Trevor Laffan

Many years ago, I arrived home to Cork on the car ferry from Swansea. My daughter was only two or three at the time, so it wasn’t today or yesterday. As we were getting off the ship, we came down a flight of stairs but there was a slight hold-up, so we were all bunched together, quietly waiting for something to happen.

I was holding my daughter in my arms and she was looking back over my shoulder. Suddenly she started poking me in the neck with her finger and in a voice loud enough to break the silence and attract the attention of everyone around us she said; “Daddy, look at him”. She was pointing to someone behind me.

I turned around and I saw a black face with two rows of pearly white teeth smiling back at me. I was mortified. While everyone else found it hilarious, I was embarrassed, and I apologised to the guy, but he was too busy laughing to care about my predicament. It must have been the first time that she had seen a black face or at least been that close to one and he obviously realised that too.

These days we have a multi-cultural society. We engage with people of all nationalities, colour and creed on a daily basis without batting an eyelid. We hear many different languages being spoken on the streets in every town and village in the country and we take no notice because it’s become the new norm.

I go out and about regularly with my grandson and we often go down to the Heritage Centre in Cobh during the summer when the liners are in and we have an ice cream and watch the world go by. Unlike his mother, Cooper has never embarrassed me by pointing at someone different. This is his world, it’s what he knows, and nothing surprises him. That’s how it should be.

Except of course, it isn’t and there will always be those with issues. Some people are just so full of hate and anger that they can’t help themselves and they are always ready to offend someone.

Recently, there was an incident during a football match between Manchester City and Chelsea involving the Jamaican footballer Raheem Sterling, who claimed that he was racially abused when he went to retrieve the ball by the corner flag. I don’t know what was said to him but on the TV footage, you can clearly see a group of men shouting and gesturing furiously at him.

They are not youngsters either. They are grown men, adults, who should know better. Regardless of what they said, I don’t understand why middle-aged men would go to a sporting event and then treat one of the participants with such abuse. But it happens.

There was a story I read some time ago about a youngster who was experiencing racial abuse here. Joella Dhlamini, a sixteen-year-old girl, living in Drogheda, is originally from South Africa but moved to Ireland when she was 13 years old. She was in the news because she won a competition after writing an essay about racism.

She wrote about being a victim of violent crime in South Africa and her experience of dealing with racism since she arrived in Ireland. She said she was walking through the city centre in Dublin one day when someone just spat in her face and called her the ‘n’ word and then walked off. She said she cried because the person was an adult.

There was plenty of support for her on the Internet and people were demanding that the police, the Government or somebody else, should take action.

That’s a bit of a cop out because racism is a cause that can be championed by every citizen. It’s not enough to witness a racist incident and point the finger of responsibility at someone else. Any individual who wants to make a dent in racism is free to do so and I’ll tell you how.

The Macpherson Report defines a racist incident as “any incident which is perceived to be racist by the victim or any other person”.  It’s a broad definition that covers a multitude and it basically means that the victim of the racist incident does not have to be the person making a complaint. Anybody who witnesses it can also take issue with it and they shouldn’t be afraid to do so.

Racism is a reality for some people living in Ireland but how serious the problem is, is difficult to determine. Many types of racist incidents are not specifically catered for under Irish law, so they are more usually recorded as offences under the Public Order Act.

Offenders have often been prosecuted in court under the Public Order Act for insulting or abusive comments made towards non-Irish nationals. These wouldn’t necessarily be recorded as convictions for racist offences even though, in many cases, that’s exactly what they were.

If this seems a bit complicated, then that’s because it is. Unlike other jurisdictions, there is no specific offence in our criminal justice system to deal with racially motivated offences. There is a crime of incitement to hatred but that takes things to a different level and requires the consent of the Director of Public Prosecutions to take to court.

But that shouldn’t stop anyone from getting involved. It’s not difficult, it just involves making a complaint to the gardai. It may also involve a court appearance to give evidence before a judge.

That can’t be done on social media, so those who demand action from everyone else will have to put their outrage where their mouths are. That would have a definite impact on racist incidents but might just be just a step too far for the armchair critics.

One of the great things about being retired is not having to watch the clock. Not having to work out when you need to start getting ready for work or worrying about how much time you have left sitting in the recliner before you have to get out of it.

Having spent over 35 years as a policeman, I learned early on, how to live my life by a watch. One of the first things I was taught in the Garda Training Centre in Templemore was that every entry in the official notebook begins with four headings; Day, Date, Time and Place.

So, for every incident I went to, the first words written in my note book were, what day it was, the date and what time it was when I arrived at my location. These are important details that can easily be forgotten over time and especially when you could be dealing with many incidents during an eight-hour shift.

So, right from the start, a watch became a critical piece of equipment for me and making those entries became as automatic as breathing. We all did it without thinking.

When I retired, I was surprised at how quickly time became irrelevant to me and it wasn’t long before I began to lose track of it altogether. It doesn’t matter to me what day of the week I have because unless I have something specific to do, it is all the same to me.

To a retired person, every weekend is a Bank Holiday weekend and every day is free to be enjoyed however we chose to do it. I adapted to this lifestyle with little difficulty and quickly grew fond of it. There are some who have commented that I was born for retirement and that’s fair enough I suppose.

I liked this new-found lifestyle, not having to look at my watch every few minutes, and I was blissfully happy. And that’s a dangerous mindset to be in because it seems to me, that any time I reached a state of contentment, something always happened to turn it around and introduce me to some misery and hardship.

I put it down to the Gods, the Greek ones in particular. You have probably heard about some of them over the years like Aphrodite, the goddess of love. Athena was the goddess of reason and wisdom, Artemis was responsible for hunting, while Ares looked after bloodlust and wasn’t liked by the others but apparently, he wasn’t bothered.

Zeus is probably one of the better-known Greek gods and he was the top man. The go to guy. Apart from his many other duties, he also controlled the weather but unfortunately, he was unable to control himself and spent a lot of his time chasing after other women.

Hera was the queen goddess and she was a bit complicated. She was married to Zeus but was also his sister and old Zeus liked to have his few flings and Hera got her kicks out of tormenting these other women. Then there was Hades who ruled the world of the dead and Apollo, who was like a fixer and carried out the instructions of the others.

So, there were lots of these characters around, creating mayhem and carnage, and while many of you will dismiss all this as bunkum and a load of nonsense, I believe there is something to it. Not only that, but I think there was another God that was not as well-known as the others.

I don’t know what his name was, but he was the one responsible for misery and hardship. He’s the guy who watched over everyone to make sure they were unhappy. When anyone showed the slightest sign of having a good time, he struck to make sure that misery was visited upon them and knocked all sense of fun out of them. And I’ll tell you something else, he hasn’t gone away.

That’s not all. This guy knows me personally and I have no idea what I ever did to him, but he has had it in for me for a long time. He will not leave me be and he struck again at Christmas. He could see I was comfortable at home and he observed my relaxed lifestyle. It displeased him and not content with minding his own business and leaving me in peace, he preferred instead to have some fun.

So, he infiltrated the minds of my children and persuaded them to buy me a watch. Not an ordinary watch either but a Garmin Vivomove. When I opened the box and saw it, I immediately thought it was an attractive piece of kit and I took a shine to it. But the instruction manual sent a shiver up my spine and I knew straight away that the god of misery had a hand in it.

You see, for those of you who have never seen one of these watches, telling the time is only one of its many functions. It also records your heart rate and estimates your level of stress. It records the number of steps you take, the number of stairs you climb, how many calories you consume and how many you lose.

It sets targets to get you exercising, times your movements and tells you how many miles you have travelled in your day. But by far, the most alarming aspect of this gadget, is that if I sit for too long in the one spot it will vibrate on my wrist and the screen will light up with a message telling me to ‘Move’.

For a short while, it felt good not having to worry about time anymore, but now a watch has taken control of my life again. Thanks to the god of misery.

As we’re still in the Christmas period, I think this is an appropriate time to tell a story about a real Santa Claus who lived in Cork once upon a time. He lived in a time before the Internet, when getting requests to the North Pole was a bit trickier than it is now. Younger people can’t believe there was ever such a time but that was the way of it back in the dark ages.

In the early nineties, I was transferred from Blarney to Mayfield Garda Station in Cork city and I was new to the area when I first came across was a character by the name of Mattie Nodwell. That name might not ring a bell with some people, but many of you would certainly have had dealings with him, particularly around Christmas time.

He was known affectionately as Noddy and he had a toy shop in Cornmarket Street. He had every toy you could think of in that shop and some you hadn’t even heard of. At Christmas time, Noddy’s was one of the main places to go for presents for the kids. He was always tuned into the current trends and you could be sure that if the kids were talking about it, Noddy had it.

There were a couple of incidents that happened during my time in Mayfield that brought me into contact with him.

The first meeting came about as the result of a burglary that had occurred at a house on Christmas morning. The house was broken into in the early hours and the thieves took everything. Not only did they take the presents, but they took crackers and the lights off the tree as well. It was a traumatic experience for the family and they were devastated.  

Apart from the fact that their home had been invaded, they had to face the prospect of explaining to the children that Santa had somehow missed their house even though he had managed to find everyone else. I was there that morning and it was impossible not to feel sorry for them.

I thought of Noddy and I got in touch with him. At a time when everybody else was enjoying the festivities at home with their families, he headed to his toy cave and gathered enough toys to ensure that Santa was able to make a special visit to that house, albeit a few days later.

Santa was escorted by a garda patrol car with flashing blue lights and siren to make a special delivery. I can still see the face of one of the kids looking out the window as we pulled up outside. His eyes wide open with excitement and it turned out to be a special Christmas for that family despite the earlier disappointment.

There was another occasion too when a family was left distraught at Christmas time. I can’t go into details without revealing the identity of the family concerned but I can say with certainty that Christmas would have been a complete disaster without the Mayfield Santa. Three kids would have been left devastated only for Noddy.

On another occasion, I had a personal request for him. I was looking for a toy called ‘Super Van City’ for one of my kids and I couldn’t get it anywhere. It was on the top of his wish list and I was getting desperate. This thing was in huge demand and every store had sold out of it. I contacted Mattie and he told me that the item was like gold dust, but he would do his best for me.

I had given up all hope of getting it and I was trying to figure out how to break it to my young lad that Santa couldn’t fill the order. My landline rang late on Christmas Eve and it was Mattie and he had sourced one of the toys for me and it was ready for collection. Once again, he had saved the day.

About a year after I retired, sometime in 2016, I was down in Youghal and I met a young garda. He recognised me from my community policing days in Mayfield and he had attended one of the schools that I used to visit.

We chatted for a bit and it turned out that he was Mattie Nodwells son, Brian. I asked him how his dad was keeping, and he told me that Mattie had died.

I got a bit of a shock and I couldn’t figure out how I had missed it. I left Mayfield in 2000 but I was still in contact with many people up there, but that piece of news just escaped me. His son told me that he became ill and died within a very short space of time, so it all happened very fast.

Mattie Nodwell was a guy who did things for his community without advertising the fact. He didn’t put it in neon lights in the city centre. He didn’t want any recognition or praise, he was just happy to help those in trouble. He stepped up to the mark when he didn’t have to and when there was nothing in it for himself. He was just a guy with a big heart.

It seems a bit strange writing about this now, so many years later but he regularly comes into my head over the Christmas period. He died around this time of the year as well and I just thought that it might be nice to remember his sense of community spirit.

We had no big relationship, we weren’t the best friends or anything, but he did stuff for others that generally went unnoticed. When people were in trouble, he was there and it’s only right that he should still be remembered. 

I’ve always thought there is something special about Christmas Eve in Cork City. It’s a day when everyone is in good form, especially in the late afternoon. The shopping is finished and the offices around the city are closing for the holiday period and the atmosphere is good. The sound of Dean Martin and Bing Crosby singing the usual favourites makes it difficult to be grumpy.

It’s a great time for children too as the excitement builds with only one more sleep until the great man arrives. That excitement wanes a bit every year as the kids get older and when they eventually grow up, some of the magic goes out of the occasion. But then, the grandchildren come along and the whole thing starts off all over again.

There was a time, when I was working in An Garda Siochana, that I was responsible for Operation Freeflow. This came into effect around the start of December and would normally run until after the sales in January. The traffic was always manic during those few weeks as more and more cars tried to fit into car parks that were already struggling to cope.

Those who couldn’t fit into a car park wanted to queue up on the street until a space became available which in turn caused problems for other motorists who were trying to get around the city.

The aim of Operation Freeflow was to keep the traffic moving but that wasn’t always possible given the sheer volume we had to cope with. Tempers were often frayed because everybody had things to do and they had no time to be dealing with parking problems. It wasn’t an easy time for anyone, and it was worse when the weather was bad.

But we battled on and looked forward to Christmas Eve when the madness would end, for a few days at least. It was the same every year. In the morning there would be the last miniute shoppers, racing around, frantically looking for the remaining missing present. Then in the mid-afternoon, the panic would be over, the streets and the car parks would empty, and calm would be restored once more.

Christmas Eve at home is a special time too. Building up the excitement for the kids on the one hand while trying to calm them down to get them to bed on the other. Then as soon as they’re tucked up, the presents can be retrieved from their hiding places and put under the tree.

There was one occasion though when Christmas Eve didn’t go quite so smoothly. I went out to deliver some presents to family members and I got waylaid. I was encouraged to go for a quick pint with some friends. Not that I needed too much persuading. Everything was ready at home so there was no great panic, it was just a matter of putting out the presents and we were all set.

I must have stayed a bit longer than I had anticipated because when I got home, I was having a little difficulty speaking properly. It was before mobile phones came on the scene, so I hadn’t been able to tell my wife where I was, but she guessed correctly anyway, that some bold people led me astray. She didn’t seem to mind but she had a strange look in her eye that told me something was up.

I went in to the sitting room to inspect the lay-out and my heart sank when I saw a very large box sitting in the middle of the room. My wife asked me if I had forgotten about it and, of course I had. It was a ride on tractor and trailer for my son and it had a bucket attachment on the front like you’d see on a JCB. That’s no problem, I thought. I’ll just take it out of the box and stand it near the tree along with the other stuff.

When I opened the box, I realised immediately, that things were about to get complicated. There were lots of bits and pieces in there that needed to be put together and tools were also going to be required. There was a serious looking set of instructions and I had difficulty making sense of them in my fragile condition. I had a sinking feeling in my stomach that this was not going to end well, and it dawned on me why my wife had that strange look in her eye. She was enjoying herself.

A few hours later and well beyond midnight, I was sweating profusely. This contraption was getting the better of me and the instructions were being splattered with blood as I cut my knuckles on pieces of metal that were refusing to go where I wanted to put them. I had to do some hammering and there was also a bit of violence involved before I eventually got it sorted.

The following February, I was rooting for something under the stairs when I pulled out a parcel. The first thing I noticed was the Christmas wrapping paper. When I looked at the label attached to it, I discovered it was a jumper that was meant to be given to my father two months earlier, on Christmas Eve.

I have no idea how it ended up under the stairs, but I suspect that my merriment on Christmas Eve may have had something to do with it. Then the guilt set in as I realised that my poor father must have been wondering what he had done to be struck off my Christmas list. He was very amused when Santa eventually turned up.

From now on, the 24^th December will be an alcohol-free occasion for me. It’s just not worth the blood loss, stress and guilt.

I have never been a follower of fashion and my wiferegularly complains about my dress sense. Many fads have come and gone downthrough the years and I managed to avoid all of them.

When I was a young lad,hair styles went through many phases too. The Beatles introduced a mop type,then there was long hair, crew cuts, skin heads, spiked punk rocker hair andshaved heads.

I ignored it all but while I would have loved long hair like my friends had at the time, it simply wasn’t possible. My hair didn’t get long, it got wide, like an afro. There were bottle brushes around one time and they were used for cleaning babies’ bottles. They had a wire handle with a fuzzy piece at the top. That was me.

The footballer, Marouane Fellaini, plays for Manchester United, and he’s noted for his big mop of hair. I had that afro look long before he did and while he probably spends a lot of money looking after his trademark cut, mine was natural. I didn’t like it but there wasn’t a lot I could do about it either.

All that changed when I walked through the gates of theGarda Training College in Templemore in 1979. On our first day as new recruits,we were all instructed to go to the barber who occupied a small room by themain gate.

One by one we sat in his chair and in our innocence, we eachinstructed the barber on how we would like our hair styled.

He listened very attentively and then grabbed his shears andpromptly scalped each one of us in turn in the same way. We were in a state ofshock as we looked in the mirror and then looked at each other.

It was December,so we were frozen with the cold. The only consolation was that we were all inthe same boat. For the next thirty years, our hair styles would be determinedby our uniform and not by any fashion trend.

I got used to it very quickly and I kept it that way until nature intervened and robbed me of what hair I had left. Grooming was no longer an issue for me then, which suited me just fine.

It’s the same with clothes. I’m not adventurous or fashion conscious and I just wear what’s comfortable. Shorts and a T-shirt are my preferred option and I couldn’t care less about labels. When it gets colder, I wear jeans and a comfortable jumper and when I have to get dressed up for a special occasion, I iron my jeans.

I don’t know why anyone would want to buy jeans that are deliberately ripped and torn so their knees are sticking out through them, but it seems to be all the rage. Another frightening trend emerging is one that requires the trouser legs to be raised at half mast, accompanied by shoes with no socks. I will not be sporting that look.

Another craze that passed me by, thankfully, is body painting. Modern day footballers are covering themselves with ink. They want to cover every inch of available skin to mark themselves out as being different. But with so many at it now, they are all beginning to look the same.

It’s the same thing with body piercings. First it was earrings, then people started putting things in their eyebrows, nose and bellybuttons. Now they’ve gone back to the ears, cutting holes in them and sticking discs in their ear lobes. But there are others who have taken it a step further.

Eva Tiamat Medusa is from Texas and she is in her mid-fifties. She has taken body modification to a new level and she looks like nothing I have ever seen before. Her head has been painted with scales and various horns have been implanted under the skin. Her ears have been removed along with some of her teeth and her tongue has been split to resemble the tongue of a snake.

Apparently, she has spent more than $60,000 getting her forked tongue, removing her nostrils and acquiring her tattooed scales and eight ‘horns’. Her eyes have been coloured green and the result is that she no longer looks like a normal human being and that suits her fine because she wants to look like a reptile.

Lucky Diamond Rich currently holds the Guinness Book of records title for being ‘The world’s most tattooed person’, with an incredible one hundred per cent of his body covered with ink. That includes the inside of his eyelids, mouth, and intimate areas.

He admits being an obsessive-compulsive, who decided he wanted to become the world’s most tattooed man which he achieved in two years. Now that his entire body is covered with ink, Rich is having a white design tattooed over the top of all that black and is subsequently adding coloured tattoos on top of the white.

If that’s not bad enough, spare a thought for Lucy Luckayanko from New York who had a piece of platinum jewellery inserted into her eyeball because she wanted to stand out from the crowd. She had a heart-shaped sequin placed on the white of her right eyeball.

This procedure involves injecting anaesthetic into the eye to numb the area and then making a small incision in the eyeball to make room for the piece of jewellery. Then using forceps, the piece can be placed in position.

This kind of body modification is controversial, and it probably won’t surprise you to learn that the American Academy of Ophthalmology is warning consumers that this procedure could cause problems with vision.

Suddenly, the idea of torn jeans worn at half-mast with shoes and no socks, doesn’t seem so off the wall.

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When I was about five years old, I had surgery for a pyloric stenosis. In layman’s language, a pyloric stenosis is a narrowing of the opening from the stomach to the small intestine. Symptoms include projectile vomiting.

I remember being out playing on the street with the other kids and I’d run in home to get sick and then run back out to play again. It was normal as far as I was concerned, and it didn’t knock a feather out of me. Eventually, I had to go to the Mercy Hospital in 1963 to have it sorted and I remember being sore after the operation.

I can also remember looking out the window at my mother as she waved up to me before heading off to the railway station for the train home. But mostly, I recall being left with a long and elevated scar on my stomach that has remained with me to this day as a reminder of that visit to hospital.

It didn’t take me long to realise that hospitals were associated with surgery and surgery was associated with pain, so they were to be avoided as much as possible.

As a teenager, I was back in the Mercy again, this time for a pilonidal sinus. In medical terms it’s described as a small hole in the skin that fills with fluid or pus, causing a cyst or abscess. It occurs in the cleft at the top of the buttocks. A pilonidal cyst usually contains hair, dirt, and debris. It can cause severe pain and can often become infected.

That’s a very good description of it and I can confirm that it does indeed cause severe pain. I am informed that the treatment for this has changed over the years but back then, they drilled a hole into the infected area. Then they packed the hole with a long thin strip of gauze which was left in place until it soaked up a lot of the gunk inside. Then they took it out it and repacked it with fresh gauze.

That sounds like a simple procedure, but the reality was that it was taken out with a tweezers. Inch by painful inch, it was slowly pulled out and the pain was excruciating. I remember the most comfortable position for me, while it was being removed, was to lean out the bathroom window, holding onto the window sill with both hands, and a cloth between my teeth. It was not pleasant.

My most recent visit to hospital was to the Mater Private in Dublin for robotic surgery to remove my prostate. This gland and myself had a falling out and it turned against me, so it had to go. This surgery also left me in some discomfort and I’m still recovering from it which brings me to the point of my story.

There is a growing market for cosmetic surgery and I find it difficult to understand why anybody would submit themselves to a surgical procedure when there is no medical need for it. The idea of going through that pain and suffering to get a different nose, a larger bum or bigger boobs is beyond me. There’s a difference between cosmetic surgery and plastic surgery and I fully understand the need for plastic surgery.

Plastic surgery is often required for reconstruction of facial and body defects due to birth disorders, trauma, burns, and disease and is intended to correct areas of the body that have been damaged and is reconstructive in nature. That’s completely understandable.

Cosmetic surgery, on the other hand, is focused on enhancing appearance and includes the likes of breast enhancement, rhinoplasty, chin enhancement, facelift, eyelid lift, tummy tuck, liposuction and filler treatments. This is mainly for people who are not happy with some of their bit and pieces including their bottoms.

In case you haven’t heard of it, let me introduce you to the Brazilian Butt Lift. If you grew up in the same era as I did you will be familiar with the question, “Does my bum look big in this?” Well it seems that now, thanks to a lady by the name of Kim Kardashian, that has changed, and big bottoms are all the rage. It’s now a case of, “Does my bum look big enough in this?”

The procedure to increase your butt size isn’t cheap and costs about £8,000 in the UK and it doesn’t sound pleasant either.

The fat is extracted from a patient’s thighs and injected into their buttocks to give it a fuller appearance. Sounds weird but it is very popular because nearly 320,000 buttock augmentation or buttock lift procedures were performed globally in 2015, according to the International Society of Aesthetic and Cosmetic Surgery, but it’s not all plain sailing.

There can be complications from BBL including severe infections, scarring, wound ruptures and abscesses and there is a risk that the fat can travel to the heart or brain. So, if you’re considering having this done, be careful who you go to.

According to The Guardian, Prosecutors in Rio de Janeiro have charged a celebrity plastic surgeon, known as “Dr Bumbum”, with homicide for carrying out an aesthetic procedure that resulted in the death of one of his patients. They said he injected more than the recommended quantity of a synthetic resin into her buttocks.

The British Association of Aesthetic and Plastic Surgeons advises that travelling abroad for this surgery should be avoided as you can’t be certain about the surgeons or hospital you are being treated in. You should only undergo surgery in a fully registered hospital with full intensive care support.

My advice is better. Just keep the bum you were born with and don’t even think about surgery until the time comes that you really need it.

There are certain people who have nothing better to do with their time, than study the constitution to find things in there that annoy them. There must be another agenda at work here though because many of the issues brought up could hardly be described as life threatening. So, I suspect it’s just an attention seeking exercise.

For instance, hands up all of you who know what Article 41.2 of the constitution says. How many of you care what it says and hands up all of you who will have a better quality of life when we get rid of it? Well, it’s a matter of great concern for some.

Article 41.2 of the constitution says the Irish state “recognises that by her life within the home, woman gives to the State a support without which the common good cannot be achieved. The State shall, therefore, endeavour to ensure that mothers shall not be obliged by economic necessity to engage in labour to the neglect of their duties in the home.”

I can’t see thousands of women getting out of bed every morning and cursing Article 41.2 for holding them back and ruining their lives. I suspect they have better things to be doing but others have taken it upon themselves to create a national issue out of this heinous and offensive Article.

My wife is very satisfied with her life so far and why wouldn’t she be? Apart from having the perfect husband, she has always done what she pretty much wanted to do and never allowed anything to hold her back. She worked when she wanted to and stopped when it didn’t suit her. She returned to work when she wanted, went on foreign holidays, played sport, had kids, and I have never heard her giving out about Article 41.2.

She has a few expletives in her locker that she reserves for those special occasions when she stubs her toe, or her tennis is cancelled because of the rain. But in the forty years we’ve been together, I’ve never once heard her grumble about Article 41.2.

But some people like nothing better than a good moan. For instance, the term, ‘Mansize tissues’ has been keeping a few people awake at night. So much so that Kleenex are rebranding their ‘Mansize tissues’ after receiving complaints that the term is sexist, and they are changing it to “Kleenex Extra Large.”

We have been successfully wiping our noses with these things for over sixty years, but now because of a few characters with nothing better to do than highlight this nonsense, the name must be changed. But it’s not only tissues that are causing problems, Walt Disney has upset people too.

The actress, Keira Knightly, won’t let her three-year old daughter watch Cinderella because she doesn’t want her growing up thinking that if she waits around long enough, she will be rescued by a rich guy. Instead she wants her child to understand that she is an independent person who can rescue herself and doesn’t have to rely on a man. She’s three years old Keira!

Other Disney films have also been criticised for being unrealistic by suggesting that good always wins out over evil and for suggesting that there is always a perfect ending where everyone lives happily ever after. Critics complain that these films give a false impression to young people of what life is really like. Honestly, I’m not making this up.

Dr Sarah Coyne, from Brigham Young University, said: “Disney princesses represent some of the first examples of exposure to the thin ideal. As women, we get it our whole lives and it really does start at the Disney princess level, at age three and four and people should really consider the long-term impact of the princess culture.”

When I was a child, I watched Disney films, but I wasn’t intelligent enough to take these negative messages from the films, so I guess I was lucky to have survived unscathed. I watched Popeye, but I never desired to smoke a clay pipe and I never wanted to eat spinach. I watched the Roadrunner too and I haven’t spent my adult life trying to drop boulders on coyotes.

The Big Bad Wolf ate the granny but we’re not suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder because of it. They’re just fairy tales.

Anyone bothered by these children’s stories and Article 41.2 of the Constitution should learn to take life a bit less seriously and stop getting their knickers in a twist. Or jocks in the case of men. Or underwear for those offended by knickers or jocks and that’s not to suggest that getting underwear twisted is safe because it could affect blood circulation, so it is not recommended.

But just when you thought the world couldn’t get any more ridiculous, along comes Deanne Carson. She’s an Australian lady, with pink hair, who describes herself as a sexuality expert. I’m not exactly sure what she does with her expertise apart from handing out valuable advice to parents.

In her latest nugget, she is suggesting that in order to establish a “culture of consent” in a household, you should ask your baby for permission before you change its nappy. She says the language doesn’t have to be complicated: “I’m going to change your nappy now, is that OK?” will do fine.

I’ve changed many nappies down through the years and on more occasions than I can count, it was a struggle because the baby didn’t consent and actively resisted my efforts. So, if I’m changing the nappy against the wishes of the baby, am I not teaching the infant that it’s ok to submit to an adult who uses force to subdue them?

Life is complicated enough as it is without making it harder for ourselves.

I saw an advertisement in a newsletter recently for a Traffic/Litter Warden. One of the required competencies for the job was related to Customer Service & Communications Skills.

‘The successful candidate will be a person who actively listens to others and tries to understand their perspectives/requirements/needs. Must be respectful, courteous and professional, remaining composed, even in challenging circumstances.’

You could be forgiven for thinking that they were advertising for a marriage counsellor, but I double-checked and they were definitely looking for a traffic warden and these were the desired characteristics for someone looking for the job.

I’ve come across a few traffic wardens in my time who would seriously struggle with some of those and none of them ever actively listened to me or tried to understand my perspective or needs.

As far as occupations go, being a traffic warden must be one of the most challenging. Not because the work is physically demanding but because they are generally not liked by anyone. In fact, it’s probably fair to say that they are about as popular as a dose of piles.

It’s difficult to see what the attraction is or where the job satisfaction comes from. They must get a lot of grief because there isn’t a driver alive who will admit to any wrongdoing or who will accept that they deserve to get a parking ticket. We are all innocent victims of insensitive traffic wardens.

Anyone who ever got a ticket, got it because the traffic warden was an idiot. It had nothing to do with the fact that the car was parked on a footpath on a double yellow line and was obstructing the entrance to the local fire station on the clearway at peak traffic hour. The warden was just being completely unreasonable.

Apart from being treated like an infectious disease, there are other drawbacks to the job. They spend their time outdoors in bad weather, in constant noise, breathing exhaust fumes and operating in a hostile environment where everybody wants to kill them. Confrontation is par for the course.

Many polls have been taken over the years to try and find the most hated professions. Traffic wardens hit the top ten in most of them along with lawyers, car salesmen, politicians, bouncers and sometimes, dentists. Police officers don’t feature and that surprised me, but estate agents do which I also thought was strange.

But for all the abuse that is aimed at them, there is one other profession that doesn’t get a mention in the list of top ten most hated professions and that is the professional football referee. I’m thinking about the soccer referees in particular.

I have often wondered why anyone would want to stand on a football pitch in front of 80,000 or more supporters as the lone official in black. At various times during a game he will be despised by either set of supporters or maybe by the whole lot of them depending on what decisions he makes.

Even being a referee in the amateur football world can be dangerous as we saw with the recent alleged assault on a match official in Co. Offaly. The man was officiating at an adult soccer game and was apparently chased into a car park after the match and beaten by a group of men. He suffered a broken jaw and other facial injuries as a result and had to be taken to hospital for treatment.

This happened at an amateur game so the pressure on professional referees must be enormous.

In every game of football from the English Premiership to the lower leagues, the referees get a lot of stick from players, management and supporters. They are regularly surrounded by players who disagree with their decisions and they take a lot of abuse.

There is one other job though, that doesn’t appear on any list and I would put it at the top of my mine. I don’t care how much money they make, I just wouldn’t be able for it. The job of looking after feet.

According to Spectrum Foot Clinics, a chiropodist, or podiatrist, is a foot doctor who treats people suffering from lower limb or common foot problems such as bunions and ingrown toenails. Gross.

They can also treat calluses and corns, verrucae, smelly feet, cracked heels and athlete’s foot. I feel like throwing up already. Podiatrists and chiropodists can also help to ease the pain of people who have diabetic foot ulcers and diabetic foot. A verruca, by the way, is a contagious and usually painful wart on the sole of the foot.

I can’t imagine I’m going to eat for the rest of the day after reading that and I very much doubt, that there is a child anywhere in the world who goes to bed at night dreaming about one day being able to treat smelly feet and verrucae.

Their role, is to advise you and your family on how to take care of your feet and the type of shoes that you need to wear. Podiatrists and chiropodists can also treat and alleviate day-to-day foot problems such as fungal or ingrown toenails.

I can’t stand the sight of feet and I don’t like being anywhere near them. My own are six feet away from the top of me and even that’s too close. I can’t imagine any circumstances where I would volunteer to touch a foot that is attached to somebody else. I would probably vomit all over it.

I would lose the will to live if I thought I had to go to work every day and deal with feet. I would starve to death before I could even consider earning a wage that way.

I don’t care what these chiropodists are paid, I’d prefer to be a traffic warden.

I was listening to the Sean O’Rourke programme on the radio recently, and I heard Paddy O’Gorman reporting on a visit he made to the District Court in Portlaoise. He interviewed some people who were due to appear before the judge that day and he asked them what they had done to find themselves in that position.

One guy was charged with handling stolen property after being found with two stolen chain saws in his car. They had been taken earlier from a farm. He thought it was very amusing, and so did his friends, as he told Paddy that he was innocent. He said he was just passing the farm when two guys appeared from nowhere and threw the chain saws into his car.

It was great fun altogether and he suspected that even though he was innocent, he was probably going to get three months or so in jail. He was the father of six children and Paddy asked him if he was worried about going to prison and it was obvious that he didn’t give two hoots. He’d been there before, and he couldn’t care less. Himself and his buddies were enjoying the craic.

His solicitor relayed this ridiculous tale to the judge and asked her to consider a non-custodial sentence. The judge said she would consider it, if the defendant told the truth. When he returned to the witness box, he changed his story and admitted stealing the chain saws. The judge ordered him to pay €500 to the farmer and sentenced him to 250 hours community service.

That’s why the chain-saw thief was having the craic. He knows the system and he wasn’t the least bit afraid of it because he knew he wasn’t going to come out of it too badly, even with his list of previous convictions. That’s why he’s happy to travel the countryside and steal from farmers because the benefits outweigh the risk.

The judge in this case has done nothing to alleviate the fear that rural communities are experiencing because of travelling criminals. The farmer had his privacy violated and his property stolen. He’s probably a hard-working man trying to make ends meet which is tough enough without having to worry about thieves robbing the tools of his trade. The theft of tools from farmers and tradesmen is big business these days.

We don’t know what effect this crime had on the farmer or his family or indeed, the wider community, but it’s the kind of thing that spreads fear amongst the locals. One way to tackle it is for the courts to send out a strong message that there are serious consequences for criminality. That’s not happening though.

The thief in this case had a list of previous convictions and I can’t understand why he was entitled to any leniency. He spun an outrageous story to the judge about two guys throwing the chain saws into his car. He lied through his teeth but then she then gave him the opportunity to tell the truth for a reward and he took it. What did he do to deserve that break?

He said he was sorry and walked out of the courthouse, laughing again and why wouldn’t he? He is an experienced criminal and he has rightly copped on to the notion that the criminal justice system is just as broken as the health system and the housing crisis. There’s money to be made from stealing and he’s operating on a risk and reward basis and the odds are stacked in his favour.

There’s a reduced garda presence in rural communities now, more than ever before, so there is less chance of the criminal getting caught. If the gardai do manage to catch up with him, they must gather evidence and put a case together to get him into court. But even if they do manage to get him before a judge, he still stands a good chance of getting off with a slap on the wrist. A gentle one at that.

This guy has treated the whole legal process as a complete joke and it’s no surprise that he did.

On the same day that I was listening to Paddy, I also heard of a guy who was convicted in the Special Criminal Court for assisting a criminal organisation in the murder of a Dublin bar manager who was shot seven times by a masked gunman.

The hero in this case pleaded guilty to participating in or contributing to activity intending to facilitate the commission, by a criminal organisation or any of its members, of a serious offence, namely the murder of the bar manager. He is the first person to be prosecuted for this offence under the organised crime legislation brought in in 2006.

The gardai did well to locate a phone beside the getaway car that was abandoned after the murder and they identified the defendant buying the phone two days before the shooting.

The judge said that while the provision of any assistance to a criminal organisation is a grave matter, the defendant did not approach this in a covert or disguised manner. “His unsophisticated approach left him open to identification and demonstrated an absence of calculation or guile.” In other words, he wasn’t much of a criminal and didn’t cover his tracks very well and got caught as a result.

The judge was satisfied that it must have been apparent to him that he was assisting in some serious criminal activity. Yet, while the maximum sentence is 15 years in prison, he was sentenced to three years and nine months with one year suspended. He’ll be walking the streets again shortly, but the victim is dead.

These decisions won’t exactly have the criminals in this country shaking in their boots.

There’s something about going to the doctor that makes me a little uneasy and I get nervous whenever I go into a surgery. I’m sure I’m not the only one and I think we’re entitled to be a bit afraid. After all, doctors have the power to turn your life upside down. They can stick needles in your body, send you to hospital and they can even sign your death certificate.

They’re trained to have a reassuring smile and a calm demeanour, so they can convince you that everything is fine, even when you have only about five minutes left to live. I put all that out of my mind this morning when I went to my GP to get the flu jab. I arrived early and took a seat in the waiting room.

I was on my own, so I was just looking around the room, when my eyes fell on the notice board on the wall. I saw a little poster about Parkinson’s disease pinned to the board. Looking down through it, I read the list of symptoms for the early onset of this terrible illness.

Excessive sweating was the first one I noticed, and it made me sit up. I’ve sweated excessively all my life. Back when I was playing tennis, I would always come off the court after a game and my clothes would land on the floor of the dressing room with a plop. Even thinking about it now makes me sweat.

The next sign to look out for, the poster told me, was the loss of smell. A few months ago, I had a very serious illness called man-flu. Women won’t appreciate what it’s like to experience this kind of pain and suffering, but let’s just say that it was horrific. We men don’t talk about it that much, preferring instead to suffer in silence because that’s the way we are. We don’t like making a fuss and we have this bravery gene that helps us to cope.

Anyway, when I recovered from this near-death experience, I noticed that I had lost the sense of smell and taste. They both came back after a bit, but not to the extent they were before.

Another sign was memory loss and I was getting concerned at this stage. I can’t remember what day of the week it is, and I have difficulty with people’s names. When I’m out walking, and I see people coming towards me, I try to identify as early as possible whether I know them or not. Then I race through the alphabet trying to come up with their name in the few seconds before we meet. I regularly fail, so that’s it, there’s no doubt. I have Parkinson’s.

There was more literature on the notice board too about other conditions like anxiety. Some of these symptoms include dizziness, chest pain, neck tension, fear of impending doom, weakness in legs and feeling like you are going crazy. I didn’t have any of these signs before I came in, but now I reckon I’m close to death, depressed and possibly pregnant.

The buzzer brought me back to reality and I got the flu jab without any drama and without being diagnosed with a terminal illness or an unexpected pregnancy, but it reminded me of something.

One of my most embarrassing moments in a doctor’s surgery happened as a result of an incident with my daughter when she was about a year and a half. I put her lying on the floor one day and I was in the process of changing her nappy when something in her mouth caught my eye. When I looked more closely, it seemed to me to be a green fungus growing from the roof of her mouth. It was hideous.

I was on my own and I didn’t have anyone nearby who could offer a second opinion and I was beginning to panic, so I just scooped her up, put her in the car and raced off to the doctor. I was in a hurry to get there before this thing growing in her mouth choked her or invaded her entire body.

I was waved straight into the surgery because this was a major emergency and I only hoped that modern medicine could deal with this horror. I laid her down on the bed and she was looking up at the ceiling, smiling away to herself. She was so brave I thought.

I got out of the way to give the doctor room to carry out a life-saving procedure, but I was taken aback when he asked me where the obstruction was.

I thought the guy was losing his marbles and I practically elbowed him out of the way to show him this potentially fatal growth on the child’s pallet. But I couldn’t see anything. Both of us looked all over her tiny little mouth but there was nothing there.

When I explained to him exactly what I saw, he nodded very sympathetically, because by then he realised that he was obviously dealing with a complete idiot. It was, he decided, a bit of phloem that got lodged in the roof of her mouth while she was lying on her back when she was being changed. Once I lifted her upright, she probably swallowed it and the problem was solved.

I slinked out of the surgery and drove home with the sun visor down, using the back roads, in case anybody recognised me. I figured that by now, it was common knowledge that there was this dopey dad who couldn’t tell the difference between a green baby killing monster and a harmless bit of phloem.

That’s another reason why I don’t like to visit the doctor’s surgery, it just reminds me of my shame.