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Uniquely Dublin

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Ok, I didn’t win, I didn’t even make the long list but there were some 500 entries and only 10 in the long list, of which one, my good friend Robert Duffy was chosen. I enclose his entry after mine (lol – this is my blog, sorry Robert, lol)

So we were given the task of writing about Dublin, and it’s uniqueness, in just 100 words. I came up with this:

Freezing winter nights, laced with Dublin particulars, and hazed with orange lights around the Green. Slipping into a warm hostelry, sipping cold stout, the antithesis of comfort yet warming within. Oh, go on, a whiskey chaser then. Spring days come stretching slow. We are green because of our rain, ample amounts of it and temperatures mild and cunning. Sudden sunshine too, rainbows over the Spire. Tourists take quick pictures in the glare. Summer, because of calendar dates not weather, gushes over us and more green. Tourists loving it. Autumn, sometimes Indian, more often not. More rain. Repeat!

It didn’t cut the mustard!

But Robert’s did – go Robert!

What about the wonderful gush of imagination surging from the slabs of Westmoreland Street? Bright book upon book, our declamatory Pat, standing in the rain or lovely snow with his trolley and cat. Roll up; roll up for the remarkable greydraggled Mr Ingoldsby selling his pomes. He’ll cheer you up. (You’ll cheer him too.) Don’t pass by before you buy a slice of Dublin brain from yer man on Westmoreland’s pavement. He didn’t die years ago. Maybe the people who govern these sorts of things will cast him in bronze and put him back when he’s gone.

I actually think we are writing the same book – funny that!

The two short listed entries are listed on here: http://www.uniquelydublin.ie/ Well done!

 

 

 

 

Divorce is a dish best served cold

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A recent complaint before The Law Society would suggest warring spouses should think twice before seeking legal heavyweights to resolve matrimonial differences.

The subject of the complaint, the current Minister for Justice Alan Shatter, was unanimously and totally exonerated of all claims in the case which arose from a difficult family law dispute between Michael Izatt and Jillian Godsil. The complaint was brought by Godsil who had retained Shatter as her divorce lawyer until he came off record mid-way through her divorce proceedings. His actions prior to that point, and indeed subsequent, were the object of the long winded, but ultimately rejected, complaint.

Godsil may be known to some as the Irish divorcee who sold her house on YouTube until the banks stopped the sale. She was landed with a mortgage of some €1million on a house worth less than half that amount when her ex, returning to the UK to go bankrupt, gave the entire mortgage to his ex-wife and their two young daughters. Last month, she was served repossession papers, so she dropped the asking price of her well-known Georgian Manor House to €250,000 and has received a formal offer. However, her bank refuses to talk to her as yet and repossession hearings are proceeding. It is worth noting that the house was once valued at €1.65 million in the days of the heady Celtic Tiger and indeed she received a cash offer of €500,000 last year which the banks refused.

Of course, whatever price the house finally sells at, under Irish law, Godsil is now solely responsible for the balance of the mortgage.

Godsil’s fame, notably for being broke, was aided by a quirky video to sell the property. This went viral and her story featured in papers, online, radio and television both domestically and abroad. She was featured on American radio, Belgian TV, RTE, TV3 and most recently on BBC2’s Newsnight programme.

In all her many public interviews Godsil has said relatively little about her ex’s role in her financial demise and nothing at all about her legal adviser. The former has avoided public disapproval possibly because he is the father of their two children and she has concentrated instead on the disparity in the bankruptcy laws between the UK and Ireland. On the latter, her dissatisfaction with the legal service afforded her (a moot point, of which more later) seems not to have been given airtime as she was following a formal complaint procedure with The Law Society. If that was indeed the case, any hopes for any satisfactory conclusion were dashed this month when The Law Society utterly rejected all her causes for complaint.

The main reason for the breakdown between divorce lawyer and client appears to have arisen from advice dispensed at the beginning of the legal proceedings. Godsil and her ex were directors in a limited company whose purpose was to provide public relations services. This PR Company was run by Godsil and enjoyed lucrative revenues during the boom years. As the marriage disintegrated, Godsil was advised by Shatter to set up a new company, taking nothing from the old. He explicitly advised her in writing to remain as director in the old company as there were considerable collectibles still outstanding. Despite her misgivings, Godsil followed this advice to the letter.

Of course there is nothing so dirty as divorce. The old company without Godsil at the helm soon stopped altogether and the wounded Izatt was advised by his then law firm (he changed legal teams three times in the process of this protracted divorce) to put Godsil into the Commercial High Court for the abrogation of her fiduciary duties under the Foss Harbottle exception. This precedent basically rules that an individual cannot be director of two, competing companies. No doubt the ‘cha-ching’ of cash registers could be heard on both sides of the benches at this opening salvo.

Godsil felt increasingly unhappy that following to the letter as she saw her solicitor’s instructions had laid her open to such charges. Although Shatter argued, ultimately successfully, that the Commercial charges were an attempt to extract palimony from the wife and lodged a family case in the High Court at the same time which ultimately joined the commercial case, his advices continued to rankle with her. As time went on, she also objected to being told by her own divorce lawyer that she had indeed contravened commercial law and that it was her fault her actions laid her open to these initial commercial proceedings.

The Law Society totally upheld Shatter over Godsil’s complaint that his initial recommendation had been badly advised and exonerated him from any wrong doing for his advice. However, what cannot be denied was the rapid deterioration in the professional relationship between Shatter and his aggrieved client. Finally, Shatter requested that he come off record but refused to release her files to her new law firm.

At the point, midway if she but knew it in the torturously expensive legal proceedings, Godsil had already paid an initial sum of €4,000 as a deposit to Shatter and had borrowed a further €22,000 to pay interim bills after strong requests from the legal firm while relations were still cordial.

Despite payment of these significant sums of money and while being intimately acquainted with the downwardly spiralling nature of Godsil’s financial affairs, Shatter refused to release her files until finally ordered to by Judge Abbot. This was not without consequences as Godsil’s new legal firm were forced to act as guarantors of her debt, a position which made them very unhappy.

Godsil went to taxation (to fix final fees by the independent Taxing Master) but only managed to reduce the balance of her fees against Gallagher Shatter by approximately €5,000. She still owed some €30,000 plus. A taxing accountant hired for the purpose of representing her professed that he was so appalled by the proceedings, and upon successful reduction of her balancing liability, did not tender a fee note to Godsil. His opinion seemed to suggest Godsil had been through enough. Of course, there was more to come according to the complaint, again totally exonerated by The Law Society.

At that stage Godsil began trying to repay the balance of fees to Gallagher Shatter in installments of €500 per month but soon ran into difficulties when the firm refused to issue her with receipts. She sought advice from The Law Society who advised her that she was entitled to them, but claims that no receipts were at any stage forthcoming.

As Godsil faced into the final and protracted legal proceedings with her ex (he changed law firms as mentioned three times, sometimes failed to have a legal representative and forced delays when he did not have documents to hand) she discovered Gallagher Shatter had named her in Stubbs Gazette and moreover began debt recovery proceedings in the Circuit Court. As her current divorce solicitors were unable to represent her due to a conflict of interests, Godsil was forced to hire yet another solicitor to represent her.

Prior to this she sought to head off the fresh and unnecessary legal action by writing to Shatter and confirming that not only would she pay but she had an asset under advanced negotiations and would be in a position to clear the debt in its entirety within a matter of months. Her new divorce firm, also defacto debt collectors for Shatter, wrote to say exactly the same. However, these letters and assurances were ignored and the matter proceeded.

Godsil tried to argue to The Law Society that pursuance of the outstanding debt was vexatious as she was not denying payment, indeed would be able to pay in a very short time period and was moreover guaranteeing this assurance in writing from her legal firm. The Law Society totally upheld Shatter and denied this complaint too.

Another serious complaints rejected by The Law Society was Godsil’s claim of doubling billing. Shatter charged a consultancy fee for his time and also charged for whatever junior solicitor was present taking notes, pushing consultation fees to near four figure amounts. This was rejected as a complaint by The Law Society as these terms and conditions were clearly set out in the opening letter of appointment. Godsil tried to argue that such was her distress at her marriage breaking down she was not fully cognisant of these terms. She also argued that she could not remember actually signing this appointment letter and to her knowledge Gallagher Shatter were not able to furnish a signed copy of these terms. Her complain was rejected.

Not providing receipts initially rankled with Godsil on a professional basis, as part of the legal fees were to be borne by her company, but both professional neglect and possible noncompliance with revenue were rejected out of hand.

The other long list of complaints brought by Godsil, and rejected by The Law Society, included claims of verbal bullying during consultations (supported by family members who attended with her) and extreme rudeness by office staff, including having the phone hung up on her during one conversation with a secretary. Another twist in the tale was a phone call made by the Minister after an anonymous piece featuring Godsil ran in the Irish Independent. The article covered the dropping of interest by the Minister for his fees once he gained office. However, this article caused the Minister to ring a mutual third party and advise Godsil not to go public with their professional relationship. Godsil claimed it was a question of intimidation by the Minster. The Law Society said it was not.

Asked why she pursued her complaints through The Law Society and not through adversarial means where costs might be gained, Godsil replied that her intention was to highlight the possible abuses that the incamera rule in family law afforded solicitors. “I would not have anyone experience the lack of professional courtesy and bullying I received at the hands of my solicitor. It is an open secret in legal circles but only hard learnt by individuals such as myself. Divorce is hard enough without your solicitor attacking you.

“Having survived the long winded, painful and hugely expensive ordeal, I am moreover deeply saddened that every single one of my complaints has been rejected by the Law Society, especially the accusation of bullying,” she said.

So there the sorry tale ends. When everything was accounted for in the proceedings Godsil had nothing left over. Like the infamous Jarndyce and Jarndyce affair in Dicken’s Bleak House, when the lawyers stopped talking everything was gone in costs. Godsil seems to have been singularly unlucky in her relationships both in her initial choice of husband and subsequent divorce lawyer. Her ex husband has walked free of the million plus debt on the family home through the vagaries of inter-country commity and her long list of complaints against her divorce lawyer have been totally rejected by The Law Society.

May she have a happier experience in choosing husbands and divorce lawyers in the future.

ends

Suicide and Young People

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Yesterday I was the funeral of a child, a 14 year old, who died by suicide. One of the most upsetting funerals I have ever attended. His sixth class teacher spoke at the end. He had us laughing about the impish ways of the young lad. But at the very end of his tribute he looked around the packed church where many of the mourners were only children themselves.

He said: “I wanted to end on a note of positivity. I wanted to give you something positive to walk away with. But as I look around this church and see the carnage and the heart broken people I cannot.” He paused. “Instead,” he said. “I will quote Martin Luther King. He said if you cannot fly, then run. If you cannot run, then walk. If you cannot walk, then crawl.But whatever you do, keep moving forward.”

I had the privilege to be part of this short and very moving video on suicide – if you have a few moments look at Edward White’s video here It is called ‘Let’s stop suicide together’

I was also privileged to be part of Norah Boran and Alan Lavender’s #DepressionHurts video here It is called ‘It starts with you’

Let’s hug our children

 

Three things I learnt at Trailblazers

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The first is that I am not afraid. I wanted to rise up from my seat in the upper Special Criminal Court house and call it out. Colm O’Gorman was speaking. It felt a bit like the eponymous Jeffers’ book: Feel the fear but do it anyway. My heart pounded and I wanted to stand up and call it out but it wasn’t my time and maybe I had confused my emotion with a film from Hollywood. But I felt it very strongly.

The second is the level of propaganda promulgated by the status quo. When Ross Maguire spoke he talked of giving ordinary home owners a break, a time out. He wanted a dignified mechanism that could be implemented without the mortgage holder having to beg for help or worse not been listened to at all. Terms such as debt forgiveness and moral hazard are used by …bankers. How dare they? The purveyors of Usury should not be allowed to dictate the ethics of our society. For that is at the very nub of this problem. We are a society of individuals who have come together to create our world. Service providers, such as finance houses, are there to fit into our cultural, moral and ethical rules. Bankers should not dictate what is right in our society. Politicians are there to regulate how various different service providers in our society behave. We, the people, elect the politicians to make the laws, not the banks.  So we have to stop listening to banking propaganda and believing it to be true, especially when they use terms laden with emotive meanings. If the financial processes in our society are broken, then we need to fix them.  We have been brain washed to believe the rapacious banker who evicts a family from their home is right. We didn’t believe that when the English did it, so why do we believe it when our own do it?

The third thing I learnt is that people are caring. I sat next to a couple who were both self-employed and have a large mortgage. They were doing okay. Thankfully they were able to meet repayments but it wasn’t easy. These are the very people we are told who will not have ‘debt forgiveness’ or ‘debt breaks’ or any leniency for families in financial trouble. We are told that we cannot look afresh at debt for those in trouble on account of this couple and their elk. Bankers and politicians tell us that the people paying their mortgages will not countenance that sort of help for people in default. Well, guess what? That is not true. The couple I met were very concerned. They expressed great worry for home owners in debt. They wanted those people to be helped, to be given a time out, a break. There but for the grace of God was their view. If their neighbour was in danger of losing their home, then they wanted to see that family helped, not thrown to the wolves. “Why should we wish to penalise families who are in danger of losing their homes?” they asked wide eyed. “We would want to see them helped.”

I literally sat there with my mouth open. This couple were not unique. They do not want to see people’s lives ruined and their homes taken from them. I believe there are more caring and compassionate people like this in Ireland than those mythical vindictive people we are told about. It is a propaganda of the most damning to stop us as a society questioning the rights of the banks over the people. This couple are the future of Ireland; kind, compassionate, hard-working and caring. And do you know, they are not unique. They are quintessentially Irish. What is not Irish is this culture of hitting the vulnerable and making us all afraid to question how we run our country and how we live our lives. We are no longer under the yolk and we need to take back our autonomy from those who would protect their ivory towers and hide behind banking rhetoric and lies.

This budget is yet another example of the polarisation of our society. This blog is not about the budget – but there is no doubt that the rich are protected and the poor are affected. There were no cuts to the politicians’ salaries and pensions and indeed their expenses will rise with the vouched route. Turkeys voting for Christmas comes to mind.

Finally, (and a sneaky fourthly) I learnt from Maria Doyle Kennedy that singing is better than sex and chocolate. If you don’t believe me, watch it here

 

Bright Lights Big City

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It was a cold and frosty night but the American Lifeguard, dressed only in shorts, tee shirt and flipflops, stood aloft in his high chair and called constantly through his megaphone. “Do not go into the water,” he repeated. The crowd, Irish and wrapped up in scarves and coats, laughed and stamped their collective feet against the cold.  A number of women wore very high heels combined with belt-short skirts and their bare legs shivered in sympathy with the lifeguard’s. No one was in any danger of going into the water, not that there was any in the city centre location.

 

The queue was lined up for the Jameson Cult film night in the Tivoli Theatre on Frances Street. Previous screenings in the Cult series had included Snatch, Alien and Reservoir of Dogs. Attendance was by invitation only and we, my friend and I, had gained our entrance through a competition run by WorldIrish. We joined the queue and soon spotted another actor roaming alongside, dressed in cutoffs and oversized glasses. Chief Brody was on hand to keep an eye on things. This caused more laughter and talk and we made some temporary friends in the people in the queue next to us.

 

Soon the line moved and we entered into a different world. The theatre had been totally dressed in Jameson Cult Film bunting and decorated to resemble the famous American seaside town.

 

 

The iconic poster welcoming the 4th of July tourists was plastered across one wall. Cocktails of all kinds, whiskey-based of course, were proffered once we got inside.

 

 

The DJ played some tracks and there was a palpable air of excitement. We were all keen to see the big white.There was a regular queue of well-known faces posing for photographs on the Jameson Wall of Fame. Rugby players Tom Sexton, Tom Denton and Devin Toner lined up along with other celebrities including actor David Coffey and TV presenters Liam McCormack and Lottie Ryan. My friend and I bunched in and we did the same. We’ll be famous one day too!

 

 

By nine the atmosphere was electric and we made our way into the auditorium. Given the dense nature of the crowd I had to sit in the row ahead of my friend. I spotted Darragh Doyle @DarraghDoyle of WorldIrish seated to the right of me and I waved my thanks. As the lights went down and the film began I soon discovered why people go to scary films with friends, as jumping or involuntarily screaming at different points is very embarrassing when sitting alone.

The film was supplemented by actors and they seamlessly integrated into the onscreen drama, using the whole theatre as their stage. I had forgotten just how powerful the film Jaws had been and how deeply it was etched on my psyche. I remember the Get out of the water bits and the music of course. I remember the We’ve got to get a bigger boat lines but I had totally forgotten the scene where Quint tells the story of the sinking of The Indianapolis after it delivered the bomb. His story took up when the boat had been sunk. So secret was its mission that no distress message was sent. The men floated in the water in circles fighting off the sharks. Sometimes they won, sometimes the sharks won. Actually, the sharks were always winning and picked off the men at will. Finally, after a number of days, a plane spotted the wreckage and so began an agonising slow rescue. It was then, said Quint, as he waited for his turn for rescue, that he felt true fear. Eleven hundred men went into the water but only 316 came out.

What shocked me was that I have been telling that story for years. I use it to illustrate how the re-injection of hope, into a situation where everything seems lost, can trigger a deeper sense of fear. The replacement of apathy and loss with hope, but not certain hope, is very scary. There is so much more to lose when we dare to believe. I have told this story when talking about debt, love, ambitions, belief – so many things as fear is only real when hope is present. I thought I had read the story is a yellowed Readers’ Digest in my aunt’s house but had totally forgotten its actual origin. It was a strange sense of reverse déjà vu.

At the end of the film where Chief Brody, now alone on the boat, aims at the shark hoping to blow up the compressed air tanks, the young actor in cutoffs climbed onto projected scaffolding in front of the screen. As Ray Scheider fired onscreen, so too the actor on stage fired and special effects saw water splashing up in response. With the final successful shot, the shark exploded and we, the audience, were drenched in a cascade of water. The laughter was loud and the audience was wet. I automatically assumed the crash position – much good it did me as my reaction was slower than the shower. My friend jerked backwards but suffered the same drenching. Only one had a wet front, the other a wet back!

We travelled home then, although the DJ was only getting warmed up, for we had miles to go. Still laughing we drove through the bright lights of Stephens Green and as we waited at one set of lights, my friend spotted a car full of men trying to get our attention beside us. Roll down the window they gestured and I did. However, rather than the admiring glances of potential suitors or messing from stag party males, we were faced by plain clothes guards good naturedly informing me that I had forgotten to turn on my headlights. I thanked them and explained I hailed from the country now and was no longer used to the bright lights of the city. Except when the cameras were rolling!

Lights, Camera, Action!

Horse Sense

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Arriving at Camp

Some years ago I went on a cattle drive in Montana. Wow, that’s some sentence in itself. When I am old and grey I shall surprise my (as yet unformed) grandchildren that the doddery old woman in front of them once cantered across US plains rounding up cattle with cowboys – just like in the movies. I wonder will they believe me or think it merely the ramblings of a senile old woman.

Anyway, it is true. Some years ago I went on a cattle drive in Montana. I have the pictures to prove it, even if the memories fade in time. Before I went my main worry was the lack of sanitation. We were to camp in tents and while porta-loos were provided, or porta-potties as the cowboys called them which creases me up to this day, there were no showers for the first three days. As I habitually shower first thing every morning I was freaking out about this privation. I know – first world problems.  Advised by people who had undertaken this trip previously I stocked up on baby wipes, enough to clean the bottoms of an entire nursery if truth be told.

The first evening we ranged in a big circle and met our cowboy guides. I was in a party of three other Irish girls and we were given the hunk of the cowboys as our guide, much to our delight. A perfect gentleman he flirted gently with us all across the week, earning a large gratuity from each at the end.  We are still friends on Facebook and he is now married and a father. Although he did fall just a little bit on love with one of group: a cowboy romance that fizzled out through geographical distance.

Anyway, back to the privations. We slept in large tents with foam mats to cushion our sleeping bags. Sleep was not a problem, aided as it was by copious amounts of beer the night before.  I woke at six but already the chuck wagon was in preparation mode. I had hoped to get up early and wash thoroughly at the water station. No chance unless I wanted to emulate the bathing beauties on the Celebrity Jungle Television programme. Instead the baby wipes were taken into the porta-potties and desperate attempts made to clean as much flesh as possible.

I found after a day or two, it didn’t matter so much. The weather was warm and we were in the open. I am sure if I had to walk into a crowded lift back in civilisation I might have emptied it at the first floor, but it wasn’t noticeable in camp. And on day four we arrived at a farm that had showers, only two for about thirty slightly smelly cowboy tourists, but the tiny trickle of lukewarm water was heaven.

Montana is called God’s country and with good reason. Some days we herded cattle on what seemed like moonscapes such was their vast size. And of course we had no mobile coverage which induced a calm, trance-like state of consciousness. We rose, ate, herded cattle until lunch, ate, herded again until dinner and ate yet more great nosh. We had no responsibility except to feed and water our horses and even then our cowboy guide did most of that. I remember one night talking to an old cowboy. He had escaped plane crashes, car accidents, train crashes and even horse wrecks. At that time I was learning to deal with teenage tantrums at home. I asked this sagacious cowboy why did kids have hormones – it was so unfair on them and on us! He answered that it was so they could leave home. It was their way of leaving the parents and becoming adults. It made utter sense and felt like a light bulb moment. Of course, that made sense.

Last week, I was speaking with my friend Barbara Scully whose blog, From My Kitchen Table, is well worth a visit. I told her my story and what I had learnt in Montana.  Barbara agreed and said exactly the same, and pointed out it was a similar case when parents get old and crotchety, that too was part of the leaving process. I laughed so hard. I needn’t have gone to Montana to learn this truth; a trip to Cabinteely would have done the trick!

 

 

Haggling over the Price

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Over the weekend an Australian film maker went stratospheric when the culmination of an online auction of two virgins raised almost a million euros. Actually, it was only the girl who attracted the large bidding, with more than $700,000 pledged by a Japanese business man. The male virgin had to settle for a mere $3000. The auction and the proposed documentary has excited a lot of people, not least of which are law makers and the director may yet end up with a visit to his local penitentiary.

Justin Sisely, director of Thomas Williams Productions, appears to have been limited to filming weddings prior to his big break. In what he claims is a search for the change that happens when virginity is sold, he advertised across campuses in his native Australia for virgins to enter the experiment and his documentary. The creative urge was to explore human sexuality and our views on virginity, but the posters looking for participants said they would be paid $20,000 and win fame and fortune; a somewhat incongruous and conflicting message. Initially he was seeking local virgins but the campaign went viral and global. The female virgin, Catarini Migliorini from Brazil was set to net 90% of her top bid, but in the ensuing publicity she has said she will now donate it to charity. Of course, charities in her native Brazil are saying they will not accept money, coming as it does from prostitution. Even the Brazilian Attorney General is now involved and is said to be seeking legal routes to stop Migliorini from travelling to fulfil her part of the bargain.

There are strict terms and conditions on the website as to what the successful bidder can expect in return for their money. The handover of the virginity will take place on an airplane so no laws are broken and the virgins get to join the mile high club on their first outing. The interaction is limited to an hour, no alcohol is permitted nor sex toys and even kissing is not part of this act. The loss of virginity is defined as the penis entering the vagina. It doesn’t sound much better than how Migliorini compares a drunken date to how most people apparently lose their virginity.

Migliorini says she does not feel she is acting as a prostitute as it is for only one occasion. She compares it to taking a single picture which does not make her a photographer.

I am a firm believer in choice. These virgins are over 18 and so are adults. They have the freedom to make good and bad choices. However, as a woman, I would not like my first experience of sex to be with an unknown Japanese business man on a plane in front of the world – well the sex act is not being filmed but it may as well be given the publicity. And the ultimate irony is that because of the publicity the poor girl feels she has to give the money away. I think she’ll need every penny of it. And then there is the poor boy, Alexandar Stephanov. He was only offered $3000 for his virginity which is belittling.

I am reminded of a dialogue reputedly between Winston Churchill and Lady Astor. They were talking about making love in return for a million pounds. Churchill asked if she would do it for £10,000 and Lady Astor retorted angrily “What do you think I am?”  To which Churchill replied. “We have already established what you are, Madam, now we are haggling over the price!”

I think I’d go with the drunken fumble every time.

I don’t need my toilet rolls any more…

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No, I haven’t dispensed with my bottom, given up eating for good or undergone radical colonic surgery – it’s the empty ones I don’t need. I looked at the collection of empty toilet rolls loitering sadly beside the bin in my bathroom and waiting patiently to be moved into the recycling bin, when it suddenly hit me. I don’t need them any more.

Time was I collected them faithfully for activities which involved my children. I don’t believe there was ever a ‘make-and-do’ slot on Blue Peter that did not call for the obligatory brown cardboard roll, never a crafty evening in Girls Friendly Society that did not insist on empty toilet rolls, or a school’s art day that didn’t need the cylinders, especially for making doll people in the naivety scenes or fat sausage dogs on leads.

Over the years I got used to hoarding the empty rolls, sometimes adding an elongated tube or two from kitchen-film or tin-foil dispensers, and they travelled into school or were used in playtime at home. We never had stick-thin people; no our cardboard people were always lovely and fat, chubby as Santa Claus himself, even baby Jesus was a roly-poly in the crib.

So, when I looked at the tired old soldiers lined up in the bathroom, some at attention and others listing to starboard, I had a sudden ache of sadness that they were going straight into the recycling bin and their useful lives were over, in my home at any rate.

I’m sure there are many more striking milestones to signal your offsprings’ departure from childhood, but the obsolescence of those honest brown cardboard rolls was a poignant and powerful marker to me.

 

 

Cindy Gallop – if she ran the world…

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Aspire Magazine ran my article on Cindy Gallop on the cover of September magazine.

 

It was probably the hand action that secured the success of the micro talk at TED2009, that or the fact that Cindy Gallop had broken TED’s porn cherry with the description of her own sex life, the merits of hardcore porn and a personal preference not to watch sex films that resembled open heart surgery. In just ten minutes, a global sensation was born and a Cindy Gallop’s fame washed out of advertising circles and into mainstream social consciousness. Her diminutive frame and well-articulated vocabulary were at direct odds with her subject matter: the creeping ubiquity of porn and its damaging effect on society. However, Gallop is not anti porn, on the contrary she is a discerning consumer of it, but she worries about the effect that male dominated porn has on an impressionable younger generation, both male and female.

Gallop explained her problem and how she encountered at first hand the direct impact of porn on Generation Y, or GenY. In short, she dates GenY men and has sex with them. This point is only of interest as Gallop would be considered a cougar, and is somewhere in her fifties. She did not seek this departure, but during a campaign for an internet dating client while still working in advertising, she joined a dating site to see what it was all about. At the top of her field, single and very busy with work, she did not want a relationship and stated as much in her profile. To her initial surprise, this nugget of information proved very popular and she was inundated with offers of sex and non-committal relationships from young men.

Gallop stresses that she was not seeking young men and she was moreover very discerning in her choice of dates. This is a critical point as it shuts down those who might argue that her experience was slanted because of her circumstances. Gallop chose to date exceptional young men, at least one encounter mutated into a long term relationship. She is a very intelligent woman; she chose not to date unsavoury types.  But in dating younger men she came across very different sexual mores that had not been prevalent in men her own age or indeed during her previous sexual experiences. There was a whole range of new sexual behaviour that had moved directly from porn into real life and it was not a forward step.  To read more, please visit Aspire Magazine and start your free trial now

 

Credit Cards have a way with Words

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Credit cards have a way with words. Some of the best lines have centred round their use. From the ‘No charge’ slogan in the 80s, to the Not the Nine O’clock News sketch with Pamela Stephenson where she invited her credit card customer to stroke her boob (ok, it was a location joke, a vintage location joke playing on the fact that America Express took an exalted view of its own brand of commerce) to the most recent Mastercard line, There are some things money can’t buy, for everything else there’s Mastercard.

Of course, the ultimate irony with credit cards is that while they are selling you a way of life, in reality they are just helping you spend money more easily and costing everyone a percentage into the bargain. Credit cards take their cut, like Shylock’s pound of flesh, and usury is a dirty business after all.

Being a credit card is a bit like being a parent. Or is that being a parent is just like being a credit card. It’s all spend, spend, spend on one’s progeny. Unlike credit cards, however, there is not a fixed expiry date. It just keeps bobbing along until the parent expires.

Of course parents can extract their revenge on their children in two ways. One to live long enough to see them have teenage children. Sweet! And secondly is to live long enough to have to reside in a very expensive nursing home claiming back some of the investment made at the early years of their children’s lives.

Either way, a child is not just for Christmas but for life.

In my travels in this world I thought I had finalised the expenditure of my parents at a range of points, and in each case proved myself wholly wrong. While in Trinity College, Dublin I worked in the States during the summers and paid my own tuition fees. I thought at that stage I’d finished asking my parents for final handouts. Not!

I bought a flat in London at the height of the property market and borrowed the deposit off my parents. It was a sure thing, Not!

I sold my flat at the bottom of the London property crash to move to Australia and borrowed money from my parents to sell it in negative equity. End of financial dependency? Not!

I returned to Ireland and set up home in Dublin. When my husband wanted to move career and we bought a ruined manor house down the country to renovate it, we moved to my parent’s home for a year. To be sure no money changed hands: we did not actually ask them for money but neither did we pay rent. My abiding memory was my husband and I being given free rein in the TV room (a converted bedroom) while my father watched television on a small mobile in the bedroom, and my mother read down in the living room. They never complained. Their currency was love and support.

Fast forward ten years on and the marriage failed. My father had also died in the intervening years. My aged mother (gosh, she would kill me for that description, she is lively as a hare in March) who was then in her late seventies travelled down to mind our youngest every second week. Since we bought Raheengraney House in 1996, I had become the sole breadwinner in the family. By 2008, and now beginning our separation, our eldest was in weekly boarding and my newly ex husband minded our youngest week about. He had been a house husband since moving down to Raheengraney House, a career of guestkeeping not really suiting him.

At the start of separation I had money and thought nothing of it. As my divorce progressed along with the recession in Ireland and the failure of my business, twice, I began to rely on my mother’s largesse again. Is there no end to which a child may rely on a parent, I wonder.

I am still so far from being out of the woods it is a shocker. I wrote a blog last year when the bailiffs came and I said I’d hit rock bottom. Not so, this autumn to my great sadness I have to let go my long term friend and colleague and retreat my business back to my house.

I have to confess. I have hit more bottoms than Mr Grey and without the same level of enjoyment it must be said.

What is it to be parent? To be a child? To be bound in an endless series of engagements, some happy, some sad and many financial. I am so endlessly grateful to my parents and to my mother who is second to none.

September 2012

This blog was written as my eldest daughter having done her leaving and at 18 is taking a gap year, doing courses and seeking out the love of her life, working with horses. And her now gainfully employed father, who has paid her child maintenance for the past eighteen months  declares himself no longer responsible for her financial upkeep. She must look to herself to support herself.  Am I to follow suit? Am I fuck! My child is my child whether she is 18 or 47. She is still my child. She is a hard worker who has chosen a tough career. She is my joy, my burden, my love and I would have it no other way. Thank you Mum (and Dad!) xx