01.31.07
Me on the Last Word
Yes, yes I was on The Last Word talking about the continuing rise in the Caesarian section rate with Mike Geary from the Rotunda. Download here, click on Tuesday 5-6pm and fast forward to about 22-22 minutes.
OHMYGOD!
Found the camera! Hurrah!!!
ACTUALLY HE found the camera. In a most embarrassing place. He was organising a cheque to send to his sister for the parents’ christmas present. He came looking for a card and I directed him towards our personalised headed notepaper (of which I am very proud). It’s in a box on a shelf in the room that I pretentiously wish we called the Library or Study but which I actually “My” room and the children call the computer room. Anyway, on top of that box, is the original box in which the camera arrived. I keep the leads in it and the software. And em, apparently the camera itself.
So a) I forgot that I had put it there for safe keeping
and b) It never occurred to me look there when I looked everywhere.
So as per original post, I clearly am losing it 
Though I am hugely relieved.
01.30.07
Elephant’s farewell
On the wildlife theme here is a most interesting article from the ST Magazine. The first half is a sad account of an elephant funeral..such things exist apparently. It’s a really well structured article. First we fall in love with the elephant but then……and a little note on how animal rights activists make life difficult for everyone else 
01.28.07
From stag hunt to witch hunt
There are two kinds of people I can’t bear: Concerned Parents and city slickers who move to the country and then complain about rural life. This double prejudice resonated when I heard the mothers with Dublin accents on Radio 1’s Liveline complaining about the behaviour of the Ward Union Hunt in my native Co. Meath. The subject of the Hunt, an unfortunate stag, had sought refuge in the empty playground of the national school in the quiet village. No one told the stag it was 3 o’clock and school was just about to finish.
One group of children was let out before the teachers realised what had happened. The pupils got the fright of their lives when instead of meeting their mothers, they met a sweating stag, a pack of hounds and well over 80 hunters. The school principal, Kathleen Lynch, did the sensible thing and kept all the other children inside until the Hunt had passed. In ten minutes it was all over bar the shouting, and that went on for an entire episode of Liveline into the next day.
I constructed a mental league table of sympathy towards the effected parties. In first place was the Stag. Being a country girl I know that the dogs are only “giving tongue” – they bay in unison at the deer and would never touch him. But of course the Stag doesn’t know this and hardly appreciates the experience.
Next were the children. I am all too familiar with the childhood trauma of witnessing creatures in distress. I was after all required to eat animals with whom I was on first name terms. The fate of poor Hoppy the Turkey, the one with the broken leg still hangs heavy. Turkeys are wretched animals to rear. They are filthy and a row always started when we forgot to round them up before dark. They’d roost on the sheds requiring you to fire stones in an effort to persuade them off their perches and into their huts. Maybe that’s how Hoppy came a cropper in the first place? Anyway, he was produced on a platter one Sunday and after a brief goodbye, we tucked in. The experience must have hardened my heart.
At number three in my sympathy table was Oliver Russell, the spokesperson for the Ward Union and now a victim of a different kind of Hunt – Outraged Parents who go in for the kill. He had to “Talk to Joe” for an entire Liveline programme taking abuse from the highly articulate and increasingly less likeable mothers going on about the disaster that could have befallen their children, as opposed to the minor incident that actually did occur. The odd fright will not, contrary to the view of the Concerned Parents, scar their children for life.
Russell apologised repeatedly and explained that in the 150 years of the Hunt such a thing had never happened before. The mothers painted scenes of what might have happened if all the children been out in the yard. Russell tried to persuade them that had the children been outside the Stag would never have headed for the school playground in the first place. He only went there because it was empty.
The Hunt didn’t help its own case by charging off into the village of Kildalkey without acknowledging the chaos it had caused. The Hunt Master could have dismounted and check that everyone was alright. They did visit the school the next day and is to suspend operations until an investigation into the incident is complete. A more immediate reaction might have prevented escalation to the airwaves.
The mothers were bottom of my sympathy league. They refused to be placated as they waved their health and safety banners. The biggest danger to children leaving schools, as any road engineer will tell you, is the other mothers’ illegally and dangerously parked cars. Yet they never have the slightest hesitation in accusing everyone else of endangering the lives of their offspring. When something like this happens you can decide to assure your children that the Stag will be fine (which he was) or claim that he was clearly going to die (which he wasn’t). If the children were upset on behalf of the Stag, their parents’ hysterical reaction was hardly going to help matters.
On other pages the debate rages about the challenges posed by immigration and multiculturalism. Yet here in the heart of County Meath we had our own little clash of cultures. Once sparsely populated areas are occupied by townies who have never witnessed a hunt and are scared rather than thrilled by the prospect of seeing dozens of mounted horses galloping down a road.
While I don’t come from a family of hunters, we view the Hunt as a source of excitement. True, at the sound of dogs, the first thing you do is get out the way. Then we shout for the children to come to witness the spectacle : which they love. I suppose townies might panic at the sight of so many animals, but all the mothers had to do was sit in the cars and watch. You can screech that this is an attack upon ones civil liberties, but if you live in the country you are at some stage likely to be obliged to make way for animals. Joe Duffy cannot protect you from all eventualities.
Sadly, despite my bias against slickers who have decentralised to the country, I can’t with all honesty paint Tuesday’s events as a neat collision between them and ordinary decent farmers indulging in their misunderstood sport.
The Hunt and the environment in which they operate have changed. First there are far more hunters. There were as many as 100 out on Tuesday and even half that number is hard to manage. The Hunts, while revelling in their popularity will have to cap the numbers if they are to keep order. The routes are harder to organise now too. When there were big farmers who owned thousands of acres, tearing across the fields was a straightforward matter. Hunters can’t now expect to roam wherever the Stag leads. They will have to keep manners on their members – some of whom are fond of using wire cutters to make a “hunt gap” and failing to repair the damage afterwards.
We would spit on West Brit aristocrats for this kind of behaviour fifty years ago. Why take it from nouveau riche property millionaires who choose, like their Patron Saint CJ Haughey, to adopt the traditions of the former colonists? I am happy to defend the Hunt but they might do well to clean up their act if they want to escape that most merciless of all predators : hysterical mothers.
01.26.07
The broadsheets and Fine Gael
Ok, here’s an example of what I was talking about a few days ago regarding the broadsheets and their refusal to give credit where it is due, and happily this refers to Fergus O’Dowd who only those few days ago I said was not getting sufficient recognition for his work on nursing homes.
The Indo front page headline reads”Harney faces fresh scandal on elderly care”. The problems at the St. Albert’s nursing home are listed. NOWHERE on the front page does it mention how this scandal was exposed. Inside the paper (Page 8 or something) Nicola Anderson does reported on Fergus O’Dowd’s speech in the Dail and also gives details about the trouble he had simply trying to access the report, despite the efforts of unnamed bureaucrats to prevent him seeing it. HOWEVER the much larger headline on the same page read “Strict new rules for nursing homes to protect residents” and goes on to list all Mary Harney’s new plans.
Why wasn’t Fergus O’Dowd, who was solely responsible for uncovering the scandal mentioned on the front page? Why was the report about his speech much smaller than the headline and article announcing Harney’s plans for nursing homes – so conveniently announced on the same day as her department’s scandalous behaviour with regard to St. Albert’s is exposed? And those rules are not rules. They are draft rules – which is quite different than a rule. A draft rule says that knowing O’Dowd finally had the file, the political advisors to Harney fished out some otherwise ignored memo from 6 months ago, dusted it down and said “here, announce this..that’ll take the shine of O’Dowd’s discovery – which it did of course).
On the same day, over at the IT, the front page headline reads “Harney may appoint hundreds of consultants”. St. Mary against the consultants? She’ll never do it and even if she tried the consultants wouldn’t take the contracts because the existing guys would warn them off. (I don’t approve, I am just saying why give her credit for something she says she MIGHT do that we know she never WILL do). At least the Indo put the story – if not all of it – on the front page.
Inside the paper we read that ” New Draft Standards for nursing homes unveiled” (so they are only draft – woulnd’t have known that from the Indo) and meanwhile on the St. Albert’s story, what’s their headline? None other than “HSE acted “immediately” on nursing home complaint” – which is simply a lie. At least they felt obliged to put immediately in inverted commas. What did happen of course was that in 2004, a HSE inspector said that no more sick or old people should be put into St. Albert’s and not only was that recommedation ignored, but the state was PAYING for the patients there. Nothing changed until there was new owner in 2006. But the defence gets the headline – not the allegation. I mean, this is bigger than Leas Cross. AFAIK in Leas Cross the Department didn’t know, but should have. In this case, they did know, but did nothing. Only when we finally reach the Dail report page do we see, in fairness, a photo of Fergus and full report on this speech. It is given more space than the Indo..but I had to go a long way into the paper to see it.
And they wonder what spin doctors are for?
Cling film and other matters
Is it just me, or does it not cling as much as it used to? I remember when this stuff was invented. Or at least, when a roll first arrived in Enfield. It stuck SO well a certain skill was required in placing it over a dish or bowl. Now the bloody stuff won’t cling! It just sits rather pathetically on the rim of the bowl and pressing it down ends up in a bad tempered wrestle instead of an airtight seal. Is this something to do with making it suitable to put in a microwave? Whatever the reason, and I would like to know it, there are serious performance issues with this product which only the purchase of tupperware will overcome.
Other matters
Found the belt! That’s one thing of my mind. I had thought I last wore the white jeans over the Christmas and perhaps checking in the suitcase used for that trip might be worth a try. There it was! I was very happy, which yes yes I know is probably an over reaction to the discovery of a lost, and not very expensive belt (though I treasure them when I find them as my slight figure makes belt acquisition a tricky business). ALTHOUGH I was hoping the camera might be there too. No sign yet, but the belt triumph has given me cause to hope.
01.24.07
Confession
I know this is really uncool, but I like Norah Jones. The sun is shining and that wretched wind is gone, and I can’t help smiling because the lambs are jumping around the field looking cute (especially when they feed and their tails are wagging furiously) and even though I know that sweeping the floor isn’t the kind of revenue producing work that is deemed worthy by the world, I’d stil prefer to be doing that than sitting in the M50 (even if I resent the fact that the desire to have a clean floor makes me insane in some people’s eyes).  So I turned off the endless, mindless chatter on the radio and put on the CD. Its soooo mellow and sweet and makes me calm. I am sure cool people think she is terrible and it might get on your nerves after a while, but it really works for me.
The only other thing I worry about is if I wasn’t me, and I was listening to me on the radio, would I turn me off and listen to Norah?
The broadsheets agin the coalition
Irish Times columnists are taking turns attacking the opposition. Fintan started the ball rolling with an attack on Kenny two weeks ago, and I thought, oh well, who cares what he thinks? Then Waters did his more thoughtful and therefore more damaging piece last week. Now VB lays into Rabitte today.
Seems to me the broadsheet attacks are of three sorts.
1. The Independent Newspaper s(Smyth, Sheehan, Moloney). They are just swallowing FF spin, digesting it and projectile shitting it out again. When they don’t have a story, they’ll make one up, like the Damien English thing. Its just a re-run of 1997. Its Independent editorial policy to attack FG.
2. The earnest commentators (like the IT). I think their attacks are motivated, not through any love of FF, but because they desperately want FF out but despair of the apparent ineffectuality (? doubt over existence of that word, apologies) of the opposition. It’s like the parent with the underachieving child who shouts at them all the time. This is really stupid because all they are actually doing is playing into the hands of the O’Reilly hacks.
3. Then you’ve got the roll along with the crowd without even thinking bunch who just slag off FG because it’s what you do. I am afraid a perfect example of this was in my own ST a fortnight ago from my colleague (though I have never met her but presume she is perfectly nice) Kathy Foley. In a column urging for an improvement to the driving test system she noted that FG had come up with some excellent proposals for doing just this. However, rather than simply say, “This is FG policy, isn’t it good?” she felt obliged to preface her praise with something like “Never ones to let a bandwagon roll by without jumping on it…etc etc”. It stood out as a perfect example of a newsroom culture where one group of people have been designated untouchables, rather than being recognised for what they are – the second largest political party in the country. For all the hysterics about coalitions, one thing is certain: any alternative government WILL feature Fine Gael. However, it doesn’t matter what they say, FG won’t get a fair run in the papers because you must be an eejit if you think they can do anything competently. I know FG suffer from not having had authority since 1997, and even then for only a brief period, but this uniformity of derision is just bias.
The only way Kenny can circumvent this is a) court the journos more and b) get out and meet the people personally – which I believe he is doing.
McNally does it again
He’s great.
First few paragraphs of today…how I wish I could do what this man does…
“In an ideal world, sportsmen would never cast aspersions on the morals of their opponents’ female relatives .
But this is not an ideal world, and insulting mothers, sisters, wives, and girlfriends remains a popular tactic for unsettling the opposition. So much so, that it seems like a failure of coaching whenever a player falls for the ruse and gets himself sent off for defending a woman’s honour.
Curiously, among the set of female relatives an average man is likely to have, only his grandmother is considered above this kind of abuse. Not only is she rarely accused of moral laxity, she often has exaggerated athletic abilities attributed to her. Miss an open goal, say, and chances are even your own team-mates will suggest that “your granny would have scored that with her eyes closed”.
The female-relative-insult gambit is almost too obvious for coaching. Advising a player that his sister’s social life may feature in verbal exchanges is like breaking the news that he is more likely to be tackled while in possession of the ball. And even if the subject is dealt with in team talks, there is no guarantee that an opponent’s jibe will not unleash the mediaeval knight that lurks within every man, avenging sword at the ready.”
01.23.07
Absolutely
A letter in today’s IT
“Madam,- Is it now time to take affirmative action to save the word “Yes” from extinction? Absolutely! – Yours, etc,
PAUL DELANEY, Beacon Hill, Dalkey, Co Dublin.
Prescient. Listening back to myself on Ryan Tubridy yesterday I was disgusted to hear myself shriek “Absolutely!” when he put a question to me. I HATE it when I hear this response by others and yet it was practically the first bloody thing I said myself. It didn’t even register with me that I had used it at the time.