by greedy banks? Nobody.
Why? Well, for the same reason nobody bails out the autistic, the elderly, the mentally ill, the drug addict, the homeless, the drink.
No votes in it,
So the corruption goes on.
And there's not a blessed thing, bar a revolution which isn't a good idea at all, than anyone can do about it.
Except maybe pray.

Democracy, a Side Show Masking the Greed Which Rules the World

2008-10-09T16:45:00.005+01:00

The United States is going to the polls.
The Ukraine is facing a snap election.
The world's biggest democracy, India, is voting next year.
Journalists, commentators, pundits and experts of all sorts are excited.
Indeed, the voting public, the electorate will be quite exercised by the votes in those countries and anywhere else on the planet where they get the chance to choose those who lead them.

Only it's a complete farce. A complete and utter waste of time. A sham.
Because regardless of who it is we elect, no matter whether the odious Sarah Palin gets to second biggest job in the world, no matter who rules the vast population of India, it will make not a shred of difference.
We now know, democracy doesn't work, doesn't even exist.
Sure, on paper it looks better than totalitarianism, dictatorships, ancient monarchies and the like.
But in reality, it's no different.
Leaving aside altogether the way 'model" democracies like the US cheat people out of their votes by challenging those with a legitimate right to vote.
Forgetting altogether the 'hanging chads' and the irrational impatience of the US Supreme Court eight years ago.
Dismissing the long queues for voters in poor (Democratic) areas and the lack of such inconvenience in wealthier (Republican) areas, it is quite clear that George W Bush doesn't and didn't rule the United States.
Maybe Dick Cheney does and did. At least, maybe he and his mates do and did.
Because that's what we know now.
Business rules the world.
Money rules the world.
Bankers, hedge fund managers, investors, speculators, weapons dealers, gamblers rule the world.
The greedy, the immoral and amoral and the uncaring rule the world.
The selfish rule the world.
Vote for whom it is you please, they have, it is so apparent, no control whatsoever over world affairs.
World affairs have been run by bankers and investors and will continue to be run by bankers and investors.
Democracy is a side show, a distraction.
Democracy just hides the evil and the greed on which everything is predicated.
A handful of people, be they in the US, Britain, Russia, China, India - even little Ireland - decide what's what and the politicians fall into line even if they don't know that's what they're doing.
Depressing?
It certainly is.
Because if the rich just gave up a tenth of what they have, we would eradicate hunger, much of the disease that ravages the poor world, lack of education and misery.
But they won't because that's why they exist. To accumulate at the expense of others.
And there is absolutely nothing we can do about it.
Nothing.
Except, maybe, pray.

NO. THESE ARE NOT APOCRYPHAL QUESTIONS

2008-10-05T18:36:00.005+01:00

Where did it all go? Who has it? Where are they living? Where is it all stashed?
And how did they get away with it?
I'm talking about the money.
(May I just interrupt my self here for a second? Firstly, I'm still not dead. Just still recovering from a Bone Marrow Transplant and up to now most days, frankly, I hadn't the energy even to blog. But some things make the blood boil. Like this economic collapse. And boiling blood isn't good for those who have had Bone Marrow Transplants.

Secondly, I made a mistake on that blog below, the one that just says no Who Is Disabled? and nothing else. I can't get rid of it. I crash when I try. So I'll get off to the help centre when I'm finished with the economic situation.)
There is no doubt whatsoever that billions, trillions, zillions of euro, dollars, pounds, yen - whatever- were generated in recent decades.
Mostly, it was generated doing good things like building homes for people, providing infrastructure where it was needed and helping to improve those countries whose lot it is to be the poorest on earth.
Sometimes, it was generated by doing bad things, like invading other people's countries, wrecking them and then giving your mates billions of dollars to build them back up again.
And of course, propping up nasty but friendly regimes.
But now, the money appears to be gone. Vanished into thin air. Nobody knows where it is.
The banks are going down for billions, and nobody, in the banks or anywhere else, seems to have the faintest foggiest notion as to what to do next.
So it's governments - people that is - who have to cough up. We in Ireland are guaranteeing banks for €400 bn and climbing. The US has stumped up $700 bn and climbing. Britain has forked out hundreds of millions, Greece the same, The Dutch, Belgian and Luxembourg governments have had to dig deep too.
And what's in those deep pockets? Our money, that's what.
But wasn't it our money that was in the banks? Got it in one.
The banks took our money, used it, stuffed the profits in their pockets, went bust and now it's back to our pockets again to bail them out.
I mean, if it wasn't so damned sad, so damned hard for those who will suffer most (see above: those countries whose lot it is to be the poorest on earth) and so damned immoral it would be be funny.
Suckered.
We've been suckered by a few people - and in the context of the world's population it is VERY few people - who have played with our money, our families, our jobs, our countries, and made off with the lot.
And just to make sure, that a few years down the road it can all happen again, we're bailing them out.
Who will go to jail? (Not apocryphal)
Who will be punished? (Not apocryphal)
Who will have their ill-gotten gains removed from them? (Not apocryphal)
You know, we thought our world was run by sometimes inept, sometimes corrupt, sometimes immoral, sometimes greedy, sometimes plain stupid politicians.
But we were wrong.
It is and has been run by always inept, always corrupt, always immoral, always greedy but never, ever plain stupid bankers, hedge fund managers and economic whizz kids who profit from the doom for which they have long been harbingers.
God help us.

2008-10-05T18:19:00.001+01:00

I'm Not Actually Dead

2008-08-22T15:33:00.003+01:00

This short post is really to apologise for not posting for some time - and to let anyone who thinks I'm dead that I'm not.
Bone Marrow Transplants and daily blogs don't mix.
The problem is, that a BMT (as we veterans of the procedure like to call them) leaves you absolutely jaded. Fatigued. Tired beyond belief.
You don't have the energy to pick up the lap-top, let alone write a blog. Indeed, the process of deciding you're too tired to write a blog is so tiring that the question doesn't arise.
Things are a little better now that I'm three months on.
I have been extremely lucky in that I have simply been tired, not ill.
I am, however, receiving some other component of my donor's blood next week. And my doctor tells me that there's a pretty reasonable chance I'll be sick after it. Not immediately, about ten days later.
Terrible really. Before the BMT I was better than I'd been for years.
And of course, after it I was worse.
Now, I'm getting better again - and in a week or two, I'll be worse again.
Why is it that all the drugs that cure nasty diseases like cancer, are tough drugs, drugs that make you sick and lose your hair and feel lousy?
Why doesn't cannabis cure cancer? Why isn't LSD a cure for lymphoma?
I mean, it's bad enough having these damned diseases.
You think, at least, we'd be allowed to have some fun as we're getting better.

China: And the World Turns a Blind Eye

2008-08-22T15:19:00.002+01:00

The Olympics are almost over.
And now, perhaps, we can go back to acknowledging what China is really like, rather than pretending that everything is ok, because some people are running fast around what is, without doubt, a fine stadium.
For some weeks now, most of the world has been focussing almost entirely on the running, jumping, swimming, boxing and other events in Beijing.
As it did, the repressive Chinese regime has been keeping up its bad work. It is still, systematically, depriving its people of information. It is little surprise that those Chinese you meet outside their home country are completely indoctrinated. I have been told, categorically, that there was no massacre at Tiananmen Square. It didn't happen. It's a 'western invention.'

Right now, the Dalai Lama has revealed that many dozens of protesters were massacred in Tibet on August 18.
Pro Tibet protesters in Beijing have been jailed. iTunes has been blocked because it's selling Songs for Tibet, produced by the Art of Peace Foundation in support of the people of that disputed region.
The hateful murders and deliberate starvation continues in Darfur.
Burma continues, with Chinese support, to be run by a despicable junta which murders its own people with bullets and neglect.
And China continues to support the dictator Mugabe in Zimbabwe.
But for two weeks, the world, or most of it, managed to pretend none of this was happening. Britain, surprised by its medal tally, is devoting page after page of its newspapers to its glorious athletes, and little or no space to those who are suffering under the odious Chinese regime.
There has, for example, been little mention of those who were jailed specifically because of the Olympics. Scant mention of those thrown out of their homes to make way for the 'fine stadium.'
But then, the world will turn a blind eye even when the games are over when things will, undoubtedly, get worse.
China is useful. Indeed, there are those economists who say China is vital. And staying on the right side of China is vital for western economies.
The world has a habit of turning a blind eye. It did so in the Balkans. It did for years as Ethiopians starved to death. It did in Darfur until it was forced to react. It hasn't exactly covered itself in glory in relation to Zimbabwe.
The Games are all but over now.
And everyone's counting their medals.
Who, I wonder, will count those imprisoned for their religious or political beliefs, who will count the dead when the real repression resumes in the near future?
Anyone?

So. Who is Disabled?

2008-07-25T19:25:00.002+01:00

dis·a·bled [dis-ey-buhld]
–adjective
1. crippled; injured; incapacitated.
–noun
2. (used with a plural verb) persons who are crippled, injured, or incapacitated (usually prec. by the): Ramps have been installed at the entrances to accommodate the disabled.

We need words for everything. We're not comfortable if we don't have words to describe everything we see and do.
But the thing is, that sometimes, the words we use are, well, they're uncomfortable themselves.
Like 'disabled.'
What's disabled?
Leaving aside, for the moment, my reservations about the Olympics being held in China which continues to repress its own people, particularly as the Games approach, this summer will see not just the Olympic Games, but the Paralmpics.

Read about the Paralympics on the official website, or anywhere else for that matter, and you will frequently come across the word 'disabled.'
I thought about it. I thought about it quite a lot.
And then I looked up the sports in which the paralympic athletes will compete.
They are; Archery; Athletics; Boccia; Cycling; Equestrian; Football 5-a-side; Football 7-a-side; Goalball; Judo; Powerlifting; Rowing; Sailing; Shooting; Swimming; Table tennis; Volleyball; Wheelchair basetketball; Wheelchair Fencing; Wheelchair Rugby;; Wheelchair Tennis.
With the notable exception of rugby, I was never any good at any of the above sports. And there are those who would argue that rugby should actually included in the list of sports at which I am not now and never was any good.
I certainly was never much good at athletics. I tried archery, but was a total failure. Judo and me parted company early. Rowing was too difficult. Sailing made me ill. I swam like a brick.
It goes on and on.
So the question is this.
When compared to those taking part in the paralympics, am i the one who is disabled? Are they not the ones who are able?
Just because one or two parts of the body don't work or don't work well, does that make someone disabled?
Because, in my experience, those classified as 'disabled' invariably are possessed of a great deal more talent, in general, than what is called the 'able bodies' community.
Is Stevie Wonder disabled because he is blind? Or is he one of the most talented musicians in history?
Words. They are used to described things and classify things.
Sometimes i wonder, if there are words we could do without.

It All Depends on Which Minority

2008-07-18T15:48:00.003+01:00

It is only right that the State, our Government, takes on board the concerns and worries of minorities.
It's what happens in a responsible democracy.
Indeed, the soon-to-be-law Civil Partnership Bill, has been introduced because of a long campaign by Gay and Lesbian organisations and, indeed, by the Irish Human Rights Commission.
We have long since passed laws outlawing discrimination on the grounds of sex, sexual orientation, colour or creed or physical ability or disability. It is right, for example, that young Muslim girls be permitted to wear a hijab to school in much the same way as a young Christian girl may wear a crucifix.
We have made tremendous progress as a society.
But you can’t help feeling, that it is only those minorities which are well organised and well financed, which have slick public relations machines or which are popular band-wagons for politicians, which have their cases heard and action taken.

We still, for example, do little or nothing for the mentally handicapped in our midst, or rather, not in our midst. As long as they are kept out of sight, most people - politicians included or even in particular - seen to be content.
We do little or nothing for the old. Yes, that old rogue Charlie Haughey thankfully introduced free travel and other benefits. But our pensioners are expected to live for a week on a sum equivalent to what a TD receives in (unvouched, untaxed) expenses, for two days.
We certainly don’t do enough for the homeless. If we did, there wouldn’t be homless.
And we don’t do enough for unfortunate drug addicts. We have about one per cent of the beds we need to encourage them to seek treatment.
The point of all this is that maybe we’re spending a little bit too much time arguing about whether gays and lesbians can have civil partnerships or whether they can get married. You probably know my personal view is that they can have partnerships and it’s only right. But marriage is and always has been between men and women.
We spend too much time wondering if travellers are a distinct ethnic group. They are not. And even if it was to be decided they were - after endless blathering and waffling - what difference would it make? It certainly hasn’t helped our Roma visitors.
Personally, I would rather we talked about the mentally handicapped, the old, the poor, the homeless and the addicted and, yes, the traveller and the Roma.
They are issues involving people who have nothing and less than nothing. They are not well financed. They have no slick PR machines. They have little or no influence.
Of course, nothing will change.
The mentally handicapped, the homeless, the addicted and, to a degree, travellers aren’t great for turning up at polling stations.
And as long as that’s the case, they will be allowed to rot.

Bad Weather and a Good Idea to Solve EVERYTHING

2008-07-15T18:21:00.005+01:00

Here is the weather forecast for Ireland.
It will be cloudy, there will be rain. It won't be that warm. And it might be windy.
Yes, I know we get lovely days when the sun shines and it's nice and calm and warm.
But if you want a forecast that's right 90 per cent of the time, stick to the above.
Last Friday, the RTE weather forecast predicted that Saturday would be fine, warm and sunny.
It wasn't. It rained. And it wasn't what you'd call 'warm,' well, not if you're used to holidaying in places which are genuinely warm.

People often say that we put up with too much in Ireland.
And we do.
We've been ripped off by chain stores for years, charging up to 50 per cent more in the Republic of Ireland than in the North. They trot out the usual excuses about 'long distances' and 'transport costs.'
If that was the case, the people in Inverness would be paying £5 for a pint of milk. And they're not.
We put up with lousy service in restaurants. We put up with dirty streets, we put up with extortionate toll charges on our roads. Note OUR roads.
And we put up with lousy weather.
For example, when I was in Australia a few years ago - it was during their Autumn - I was brought, by friends, to a beach not far from Sydney. 'Fantastic' I said as I changed and jumped into the sea for a swim.
They thought I should be certified. It was 18 degrees and, to them, the depths of winter.
Such little things like rain, cold, wind and cloud don't bother us.
Come the middle of May, there are those who, regardless of the weather, celebrate the arrival of "Summer' by changing into shorts, sandals and t-shirts, be they male or female.
We shouldn't put up with the lousy weather.
We shouldn't accept the Met Office telling us, like they did last Summer, that the weather is 'unsettled' when there is rain for 64 consecutive days. You don't get more settled than that.
Instead of wasting money on building roads, schools, hospitals and such like, what we should have done when we had the money, was resettle the entire population in the South of France or Spain. We'd have money left over.
And we could have left behind a United Ireland, albeit one with nobody in it bar American tourists, people from Holland and Germany playing bodhrans in Doolin and a few fishermen and hill walkers.
No more complaints about the weather. No more whinging about traffic jams, no more crowded Accident and Emergency rooms, no more inept government - just the best decentralisation plan ever undertaken.
Decentralising the entire population to sunny climes.
I wonder if it's too late...

I Have to Admit It's Getting Better

2008-07-11T15:54:00.001+01:00

Well, I’m sorry I’ve been missing for a little while.
I could tell you that I feel so low, now that Ireland has become a poor country again, that I didn’t have the will to write a blog.
But that wouldn’t be the truth.
I could tell you that we are now so poor that I was out collecting sticks to make a fire to heat us all.
But that wouldn’t be the truth. Even though it could be.
I could tell you that I was hunting rabbits for us to eat.
But that wouldn’t be true. Though it’s likely to be in the not too distant future.

Fact is, that after all the medical treatment I’ve been having, I was plum knackered.
That’s the problem with things like Bone Marrow Transplants. No matter how often they tell you, beforehand, that you’ll be knackered afterwards, you don’t really get the idea HOW knackered until, well, afterwards.
It’s a strange business. Like many, if not most, medical procedures, it’s actually worse than the disease it’s setting out to cure.
I went into my transplant with fear and dread. Even saw the shrink before I went in, such was the mess in my head.
And I was aware that, last time I was in hospital, I did all but tunnel out.
So it was odd, that once I walked in the door of St James’s Hospital in Dublin, my mind was at ease. Completely. I checked into my room, made sure I had pictures of my loved ones beside the bed, checked that the telly was working, my laptop could access the internet (thank God for dongles, the hospital is still in the last century when it comes to providing broadband for patients) and my iPod was functioning.
What they do for the BMT is blast you with chemo to kill of your marrow and then, in a kind of transfusion, give you someone else’s.
And it’s a bit unpleasant.
Although I think our health service is an inequitable shambles, although I believe it is run by people I wouldn’t let run a children’s party, although I believe it is over administered beyond belief, and although I believe nobody in the upper echelons of the Health Service Executive gives a toss for those currently in need of the service - they have their eyes focussed firmly on ten years hence - the people who work the front line are unbelievable.
Doctors, nurses, catering, cleaners - chaplains in particular. They are fantastic people utterly undervalued by their employers.
They make hospital bearable. Even if the food is dire, the people giving it too you make it almost edible.
They are to a man and woman, fantastic.
And let me say this now. I will never know who donated bone marrow for me. Never. Dem’s the rules.
But it is one of the most altruistic things a human being can do. There is no money it. You don’t even get to find out if it worked. You never get to see the results of your sacrifice. Which makes it a sacrifice in the true sense.
Anyway, I was sick for a while. And now I’m tired.
But things appear to be going reasonably well. The doctors are happy.
If there are little blips, doctors say “don’t worry.” Even they must know that whenever someone with a nasty disease - mine is lymphoma by the way - is told not to worry, that is precisely what they do.
So I’m trying not to worry. Trying to do bits and bobs. I find the bobs more tiring than the bits.
But I must be in better form. I’m complaining as much as I ever did. I’m complaining about the weather, politicians, the wanton destruction of our heritage in Tara, motorists, pedestrians, cyclists - I think that just about covers everybody.
I’m in the sad situation of knowing more about Coronation Street than any other 54 year old male on the planet.
I sleep like a log and wake up jaded.
I have no feckin’ appetite even when I’m hungry.
See?
Complaining again.
It must have worked.

A Long Wait For Rugby to Return

2008-06-21T17:44:00.002+01:00

WHEN Cheltenham ends every year, it’s a reason for me to celebrate.
I’m not into horse racing.
It is no different when Ascot ends.
Like Cheltenham, it is one of those 'sporting' occasions that leaves me absolutely cold.
In fact, one year when I was sent to Cheltenham to work for the newspaper which then employed me, I actually managed to go through the thing without seeing one horse, not even the statue of Arkle.
Even though I was sent there to cover the people, not the horses, I thought it a pretty serious achievement, one of which I am justifiably proud.
You see, I'm not terribly sure horse racing is a sport at all.

There were, for example 75,000 people in Croke Park this year year to watch the Irish team playing rugby. Let me rephrase that, to watch the Irish team trying to play rugby. I think it would be fair to say that the vast majority of those who attended, or who watched on television, did not have the summer holiday/ten pints or the house riding on the result via a large wager.
Similarly soccer, which can be a sport when they're not in nightclubs or diving or trying to get their fellow professionals sent off, doesn't entirely rely on the fact that people place bets every now and then, for its survival.
But take the betting out of horse racing and what have you?
Well, a very, very small crowd indeed.
There are some who go just to watch the fine animals running. But they are in a tiny minority, which is a pity.
Because if it wasn't for all the people rushing, bumping into all and sundry as they go about placing their bets, horse racing might be quite a pleasant experience.
I also dread Wimbledon. I don't know what it is about tennis, but it bores me rigid. The only thing that keeps me awake is those damned women grunting. Even rugby players don’t grunt. Well, they don’t grunt much.
And I have to say that anyone who claims snooker is sport has obviously never played much in the way of games.
At least Cheltenham is over, Ascot is over. No more roars of 'Up ye boy ye" as I pass the bookies. No more shouts of "go on ye good thing' as I pass the pub.
And although the rugby season is all but over, it won’t be that long now until the weather closes in and the finest sport of them all returns in the Autumn. Well, today was the longest day of the year. And Christmas is just around the corner.
Mind you, when autumn arrives and we face up to the All Blacks again, it might just be a little less painful, to watch reruns of Wimbledon or Ascot.
Well, there's always the cricket...

Dear God, Can You Fix The Weather

2008-06-19T13:32:00.005+01:00

❍Charlotte loves the sun. But she won't get it in Ireland.

Dear God,

I am sorry for writing to you, because I know you are extremely busy. At least, I'm not writing entirely on my own behalf. I'm writing on behalf of all the people, and mainly the children, who live on the island of Ireland.
You see, we had a lousy summer last year. Of course, you know that.
And, despite a few reasonable weeks in May, this year isn't shaping up any better.
Now, I know that we're lucky in Ireland.
We don't get earthquakes of any great intensity. About every hundred years or so, we get the kind that might crack a pane of glass.
We don't really get hurricanes, not in the Katrina sense anyway.
We don't get tsunamis. We don't get typhoons. We don't get monsoons.
We don't get volcanic eruptions. We don't get floods, well, not real floods. not biblical events.
And we don't get plagues of locusts and we don't get outbreaks of swamp fever or beri beri or ebola.
And we sure as hell - I beg your pardon - we certainly don't get droughts.

And to be honest, I wouldn't swap all of that for a few weeks sunshine.
It's just that, well, a few weeks sunshine would be nice, especially for the children.
Last summer, poor Charlotte got to sit in her little paddling pool twice. This year, she's managed three times so far with no prospect of her having another dip for some time.
I'm well aware that it wasn't sunny every day in the summer when I was a child. Sure, who am I telling. You remember it better than me.
I know that, when you're a child, you don't actually need the sun to be cracking the rocks. As long as the rain isn't persistent or torrential, kids just get on with it.
Trouble is, recently the rain has been, well, persistent and torrential.
So I'm wondering if there's any chance you'll give us a little break?
Any chance that for, say, most of July and a bit of August, we get reasonably warm and sunny weather?
I know, I know, people start dressing silly and littering beaches and eating ice cream by the bucket.
But it would be kind of nice if, every second or third year, we had a little bit of a heat wave.
That's about it.
Hope all is well Above.
Sorry for asking, but it's for Charlotte more than me.

Paddy

Ye Have Disgraced Yourselves Again

2008-06-13T14:55:00.005+01:00

❍A poster, bullying people into not being bullied

Bearing in mind that the Shinners/Provos were against the Lisbon Treaty, it seems apt to describe the result, as the Irish people shooting themselves in the foot.
During the utterly dishonest campaign waged on the 'No' side, we had devout Catholics lying through their teeth, men and women who backed an illegal army for a generation, railing against militarism, directors of companies which supply the US military, warning about an EU Army, and a raggle-taggle army of commentators, many supported by Rupert Murdoch's media empire, urging us all to vote no.
So why did the Irish people vote against the advice of the three main political parties in the country and against the EU which has handed over something like €68billion in aid over the past thirty years?
They did so because they believed the lies they were told.

Despite absolute assurances, right up to the last minute, voters expressed their fears that the Treaty would result in the legalisation of abortion in Ireland. It won't.
They said they were worried that it would force the Irish people to permit stem-cell research. It won't.
They said they believed it would lead to a loss of our neutrality*. It won't.
(Why are we so proud of our neutrality? Was there something honourable about telling Hitler that, as far as we were concerned, he could invade anywhere he wished and murder as many Jews, Romas and homosexuals as he pleased?)
They said they had been told that Europe would harmonise taxes* and therefore force us to raise our low Corporation Tax which attracts foreign investment. It won't.
(*Isn't it odd, that many of the people who have spent years calling for a harmonisation of taxes so that we would have lower VAT, cheaper cars and a more benign indirect tax system, suddenly raise the 'spectre' of tax harmonisation?)
There were even some who believed that children could be snatched from their homes, that military conscription was just around the corner and, I don't know, that we'd all have to turn Protestant or something equally dastardly.
But there were others who voted 'No' too.
Businessmen - and we know who they are - who have a vested interest in keeping manners on Europe as they see it.
There were ordinary people who are happy that there are 26 other countries for us in which to sell our goods - but which should really keep their own people at home instead of sending them here to take jobs from decent Irish people.
There are those who will tell you that there are too many politicians and civil servants getting too much money our of Europe. But who want 27 Commissioners - and their enormous cabinets and staffs and what not - instead of 15.
It's a long time since I have been embarrassed by my nationality.
I was such when I lived in England in the '70s and the IRA was blowing up my neighbours. I was when the IRA gave two fingers to the Pope. I was when someone decided that the bank robbers, smugglers, thugs and murderers were sufficiently reformed to be considered respectable.
And I am again.
Sure, give our politicians a few bloody noses. (Metaphorically. I'm a pacifist.) I'd be first in the queue for that.
They are indeed, aloof, out of touch, over paid, under-worked and a self-perpetuating elite that needs taking down a peg or two.
But in this instance, we have shot ourselves in the foot. cut off our nose to spite our face.
Made fools of ourselves.
And who will solve the problem?
Declan Ganley and Libertas? Richard Green and his devout thugs in COIR? The Shinners? Vincent Browne? Shane Ross? Eamon Dunphy? Richard Boyd Barrett? Joe Higgins? (Two socialists voting against the Charter of Fundamental Rights) Patricia McKenna? (A 'Green" voting against environmental protection.) Gay Byrne? Ulick McEvaddy and his friends in the US Air Force?
No. They'll crawl back under their stones believing they have completed a job well done.
The job of solving the problem will be left to those who we elected to run the country.
Aloof and out of touch they may be.
But thank God it's them in charge.
And not those who, throughout the campaign and beyond, deliberately misrepresented the Lisbon Treaty, peddled lies, scaremongered and deceived.

Yes mistakes, No lies

2008-06-11T09:39:00.005+01:00

Tomorrow, June 12 2008, Ireland votes on a new European Union Treaty, the Lisbon Treaty.
Right now, it's impossible to forecast the result.
It should have been straight forward.
Europe has been good for Ireland.
Europe has given us €68 billion over the years. It has built hundreds of kilometres of our roads. It has built our schools and hospitals. It has given us access to one of the biggest markets in the world and certainly one of the wealthiest.
And yet, we might say no.
Why?
Well, firstly because the "Yes' Campaign, such as it was, was utterly inept.
This wasn't entirely the fault of the government. It's hard to sell something as abstract as the Lisbon Treaty. It doesn't offer anything tangible. It's largely to do with administration, efficiency, streamlining and the smooth running of a vast organisation. Dull.

But politicians can be blamed for a poster campaign which seemed to be more about personalities than policy. Why did our TDs, Councillor and MEPs find it necessary to blight our streets with posters featuring large photographs of themselves above small urgings for us to vote 'Yes?' Do they not realise that we think they're all useless?
They have been condescending and patronising. They have allowed themselves to be associated with European politicians who have been even more condescending and patronising.
They have, in two words, been utterly useless.
Meanwhile, the "No' side has been permitted to get away with blatant lies, duplicity, secrecy and an almost unbelievable arrogance.
Take Declan Ganley's extremely dodgy 'Libertas' group. Nice name. Probably cost him a fortune to some PR company to come up with it.
Ganley prattles on about how we will end up with an unelected EU president. I admire the man's nerve. You would swear, wouldn't you, that he'd been elected to something. But no. He's self apppointed, self imporant and plain selfish.
Ganley supplies the American military. Whether he supplies them with nasty, lethal stuff or toilet roll is immaterial. He is inextricably linked to the US war machine. As is Ulick McEvaddy, another on the 'No' side.
Ganley has been telling blatant lies. He says our veto is at risk and it's not. He says our corporation tax rate is at risk and it's not.
He says we can negotiate a new treaty. And that's unlikely. Even if it happens, it doesn't mean we can negotiate a better deal. If the other 26 gang up on us, it could well we a worse deal. But Declan won't admit that.
Nor will he tell us where the money for his campaign is coming from. Nor will he tell us how a "No' vote would afffect his lucrative business. Maybe someday that other charlatan, Dan Brown, will write a book called The Libertas Code.
The Shinners maintain the treaty will lead to 'increased militarism.' Funny, isn't it? The organisation which had the biggest collection of guns and bombs in Ireland, turns out to be against militarism. They're good on guns and bombs, the Shinners. Not so hot on the economy, though.
COIR is the fascist Catholic organisation which is giving the Church a bad name. Its spokesmen and women have been lying through their teeth since this campaign began. They tell us abortion is on the way. And it's not. They tell us our corporation tax will be raised. And it won't. Their posters are scaremongering, dishonest, disgusting.
Right through the 'No' campaign, their are lies, distortions, myths and dishonesty.
And yet, right now, it might have worked for them.
This much is sure.
If the vote turns out to be "No', it is not Declan Ganley or Libertas or Ulick McEvaddy or Coir or the Shinners who will have to pick up the pieces.
It is our elected politicians.
The ones urging us to vote Yes.
The ones who, although we don't trust them - thanks these days to the corrupt Bertie Ahern - ran the lousy campaign.
The ones we're stuck with.

Clinically Proven to Make Money

2008-06-07T11:51:00.004+01:00

I’m going to set up a clinic.
It won’t be just any clinic.
This will be a special clinic. And it will make lots and lots of money.
Because my clinic is going to specialise in clinically proving things.
It will clinically prove anything it’s asked to prove, as a matter of fact.
Well, it will if it’s paid enough.
It will be particularly good at clinically proving cosmetics.
We will have a look at a bottle of something, lash it onto the old face and then, because we’re a clinic, we’ll announce that it’s clinically proven to do whatever it is it says it does or whatever we’re asked to say it does. For a fee.

We’ll do the same for shampoo and soap and creams and ointments and whatever else we’re asked to clinically prove.
We’ll do it for washing up liquid and dishwasher tablets and fertilisers and yogurts and, well, anything you like. Crisps, sucky sweets, fruit cake or hammers. We’ll clinically prove the lot.
There has to be money it.
Every night on television, companies announce that their products are clinically proven.
They don’t say what clinic has done the proving. And they don’t say if the clinic was independent or not. And they don't say if there's anyone qualified in the clinic to do anything other than clinically prove certain things they're asked to clinically prove.
My clinic won’t be independent. We’ll do whatever we’re told.
If the money’s right, that is.
And we’ll have a second section for thinking up names.
You know, those scientific sounding names of things they put into shampoo and make-up and food they’re trying to tell you is good for you.
How about a new healthy toffee sweet for kids which contains dulcis lentesco? (It’s actually latin for sticky and sweet)
Or a breakfast cereal that has incuratus nutrimens in it? (It’s latin for unhealthy food, but you’re not to know that.)
Or even z-alfa retondo in you make-up? (And make up is a good word because I just make that one up.)
And lots and lots of things will have added PF40 and Z27G and things like that.
Am I a bit late?
Do you reckon someone's beaten me to it?

My Other Uncle Is A Lear Jet

2008-06-04T12:25:00.004+01:00

❍Tom and Katie: They're off their (airplane) trolleys

Katie Holmes has, it seems been spending time in Scientology Boot Camp - which presumably means that, by now, she thinks her grandfather was a DC8 or maybe her uncle is a Ryanair jet or something.
One way or another, the girl is being sucked in.
Unlike the famous actor Jason Beghe. All right. The actor Jason Beghe.
He’s been in a few movies and a few tv series which, these days, makes him probably C-list.
But he must have done ok.
Because over 12 years he gave Scientology a million smackers.
It took him that long, and that much, to realise it was all a load of the kind of thing I have to pick up when I take my dog for a walk.

Just to remind you about the fundamentals of Scientology.
Let me tell you about Xenu.
Xenu according to Scientology founder L. Ron Hubbard, was the dictator of the "Galactic Confederacy" who, 75 million years ago, brought billions of his people to Earth in DC-8-like spacecraft, stacked them around volcanoes and killed them using hydrogen bombs. Scientology holds that their essences remained, and that they form around people in modern times, causing them spiritual harm. That’s from the normally but not 100 per cent reliable Wikipedia.
Hubbard - a bigamist, fraudster, wife beater and sometime druggie - spent some time in Dublin a long, long time ago, setting up his mission on Merrion Square.
We Irish, initially, were enthusiastic. But it normally doesn’t take long for us to spot a charlatan. (Bertie was an exception.)
I remember, many years ago when I worked as a barman in London, taking their ‘personality test’ during a break from work.
I was invited in for a counselling session, the test having proved their was something wrong with me.
When they asked what I worked at, I told them, for some reason, that I was unemployed.
I was shoved back onto the street in less than a second.
The unemployed, it seems, don't have enough money to become Scientologists.
I feel sorry for poor Katie.
Bad enough being hitched to a nutter like Tom.
But if she’s has to worry about the spirits of Xenu’s people as well, it’s going to be tough...

Love But No Affection

2008-06-03T08:49:00.003+01:00

Isn't it amazing how real memories can be.
I can close my eyes and I'm in our kitchen, aged just about two, sitting in a high chair, my eldest sister spinning pennies for me on my tray.
I can visualise the Iona Hotel in Rosslare where we holidayed when I was seven or so, a little English girl called Lesley who reminded me of Hayley Mills and a man who left the roof of his sports car down when it rained torrentially.
I can taste the soft drinks which used to be sold from a lorry on the street when I was a child.
And I can smell my father as I clambered onto his knee so that I could kiss him goodnight and he could brush his five o'clock shadow off my cheek, tickling me and hugging me before I went off to sleep.
We were what people called a 'kissy' family.
We were tactile, we hugged and we kissed when we were saying hello and we hugged and kissed when we were saying goodbye.
Even as a teenager, we never left the house without offering a kiss to our mother and father.
(Of course, kissing your mother and father in public during the teenage years wasn't really that cool. However, once over that difficult period, the kissing resumed.)
Joan Armatrading had a song, once, called Love and Affection.
There's little doubt, that the members of families, in general, love each other.
But not too many have that affection which, in a way, marked us out.

I hope my daughter is as tactile as we were when we were children and, indeed, older.
In the modern world, tactility can result in raised eyebrows.
Grown men propping children on their knees and hugging them. Is it ok?
Of course it is. It's affection. It's love. It's family.
I can think of nothing that give me more joy, more happiness, more peace than when my little girl clambers onto my knee and lies back, her head on my chest, to watch something on television or for me to read to her.
When she leans forward and offers a kiss, it's like winning the lottery - it's certainly something I wouldn't swap for a lottery win.
There is lots of love in the world, of course there is.
But there seems to be a desperate shortage of affection.
Not that I'm suggesting you hug the person next to you on the bus or train.
Unless, of course, it's your mother or father.

It Wasn't A Celtic Tiger After All...

2008-06-02T20:51:00.003+01:00

What do all of these animals have in common?
Unicorn, Yeti, Bigfoot, Loch Ness Monster.
Well, not everyone believes they exist or ever did.
There are some who swear they saw the Abominable Snowman or Yeti in the Himilayas.
But, even though we know what it’s supposed to look like, there’s no proof there ever was such a creature.
Bigfoot has actually been filmed in the United States. But detractors say it was just an elaborate hoax and there is no Bigfoot.
The Loch Ness Monster has long been the subject of debate. There is one photograph said to be of the monster. But sceptics say it’s just a log floating down the lake.
And the Unicorn, well, only little children reading fairy tales believe there was ever a Unicorn.
There is another creature which is the subject of debate too, these days.
Most people on this island say they’ve seen it.
But others, like me, believe those people only think they’ve seen it. They have been persuaded by slick political campaigns that they have seen it. They have been told over and over again, that this creature can be seen almost anywhere in Ireland.
What creature is this?
It’s the Celtic Tiger.

So what does it look like?
Well, it looks like a shiny, expensive new car. It looks like a satellite dish and a 37 inch LCD television. It looks like an apartment in Spain or Turkey or Bulgaria. It looks like a bag of goodies from Sachs of Fifth Avenue or Bloomingdales. It looks like a new house. It looks like a large kitchen extension. It looks like a computer in every child’s room.
At least, that’s what we’re told it looks like.
Because if you look a little harder, you’ll see that it also looks like filthy hospital A&E areas, with sick people lying on trolleys for days. It looks like long waiting lists. It looks like a rampant MRSA bug. It looks like schools, bulging at the seams and children unable to get places to begin their education. It looks like an infrastructure system that can’t even deliver a modern road between any two major towns in the country but can, for some reason, build four motorways through Co Meath. It looks like a dire public transport system. It looks like one in nine children in the country living in poverty. It looks like government ministers who give themselves almost 30 pay rises in ten years. It looks like billionaires. It looks like a Taoiseach who bums money off businessmen and who then tells lies about it and who says he didn’t know his own local cumann had given his then live-in partner a €30,000 loan. It looks like a government which prefers to fight the parents of autistic children in court (with our money) rather than educate those children. It looks like a government more determined to satisfy the needs of business than the needs of the people of the country.
We still have lousy hospitals. We still have overcrowded schools. We still have poor. We still have homeless. We still have a drug problem. We still have a crime problem.
But the statistics don’t lie, do they? We all have more money. That’s what they say.
Mind you, if you put me sitting at a table with Sean Quinn, we’re worth, on average, €2billion each.
Only I’m not.
You see, what happened here was that some people became very, very rich indeed.
And most didn’t.
But the average went up.
And we all thought we were rich because Fianna Fail politicians, in the main, kept telling us we were.
And it felt good.
So we all loved the animal we thought was a Celtic Tiger.
And it might have looked like a Celtic Tiger at first glance.
But, you see, it wasn’t a Celtic Tiger at all.
It was a Greedy Pig.

Rugby Conkers All

2008-05-18T12:06:00.002+01:00

(I read this on RTE's Sunday Miscellany some time ago. So I decided I'd stick it up here for the fun of it.)
It’s always nice to finish a career as you started it.
In my case, my rugby career ended some 33 years after it began. And in a scene worthy of the Twilight Zone, it ended exactly as it began - with the referee pointing to the dressing room and telling me to get myself there forthwith.
I dispute both decisions.
Let me start with the first one.
It was in Willow Park School in Dublin, nursery to Blackrock College, itself a nursery for great rugby players like Brian O’Driscoll, Fergus Slattery and Brendan Mullin.
I can boast no lofty achievements like that trio.

But on this occaasion, I had proudly lined out in my blue and white hoops for the first time. Willow Under Nines were taking on their arch rivals from that other Holy Ghost rugby school St Mary’s College.
It was a fresh autumn day, I remember. We were winning. And they scored a consolation try.
We retreated behind the posts for the conversion which was duly missed.
And then fourteen of our team ran to the half way line for the kick off.
I, alone, remained behind the posts.
It was, as I saId, autumn. The leaves were brown. And the ground behind the goal was covered in fallen chestnuts, conkers as we called them. It was too good a moment to miss.
I mean, we’d won the game. There were only minutes left. And I felt it would not have any influence on the result if I were to take the opportunity to stuff my pockets with conkers. I was sure I was doing nothing wrong.
Brother Luke, however, took a divergent view.
He believed, mistakenly I was certain, that collecting conkers during a game was against the laws of rugby. He duly sent me off in disgrace.
In the intervening years I happily played rugby having studied the laws to ensure that no such fate would befall me again.
I was, of course, correct about the laws in relation to collecting conkers and Brother Luke was wrong. Nowhere is it written that collecting conkers during a game is an offence. In fact, it is perfectly legal to collect conkers during a line out, scrum or maul, though I must admit, it is not something I have seen happen since at any level.
If they wanted it to be an offence, it would be. The laws of rugby run to some 30,000 words when you include myriad subclauses, additional regulations and referee instructions.
Law 19, subsection 13 - for example - states that a player not carrying the ball is offside if, after the ball has touched a player or the ground, that player steps in front of the ball, unless tackling (or trying to tackle) an opponent. Any attempt to tackle must start from that player’s side of the ball.
I hope that’s clear.
Having digested at least the important laws, I began a memorable career.
The first try - in the snow - on the front pitch at St Mary’s in Rathmines.
The match winning try against Pres Bray on the pitch near the tennis courts in Willow.
The fumble on the line against St Michael’s, third of the three Dublin Holy Ghost schools at the time, that resulted in their last minute try and our only defeat of the year at U 13s.
The moment Fr Nudie Boyle told me I was dropped from the junior cup team.
The heady heights of the thirds at senior level.
The third Es in the the club.
And the World Golden Oldies tournament in Dublin in 1993 where 5,000 rugby players from around gathered to play.
And that’s where it all ended. On a muddy field in Belfield. In ignominy. I was playing with CYM from Terenure in Dublin. And we were proud and happy, maybe a little smug, after winning our first two games well.
When it came to the third and final match, I was asked if I would like the honour of being captain against the Australian side. Brilliant, I thought, though I did wonder why some team mates were sniggering.
The Aussies emerged, brick outhouses to a man, with two former internationals in their side.
It didn’t auger well.
And it only got worse when the referee arrived and bid us all ‘g’day’ in a broad antipodean accent.
He gave us nothing. Not a scrum, not a penalty, nothing.
It was all too much.
I cracked.
I can’t remember what I called him. I think one of the words was ‘biased.’ The other was something along the lines of cad or bounder. Maybe a bit stronger.
He wasn’t impressed.
And for the second time in my long career, I was asked to leave the pitch.
I walked the long walk to the sideline, my head hung low.
In shame?
Not one bit of it.
It was autumn again.
And I was looking for chestnuts.

It Should Have Been So Simple

2008-05-17T14:05:00.003+01:00

❍BUSH: Thank God, he's now an endangered species.

God, I feel sorry for the Americans.
They're just about to get rid of a president who has done just about as badly as a president can do - he has destroyed the economy, the dollar is all but worthless, he is fighting an expensive war in Iraq that cannot be worn, America is a pariah worldwide, he has helped destroy the environment and failed, even, to rebuild New Orelans - and now they are faced with a choice between two bickering Democrats and a Republican who thinks, and possibly hopes, the Iraq war will last 100 years.
Bad and all as things are in Ireland, and they're bad, we have not reached that nadir.
It should have been oh so simple.
The Republicans choose an elderly, bad tempered war monger and the Democrats break new ground by choosing either a woman or a black candidate. Game over. New broom. New America.
But it's not working out that way, is it?

From the outside, it appears that Billary, for that is who Mrs Clinton really is, is determined that, if she doesn't get a shot at the White House, no Democrat will.
And, it could well be that, Barak Obama has much the same view.
Certainly, the damage they are doing to each other must have the Republicans laughing into their sleeves.
It might have been possible a little while ago for one to have the other as Vice President or 'Veep" as the Americans like to call it for reasons that have never been very clear.
Not now. They are, to each other, smiling assassins.
To those of us in the real world, that is the world outside the United States, it makes for confusing viewing.
One cannot imagine, for example, Dermot Ahern having a pop of Brian Cowen in the same way.
All right. You can imagine it. But it's not like to happen, at least, not in public.
Unlike the Democrats, it seems, to Fianna Fáilers, the party is everything.
It is more important than the economy, the health of the nation, crime, the poor - it is more important than anything, possibly or probably including, God.
While this makes for the creation of a political elite - think Cowen, Lenihan, Hanafin, Ahern, deValera, Haughey, Flynn and so on - it also makes for endless power and endless enjoyment of the trappings of power, not least large expenses, large salaries, jobs for the family etc.
If the American Democrats were as loyal to their party, by now either Billary or Obama would now be stuck into John McCain instead of being stuck into each other.
Healthy? Well maybe, if it wasn't for the fact that it's costing each of them a couple of hundred million dollars to fight the fight.
And which system is best?
In the heel of the hunt, probably the Swiss.
But when you think of all the dodgy money in their bank vaults, well, that's another day's work entirely.

Represent Us But Don't Rule Us (How the Idiots Have Taken Over)

2008-05-12T13:19:00.004+01:00

❍Hitler: A fine democrat

Democracy is a wonderful thing, someone once said.
It permits us to choose the fools who rule us.
Oh. It was me who said that.
Democracy. It sounds fine and dandy. It's, well, democratic.
George W Bush thinks every country in the world should have it. Except Iran. And Algeria. And anywhere else that has the temerity to elect people he doesn't like or with whom he disagrees.
Hitler was a democrat. Oh yes he was. He was elected.
Robert Mugabe was elected in a more or less fair manner to begin with at least.
Vladimir Putin was elected as was his successor Dmitry Medvedev.

If you look at any democratic country in the world, and I suppose for the purposes of this piece I'm talking about really democractic, you will find, without a shadow of a doubt, that many of those who have been elected are idiots.
It's not their fault. They have been chosen by their peers who, when it came to making the big decision decided, as it was their democratic right to do, that wanted an idiot to represent them.
It may have been for one of many reasons.
Maybe the idiot's father or mother or uncle or aunt or brother or sister had represented these people for generations and wasn't, in fact, an idiot. And so the descendant or relative got elected by extension, so to speak.
Maybe the idiot's father or mother or uncle or aunt or brother or sister was indeed an idiot but was a useful kind of idiot who got the local road resurfaced every now and then and got the pension for Mrs MacGillycuddy and a job in the civil service for that rather slow boy, Johnny from down the road. He might never have heard of Afghanistan or Burma or Zimbabwe or, for that matter, Berlin. But he got things done.
Either way, we end up with lots of idiots in our parliament and, indeed, every parliament in the world. These are people who need help dressing but can, unaided, tot up massive expenses, never miss a trick when it comes to tax and have junketted to the far corners of the world to see sewerage systems, street lights, schools and prisons, all of which we have in ample supply here at home.
So what's the point?
The point is this.
We elect these people, idiots and non idiots alike, to represent us. Not to rule us.
They should go to parliament and say: the people I represent do not want a tax on ice cream, the people I represent want a new motorway to be built to Gortahork; the people I represent want free jelly. Whatever.
And that's fine.
The problem arises when the idiots and, indeed, some of the non-idiots, are appointed to positions which actually mean they're running the show.
And so you end up with school teachers running energy departments and publicans running education departments and bus drivers running health departments and solicitors running the country.
We should elect our representatives to represent us.
But the job of running the country, should be left to people who know how to run countries.
Countries should be run by experts in education, finance, energy, transport, environment, defence and so on.
So.
Who chooses the experts to run the country....?
Ah.
Leave it with me.

Small Gestures Maybe, But Gestures of Hope

2008-05-11T20:41:00.003+01:00

There are many reasons why we should not boycott the Olympic Games in Beijing this summer.
They will bring huge employment and therefore benefit to tens of thousands of Chinese people.
They will provide an opportunity for athletes from Third World countries to appear on a world stage and, maybe, break free from poverty.
They will provide the whole world with an opportunity to see all that is best about sport.
And so on.
In fact, I would say, that if I sat here for long enough, I could probably come up with a hundred reasons not to boycott the games.

Indeed, if I was simply to make an argument for boycotting the Games on the basis of China's behaviour in Tibet, despite the worldwide protests during the farcical Torch Run, there aren't really that many people who care. A pity. But true, nonetheless.
Some people may be appalled that China is doing its best to arm the despot Mugabe in Zimbabwe despite his brutality, his dishonesty, his corruption and the patently fraudulent nature of the elections there. At least, unlike China, there were elections there.
Others might feel a touch of nausea when they think of how many people are executed in China each year, often after no more than show trials and often with doctors on standby to harvest their body parts.
There are still more people who recoil at the idea of the way China treats its own citizens, those who raise even the quietest voice against the unelected regime, those who are summarily thrown out of their homes to facilitate some development or other, a practice Bertie Ahern appeared to admire, those who practice the Catholic, or indeed, any other faith, those who dare to be different in any way.
There are those angry at the way China shows utter disregard for the environment in its rush to be as greedy as, well, as greedy as us.
All of those thing sicken me.
But I am sickened most by China's support for the Government of Sudan, the government which has facilitated and carried out genocide in Darfur, a government which will, most certainly, not consider the nationality of the UN troops operating in Chad, if they find that operation inconvenient to them. That, of course, includes the Irish troops
There are many sick countries on this earth of ours, many countries rules by despots, dictators, brutal armies and, in some instances, men who are simply mad.
We must, of course, help the people of those countries as best we can.
Legitimising brutal regimes is not the way to go about it.
Shaking hands with the devil is not the right thing to do.
Personally, I will have no interest in the Olympic Games.
I am still, I fear, a child of the Sixties to this extent.
I hope.
I know in my heart that small gestures, even millions of them, are as naught against the power of the powerful.
But I'm for making them anyway.

The Great Abortion Lie

2008-05-09T10:23:00.002+01:00

Science never ceases to amaze me. Mankind progresses at an astounding rate.
All over the world, experts of all sorts work daily trying to find ways of keeping us all alive longer.
Indeed, some of the treatments I now receive for my own condition, didn’t exists a few years ago.
It's what makes me think.
It baffles me that there are still scientists and others in the medical profession who believe their mission in life is to aid the death of others.
In the United States, and no doubt elsewhere, doctors and scientists work relentlessly to think up new ways of executing prisoners. They say they want to execute them ‘humanely’. Which is impossible because you cannot execute humanely any being that can think and knows what is to happen to it.
 
In England recently they announced that they are going to experiment with what you might call ‘quickie’ abortions in doctors’ surgeries.
So you might have one worker in an office nipping out for a coffee at lunchtime and another nipping out to kill their unborn child.
There is a great myth perpetuated by self-styled feminists around this issue and it surrounds their glib advertising slogan about ‘a woman’s right to choose.’
In this country, they try to stir the emotions by going on about incest and rape but they rarely if ever reveal the fact that, what they want is abortion on demand up to and including 24 weeks, past the time when a baby is viable outside the womb.
And you may notice that when women are pregnant, even a couple of months, people ask them how the baby is. They never enquire about the health of the foetus or the embryo, words those who favour abortion use to to avoid using the word ‘baby.’
You may or may not know, that the 'liberal' New York Times never uses the phrase 'partial birth abortion' in its headlines. Because although it supports the barbarous practice - which is too nauseating to describe here - it knows that the name of the procedure itself is so disgusting that it would turn the stomachs of its readers.
What those who favour abortion mean by a woman’s right to choose is this.
Whilst they berate men who fail to act responsibly and take precautions when engaging in intercourse, they believe no such onus should apply to women.
Instead, women, they believe, can engage in unprotected sex and then nip off to kill the resulting life at their convenience.
And that’s what it is. If a foetus is alive it is life. If it is alive before an abortion and dead after it, it has been killed.
Kidnapping of people for torture by the United States is called 'extraordinary rendition.'
Hitler called the holocaust “The Final Solution.’
It's what people do when they know what they're doing, what they're promoting is unpleasant or just plain wrong.
Feminists describing abortion as “The Right to Choose’ is the same kind of lie.

Goodbye Bertie. Off To Live in Darndale, then?

2008-05-07T11:23:00.004+01:00

And so it's farewell Bertie Ahern, Prime Minister of Ireland who liked to pocket dosh from whoever game it to him, whenever and in whatever currency.
Soon we expect to see you begging on O'Connell Bridge for funds to help you through this difficult time in your life.
Well, not really.
We reckon the bold Bertie will be busy for some time counting all the spondulecks he has managed to bum off people over the year as he sails off into the sunset or, rather, is driven there in the government car he retains by the government driver he also retains.
He will also have to count all the money he gets from the pensions he has earned - earner? what am I saying - the pensions he and other TDs and Ministers have awarded themselves so they can continue to live in luxury while, it is claimed 750,000 Irish children live in poverty or are on the borderline, while pensioners live on less than €300 a week, while the homeless sleep rough because there is no money to staff the hostels built for them, while geriatric patients are being used as human shields in our hospitals to occupy beds so those who need them are kept on waiting lists and don't add to costs, while criminals are let out of prison early, while prices are going through the roof and while we watch the economy crumbling because, in the heel of the hunt, he was pretty damned useless at his job.
 
Some people seem to be devastated that Bertie is gone. Then again, even by the worst estimates, more than 40 per cent of Zimbabweans voted for Robert Mugabe. Not that I'm making a comparison. Really.
One of the most extraordinary things about the recent events in Irish politics, is the revelation that Fianna Fail politicians all appear to love Fianna Fail more than they love Ireland.
Bertie was at it again yesterday. "The Party that I love..."
They're all at it.
Like Mugabe, they think the party is more important than anything else.
They welcomed back Beverley Cooper Flynn who a court decided, urged people to dodge their taxes.
Why would any party do that?
Because it's good for the party in Mayo, that's why.
Ministers are appointed, not because they're able (that's pretty apparent) but because of the geographical location of their constituencies. It's good for the party.
Bertie was, is, a party man.
He carefully constructed is 'ordinary bloke' image while, at the same time, sucking up cash from anyone and everyone who offered it to him.
He nurtured the image as an ordinary Dub and gave the impression to those he met, that he was their friend.
Which was bullshit.
It's unlikely, now that's he's no longer Taoiseach, he will move in with 'ordinary people' in somewhere like, say, Darndale.
It was all just a grand act from the man who invented his past and is now faced with inventing a future for himself.
President of Ireland?
He mentioned the job yesterday.
All I can say, is please God no.

The Extraorindary Effect of John Gormley

2008-04-15T16:12:00.004+01:00

Gormley = gormless

If you're reading this from outside Ireland, you may not be aware of the misfortune that happened to us last year.
We got three 'Green' ministers.
If they are green in any sense, it is in the sense of being unprepared, unready, naive and plain old stupid.
The first thing they did when negotiating their place in Government with Fianna Fail, was to sell their souls.
This was utterly predictable.
It was like putting Shirley Temple in the ring with Mike Tyson. And yes, I know that Shirley was in her '70s when Mike was champion.
They gave in on the scrutiny of US planes passing through Shannon on their rendition flights.
 
They gave in on incinerators to dispose of our waste.
They gave in on tax allowances to help people deal with the radon gas problem.
They gave in on the wanton destruction of our - and the world's - legacy at Tara.
They gave in on just about everything except what they call 'the big picture.'
And that's global warming.
True, they have helped alleviate global warming.
Because, just as manure can be used to generate heat, the words they are speaking can do exactly the same thing.
This is not bulls**t.
It's green s**t.
One of their number from the backbenches was talking the other day about how we can all help contribute to ending the threat of climate change.
I didn't hear everything he said.
Because I was rolling around the floor after his suggestion that we wear wooly jumpers instead of turning on our heating and that we become more or less vegetarian.
The only thing he failed to suggest, was growing beards and wearing open-toed sandals.
But what the Greens have done to me this week, is to have me defending China - and that's not a pleasant place to be.
I fully support those who believe Irish athletes - ALL athletes - should boycott the opening ceremony. Politicians who attend will, I believe, bring shame on their countries.
Would they attend an opening ceremony in Zimbabwe or Burma?
Why, yes, of course they would!
But I am defending China because of what the Greens did to them in Ireland at the weekend.
They invited the Chinese ambassador to Ireland to attend their annual conference.
And then they insulted him.
John Gormley, one of the 'green' dopes in our government, deliberately used language he knew would offend the his Chinese guest.
Now, you might say that insulting Chinese ambassadors is fine and dandy and the more they are insulted, the better.
And you might be right.
But Government ministers shouldn't do it.
It's shooting ducks in a barrel.
It's like inviting someone into your home and insulting them.
It's not mannerly.
Gormley was like the cat who got the cream when the ambassador walked out which only goes to show how vain and stupid he is. No wonder spellcheck throws up the word 'gormless' when it comes across the name Gormley.
A notice box is the phrase my father used, I have to confess, about me occasionally.
John Gormley, and indeed his Green colleagues, are pretend politicians. They are in Government because the experienced boys in Fianna Fail think it makes them - Fianna Fail - look good. They think it gives them 'green' credentials.
And it probably does.
But if they don't want to end up at the back of the class, they'd want to put manners on the Green boys soon.
Because if they don't, this will end in tears.

Grumpyitis

2008-04-14T18:40:00.004+01:00

HARD TO BE GRUMPY WITH CHARLOTTE ABOUT, BUT I MANAGE IT

God, I've been busy!
Doing what?
Well, that's what I've been trying to figure out. I'm not entirely sure.
I know that I've been busy with Charlotte. She was two a week or so ago. And I've been very busy picking up all the toys she got for her birthday.
There are some toys she likes less than others. Likes them less, that is, until you try to pick them up to stash them in the attic or somewhere else that isn't the kitchen floor. Then she loves them.
She's growing up really fast. She's even losing interest in Iggle Piggle and the others in the Night Garden. Moved on to Tom and Jerry if you don't mind.
 
How long before it's Girls Aloud?
So Charlotte has had me busy at least some of the time.
I've been busy working too. Have to earn a crust. And so I'm doing whatever is asked, and what with work and Charlotte, my day seems too short.
That is to say that it's too short for what I really want to do, what I am, apparently, very good at and what, I am often told, is my full time job.
Grumbling. Giving out. Moaning. Whinging. Complaining.
Victor Meldrew, he of One Foot in the Grave is, compared to me, something of a comedian.
I have noticed myself that I am now complaining about just about everything.
I complain about people with no manners.
I complain about litterbugs.
I complain about the people who rip us off.
I complain about politicians.
I complain about reality television.
I complain about football players.
I complain about shop assistants who chat to each other while you're waiting to be served.
I complain about rude waiters.
I complain about lousy food in restaurants.
But then, so do most people.
The problem with me, is that I complain incessantly about other drivers. How dare they park where I wished to. How dare they pass me out even if I am driving slowly. How dare they have bigger, newer cars. In fact, how dare they use to road.
I complain about shop assistants. How dare they serve other people.
I complain, not just about reality television. I essentially complain about all television.
I complain about young people.
But I also complain about old people, middle aged people - all people.
I complain so much that I think it's become a complaint, a medical complaint.
Grumpyitis.
Most men my age seem to have it.
But mine, I fear, is probably incurable.

Emigration Again This Time Sparked By Grubbiness

2008-03-25T18:37:00.002Z

There have been many reasons, over the centuries, why people emigrated from Ireland in their droves.
A thousand year ago, or more, they left our shores to bring Christianity and, indeed, education to parts of Europe where their legacy is still celebrated.
In the 19th century, they left, of course, because of the potato famine which decimated the population.
In the middle of the 20th century, it was unemployment and poverty which forced, particularly young men, to leave Ireland.
Now, though, I fear a new wave of emigration.
This time, it will be spurred on not by poverty or famine or indeed a desire to spread God's gospel.
No. It will be as a result of Ireland becoming a nasty, grubby, greedy place where the only God worshipped is money.
 
We have long since passed the time when we expected moral leadership from our politicians. Having granted themselves more than 30 pay rises in the past ten years, they have demonstrated their greed for all to see.
It's hard not to blame them.
Our most senior politician, the Taoiseach Bertie Ahern, who received all of those pay rises and saw his salary almost treble in ten years, also pocketed large sums of money given to him by businessmen.
He says there were no favours asked or given.
Well, we might believe that if he had managed, once, to tell the truth to the Tribunal investigating his affairs.
Sure, it has not found evidence that he took money from the businessman Owen O'Callaghan. And that was the allegation which led to the Tribunal being set up.
But what it has found is vast sums of money in numerous accounts, in various currencies, amounts Bertie Ahern has failed to explain.
Bertie Ahern. What a legacy he will leave.
He has overseen the creation of vast wealth in Ireland during his term as Taoiseach. Sadly, most of it is concentrated in a very few hands.
We are still short of schools and have many, many schools in appalling condition.
The health service is a farce, a dangerous farce top heavy with administrators and short of front line staff not to mention equipment and facilities.
Crime is rampant, despite what Bertie Ahern says. We are short of prison spaces and of policemen.
And our heritage is being bulldozed, not to build a road to ease the lot of commuters, but to open up land for development.
In most countries, a site such as Tara would be treasured.
But then, Bertie Ahern has often talked about his admiration for the Chinese way of doing things. "Up and over, without all the public consultation," was more or less how he put it on one occasion.
There is no value placed on culture in Ireland any more.
There is little or no value placed on religion of any kind.
There is no value placed on honesty, decency or generosity.
If I was younger, I think I'd be off.
As it is, many of our young find the place distasteful.
And we're going to lose them.

The Peasants Will Soon Be Revolting

2008-03-10T16:39:00.006Z

Bertie opens Dublin Airport's 'too little too late' Pier D. He'll never have to use it.

Did you ever notice, that when a factory or big new company opens up, there's always a politician on hand to do the official ribbon cutting and to, essentially, take the credit?
Did you ever notice, that when a new piece of infrastructure is opened, there's always a politician right at the front of the photograph to, essentially, take the credit?
Did you ever notice, that when a new school or hospital is opened, there's always a politician there, grinning at everyone and shaking hands and, essentially, taking the credit?
But if you noticed all that, did you also noticed, that when a factory or big employer closes down, the politicians aren't to be seen?
 
Did you notice that, when a new road ends up being a disaster, jammed with traffic morning, noon and night, the politicians have disappeared?
And did you notice that, when the new school becomes overcrowded and when the A&E in the new hospital becomes full of patients on trolleys, the politician is elsewhere?
Right now, things are pretty much going down the toilet in Ireland.
While I never, ever, liked those who talked the economy down when things were a bit better than they are now, the huge rise in unemployment cannot be denied.
The virtual collapse of the housing market is there for all to see.
The lack of money is apparent everywhere.
And there is an undeniable sense of foreboding.
So. What are the politicians doing?
Essentially, shag all. Not a thing. Diddly squat. Nada. Rien. Faic.
Well, that's not quite right.
What they're doing is telling the rest of us that everything's fine and dandy. It's not as bad as it looks. Our 'essentials' (sounds like underwear to me) are strong. We're still outperforming Burkina Faso and Chad, or something. And that makes it all grand.
And, in fairness to them, from where they're sitting, on the fat backsides earning vast sums of money, claiming enormous unjustifiable expenses, getting chauffeured around the place at our expense and going home in the evening in the full knowledge that, unlike everyone else in the country, they qualify for a pension after not too many weeks in the job, things are fine and dandy.
You know, we studied history in school and often wondered what it was that prompted people to start revolutions.
I hope, that in a hundred years time, someone reads this, so they'll know why ours began.

The Parents Who Won't Parent

2008-02-29T17:27:00.004Z

I enjoy a drink. In fact, I enjoy several.
I have done so since I was... well, since I was a lot younger than I am now.
I have had some mighty fun with drink on board.
There was a time, it would have been unthinkable to go to a rugby international without a having a few pints first.
And as for club games, well, there was the joy of having a pint and watching the action out the window.
Drink has always featured at weekends. It features at christenings, funerals, weddings, birthdays, wedding anniversaries, divorces, house moves, new jobs, old jobs, new cars. Anything.
If you didn't already know, you know now that I am Irish.
And that's the way of it.

I'm not going to say there's no harm in it. There is of course harm in it. There is harm to the wallet and the liver. And very often to the job and to the family life.
But what this is about, is the fact that it has all gotten so much worse in recent years.
Of course, alcohol always fuelled violence to some extend.
The Irish have a reputation, at least partially deserved, for drinking and fighting.
It's a reputation that stems from the behaviour of the Irish who moved to America in the middle of the 19th century.
But though they fought hard and fought tough and it was a time when the shillelagh was anything but a tourist trinket, I can't imagine that screwdrivers or hammers or sawn off shotguns or hand guns were the weapons of thte day.
Somehow, it seems to me that fists were the number one choice.
I remember once, fifteen or twenty years ago, seeing two people who should have known better, going for each other. In a pub, of course.
One of them, a big lump of Scot both kicked and spat at his opponent. It was at that point, the onlookers called a halt to proceedings.
Kicking and spitting were not considered fair or gentlemanly.
Now, people are knocked to the ground and then kicked. One is attacked by ten. Those armed with knives and guns attack the unarmed. The young attack the old. Men attack women.
And it's fuelled by drink, drugs and greed. It's fuelled by the lack of an upbringing. It's fuelled by too much money to buy too much cheap booze. It's fuelled by too many places to buy booze. It's fuelled by an apparent lack of serious sanction if you're caught. It's fuelled by a justice system that's perceived to be worse than useless.
It has become the case, that many, many people stay away from the centre of our towns and cities for fear they will become victims of random violence.
There are calls for some kind of prohibition, or at least, a prohibition on the sale of below cost booze, a ban on the sale of booze in petrol stations, some kind of curtailment of the sale of spirits in convenience stores.
Too late.
If kids can get their hands on Class A drugs, a tray of beer or a bottle of vodka isn't going to present a problem.
Punishing the supplies of booze may have some effect.
Punishing the violent - not rehabilitating them, punishing them, may have some effect.
But until parents start parenting, until the mothers and fathers of the problem teens take responsibility or have it forced on them, nothing will change.
And more will be attacked and killed.
Ireland, 2008.

I'm Not Built For Being Alone

2008-02-25T19:00:00.005Z

There are people I know who love being alone.
In fact, I think I used to be one of them.
But far from wanting more solitude as I grow older, I find that I cannot abide being alone.
And, right now, that's how I am.
Charlotte and her mother have gone off to the Canaries for the week.
Seven women of whom Charlotte is the youngest and Connie the second youngest!
The child wasn't well last week. "Creche-itis" the doctor said.
She picked up a bug and developed a cough and the result was that everything that went down came back up for a few days.
To top it all, the flight to the Canaries was at 8 am so the check in was at 6 am and the wake-up call was at 4.30 am. Try explaining that to a 23 month old.

We, the grown-ups, were hoping for four-and-a-half hours sleep.
Charlotte didn't agree.
And so she roared from midnight until after two.
Then she had the nerve not to be pleased when we woke her at 5 am and brought her, in her jim-jams to a crowded airport.
Anyway, off they went.
I went to the match.
And now, I'm at home, fed up.
Yes, I can lie on in the morning, not having a pretty little alarm clock that goes off any time between 6 am and 8 am and demands to get into the bed beside us.
No, I don't have to listen to Iggle Piggle all day.
No, I don't have to read the same bit of the same book 47 times in a row.
No, I don't have to change dirty nappies.
No, I don't have to dream up ways of entertaining an almost two-year-old.
But I wish I had to.
The house is completely empty without them.
Going out isn't the answer. Because it involves coming back in when there's nobody there.
How hard is life for people who have nobody? How cruel are we all for not doing anything for the lonely.
Because lonliness is as bad as any disease and worse than most.
And the thing is, it can be cured easily in just a few minutes with just a few words and, mainly, a bit of listening.
At least I have mutty, Eric the dog.
He misses them too. He's a bit mopey. But he still enjoys going for a walk and making me use the Pooper Scooper.
For me, though, going to bed is the worst.
No little angel to look in on before going to sleep.
No little cries in the middle of the night.
No pure joy in the morning when she wakes up.
Can't wait for them to come home.
I'm counting the days.
Tell the truth.
OK. I'm counting the minutes.

I'm Not Actually Moving House but...

2008-02-15T16:06:00.002Z

I’ve been busy.
We’re moving house.
Strange phrase that. Because we’re not, obviously, moving the house. It’s staying where it’s been for the past 100 years or so. We’re actually moving to a new house. But you knew that.
We’re moving house if we can sell the one we’re in.
And that’s the problem.
Because to sell the one we’re in, we have to a) hire an estate agent and b) let complete strangers wander about our home.
Of course, the place has to be clean and tidy. Clean’s not a problem. It’s always clean.

Tidy, well, you see there are two children in the house, Charlotte aged 1 5/6th and me aged 54 1/2.
And there’s the dog, Eric.
Estate agents have favourite words, they would probably call them ‘key’ words, but they use them all the time, so they’re ‘favourite’ words as far as I’m concerned.
Top of the list is ‘de-clutter.’
De-cluttering means putting in inaccessible places things you normally like to have at hand.
This includes things you never use, haven’t seen in an age and/or thought you had put in that skip last year.
De-cluttering has resulted in the beams of our attic being put under enormous strain.
Because in addition to several hundred (it felt like that) pairs of shoes, mostly mine I’m ashamed to say, Christmas and Hallowe’en decorations, parts of a wardrobe, clothes, DIY stuff (not mine), gardening stuff and the like, we had to accommodate the baby’s toys.
Easier said than done.
Because every day, Charlotte has a new favourite.
I lie.
Every ten minutes, Charlotte has a new favourite.
And so putting in the attic, as we did, the green dinosaur rocking, er, dinosaur, the big purply thing, the noisy organ yoke (there are upsides) and lots more, is risky.
Eric is a bit put out. That’s not true either. He’s completely put out. Because put out is exactly what happens to him when we’re cleaning.
And he likes being inside.
Dogs, as you are aware, aren’t toilet trained.
And they grey slabs which make up the bulk of our tiny garden, are stained with Eric’s efforts over the years.
So, for the first time in my life, I had to wash the garden.
Yes indeed, it is possible to wash a garden.
When all is done and dusted (and polished) we then wait for the estate agent to arrive, unable to sit on a couch for fear of disturbing the cushions, unable to make a cup of tea for fear of leaving a ring-stain on the counter, unable to use the toilet for fear of… Well. Just for fear.
And then in traipse people who will undoubtedly criticise our home, say it’s over priced, say they don’t like it and move on to do the same to someone else’s.
I mean, how many of the people who view ‘for sale’ houses, are actually in the market, do you think?
Personally, I believe the vast bulk to be nosey parkers.
It’s tiring. And I’m tired.
I would really love to just pack a case and go off to the sun for a holiday.
Strange phrase that.
Because I don’t actually want to go the the sun… But you knew that.
Isn’t that more or less where you came in?

Blacks, Irish But No Dogs

2008-02-05T23:29:00.000Z

I heard a woman on the radio the other day.
She said - half in jest, wholly in earnest - that dogs should be banned.
She didn't like dogs.
And it wasn't just dogs that fouled the footpath or the grass in the park.
She didn't like dogs full stop.
Well, I don't like her.
There is an enormous anti-dog lobby abroad - and, for those who don't get the 'abroad' thing, there's one at home as well.

Most parks are closed to dogs most of the time.
And by 'closed' I mean you are not permitted to let them off their leads.
Oh, if you get up early in the morning, you can let them off their leads for a few moments.
And that's not something you're permitted to do on many Irish beaches.
Except in winter.
Now, Irish beaches are bad enough in summer. You know. Empty, cold, rainy, windy, unpleasant.
And they're worse in winter.
Only a fool would walk a dog on an Irish beach on most winter days.
Or someone like the woman I heard on the radio. Someone who hates dogs.
Dogs need exercise. That's a simple fact.
The bigger the dog, the most exercise they need.
But in today's Ireland, it's becoming increasingly difficult to find somewhere to exercise a dog without breaking the law.
Don't get me wrong.
Every time I have to use my pooper scooper (only the Yanks could come up with a name like that for, well, for a thing that does what a pooper scooper does. Then, it was the Yanks who decided to call the toilet the "rest room," the result of which is that Americans are reluctant to tell anyone they're 'going for a rest,")...
...where was I?
Oh yes. Every time I use the pooper scooper I almost throw up. They're revolting machines. Hideous.
But the law is the law.
And I don't have a problem cleaning up after Eric.
Eric is our dog. That's him up there.
He's a big, white Samoyed.
And like big, white Samoyeds, and virtually every breed of dog on the planet, least the ones I've heard of, he has to do what he has to do.
And I has to clean it up.
And I do.
And still people look at you. Still people thing you've done something wrong or, worse still, the unfortunate mutt has.
I don't get it.
They're only animals.
I mean, do these people want to ban birds too?
And what about sheep and cows and ducks and geese and, come to think of it, bees and butterflies and fish and all other creatures who involuntarily do what dogs get into so much trouble for doing.
(I wouldn't necessarily ban cats for doing what it is all animals do. It would be for an utterly different reason altogether.)
I know a place in Dublin where you can bring dogs and there are no rules, no laws, no regulations to stop you.
It's a big place. It's a large, green area near water.
And you can bring your dog whenever you like.
Where is it?
Not telling.

After The Feasting Is Over

2008-01-29T17:19:00.000Z

A friend sent this to me the other day.
It's worth reading and it's worth passing on.
Speaks volumes.
 In the beginning God covered the earth with broccoli, cauliflower and spinach, with green, yellow and red vegetables of all kinds so Man and Woman would live long and healthy lives.
Then using God's bountiful gifts, Satan created Dairy Ice Cream and Magnums. And Satan said, 'You want hot fudge with that? And Man said, 'Yes!' And Woman said, 'I'll have one too with chocolate chips'. And lo they gained 10 pounds. And God created the healthy yoghurt that woman might keep the figure that man found so fair. And Satan brought forth white flour from the wheat and sugar from the cane and combined them. And Woman went from size 12 to size 14.
 So God said, 'Try my fresh green salad'. And Satan presented Blue Cheese dressing and garlic croutons on the side. And Man and Woman unfastened their belts following the repast. God then said 'I have sent you healthy vegetables and olive oil in which to cook them'. And Satan brought forth deep fried coconut king prawns, butter-dipped lobster chunks and chicken fried steak, so big it needed its own platter, and Man's cholesterol went through the roof.  Then God brought forth the potato; naturally low in fat and brimming with potassium and good nutrition. Then Satan peeled off the healthy skin and sliced the starchy centre into chips and deep-fried them in animal fats adding copious quantities of salt. And Man put on more pounds. God then brought forth running shoes so that his Children might lose those extra pounds. And Satan came forth with a cable TV with remote control so Man would not have to toil changing the channels. And Man and Woman laughed and cried before the flickering light and started wearing stretch jogging suits.  Then God gave lean beef so that Man might consume fewer calories and still satisfy his appetite. And Satan created McDonalds and the 99p double cheeseburger. Then Satan said 'You want fries with that?' and Man replied, 'Yes, and super size 'em'. And Satan said, 'It is good.' And Man and Woman went into cardiac arrest.  God sighed ......... and created quadruple by-pass surgery. And then ............ Satan chuckled and created our Health Service and the HSE.

The Workplace is Still Tough for the Sick

2008-01-22T17:19:00.001Z

IT is only right that the world has moved on so that discrimination against people on the basis of their sex, their sexual orientation, their colour, their creed, their nationality or their physical ability, is becoming more and more rare.
It ‘s not gone, of course.
There are plenty of people who treat women badly, who are homophobic, who are racist, who despise religion of any or all sorts, who hate other nationalities, their neighbours in particular and who would never dream of hiring someone who is in a wheelchair or who is deaf or blind.
However…

I am less than convinced that there is not rampant discrimination against the sick.
By ‘sick’ I mean those with chronic illnesses.
I would include those with epilepsy, asthma, diabetes and suchlike.
I would include those with bi-polar disorder or manic depression as we used to call it.
In fact, I would include anyone with a psychiatric illness.
And I would certainly include those who, like me, have cancer.
There is something in the psyche of many people, which tells them that the chronically ill are not worthy of important roles in the workplace.
They are not to be promoted to too high a level.
While my current employers are decent and considerate, I do have experience of losing a senior position in which case one of the reasons given for demotion was “we want someone who’s here all the time, not someone who is sick.”
I was, at the time, in hospital.
But that’s only a small example.
Those who are lucky enough to be more or less constantly in the full of the health, often don’t realise that being chronically ill doesn’t mean being ill all the time. It doesn’t even mean being ill much of the time if you’re lucky and if you have the right treatment.
But there are many, sadly in positions of authority, who look on the chronically ill in the same sad way they look at women.
You see, women can become pregnant. And pregnancy more often than not (I’m glad to say) leads to the birth of a child.
And of course, childbirth has the inevitable result of maternal leave or, in civilised countries, parental leave.
And that’s costly and annoying for bosses. Damned women. Nerve of them. You’d think they’d be more career conscious and give consideration to not having children, something the parents of those who think like that should have done.
Cancer is often a chronic rather than a terminal illness.
Many people suffering from cancer are well for the vast majority of their working lives.
That’s true of most people who have chronic illnesses.
It’s frustrating when you come up against someone too thick to realise that, though a person has a chronic illness, they have a major contribution to make.
If there is to be discrimination in the workplace, let it be against those bozos.
But may they never suffer from a chronic illness.

Why We Are Forced To Elect Fools

2008-01-16T17:30:00.000Z

They have set out on the long road of electing a new president for the United States of America.
By this time next year, the new man, or woman, will be in place.
But what kind of choice does the American electorate have?
Are they choosing between McCain and Obama and Huckabee and Romney and Clinton and Edwards and Guilliani to find the best person to run their country?
Of course they're not.
What they are doing, is choosing between a bunch of people all of whom found it possible to raise millions, nay, tens of millions of dollars in their bids to reach the White house.
The best person to run the United States - whoever it may be - isn't in the race.
Indeed, of the seven mentioned above, it's likely that not one would be in the top ten thousand of those capable of running the US, let alone the top seven.

Let me say here, I don't know of a system better than democracy. But, regardless, democracy is flawed. At least, it's flawed in the way it is practised in virtually every country in which it is employed.
In the United States, and to a degree in other wealthy democracies, it is only those who have enormous financial backing, who can go forward for election.
In other countries, such as Britain or Ireland - indeed, most European democracies - it is generally only those who have the backing of large political parties who can put themselves forward for election.
The result, in Ireland at least, is a very, very narrow choice.
If it were not for the fact that Irish politicians are litigious in the extreme, I would name those that only a fool would elect.
There are plenty of them.
Our parliament if full of sons and daughters of politicians. It is populated by the widows of politicians, by their nieces and nephews, cousins and in-laws.
It is full of dynasties.
And they are people unafraid to pay themselves large amounts of our money. They collect, in expenses, seven and eight times the sums pensioners are awarded - by them - to live on for a year.
They take inordinately long holidays.
And they preside over - in Ireland - a shambolic health system, organised crime running rampant, an insufficient number of schools, a road system chronically bad because it has been built to facilitate the opening of land for development rather than for the convenience of commuters, a social welfare system that sees tens of thousands living in poverty and a climate of greed and "I'm all right Jack" that has seen the rich become considerably richer in recent years and the poor left to fend for themselves on the crumbs.
We are, at election time, presented with a list of fools from which we are asked to choose our representatives.
We are not asked to vote for those whom we wish to elect, but those whom the political parties which us to elect.
And so we try to choose the least foolish who may nonetheless be a fool.
And tragically, the only ones who can change the system, are the fools we elect.
We should, for example, not permit the relatives of deceased TDs to take the seats of their departed family members.
We should allow a choice of "none of the above" for voters on election day. And those reject should be barred for ten year from presenting themselves for election again.
But is as likely as pigs voting on whether rashers should be smoked or maple. It is as likely as a sheep suggesting that it may as well be hung, as a lamb.
We are stuck with fools, often dishonest fools, often lazy fools, but certainly fools.
Are we are stuck with countries badly run by people who couldn't run them well even if they wanted to. Which they don't.
That's why they have dictators here and there.
And it's why the prospect isn't all that appalling.

Off To Beijing In Our Blinkers

2008-01-11T13:09:00.000Z

Tiananmen Square massacre: If murder was an Olympic sport, China would take the gold.

It's Olympic year.
All over the world, hopefuls are training hard, hoping that, when the big day comes, they'll put in their best performance ever and win a medal.
The world will be there. There will be a team, of sorts, from Iraq. Sudan will proudly fly its flag. Israel will be there. Pakistan will have their athletes competing.
In fact, regardless of whether a country is governed by a benign regime or an odious on, its citizens will proudly march under the national flag at the Olympic Games.
And, on balance, that's the way it should be.
According to the Olympic Charter, established by Pierre de Coubertin, the goal of the Olympic Movement is to contribute to building a peaceful and better world by educating youth through sport practised without discrimination of any kind and in the Olympic spirit, which requires mutual understanding with a spirit of friendship, solidarity and fair play.
Admirable.

The problem arises, this year in particular, due to the location chosen for the Games.
Beijing is the capital of a country, which denies basic human rights to its citizens, which is encouraging dissent, and disruption in Africa and which - despite or maybe because of the proximity of the Games - is clamping down hard on opponents of the unelected government.
Recently, I heard one of Ireland's most respected, most successful and most famous athletes say that issues other than sport had nothing to do with the competitors at the Games. He said they would turn a blind eye.
How disgusting is that?
Athletes will turn a blind eye, it seems, to the imprisonment of those who merely criticise the government. They will turn a blind eye to brutality and, perhaps to summary executions.
They will turn a blind eye to the eviction of thousands and thousands of people from their land in the name of progress.
It will be hard for them to turn a blind eye to the pollution spewed out by Chinese industry.
They will turn a blind eye to the jailing of Catholic priests purely for being Catholic priests.
They will probably not turn a blind eye to Tiananmen Square but rather pose there for pictures. They will certainly turn a blind eye to the events there some years ago when unarmed students were massacred.
Still, Beijing is one of Bertie Ahern's favourite places. He admires the mayor. He likes the way they do things. Whether or not he'd like to send out armed troops to massacre his critics in Ireland, I don't know. But I have my suspicions.
The fact is that athletes competing in Beijing are endorsing all that the Chinese government is doing.
They are endorsing the Tiananmen Square massacre.
Fifty or sixty years ago, it mightn't have mattered so much.
Back then, athletes competed purely for the honour of representing their countries and winning medals.
Now, they're competing for money. Now they're competing to make careers for themselves. Now, they even cheat to achieve their greedy goals.
This is nothing to do with Pierre de Coubertin.
His ideals were honourable and had nothing to do with money.
Athletes will go to Beijing this summer, of course they will.
Television stations, including RTE in Ireland, are already boasting about the coverage they will provide.
Sport and politics shouldn't mix, people say.
That may have been true in the amateur era.
Now, when the aim of the athletes is to pocket as much money as possible, it is no longer true.
They can turn their eyes away if they wish.
They will be nonetheless, guilty.

Ah, The Joys Of The Countryside

2008-01-08T12:04:00.000Z

It was a beautiful weekend.
And so, after months of my been unable to walk long distances, we took advantage of the cold, clear weather, and headed off to the Dublin Mountains, Connie, Charlotte, Eric the mutt and I.
We stopped at Cruagh Woods, between Rathfarnham and Glencree.
Delighted to say, the car park was full.
But the extent of the wood, coupled with the fact that they have allowed the undergrowth to flourish, meant that we only occasionally met others on our walk.
Eric had a ball. He gets walked every day. But an adventure in a forest is something he's not used to. Mind you, he found the undergrowth a little scary.
After the walk, when we returned to the car, I found one abandoned Coke bottle in the car park. It was the only litter I saw. And I took it with me.
It was a different matter on the boglands further towards Glencree, I am sorry to say.

There we found burned out cars in what has, sadly, become their natural habitat. I can't remember driving that road in recent years, without seeing a burned out car or two along the wayAnd alongside the winter heather, beer cans were flourishing. Broken beer bottles, vodka bottles and whatever kind of detritus you can imagine dumped by the side of the road.
I suspect that at least some of those doing the dumping arrived in stolen cars which they later burned out.
But it would be wrong to blame just yobbos, young drinkers or hooligans in general. Because as you drive along the side roads, through the bogs, you will find fridges, televisions and all sorts of electrical goods. Why I don't know. All such items can now be dumped for recycling, free of charge. Some people seem to prefer ruining the landscape.
I have seen settees, mattresses, bags of household rubbish and builders' rubble.
Are these the same people who throw litter on the streets of Dublin and our other filthy (but apparently improving) towns and cities? Are they the phanthom chewing gum chuckers?
I presume so. Clearly, they don't recognise what they themselves are: the detritus of society.
The problem is easily solved. And was it not for the fact that the country is run by idiots more concerned about their own welfare, their own salaries, their own perks and their own jobs, it would be solved.
It only requires the will to solve it.
Ah, but if we were run by people with the will to solve problems, we wouldn't be miles above our Kyoto targets, we wouldn't have a shambolic health service, we would have roads, rail lines, schools, a sufficient numbers of policemen and prison places and judges and courts and doctors and nurses and teachers and special needs teachers and places for children with intellectual disability and places for adults with intellectual disability and...
You get the picture.
The only thing we have too many of, is ministers, members of the Dail and civil servants.
So maybe, after all, the rubbish dumped on that beautiful bogland, reflects us accurately after all.

We're Going To Have To Move

2008-01-04T18:02:00.000Z

Dammit, it's happened again.
Snow, two feet deep in Drogheda, we're told. Roads blocked in Donegal, they said on the radio. Pictures on television of kids making snowmen in Galway.
It's not fair.
Dublin didn't get a flake. Not one. Not a single flippin' flake.
I know, I know. You think we're lucky.
But I like snow. Connie like's snow. Eric - I mean, he's a Samoyed after all - must like snow. And I'll bet anything that Charlotte would absolutely love it.
But nothing.
We sit enviously watching the pictures on the news. We turn green listening to the warnings from AA Roadwatch on the radio.
We can't bear to watch the weather forecast, because when it comes to snow, Dublin isn't on the map.

It's worse for Connie. She's getting phone calls from Drogheda, her home town, telling her all about the snow there.
I can't remember the last time Dublin had decent snow.
Actually, I can. The trains stopped. The roads were blocked. The buses were off. People got trapped in the city centre.
The country stopped that time, back in the early eighties.
So bad was it, that the Coalition government of the day appointed a Minister for Snow, not that that's what they called it.
The late Michael O'Leary got the job.
And I remember photographs of him launching, if that's the word, two snowmobiles outside Heuston Station.
Two snowmobiles. And hundreds of thousands of people trying to get to work.
Anyway, he launched the snowmowbiles.
And then it rained.
And the temperatures rose.
And the snow melted.
And that was that.
Today, the snow is starting to melt in those parts of the country that had it.
But at least they had it.
I can imagine the giggles of Charlotte if I built a snowman.
I can imagine Eric almost vanishing in the whiteness.
I know you're probably thinking cold, icy, wind, traffic, skidding, power cuts and what not.
I'm thinking snowmen, snowballs, sliding, skating and the pure beauty of the Dublin mountains in the snow, not to mention the beauty of the garden.
But snow is a no-no in Dublin.
But for some reason, Dublin just gets wet.
And it's not fair.

So Much To look Forward To

2008-01-03T16:45:00.000Z

The splendid village of St Guilhem le desert

I’m not going to bore you, day after day, talking about my impending Bone Marrow Transplant.
Oh no.
I’m saving that for when I actually have it.
But has done one thing already that I’m not mad about, that is, in one way, bad.
It has made me wish a bit of my life away.
I wish it was over.
But it’s also good in a way.
Because I think I have an awful lot to look forward to when it’s all over.
I’m looking forward to going back to France again, for example.

There is a division in the house right now. And it’s understandable.
I’m in love with the Languedoc area of France, not least because of it’s wonderful wines. We’ve been buying Languedoc wines for years, not expensive ones mind, but wines we like.
And we’ve watched the price ratchet up as their popularity has risen.
But Languedoc is a fabulous area. It’s not as touristy as other areas though, clearly, if we’re there, tourists are there.
But you don’t tend to get mass tourism. Or caravans.
Last time we went, it was to a modern house in a village that didn’t even have a shop. Personally, I thought it bliss.
But the reason there’s division in the house now is, that when I’m well, Connie thinks we should head for Italy because of the Italian love of children.
Well, I have to agree that a house in a village containing nothing probably isn’t a bad idea with a toddler.
But the French aren’t bad with children either.
And I love the area around Gignac so much, that I am determined, one day, to bring Charlotte there.
There is, for example, the wonderful village of St Guilhem le desert.
It’s medieval wonder with a magnificent church containing an organ which sounds like it was made hundreds of years ago. Because it was.
The church, allegedly, contains a piece of the true cross. I’m always sceptical about such claims, but I gave it due reverence last time I was there, just in case.
The entire area is a scenic wonderland. The people are fantastic - especially if you speak a little French, or try to.
On one visit, the local shopkeeper even tried to teach me a few words of French every day.
Italy or France then?
Well, it’s something to ponder over the coming months, especially those which will be spent in hospital.
Before we go anywhere, though, there’s next Christmas to look forward to.
Sorry. I know.
But the middle part of my year is likely to be blank.
And Christmas 2088 with Charlotte and Connie is, as much as anything else, the kind of thing that will keep me going.

It's Going To Be Some Year....

2008-01-01T15:01:00.000Z

2008 has arrived at last.
I was waiting for it with some excitement and not a little fear.
Because, one way or the other, it's going to be a big, big year for me.
Sometime in the next 12 months, hopefully in the next three or four, I will have a Bone Marrow Transplant.
If it works, I will have the chance to resume a normal life.
If it doesn't, well, if it doesn't it could mean no change.
Or no life.
Obviously, I've asked a lot of questions about this treatment. It's astonishing, really, that medical science has actually come up with a blunderbus to fight certain cancers. As one of my doctors said; 'We have very few golden bullets."
So they kill all the cells. Good and bad.
And that makes the transplantee very, very sick. It means living in an isolation room for weeks. It means not seeing my little daughter Charlotte for six to eight weeks. That will be one of the hardest parts of all.
It means six to twelve months of not feeling very well.
But it could mean a new life.

I hate hospitals. i don't if it's because I have spent so much time in them or if it's just a kind of phobia.
So deciding to do this hasn't been easy.
But one thing made the decision easy.
Charlotte.
Anything that will allow me to spend more time with her, is worth it.
There is, of course, a problem with finding out as much as you can about something like this.
All of what you discover, isn't good.
There are sad stories, stories about people suffering a great deal. There are tragedies.
But I try as hard as I can to concentrate on the stories of hope and the stories of people given back their lives.
Next week, I see my doc and tell her to start making the arrangements.
Although they harvested healthy bone marrow from me some years ago, they will, in the first instance, see if they can find a donor.
That raises the possibility of Graft versus Host disease which can be bad.
But if it all goes to plan, the results could and should be excellent.
Eight weeks without holding my daughter. Eight weeks without a kiss from her.
And even when I see Connie, she will be wearing a surgical mask.
They tell me'll I'll be too sick to care, which, in a perverse kind of way, is good news I suppose.
I hope to keep up the blog while I undergo the transplant and in the subsequent months.
So if you have a mind which is interested in things medical, this is the place for you.
I'm going to need some courage.
And your prayers please.

The Tree Which Makes Our Christmas

2007-12-24T12:23:00.000Z

I love Christmas. I have always loved Christmas.
A long, long time ago, my father made Christmas magic for me.
It was as we left the house, in the dark, to go to Mass.
Suddenly, he looked skyward and asked me if I had seen Santa.
As he did, I heard the sleigh bells, I know I heard them. They were clear and loud and, well, jingly.
Of course, I didn't see the sleigh. But I heard the bells. That much was certain.
It was years later, when I lifted a bunch of keys off my desk, one day, that I realised how my father had made the sound of the bells.
He had rattled his keys. And he had made Christmas magic for me.
Of course, Santa had already been and gone by the time we were heading out to Mass, so I couldn't possibly have heard the real bells.

Now that we have little Charlotte in our lives, Christmas is more magical then ever.
She may not quite understand, at 20 months, what's going on. But we do.
And tomorrow morning, we know we will watch her little face light up as she unwraps the presents from Santa and from friends and family.
We have two Christmas trees, one in the living room and one in the kitchen.
And it is the one in the kitchen that makes this Christmas magic.
Because Connie has decorated it with the little shoes Charlotte wore in the first year of her life.
They remind us how lucky we are to have her, what a miracle life is, and what a wonderful gift from God our little girl is.
Tomorrow, we will go to Mass in Mount Argus where, like last year, I hope to fulfill my ambition of standing on the altar with all the other mammys and daddys with their children while we sing the Our Father.
It's emotional, and the likelihood is, a tear may run down my cheeck.
It's a truly moving experience.
And one that reminds us what Christmas is really about.
Happy Christmas.

The Politically Correct Fairytale of New York

2007-12-23T21:15:00.000Z

I'm putting this up for the benefit of anyone who doesn't get the Sunday World (shame on you.)
You may, or may not, know that the BBC removed the words 'slut' and 'faggot' from Shane McGowan's masterpiece, Fairytale of New York. They said the words may offend, though oddly, they left the word 'arse' in.
It was, of course, political correctness gone mad and they restored the words after a public outcry.
But just in case the PC brigade gets its way, I have cleaned the song up for them.
First, the words as Shane McGowan wrote them, then, the PC version.

Fairytale of New York (as written by Shane McGowan)

It was Christmas Eve babe
In the drunk tank
An old man said to me, won't see another one
And then he sang a song
The rare old mountain dew
I turned my face away
And dreamed about you

Got on a lucky one
Came in eighteen to one
I've got a feeling
This year's for me and you
So happy Christmas
I love you baby
I can see a better time
When all our dreams come true

They've got cars big as bars
They've got rivers of gold
But the wind goes right through you
It's no place for the old
When you first took my hand
On a cold Christmas Eve
You promised me
Broadway was waiting for me

You were handsome
You were pretty
Queen of New York City
When the band finished playing
They howled out for more
Sinatra was swinging,
All the drunks they were singing
We kissed on a corner
Then danced through the night

The boys of the NYPD choir
Were singing "Galway Bay"
And the bells were ringing out
For Christmas Day

You're a bum
You're a punk
You're an old slut on junk
Lying there almost dead on a drip in that bed
You scumbag, you maggot
You cheap lousy faggot
Happy Christmas your arse
I pray God it's our last

The boys of the NYPD choir
Were singing "Galway Bay"
And the bells were ringing out
For Christmas day

I could have been someone
Well so could anyone
You took my dreams from me
When I first found you
I kept them with me babe
I put them with my own
Can't make it all alone
I've built my dreams around you

The boys of the NYPDchoir
Were singing "Galway Bay"
And the bells were ringing out
For Christmas Day

Fairtytale of New York (as the politically correct gobshites in BBC and elsewhere would have it)

It was December 24th, equal status female friend,
In the area set aside for the treatment of those with alcohol problems,
A senior citizen suggested that i seek medical help for fear that I may suffer fatal consquences from my condition in the coming twelve months,
Then he sang a song,
Which appeared to be about an alcoholic drink,
I was a bit rude, I admit, and turned away,
But I fell asleep and I dreamed of you.

I had a bet today - though I know that offends those in many religions -
And it came in at eighteen to one,
I have a feeling,
This year’s for me and you,
So Happy Christmas/Hannukah/Ramadan/Winter Solstice*
I love you equal status female friend,
I can see a better time,
When all our dreams come true

They’ve got high emission mechanically propelled vehicles the size of licensed premises,
They’ve got rivers of gold,
But the wind goes right through you,
And those in their senior years really should wrap up well or, better still, stay indoors,
When you first took my hand,
On a cold December 24th,
You promised me Broadway was waiting for me.

You were handsome but not in a way that suggests other males were less so,
And you were handsome too, in a similar way,
Queen of New York City,
When the band finished playing,
They cheered and shouted “encore”
Sinatra was swinging - though not in the irresponsible, partner swapping sexual sense,
And those with alcohol problems were singing,
We kissed on a corner
And danced through the night.

And the boys of the NYPD choir,
Were singing Galway bay,
And the bells were ringing out,
For the 25th of December.

You are clearly short of money,
And you like Seventies music similar to that once produced by the Sex Pistols,
And you, it has to be said, appear to be a woman of loose morals with a heroin problem,
Evidenced by the fact that you’re in hospital and on a drip to boot,
You’re not a nice person and you remind me of an insect of the kind people often use when they go fishing,
You are not expensive and you are possibly homosexual not that there’s anythiing wrong with that,
Happy Christmas/Hannukah/Ramadan/Winter Solstice* my bottom,
I pray to God/Buddah/Muhhamed/Yahweh/Nobody at all that we don’t have another one.

And the boys of the NYPD choir,
Were singing Galway bay,
And the bells were ringing out,
For the 25th of December.

I could have been someone,
Well,that’s true of everyone,
You took my dreams from me
When I first found you,
I kept them with me equal status female friend,
I put them with my own,
Can’t make it all alone,
I built my dreams around you.

And the boys of the NYPD choir,
Were singing Galway bay,
And the bells were ringing out,
For the 25th of December.

*For a full list of religious festivals from around the world held at this time of year, please send a stamped addressed envelope to, oh, the BBC.

This is Ireland's Winter Wonderland

2007-12-18T16:37:00.000Z

It's the same every year. The Christmas cards arrive and, almost without exception, they feature snow.
There are snowman. There are little cottages with snow on the roof. There are children playing in the snow. There are people tobogganing. There are buildings covered in snow.
Here in Ireland, companies send you cards which have digitally enhanced pictures on the front, showing their Dublin headquarters covered in snow.
Televisoin stations show us promotions. And there are always snow flakes.
Television advertisements feature snow, and some even feature Dublin scenes, covered in show.
Even the decorations on our streets are based on snow.
When was the last time it snowed at Christmastime in Ireland?
Some time around the birth of Christ, I'd wager.
So here is our new Christmas song. It's called Ireland's Winter Wonderland.
And, like the card above, it's true to life.

****

Car horns blare, traffic’s crawling,
Traffic jams, are appalling,
It’s nothing but rain,
It’s always the same,
This is Ireland’s winter wonderland.

Gone away is the summer,
Winter here is a bummer,
It rains cats and dogs,
There’s frost and there’s fog,
This is Ireland’s winter wonderland

In the meadow we can build a mudman,
And pretend that we’re in Sandy Lane,
But we know in our hearts that it’s a dudman,
And tomorrow ‘twill be lashing down again.

Later on, we’ll conspire,
As we sit by the fire,
Completely unfazed,
‘Cos we’re double glazed,
This is Ireland’s winter wonderland.

In the meadow we’ll swim in a puddle,
And pretend we’re on the Costa del,
But really in the cold we’ll all be huddled,
As the weather turns our Christmas into hell.

When it rains, it’s depressing,
In three layers you’ll be dressing,
You pray there’ll be snow,
But in your heart you know,
Not in Ireland’s winter wonderland.

New Tara Find Will Change Nothing

2007-12-12T14:48:00.000Z

❍The carved stone, found at Lismullen

IT’S a while since I mentioned Tara.
They’re firing ahead, as fast as they can, destroying the place.
How any archaeologist, with even a modicum of pride in what they do and what they are trained for, can aid and abet the destruction of 5,000 years of history is utterly beyond me.
The saddest thing of all in relation to the M3 is, that it is utterly unnecessary in the first place. It is being built to open up land for development and no other reason.
Soon, Fianna Fail and their lapdogs in the Green Party will oversee the construction of two more motorways through what once was the Royal County. That will bring to five the total number of motorways through Meath.
Add to that its incinerator, its dumps, its pylons and the gross overdevelopment of Bettystown and south Drogheda and you have all the evidence you need.

Of what?
Of utter ignorance, utter incompetence and, in our most historic county, an utter disdain for the past.
John Gormley is, of course, part of it all. His Pontius Pilate act is nothing short of a disgrace. Green? Not even vaguely. He can introduce all the carbon taxes he wishes. Gesture politics.
His buddy Eamon Ryan bans exploration for plutonium in Donegal because, he says, if we don’t use nuclear power, it would be hypocritical to allow uranium to be mined for use in other countries.
Typical of the nonsensical busy bodying of the Greens.
We allow prisoners to be brought through Shannon to be tortured God knows where. We allow troops to pass through Shannon to kill or be killed.
And I’m pretty certain that, in some industrial complex somewhere in Ireland, parts are made that ultimately end up in the weapons to be used by, again, God knows who.
Recently, a carved stone was found at Lismullen. It is as old if not older than Newgrange.
It won’t move Gormley or Noel Dempsey or, in particular, the chief philistine, Bertie.
If they found Tutankhamen’s tomb, it wouldn’t move Bertie. Likely as not, he has never heard of Tutankhamen.
The stone is just further proof, that the Tara/Skryne Valley is important, not just to Ireland, but to the world.
Irish travellers marvel at the antiquities in countries like Italy, Greece, Egypt, France, Cyprus, Malta - wherever.
Meanwhile, historic sites that could and should be preserved for posterity, for future generations and, indeed, for tourism, are being bulldozed by a government of ignorant, greedy buffoons.
We look back at our history, and we read of the wonderful people who built Newgrange and Knowth and Dowth. We look at places like Glendalough and Clonmacnoise and the Skellig Rocks. We think of our writers like Joyce and Shaw and Wilde and Yeats.
And we do so with pride.
Is it likely, do you think, there will be the same sense of pride when people look back at the achievements - or otherwise - of Ahern and Dempsey and Roche and Gormley?

Some Things Change, Some Don't

2007-12-09T15:31:00.000Z

IT’S almost Christmas.
It’s easy to tell how close Christmas is if you live in Dublin.
There are more vomit stains on the street.
There are more drunks and they appear earlier and earlier each day as Christmas Day gets closer.
Nobody will let you out into the ever worsening traffic jams.
Clampers are in overdrive.
Virtually every shopper in every shop is rude, behaving in a way they wouldn’t dream of at other times of the year.
You can’t get into pubs.
There is more violence, both on the street and domestically. It is almost inevitable at Christmas time, that some unfortunate woman will stab her husband, invariably fatally, after he arrives home drunk and penniless without money for food or presents for the children.

More people drink and drive.
Everybody is short of patience.
And children are greedier than ever before.
It’s likely that each of us are at least a little bit guilty (I know, I know, it’s like being a little bit pregnant) of at least some of the behaviour outlined above.
And I know that when someone my age talks about it being worse now than ever, other, younger, people put it down to my being a grumpy old man.
They’re half right.
I AM a grumpy old man.
But I am a grumpy old man because it IS worse than ever.
I wonder how much of Ireland’s new found wealth ended up, literally, going down the toilet?
Poverty, you see, has a disciplining effect. I you haven’t got the money to drink, you can’t drink.
If you haven’t got the money to splash out on ridiculously expensive and utterly unnecessary luxuries to hand out as presents, you can’t buy them.
If you can’t afford cocaine - or the new favourite in Dublin, Champagne, vodka, red Bull with a spoonful of cocaine stirred into it - you can’t buy it.
Nobody wants to go back to the bad old days. Well, not all the way back.
But it would be nice if we lived in a country run by people who were less concerned with their own salaries and more concerned with the fact that they expect pensioners to live on one-twentieth of what they pay themselves.
It would be brilliant to live in a wealthy country that had sufficient schools for its children.
It would be marvellous to live in a country which had a health service rather than a health system.
Ireland is now the kind of country where three young people died from cocaine overdoses in one week.
It is the kind of country where suicide is epidemic.
It is the kind of country where we wonder not if there will be another gangland murder soon, but only when and where it will be.
And it is the kind of country, where Christmas is seen as an opportunity to get drunker more often than normal, where cocaine supplies have been bulked up for the festive season, where prices go through the roof, where selfishness abounds and where, it seems, there is more concern about what’s on television or what is going to be the Christmas Number One, than there is about people and more especially, the people who are concerned about where they will get shelter on Christmas Day, where they will get something to eat and who they will have, if anyone, to talk with.
The Christmas message is all but lost.
Children, I would bet, wouldn’t mention the birth of Jesus in their top five Christmassy things.
And that is profoundly sad.
Because while celebrations, gifts, giving and receiving and traditional fare all have their part to play at this time of year, so too do decency, charity, prayer and reflection.
Last year, I had what was, I suppose, a slightly selfish ambition for Christmas.
It was to be able to stand on the altar in Mount Argus with all the other mums and dads and children, during the children’s Christmas Day Mass, with my daughter Charlotte, as they sang the Our Father. It is a tremendously moving moment every Sunday, but especially on Christmas Day.
I achieved that ambition.
And this year, it is exactly the same.

Ireland's Prosperty: How it Started and How it Will End

2007-11-30T12:25:00.000Z

From where did our recent and famed prosperity come?
The truth is, it came from lots of sources.
And here are some:
Europe, who pumped in billions without which prosperity would not have arrived.
The efficiency of John Bruton’s government which, if it was still in power, wouldn’t have us in this mess.
Jack Charlton.
Ray Houghton’s goal in Stuttgart to beat England.
U2.
Bob Geldof and his role in Live Aid.
Michael O’Leary and Ryanair.
Seamus Heaney.
Maeve Binchy
Father Ted
Bailey’s Irish Cream.

Riverdance.
Terry Wogan.
Temple Bar.
The IFSC.
The Royal Hospital
And even the Rosc exhibition
(and yes, I know they’re all Haughey inspired)
The DART.
Italia ‘90.
Rugby’s resurgence.
Pearse Brosnan.
Liam Neeson.
Gabriel Byrne.
Neil Jordan.
Jim Sheridan.
Roddy Doyle.
Low corporate taxes.
The US economic boom.
Peace, more or less, in the North.
Bill Clinton.
Pope John Paul II’s visit.
The building boom.
The house price boom.
Immigration.
Celebrity immigration.
Eddie Jordan.
Braveheart, Saving Private Ryan and other blockbuster movies.
Golf.
Stag parties.
Hen parties.
Multiplex cinemas.
Greater access to third level education.
Dermot Desmond.
Denis O’Brien.
Sean Quinn.
Michael Smurfit.
Harry Crosbie.
Dennis Desmond.
Jim and Peter Aiken.
John Fitzpatrick and his hotels in New York and Chicago.
The Cat Laughs Festival.
Oxegen, despite the spelling.
The Electric Picnic.
Vicar Street and The Point.
Croke Park.
The ‘new’ Gaa.
Rocket.
Sushi.
Bagels.
Parmesan Cheese.
Good restaurants.
A taste for wine.

And one thing that will kill it forever:
Greed.

To Be Brutally Honest...

2007-11-28T14:54:00.000Z

I am going to be honest. Don’t know why. Maybe it’s because the utter dishonesty of politicians is annoying me more than it ever did.
If you read my profile, you will know what I’m like.
Pretty cool guy.
I like cool music. And I like cool books. And I like cool movies.
And it’s all true.
But it’s not all.
Here goes.
Despite their being as uncool as it is possible to be, I like Keane. I actually like some of what James Blunt does. I like
Gilbert O’Sullivan. (A mate of mine, since deceased, once joined me singing Gilbert’s back catalogue at a pre-gig reception before a Bruce Springsteen concert. How cool is that?)

And I actually don’t give a damn what anyone says, I liked the Frog Chorus.
Mind you, Keane and Blunt are the only two on the Virginmedia list of top ten uncool artists I actually like. I would draw the line at the likes of Phil Collins or Celine Dion.
I like a lot of cool movies. But I also like the first three or four Carry On movies. I like virtually all World War II movies, especially the dodgy ones like The Dirty Dozens and Where Eagles Dare and such like.
I love the Ealing comedies and movies of that ilk, The Man in the White Suit, The Titfield Thunderbolt, School for Scoundrels. I love Those Magnificent Men in Their Flying Machines, anything with Alistair Sim, Alec Guinness, Terry-Thomas and so on.
I like any movie that makes me cry, even crappy tv movies.
(Another confession. I saw Love Story three times on three consecutive nights with three different girls. And it was only on the third night I had to pretend to cry.)
And if they have a Christmas theme all the better.
(Plea for help: I once watched a movie with my sister about a businessman who was mugged in New York whose clothes were stolen by a hobo. The man lost his memory and the hobo, wearing his clothes, was killed by a train.
His family thought him dead.
But one Christmas, his memory returned and he went back to his home town at Christmas and watched his now grown-up children go to church with their children. He then went to their house, while it was snowing of course, and looked in the window as they celebrated Christmas. His son spotted him through the window and went out to him. Not knowing who he was the son said: “Come in old man whoever you are and have Christmas with us.”
Happy ending I thought.
But the old man said “No” and walked away.
And my sister and I wept for a week.
If you recognise the movie, let me know. I fancy a good weep.)
I love It’S A Wonderful Life, Miracle on 34th Street, Home Alone, that kind of thing.
And when it comes to books, I love Kafka and Camus and Gabriel Garcia Marquez.
But I love Stephen King even when he’s at his worst. I love Joseph Wambaugh. I love a bit of chicklit.
And when it comes to television, I’d watch any British cop show. Rebus, Silent Witness, The Linley Mysteries, Miss Marple, Taggart and so on.
I follow Corrie and EastEnders. I love Grand Designs and Property Ladder. I loved Butterflies, I loved Ever Decreasing Circles, I loved The Good Life.
I watch the Late Late Show, I listen to Tubridy, I think Ronan Collins is brilliant.
I think Tommy Flemming and Liam Lawton have brilliant voices.
I've always enjoyed Joe Dolan.
I When it comes to comedy, I loved all Ronnie Barker’s stuff.
I think Tommy Cooper was the best of them all, with Les Dawson close behind.
I loved Morecambe and Wise but never got a laugh out of Dick Emery or Benny Hill.
I find Russell Brand funny. I laugh at Jack Dee. I thought Bill Hicks a genius.
Currently, Peter Kay is miles ahead of anyone.
I don’t actually find Tommy Tiernan funny though he apparently finds himself hilarious. I think Jimmy Carr unbelievably unfunny.
And I admire Podge and Rodge for getting away with the same gag for so long.
Why am I getting this off my chest now?
Because I came into the hospital at 9.15 this morning and had my bloods taken. It is now 3.00pm and I’m still here having been told to wait, the doctor would see me in a minute.
Haven’t seen her yet.
Which reminds me.
I loved the Doctor movies - Doctor in the House, Doctor at Sea - too.
One last thing.|
Why don’t they show the Beatles’ movies on telly at Christmas time anymore?
Yes, I think they're brilliant too. And not at all dated.

I'm Glad Ireland Is Not In Africa. (Or Am I?)

2007-11-24T12:31:00.000Z

I am, kind of, glad that Ireland is not in Africa.
If it was, there would have been a coup a long, long time ago.
Why?
Well, all the ingredients are there.
We have a prime minister who is paying himself and his cronies more than just about any other leader in the world. And he’s doing it with public money, money taken off the people in taxes.
In addition to that, he has taken ‘loans’ from friends. These ‘loans’ weren’t ‘loans’ at all until it was discovered that he had received them. Up to that point, not a cent had been paid back.
He then lies, or at least doesn't tell the truth, to a tribunal of investigatioin.
And he won't explain what it was necessary for him to abandon the banking system and hide money in a safe while he was going through his separation.
I can only presume, despite his record, that he declared the money in the safe as part of his assets when he was required to do so.
Furthermore, he managed to wangle himself a bank loan of £19,000 without formally applying for it and without having to pay anything back for 18 months. It’s clear, he wouldn’t have got the loan if he had not been Finance minister at the time. And using your position for personal gain is more or less the definition of corruption.

If he could do the job, you might turn a blind eye.
But look at the country.
The health service is an unmitigated disaster, kept afloat only by the incredible and largely unrewarded efforts of the frontline workers.
It is top heavy with overpaid administrators who couldn’t run the proverbial in the brewery.
Our road network is still in an horrendous state. For years, little bits of motorway and dual carriageway were built here and there. This was a) to facilitate local political and electoral need and b) to avoid the legal requirement to open such schemes up to tender from construction companies in Europe.
Currently, only two cities on the island of Ireland are linked by motorway/dual carriageway. And Belfast and Dublin are linked for ideological reasons, not infrastructural.
When roads are built, they’re built badly and with little concern for history, culture, heritage or archaeology.
The M50 is, quite simply, a joke and it will always be a joke. And it will become an even more ridiculous joke when the National Roads Authority - possibly the most inept body in the world - is given control of the Westlink toll bridge.
The National Roads Authority. That’s the body that was charged with building roads to bypass towns and villages and then refused to allow services along the new roads telling people they could go into the towns and villages.
It is the body charged with signposting Ireland. Honestly. Someone is actually in charge of that.
It is the body which believed a bramble hedge was sufficient barrier in the central median of a motorway.
It’s another joke.
The Department of Education can’t build sufficient schools.
The Department of Sport is paying for the building of Lansdowne Road, a stadium too small by half, having funked building a national stadium.
It is also at least partially responsible for the pay-for-pay debacle in t he GAA.
The Minister for Social Welfare can keep a straight face telling us that €300 a week is sufficient for pensioners, when his pay rise alone is almost twice that.
The Minister for Enterprise is watching jobs vanish.
The Minister for the Gaeltacht has created division in Dingle where there was none.
The Minister for Justice is presiding over a brutal gang war, a police service corrupt in parts and a system that sees fewer gardai on the streets now than there were in the sixties.
As for the ‘Green” Party ministers, it seems there is a direct relationship between the amount of money they’re paid and the abandonment of their principles.
And as for the ‘independents’ they have, largely, been bought.
The years of prosperity are over, and the only ones with anything to show at the end of it all, are politicians who received more than twenty pay rises, and the construction industry.
It’s an outrage. It’s a scandal. It’s a tragedy.
We still have the desperately poor. We still have in sufficient places for the intellectually disabled. We have virtually no facilities for those who wish to try and beat their addiction to drugs.
We have nothing.
So maybe, at the end of it all, it’s a pity we’re not in Africa.

Unbridled Joy as England Lose

2007-11-22T16:43:00.000Z

THERE is a certain type of person, a politically correct type of person, who doesn’t approve of Ireland’s schadenfreude in relation to many things English.
Last night, I tried hard, very hard, to feel sorry for the English soccer team and, indeed, English soccer fans, when they were beaten 2-3 by Croatia at Wembley.
I tried to feel as I felt when Ireland bowed out of the European championships. I tried to feel the disappointment of the fans who had planned a summer of sport in Austria and Switzerland. I tried to feel sorry for players I like such as Wayne Rooney and Michael Carrick and Steven Gerrard and so on.
But I failed. I couldn’t do it.
It’s just not possible.

Now, when I wrote about this in the Sunday World, the last time England bowed out of some tournament or other (it wasn’t cricket. I support them to a degree at cricket) I received a bagfull of mail telling me how immature I am (I acknowledge that) how juvenile I am (no problem there) and how racist and bigoted I am.
Whoa! Not guilty.
My desire to see England lose at, well, soccer, rugby, tennis and a few other sports here and there, stems not from events in 1169 or, indeed, 1607 or for that matter, 1798 or 1916 or even 1972.
It has nothing whatsoever to oppression, perceived or otherwise.
It has nothing to do with the Irish being ‘colonised’ or ‘downtrodden’ or anything of that sort.
It has nothing to do with some of England’s more odious monarchs or the real and actual hardship imposed on Ireland over the centuries.
No, it has a great deal more to do with John Motson and Jimmy Hill and The Sun and Ian Wright than it has to do with history.
It is an extraordinary thing that English football pundits seem to think that any tournament without them in it, isn’t worth having at all.
In fairness to Motty, he acknowledged on Wednesday last, just how utterly lousy the current English team is.
But hardly had he said as much, when Ian Wright was blathering on about how England deserved to be at the finals. No they didn’t, Ian. They didn’t win a sufficient number of games and, hence, didn’t garner a sufficient number of points. It’s simple.
When it comes to rugby, you think Stuart Barnes and Brian Moore and The Sunday Times and the Daily Telegraph.
But mostly you think Martin Johnson and how the arrogant lump insulted Mary McAleese and, by extension, Ireland, with his behaviour at Lansdowne Road a couple of years ago.
Rugby players are, in the main, a well-bred bunch, mannerly and so on.
But there’s always an exception.
And if Johnson didn’t do it for you, surely the reaction of their media to their jammy wins in the Rugby World Cup did.
When it comes to tennis, you think Tim Henman. It’s not so much Tim’s fault as it is the media’s. They built him up and up and up. Henman Hill, for God’s sake. What was that all about.
And anyway, I find the name Spiderman reasonably impressive. Batman isn’t bad. Superman is brilliant.
But Henman?
I’m afraid it will always be the same for us, or at least, most of us.
The next best thing to Ireland winning is England losing.
You know, the funny thing about our win against England in Stuttgart, is that it was celebrated as much in Glasgow and on the Shankill Road as it was in the Republic of Ireland.
Indeed, when Ireland was drawn with England again in the World Cup in 1990, a reporter asked a woman on the Shankill Road, how she wanted the Irish team to do.
“Beat England - and lose all their other games,” she said.
Just about says it all, really.

Profiles in Greed

2007-11-17T12:43:00.000Z

CAN you remember the last time a politician in this country did something courageous?
As a rule, our politicians are opportunistic, selfish and small-minded.
They are guided entirely by political expediency, not by any moral imperative.
They build schools and hospitals and roads in places that will provide the greatest return electorally. Those with any kind of power pour money into their own constituencies to the detriment of other areas.
Our leaders - an inappropriate word if ever there was one - make deals, expedient and opportunistic deals, with people, regardless of who they are or what they have done or what they stand for. The likes of Beverley Flynn and Michael Lowry may be rehabilitated in Bertie Ahern’s mind. But that just goes to show what a nasty place that is.

When was the last time an Irish minister resigned, voluntarily, for doing or saying something wrong, for causing offence, for wasting money or just because he or she felt morally obliged to make a principled stand? (On that score, if Bertie had been in just about any other democracy in the world, he would have quit over his over signing blank cheques for Charlie Haughey when the dogs in the street were barking about his corruption. He would have walked once his dodgy dig-outs became public, he would have submitted his resignation over his mysterious ‘money in the mattress’ during his separation. But he wouldn’t have been there at all if he had had the manners to quit after suggesting that those who moaned about the economy should go off and commit suicide.)
Every move an Irish politician makes is inspired only by self-interest.
Since going into government (in the mistaken belief that the 500 or so in the Mansion House, who endorsed the decision to go into government represented the 86,000 voters who voted Green) John Gormley has been busy telling us what he cannot do rather than having the courage to actually do something.
He recently managed to outfudge his Fianna Fail colleagues when it came to explaining how he was spending tax payers’ money on his office and constituency workers. Power corrupts etc.
Our politicians have built roads and railways where they believe such schemes will win them votes. For years, little bits of dual carriageway littered the country, each one built to satisfy local political needs. One utterly bizarre stretch in Mayo, was even nicknamed the “Pee Flynn bypass.”
Wood Quay was destroyed because politicians feared the wrath of unions representing local authority workers, just as the M3 is now being built on a route recommended only by those who will benefit financially from its construction. Not one of the area’s elected representatives had or has the courage to put heritage ahead of self interest.
Some years ago, representatives of Irish politicians were given the “Profile in Courage Award,’ an accolade named after the book written by John F Kennedy, for their work on the peace process.
It has, before and since, been given to politicians who have made enormous sacrifices, who have lost their jobs - who have lost just about everything - because they put right before self-interest.
I cannot imagine it, ever again, being awarded to an Irish politician.
Sure, I can think of exceptions. I can think of Joe Higgins, I can think of Richard Boyd Barrett and a few others who, even if I don’t agree with everything they say and do, stick to their principles despite knowing that by doing so their are lessening their chances of getting elected. The Labour Party too, refused to prostitute itself after the general election which was the honourable, if not profitable, course.
I used to think to he Greens in the same way, but no more.
We now live in a country where Dail seats are passed on to brothers and sisters, widows and children as if they were a favourite old armchair or a wad of cash left in a will.
We live in a country where politicians are becoming less and less accountable, where the Freedom of Information Act has been watered down simply because it allowed people the freedom to get information.
We live in a country where politicians, presumably to compensate themselves for no longer being able to accept bribes and handouts, give themselves pay rise after pay rise.
We live in a country where new laws are brought in in jig-time to allow for the abolition of the very tribunals which are exposing Bertie Ahern’s duplicity and dishonesty.
It is a country where the prime minister believes a pay rise of more than the average industrial wage is not only justified, but merely a ‘token amount.’
So, just think about these words:
“In whatever arena of life one may meet the challenge of courage, whatever may be the sacrifices he faces if he follows his conscience – the loss of his friends, his fortune, his contentment, even the esteem of his fellow men – each man must decide for himself the course he will follow. The stories of past courage can define that ingredient – they can teach, they can offer hope, they can provide inspiration. But they cannot supply courage itself. For this each man must look into his own soul.”
John F. Kennedy, Profiles in Courage
Those words mean nothing to politicians in this country.
Instead, our politicians are greedy, grubby people.
And, yes, that is a moan.
And no, Taoiseach, I won’t go off and kill myself.

Rugby is Waiting in the Wings

2007-11-11T13:37:00.000Z

❍Jimmy Greaves, rugby fan

“I was a footballer but now rugby is a greater love for me.”
I could have said that. People who were actually good at rugby could have said it. People like, maybe, Keith Wood or Shane Byrne or Tony Ward.
But the astonishing thing about that little quote, is that it came from Jimmy Greaves.
Jimmy Greaves, goal-scoring hero for Spurs for a generation. Goal-scoring hero for West Ham after that. The genius who missed out on a world cup medal in 1966 because of injury. Half of Saint and Greavsie who, unlike today’s pundits, realised that football was and is a game.

Today’s pundits? Today’s players too.
It is a long, long time since I have seen a soccer match that made me feel good, one that entertained me, one I didn’t actually regret watching.
I cannot abide the showboating, the negativity, the diving, the feigning of injury, the whinging at referees, the attempts to get opponents booked or sent off, the inarticulacy of the players, the clichés, the hype and the money.
Between yesterday and the day before, I watched four games of rugby. The worst of those, that between Edinburgh and Toulouse, was aeons better than the best soccer match I have seen in recent times.
God help us, there are large periods of soccer matches where it surprises me that those on the pitch remain awake, let alone those in the stands. I now know why so many supporters take their tops off even in freezing weather. They are trying to fend off sleep.
Now, I know not all is right with rugby. During the recent world cup, it too sank a little with the Garryowen, the old up-and-under, featuring rather too much. Referees have become just a little too protective of players. Some may not like what we used to call ‘clearing out’ when the boot was used to move opposition players who were illegally lying on the ball. But it worked. And when they lay on the ball, they knew what to expect.
Some of us don’t like the fact that the ball seems to be crooked in to every scrum.
Some of us don’t like the fact that different referees seem to interpret the offside law in different ways.
Nonetheless, when you watch rugby, there is always something happening.
If you get into it - and if you’re not, I recommend you do - you will realise that even when it just looks like a heap of bodies lying there, there is lots happening.
Leinster’s defence, for example, against Leicester was stupendous.
There are so many aspects to the game that you could write a book simply about tactics.
One of the main reasons rugby is such a fine game, is that it is a team building game.
The girls - that’s the backs to you - know well that nothing will happen for them unless we - that’s the forwards - get the ball for them.
Yes, there are flash players in the backs.
But you will find that, to a man, they acknowledge the work of their team-mates.
Rugby doesn’t generally give birth to grudges, despite hard physical battles. It generally gives birth, instead, to a few rounds of drinks.
And rugby doesn’t tolerate people who whinge at referees, even if they are wrong, which they generally are.
Rugby is growing. And it will keep growing if the authorities a) keep an eye on the laws of the game and b) keep promoting the game in the weaker countries and in the weaker areas of the strong countries.
A man in a Dublin rugby club once said, to my certain knowledge that ‘they shouldn’t be playing rugby in Tallaght.”
Bad cess to him.
Tallaght and Neilstown and all of the new suburbs and indeed, all of the new Irish, are the future our game.
I don’t wish soccer any ill.
But if keeps going on the way its going, it will become too boring for fans, too expensive for fans, to costly even for television and boring beyond belief.
If that happens, rugby is ready for the challenge.
(You will gather, I’m feeling a great deal better!)

I Suspect...

2007-11-10T18:05:00.000Z

HEALTH is the issue.
Right now in Ireland, it is just about the only issue for many people.
I know about the health service because of my experiences with it and in it.
My experiences with it are good.
In it, not so.
I don’t know who designs hospitals. I suspect it is accountants. And I suspect they are on a bonus for every euro they save.
I suspect they make wards and rooms, waiting areas and doctors’ offices as small as possible.
I suspect they don’t bother including what might be called leisure activity areas for patients, not all of whom are confined to bed all day.
I suspect they say that it is up to the patients to decide what they’ll watch when there are two televisions between four or six.
I suspect they say the radios aren’t great and the earphones won’t last, but what the hell if there are no radios for the patients.

I suspect they say that the showers with the six inch steps up to them and the narrow doors aren’t actually very good, but they’re a great price.
I suspect they say that if they put in a decent kitchen, it will only result in the production of decent food and decent food costs money so let’s not bother.
I suspect they say that centres of excellence will be good for health but even better for budgets as long as we make most outlying patients pay their own way to get to them.
I suspect they say that it’s not their fault if people have to hang around hospitals all day waiting to see consultants so they’re not obliged to provide them with any diversion of any kind.
I suspect they say that if people spend six or eight hours a day visiting sick friends or relatives and then have to fork our twelve or sixteen euro for parking, that’s just efficiency.
I suspect they say that it would be too expensive, even if it is the right thing to do, for nurses and other staff who deal with patients, to be provided with clean and sterilised uniforms on their arrival at work each day.
I suspect they say it would cost too much to sterilise every bed every time a patients leaves hospital.
I suspect they think that medical care is all that counts. I suspect they think they pay doctors and nurses enough and I suspect they don’t really care if porters and cleaners and dinner ladies leave on a regular basis because, I suspect they believe such people don’t require training of any kind.
Mostly, though, I suspect those who make the decisions I suspect are made relating to patient care as opposed to patients medical care, are made by people who don’t use public hospital and who probably think they shouldn’t have to.
I suspect they have contempt for those damned costly patients.
And I suspect nothing will ever change.
Thank God that, at least in the short term, I’m at home watching my fourth rugby match in two days.
Couldn’t do that in hospital.
Reckon they suspect providing satellite television, even at a small charge, would just be too much damned trouble.

Parole

2007-11-08T18:48:00.000Z

Out of hospital at least temporarily. No tunnel required.
But it was an escape nonetheless.
I don’t like hospitals though I am likely to spend an awful lot more time in them in the coming years, assuming, that is, there are years coming.
Because patients come last.
No, not when it comes to medical care of course.
I doubt there is anywhere in the world where the medical care is better than it is in Ireland.
But, God, the hospitals are depressing. They generate depression where previously, there was none.
Small, claustrophobic, grey rooms with a television up on the wall in the corner and a radio that doesn’t work.
Most patients see medical staff only occasionally. Certainly, they see them as often as they must and more.
But whether in a ward or a private room, patients are left alone to their own devices for long periods of the day.
And it is, for me anyway, depressing beyond endurance.
I know how lucky I am that my family is just a couple of miles away and that I got to see them often. But when they weren’t with me, they may as well have been on the moon.
And while everyone does everything to deal with my disease, my head, at the same times, turns into a kind of mush.
I hear, on a daily basis, how wonderful our health service is going to be. It may very well be. Mary Harney and Brendan Drumm may well be right.
But to be perfectly frank and perfectly selfish, that’s shag-all use to me.
I say patients come last because, when it comes to the design of hospitals, when it comes to their ‘non-health’ welfare, if you like, little consideration is given.
Why are the rooms so dull?
Why don’t the radios work?
Why is the food so unappetising?
Why are six people expected to share two televisions?
I could write a very long list.
But, for now, I’m going to be brief and enjoy my break from hospital. I’m going to enjoy with with Connie and Charlotte and of course, Eric the mutt.
I may have to go back in again soon, depending on blood counts and what not.
I dread it.
But if it all works, sure, it will have been worth it.
Question is, why they couldn’t make it all so much more pleasant.

Paddy Murray Is (a bit) Unwell (this time) V

2007-11-04T11:25:00.000Z

A FEW of the boys are working on a tunnel.
It’s slow work.
They’re using scalpels and hiding the dirt in their colostomy bags.
But progress is slow.
The plan is for them to emerge somewhere near the Guinness tap in a pub on James’s Street.
And I wish them the best of luck.
Personally, I’m not going to chance it, not because I don’t want to get out of here, believe me, I do.
It’s just that they’ve put me on the one antibiotic that reacts with alcohol. Makes you pretty ill. And when you’re pretty ill, the last thing you want is something that’s going to make you pretty ill. Or pretty iller. Or prettier ill. Whatever. You get my drift.

My defiance of authority came in the form of Singapore Noodles which were sneaked in by a friend on Saturday night, disguised as a bunch of grapes. The noodles, not the friend.
It was wonderful once again to taste something that tasted of something.
I am proposing, when I eventually finish my sentence, to launch a television game show called: Guess the Food.
In it, people will be blindfolded and fed hospital food and asked to guess what it is or, at least, what the hospital says it is.
“It’s beef,” they will cry only to be told it’s actually a pork chop.
“It’s a pork chop,” they will shout confidently, only to be told it’s bacon and cabbage.
“It’s bacon and cabbage,” they will roar to the cheers of their family members, who, like family members always do in such programmes, will be standing around looking like complete idiots.
But it won’t be bacon and cabbage, it will be jelly and ice cream.
I always thought there was at least a degree of overacting in films such as The Bridge Over the River Kwai and Merry Christmas Mr Lawrence.
But now I am beginning to see that incarceration does that to a body. It makes him overact dreadfully.
The boredom is the worst part of it. I don’t know. That could actually be a line from a prisoner of war movie for all I know.
And so I have taken to complaining.
I hate hotel rooms, but I don’t understand why single rooms in hospitals are half the size of single rooms in hotels. It’s the engineering I don’t understand. How do they make them so small? The architect must draw his plans under a microscope or something.
I don’t understand why they wake you up all the time either. Half the time they seem to wake you up to find out if you’re awake or not. And I bet they find that 100 per cent of the people they wake up in the middle of the night are actually awake. And that means they don’t feel guilty about waking you up.
And I hate the rubber covering on the mattress and the pillows. Yes, I know why it’s there. But I can say, honestly, in my case: Not guilty.
Most of all, I hate being without Connie and Charlotte and yes, Eric the mutt too.
Hospitals may repair the bodies of their patients, but they do nothing for their mental well being.
If Mary Harney had the faintest idea what she was doing, she would address the issue of patient welfare as well as patient well-being.
I’m off again.
Which is why one friend has promised to bring in to me, a painting for my wall.
The Moaner Lisa.

Paddy Murray Is (a bit) Unwell (this time) IV

2007-11-01T16:30:00.000Z

WHEN you’re in hospital, you’re asked a lot of questions.
You’re asked your date of birth on a regular basis.
(NOTE: If there is a Paddy Murray in James’s Hospital, and if he was also born on August 5, 1953, and if he is awaiting a barium enema or indeed, an enema of any description, could he please call a nurse and point out that he is not me.)
And you are asked about your allergies.
I am asked, for example, on an almost daily basis if i am allergic to penicillin or antibiotics of any kind.
I am not. But if I was and I told them so, they would not give me such medicine.
Every now and then, I am asked if I am allergic to anything.
I always reply in the affirmative and point out that I am seriously allergic to the following.
Sleep deprivation
Hospital food
Pain.

They don’t listen.
In fact, i wonder why they ask.
Because if there is one thing you are not permitted to do for any length of time in hospital, it’s sleep.
“Good night” and “good morning” are separated by only a tiny gap.
And if you are ever lucky enough to have a nurse tell you she, or indeed he, will leave you to sleep for an hour, be sure, be one hundred per cent sure, that during that hour, you will be visited by a cleaner, a junior doctor, a registrar, someone from accounts and the porter who is there to bring you, right now, for the x-ray which was scheduled for yesterday or tomorrow.
I have no doubt in my mind, that some patients die from sheer exhaustion.
Another certainty in hospital, is that you will be served hospital food. It is called hospital food not only because it is served in hospital, but because it is unique in manages to look so unappetising, in the way it can make carrots chewy.
And then there is pain.
Most hospital stays begin with pain.
You know the way it is. You have a pain in your elbow*. You go to the doctor. You have tests. You are told there is something wrong with your elbow (which you had more or less managed to figure out for yourself) and you have to go to hospital.
(*Insert hand, foot, heart, head, knee and so on, as appropriate.)
So off you go to hospital to get your pain removed.
And what do they do?
They start sticking needles into you. “It’s for bloods,” they say.
And if you have to get mucho drugs, they insert a canula or a Picc line. Worse still, they might decide to operate. And that involves cutting you and stitching you up again.
And it all hurts. It hurts a lot. And, if you’re a man, it hurts an awful lot indeed.
And so you lie awake in your bed, knowing that trying to sleep is pointless because someone will arrive ti wake you up if you make any attempt to get forty winks or even ten.
And you’re hungry because you can’t/won’t eat the food.
And you’re in pain.
You told them you’re allergic to all three.
Three?
Of course I meant four.
Stress. I’m alleregic to stress.
And boy, do they give it to you in spades in here.

Paddy Murray Is (a bit) Unwell (this time) III

2007-10-31T15:24:00.000Z

I don’t want Mary Harney to trip and break her leg today. I don’t want her to get a mild bout of food poisoning or to sprain her wrist or cut her hand.*
However, if any of those things were to happen to her, I hope she is brought directly to Accident and Emergency in one of Dublin’s hospitals. The one I’m in would, I’m sure, be fine.
I hope she is placed on trolley (an experience a friend of hers seemingly thought wasn’t too bad).

Whether she is then treated publicly (very unlikely) or privately (odds on), the level of care she receives from front-line professionals will be second to none.
That will be no thanks to her.
Mary Harney is presiding over an increasingly demoralised health service.
The current round of cutbacks, which she well knows are affecting patients, will be, for some, the last straw.
Soon, morale in the Irish health service will be as low as it is in the British health service. For reasons best known to herself, Ms Harney constantly compares the two when, if she had ambition or vision, she would look instead to the health services of Northern Europe.
While Ms Harney was in hospital receiving treatment for her leg or her wrist or her stomach, she would notice a few things.
Let’s, for the moment, make the daft assumption that she believes what she says about our health service and goes public.
After her day on the trolley, surrounded by drunks and druggies and overworked doctors and nurses, she would be taken to a ward which she would share with five others.
These would not be five people of her choice. They might be poor people. (They sure as hell won’t be rich people.) They might be people with drink problems. They might be people with dementia who shouldn’t be there but can’t be moved to suitable accommodation because of the cutbacks. The might, God forbid, even be voters.
She would see one, or at best two, television sets. If one of her companions hasn’t got one tuned to an Australian soap, she might get to see the Jeremy Kyle Show or Doctor Phil. (So busy are the real doctors, that she might actually get to see more of Phil than she does of them.)
The chances of her actually getting to see something she wants to see are slim.
But there’s always the radio.
Well, no, there isn’t always the radio.
Sure, there are radios built into the bedside lockers. But there are, no longer, any earphones for them.
Well, she can open the window and breathe in the air.
No she can’t. Many of them are nailed shut - illegal surely - to prevent dust from building work getting into the wards.
Depending on which ward she’s in, Mary may or may not be able to have a shower.]
If she has damaged her foot, the six inch step - yes, it is six inches I measured it - into the shower might prevent her from getting in.
But what would surely stop her, is the gap into which those wishing to have a shower have to squeeze, to get through the doors.
Whether it is politically correct to say it or not, it’s a fact. Mary Harney would not fit in most of the showers in St James’s hospital.
At least she could occupy herself on the web. She can, in fairness. If she manages to get to the cafe in the entrance hall where, for the price of a cup of coffee you get a few minutes on the web.
At least in the cafes in the entrance hall, the food is ok.
So why can’t it be ok in the rest of the hospital?
I’m pretty sure Mary wouldn’t like the food on offer in the hospital.
There is no excuse in 2007 for food to be other than tasty, appetising and nourishing.
Mary Harney seems to think the health service can be run like a budget airline. It can’t.
It won’t pay for itself. It won’t make money.
One of the primary functions of the state - it’s actually enshrined in the Constitution - is its duty to look after the citizens.
Mary Harney and her highly paid colleagues have failed to look after the citizens of Ireland on many levels.
The Health Service is only one area of complete and abject failure.
*This is a lie. I wouldn't mind if Mary Harney got food poisoning and ended up in one of the hospitals she seems to think are wonderful.

Paddy Murray Is (a bit) Unwell (this time) II

2007-10-29T14:27:00.000Z

WHEN you walk into a ward in an Irish hospital, one of the first things you will see is the television. Or maybe two televisions.
You may think that these televisions are a sign that the hospital and ultimately the HSE, wants to keep patients entertained, keep them occupied.
In fact, they are a sign of the utter contempt in which patients are held by the HSE.
In they eyes of those who administer our health service, right up to Minister Harney, patients are irritants, barely better than doctors and nurses.
Why else would one television set, or at best two, be put into a ward containing four or six patients?
If there is one thing that makes spending time in an Irish hospital bearable, it is the knowledge that those in whose care you have been placed, are dedicated, hard working and good at what they do.

It is, of course, a cliché to speak of the ‘caring professions.’ But there is no doubt that doctors and nurses, and indeed, the vast majority of those who work in hospitals in whatever area, are caring people. Sure, they get paid. And some of them get paid very well.
But the work is hard and the pay isn’t always what it should be.
It is a mystery, then, as to why our health service is constantly criticised and seems, forever, to be under attack from patients, their relatives and, indeed, those who work on the front line.
If I was employed by the health service, i would find it hard not to become demoralised in the fact of the relentless criticism.
But then, the criticism is rarely directed at those on front line.
It is those behind desks, be that in the Department of Health or in the HSE, that justifiably, bear the brunt of the criticism.
(Who was it who decided to put two television sets on the wall in a ward for four, or indeed six patients?
If the person furthest from the television wants to watch it, the sound has to be so loud so as to disturb the person nearest the set who doesn’t want to watch at all. And do they suppose that the two, or three, on each side of a room all want to watch the same thing?)
There are something like 17,000 administrative workers in the HSE.
Some of these people, the ones at the ‘top’, are the ones who get bonuses for, presumably ensuring less money is spent.
They are also the people who hire and fire in the HSE. And so don’t expect an announcement about thousands of redundancies amongst administrative staff in the HSE any day soon.
(Who was it who decided to install showers in hospital bathrooms, that have four inch steps up to them and which have doors so narrow,that many, if not most people, would struggle to get through them?)
It seems unlikely that the thousands who work in administration in the HSE have avoided illness all their lives, have managed never to spend a night in hospital or do not have relatives who have spent periods of time in the care of of our health service.
And so it is a mystery why the facilities for patients are so utterly dire in Irish hospitals. It is as if the decisions made are made by people who believe they will never darken the door of a hospital for any reason and don’t really care about those who must.
You could describe most Irish hospitals as ‘minimalist.’ But not minimalist in the sense of chic or fashionable. Minimalist in the sense of providing the minimum facilities for patients and, probably, staff.
(Who decided on the size of patients’ rooms in the new wing of St James’s Hospital? I ask because, to my certain knowledge, someone involved in planning the new building asked some of the hospital’s nurses if there was any way of improving the design of the hospital’s wards and rooms. The nurses told this man that the ‘side rooms’ were too small. He took it on board. The ‘side rooms’ in the new wing are smaller.)
It is well established, that the environment in which patients ‘live’ can help - or hinder - their recovery.
And yet, St Luke’s, arguably the country’s best known cancer hospital which at least, has the benefit of gardens, has been marked for closure.
Not a word from the highly paid Ms Harney about her plans as the good people of south Dublin and, it has to be said, beyond, dug deep into their pockets over the years to help keep Luke’s at the forefront of cancer treatment.
Ms Harney would like to move Luke’s into the already congested James’s campus, where the only grass you’re likely to see is that being smoked by some tattooed yobbo outside the front door.
(Who decides on the unchanging and unappetising menu? Do they eat it? Do they know what ordinary people eat? Do they know that sick people sometimes like to have good food?)
No doubt it’s because she’s always chauffeur driven (by a garda) that the same Ms Harney doesn’t realise the panic and fear that will sweep over unfortunate parents everywhere who have to rush their sick offspring to the proposed new children’s hospital on the Mater site.
The health service seems to be run for the convenience of those who run it.
This remains one of the few civilised countries where no attempt is being made to make wifi broadband available to patients.
It is one of the few civilised countries where no effort is being made to make the food served to patients appetising or presentable.
It is one of the few civilised countries where the old are left to rot in hospital wards designed for the sick so that books can be balanced.
It is one of the few civilised countries where there is a belief that if enough money is thrown at the health problem, it will go away.
Did I say civilised?
There are countries on this earth with little or indeed no resources, whose rulers make a better job of looking after the sick.
Civilised?
Ms Harney and her bureacratic pet the HSE achieve nothing, but to insult those of us who must use their service and those who work in it.
Enjoy your pay rise Mary.

Paddy Murray Is (a bit) Unwell (this time)

2007-10-27T14:35:00.000+01:00

DAMMIT.
Back in hospital.
The cure didn’t cure me.
I have no intention of going into all the gory details (and believe me, they’re gory) but suffice to say that the ghastly infection in my foot is still doing its worst.
It’s damned sore - up around 9 out of 10 (on a male scale. It’s probably only about 4 on a female scale.)
I have been pumped full of so many antibiotics, that I’m pretty sure, 99 per cent of the world’s infections wouldn’t come near me. Wouldn’t dare.

Sadly, I’ve got the macho one per cent, the Rambo of blasted foot infections, the one nasty piece of work that is doing to my foot what Eric Cantona (bless him) once did to a loudmouth fan.
So the little bag has been packed again, the bottles of water have been purchased, the sweets stuffed into my little locker, my toothbrush and razor laid neatly beside me and I’m back in my jim jams, back in a hospital bed and thoroughly miserable.
Well, no. That’s not fair.
I’m miserable. But it’s not thoroughly.
I know that what’s wrong with me is relatively serious. It’s not as bad as, say, leprosy. But it’s a lot worse than a grazed knee.
So while hospital is where I don’t want to be, it’s the right place to be.
I desperately miss Connie and Charlotte. I hate saying goodbye to the little mite (that’s Charlotte, not Connie) even though I haven’t been much fun for her these past few months.
She thinks daddies are people who lie on couches complaining all the time.
If and when I get better, and if prayer makes people better I’m half way there, I am going to play with Charlotte all day every day until I can stand it no longer.
Or until she can stand it no longer.
Today, I was seen by a total of five doctors. Sometimes, it takes five doctors with different specialties to come up with a solution to a difficult problem
And my foot is a difficult problem, a bit like the rest of me.
It’s not been the best three months of my life.
But three years ago, I was in hospital for a long period.
And that ended with me being given the cheerful new that I was no longer editor of the Sunday Tribune because ‘we want someone who’s there all the time, not someone who’s sick.’
Hopefully, i am in more secure employment these days. And anyway, the Sunday World is a better newspaper than the Sunday Tribune. At every level.
And, of course, three years ago, I probably had some daft picture of Eric Cantona or Denis Law or maybe even some place in the South of France as my screensaver and desktop display.
Now, I have Charlotte’s picture.
And even when some days are a bit dark, that’s always there to cheer me up.

The Magic of Archibald Albion

2007-10-25T13:54:00.000+01:00

YOU may or may not have heard of Archibald Albion.
If you are a soccer fan and you haven’t heard of the legendary Albion, I am surprised.
Indeed, even if you know nothing of soccer and you haven’t heard of the Albion, I am surprised.
You have heard of George Best?
You have heard of Pele?
You have heard of Jose Mourinho?
Well, you should have heard of the Albion. They’re right up there. History makers, double winners.
Champions.

Let me tell this story as modestly as possible.
I don’t know an awful lot about soccer. Rugby is my game. Rugby has always been my game.
But many years ago, a colleague, Senan Molony, founded a soccer team. He called the team after Steve Archibald who, I am told, was once a famous soccer player.
Archibald Albion was not a very good team.
Indeed, so bad were they, that I began recount their exploits in my twice-weekly column in the Star.
For example, they arranged a friendly game in Cardiff. But they couldn’t find Cardiff.
The first time I went to see them play, they lost 4-2, I think it was.
What I am certain of, is that they gave away three own goals.
I also learned very quickly, that when their goalkeeper confidently shouted ‘KEEPER!’ to indicate that he was in total control of the situation and was about to catch the ball, a kick-off almost inevitably followed.
And so Senan asked me to become the team’s manager.
I could go on and on telling you stories about how other teams laughed when they saw my lads arrive in mucky tracksuits, smoking and coughing before games. And then I could describe their horror when we beat them.
I could regale you with tales of the average centre half I transformed into a world-class (oh, all right. AUL -division-three-Saturday-class) striker and how I made him play on after having one testicle terminally crushed.
I could provide you with a barrel of laughs telling you stories about our new ‘keeper who was as mad as, well, a ‘keeper.
I could describe the kiss one of my players planted on a tramp in Kilkenny.
I could tell you about the Albion being the first club in Ireland to sign a Bosnian Muslim who, unfortunately, turned up drunk for his first, and last game with us.
I could tell you about Senan being the only striker in the world who loved heading the ball.
With his glasses on.
I could tell you about the referee who, one day, asked me to take one of my players off. “He’s concussed,” the ref said.
I called the player off and asked him if he was concussed.
“No,” he said. “I’m pissed.”
But no.
Instead I am going to tell you about how, with a little bit of help from a chap called John Curran who, despite being a printer is an ok guy, we not only won the league, but the double.
Archibald Albion. From Laughing Stock to Double Winners.
That was going to be the title of my autobiography.
But I suppose, I got bored and moved on.
And so did John.
And so did Senan.
And one day, without anyone noticing. Archibald Albion died.
But I can look back with pride on what we achieved.
And at the end of it all, I have only one question.
Do you think John Delaney would give me €300,000 a year to manage Ireland.

Paddy Murray Is (not that) Unwell (he hopes) VII

2007-10-20T16:22:00.000+01:00

STEVE McQueen tried to do it on a motorbike.
They tunnelled out of Colditz.
But I got out in a taxi.
Hospital’s not that bad really. The staff would cheer you up.
It is absolutely correct to say that everyone on the front line of our health service works hard, does everything they can and tries their best for the patients.
It is equally true to say that they don’t really have a hope.

This week, six porters tried to do the work of 17 in the x-ray department at St James’s Hospital in Dublin.
Four phlebotomists tried to do the work of seven, taking blood samples from around the wards.
The doctor who saw me at 8am on Friday morning, was the same one who discharged me twelve hours later.
That’s thanks to the cutbacks, put in place by the HSE. They’re the cutbacks, we are told, which are having no effect on patients. That’s just simply a lie.
The one thing most health service front line workers seem to have in common with each other, is a desire to get out.
It would take an article the length of a short novel to detail the problems in Ireland’s health service.
Suffice it to say, that comparing it with Britain - as Health Minister Mary Harney did during the week when comparing the ratio of administrators to front line staff - isn’t a good place to start.
If there is a health service in a worse state than ours, it’s theirs.
Politicians have, of course, chucked money at this problem for years. But it’s they’ve done.
They have written cheques without, it seems, having the foggiest idea as to why.
Bureaucrats told them the service needed more money, and so, fearing an electoral backlash, more money was provided.
But was was needed, and what IS needed, is a root and branch examination of the service.
Someone needs to find out why the vast bulk of workers are unhappy, unfulfilled, frustrated, planning to leave - or all four.
Doctors tell you their job is all but impossible.
I can vouch that my own doctors work incredible hours. And if they are rewarded with salaries similar - when even everything is taken into consideration - to that our TDs get, well, so be it. They’re actually worth more.
The facilities in which the medical staffs have to work, and therefore in which the patients have to be treated, are abysmal.
Waiting rooms are overcrowded. Newly built buildings were designed a decade or more ago and are now completely unsuitable.
If our minister and those she has appointed to run the health service were even vaguely serious about improving the situation, they would, for example, ensure that the food served to patients was top class. It isn’t.
They would ensure that free broadband was provided for patients. It isn’t.
They would ensure a standard of cleanliness that was second to none. They haven’t.
They would provide sufficient staff in every area, and fund it by cutting administration costs. But they haven’t.
Imagine. There is one administrator for every five frontline staff in the health service. Why?
I’m at home and receiving my intravenous antibiotics from a super company called Tara Healthcare. If such a company was used more, hundreds of beds could be freed up in hospitals.
But no. We just blather on, with the Minister spending more time on RTE than she does behind her desk.
She is providing over a demoralised service.
And while she may talk about improvements, the reality is, nothing has changed.
I’m getting good treatment. I hope I’m not well.
Sadly, though, the health service is critically ill.

Paddy Murray Is (not that) Unwell (he hopes) VI

2007-10-17T10:58:00.001+01:00

THIS is like the longest flight I’ve ever been on.
I’m not on a plane and I’m certainly not going anywhere.
I’m stuck in a hospital. And it reminds me of flying.
It’s the food.
If you accept that a chicken is a chicken and a potato is a potato and a pea is a pea, it is hard to credit the way the different ways those ingredients end up on your plate in, say, l’Ecrivan or Chapter One and in hospital or, indeed, on a flight or in boarding school.

We can only presume that, particularly in hospital, the ingredients are pretty decent. It seems unlikely that, despite the fact that our government has deemed the appointment of more committee chairmen to be of greater importance than financing the health service, hospital kitchens are supplied with dodgy ingredients.
And I accept, entirely, that cooking for 700 differs greatly from cooking for seven.
But it is nonetheless mind-boggling, how a piece of chicken can end up as part of a magnificent meal in l’Ecrivan, albeit at a price, and can, when served in hospital (or on a flight or in boarding school) make you enquire as to the location of the nearest McDonald’s restaurant.
(You will note that, today, I am not talking about wine or Guinness or pubs or anything of that sort. Mind you, I quite liked the suggestion of a hospital bar offering pre or post theatre drinks. Wonder if there’s an interval during which you could order them?)
My first encounter with food produced on an industrial scale was in an Irish College. My parents, though they loved me, handed me a nine-month sentence in the place from which I would have escaped had I been able to dig a tunnel.
The food was typically industrial.
You know. Take ordinary ingredients and cook them until they are bereft of flavour.
But was Fridays which were most memorable.
On that day, we were served what we were assured was a vegetable soup.
It consisted, I am sure, of the vegetables which had not been eaten during the week, boiled. In milk.
I kid you not.
These vegetables, carrots onions potatoes, peas and turnips, were boiled in milk until they were soft and mushy. And then they were served up to us unfortunate children.
We called it “Chef’s vomit.” I never found out if that was to do with taste or appearance or both.
Having served my sentence in that Irish c ollege in Ring, Co Waterford, I was later sentenced to nine months behind bars (not that type) in my last year in school in Blackrock College. (That sentence was, at least, deserved.)
They were way ahead of the game when it came to recycling.
Because on Mondays, we got a kind of beef chop which was, largely, inedible.
On Tuesdays, it was some type of beef stew, made, we believed, with the uneaten portions of the chops.
On Wednesdays, it was mince and mash, constructed, or deconstructed, from the uneaten stew.
On Thursdays, we got a beef soup and you can figure out from where it came.
We got fish on Fridays by which time we were so hungry we would have eaten the beef chops.
I managed to largely avoid institutions until this damned disease forced me to spend time in hospital.
But long-haul flights more than made up for that. You know the feeling: “I ordered the fish, this is chicken.” “Sorry sir, that is fish, no, hold on, it’s pork, no, it’s definitely the fish sir.”
I have had, don’t get me wrong, edible airline food. The nuts aren’t bad. And the occasional biscuit is passable.
In fact, it’s not that the food is actually inedible. Hunger makes the food edible.
It’s just that I wonder why someone somewhere goes to all the trouble of removing taste from things like chicken and potatoes and peas. I wonder why they don’t leave some flavour so you have a small clue as to what it is you’re eating.
It’s what they do in hospitals too.
I would love our health minister or indeed, the head of the Health Service Executive, to live for a week, if they could, on hospital food.
I am not suggesting the food is other than healthy.
It’s healthy enough.
Unless you’re talking about mental health.
Because it’s depressing in the extreme.
Mind you, now that I think of it, it’s not so bad that it couldn’t be improved if accompanied by a decent claret.

Paddy Murray Is (not that) Unwell (he hopes) V

2007-10-16T11:51:00.000+01:00

The Dog and Doc. That’s one of the suggestions I have had for the new bar here in St James’s Hospital.
Of course, there’s not going to be a new bar. It’s not that some people don’t think it’s a good idea to help, well, cheer up the sick.
It’s just that all the money is being spend on flippin’ medical equipment.
That and administrators. Too many administrators.
I can’t believe that firing a couple of administrators and hiring a few barmen and maids instead wouldn’t be the progressive thing to do.
Quite liked The Farmer Giles as a suggestion too.
Anyway, we need somebody progressive to look at our hospitals.
Here, for example, you have access to broadband - once you pay €3 for a cup of coffee which is not quite blackmail but is something reasonably close.
Again, it would seem to make perfect sense to have WiFi broadband available for all patients in hospitals.

I have no idea how many patients would actually use it. But that’s hardly the point.
Those who did use it would, without any doubt, recover more quickly from whatever it is they have. Unless it’s leprosy or the Black Death.
There is no evidence that using the internet has any effect whatever on leprosy or the Black Death.
But boredom is a problem in hospital. Especially if you’re only sick from the ankles down. It’s a problem if you have anything which doesn’t make you feel sick. Because all you end up feeling is bored. And when you’re bored you start thinking. And when you start thinking you start thinking about how sick you are even if you’re not. And you start thinking you’re more sick than you actually are. And you start getting depressed. And you start thinking you’re dying and you’re not long for this world and...
... and you start thinking you’d murder a pint.
I don’t think The Burst Appendix is actually a great name for a pub.
I mentioned the idea of a licensed premises to one of my doctors this morning. (I say one of my doctors. So many doctors and specialist nurses have I now, that I’m thinking of charging them a small fee to come and see me. The proceeds would, of course, go towards the construction of a, yes I know I’m banging on about it, bar.
The particular doctor didn’t dismiss the idea out of hand. In fact, she seemed to be about to tell me that, in her native country, such a thing wasn’t completely unheard of.
She is, of course, Australian.
But the fact that she didn’t knock the idea has given my campaign (I hope one day it will become, as Arlo Guthrie once suggested in relation to his own campaign, a movement) a major boost.
It would be dishonest to suggest that my Australian doctor has actually joined my campaign. She hasn’t. She just didn’t laugh at it.
The Nurse and Bottle? Not if it’s that kind of bottle.
Drink is getting a bad name. And the sad thing is, that it’s people who can’t do it, that are giving it the bad name. Binge drinkers. People who drink and want to fight. People who drink and get loud. People who drink and eat kebabs and then puke them up. People who drink and vandalise things. People who drink and frighten people. Bad drinkers.
There have always been bad drinkers.
But once, drink was respected. It was seen by some almost as a cure all.
It’s medicinal qualities were appreciated far more than they are now.
I note that, today, a report in Britain rails against middle-class drinkers.
God help us, what are the middle class supposed to do? Sit around all evening watching Emmerdale or Wife Swap or the feckin’ X Factor?
If you ask me, it’s soaps and reality television that have the middle classes turning to the (cheeky, fruity, aroma of fruit and maybe a hint of tobacco) bottle (of a decent Burgundy) in the first place.
Sure, it’s keeping them off the streets, isn’t it?
As far as my campaign is concerned, it’s onwards and upwards.
Right now, though, I think the most likely name for my bar, is The Cutback and Closure.

Paddy Murray Is (not that) Unwell (he hopes) IV

2007-10-15T15:30:00.000+01:00

YOU might get out on Monday, they said.
But I’m something of an old hand at this now.
And so I never believe the first date I’m given for my departure from hospital.
I reckoned on Tuesday.
But of course, I should have known.
My Tuesday is their Wednesday or Thursday.
It’s the way it is with doctors.
It’s like my nine o’clock in the morning is their midday.
It’s the way of things. Time is more or less meaningless for doctors. If it wasn’t, so busy are they in our over-administered health service, they’d go mad.
So I’m still in my hospital bed, and still on page 84 of The Time Traveller’s Wife.

I’m enjoying it. But I keep falling asleep every time I try to read any more of it.
It must be the drugs.
Sodium benzoate, sodium bisulphate, ascorbic acid - and that’s just the Lucozade.
Fortunately, my lunch today was not served by the lady who informed me as she placed yesterday’s offering in front of me, that she ‘felt dreadful.’
Today it was the lady who had the good grace to put my lunch in front of me before she turned to leave the room, coughing and sneezing.
Believe me, suggesting that we divert money into providing sterile pods for the sick, for at least the really sick, is not an idea borne from the ingestion of hallucinogenic drugs.
Talking of which, isn’t it a really brave move by Ireland’s pharmacists to pick on heroin addicts in order to advance their campaign for more money.
Yes, I know they work hard. But so too do those who have dedicated their lives to helping our unfortunate addicts who have now been abandoned by pharmacists not noted for their moderation when it comes to pricing their products.
“We were left with no alternative,” the pharmacists said. Apart from being utter tosh, that’s just a lie.
No alternatives? Why don’t they go on hunger strike or something that might actually test whether or not they have any support from their customers, addicted or otherwise?
My bet is they wouldn’t be thrown a single pea, let alone a sandwich.
Dammit, hospital leaves too much time for thinking.
Right now, I’m thinking how Ireland really could have won this rugby world cup were it not for all the things that are wrong in the camp and with Irish rugby in general - like the fact that very few people are playing it anymore and that it is still, in the main, a middle class game which is fiercely protected from invasion by, well, the middle classes who run it.
I’m thinking how our government has become utterly corrupt, generating sinecures for its supporters at public expense.’
I’m thinking how we have a health service run by people who think it’s ok to shut down front line services while they still have highly paid people in charge of the purchase of staple clips. Let’s see the administrative jobs going, boys.
I’m thinking how those who run our national airline have managed to turn it from a much loved institution to an organisation which is tolerated by some and loathed by others by loved by none.
I’m thinking how the entire Celtic Tiger business was, in the heel of the hunt, the greatest exercise in spin ever foisted on a population, a hoodwinking more successful even than that attempted by Blair and Bush in relation to Iraq.
We know know, there were not Weapons of Mass Destruction.
And we know now that there was no great wealth in the Celtic Tiger.
If there was, why do we still have poor?|
Why do we still have homeless?
Why do we still have some dirty hospitals?|
Why is our healthcare system - brilliant when you’re in it - so badly run?
Why are so many of our ‘minor’ roads (they’re major for the people who have to use them every day) so lousy?
Why don’t we have enough schools?
Why don’t we have enough gardai?
Why are we selling so many of our assets?
Why are we selling the tolling of so many of our roads to private enterprise?
Why do we need Public Private Partnerships in the first place, if we’re so rich?
Because we’re not.
Only politicians, with their 22 pay rises and their sinecures are.
And, it seems, only those of us with time to think. realise it.

Paddy Murray Is (not that) Unwell (he hopes) III

2007-10-14T12:59:00.000+01:00

I’d love a pint. I really would. I am, as they say, gumming for one.
It’s always the same when I’m somewhere they don’t have pints.
And they don’t have pints in hospital. Not pints of Guinness, I mean. They do have pints. Of blood.
But it’s not quite the same thing, drinking through your arm.
So I’d love a creamy. A roaster. A pint of plain.
Not right now, not this second.
But I’d love to have one this evening. Or maybe two. Might even stretch to three.

Being ill, or a little bit ill, or not at all ill but with an annoying infection, I firmly believe in the restorative powers of pints. Specifically, pints of Guinness.
For years, you were handed a bottle of Guinness after donating blood in this country.
Women who gave birth were immediately given Guinness every day to build up their strength. Their children were, however, forced to wait years for the same, er, beneficial medicine.
I have no idea why such practices ended.
Economic reasons, no doubt. Some accountant figured out that by stopping the Guinness, they could buy more ledgers or pencil sharpeners or something.
Or maybe, Carlsberg or Heineken got the hump and demanded equal treatment. Silly, that. Lager, though, hasn’t got the same powers as Guinness.
I’m pretty sure that if the lady with the trolley came around today and asked us all if we wanted tea, coffee or Guinness, she would be returning to her kitchen with pots of cold tea and coffee.
I am also pretty sure that, after a couple of trips to the trolley, we patients would all be feeling a great deal better.
And even if hospital food is, well, hospital food, boy, wouldn’t we look forward to it if it was to be accompanied by a nice Merlot or a nice, round Cote de Rhone.
You may very well think I am obsessed with alcohol.
I am not.
I merely miss it.
I don’t miss it as much as I miss my partner or my child or my dog or my house or my bed at home or a decent cup of tea.
But it’s not here. They don’t encourage it in hospitals.
And I miss it.
It’s not that I think about it all the time.
This morning, for example, I was thinking again about what a good my idea to put each sick person into their own sterile pod.
I thought about that again when the lady who brought me my breakfast informed me that she felt ‘absolutely dreadful.’
Brilliant, I thought. She feels sick and she’s walking around a hospital handing out food to people who are trying to get better. Put her in a pod, I thought, and stop her from spreading her sickness.
And today I also thought about England reaching the final of the Rugby World Cup.
I thought, there’s a mediocre, ageing, average team in the world cup final.
Why?
Because they have passion and heart and determination. And they have been well prepared.
And our younger, more skilled and more fancied team dumped out in the qualifying round.
If we’d been properly prepared, we could have won the damned thing.
And then I was looking at the hung-over England fans and the hung-over former England player Matt Dawson on television talking about the joy of the England fans.
The best of luck to them.
There is a perfectly logical reason as to why there should be bars in hospitals.
I’m not talking here about The Dog and Duck or the King’s Arms.
Maybe The Doctor and Nurse or The Cut and Stitch or something.
But it would be strictly for patients only.
And admission would be by coloured wrist band so that certain patients, for whom a drink might be harmful, would be wearing a red wrist band and would not be admitted.
There might be, say, a green wrist band for someone allowed four pints and a blue one for someone allowed three, a yellow one for someone allowed two and a pink, yes, I think pink, for someone allowed one.
And it would only be Guinness.
And maybe some decent red wines.
I mean, the thing is supposed to be medicinal.
Of course, a mini bar in the room would solve the problem too...

Paddy Murray Is (not that) Unwell (he hopes) II

2007-10-13T17:52:00.000+01:00

Sometimes, it makes a great deal of sense to put together in the one place people who are doing the same thing or who have a great deal in common.
It makes perfect sense, for example, for Catholics like myself who want to go to Mass to gather in the church together at Mass time.
It makes sense for followers of Manchester United or Leinster Rugby, like myself, who wish to attend matches to go to Old Trafford or, nowadays, the RDS, to watch the teams.
It makes a kind of sense for drinkers to gather in pubs, shoppers to go to shops and concert goers to go to concerts. It seems unlikely that Bruce Springsteen or the Kaiser Chiefs or Arcade Fire will put on individual performances.
And it just wouldn’t be acceptable, on any level, to start burying dead people willy-nilly, here and there.

It makes no sense at all, or very little, however, to gather sick people together in one spot.
I imagine whoever came up with the idea of hospitals in the first place, was a government administrator who reckoned, correctly as it happens, that it would make economic sense to put all the sick people in one place so that a smallish team of doctors and nurses and ancillary workers could see to their needs.
The idea of hospitals could not have come from anyone with the slightest medical qualification.
Think about it.
You’re sick. You need treatment. You need to be kept in an area that is as sterile as possible.
So what do they do?
They put you into a big building full of people who also need to be kept in an area that is as sterile as possible.
And then they let in cleaners and cooks and painters and hundreds of doctors and nurses and nurses’ assistants and, of course, thousands and thousands of visitors.
Little Jimmy with his snotty nose.
Lucy, who doesn’t know -yet - that she has measles.
Tommy who is just begining to feel a bit dodgy with humps.
Uncle Fred with the cold.
Great Aunt Maude who thinks she has a cold, but it’s actually the start of ‘flu.
And all the others with as yet undiagnosed illnesses.
They pile in one after one, behind the cleaner with the smokers’ cough and the lady who delivers dinner but who nobody knows never washes her hands after going to the loo.
The ideal way of dealing with sick people, is for each of them, every individual, to be put into his or her sterile pod where a dedicated doctor and nurse could attend to them and where anyone else who had to enter the pod, to deliver food, to visit - cleaners would barely be necessary - could be fully sterilised before entering.
For a start, in a kind of ‘Hey Presto!’ way, hospital superbugs wouldn’t exist because hospitals wouldn’t exist.
Naturally, these pods could be placed either close to a patient’s home or centrally, depending on the illness and so on.
They could be portable so that, sometimes, they could be parked in your garden.
They could be wheeled down to the pub! Well, doesn’t cheering people up do their health a power of good?
And the expertise would of course have to be largely centralised.
If you had sufficient doctors and nurses, this wouldn’t be a problem.
I am aware that, by now, you think I am indeed very unwell.
You think I am off my trolley, hospital or otherwise.
You are wondering what strange drug I am receiving here in hospital.
Because the idea as outlined above, would cost billions and billions and billions.
You’re right.
At least, you’re right about the cost, not about me being off my trolley.
Isn’t it odd how people might cringe when they hear that some medical scheme or other, some special school for autistic children, some plan to house the homeless or help to get addicts off drugs, may cost billions.
But nobody seems to bat much of an eyelid at the United States spending, what is it now, 80 billion dollars a year on their Iraqi adventure.
Nobody seems to be worried about our own public representatives costing vastly more than they are worth, what with their highly inflated salaries, ridiculous and largely dishonest expenses, free parking, free telephones, free post, free offices, subsidised restaurant, gym and God knows what else.
If money was spent sensibly, if business wasn’t given such influence, if public representatives represented the public, all sorts could be done.
We could have sterile pods for the sick.
And we could look after autistic children and others with learning difficulties.
We could look after the old and the young.
We could eliminate world hunger.
And we could eliminate the need for war.
We could be decent, kind generous Christian,Muslim, Jewish, Hindu, Buddhist people. Whatever.
Crazy?
Yes, I suppose. Totally.
Must check what drugs they’re giving me again.

Paddy Murray Is (not that) Unwell (he hopes)

2007-10-13T10:37:00.000+01:00

❍Two of the loves of my life, Charlotte and her 'brother' Eric

Back to hospital.
Though I visit St James’s Hospital in Dublin regularly to see my doctors - I think I have five or six at the last count - it’s almost three years since I have spent a night here.
Last time, at least, I was sick.
Hospital’s a grand place to be when you’re sick. In fact, I can’t think of anywhere better. And, when you get right down to it, hospitals were built to look after sick people. So it all makes a perfect kind of sense.
Right now, I am not what you might call sick in the conventional sense.
I feel tremendously well. Any feeling of nausea or being unwell that I feel is a result, still, of Ireland’s lacklustre performance in Rugby World Cup.

Lacklustre? Lack-everything.
Anyway, I’m here in hospital feeling perfectly well from the ankles up.
And therein lies the nub of my problem.
Since I was diagnosed with this damned cutaneous lymphoma about 12 years ago, I have been well from the ankles up bar one period where I was well only from the ankles and wrists up. You will gather that it was my hands and feet that were causing me problems.
And since the last time I was confined to hospital - they don’t actually confine you, they just strongly suggest you stay - my partner has given birth to our wonderful daughter Charlotte. And, up to four months ago, the greatest pleasure in my life was going for a walk around our neighbourhood with Charlotte and the hairy Samoyed we like to described as her ‘brother’ Eric.
Yes, I walked around with a deal of pride. I probably looked smug and maybe, even, arrogant. But certainly proud.
But the feet started acting up. Bastards. If I didn’t need them, they’d be gone long ago. But, like most bodily organs, they have a role to play.
Whether it is to do with being on a clinical trial for a new drug and having stopped my old drug, I can’t say. Even with the old drug which was, generally, excellent for my health bar the fact that it raised my cholesterol so high it almost killed me, my feet were bad.
But they just got worse and worse.
And then the infection set in.
Now, it’s four months since I wore a pair of shoes. Not that I measure happiness by the number of pairs of shoes I get to wear in a given month. Was Imelda Marcos happy, I ask?
Now, I’m in hospital. And I feel well from the ankles up.
Here, the sound that wakes me in the morning is not the baby pressing the buttons on her musical frog, but the nurse telling me I’m about to be fed more antibiotics through a vein in my arm. Funny that, you’d think it would be a vein in my leg, legs normally being nearer to feet than arms.
Confined, so to speak, to a hospital bed and big things happenning elsewhere.
Tomorrow and Sunday, there are two Rugby World Cup Finals.
First up, it’s England and France. I’m cheering for France.
I’d love t o cheer for England. I love the place. I like the English. I admire many of their players.
But, even though I cheer them on at cricket, there’s something....
Maybe it’s “Swing Low...” I don’t know.
And then, on Sunday, I’ll be cheering on Argentina, largely because I think world rugby has given them a raw deal over the years and they have beaten the big boys politically and I’d love to see them winning on the field.
(I know, though, that some would take an Argentina/France final as some kind of vindication of Ireland’s lousy performance. But it would be no such thing.)
For the first time ever, I will be watching Rugby World Cup semi-finals stone-cold sober.
No pints. No wine. Nothing.
I cannot imagine what the experience may be like.
A friend has suggested I will interrupt the game with cries of ‘handball” and “that was a push.”
He said I might even express surprise that the goalkeeper is so far off his line or that someone or other missed a perfect opportunity for a clean header at goal.
Unlikely.
I will, however, miss the expertise that comes with the fourth or fifth pint. I will miss the knowledge of the game and the tactical nous that comes half way through the sixth pint.
But I am, despite what some say, in the care of what I can personally attest, to be one of the finest healthcare systems in the world.
It is a system which would be all the finer if the enormous layer of bureaucracy at its top could be removed or halved.
But on the basis that a decision to halve bureaucracy would be taken by bureaucrats, such a thing is as unlikely as politicians voting to reduce their number or to pay themselves an honest salary.
But let nobody say that once in the door of an Irish hospital, the care is not as good or better than anywhere in the world.
Let nobody say that, despite the problems, the health service is not generous in the way it deals with patients, in that I, and several I have met since my latest incarceration, as being fed drugs unavailable to patients in Britain’s much lauded healthcare system on the grounds of price alone.
So while I will complain - of course I will, I’m a grumpy old man - about being in hospital in the first place.
While I worry that seeing my much loved game of rugby through sober eyes might alter my view of it entirely.
And while I miss my partner Connie, my daughter Charlotte and my dog Eric, madly, I am in a place designed and built for sick people.
Even if they’re only sick from the ankles up.
(At leat, I hope it’s only from the ankels up.)

Give me doctors any day

2007-10-09T18:32:00.000+01:00

Irish politicians have given themselves 22 pay rises in the past ten years.
An average (and boy, do we mean average) TD (member of parliament) pulls down around 200,000 euro when expenses and allowances are considered.
On top of that, he or she can employ members of their families to do whatever, at state expense.
They get paid extra for turning up to work.
They get paid extra for sitting on committees.
Our Taoiseach Bertie Ahern is on a basic salary of 266,492 euro. On top of that, he draws down expenses and is, already on the promises of a publicly funded pension about ten times higher that that his government believes is adequate for ‘ordinary’ pensioners.

Ahern has surrounded himself with advisors, some of whom are paid almost as much as he.
In other words, he pays himself a massive salary, and then, presumably because he can’t do the job, uses our tax money to pay people who can, or at least, people who he believes can.
His ministers are the same.
Right now, he’s bitching about our hospital consultants.
In what is now a fairly normal display of class and sophistication, he whinges that they’re paid more than him.
He expresses himself fed up with the doctors and their protracted negotiations for new contracts. (There was no negotiation whatever involved in the 22 pay rises he and his fellow public representatives gave themselves.)
What is on offer to consultants, is 216,000 euro a year.
Now, I don’t know about you, but personally, I would be wholly in favour of reducing the number of TDs we have by half. Constitutionally, we are required to have one per 30,000 people, which means there are only going to be more of these utterly useless human beings who are a drain on our resources and who are, for the large part, put up for election for reasons not unconnected with nepotism.
If Britain followed our example, there would be 1,600 or so MPs in the Commons.
But, bad and all as they are, they’re not as wantonly wasteful as we are.
So here’s a solution.
Cut the number of TDs by half, or even two thirds.
Abolish the senate.
Get rid of all the special advisors, PR hangers on, gurus, spinners and what not.
And pay the doctors.
Pay them 250,000 a year. Pay them 300,000 a year.
One doctor is worth a dozen TDs.
What am I saying.
One doctor is worth the whole damned lot of them.
I know, by the way. Doctors are keeping me alive and they have done so for 12 years and done so in a way that has given me a reasonable quality of life.
Why should doctors have to beg for decent salaries from people who award themselves how ever much it is they want?
Why should they listen to a bitter, begrudging and dishonest oaf like Ahern, who despite having one of the highest salaries in the land, took money from his ‘friends’ and hid it in a safe while he was going through a marital separation?
Pay the doctors.
Believe me, we can survive without Bertie and his cronies.
We cannot survive with excellent doctors - and nurses - who staff our health service.

Humbly Doing Flan O'Brien's Work

2007-10-05T18:39:00.000+01:00

Flan O’Brien, Myles na gCopaleen, Brian Ó Nualain.
He was the magnificent Irish writer, responsible for such literary gems ad At Swim Two Birds and The Third Policeman.
He was also famous for his column in the Irish Times.
And in that column, the regularly wrote about clichés.
He provided us with a dictionary of clichés.
But, of course, since his untimely demise, clichés have changed.
And so I humbly now, offer some instruction in some more modern clichés.

What race of people, anxious to make our trading situation difficult, is believed to be outside our gate? The Barbarians.
And which particular meal of ours is it, that they wish to consume? Our lunch.
What edible animal, often domesticated, is it that we must have all in a row? Our ducks.
From what sheet of paper, usually found amongst members of a choir, is it that we should all be singing? Hymn sheet.
In which direction should we be going? Forward.
What deadly piece of metal is it that we must dodge? The bullet.
In which land, which is extremely prone to cloudy weather, do some people live? Cuckoo.
What gainful employment is it that it is often suggested we should not give up? The day job.
What useful financial reward is it that we should take and run? The money.
What form of illumination is it that are often on though there is nobody home? The lights.
Of what metal, alcohol filled item, is he one short of a six-pack? A can.
With one of which extremity does he walk on the footpath? Foot.
On which side of life is it recommended that we always look? The bright.
What faecal matter is it that, unfortunately, happens? Shit.
Which female domesticated animal is it that life is before you die? A bitch.
If there is no pain, what else is there none of? Gain.
Through what fissure do we not want something to fall? The cracks.
On what kind of wonderful highway does information travel? Super.
With what awkward bodily growth and all does an honest portrait come? Warts.
To whom is something that’s easy to operate, friendly? User.
What kid of unpleasant head do you not wish to see reared when things are going well? An ugly one.
Staying where is the new going out? In.
Where does the balloon invariably go when things go wrong? Up.
In what kind of sports field is the figure normally found? Ballpark.
What kid of search will the police undertake when someone is missing? All out.
What kind of honcho is the boss? Head.
With what are they viewing the dodgy looking situation? Alarm.
Under what unpleasant item is the released man no longer? Suspicion.
And so what is he now off? The hook.
Like what does the good idea sound? A plan.
What item of haberdashery should you push to annoy someone? His buttons.
What can you not put back in the tube? The toothpaste.
What kind of bovine animal is the profitable business? Cash cow.
What part of your anatomy should someone read if they wish to understand you? Your lips.
What should people not do with your chain if they don’t wish to annoy you? Yank it?
Any more?