Trevor Laffan

When it comes to bugs, creepy crawlies and other creatures that we don’t like the look of, we all have our pet hates. For some it’s spiders or wasps, while for others it might be something bigger like rats or mice.

My preferred object of hate is probably one of the smallest creatures on the Planet. The mosquito.

To be fair, I’m pretty sure the feeling is mutual because they go to great lengths to find me and they regularly ignore other potential candidates to search me out. They obviously have a massive spy network and a great communication system because the miniute I land in a foreign country, they know about it.

They always send a welcoming committee to let me know that they will be watching me for the duration of my visit. Sometimes, it’s just me and there have been occasions when I have been out with friends and targeted for an assault and the only one to wake up the next day full of lumps.

I suffer at home too. In Ireland, we are probably more familiar with the horse fly than the mosquito. They must be related though because they have a lot of the same characteristics. They are fast, strong fliers and are usually found around streams, marshes, and wooded areas.

After the bite from these, a lump appears just like the mozzie and it gets just as itchy. They’re more determined than the mosquito though because once a horse fly decides you’re on his lunch menu, he will be persistent. No amount of swatting or waving at it will get him to leave you alone and he will fight to the death.

I lived out in the countryside for many years and my neighbour loved being out in the garden in the summer. He would often be out there from early morning till late in the evening, in a t-shirt, doing various bits and pieces. I would go out for an hour to cut the grass in a long sleeve shirt, buttoned up to the neck, long pants, helmet, goggles and gloves, and I would be bitten while Frank wouldn’t have a mark on him.

I have heard many different explanations about why these insects chose one person over another. Some say it has to do with body heat or the scent of sweat or they are attracted to a blood type. Whatever the reason is, they are attracted to me.

I have tried everything over the years to keep them at bay including sprays, creams, wrist bands, scented candles, garlic and seances with limited success.
When I’m on holidays I get fanatical about keeping doors and windows closed in the evening. My blood pressure goes through the roof at a time when I’m supposed to be relaxed and chilling out. They just drive me insane.

It’s not that they’re vicious. They won’t kill you and in fact you probably won’t even know you’ve been bitten by one until the following day when the lumps arrive. Then you start to feel the itch and it’s that itch that drives some people to distraction.

The worst thing is lying in bed at night and just as you’re about to head off to sleep, you hear that high-pitched whine of the mozzie in your ear. You know the miniute you hear it that it’s time to go to war. There’s nothing else for it.

There’s no point in pretending that you didn’t hear it or just hoping that it will go away. No chance, because that creature has only one thing on his mind. He’s hungry and whether you like it or not, he is planning to gorge himself on your body during the night until he is so full he can hardly move.

So, there’s only one thing for it, time to hop out of bed, find the enemy and eliminate him. But that’s easier said than done though because they’re difficult to find. They’re sneaky buggers. Every now and then they’ll buzz in your ear just to taunt you before disappearing again.

A little trick I picked up in Cyprus a few years ago is to turn off the lights in the room and just turn on your phone. They will be attracted to that and then you can sneak up and ambush them. Another thing I discovered is that Tiger Balm, which is available in all pharmacies, can often be effective at keeping them at bay.

It’s used mainly for sore muscles I think, so it heats your skin a little when you apply it first but it’s a small price to pay for a mozzie free evening. It has a fairly pungent odour as well, so you might smell like a post-match rugby locker room but it’s worth it.

According to National Geographic, few creatures evoke the hatred that mosquitoes do, and the bad news is that there are more than 3,000 species of them. The other piece of bad news is that global efforts to stop the spread of mosquitoes are having little effect, and many scientists think global warming will increase their number.

Mosquitoes breed in standing water, so properties near ponds, marshes, and depressions that collect rainwater are at risk. Some mosquito species are active at different times of the day, but most emerge just before dusk and are active at night. Researchers have found that one solution for those plagued by mosquitoes is to thrash about, and the insects learn to give you a wide berth.

If that’s the best advice these researchers can come up with, then they need to go back to the drawing board and make a better effort. “Thrashing about” isn’t very scientific and that suggestion is unlikely to win them the ‘Brainwave of the year’ award.

I was party to a conversation recently where I heard a story that more than surprised me. It concerned a young, well educated, professional lady who is thirty years of age. She graduated from university with an honours degree and is employed in a management role in the IT industry. She is a bright lady by any standards.

In the course of the conversation she revealed that she had stayed in the city overnight and had borrowed a friend’s car to get home to Midleton the following morning. She has a provisional drivers licence and she drove the car without being covered by insurance.

She said she had tried to contact the insurance company to arrange cover but she couldn’t get through to them so as far as she was concerned there wasn’t a lot more she could do, so she just drove home. When I pointed out the seriousness of what she had done, she simply shrugged her shoulders and stated that she didn’t think that it was such a big deal.

I pointed out to her what could have happened had she been stopped by the gardai or the consequences for her if she had been involved in a traffic accident while driving without insurance and she was genuinely shocked. I explained that her car could have been impounded and there could have been a court appearance, a fine, penalty points, difficulty in getting insurance again and the stigma of being convicted of driving a car while uninsured. At this point, she was close to tears.

I also explained to her the legal obligation on every driver to be insured before he or she takes a car out onto the public road and the purpose of that insurance. I advised her of her moral obligation also to be insured and that she had a responsibility to make sure that other road users would be taken care of if she was found to be responsible for an accident.

I reminded her of what could happen to a child, like her own, if there was no insurance available to cover his/her medical costs following an accident. At that stage the tears were beginning to flow.

I told her about the Motor Insurance Bureau of Ireland and what it is that they do and how they look after people injured as a result of being in an accident with an uninsured driver. I also explained to her how that facility is financed and how every insured driver contributes to the fund and how responsible drivers are paying because other people drive without insurance.

For me, the most surprising and worrying aspect of this little tale is the fact that this woman didn’t see anything wrong with what she was doing. She does not fit your normal criminal profile and she is a law abiding, decent, considerate person who likes to do the right thing. So, if she doesn’t see anything wrong, how many more think that motor insurance is like health cover? How many believe that it’s up to the individual to decide whether they want to be insured or not?

In my younger days, we had all sorts of cars on the road in various states of repair. We took chances on driving cars that would have difficulty stopping in any kind of emergency. We drove cars that had dodgy tyres and we took chances driving at night when the lights weren’t working and we could hardly see where we were going.

I drove a Morris 1100 through Midleton in the early seventies when the entire exhaust fell off the car in the main street. I drove that car in the rain when I had zero visibility because the one remaining windscreen wiper wasn’t working properly.

But the one thing we never did was to take a car out on to the public road without having some form of insurance. No matter where it was you wanted to go and no matter how important the journey was, you didn’t drive it without insurance. It was drilled into us from an early age that insurance was so important that it just wasn’t an option not to have it.

The Motor Insurers Bureau of Ireland said there has been a “significant increase” in the estimated number of uninsured private vehicles on the road, with the figure growing by more than 32,000 in 2016. That represents an 85 per cent increase since 2011.

In 2011, there were about 85,000 uninsured private vehicles in Ireland, which represented 4.5 per cent of the total. That number has jumped to 150,000.
The total number of uninsured private vehicles dropped in 2012 and 2013, but the figure grew considerably in 2014, 2015 and throughout 2016 and it is now almost double what it was a few years ago.

So that would seem to indicate that there has been a dramatic change in attitude to how people view car insurance. There are, obviously, a significant number of people who believe that it is optional. It isn’t, it is a legal requirement. It is there to provide protection to everybody from the costs associated with personal injury and damage to property as a result of an accident.

The costs associated with insurance claims in this jurisdiction are substantial. Ultimately, claims arising from accidents involving uninsured drivers will be funded by the insurance industry and they will pass those costs on to us, the consumer, so we end up paying for it in the long run.

There are probably people driving without insurance today because they can’t afford it. But by doing so they are contributing to the rising cost of motor insurance which will make it unaffordable for even more drivers. This means more uninsured drivers joining the party so the problem keeps growing.

A friend of mine in the UK was in the Royal Navy many moons ago and he often comes up with a good tale. Matt Stoves is his name and he sent me an email last week with these two short stories and I just had to share them. Both are true.

Story Number One.

Many Years ago, Al Capone virtually owned Chicago. He was notorious for organising crime the windy city and was involved in everything from bootlegged booze and prostitution to murder.

Capone had a lawyer nicknamed “Easy Eddie” and he was very good, and his legal manoeuvring kept ‘Big Al’ out of jail for a long time.

To show his appreciation, Capone paid him very well. Not only was the money good, but Eddie got special dividends, as well. For instance, he and his family occupied a fenced-in mansion with live-in help and all the mod cons. The estate was so large that it took up an entire Chicago City block.

Eddie lived the high life of the Chicago mob and he gave little consideration to the chaos that went on around him. He did have one soft spot, however. He had a son that he loved dearly, and Eddie saw to it that his young boy had clothes, cars, and a good education. He gave him everything.

Despite his involvement with organized crime, Eddie tried to teach him right from wrong. He wanted his son to be a better man than he was. But for all his wealth and influence, there were two things he couldn’t give his son. He couldn’t pass on a good name and he wasn’t a good example.

He decided to change that, and he came up with a plan to rectify some of the wrongs he had done and clean up his tarnished reputation. He hoped this would prove he had some integrity and he could make his son proud.

To achieve this, he decided to approach the authorities and tell the truth about the activities of Al “Scarface” Capone. He knew that he would have to testify against The Mob, and he also realised that the cost would be great. But he testified anyway.

Within the year, Easy Eddie’s life ended in a blaze of gunfire on a lonely Chicago Street. But in his eyes, he had given his son the greatest gift he had to offer, at the greatest price he could ever pay. Police removed from his pockets a rosary, a crucifix, a religious medallion, and a poem that was cut from a magazine.

The poem read; “The clock of life is wound but once, and no man has the power to tell just when the hands will stop, at late or early hour. Now is the only time you own. Live, love, toil with a will. Place no faith in time for the clock may soon be still.”

Story Number Two

World War II produced many heroes and one such man was Lieutenant Commander Butch O’Hare. He was a fighter pilot assigned to the aircraft carrier Lexington in the South Pacific. One day his entire squadron was sent on a mission. After he was airborne, he looked at his fuel gauge and realised that someone had forgotten to top off his fuel tank.

He would not have enough fuel to complete his mission and get back to his ship, so his flight leader ordered him to return to the aircraft carrier. Reluctantly, he dropped out of formation and headed back to the fleet.

As he was returning to the mother ship, he saw something that turned his blood cold. There was a squadron of Japanese aircraft speeding toward the American-fleet.

The American fighters were gone on a sortie, so the fleet was left all but defenceless. He couldn’t reach his squadron and bring them back in time to save the fleet. Nor could he warn the fleet of the approaching danger. He decided that there was only one thing he could do, he had to somehow divert them from the fleet.

Laying aside all thoughts of personal safety, he dove straight into the formation of Japanese planes. Wing-mounted 50 calibre guns blazed as he charged, attacking one surprised enemy plane and then another. O’Hare weaved in and out of the now broken formation and fired at as many planes as possible until all his ammunition was finally spent.

With nothing to shoot with, he dived at the planes, trying to clip a wing or tail in hope of damaging as many enemy planes as possible. His plan worked and eventually, the exasperated Japanese squadron took off in another direction and a greatly relieved, Butch O’Hare and his tattered fighter limped back to the carrier.

Upon arrival, he reported in and related the events surrounding his return. The film from the gun-camera mounted on his plane told the tale. It showed the extent of Butch’s daring attempt to protect his fleet. He had in fact, destroyed five enemy aircraft.

This took place on February 20, 1942, and for that heroic action, Butch O’Hare, became the Navy’s first Ace of W.W.II, and the first Naval Aviator to win the Medal of Honour.

A year later Butch was killed in aerial combat at the age of 29. His hometown was determined not to allow the memory of this WW II hero to fade, and today, O’Hare airport in Chicago is named in tribute to the courage of this great man. So, the next time you find yourself at O’Hare International, give some thought to visiting Butch’s memorial displaying his statue and his Medal of Honour. It’s located between Terminals 1 and 2.

Now, if you’re wondering what these two stories have in common, I can tell you that Butch O’Hare was “Easy Eddie’s” son.

My wife got a smack of a ball into the eye one evening while playing a game of tennis. There was a lot of force in the shot and she didn’t get time to close her eye, so her eyeball got the full brunt of it. I got a phone call to go and collect her and the miniute I saw it, I figured she was in trouble.

Her eye was a mess and there was obviously a lot of bleeding going on from what I could see but it was what was going on behind the eye that couldn’t be seen, was more worrying.

I remember many years ago, I was part of a convoy going to Belarus with humanitarian aid following the accident at the nuclear power plant in Chernobyl. One of the truck drivers developed a problem when he jumped out of the cab of his truck.

He became unwell and was taken to hospital where he was diagnosed with a detached retina. This was serious, so he was subsequently flown home for treatment. If not promptly treated, retinal detachment can cause permanent loss of vision.

I knew from that experience that this was a medical emergency and not a time to be sitting around wondering what to do next, so we headed off to South Doc.
It was about 8pm when we got there, and it was busy. The room was full and there was a constant flow of people coming and going. There were two doctors on duty and they were working flat out.

Some of those waiting were in obvious discomfort. Others were coughing and spluttering, and some had children with them that didn’t look too well either. But all of them had one thing in common, they were all on their phones.

One mother, and what looked like her teenage daughter, were standing in the hallway and sharing an electrical socket. They were taking turns at plugging in their chargers before the phones died. A father and daughter sat side by side and were both on their phones too. They were all at it.

My wife was then sent to the Accident and Emergency Department at the CUH. When we got there, she was examined by a triage nurse very quickly and she told us that she would have to send for an eye specialist. That person had finished work for the day and would have to be summoned from home. We figured that this was going to take a bit of time, so we settled back for a wait.

Within a few miniutes, a young lady bounded into the reception area and demanded that a couple waiting there had to move seats. She was loud, stressed and she had a serious problem. She needed to be near a socket, so she could plug in her phone.

It didn’t matter to her what difficulty, tragedy or illness this couple was dealing with at that point in time. The most important concern for this lady was the life of her phone.

If that wasn’t bad enough, she then shouted into it so that everyone could hear her conversation whether they wanted to or not. And she went on and on.

I was listening to Ryan Tubridy one morning recently and he was talking about the amount of time he was spending as a slave to his phone. Constantly checking emails, Tweets and God knows what else so he decided that he was going to give it a break for a month.

He went off and bought himself a bog-standard Nokia that would allow him to make a call and receive a call and send and receive text messages. Nothing else. He admitted that in his business he needs to be tuned in to what’s happening in the world, so he would keep using all the modern technology available to him during his working hours, but his free time was going to be spent off line.

Tubbs has often expressed his irritation at the amount of abuse flying around on social media. He was tipped over the edge when a caller to his radio show highlighted how broadcaster Maura Derrane had been treated over some outfit she had worn on TV.

Some suggested that it was horrendous and looked like it was picked up off the floor. They also criticised her make-up and her general appearance.

One lady called into the Tubridy Show because she was so disturbed by the comments and she asked; “When did it become OK to do this?” And it’s a great question. It has become acceptable to say what you like on social media and that includes being rude and abusive.

Nasty people find it easier to be insulting on the Internet than they do in the real world and it’s partly because of nonsense like this that Ryan Tubridy is taking a step back from social media and changing to a basic phone.

It’s a bold decision though because they are more than just phones. They double up as satellite navigation-systems, cameras, diaries, mini computers and more.

On the one hand they are a blessing and they allow us to be in constant contact with the world. On the other hand, they are a curse for the very same reasons.

Dscout, a research firm, did a study into mobile phone use. They found that the typical mobile phone user touches his or her phone 2,617 time every day. But that’s just the average user so obviously there are some people who are way above that and extreme users touch their phones more than 5,400 times daily.

We’d all be better off if certain people didn’t touch their phones at all.

PS: My wife’s eye is fine, and it now resembles the other one again.

Organ donation has been in the news a lot recently and Organ Donor Awareness Week ended yesterday. I’ve carried an Organ Donors Card in my wallet for a good few years now. I’m not sure when it started, and I reckon there aren’t too many pieces of me that would be of any use to someone else.

My eyesight was always a little suspect, so I can’t imagine why anybody would want my eyes unless they take my glasses too. My liver has been severely tested over the years so that mightn’t make the grade either. There was a time back in the day, when my tipple of choice was neat vodka.

This came about as a result of many trips to Belarus and Western Russia in my days working with the Chernobyl Children’s Trust. In those days we made many visits to day care centres, orphanages, hospitals etc. bringing food, medical supplies or whatever to those who needed it.

One of the things they didn’t need was vodka because they made their own, and they had plenty of it. Every area had their own version of the stuff and it varied in strength from ordinary rocket fuel to grade A liquid dynamite. This grog was capable of not only altering your mind, but I suspect it could also alter your DNA.

There was one particular orphanage we used to call to and the Director there had his own special blend of vodka and he always insisted on presenting me with a plastic litre bottle of this nitro glycerine as a gift.

I had many experiences of this toxic waste previously, so I generally gave it away and avoided it altogether. I did keep one bottle though and I remember being at home one time in the lead up to Christmas and I didn’t have too much in the way of spirits in the house, so I decided to have one of these special vodkas.

I got a glass with some ice and gave myself a small measure. I was wary of it, so I topped it up generously with orange juice. I sat back in my armchair to have a read of the paper and after a few miniutes, I reached for my drink and discovered that the orange juice had curdled.

It had formed a crust on top of the drink and it looked like a scab on and old cut, so I threw it out. I gave my sister a small drop of it one night at a party in my house and even though she only had a small amount, she had great difficulty afterwards getting her tongue to form words. She became incoherent.

This brand of hooch was only fit for use in chemical warfare or for pickling corpses. It was certainly not fit for human consumption unless you happened to be from that part of the world and had been weaned on it.

But it was because of these experiences that I learned to appreciate decent vodka. Other than the homemade variety, the Russians have a wide selection of the drink and there are some fantastic blends. They also have some lovely customs when it comes to drinking it.

When sitting around a table for a meal, it is customary for every person at the table to make a toast. It doesn’t matter whether there are six or twenty-six people present, the toasts will go on. In Irish terms, the amount of vodka in each glass would be more than what you would normally get in a shot glass. A good healthy drop.

The person making the toast has the honour of deciding how it is to be drunk after the toast. So, that person can decide whether everyone should sip their drink slowly or just throw it back in one gulp. In my experience, it was invariably a case of ‘down the hatch’. Then you move on to the next person and repeat the process.

If you ever find yourself in this situation, you will figure out quickly that Russians know how to drink vodka. The Irish might consider themselves to be good drinkers, but we are only in the halfpenny place when it comes to this colourless liquid and we can’t compete with them. If you want some free advice, don’t even try.

So, I can safely say, that my liver is of probably no use to anyone else. I have a dodgy back that has caused me a lot of jip over the years, so I can’t imagine anyone queueing up to get their hands on any part of that. Knees and hips could be suspect too so all in all, there are no rich pickings on this carcass.

I didn’t let that stop me from becoming an organ donor though, because I still have a few bits and pieces that are functioning but on a more serious note, it’s something that everyone should consider.

A record number of organ transplants were carried out in Ireland last year, according to the Irish Kidney Association. 311 transplants from 150 donors were carried out in 2017, improving on the previous record of 127 organ donors in 2016.

A total of 192 kidney transplants were carried out at the National Renal Transplant Service in Beaumont Hospital, while 62 liver transplants and 5 pancreas transplants were performed at the National Liver Transplant Service at St Vincent’s University Hospital.

36 lung transplants and 16 heart transplants were performed at the National Heart and Lung Transplant Service at the Mater Hospital.

Those lucky recipients got a second chance thanks to the generosity of their donors and they are forever grateful. Helping others to survive is something we can all do by becoming organ donors.

It’s not difficult and it makes perfect sense.

There was a very critical review of Cobh penned by a travel writer last November. Paula McInerney was her name and she published her piece on contentedtraveller.com.

She was very positive about some of what she experienced on her visit, but she was less so about other aspects of her trip. There was a liner in town while she was here, and she thought the place was buzzing and colourful and had a good feel to it.

It was after the cruise ship left, when she and her companion went out to explore Cobh on their own, that things began to unravel, and she had more to say.

“In fairness, we had come from the cute, picture postcard town of Kilkenny, which was immaculate and where the pride in the city was obvious. Unfortunately, Cobh did not follow in this model.”

“The back streets were littered with glass, and graffiti, and rubbish. This was not from the cruise ship passengers, who mostly stayed down on the waterfront, or went to kiss the Blarney Stone. No, this was ‘normal’ Cobh, and it shouldn’t be that way. Cobh could be just as attractive as Kilkenny, Killarney, Dingle and other places in Ireland…if they choose this route.”

“It appeared to me that Cobh have their cruise ship passengers who see the attractive water frontage, and not the behind the scenes – the real Cobh. There were many empty shops away from the dock and there appeared to be a lot of disinterest in the town’s appearance. I felt that Cobh, with its inherently lovely qualities, needed a good kick in the butt. Remember, cruise ships are not bound to stop there. There are other places who would love this golden opportunity.”

“The Irish Naval Service headquarters is on Haulbowline Island facing Cobh, and when they are not practicing their rifle shooting which they do a lot, then maybe they could help clean up the town.”

Strong words and I get the impression that she was hoping for a more positive experience but didn’t get it. Whether we agree with her or not is irrelevant. This is the opinion of a visitor to the town and her description of what she saw.

“Cobh is the gateway to the city of Cork, Ireland. We decided to stay in Cobh, with the hope of being able to share some great content, and discover a place where there might be something very special; and Cobh could have been, but it wasn’t.”
That’s not nice to hear, but it can’t be ignored, so the question should now be, what are we going to do about it?

I have made the point in previous articles about the potential of Cork Harbour. I have also previously compared it to Sydney and as the writer rightly points out, there is no comparison apart from size. Huge investment in Sydney Harbour has turned it in to one of the leading tourist attractions in the world. It’s an amazing place.

We don’t have the weather or the financial investment of the Australians, but we have everything else except for maybe a bit of vision. But while the development of the Cork Harbour area on a grand scale is something that is out of the hands of the ordinary man on the street, the general cleanliness, maintenance and upkeep of any town is down to the local authority and the residents.

There is a national malaise when it comes to keeping our towns and cities clean.
What we lack, and this doesn’t just apply to Cobh, is community responsibility. The responsibility to ensure that we all do our bit to make our town or village a place that locals and visitors will appreciate and be proud of.

We don’t have that. It’s left to the few who rise to the challenge and get on with it while the rest just sit back and have a moan.

The writer talks about getting the navy out of their base to clean up the town. That’s a bit like asking my neighbour to come in and clean my house because I couldn’t be arsed. Passing the responsibility for cleaning our mess to somebody else is completely missing the point. The dirt in the town, any town, is put there by the community in the first place.

Tidy Towns volunteers do a fantastic job. They spend their time and energy collecting litter that has been carelessly discarded or chucked out of a car window by people who just couldn’t care less and who expect others to clean up after them.

I was walking through an estate in Cork one Saturday morning many years ago. The residents were having a bit of a clean-up and they were out in force, armed with shovels, brushes, wheelbarrows and lawnmowers. It was a nice morning and they were in good humour. As with all Corkonians, they were in form for a bit of slagging.

There was one guy standing in his doorway, leaning against the door frame. He was wearing a string vest like Alonso in ‘Keeping Up Appearances’ and smoking a cigarette. One of the lads called him by name and told him to grab a shovel and give a hand. He shouted back that they were fools to be doing the work for the Council.

Unfortunately, that’s still a common attitude. These guys are in Cobh too and they expect someone else to sort out the dirt.

The first liners of the new season have just visited Cobh and there will be more calling this year than in previous years and they will be bringing thousands of visitors to the town over the summer.

As far as some people are concerned, it doesn’t bother them that their experience will be tarnished with litter and dog crap.

There was a time when the customer mattered. When the customer was always right even when he was completely wrong. Sadly, that is no longer the case.

In the good old days, it was simply referred to as looking after the customer. Then somewhere along the way it got the fancy title of customer service and then that later changed to customer care.

But now the time has come for a spot of rebranding and I reckon that we should call it ‘customer- no-care’ or ‘couldn’t-care-less-about-the-customer-care.’

Because it seems to me that we have now arrived at a stage where the customer is at the bottom of the pile when it comes to rights. We’re expected to take what we get, no matter how bad it is, and we are supposed to be thankful for it.

It is becoming more difficult to get satisfaction from service providers. They don’t want to hear about your problem and in some cases, obstacles are deliberately put in the way of the customer to make it harder to register a complaint. It’s often impossible to find a contact address or a contact phone number and if you do find one, there’s a good chance that it won’t be answered.

It’s enough to drive you insane and that is the whole point of it. They want you to get so frustrated that you will eventually just give up and go away.

There was a guy in Cobh many years ago called Aeneas Lane and he was the owner of a hardware store. Well, it was called a hardware store but he sold pretty much everything. He was a big man and he towered over most of his customers and he was an imposing character. He wasn’t known for customer care and he had a reputation for being a bit brusque.

His bark was worse than his bite and he was a great character behind it all. He believed that if someone came into the shop they shouldn’t be allowed to leave empty handed. If they wanted to buy a hammer and it wasn’t in stock, then they should be sold a fridge instead.

You could get a bargain from him, but it was well known that you should never return anything.

I saw him one day in conversation with a woman and they were discussing a coffee table that she had bought. She was complaining that it was wobbly and she was moving it with her finger to demonstrate the point. He had enough. He picked up the table, raised it over his head and threw it the length of the shop. It hit the concrete floor and exploded into many pieces. “Now madam,” he said. “It won’t wobble anymore.”

He was a keen golfer and he would often get local lads to caddy for him when he went for a game and he would pay them a few bob. One guy told me that he was on the bag one day when Aeneas took a drive off the tee. The ball disappeared from view after Aeneas hit a terrible shot and he asked the young lad where the ball went. He had no idea either to which Aeneas replied; “What hope have I of getting around here with a bad golfer and a blind caddy?”

Despite of his tough exterior, he did a lot of good turns for people, particularly those who fell on hard times. And he didn’t talk about it either. He worked well into old age and was a well-known figure about the town and I suspect he is fondly remembered by many.

There are many others in business today who will be more easily forgotten. I contacted a company a few weeks ago to get someone to have a look at my windows. The lady took my details and told me that someone would get back to me. After a week of silence, I contacted them again. The lady told me that she had passed on my details and had done her bit. So, she gave me the mobile number of some guy and told me to ring him myself to make my own arrangements.

I had five months of torture dealing with a company over the provision of broadband and mobile phone service. The whole thing was up in a complete heap and every time I contacted them I dealt with someone new. I was blue in the face from explaining the problem and I was getting nowhere.

Out of total frustration, I contacted the Communications Regulator and they took over. Then the company appointed a specific person to handle my problem and it was resolved.

Trying to have a conversation with a human being in the bank isn’t straightforward anymore either, particularly if your local branch has ceased to exist. If you can’t manage internet banking then your life is going to be more difficult but they couldn’t care less.

Town Councils were abolished in 2014 and new sub county local government structures, in the form of Municipal Districts, were established. Trying to get a response from some of these is like trying to thread a needle with oven gloves on. You have a better chance of receiving a reply from the hereafter.

If by some miracle you do get a response to a complaint, chances are, the company won’t be very sympathetic. You’ll probably be blamed for causing the problem in the first place yourself and then you’ll be sent around in circles until you die of boredom.

In this era of ‘couldn’t-care-less-about-the-customer-care’ attitude, we are going to have to learn to look after ourselves. We need to be more assertive and fight for our rights because we are too accepting when it comes to crappy service.

I watched Jamie Carragher playing football for Liverpool down through the years. I saw him playing live at Anfield and I also saw him on the TV and I’d have to say that I always admired the way the guy went about his business.

He was a good, solid professional, extremely loyal to his club and seemed, on the face of it, to be a genuine person. I was a little surprised when I saw him joining Sky Sports as a pundit when his playing career was over because I would have considered him to be too quiet for that role.

But he took to it like a duck to water and he proved himself to be an inciteful analyst who wasn’t afraid to speak his mind and he didn’t mind upsetting people. He was a rising star in the Sky camp and you could see him settling into the role and growing in confidence every week. That was until the wheels came off.

Only Jamie Carragher can explain what he was thinking about when he reacted the way he did after being goaded by an opposing fan. In case you’re not interested in football and haven’t been following the story let me explain.

Liverpool had just been beaten by Manchester United and after the game, a Man United fan was driving home with his 14 year-old daughter, when he drove alongside Carragher who was also caught in traffic.

The United guy started shouting at Carragher and he was rubbing his nose in the fact that Liverpool lost the game. Things got out of hand and Carragher opened his window and spat at the other car. He was filmed doing it and it wasn’t a pretty sight, in fact it was disgusting.

Carragher has apologised to the family concerned and has been suspended by Sky until the end of the season. He claims that this is totally out of character for him and he wants a chance to prove that he is a better person. I’m sure that he’s not a bad guy. He made a silly mistake on the spur of the moment, but it is one that could yet cost him dearly.

But we shouldn’t be all that surprised at this incident because spitting footballers is not a new phenomenon. I watch a lot of football on TV and it seems that every time a camera closes in on a player, he’s spitting. It’s constant and they’re all at it. It’s a dirty habit and it looks disgusting, but it has become part and parcel of the modern game.

I don’t know why it is peculiar to football because it doesn’t seem to be an issue in other codes. It’s not something I have seen on a rugby field, on a tennis court, on a cricket pitch or on a golf course. There was a rumpus a few years ago when Tiger Woods was caught on camera spitting as he walked along a fairway. It’s just not done.

So, what is it about footballers? I watched the next televised football game after the Carragher incident. It was Manchester United playing Sevilla in the Champions league. I was particularly watching for spitting and I noticed that Marcus Rashford was at it every single time the camera focussed in on him. He wasn’t the only one and even one of the other players that was being substituted, spat on the ground as he was just strolling off the field.

There are other habits too that are perfectly acceptable to some people but offensive to others. For instance, there are many people who chew gum. It never did anything for me and I don’t particularly like the texture of the stuff. I have no issue with people who do use it but I can’t for the life of me figure out why so many prefer to spit it out on the footpath when they’re finished with it.

Oprah Winfrey has a hatred of gum because of the experience she had with her grandmother when she was a child. Her grandmother had habit of chewing gum and she used to stick the old gum to various pieces of furniture, so she could re-use it at a later stage.

She said she grew up in Mississippi and her family was poor, so her grandmother used to try to save it by sticking it on the bedpost or on the cabinet.

As a child, Oprah often came in contact with some of these old bits of gum and it disgusted her so much that she actually developed a phobia and she became afraid of it. It didn’t end in adulthood either and in later life when Oprah became successful, she banned gum-chewing in her offices. If she had her way, she said she would implement a world-wide ban on the stuff.

There’s another habit that is almost as bad as spitting, and that’s chucking litter out of car windows. Food wrappers and drinks containers are a regular feature along the roadside because certain people are too ignorant or too lazy to hold onto the items until they get to a waste bin.

There are other habits that don’t necessarily fall into the category of disgusting, but they can be a bit baffling and even a little annoying. I’m thinking of these guys who insist on wearing their trousers half way down their arse, showing their jocks to the world. I don’t get it, but it has its followers.

My grandmother often wondered why youngsters follow the guy who does the wrong thing instead of following the example of the good guy. She said we were always attracted to the guy who was a bad influence.

She was probably right, but the good guys can let you down sometimes too.

 

 

There are many discussions taking place currently about the sentences being handed out by the judiciary in this country. Recent cases seem to have awakened a curiosity in the general public about the criteria used by judges to assist them in reaching their decisions to award certain prison sentences.

As a retired policeman, I can tell you that there have been many occasions when I have scratched my own head while trying to figure out how some of these decisions were arrived at.

There is also some concern about the use or abuse of the free legal aid system and the cost to the tax payer for providing this service. The Minister for Justice has recently been quoted as saying that free legal aid is rigorously means tested and is only provided on merit.

I suspect that there are many who would dispute that.

The other issue of concern is the number of previous convictions that some offenders have that don’t appear to be taken into consideration when deciding the appropriate punishment. Giving offenders the opportunity to mend their ways and turn their lives around is all very well, but how far does that stretch?

If someone comes before the court having crossed a line and it can be determined that this action was out of character for the person, then certainly, that should be taken into account. Maybe that person made one mistake because of the circumstances they found themselves in at the time.

Where it can be shown that the offence in question is completely out of character for that individual and the likelihood of that person offending again is remote, then certainly the judge should be taking that on board.

But when a defendant stands before a judge with a string of previous convictions as long as his arm, then surely it should be time to consider a more serious punishment. If a criminal is hell bent on pursuing a life of crime and repeatedly comes before the court, then is it not time to suggest that maybe the guy is not going to reinvent himself?

Many defendants over the years have claimed that they had committed their offence because they were addicted to alcohol or drugs at the time. Then swear they have turned their lives around and have seen the light. They have become model citizens, apologise profoundly for the error of their ways and promise never to darken the doors of a courthouse again.

For a lot of these characters, that new leaf lasts until they leave the confines of the courthouse. As soon as they head out the door, they have a tendency to revert to type.

That happens largely because these guys just see the whole thing as a game. They pillage and plunder, play cat and mouse with the police, get caught every now and then and promise the judge they’ll be good. Then when the first opportunity presents itself, off they go again.

That is evidenced by the fact that so many of these criminals are repeat offenders with a long list of convictions. So, at what point do you say that enough is enough? Is there ever a point where these guys should get no more chances, can no longer qualify for free legal aid and get no more opportunities to offer the same old excuses?

There are certain guidelines that a judge must take into account when imposing a sentence. The overall consideration is that the sentence must be in proportion to the seriousness of the offence. In other words, it wouldn’t make sense to give someone life behind bars for stealing a bottle of wine from the local supermarket. Fair enough.

The judge must also consider potential mitigating factors such as whether there was a guilty plea. This is important too in so far as a guilty plea can save the victim from the stress of having to go through the ordeal of a trial and having to give evidence which can be daunting. It can also save a lot of money as trials can be expensive affairs.

They must also take into account whether the accused co-operated with gardaí; whether they expressed regret; whether they are a person of good character; and the personal circumstances of the accused such as age, health, family circumstances etc.

The impact of the offence on the victim must also be considered, as well as potential aggravating factors such as violent behaviour or abuse of a position of trust and if the accused has previous convictions.

It is then a delicate balancing act to try and achieve the appropriate sentence on the basis of this information.

The judge has the discretion to impose concurrent or consecutive sentences if the accused is convicted of more than one offence. A concurrent sentence will usually apply where the offences formed part of the same event or course of conduct.

While all that makes perfect sense when you see it written down on paper, the way it transfers into actual reality in a courtroom setting can often leave many of us perplexed.

For example, there are career criminals using high-powered stolen cars to travel the length and breadth of the country to break into rural farmhouses and family homes. These homes are very often occupied by older people who are now living in fear.

Habitual criminals are abusing the system because they have little fear of it. They know that even if they do get caught, the odds are still in their favour, so the risk is worth the reward.

In the meantime, the lives of the victims have been changed forever and they are afraid to go to bed. That’s not right and it’s about time that the fear was put back where it belongs, with the bad guys.

We are surrounded by advertising these days. It’s on the TV, on the radio, on our newspapers, on our phones and our laptops. It’s all around us, it’s impossible to avoid and not all of it is good.

When we’re driving, we can see it on billboards and on abandoned artic trailers propped up in farmers’ fields, positioned strategically so you can’t miss them.

If you haven’t noticed it before, then have a look the next time you’re out and about. See how many trailers you can spot languishing among the turnips, with messages stuck to the side of them. There’s no shortage of companies telling us what to wear, what to eat and where to eat it.

The trailers are in fields because it’s difficult for advertisers to get planning permission to erect advertising signs on the public roadway, but you don’t need permission to advertise from a field.

OK, so they’re not illegal, but they can be a distraction. They are designed to catch your attention at a time when you should be concentrating on the road, so there should be some form of regulation on them. I think they’re unsightly and a blight on the countryside and in many cases, they are nothing more than oversized litter.

Many of them are just rusted heaps, held together with bailing twine and sticky tape with torn posters peeling off them and I wonder if they are even an effective advertising tool?

Signage on the side of the road is regulated for a reason but you can always trust the Irish to find a way out of a legal requirement. The first thing we tend to do when we encounter a legal deterrent is to look for a loophole to beat it.

The fact that the legislation may have been created for our health and wellbeing, and possibly to save our lives, is neither here nor there. We will do our best to defeat it.

I heard a discussion on the radio about the new roadside drug testing equipment that was introduced here not so long ago. Drivers can now be tested to determine if they have drugs in their system. It stands to reason that we would all be safer on the road if people, doped up to their eyeballs on cannabis or cocaine, were not sitting behind the wheel of a car.

It’s a simple saliva test and from that they can tell the type of drug and the quantity present in the drivers’ system. The idea is to make the roads safer for all road users, which is surely a good idea. But not everyone sees it that way.

A professor explained how the machine works and he suggested that it should deter drivers from getting behind the wheel of a car if they are under the influence of drugs.

The first caller to the radio show wanted to know how many cannabis cigarettes he could smoke before he would be caught for drug driving. So, instead of looking at the benefits of this new technology, he immediately wanted to know what he could get away with.

That’s kind of missing the point but it seems to be our default position. When someone tells us that we can’t do something, it just makes us more determined to do it anyway. My father always said that the best way to make something popular in Ireland was to ban it.

When smoking was first banned in pubs in Ireland, it was met with fierce opposition. It was a health initiative designed to make the air cleaner and safer for us all to breathe so that our health would be better protected. This was something that we would all benefit from it in the long run, so you would imagine that it would have been well received. Not so, and there were plenty who didn’t like it.

They claimed it was an infringement of their human rights and they demanded the right to fill their lungs with toxic fumes. Nobody was going to prevent them from getting cancer and having yellow teeth as long as they had a breath left in their bodies. Albeit a bad one.

Anyone who wanted to interfere with their right to get sick would have to do it over their dead bodies, which was a distinct possibility.

This decision was going to spell the end of pub life in Ireland. Customers wouldn’t be able to cope if they couldn’t have a fag in one hand and a pint in the other.

But smokers were eventually forced to go outside. Initially, some tested this to the limit by standing just inside the front door with one foot or a finger outside. Smoking rooms were invented that often defied logic. Restaurants had smoking and no smoking sections even though in some cases, they were all in the same room under the one ceiling.

But eventually we settled down and grudgingly realised that this ban wasn’t such a bad thing after all. The air was cleaner, our clothes didn’t stink after a night out and the décor wasn’t stained anymore. You could eat your meal without having to search for it in a cloud of smoke coming from the guy at the next table.

So, we were happy again and we wondered what all the fuss was about in the first place. So, maybe the fact that it took us so long to come to our senses has more to do with how we sell the message than the actual content of the message itself. It could be that advertising is the real issue here and to be honest, some of it is pure rubbish.

Literally, and in many cases, it’s just sitting in a field scaring the cattle and annoying the motorists.