08.31.05
Posted in Sunday Times Columns at 8:07 pm by
I love this….from Tuesday’s IT “Males (Men as leaders and elders)Ireland, the group which aims to help men find themselves, is hosting several seminars on male spiritual development.”
“Particularly in today’s society, so many men try to avoid at all costs the painful parts of themselves. It’s almost like not accepting their humanity. I see so many men getting caught up in workaholism and other addictions. There’s a lostness there, and many men have no sense of purpose in their lives. What they do in their work just doesn’t fulfil them, or they can’t relate at a deep and constant loving level with their partners.”
Doherty adds: “Women have a different relationship to pain, because through the maturation process and that time of the month, they’re really brought into their bodies and the pain of that. Young men don’t have this and need something else to help them, otherwise they’re chasing pleasure all the time and trying to escape from the reality of being human, part of which is to experience pain.
“In our society, many men are failing to learn that it’s part of the human condition to have a certain amount of brokenness, and to be able to incorporate that into their psyche in some way, so they’re not constantly going out trying to rule the world.”
Apart from the stupid title, I suppose there is something to think about in this. Women do learn that pain is a part of a life. I went through the humiliation of fainting with period pain often enough, not to mention the previously detailed horrors of labour. However, I think these guys are mixing up physical pain and psychological pain. I think we all have that little hole, the “brokeness”, the feeling that there is something we’re missing. So are we missing something or does everyone just feel like they are? Is that feeling an inevitable and unavoidable part of the human condition? Are we as well off not thinking about it at all and just getting on with things? Do men feel the void more than women? Does labour give us a more profound connection with humanity? If we search for the thing that will fill the void do you just end up doing loads of drugs and having unethical sex? Or jumping off a roof? I suppose creativity would help. If you could create great art or music that would surely fill a gap. And yet artists and musicians are the very people ODing and shagging groupies and topping themselves. Unless your Bono. Oh God, I feel an existential crisis coming on. And I have to write my column.
Still, I spent the last hour hanging ornamental plates and some pictures. You wouldn’t have thought hammering a nail into a wall – straight – was so hard. I know all my country folk capable relations thought I was mad getting a guy in to do the first lot specially but you know what – there is a skill to that sort of thing. Hmmm. Do you just spend the rest of your life constantly improving your house in the hope that filling holes in the wall will fill the hole in your heart??? aaaaaagh. Pass the joint.
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Posted in Sunday Times Columns at 6:17 pm by
All my thank you letters are up to date.
Wedding parents
Wedding bride and groom
Last last weekend’s barbeque
Last last week’s dinner
And I received a thank you for the wedding gift.
The world can rest easy. Well, my world.
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08.30.05
Posted in Sunday Times Columns at 9:29 pm by
Drinking tea in the early evening watching M. mow our ridiculously huge lawn, my uncle and I reflected on how we would reduce the amount of grass and the news that an outward relation appears to have accepted her husband back into the home. We knew that after a legal separation of about 4 or 5 years, there had been some family holidays and the occasional overnight stay. However, the news that they had been sighted at mass together seemed a public signal that a reconciliation cannot be far away. His crimes had been twofold. Excessive drinking (invariably followed by driving) and womanising. I think it was after a particularly outrageous drink-driving episode that she threw him out. Apparently he has aged a little and finds it less easy to attract women. Fortunately both had ensured that he had ready access to their children and his increasing presence in the home was so gradual that they are not overly confused. They were both quite young when all the trouble took place and hopefully aren’t too affected by the whole thing.
Anyway, we discussed which sins are forgiveable in a marriage and which are not. Violence is obviously top of the list, followed by gambling. Drinking (which would probably go hand-in-hand with the previous) would come next. After that you’ve got verbal abuse, especially in public. Chronic laziness and unreliability would wear anybody down. You wouldn’t have one big row and it would be over. That would be waking up after 10 years and deciding you just couldn’t stick him anymore. I think infidelity would be bottom of the list. If it was confined to occasional/rare once-offs that were easily ignored, you’d keep him in the spare room but a break-up wouldn’t be necessary. I suppose that doesn’t really happen. I suppose it starts with occasionals and then they announce they’re in love and must be true to themselves and leave.
I don’t know many people who have broken up. Of the together-but-rowing couples I know, none of the above crimes are the cause of arguments. They just feel overworked and blame the other and they’re bored and just sick of each other.
Germaine Greer does say that we expect far too much in a marriage. We expect the other person to be our best friend, great conversationalist, equal co-worker, and brilliant lover forever and it’s an unrealistic burden to place on one person.
I suppose everyone has to find their own level of toleration. What are they willing to put up with it? The worst case scenario is one willing to go on but the other not.
Interestingly everyone agrees that the one thing keeping unhappy couples together is not the last vestige of love, but money. Break-ups are sooooo expensive. The one broken-up couple I know – he’s in a flat and she’s in their lovely home with the child. I think if I was him I’d be particularly pissed off that at a mature stage in life he’s back in flat land. So, you have to be pretty miserable to put up with that.
Anyway, I find that if he’s bugging me*, a little Metta Bhavna goes a long way. “May he be well, may he be happy, may he be free from suffering, may he progress”. Then, he’s not just an extension of my life; he’s the individual I first met who does not exist solely to make me happy.
*I should stress we are quite content at the moment
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08.29.05
Posted in Domestic/Relationships at 9:46 am by
A cool customer keeps his fingers crossed
It started with white lies (”no, your bum does not look big in those trousers”) and the fake-enthusiasm lie (”your hair is gorgeous!”). Then there are the denying lies (”I wouldn?t recognise an off-shore bank account if it jumped up and bit me”) and, more recently, the spinning lies (”it’s not a cutback, more a budgetary adjustment”).
I’ve been trying to figure out which kind of lie Dick Roche, Minister for the Environment, has been telling. Is it a big fat lie? Or is he just a bit thick and cannot accept the truth even when it is right in front of him? Or is it the Tony Blair lying-to-yourself lie (”I have willed myself to believe there are weapons of mass destruction in Iraq so I cannot be lying”)?
Must be the latter; Roche is such an affable chap that he couldn’t be a barefaced liar. He must have been genuinely convinced that he was telling the truth. I just wish he hadn’t made a fool of me in the process.
When my neighbour complained some weeks ago about the new waste disposal charge on the purchase of electrical equipment, I told her that it was illegal for retailers to pass on the charge to the consumer. She had seen new signs in a shop explaining the charges, but I confidently told her she was wrong. I had heard Roche on RTE with Sean O’Rourke in July, announcing a directive from Europe on Waste Electrical and Electronic Equipment (WEEE). He had rejected O’Rourke’s suggestion that the consumer would end up paying for the initiative, which places the responsibility on manufacturers and retailers to dispose of customers’ old fridges.
When O’Rourke said that shoppers would end up paying in some form or other, Roche replied that he “didn’t agree at all”. O’Rourke suggested that retailers might offer to knock €20 off the price of a fridge if the consumer didn’t make them collect the old appliance, as they are required under the new laws. Roche said that it couldn’t, shouldn’t and wouldn’t happen. He praised the fridge makers for allowing recycling to become just another cost of manufacturing. This made us leaders in Europe, which we know is always a good thing.
On Monday night Matt Cooper put the same questions to the minister on Today FM’s The Last Word. Cooper complained that retailers were imposing fees to remove old appliances when they delivered a new one. Roche denied there was any evidence of this. Triumphantly, Cooper was able to state for a fact this was the case, since he had just bought a new tumble-drier and had paid €20 extra to get the old one taken away. “I don’t agree with you,” said Roche. But the minister would refer complaints of such charges to the Director of Consumer Affairs. So if it was happening, it shouldn’t be happening. I remained sure of my position.
Imagine my surprise, then, when I read a letter from Declan Ronayne, general manager of Dixons, in The Irish Times on Tuesday. In it he deconstructed the whole layer of lies around the new regulations. What the new directive actually does is allow manufacturers of electrical goods to add a visible environment management cost (VEMC) to the price of goods they sell to retailers. The charge was suggested by the manufacturers in the first place, and the government approved it. The retailer has to display this waste charge – essentially a price increase – in the shop. It cannot be absorbed into the main price. So the producer is charging the retailer who is passing on the charge to the customer – an inviolable law of the market.
But here’s the best bit: there’s VAT on the charge. The government didn’t just bring in a new production charge; they actually make money on it.
As Ronayne put it: “Manufacturers of electrical products are unwilling to pay the costs of recycling. They have persuaded the minister to legislate for them to make the public pay, and pay handsomely, rather than pay themselves.”
The real problem with the lie is that it was unnecessary. As Roche has observed, the scheme has many advantages and didn’t need much to sell it. What did you do with your broken washing machine before? It wouldn’t fit in your car, it clogged up your garden shed; there was the hassle of getting someone else to take it away and maybe they’d just throw it on the side of a mountain. Now someone is required by law to take it away. If you can transport it yourself, you can bring it to one of the many civic recycling centres for free. It’s handy for you and it’s good for the environment. Who can argue with that?
I asked the press officer in the Department of the Environment to explain the minister’s seemingly contradictory statements about the charges. It appears that when the minister said that the customer wouldn’t pay, what he meant was that he hoped they wouldn’t pay. So finally my question is answered. It was a Hoping Lie.
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Posted in Sunday Times Columns at 9:15 am by
Don’t worry, not mine, someone else’s. I’m posting early in the hope of benefitting from the therapeutic effects of blogging, thus preventing a Monday mope and resultant lack of productivity which would have onerous consequences for the remainder of the week.
I truly have stepped off the set of Four Wedding and a Funeral. Scotland, jokey priest (or moderator or whatever they have there), marquee, champagne in the garden overlooking the river, bagpipes, kilts and as it was a border county, lots of tartan trousers and lots of dodgy speeches. And the groom’s name was Hugh Grant. Could you ask for more?
The groom’s mother was gas. A classic Dublin elegant lady, witty and tough I’d say. During the service I was getting a bit self-conscious that my bra could be seen under my dress. The straps out the sides and the effect of my decolletage was spoiled by a clear view of the lace. I fiddled with it during the garden party but when we were due to go into dinner I decided enough was enough. I nipped into the loo and took it off. I looked fine. No nipple issues and the dress was structured so that the lack of support was unnoticable. I was left with the problem of what to do with the garment since it wouldn’t fit in the little purse I was carrying. I remembered the groom’s mother had a large bag. I caught her waiting to enter the marquee and she didn’t hestitate for a second when I explained the problem. The bra was stuffed down well in her bag and returned discreetly the next morning at breakfast. She behaved as if this was a perfectly normal occurence. That’s the kind of mother-in-law you need.
I always get a little downer after weddings because now that they are usually weekend affairs you spend 48 blissful hours socialising when everyone is determined to have a good time and look their best. The company was excellent and the conversation sparkling. For the first time ever I almost wept during the vows. The presbyterian (or whatever they are ) format really dramatised the declarations with the parties pledging loyalty and trust as well as the usual love and honour. The bride is one of the most fiercely loyal people I know and the groom is worthy of eternal trust and whatever else may get in their way I crossed my fingers and prayed that they will make it. I think weddings are one of the few places where there is a uniformity of good will which cosmically speaking gives the newly weds the best possible start. I have high hopes for them.
On the personal growth front I reached another benchmark. When it came to 1am or so I was on a great buzz (to use a mid-1990’s peak of ‘e’ use term). I’d achieved a nice balance between the champagne, the wine and a G&T pick-me-up. I’d been flung around the dance floor, received several compliments, renewed old acquaintances, developed some new ones and affection had the potential to overtake commonsense. When a lift back to the hotel was offered, I had the option to refuse and see the party into that phase where people either start kissing or fighting and my hangover the next day would move from tolerable to acute. Because I have become either wise or dull, I decided to hop it. My psychic nature is clearly developing because within minutes of my departure the best man did punch a friend he suspected (falsely!!) of making inappropriate advances towards his wife. Apologies were offered and graciously accepted, and the incident can be grossly exaggerated for years for our entertainment.
I still can’t decide whether I am relieved or disappointed that I went home at a decent hour. I know its good to be good, but why do you only feel you’re living when you’re bad? Well, that’s a bit harsh. But why is all the best craic usually bad?
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08.24.05
Posted in Domestic/Relationships, Feminism at 12:11 pm by
Eddie, for furrin readers, is a short man with a thick Cork accent, who has previously presented a show advising people how to get their finances in order. I think he’s great. His latest show Rip Off Republic is mad and brilliant. He presents it before a live audience and lectures them like a Christian Evangelical preacher about how they are being ripped off by producers and the government. Its a massive hit.
On the first show he did a piece on Trim, near to my home. The council refused planning permission to LIDL, a discount food store. A local woman was incensed and began a local petition to campaign to make the council change its mind. In a town with a population of 7000 she collected 5000 signatures and faced with this overwhelming will, the council changed their policy and granted the permission. AT LEAST THAT’S THE WAY EDDIE TOLD IT.
Now, the “missing” week of my column, was when I was asked to cover the “liam fay” spot which is a newsy section on the back page. One of the articles I submitted concerned my discoveries about the truth behind the claims.
Firstly, the council did not “change” their minds. An Bord Pleanala granted the permission. They could do this where the council could not because the land was not zoned correctly. This part of the article was published.
Unfortunately, I presume due to constraints on space, the second bit was not published. I checked around and quickly discovered that the maximum estimate of the signatures on the petition was 2000. Far short of the 5000. Two councillors I spoke to believed there were only 800 signatures. The guy who actually had the petition was on holiers. I got confirmation from him today that there were no more than 600 or 700 signatures.
So it was all a big lie. Now I like Eddie Hobbs; I love the programme; I’m learning a lot from it. But his research was very bad. No excuse.
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08.21.05
Posted in Sunday Times Columns at 3:08 pm by
Manners maketh civilised children
Manners featured high on the agenda last week and a consensus quickly emerged: children are unruly because their parents are too tired to teach them how to behave. I’m not so sure that it is that simple. The disappearance of the family meal may contribute to the disappearance of table manners, but there are other forces at work in the coarse, vulgar world that has become Irish society.
The principal one is a wilful confusion between manners and etiquette. The general agreement is that etiquette is an elitist conspiracy that invents unnecessary and silly rules for the purpose of excluding lower classes. Since the second world war and the decline of such minor aristocracy as we possessed, etiquette is deemed to be bad. Attempts to teach skills such as holding one’s knife correctly are condemned as symptoms of snobbery. Etiquette seems so British, so imperial, that it equates to hypocrisy and the use of charm to disguise the cruelty of conquerors.
Conversely, manners show proper consideration for others, and it is socially acceptable, if increasingly difficult, to pass these on to one’s offspring. There are some things on which we can all agree. Correcting other people’s children is a faux pas that will earn you a cold shoulder from the respective parent. Indeed, publicly correcting anybody is the ultimate in rudeness. Whatever manners we pass on, we must pass them on in private.
I recall taking afternoon tea with a friend and her young daughter in a swish Dublin hotel some years ago. With great relish, I cut my scone in half and began to spoon on the jam and cream. The little girl took my lead. As she lifted her knife, her mother took it from her and in a superior tone announced: “No, darling, we don’t cut our scones, we break them”. The daughter and I exchanged a glance in which we silently debated which one of us would stab the cow. I remain unconvinced that the prohibition on cutting bread rolls applies to scones.
The problem is that we no longer seem to know which rules are the disposable foibles of a past era and which are the ones worth keeping. Some people never knew half the rules and most people thought they were daft.
Take the thorny issue of the HKLP (holds knife like pen). Having been reared in a slightly more archaic style to most of my contemporaries, I can’t help wincing just a little when faced with a HKLPer. However, I like to think I am mature enough to know that this is not a character-defining issue. It is far more important that the same person serve others before digging in themselves. It’s okay to use the wrong fork to give somebody else the last potato, but not if they’re taking it for themselves.
But can the same logic be applied to putting your elbows on the table while eating? Theoretically, it doesn’t affect anyone else, and yet the resulting hunch over the plate is inelegant enough to make table companions, this one anyway, uncomfortable. Similarly, straightening one’s knife and fork on the plate doesn’t just look neat, it indicates that the person has finished their meal and makes the cutlery less likely to fall off the plate when lifted from the table.
There is no right or wrong any more, it’s all about one’s personal opinion. If, in your opinion, your child is entitled to talk with food in their mouth, then the rest of us have to swallow our distaste along with our meal. Still, as somebody said, good manners are all about putting up with other people’s bad ones.
The general level of ignorance on what is good or bad behaviour is compounded by the idealisation of childhood. Whatever our childhood, it is generally assumed that the past was by definition a cruel and abusive environment. Most people come to parenthood with a determination to spare their children the deprivations and chastisements of their own youth. Over-identification with a child’s feelings causes many parents to apologise and beg forgiveness if an admonishment results in a few tears and an irritating wail. I prefer the perspective that toddlers are little savages who need to be trained through a combination of praise and reproach to make themselves as invisible as possible when in public.
For this is the essence of good manners. How can I conduct myself so that I come under people’s notice as little as possible? How can you conduct yourself so that you refrain from invading my personal space? The world is an increasingly crowded place and, when contemplating topics for next week’s column, I would prefer not to listen to your mobile phone conversation and not to have your child’s noisy behaviour interrupt my expensive meal or peace in church.
But the prevalent view is that we are all encouraged to think that we are great and our children are great. While good manners are about discretion, bad manners are the preserve of those who fail to realise that, while they are the centre of their own universe, they are the Pluto of ours. A well-mannered person respects your right to a quiet life. The ill-mannered think everybody should respect their right to do as they please.
While psychiatrists and anthropologists will analyse violent incidents such as road rage, deconstruction by manners will suffice. Do I yield out of consideration or do I proceed because I am better than you? Horace Mann, the American educational reformer, said that manners easily and rapidly mature into morals. Looking around today, it seems we have lost both.
ends
two notes on this:
In the Irish edition I am in Jeremy Clarkson’s spot. Does this mean I am in the English edition too? Any UK readers out there who can assist?
Also, and more delicately, the issue of the HKLP is very close to home. It was really only when my toddler began to sit at the table that I realised that the husband is a HKLPer. Suddenly, what I happily ignored before now seemed a huge issue as I know which way I want my children to hold their knives and it’s going to be difficult to enforce it if Daddy is doing something different. I mentioned it as diplomatically as possible. Talk about a taboo subject. In principle he agreed that when I began to teach the children how to use cutlery properly he would support me but needless to say he was a bit irked at being criticised and who can blame him. I felt really guilty. It’s such a touchy subject. But still, I do notice when people don’t straighten their knife and fork on the plate and it just seems so ignorant to leave them all over the place. You don’t know if they’ve finished or not and whoever lifts the plate does have to straighten them. And elbows while eating just looks uncomfortable. Surely it can’t make me a bad person because I think there is a right and wrong way?
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Posted in Sunday Times Columns at 2:57 pm by
Apologies for long absence. A combination of poor physical health, multiple mental inputs and a computer that died but was ressucitated by a kindly neighbour all contributed to a failure to blog.
On the physical health issue, those who are bored by other people’s health problems may skip the next paragraph. For those who are still reading I had the most bizzare diagnosis. But first, a quick recap. Amidst the various dramas of my pregnancies I don’t think I’ve ever mentioned that the very first pregnancy symptom I had with No. 1 child was that my tailbone got tender. Very odd, but apparently not unknown as the tailbone has to uncurl a little to get out of the way of the baby’s head. Usually this happens during labour but mine started straight away. Anyway, for the past few months its been pretty sore especially when standing up from a sitting position. The resulting grimace made people convinced I had some awful arse-related issues, so a ‘lower-back pain’ explanation was usually greeted with relief. It’s been getting worse so I eventually went off the to the doctor who told me, with some mild astonishment on his behalf, that my tail bone, instead of hanging down with a little curl in, is bent in at a 90 degree angle. He said I must have fallen and broken it at some point but all we could surmise was that it broke during that last labour. Bar having it taken off, which sounds very radical, there is not much medical science can do. He recommended an osteopath so they’ve been shoving the sacroilliacs around hoping they’ll pull it back into place. Now usually a diagnosis is a relief, but I have to say, I felt very shaken learning that I was deformed. I’m not over it yet I think. I’ll give it 6 months, and if there is no improvement, they can take it. Apparently, the operation is not that major; you’re out in day and hobbling around for a couple of weeks. It’s just like the appendix; it’s an obsolete part of the body so it’s really only a nuisance. But weird or what?
Then for last week’s ST I was filling in for the Liam Fay spot which is half a dozen news things instead of the one opinion piece. More on that later.
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08.08.05
Posted in Feminism at 11:05 am by
An update on this. I met the brother (and sister) yesterday and asked them about the proposed regulation. They are vehemently in favour of regulation. They are members of the IAVI which insists on a high standard of education and CPD (continuing professional development). They invest a lot in knowing the law and promoting good ethics amongst their members. They are sick of having to deal with the situation whereby anyone can get a licence and set up as an Auctioneer without any proper training or education. They also point out that the only legislation in place was proposed by the IAVI back in 1946. Regulate away they say, and that will soon put the ‘boot of the car’ crowd out of business. How will this sit with the pro-competition crowd.
On the issue of guides they say there are two issues. Firstly the vendor may have a reserve in mind (i.e. a price below which they will not sell) and just blatantly lies to the auctioneer about the reserve until the day of the auction when the refuse to sell at the highest bid. They advice any would be auction goers to always press an auctioneer for information regarding the reserve price, not the guide price.
I think on the issue of guides, there is an element of being fearful of putting a guide too high as this might turn away lots of prospective buyers. I think it works like this. Let’s say a house might sell for 250 on a good day. If they guide it at 250 then anyone whose hoping to buy at 230 might not bother to go and see the house even tho’ when viewing it they might fall in love with it and decide its worth paying up to 250 for it. Soooooo, they’ll set the guide at 230. Generally, they find that guides are reasonable in case of private treaty. It’s when houses go to auction that things get completely out of hand and people go mad. That’s why only really desirable houses will go to auction. If its just a normal house, people will want a bit more time to think about it.
At the end of the day.. (sorry), they point out that they are engaged by the vendor to get the highest price possible (the straight commission fee providing the incentive). The buyers might hate them, but the buyers ain’t paying them….
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Posted in Uncategorized at 10:54 am by
I just noticed that the Sunday Times website has a menu which gives my column a wider audience (well, apart from their mystery subscr. policy). Ireland is listed separately, so if you were an English reader you may not be bothered clicking on that. However, I’m listed under Review, so people are more likely to see my work than if I was just under Ireland. Dare I write to webmaster and ask him for the clicks?
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