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 […]
Continue readingCategory Archives: Musings on my time on this planet …
Credit Cards have a way with Words
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. […]
Continue readingDeath By Sex?
The irish Book of the Dead by Jillian Godsil What is it about the Irish and their fascination with death? From wakes to accidents, to death by sex, by misadventure, by time, this new collection of short stories traces a personal approach to death in all its froms. At times funny, stark and poignant, the nine stories will leave the reader wanting more. Buy this book now on Amazon Most Helpful Customer Reviews Illuminating July 10, 2012 By Shamhorse From a woman who knows how to make a word pack 20 punches this is surely a knock out blow. I think any short story gets its greatest compliment when its read twice just to make sure you missed nothing first time round.
Continue readingThe day I lost my Bosoms!
The day I lost my bosoms To lose one parent may be regarded as a misfortune: to lose both looks like carelessness, so intoned Lady Bracknell in Wildes’ Importance of being Earnest. So, too it was that I lost both my bosoms to a severe allergic reaction while on a brief break in the sun last week. Well, to be strictly honest, I did not lose my bosoms so much as I could no longer see them without the assistance of a mirror. My eyes had so swollen up as to render me half blind, fully oriental and scared silly my face would never return to my normal occidental self. Under a hot sun, misfortunes may sometimes look harsher than under a cloudy Irish sky, with all its 50 shades of grey. In the searing heat my skin puckered and grew angry. First a tell tale itchy rash across the top of my arms and then my face began to creak and redden. On day two of a short five day break I knew I was in trouble. That evening, my right eye was puffy as if I had overslept. I kept on touching the skin under my eye, […]
Continue readingFriday June 15 – Speaking at the Dotconf
What a conference. This is the third annual dotconf run by the National College of Ireland. It’s all about the web, people in it, doing stuff with it, making stuff for it or simply using it. I can honestly say I have never sat through a more interesting day packed to the brim with interesting people and speakers and thoughts and ideas. The MC was Karlin Lillington from the Irish Times and she was super, enthused and delightful. She told us there were more mobile phones than toothbrushes in the world. Some fact huh? We had Mark Congiusta, and no I still can’t pronounce his name either, from Cisco on the User Experience. That was funny. He mentioned toothbrushes too I think. Then Randall Snare from iQ Content who has apparently read the Pilgrims Progress, she was pretty much on her own in that regard. Curly Dena, or Dena Walker from Irish International was very funny too. She pointed out that if people tell you digital is complex, it’s not. It’s just stuff, more stuff that we hadn’t had before. Then Kirstie McDermott from Beaut.ie who told us about Badgers, hot ones. Another theme for the day, even Eamonn Carey […]
Continue readingThe Late Late 50 Years
“What is your best memory of the Late Late?” I was asked this live on East Coast Radio on Friday morning last, June 1, 2012. I had been invited to join a panel of guests to talk about the news and current affairs. Given that it was the day after the Referendum Vote I supposed the talk to be all about voting patterns and hopes and outcomes. I had also not read a paper in the week unless it was about the voting. I was joined by Parish Priest Fr Martin Cosgrove and Arklow Chamber of Commerce President Irene Sweeney in the Arklow Credit Union building. It too was celebrating – 50 years I understand too, but neither Irene nor Martin had looked at the papers either. We were placed in one corner of the Credit Union but the rest of the room was filling up with people and stalls for their celebration. The noise was rising and it was actually quite hard to hear above the general hum. Then our host Declan Meehan had taken the wrong exit and arrived literally seconds before we were to go live on air. Now Declan is a consummate professional and he swung […]
Continue readingNational Volunteering Week – May 14-21
National Volunteering Week – May 14-21 “We all know that volunteering benefits Irish society, but volunteering also has a powerful effect on the volunteer. We recently carried out a survey with 500 active volunteers, 98 per cent of respondents found that volunteering makes them a happier person.” Anna Lee, Chairperson of Volunteer Ireland, (originally published in thejournal.ie) Volunteering makes us happy. Or perhaps less grumpy. Or maybe able to complain faster! Most parents will volunteer with their children’s hobbies and activities. Typically their children cannot attend leisure activities outside of formal schooling without some form of parental assistance and it becomes a necessity, whether it is coaching the Under 12s, making cakes for the fund raisers or becoming bona fide leaders in the Boy Scouts. It doesn’t mean the politics are any the less or that events run on time, but there is bonding between families and sharing with children. Sometimes volunteering is only for a season. Perhaps your child grows out of their sport or someone else is voted in to a new committee. It does help to spread the load, although of course there are professional volunteering parents and leaders who will stay with the organisation regardless of their children’s […]
Continue readingSee You at the Pictures
Yesterday I was invited by Planet Korda to come share my filmic experiences for a documentary called ‘See you at the Pictures’. I had seen the tweet calling for people to be featured and had wracked my brains to think of any interesting anecdotes to tell. I love films, proper ones, but go much less frequently than I might. Living in the country contributes to this, although when I lived in Raheengraney House we had our own home cinema in the basement. The big screen in the low ceiling room with huge speakers and sub woofers and other pieces of canine sounding technology quite beyond me, created a pretty amazing cinematic experience. The large, old and tatty grey elephant leather sofas made for comfortable reclining and of course since we were at home all manner of refreshments were on hand. Since quitting Raheengraney, I have been forced to attend the real McCoy to see films. My children often watch films online but since our taste in films is quite different, this is not a natural combination. I don’t really like romcom (especially bad romcom of which there is a lot), actively dislike slasher films, and those superhero remakes leave me […]
Continue readingExporting our Troubles
As a nation we have become adept at exporting our troubles. When our population soared in the mid 1800s we exported our surplus population by the coffin ship. There just were not enough potatoes to go around. When we grew a pair and started to demand national self determination and that spilled in active resistance in the next century, so we began flexing the fledging muscles of independence. But then when a timely and largely indiscriminate thin red line was drawn across the upper province of our country, we managed to export the actual violence and daily grind of sectarian anger and destruction over the border. When we were unable to cope with the concept and possible results of sex outside of marriage, we exported our pregnant teenagers to the UK to have abortions. We still export this problem for distressed women who need a termination regardless of marriage status. When we could not tolerate any breakdown in the sanctity of marriage, we exported that problem too for a long time. Even now, we operate a splintered path to divorce, a two part process that draws out the painful division of a couple, resulting in months, even years of arguing […]
Continue readingGet off your bottom and so something!
Get off your bottom and do something! I wrote a short piece about the global phenomenon that is Kony 2012. It ran in www.GoodMenProject.com on March 10, a few days after the video was released. In that article I decided not to mention the criticism of the project or the charity behind it. Any global initiative that involves a viral video with 70million hits in three days and climbing, war lords, the American military, child soldiers,Africa and money is going to attract its fair share of knocks, trolls and copycat videos. So I made a choice and did not include these criticisms. The main reason being I applauded the charity who were actively working on a cause and value system that they believed in. I still do. The third point I made in the article was the Kony 2012 campaign is all about doing something, anything to make the world a better place. Doing stuff – why not? I personally am heavily involved in an equine charity and have been for the past ten years in a voluntary capacity. The charity, The Irish Horse Welfare Trust, rescues and rehomes abandoned horses, retrains racehorses for secondary careers and provides education on equine welfare, […]
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