08.29.07
Posted in Uncategorized at 7:06 pm by Sarah
I had parked the Shannon-Heathrow issue, but since I gave out so much about Morning Ireland I should acknowledge the efforts of Gavin Jennings on the News At One today. He questioned Noel Dempsey and finally finally we heard “if you are not going to interfere then why did you keep the 25%?” Worth listening to Dempsey audibly squirm. He coulda gone in for the kill, but 9 out of 10 and best effort yet (well that I have personally heard). See, you wouldn’t need opposition politicians on if the interviewers asked the tough questions.
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Posted in Uncategorized at 12:07 pm by Sarah
Hurrah. I missed the show but am catching up on newspapers and Bernice Harrison’s radio review in Saturday’s IT highlights what must’ve been an interesting moment on live radio…
“The sky didn’t fall in or anything but there was a bit of a moment this week when Keelin Shanley, sitting in for Mary Wilson (Drivetime, RTÉ Radio 1, Wednesday), suggested to Catholic primate Archbishop Seán Brady that for some people, religion – and specifically his religion – was about as reasonable as believing that Aquarians are floaty dreamers and Leos bossy wagons.
He was on air because of his sermon earlier that day, during which he had warned his flock against horoscopes, astrology, palm-reading and tarot cards. “There are people who would say,” she said, “that asking people to believe in life after death, the Immaculate Conception or even God himself is the same as believing in astrology – there is no proof in the efficacy of either.” An uncomfortable, brief silence ensued before the archbishop, who must have been seriously taken aback, mustered a not-entirely-focused rebuttal, ending with the lame “to compare the two is silly”. And this is a man who didn’t get where he is today by being a slouch on theology. But then, he probably didn’t expect to have the very basis of his faith prodded so dismissively in a teatime interview. “Believers believe that God exists,” said the archbishop simply, back on track, and, with the speed of a teenager on the way to slamming her bedroom door, Shanley replied: “I suppose that is a personal opinion.” The archbishop was always going to have the last word, this being the national broadcaster. Shortly after the interview, Shanley announced a break for the Angelus, his religion’s call to prayer.”
Good for Keelin. I suspect she was one of the few who dared to suggest what I kept thinking. Brady had said “new superstition”. What about the old?
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08.28.07
Posted in Sunday Times Columns at 5:17 pm by Sarah
It’s easier than ever to get into college, but CAO mania remains a staple feature of the media calendar. The annual hysterics over who gets what place mystify me. I left school in the 1980’s when there were more applicants than places and the Central Applications Office was needed to distribute those as fairly as possible. These days there are so many places that colleges are actually advertising for students. “Ah!”, they tell me, “but competition is still tough at the top. If you want to do law at Trinity, every point makes a difference. ”
I wish someone would tell stressed out students and parents that you don’t need a law degree to practice law. I know plenty of barristers and solicitors with arts degrees and plenty of law graduates who quickly realised the Four Courts was no place for them.
Most people I know changed their careers at least three times before they hit 35 so what they studied at college turned out be largely irrelevant. I’m not arguing that a degree is unnecessary. Unless one has been privileged enough to attend a Jesuit school an Irish secondary education is pretty shabby. In academic terms I learned two things in university: don’t split the infinitive and don’t believe everything you read. Despite the fact that I read History I still have no idea when Cromwell was born but these other lessons have proved invaluable.
College is important but not for the reasons listed by career guidance teachers. Fortunately Auntie Sarah is willing to be the bad influence your parents warned you about.
Here’s the first rule: pick the college not the course. Here’s the second; pick a college far away from home. For students, the most important thing about college is moving out of home. For parents, this is the excuse you need to get your adult children out of the house. Yes its scary for both parties. The cowardly youth fond of well stocked fridges has reason to squirm at the prospect of sour milk and days of toasted ham sandwiches. The protective parent will tremble at the thought of crummy flats with large rents and all night parties.
I can assure parents that throwing them out now is the wisest move you’ll ever make so sit up and pay attention. Compare the comfortable Dublin south-sider and his rural counterpart who attend UCD. Three years later they might both have a degree. One will be a relatively mature adult and the other a twenty one year old child.
Third level education is partly about education but mostly about growing up and growing apart. This is not just a natural process but an essential one. You can’t grow up if your mother is still putting your dinner on the table at six o’clock every day.
Being a student is about having no money, learning how to make spaghetti bolognaise and realising that mould will grow in the bathroom if its not cleaned once a month. You could find these things out when you are thirty two, but trust me, you’ll be a much nicer person if you’ve learned them by twenty two.
Parents might baulk at the costs involved and while it would be tempting to save on rent, it’s a false economy. Bear in mind that there are no fees for attending college. Given that primary schools only get two thirds of their costs from the state thus forcing parents to fund the deficit, this is an outrage. It’s a bigger one when you consider that thousands of students will leave fee paying secondary schools to enter free third level education. The parent of today’s third level student is already up on previous generations who had to fork out the annual fees.
Still, it might be hard to see it that way when bills for so many other things pile up o the table. Consider though the cost of having an adult living in your house. Think of the food they eat and the energy they consume : mental and electrical. Light, heat, phone bills, not to mention the twenty quid they’ll tap you for every time they leave the house. Maintaining a student at home is not free.
If your adult child lives at home, who goes to the supermarket? You do. Who opens the ESB bill and resolves to start switching off lights? You do. Who wonders at what time the possibly drunken irresponsible sponger will come home? You do. Who ends up having petty domestic arguments over the TV? You do. When will your child learn to cohabitat with other humans? Never. Remember, your adult child doesn’t see you as another person who is deserving of compassion, respect and personal space. You’re a resource. A place to stay and a wallet. Obviously if you got sick and died they’d be quite upset but in the meantime you’re someone they have to lie to about their whereabouts last night. Is this really the kind of relationship you want with your child?
“Oh, but my son or daughter isn’t like that” you cry. “We have a great relationship”. Well alright, you might have a great relationship with them, but that’s not the point. When they were small you toilet trained them, taught them how to eat and how to dress. You were teaching them independence. Why stop now? Maybe you are happy to make a dinner for them every evening. But perhaps their future spouse won’t. You have to view the third level system as an opportunity for advanced toilet training. Keeping them at home is the equivalent of keeping them in nappies. No adult will learn the virtues of domestic economy until they are the ones opening the bills.
“But the money! the money! I can’t afford to pay rent for them.” This is what summer jobs and student loans are for. I keep hearing about third level students going on holidays. In the past when we were poor but happy students didn’t take holidays. They went abroad and had a good time, but the purpose was to earn money. The friendly student officer at the local bank was very friendly and saw plenty of people through college. A little bit of debt won’t hurt your precious offspring one bit. If they have to spend their own money instead of yours, you are doing them a favour.
I’m not saying you have to go as far as the Spartans who sent small boys up the mountains to forage for themselves, but you get the picture. While they’re at college the student will learn how to be a vet, a computer programmer or a teacher. While they’re at home, they won’t learn anything. You might want them to be a lawyer but I presume you also want them to grow up. Show them you care and show them the door.
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08.23.07
Posted in Domestic/Relationships at 1:11 pm by Sarah
Hey some news!
The right thing to do I think. Politics here is sooooo dull right now. We need a change. That means no Howlin or Gilmore. They maybe sincere etc but would bore us into a stupor. I think Liz should step up. She has the poise required.
I don’t suppose there is any hope a NEW party….what would we call it?
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08.20.07
Posted in Sunday Times Columns at 4:00 pm by Sarah
Most delicious bought dessert EVER. Glenilen Farm Raspberry Mousse. The lemon cheesecake is fab too but the mousse drives me to the fridge in the middle of the day for sneaky helpings straight from the packet. Yummy.
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Posted in Uncategorized at 3:28 pm by Sarah
On Thursday morning I was able to casually observe that Wednesday’s last minute goal by Sunderland against Steve Bruce’s Birmingham validated Roy Keane’s preference for work rate over fancy football. Hard on Bruce, I could add, since Keane previously complimented his former Man Utd team mate for a strong work ethic despite his lack of flair.
My fluency in these soccer nuances is an outrage. There are some things a middle-aged women should know nothing about : scruffy guitar bands, cars and soccer. I have no interest whatsoever in the Premier League and no emotional investment in any team. In a proper world I wouldn’t know who Steve Bruce was, never mind the details of his style of play. I’ve nothing against soccer as such and have even defended its nancy boy image. Since you can’t use your arms, soccer necessitates certain twirls and skips while the average GAA player can dispense a Fair Shoulder. Or so my husband says. The point is that the Premiership is ubiquitous and I find myself an expert of sorts, if an unwilling and disinterested one.
It’s a triumph of marketing not sport. Roy Keane, a man with the noblest of motives and purest of hearts may not like it, but soccer is on the sideline. It’s the off-pitch drama that sells the league to millions of people who would otherwise happily ignore it. His fabulously uncensored opinions and emotional outbursts merely add to the attraction for those who have never quite grasped the off-side rule.
The really bad news for Keane is that while he quite rightly despises the shopaholic tangerine WAGS who boss their men around, they are a core part of the product. Not only will they not go away, but they are an asset whose value rises along with the cost of their garish weddings. The women double the market potential of the game by giving the fan’s WAGs something to talk about. He might resent their malign influence, but those girls are worth their weight in handbags to the purveyors of designer accessories.
In case you missed it, Keane complained that his failure to recruit key players to Sunderland was because the wives or girlfriends of the players didn’t want to move to a city which apparently lacks good shopping opportunities. He didn’t mind being turned down for a better team but he objected to “weak” players failing to return his calls because their women preferred London to the dreary North-East.
The mid-week rant touched on many matters with which the non-soccer playing population could identify. We had the clash between lifestyle and work, the emasculation of the modern man, the role a non-earning wife should play in her husband’s career and the evils of shopping. This is just the kind of human drama that draws us into a sport whose audience should be confined to men who need something to talk about with their friends.
By complaining about women who tell their men what to do, we had to ask if Keane is a misogynist. As Big Brother would say (and no, I don’t watch it either but still seem to have absorbed the catchphrase) “You decide”. On a poll I conducted last week (my sister, my husband, his friends, my friends) the resounding answer was “No”. “Dead right” was the overwhelming opinion.
Not only did everyone agree with Keane but they recognised that he was a man who’d earned the right to complain. He possesses a rare quality : consistency. Keane will celebrate ten years of marriage to Teresa this year and I have no idea what she looks like. This doesn’t mean I favour wives who are neither seen nor heard. In fact, there’s nothing more boring than a woman who can’t build a life independently of a man. It may just mean that the life she has built is in private rather than public.
Whatever that life is, it’s not based on buying stuff and partying, the activity most favoured by the over-photographed WAG. Unfortunately this presents us with a difficulty. The sensible women can’t be role models as they are private. The silly ones end up being the standard by which normal girls judge themselves simply because they are public.
It gets worse because the self-obsessed behaviour of the soccer woman is attractive to magazines and designers allowing the WAG to achieve financial independence from the boyfriend who provided them with the necessary profile in the first place. Look at it like this. The only money Teresa Keane has is that which Roy chooses to give her. We’ll presume that their relationship is one of mutual respect and he acknowledges that her work rearing their five children entitles her to equal ownership of their income and property. Nevertheless, Sunderland FC writes a cheque to him each month over which he has ultimate control. What portion of that she gets to spend on her personal expenses is entirely due to his goodwill.
On the other hand if Wayne Rooney dumped Coleen McLoughlin tomorrow she’d be just fine since her careful management of her “career” as a WAG means that she earns millions in her own right through television presentation, flogging perfume and modelling. As any feminist worth her salt will tell you, financial independence is an important goal for any woman and McLoughlin’s got it. So do I laud her money making efforts or scorn her shallow methods? McLoughlin, by the way, seems like a perfectly nice woman and by no means the worst example of her type. If she’s made the best of the situation in which she finds herself I wouldn’t necessarily condemn her to the moral trash heap of life.
The problem is that we live in a world where a cash return justifies any behaviour. The fact that she earns a substantial income legitimises shopping and intense personal grooming to an awful lot of women. Keane may resent the girls who control their husbands and boyfriends, but I resent them for influencing a generation of women who see daily evidence that new tits and a short skirt are perfectly justifiable life goals.
Perhaps you think I am overstating the level of this influence, but honestly, think about the twenty-something women you know, even the serious, professional ones. No matter how hard they focus on their work, they know that Keane’s regard for a work ethic is not necessarily reflected off the pitch. The quality of their fake tan counts just as much as their job performance. Its been observed before that if women devoted as much energy to the stock market as they do to personal grooming they’d all be millionaires. He’s depressed because he can’t good players. I’m depressed because good women spend too much buying stupid clothes. They might end up style champions but I wish they could see they are competing in the wrong league.
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08.19.07
Posted in Uncategorized at 4:22 pm by Sarah
Em, yes. Well nothing like a comprehensive result! I now switch my allegiance to Dublin. You guys BETTER beat Kerry.
As for Crewser, its just the trolling and number of comments which are a pain in the arse.
If O’Leary forces the government to do as they say I’ll never say another word against him.
But perhaps I’ll keep things a bit domestic for a while. No more squabbling over politics.
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08.17.07
Posted in Sunday Times Columns at 4:47 pm by Sarah
We’re with the VHI but those price hikes are pushing the cost of it onto my household budget radar.
I checked with Quinn and got a good online quote.
Our VHI plan is Family Plan Plus which is costing €1742.
The Quinn equivalent is €1375
That’s a pretty good saving and Quinn give back HALF of GP bills where VHI only give back €20. Our expenses are usually just doctor bills and the odd bit of therapies (physio or something).
They claim their hospital benefits are on a par with VHI. So I’m all ready to send off the cancellation letter to the VHI. But before I do, has anyone got experience of switching or cautionary tales?
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Posted in Uncategorized at 4:41 pm by Sarah
You know, if he’s going to plague this site, I wonder could we out The Crewser? Sometimes he’s a laugh and its good to have dissent on the blog, but honestly I end up wasting too much time replying to his comments.
I think we can agree he is a man.
The brother reckons that based on certain references (Crewser = Conor Cruise O’Brien), to Paddy Donegan etc that he is probably in his forties.
His confidence suggests to that he is either well known or from a well known family.
How ethical would it be for me to publish his IP address? I did a search on it but there was nothing too revealing about it.
We could assume he lives in Dublin.
Any other ideas?
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Posted in Sunday Times Columns at 9:41 am by Sarah
Ok, so its been a crazy week with over-blogging and a monkey mind swinging from branch to branch at a manic rate. It has to stop so I picked up the Miracle Of Mindfulness this morning looking for inspiration.
Here’s one line I liked: (its about meditating)
“Joy and peace are the joy and peace to be found in this very hour of sitting. If you cannot find it here, you won’t find it anywhere”.
btw, the Dublin Buddhists have loads of courses and drop-in sessions on yoga, meditation and minfulness. (and its ok to practice this stuff and believe in God 
)
I’d encourage anyone to try one. I’d love to but the evenings are just too busy for me with the Putting To Bed cycle. But I’ll get back to them at some stage. So no more blogging today.
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