by Grainne

Modern technology has brought a new take on the old chain mail letters that used to do the rounds.   It’s a trend that annoys the hell out of me, as I consider them serious boundary-crossers.  

The old letters used to urge us to pass them on when read to 10 or so friends to have something good happen to us or risk having something bad come our way if we didn’t.  The new ones do much the same and have the advantage of greater volume and speed of distribution via e-mail and text message.  It also makes it a lot easier to bump them on to the requisite ten or so, as not much effort is involved if the recipient is so inclined.   Or too afraid to risk the consequences not to.  Especially as, with some of the ones I’ve received most recently, there’s an unpleasant emotional inducement to put added pressure on recipients to pass them on.  Like the one I received via text today which contained the rider “send this to ten friends including me.  If I don’t get it back I get the hint.”  Emotional blackmail or what?  A family member, would you believe, sent that to me. 

As it happened I’d been sent the same message previously, by others, but it didn’t have the added warning that I’d risk insulting my friend/colleague/family member if I didn’t keep it in circulation.

For the record, I’ve never ever sent on any such messages received, by whatever means, nor felt compelled to.  I think they’re a load of unpleasant, superstitious claptrap.  And, to date, while I’m not exactly living in untrammeled bliss, I haven’t suffered any dire consequences as a result of ignoring these missives.    

I’ve been surprised too at the people who’ve sent this stuff on to me, male and female.  People I’d have otherwise considered sane, rational individuals.  Apart from the fact that the content is usually unbearably mawkish and sentimental, the implied threat of bad things to come if I break the chain isn’t pleasant.

If people want to perpetuate this ridiculous custom then continue, by all means.  Just leave me out of it.

By Grainne

Hello?  Oh hi.  Just feeling a bit lonely here, this week.  All on my own-eo.  Seems everyone has upped sticks and gone to a mucky field in Athy.  Ploughing something?   Silly me thought it was just for farmers.  Going around looking at cows and tractors and other farmer-ey things.  And watching other farmers ploughing of course.  But no, I’ve been told off several times this week when I had the temerity to say that.  There are lots to see and do in the National Ploughing Championships, I’ve been admonished.  Things like looking at cows….and tractors…..and people ploughing and…. things.

‘Things’, I gather, are the stands of the dozens of exhibitors who make a pitch at the annual mud-fest.  People trying to sell things in other words.  Like double glazing and insurance.   The prospect doesn’t exactly excite me, I must admit, but then who am I to argue with the thousands who make it their business to travel all the way there, queue in their cars for a couple of hours to get in or ditch their cars and walk the last few miles, then queue to gawk at everything inside?.  Last year over 188,000 attended it. 

Naturally, with that many people in one place, the politicians all descend on the venue to gladhandle hapless bystanders, kiss babies and be harangued by whinging farmers.   It’s considered an important event in the calendars of all political party leaders.  As outings beyond the well-maintained environs of Leinster House go, they may be messy affairs (and the ground is soft going too) but it’s still considered valuable facetime with the hoi polloi.  Maybe it was there the term ‘grassroots’ was coined?

Everyone’s there.   Our national broadcaster seems to have decamped completely, Montrose being peopled only by a few habitués morosely trailing along the corridors in the unearthly quiet.  Their flagship programme, Morning Ireland had live reports from there, the Pat Kenny Show was hosted from there so was Ronan Collin’s Show.  I was surprised Joe Duffy wasn’t down among the myriad malcontents.

Across the length and breath of the country those who still have jobs have booked days off this week to converge on the agri celebration.  I’m not sure how many of those without jobs could afford the €20 entrance fee for adults.

Friends and colleagues of mine, the ones who tried to convince me that “there’s something for everyone, IT’S NOT JUST FOR FARMERS YOU KNOW” went on, conversely, to complain about the long queues to get in and the need to bring a packed lunch as otherwise the available food was of the overcooked burger and undercooked chips variety, overpriced at that.  Which is surprising given that it’d be an ideal opportunity to offer wholesome, fresh Irish-produced fare to feed the hungry visitors.  Lest you think me churlish to mention this, let me tell you I’m merely relaying what fans of the thing say.

Meanwhile, with the hordes away, I’m enjoying this quiet few days.  They’ll be back before long so I’m planning to make the most of it.

By Grainne

The country’s puffers are blowing up a storm.  A smoking lobby group wants the Government to relax its ban on smoking in pubs.  ‘Forest Eireann’, or, to give it it’s full and rather grand title, Freedom Organisation for the Right to Enjoy Smoking Tobacco is a group representing smokers which blames the downturn in Irish pub trade on the smoking ban.  They had a consulting company conduct a report for them which found that an 11% decline in a four year period is linked statistically to the introduction of the smoking ban in 2004.

That’s a tad simplistic. Maybe nicotine has addled their brains but it’s a bit less straightforward than that.  Tougher drink-driving laws and more stringent enforcement of them is surely a factor.  So too must be the recession and the need for most people to keep a tighter rein on their money.  Add to that the rock-bottom prices offered by supermarkets on alcohol (particularly cases of beer.)  Confronted by the choice of staying in of a night and having a few drinks at home or going out and paying pub prices on top of a babysitter, it’s not hard to see why seats are aplenty in pubs up and down the country. 

It’d need to be revealed how much of the 11% decline was made up of actual smokers.  The inference that smokers are somehow more ardent pub patrons needs to be challenged. Without a breakdown of that 11% the findings are about as useful as a smoker without a light. 

I’d have thought, in six years, it was fair to say that most smokers have got used to having to go outside to have a puff.  Most pubs have, to be fair to their owners, gone from the initial, hastily thrown up shelters to separate smokers from the elements to fairly decent structures to house them.  Some places have gone all out with lavish smoking rooms, heated in winter.   For all that, smokers still seem to prefer to converge in the front hallways of licensed premises, leaving non-smoking patrons having to hold their breath as they navigate a smoke tunnel to enter… 

Another complaint from non-smokers like me is that smokers monopolise the outside tables at licensed premises, leaving us to having to stay inside on the nicest of summer days or put up with breathing in their noxious fumes. 

Smoke-filled entryways and smokers’ dominance of the available outside tables doesn’t mean that non-smokers would like to see the smoking ban being rescinded though.  Far from it.  But maybe it’s time for a different approach.  How about swapping around with the smokers, take their heated smoking lounges, hogging all the outside tables and colonising the front hallways and leaving the smokers inside to puff away?

by Aine

Ah Brian you’re a man after me own heart.  Heard you were out in the residents’ lounge of the Ardilaun hotel this week until the wee hours drinking, having a sing song and generally letting it rip. Having a bit of a blow out!  I also hear you do a mean impression of Micheal O’ Muircheartaigh.

I know what it’s like Brian; I was up to the same sort of high jinks on Saturday night.  Picture the scene, family wedding, plenty of alcohol, when the band finished playing we all adjourned to the residents lounge, similar to your good self.

The sing-song started, I belted out a few of me own specialities….. Spancil Hill, Cliffs of Doneen, As I Roved Out.

I was informed that I even danced a little jig, as you do at 3 a.m. when you’re  full of the joys and feeling no pain, same as yourself, not shy with a few drinks on board and well able to contribute to any shenanigans when the wine flowed (as did the beer and spirits!)   

Sure the craic was only mighty Brian, and it’s hard to leave a good party. Who wants to be a party pooper? It’s nice to have a blow-out every once in a while, particularly when you’re under such stress, trying to keep the country from disappearing down the black hole.

I however have no such excuse for over-indulging, other than it was a family ‘do’ and we were staying in the hotel therefore we had access to the residents’ lounge. Who could go to bed and pass up that opportunity for fun and frolics and generally letting the hair down?

Thing is, next morning when I awoke with a mouth that felt like the bottom of my budgie’s cage, a stomach to match and not knowing which end of me was up, the extent of my responsibilities was to drag myself out of bed and go in search of breakfast – a good hearty fry up for soakage. I can only imagine how you were feeling.

Unfortunately for you Brian you couldn’t even have your breakfast in peace as you had the pesky RTE newshounds to deal with. Tssh, the cheek of them looking for an interview a couple of hours after you had just got into bed. I know you sounded groggy and a little hungover – sure who wouldn’t after the magnificent party the night before?

Now apparently there’s a big furore about the interview. Oh the joys of being Taoiseach, you can’t even have a few scoops in peace, or a lie- in to stave off the morning-after-the- night- before feeling.

Feck the bloody economy, feck the Irish people, and the unemployment, and the critics, can a Taoiseach not get pissed like everyone else and have a lie in and send one of his minions to talk to the nation on the bloody airwaves?

Can a man not be allowed to keep his head under the duvet until someone appears with a pint of water, some paracetamol, and strong coffee before he is expected to greet the day? Apparently not if your name is Brian Cowen.

I however had no such worries Brian. Sometimes it’s just great to be an insignificant little tax-payer with a hangover.

By Aine

As you probably know, a T.V. licence currently costs €160. In these recessionary times, when everyone is trying to shave money from weekly expenditure and cut back on non-essentials, it seems high.

I, for one, don’t believe that we get value for our money. I mean, take last Saturday night’s schedule for example.

Our national broadcaster, in its infinite wisdom, decided to dedicate a whopping one hour and forty minutes to a programme called “Up for the Match.” Not content to let us just watch the match – the All Ireland hurling final between Tipperary and Kilkenny the following day on RTE 2, they decided to subject us to a programme whose intention was – and I could be corrected on this – to whip up a frenzy and indeed some friendly rivalry between the neighbouring counties.  I know this programme has been running for some years now and I was aware  of its oh-so-parochial content but this episode particularly took the biscuit.    

The lovely Grainne Seoige (why Grainne why – you are better than this) and Des Cahill fronted this small-town piece of drivel that looked as if it’d been produced by transition year students (and I realise I could be doing a disservice to transition year students by saying that).  A hotchpotch of ‘personalities’ aka former GAA players reminiscing about the ‘good old days’ interspersed by ‘music’ – and I use the term lightly as the performances by the various entertainers trotted out were no better nor no worse that what you would see in your local pub on a Saturday night.

Sure, if you were from Kilkenny or Tipperary you might have had a passing interest in this programme, but what about the rest of Ireland?

Before the dire ‘Up for the Match’ our national broadcaster foisted upon us ‘Winning Streak’.  Now this particular programme, which seems to be running since Brian Boru was a boy, is another parochial programme which is of no interest to anyone other than the people who have relatives on the show. But why be obliged, if you should win, to appear on national television and give your personal details to the entire nation in the hope of going home with a few grand? The utter banality of this piece of tosh has to be seen to be believed. It is cringingly embarrassing, but I suppose RTE have to have a vehicle for Kathryn Thomas and Marty Whelan. ‘Winning Streak’ takes up one hour and five minutes in the RTE schedule.

Then, just when I thought it couldn’t get any worse RTE broadcast ‘Mattie’ on Sunday evening at 8.30pm. A full thirty minutes of my life that I will never get back, spent watching this complete and utter garbage.

Paul Whitington, the TV guide editor for Saturday’s Independent’s Weekend magazine named it as ‘programme of the week’.  So Paul what planet are you inhabiting?

Basically it’s about the gormless cop of the title, ‘Mattie’ as he does his job.  Pat Shortt doing what Pat Shortt does best i.e. act the gom.

This programme had an identity crisis in that it doesn’t know what it wants to be exactly?  And it fails at the things it thinks it is.  Funny?  Definitely not!  Serious! – You’re kidding me!  Crap?  Most definitely!

          So this is the exciting ‘new drama’ that all the fanfare was about when RTE launched their ‘autumn schedule.’  Folks we are in for a tough winter and I’m not talking about the bloody weather. Time to renew the Xtravision membership or start going to the pub!

Are you happy knowing that when you hand over your €160 for your TV licence some of the money goes into making these programmes? RTE is currently running repeats of the following programmes at peak scheduling times:

 ‘Show house’ – ok first time around but not worthy of a second look,

 ‘The Restaurant’ – boring the first time around when B-list celebrities tried cooking for ‘celebrity judges’,  

 ‘Rachel Allen’s Home Cooking – it was hard enough to listen to her Dublin 4  accent first time around as she describes how to ice the ‘delicate little bons.’

‘Telly Bingo’ – someone pass me a gun quick.

‘Nationwide’ passed its sell by date at least six years ago………………….

Meanwhile I see Anne Cassin is back with a ‘new’ series of Capital D.   But Anne Dublin is not that big and we saw it all the first time around!  Enough already!

Then of course we have ‘Fair City’ and I won’t even go there, I’d rather poke my eyeballs with a rusty needle than endure a full episode of that cack!

‘The 6 o clock news’ is a half hour too long.  I know this because one evening last week I watched it and Sharon Ni Bheolin told us in her breathless best sexy voice that Cheryl Cole’s divorce had come through that day.   Why do we, the Irish people need to know this? I couldn’t give a damn if every member of every dodgy girl band’s marriages were dissolved that very day…………..it’s of no importance to me.

My TV license is due for renewal in November but I can think of far better ways to waste €160.

By Aine

So Axl Rose walked off stage on Wednesday night in the 02 arena Dublin.

Axl, wild front man of the aging rock band Guns n’ Roses is, apparently, not so wild after all.  Just a great big wuss.

 Didn’t like the fact that someone threw a plastic bottle at his guitarist.

Maybe it’s time you went and joined a gospel choir or a barber shop quartet Axl me auld flower (pardon the pun ) Maybe the time has come to hang up the bandana and put away the shades now that you have lost all your stroppiness and gone all prim and proper.

But Axl, riddle me this?  Why come to Dublin, to the flagship that is the 02 arena, charge way over the odds for tickets and then keep your loyal fans waiting for an hour and a half after the support band finished?  Plastic bottles? If I had been there I would have lobbed everything in me handbag at ya.  And that’s a lot of stuff!

I think we can take it the people in attendance have jobs to pay for the costly tickets; therefore they had to go to work next morning. Now Axl, you being a rock star probably don’t get to bed any night before dawn, but can you at least see your audience’s dilemma?  Job, work, money?  No, probably not. It’s all about you. Well to that end you certainly got media coverage.

Tell me Axl, was it lonely playing up there on stage on your own with three-quarters of the audience gone home? Did you not wonder why nobody was singing along with you? Did you maybe think they had all gone on a toilet break at the same time? Did you get a bit tired around 1.50 am and decide to finish up?

A word in your ear old man, YOU ARE NOT BIGGER THAN YOUR AUDIENCE!

You may be American and have a penchant for using the word ‘respect’ but you showed little respect to the people who came to see you.

You kept them waiting, they didn’t like it and threw plastic bottles at you, and you retaliated by throwing all your toys out of the pram……..and storming off.

Keep walking old man, keep walking.  Oh and turn off the lights on your way out!