By Grainne

 “I’ve brought some fresh flowers for your grave Martha, like I’ve been doing for the last 15 years.  Somehow it helps to talk things over, Martha………”

I can remember the voice, the exact tone and inflection that James Stewart gave those words in Shenandoah, the 1965 film about the American Civil War.

It’s an abiding memory from my childhood, being taken by my mother to see it – she loved James Stewart – he was never ‘Jimmy’ to her.  In those days films didn’t get instant global release, they usually meandered their way from America to England to Dublin before filtering down to our local cinema in the Co. Wicklow town where I grew up. So it would have been a few years after its release that I saw it.

My home town actually boasted two cinemas, despite being a modest enough-sized place at the time.  Shows how popular the ‘picture-house’, as it was called locally, was.  It was affordable entertainment in the ‘50s ‘60s and ‘70s when there was little spare money around.

My mother loved the cinema and I think I was brought when she had no-one else to go with.  It’s funny but I don’t remember my sister or brothers being there with us, just her and I.  Maybe another reason I liked the experience.

She loved that film, Shenandoah, and because my childish emotions were tied to hers, so did I, by extension.  I remember her being emotional watching that graveside scene as James Stewart talked to his dead wife.  It wasn’t uncommon in those days for  cinema-goers to react to what was happening on screen, exclaiming aloud with excitement, horror, shock, and collective ‘ahs’ and ‘ohs’ at sad parts, along with audible sniffling! 

Of the actresses of the day, my mother’s firm favourites were Bette Davis and Joan Crawford.  Strong personalities both, which I think is why they resonated with her, being a strong character herself.  She loved the film ‘Sweet Baby Jane’ which I remember watching on television at home with her, listening with rapt attention to her running commentary on the fiendish behaviour of Davis’s character against her sister Blanche, played by Crawford.  ‘Hush…hush Sweet Charlotte’ with Davis again playing a deranged woman, was another of my mother’s favourites.

She had very fixed ideas about the film stars she did and didn’t like.  While the world, it seemed, adored Humphrey Bogart, my mother couldn’t stand him and would tut-tut disapprovingly when his name was mentioned.  She didn’t like Mickey Rooney either.  Similarly she had little time for James Cagney, dismissing him as completely ‘jumped up’.  As a result, I too, in my childish fancy, decided he was overrated.  She was a fan of John Wayne, as most people were, and loved to tell people what she’d read somewhere; that he’d never learn his lines properly and drove his directors mad by ad-libbing.  I’ve no idea if this was true or not but my mother certainly believed it.  She had a great fondness for Spencer Treacy and liked his films.  Bing Crosby and Bob Hope too.   She liked Marlon Brando’s acting but disapproved of his lifestyle (even then, before his worst excesses.)

 One of my most abiding memories is of going with my mother to see The Exorcist. There’d been much talk of it when it came out, including around our town and my mother was eager to see what all the fuss was about.  She sat in horrified fascination, by turns shocked and fearful.  I remember it being a pretty traumatic visual experience even though I’d have been a teenager at the time.  Teens now, brought up on a diet of increasingly gruesome films (including the current popular vampire-genre) would doubtless find that amusing, but the head-swivelling bit really freaked me out.

Watching films on the telly was a great way to spend a wet Sunday afternoon in my childhood and it’s where I saw ‘The Wizard of Oz’, ‘Lassie’ and many more.  Still though, there was nothing like the dark cinema, the big screen (crackly though it often was) and the enthralled faces of the crowd for atmosphere.  I’ve loved the cinema ever since.

By Aine

Last Thursday afternoon at 3.35pm I found myself in the accident and emergency room of Naas hospital.

Now I don’t need to go into the details of why exactly I was there, but suffice to say that I did not take the decision to present to A & E lightly. I had attended my own GP the previous evening, but when on Thursday I found my condition much disimproved and knew I needed an X-ray there was nothing for it but to bite the bullet and go along to my local hospital.

I knew there’d be a wait so I brought along my book. After being in the waiting room for about 15 minutes I was seen by the triage nurse who obviously judged me to be sufficiently bad to warrant immediate attention and so I was called into the actual emergency department where I was given a pain killing injection and told to lie down on a trolley.

   Lying on the trolley I could see over my head the words Bay E, and the trolley was in the A & E corridor just inside the swing doors for the waiting room.

This meant that every patient who came through those swing doors after me, and their accompanying mother/father, partner/husband or other assorted relatives were able to have a good gawk at me lying on the trolley. The lady in front of me managed to get a screen to go around her bed to shield her from prying eyes…. I had no such luck.

There were two other trolleys ahead of me in a straight line, and many others inside the actual A & E dept itself.

To cut a long story short I lay on that trolley for six hours until a doctor came to see me and wheeled me into a more private area to examine me. I was duly assessed and it was decided that an x-ray was needed (this was of course the reason I had attended in the first place I knew I needed a bloody x-ray!  The doctor also told me she would organise some more pain relief for me but it never came…………maybe it will come in the post with the bill.

When I had the x-ray and was hobbling back to my trolley I was accosted by a nurse who ordered me not to return to the trolley but to sit in the ‘treatment room’ instead.  I was shocked by the tone of this nurse’s voice and the manner in which she spoke to me in full earshot of other people waiting, but I was in too much pain to argue with her.

At 10 p.m. a junior doctor came and spoke to a lady in the room, telling her that he was only now seeing patients that had presented at 6pm. I politely informed him that I had been there since 3.35 p.m.. He looked taken aback and it was then I realised that I had probably been forgotten about!

I waited for a further hour and a half in the ‘treatment room’ with the other walking wounded until the doctor read my x-rays and came to give me the result.  I finally left Naas hospital at 11.10pm.

On the way out a male nurse explained to me that it had been a very busy day in A & E, (I could see that for myself) but he went on to explain that it was also the day the Doctors ‘change over’ and those days were always “mad”. Why I wondered? Why should that make any difference?

While I was lying on the trolley I had to give my medical history to a nurse in full earshot of all the other patients, and I, alas, was privy to theirs. In fact I got the entire run-down of an elderly man’s bladder complaint, the medication he was on, his symptoms and some details of his personal life. So much for privacy.

This elderly gentleman also had to sit on a chair as there were no trolleys or wheelchairs left.

Tomorrow I expect a bill to come through my letterbox for my attendance at A & E. I’m just surprised it didn’t come on Friday; the day after I attended, as the accounts department of the hospital, I am reliably informed in the most efficient department.

So, what to do when the bill comes in?  I don’t mind paying for their service but I did not receive a proper service. Seven and a half hours of waiting, being scolded like a bold child by a nurse, promised pain relief that never came? Would Ms Harney consider this a service?

I have been paying private health insurance since I was 21 but in this instance it was of no use to me, but I have also paid my fair share of PRSI, tax etc. over the years but this would seem to entitle you to nothing in this wasteland that is a HSE run hospital.

I have been urged by friends to make a written complaint, but I’m not sure it would do any good, the defensive default mode seems to be in operation as I witnessed first hand on Thursday evening by tetchy nurses and overworked Doctors and I don’t really want to waste any more time knowing in my heart of hearts it would get me nowhere.

I will however be sending in, with my cheque, a request for the notes (to which I am entitled under the Freedom of information Act) written up about me in A & E on Thursday night.

by Grainne

The only people getting Irish passports with ease these days seem to be people who’ve no business having them.   The poor sods trying to get passports to head off for a week in the sun are stuck in the system while Russian spies and Israeli assassins can get their hands on them with alarming ease.

The Russian spy story was a welcome distraction this week, what with the Greens championing deer while ignoring the half a million people on the dole, the Ombudsman confirming what we know; that the HSE is a law unto itself, answerable to no-one and gangland figures dispatching each other’s members in scenes that could be straight out of a film about the Mafia.

Reports of the alleged Russian spies, deeply embedded in American life and culture, Mom and apple pie, the white picket fence, the whole nine yards as they’d say, are fascinating and could be taken from a spy film too, or a John Le Carre novel.  . Clandestine meetings, encrypted messages, secret codes used by people living an otherwise mundane suburban existence enthral. . There’s even a femme fatale –Anna Chapman – who wouldn’t be out of place acting coy with James Bond.  Kids who didn’t know their parents were living weird double lives must have got some shock.  Friends and neighbours of the 11 alleged ‘deep cover’ agents have professed their surprise that their seemingly everyday, ordinary neighbours were actually sleeper agents from Russia – allegedly.

As they begin what will no doubt be a long round of court appearances and the mother of all legal battles  the 10 (the guy in Cyprus having absconded when granted bail) may look back fondly to more humdrum times of backyard barbecues and Autumn-leaf-sweeping in suburbia.

Meanwhile  the Minister for Foreign Affairs here, Micheal Martin, is taking the second incident this year of forged passports very seriously indeed.  How do we know?  We were told yesterday that he wanted “to get to the bottom of this” and is awaiting further information from the FBI about the matter.  Phew!  That’s reassuring.  Those waiting for legitimate passports to fly on their holliers meanwhile will have to cool their heels while playing the waiting game.

By Aine

There are just too many distractions in this world! Every time I set my mind to do something, something else come’s along to distract me from the job in hand.

Writing articles for this website for example.

I sit down at my computer and before I can commit a single thought to paper I spend an hour twittering, Facebooking, emailing and generally googling to my hearts content!  Which is fine and dandy and a great way to while away the hours, but sometimes my time frame for getting a bit of work done is tight and by the time I have amused myself with all of the above my time is up and off I have to go and attend to some other matter. The internet truly is a thief of time.

If I could confine my distractions to the computer however it would be ok, but oh no!  Distractions beckon me from just about everything I do!

Yesterday I had to make a dash to the bank. I found a parking spot and put money in the meter for half an hour, ample time you might think to queue and do any transaction.  Except that half an hour later and I still had not gotten as far as the bank! A pair of gorgeous, sequinned black flip-flops beckoned in the shoe-shop window and in I had to go and try them on! Purchase made and chiding myself for having deviated from the task for which I had set out, I then promptly got distracted by a friend beckoning from a nearby coffee shop window to join her! One and a half hours later I finally made it to the bank, all the while stressing about the meter and getting a ticket!     

Last week I decided to bake a cake, but because the baking powder was not immediately visible in the kitchen cupboard I decided to have a clear-out of all the items past their sell-by-date. One full hour later, I looked at the flour and margarine in the bowl and I discarded this home-baking notion and opted instead for an apple tart out of the freezer!

This morning I was packing the dishwasher and noticed from my kitchen window that there were some new blooms on my yellow rose bush, so I had to leave what I was doing and rush outside to literally smell the roses! Needless to say the dishwasher remained unpacked until I remembered it some hours later!

Some distractions are welcome however.  Watching telly while doing the ironing for example, reading in the bath, dead-heading the flowers while talking on the mobile, – or applying make-up, or cleaning out the fridge, or best of all…. applying nail polish…….there are so many things you can do and chat at the same time – we women are brilliant at this type of multi-tasking!

Other distractions include day-dreaming of foreign places while listening to a particularly boring sermon at Mass, tidying up the garden while waiting for the barbecue to cook the dinner, or – and I love this one…… on the supermarket queue guessing what people in front and behind me do for a living judging by the contents of their shopping trolley!

I have taken to making lists recently to try and stick to what I want to achieve in any given day and to offset the distractions, trouble is, when I go to look for a biro I usually get distracted by the state of the drawers, or, find something in the drawer i.e. a photograph or something – anything – that will grab my attention and distract me once again.

by Grainne

I’m thinking of throwing my hat into the ring for the Presidency of our fair country.  Granted there’s a lot of others considering flinging their hats in the same direction, but I reckon it’s worth a try.

It’s always wise of course to weigh up the competition for the job – in this case the usual rag-bag of contenders from the political ilk.  The parties already have a couple of names each being bandied about,   Labour’s Michael D. Higgins and fellow Labourite Fergus Finlay,  head of Bernardos, John Bruton and MEP Mairead McGuinness are being named for  Fine Gael and Fianna Fail have three; Bertie Ahern, Senator Mary White and MEP Brian Crowley.  Then there’s independent Senator David Norris. 

So what qualifies me for the job ahead of the others?  Well of course qualifications don’t really come into it, political brinkmanship is the overriding factor; what party can get their candidate into the big house.  The actual suitability or qualifications of the candidate a much lesser consideration.  In so far as the candidate is considered beyond the basis that they are the party’s best chance,  they are usually nominated as a payback gesture for loyal political support over the years.  Beyond a requirement to spout only platitudes in order to offend no-one and an ability to look presentable on the many public occasions and foreign trips that’s part of the gig, not much else is needed.  A doddle I reckon.   Well, admittedly, I would have to work at keeping my candid opinions to myself about the affairs of State when there’s something I feel strongly about, which is pretty much all of the time.  But I scrub up well and, aided and abetted by a generous allowance, believe I could up the style stakes from the previous resident’s trademark staid coat and matching dress ensembles and old fashioned hairdo.  A little flair, a little panache is overdue in the Aras, methinks.  I would promise not to have any rowdy parties (but wouldn’t be able to resist the urge to have my friends round to show the place off) would insist on my offspring being the souls of decorum when they come visiting with their friends and wouldn’t play any loud music to frighten the deer beyond my big garden.  I’d happily trot out to the airport to inspect lines of soldiers in their dress uniforms as this seems to be a very important function of the office, and I’d happily attend all the big matches in Croker, free gratis and embrace the VIP treatment, going down on the pitch to inspect the muscled players beforehand and offering some inspirational-sounding guff. 

Sure now that people have left and are leaving the country in droves I could bang on about the diaspora a la the former polo-necked one and if a candle in the window for them is seen as a profound gesture then I’ll happily comply.  I’ll also witter on ad nauseum about ‘bridge-building’ in the manner of the present incumbent if that’s what’s required.

So how to actually get into the race?  Surmounting the political-party-led obstacle is hard enough as the only way for a lesser mortal to get through the system, as Dana found out to her cost, is to do the rounds of County Councils across the length and breath of the country, cap in hand, seeking their backing.   Some chance, going that route as the loyal party Councillors will be under strict orders to back their own candidate. 

What about a good Facebook campaign instead?  Lobbying by social network is SO de rigeur these days.  No self-respecting campaigner passes up the chance to use it.  Problem is Senator Norris has already got there.  Still I suppose in the Facebook stakes I’d have a fighting chance against him – a middle-aged slightly jaundiced (actually for that read deeply cynical)  woman, mother of three and a survivor of life’s many ups and downs versus the urbane and plummy-voiced Senator.  Would his unstinting joie de vivre be preferred to my world-weariness?  His erstwhile gentility favoured over my more commonsensical approach?  Maybe.  But the biggest obstacle is likely to be that I’m a woman and, having had women in the Aras for the last two terms it’ll be a male this time and women won’t get a look in again for oh… another two hundred years or so.