Trevor Laffan

Hopefully while you’re reading this, you’re sitting comfortably with a cup of coffee and not in any immediate danger of departing this world for the next. If, however, you happen to see a guy wearing a dark cloak and carrying a large scythe walking through the living room then you might want to cancel your holiday plans and forget about changing the car.

Death is one of the few certainties in life and the Grim Reaper is going to come for us all at some point. Less certain is what becomes of us after he has completed his dirty deed. Do we all meet up again in another space or is that the end of it? Well whatever the answer is I’m in no particular rush to find out.

While we might not be able to control what happens to us in another life we can certainly control how we leave this one and there are basically two options, burial or cremation.

Traditionally burial has been the standard form of interment for the majority of us in this country but in recent years, cremation has been gaining a large share of the market. When you consider that there are about thirty three thousand people dying every year then you can see how it could be a lucrative business to be involved in with no shortage of customers.

I personally have an issue with burial. I think that putting human remains, often very diseased remains, into the ground to decay is not very hygienic. Every village and town in Ireland has at least one piece of real estate set aside for use as a graveyard. These sites are full of holes containing human remains in various states of decomposition. Every now and again some of these holes are reopened to inter additional remains. That can’t be healthy for anyone living nearby.

Another difficulty I have with burial is the whole graveside scene. Standing around the newly dug grave, often in the rain and the cold is not the most dignified way to say a fond farewell to a loved one. The placing of the coffin into the ground is one of the most painful aspects of the entire funeral service. The dull thud of the coffin as it reaches its final resting place is always upsetting.

But apart from the cosmetics of the ceremony itself, there have been independent studies conducted into the condition of the soil in these places to establish if they present any health risks for the living. Apparently they do and that shouldn’t be any great surprise.

A Case Study of Zandfontein Cemetery in South Africa by Cornelia Jonker^* and Jana Olivier shows that aDepartment of Environmental Sciences, University of South Africa, P.O. Box X6, Florida 1710, South Africa; Email: az.oc.bewm@1anaj^* Author to whom correspondence should be addressed; Email: az.ca.asinu@zceknoj; Tel.: +27-12-543-0185.pproximately 60,000 coffins were buried at that cemetery in Pretoria, South Africa. The study was aimed at determining whether this burial load affected the mineral composition of the cemetery soils, thereby causing a potential health risk. The results indicated that burial loads have a direct impact on soil-mineral content and that cemeteries can be regarded as sources of contamination.

They recommended that similar studies should be conducted at other cemeteries to establish whether they should be considered to be similar to, or even more hazardous than landfill sites.

Another case study in Portugal examined groundwater contamination in cemeteries and concluded that cemeteries may contribute to groundwater contamination. Site-specific risk assessments should be conducted to protect the groundwater and provide a normal process of body decomposition.

Cremation on the other hand appears to be a cleaner method of disposing of human remains. The service takes place indoors and at the end of the ceremony the coffin simply disappears behind a curtain. The remains are reduced to ash with extreme heat and then at a later stage the family are presented with a neat little box containing the ashes of their loved one.

The idea that we should still be putting bodies into the soil seems a little strange to me when you consider the regulations that exist in relation to septic tanks which appear, on the face of it, to present a far less serious health risk.

Septic tanks were a regular feature on our landscape for many years but if you try to put one on your property these days you will be made to jump through many hoops by the planning authority. The disposal of domestic human waste is a serious business. There was a time when you could get your friendly farmer to empty the septic tank and he would then spray his field with the contents to give the earth some nutrients. Good for the crops they said.

Nowadays there are volumes of regulations in place in relation to septic tanks to ensure that you don’t contaminate the water table and poison your neighbours. The waste must be almost edible before you can discharge it into the ground and it must smell of rose petals. That’s as it should be but maybe we should be giving burials the same consideration.

In ancient India, elderly people who were close to death would often chose to have themselves rowed out into the middle of the Ganges River and then they would throw themselves into the sacred water and disappear in the flood. Forever.

Now I’ve been giving this some thought. If we were to chuck all our grannies into the River Lee we could definitely reduce the number of graves. It might clog up the shipping lanes in the lower harbour and it would probably create some issues for the local fishermen. It’s early days and this idea needs some more work but apart from that I think I’m on to something.

Driving back from Dublin recently I decided to stop off for a cup of coffee so when I saw a sign for services I decided to take that exit. I didn’t study the sign, just more or less glanced at it. I expected to find the service area just off the motorway but maybe that was expecting too much.

I was driving along a poor road for a bit until I eventually found myself in Cashel. I poked around there until I spotted a restaurant. The restaurant was fine and I have no problem with either the food or the service. My issue is that I didn’t want to be in Cashel. If I had wanted to visit the place, I would have planned for it.

I don’t think it’s unreasonable to expect the service area to be adjacent to the motorway. Neither do motorists wishing to take a quick break expect to exit the motorway and spend the rest of the day negotiating traffic in a congested town while trying to find a place to park and get something to eat.

As it happens, I wasn’t in a rush that day but if I had been on a tight schedule and just wanted a quick fuel stop I would have been furious. As it was I could happily have dug up that sign, cut it into small pieces and chucked it into the office of the Taoiseach of Cashel or whoever is responsible for putting it there.

I was angry with the community too. It was like being in an old Hitchcock movie and this was all part of a huge conspiracy. The locals had deliberately tricked me into making this detour into their small town. They were peeping out through the curtains and they were laughing at me behind closed doors. They knew the strange secret of this town and I would be lucky to get out alive. Many had made this journey before me and were never heard of again. I could hear the scary music in my ears.

Of course that’s not true. But it is true to say it’s extremely irritating to be taken on an unnecessary detour. I would imagine that I’m not the only one to have made this road trip.

I understand that certain towns have suffered because of the introduction of the motorway system and I can see why they want to attract visitors and generate some income. On the other hand all of our European visitors are well used to motorway driving and they would not expect to make an overnight hike just to find the services.

There is a serious lack of service areas on the Cork to Dublin route which seems to be down to a number of issues. Things like planning applications, objections, appeals, more objections, more appeals, lack of funding and probably a boat load of red tape.

The planners have to consider a number of things when it comes to the granting of permission for a service area. They have to make sure that there is a need for one, that it won’t adversely affect the environment, that it won’t undermine the core business in the locality and that it won’t constitute a hazard to traffic.

That’s fair enough. Everything has to be done properly and to a specific standard and that’s how it should be. I’m a believer in health and safety and all that. Those who construct motorway service areas understand this too so it shouldn’t be a major problem. But this is Ireland so everything takes an eternity and there are always problems. If problems don’t exist, then we create some.

At the end of the day what most people want to do is to exit the motorway, use a bathroom, grab a coffee and a sandwich or whatever and be on the road again. The design of motorway service areas caters for that need. It’s a simple formula that creates a slip road into the area, provides parking and services within the area, and creates another slip road to get back out onto the motorway again.

They are in operation all over the world and they seem to work very well. You don’t hear too many stories of mayhem and chaos in service areas. You don’t hear of cars and trucks colliding and causing total carnage and it doesn’t take a fleet of traffic cops to organise parking. You don’t need to do a course on how to enter and exit a motorway service area. It all runs fairly smoothly and there’s no big mystery to it.

The planners/developers have to make sure they don’t create a traffic hazard but by not getting on with the construction of these things they are continuing to endorse an already existing hazard. Motorists at the moment are pulling in where they shouldn’t, while trying to find gates and hedges that they can duck behind to use as an outdoor loo.

You regularly see parents of young children struggling to balance the child precariously on the side of the road, trying to avoid disaster as the poor child has its bum exposed to the wind and rain and risking hypothermia for the want of a pee.

There are drivers fighting tiredness for the lack of a coffee or the want of a place to pull in to throw the seat back for half an hours sleep. These are the real hazards.

So please, just get on with it and build the damn things before we start using time travel and we will no longer need them.

 

 

 

It has now become very possible for us to go through life without having to engage with another human being. We have technology that allows us to survive without ever having to speak to anyone ever again. All you need is an internet connection and a smart phone or a tablet and a desire to be a little anti-social.

With online banking you can pay for your mortgage or rent and your utilities with the click of a button. You can shop at your local store online and have your groceries delivered to your front door. You can pay your motor tax and insurance online. If you decide you need a break you can book a flight online, print off your boarding pass and if you want to buy something for the flight you can use the self- service checkout facility in most airports. You can do all this without having to speak a word to another living soul.

You can drive where you like without asking for directions because now you just put your destination in the satellite navigation system and follow the lady’s instructions.

This is great news for those who have a desire to live as a recluse but, like everything else in life, it’s not always straightforward. Sometimes the machinery can let you down and it becomes necessary to speak to a person, but then sometimes they can be a little broken too.

I had time to spare recently and I decided to renew my car insurance. So I went to the car and took out the insurance disc to get the details, got my credit card ready and I was all set to go.

The name of the insurance company was on the disc. So I called them and after selecting twenty different options I eventually got to speak to a human person type. She was a nice, friendly lady.

I told her my insurance was due for renewal and gave her my policy number. She then told me I wasn’t insured with them and that I must have gone through a broker. I assured her that I had an insurance disc in my hand that had her company name written on it and I was pretty certain that I hadn’t used a broker for over forty years.

She advised me that I was insured with another company who had apparently taken over some of their business. Ok, but while I was on the phone with this lady I thought it would be worthwhile to get a quote. But there was a problem. Even though I had been a customer of this company for many years they couldn’t quote me for a renewal but they could give me a quote for a new policy as a new customer.

So for the sake of it I decided to get a new quote. The nice lady asked all the usual questions but the computer was crashing on her because it kept sending her back to the old Trevor instead of the new Trevor that old Trevor had to become in order to get a new quote. We eventually arrived at a figure but then she advised me that I could get it cheaper if I did it online myself. I thanked the nice lady and hung up feeling a little bewildered.

Next I went to the company that I was now apparently insured with. I went through the same ritual with another nice lady and eventually arrived at another price. I thought that this was a bit excessive and she informed me that all the premiums had increased thanks to our nice Government people. I told her that it was too dear and that I was going to try elsewhere and the nice lady immediately reduced the price by fifty Euros. I paid that because I had spent enough time on the phone and I was losing the will to live.

After a short rest I decided to pay the Road Tax. I got on to the website and entered my PIN. I went through the various pages of data and got to the point where I entered my credit card details and suddenly all these red letters appeared on my screen. I had entered some incorrect information so the machine told me to try again. I did what I was told with the same result. Then the machine told me that it was cancelling my effort and that I would have to wait to try again because I had exhausted my time.

Well they were right about that. I had exhausted myself and apparently the machinery as well. So I just closed the lid of the lap top and put it away gently with the intention of trying again the next day. I’m actually quite proud of myself because those nice people in the insurance companies and the motor tax office have no idea how close I was to putting the lap top into the car and sending the car into the river.

There is no doubt that technology can definitely improve our quality of life but it’s far from perfect. Tesco and Morrison’s in the UK introduced the self-service checkout system but found customers felt that the voice on the machine was too aggressive and sounded as if it was shouting at them. To overcome this problem they had to make new recordings with a friendlier voice.

So, let me offer a word of caution to any of you considering the life of a recluse. Keep some human lines of communication open because sometimes they’re easier to get along with.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

In Ireland we only started naming our storms recently but already we’ve had Abigail, Desmond, Eva, Frank, Gertrude, Imogen and the most recent one was Jake, I think. I’m probably missing a few but at this rate it looks as if we’re going to need a longer alphabet. We also have a colour coded tag for the severity of the wind, yellow, orange and red just in case it feels left out.

Whatever about the name or the colour, they all have one thing in common. They upset us and we don’t like that. Strong winds, heavy rain, flooding, fallen trees and wires, loss of electricity and pot holes. They cause inconvenience to our travel plans with flights being delayed or cancelled and disruption to ferries and trains and it is all very irritating.

And after every storm we get a crop of fresh pot holes, nice big ones that could eat your wheel or sometimes your entire car. We complain long and hard about these and eventually, after a few years, the council workers come along with their trucks and their shovels. They fill the craters with tar and beat the piles into submission with the back of the shovel. If necessary they drive over the humps of tar to make them nice and neat and all is well again.

That is until the next storm comes and washes all the tar out of the holes and we find ourselves back at square one.

There is so much rain falling here that we are all in danger of drowning. If countries could shrink, Ireland we would be no bigger than Blackpool Shopping Centre at this stage. We can’t drain the land because we’re a tiny little island sitting on a large body of water. We can only divert water and move the problem from one area to the next. It’s kind of like playing pass the parcel with water.

Then when the land is so wet that it can’t possibly take any more water, we open the dams to relieve the pressure and we wet it some more. When we have submerged another few villages we toddle off to the insurance companies to get some money to fix the damage but they won’t cover it because we’re prone to flooding. So it’s a vicious circle and Mother Nature is in charge.

The US Department of State is used to this kind of weather and it does offer advice for its citizens who are thinking of travelling to storm-prone regions. “Those who choose to travel should devise an emergency plan in advance of their departure.  Even inland areas far from the coastline can experience destructive winds, tornadoes, mudslides, and floods from tropical storms”.

While, hopefully, we won’t reach those levels of destruction here, maybe it’s time the State Department added Ireland to its list of dangerous destinations. They would also need to add a little paragraph about potholes for the information of those travellers thinking of hiring a car when they arrive.

They would have to include a survival manual for those unfortunate enough to encounter one and they could recommend carrying a step ladder and some climbing ropes. They could also have some photographs of the more regular potholes that reappear after each storm. Maybe we should even start naming them too.

In America they can say with some certainty that the hurricane season runs from the beginning of June to the end of November.  Typhoon season typically runs from April to December, and cyclone season runs from November to April.

We can be less accurate here but we can definitely say that our storms are likely to happen between January first and December thirty first. On the positive side, apart from a few freak cold snaps, snow is scarce.

So, seeing that the weather is so unpredictable, what advice should we give to our visitors then?

According to Discover Ireland,” there’s no such thing as a perfect time to visit Ireland. The summer months are considered high season for visitors and they come for the long sunny evenings, parks in full bloom and eating al fresco in cafés. And of course they come for the summer festivals”.

“Autumn and spring are mid-seasons for travellers who enjoy kicking bronze-burnished leaves about in autumn, while spring sees nature kick into gear and flowers blossom. As for winter, a walk through a national park on a clear, crisp winter’s day can mean seeing nature at its most impressive”.

Kicking bronze-burnished leaves about in autumn sounds idyllic and creates a lovely image of harmless fun and carefree abandon. But there’s no mention of the fact that this would be likely to get you showered in dog poop.

They also have some advice about what clothing our tourists should bring with them. “You’ll need to be adaptable so go for layers that you can put on or take off as the temperature changes. Bring a sweater, even in summer, waterproofs to accompany all outdoor activities, sunglasses, comfortable walking shoes and an umbrella and when the sun shines in Ireland it’s quite strong, so wear a high factor and bring a sun hat”.

And don’t forget the kitchen sink!

While the general impression is that it rains quite a lot of the time in Ireland, Met Eireann says,” the average number of wet days ranges from about 150 days a year along the east and south east coasts, to about 225 days a year in parts of the west”.

The rest of the time it’s just damp.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Many years ago I was walking through Blarney village with a then colleague of mine, Dan Ahern. We met this older guy that Dan knew and stopped for a chat. It turned out he was a lifelong GAA character and as far as I can remember he had some involvement with the Cork County Board. He was what I would refer to as a ‘die hard’ GAA man.

The two of them discussed football for a bit when he suddenly asked me about my involvement with sport. Dan advised him that I knew absolutely nothing about Gaelic football or hurling and that tennis was my sport of choice.

At that point he looked at me as if I had just cursed him and his entire family with the plague. His voice went up a couple of octaves. He was spitting fury and he said “Tennis, tennis? Hurling is a man’s game played by men. There’s no strawberries and cream in Croke Park”. There were a few expletives in there as well.

I had no idea what sparked that outrage because I hadn’t actually spoken a word to the guy.

I never had an interest in GAA, particularly the football side of it. Hurling is something I can watch occasionally but the football just drives me nuts. The rules, or lack of them, are hard to figure out. The number of steps you can carry the ball in the hand seems to change by the miniute. What constitutes a fair challenge by one player can be determined to be a foul immediately after. It’s the inconsistency that bothers me.

I have great respect for the guys that play the game and their level of fitness and professionalism but as a spectacle it doesn’t float my boat. I think that maybe it is a game better played than watched. Tony Davis, a friend and ex colleague of mine, used to refer to me as a Philistine. Maybe he was right.

It is important though, to recognise the important role that the G.A.A. has played and continues to play in Irish society. It has a huge network of clubs spread across the land and is involved in the life of every village and town in the country in some shape or form. It is an amazing statistic that over 40 per cent of all sports volunteers in Ireland are involved with the G.A.A.

A high percentage of women volunteers are also involved, not only with camogie and ladies football, but also in the core operation. The G.A.A. has developed an impressive network of grounds and club facilities and over 60 per cent of the total attendance at sports fixtures in Ireland is accounted for at G.A.A. games. These are impressive statistics and they just go to prove that the G.A.A. as an organisation, is a well-oiled machine.

In the GAA’s own manual for clubs, the Association itself states that: “The GAA Club is the bedrock of every Irish community and provides an organised structure from which great community spirit is generated.” It’s difficult to argue with that statement. The GAA is always a talking point for Irish people and everyone has their own opinion on the style of their team, the players and the management.

We shouldn’t underestimate the role that the GAA has also played in keeping youngsters on the straight and narrow either. It is well established that young people that are involved in sporting activities are less likely to find themselves getting into trouble. The discipline and training required to perform at a certain level in sport gives youngsters a great foundation for life.

I have to agree with my old friend from Blarney that hurling is definitely a man’s game played by men.

I once heard a Scottish friend of mine who was trying to explain hurling to a Hungarian friend of ours. He described it as being like ‘shinty with attitude’. Shinty is a cross between hockey and lacrosse and is a fast paced game where the ball spends a lot of time in the air. My Hungarian friend was a little confused.

Now, I’m not Hungarian but I may as well be when it comes to trying to understand the difference between a legal tackle in Gaelic football and an illegal one. The legal tackle seems to be open to interpretation.

The Rules of Fair Play state that a player can’t trip, punch, kick or grab an opponent, strike them with arm, elbow, hand or knee and it is completely forbidden, under punishment of a yellow card, to actually wrestle the ball from an opponent’s grip.

From what I have seen though, if those rules were to be strictly adhered to, then the most competitive part of the game would be the coin toss.

There are those who argue that interference with the rules of the game is unhelpful and ruining it as a spectacle. But I would suggest that the rules as they are at present are also spoiling it. It could also be argued that more spectators might be attracted to the game if they could understand what was actually going on. So it would seem that there is a definite issue to be resolved.

For the time being though, it is unlikely that I will be convinced to buy my first ever ticket for Croke Park any time soon. I could, at a push, be persuaded to go to a game of hurling but definitely not to a game of football. Now, if Roger Federer was playing and the G.A.A. was to introduce strawberries and cream then that would be a different story.

 

 

Ireland, it was said recently, is a great little country to do business in. It’s also a nice little country to live in as long as you are not concerned about the weather or obsessed with getting the washing dry. While we do have our share of odd balls and strange characters, we are, by and large relatively civilized. We generally tend to live and let live and we’re quick to give a helping hand to a neighbour when the need arises.

Now, you might think that this is the case everywhere else in the world but you would be wrong. There are certain people among us who seem hell bent on making life as difficult as possible for everybody else. I came across two such groups recently and their stupidity has left me completely bewildered.

The first one is called, ‘Return of Kings’. Its main man calls himself Roosh Vorek and he’s about thirty six years old and he has been widely criticized for allegedly promoting the legalisation of rape. Apparently he believes that rape should not be a problem if it takes place on private property but he has since stated that was a misinterpretation of what he actually said.

His website has some odd notions and he was, until recently, trying to spread the word of Roosh through a series of meetings across Europe. One of the proposed locations was Naas, Co. Kildare but there was so much outrage that he cancelled all the meetings. He feared for the safety of his people. He shares his ideas on how to seduce women while he promotes a male dominated world. Women, he believes, should be confined to the kitchen. As you can see, our Roosh is a real charmer.

According to his website, ‘men who live in modern Western liberal democracies under the influence of third wave feminism have a distorted view of reality’. But don’t worry about your distorted view because he goes on to say, ’Thanks to ROK and the neo-masculinity movement, we can share truths and observations about women, self, and society, waking up disillusioned men more rapidly and in greater numbers’. So at least salvation is at hand.

Or is it? Before you start to relax let’s take a look at the second group, The Ku Klux Klan. I saw a member of this outfit giving an interview recently and it was quite bizarre. Even though he wasn’t wearing his bed sheets or a pointy hat he still came across as a complete idiot. He was suggesting that Auschwitz and Birkenau concentration camps were very accommodating and had swimming pools and saunas and that the naughty Jews had made up the stories of the Holocaust. He said it never happened. The sad thing is that he really seemed to believe it.

Well, I visited both of these camps a few years ago and while I saw lots of unpleasant things I would have to say that I didn’t see the remains of any swimming pools. In fact, I didn’t see anything that vaguely resembled a recreation area but then maybe these naughty Jews had hidden all the evidence.

According to the Ku Klux Klan, The Knights Party USA, website, ‘the Christian way of love and law and order and love of family and nation is the way forward’. I find it a little difficult to equate the KKK with any form of Christianity given their history of hatred and violence. Their attitude towards black people, immigrants, gays, lesbians and Jews is well documented. They’re also fond of awarding themselves fancy but ridiculous titles like Imperial Wizard and Exalted Cyclops which to me conjures up an image of some nutter with an eye in the middle of his forehead.

But they are far from being comical characters and at one time they must have frightened the life and soul out of many decent people. They are famed for their lynchings and for tarring and feathering their victims and for using extreme violence. The sight of a large group of masked men on horseback carrying burning crosses must have been fairly intimidating back in the day and it would appear that they are still around.

So what do we do about them? Well as far as the Return of Kings is concerned, the best way to deal with them is to forget you ever heard the name. They are guys with serious issues hiding their identities behind a computer screen. I’m not sure how far they believe they can really progress with this nonsense but the best way to defeat them is to reduce the number of hits to their website to a dribble. Ignoring the muppets is the best way to achieve that.

As for the Ku Klux Klan, well they’re a different story. They have been in existence since the mid eighteen hundreds and they still have a certain following. Even though their numbers have decreased dramatically since the sixties there will always be a certain element of American society who will follow their cause but it would seem that they are a dying breed.

So while we occasionally complain about the weather in our little corner of the world, we should look at the positives. We will never have the Ku Klux Klan in Ireland and I’ll tell you why. They wouldn’t be able to keep their torches burning in the rain. And as well as that, as every Irish mammy knows, there’s no drying out there for those sheets. So unless the KKK are prepared to go marauding in the nip carrying soggy torches it’s unlikely we’ll ever see them over here.

 

 

St. Patricks Day is nearly upon us and it’s a day that is celebrated by Irish people across the globe. It’s an opportunity for those would be Irish and wannabe Irish to wear green and become citizens of the auld sod if only for twenty four hours. It’s a public holiday, a day off work and a time to stick a bit of green weed on your lapel and have ‘the craic’.

Paddy’s Day has become an internationally known festival, celebrating Irish culture and tradition with parades, music and sing- songs. It’s a day for dressing up in silly costumes and ridiculous hats. It’s also a day where it is almost compulsory to drink alcohol to extremes and drunkenness is not only tolerated but is encouraged.

For many, this celebration is an opportunity to meet the mates, stay out till all hours and have ‘the craic’. We can justify all types of behaviour in the name of ‘the craic’.

The pubs will be bursting at the seams and there will be no shortage of soggy floors wet from spilled drinks and over flowing urinals and occasional vomit. This will extend to the streets as the night wears on. Some will pass out and miss the worst of it and for most, the hangover the following morning will be the painful reminder of a great night had by all.

But not everyone sees the funny side of ‘the craic’. While many see the reputation of the drunken Irish as a badge of honour there are also many who are embarrassed by it.

There was a recent report in The Irish Mirror of an incident that took place on a Jetstar flight at Melbourne Airport just before takeoff. A group of “drunk and unruly” passengers were booted off the flight and it’s believed they were from Irish hurling and football teams. There was an 80 minute delay as the unruly passengers, as well as some of their pals, were marched off the plane.

You don’t have to travel to Oz to experience this type of behaviour. Any weekend in Cork City in the early hours of a Saturday or Sunday morning you will find large numbers of people gathered around Washington Street / Grand Parade after coming out of the pubs and clubs. Drunkenness is the common denominator and it’s not unusual to see incidents of disorder, including fights and assaults, taking place among the revelers waiting at fast food outlets and taxi ranks. All in the name of ‘the craic’.

RAG Week is another occasion when party goers wreak havoc on areas of the city. There is an abundance of media reports recording tales of drunken students causing mayhem and behaving with total disregard for residents. Students justify their behaviour because they are young and entitled to have a good time or because they are raising money for charity.

So why are we so out of step with the rest of the world when it comes to the consumption of alcohol? One theory I’ve heard is that Ireland has never had a café culture because our climate doesn’t lend itself to sitting outdoors as it does in other countries. So we meet indoors in the pub where it’s dry and warm and this encourages us to drink alcohol.

This is a pretty lame argument. While the weather might force us indoors a lot of the time it can hardly take the blame for our excessive drinking. When we visit other countries, the first thing many of us look for is the Irish Bar and then we proceed to behave the same way in thirty degrees of heat as we do at home.

Binge drinking and gulping shots also plays a part. This is a relatively recent phenomenon in our culture but it has established itself as the current fashion, particularly among the young. The idea seems to be to get as much alcohol into the system as quickly as possible. The fact that this often leads to oblivion and unconsciousness long before ‘the craic’ even starts seems not to matter.

A few years ago I went to Lviv in the Ukraine not too far from Kiev. This is a university city with a population of approximately of seven hundred thousand people and no shortage of young students. I stayed in a hotel with a room overlooking the large main square surrounded by wide streets which is fairly typical in that part of the world.

The square was peppered with restaurants, bars, hotels and cafes, many of them open until the early hours. In the evening time they were populated with young people, full of couples and small groups eating, drinking beers or coffees, some having ice cream but all socialising in a civilised manner.

The amazing thing about it was that while I had anticipated that the square was going to become the centre of chaos as the night wore on, the opposite was the case. I didn’t see or hear any signs of drunkenness or loud, boisterous behaviour. Everyone went home quietly and the only sound I heard at night was the occasional beeping horn of taxi cabs as they saluted each other in passing.

So it would appear that it’s not necessary to submit to an alcohol induced coma in order to have a good time. It is possible to socialise in a civilised fashion without soiling your clothing in urine and vomit. It is possible to have a laugh without making enough noise to be heard by everyone within a ten mile radius and you don’t have to beat someone to a pulp in order to rate the night as a success.

Becoming a complete mess is not a necessary requirement for having ‘the craic’…at least, not in some countries.

 

 

This photograph appeared in the Sunday Independent recently and the image continues to bother me. The child second from the left, in the blue jacket, is looking straight at the camera. He’s squatting down with his hands in his pockets and he has the face of someone older who has seen too much. It’s like a look of acceptance but they are just toddlers.

I find it difficult to get my head around the rights and wrongs of what is essentially a very confusing and complicated civil war in Syria.

It seems that Russian and Syrian government forces are fighting to take the city of Aleppo back from the rebels and the fighting there has caused thousands to make their way to the Turkish border to seek refuge.

You have the Syrian army, backed by Russian and Iranian-supported militias including Hezbollah and you have Isil militants who control eastern Syria. You have other rebels too and I’m not sure who else is involved.

Turkey is under pressure from the large number of refugees and has closed the border but will admit others in a controlled fashion.

The UN does what the UN does best and makes strong protests. It has expressed concern that access and supply routes are now cut off. It has asked Turkey to open the border and has called on other countries to help Turkey with aid.

German Chancellor Angela Merkel accused Russia of bombing civilians and Russia said it didn’t.

It is a complete mess but in the meantime, you have God knows how many children, like those in the photograph above, living in fear and confusion when they should be at home playing with their toys and their friends. They should be laughing and having fun without a care in the world. They should be in the comfort of their own homes surrounded by their families and not out in the elements hiding under trucks like frightened rabbits.

 

One evening during the summer I was sitting in a bar having a drink when four young people, two couples, came in and sat at a table and ordered some drinks. When I looked at them again I noticed that each one of them was on his or her mobile phone. I assumed that maybe they just wanted to have a quick check in to see if they had any messages or missed calls or whatever. Twenty miniutes later they were still at it.

This got me wondering what they were doing in a pub. Why didn’t they just stay at home and surf the net in the comfort of their own couch? Why meet up with another couple to sit in a bar and ignore each other? Of course they are perfectly entitled to do that and you’re right, it is absolutely none of my business.

On another occasion, I saw three young girls walking towards me on Patrick Street and each one was staring at their phone and tapping away merrily. There was no chat between them that I could see, unless they were texting or messaging each other, but maybe this is the way young people communicate with each other now.

It would appear that instant contact and access to communication and social media is as vital as oxygen for many youngsters. The idea of leaving home without their mobile is worse than leaving the house naked. A low battery is enough to bring on a panic attack and severe sweating. No internet connection is just the last straw and is probably worse than contracting a rare terminal illness. There seems to be a dread that they will miss some life changing event if they switch off for a miniute.

These kids are lucky they weren’t born a few years earlier. It is only a relatively short time since this technology became part and parcel of our social fabric. But life went on before the mobile phone and we all coped very well.

I can remember as a youngster having a big hulk of a phone on the wall in our kitchen. If it was still in use today you wouldn’t be allowed near it without a hard hat and a high vis vest because it could crush you to death if it ever fell down. We were the only house in the terrace to have one because my grandmother, who lived with us, was a midwife and had to be contactable.

This was probably in the mid-sixties and I can remember being sent out to fetch people to take a call from some far flung relative. It wasn’t unusual for someone to be carrying on a full telephone conversation next to us while we ate our dinner. Neither was it unusual for someone to come knocking on the door looking to use the phone, usually at dinner time.

I can remember sometimes my father would have a rant about the the bill if there had been a run on the phone for that period. He often threatened to pull it off the wall but he never did, probably because he would have needed a large amount of explosives. He did come up with a solution at one stage though when he bought a little metal savings box with a slot in the top of it for coins.

The idea was that whoever was using the phone would put the correct change for the call in the box. Alas this was not to be and it only proved to be a useful toy and a source of distraction. Callers would fiddle with it while they were on the phone, tapping it like a drum or pushing it around like a kid playing with a toy boat but it remained empty.

Fast forward then to the eighties, when the house phone became a standard piece of equipment in every house. It always sat in the hall for some reason but those who fancied themselves had extensions in the bedroom and the sitting room.

Where there was a phone there was also a note pad and a biro because everyone took messages. There was no such thing as voicemail. Invariably when you needed to take a message, you would discover that someone had taken the pen. This would lead to a frantic search for something to write with while at the same time trying to avoid either strangling yourself with the chord or pulling the whole thing onto the floor.

That was only thirty years ago but so much has changed in that time. The phone has now become an extension of the hand. Instant contact has made the world a smaller place and there is no information that can’t be accessed within seconds. Nobody has patience anymore. It seems that we have all become slaves to this technology and maybe we are losing out in some ways.

Many people are living their lives out on social media by constantly sending messages on the current state of their health, sharing photos of their breakfast or posting images of the cat licking its paws. They share good news, bad news and news of no interest to anybody but themselves.

So maybe that’s the reason that certain people spend all their time looking at their phones. It’s because when they do get together for a catch up they have nothing left to say to each other.

 

 

 

It seems that a group of doctors got together and decided that physical contact in rugby should be eliminated due to the fact that young people will suffer later in life from the injuries they receive. While this might seem a bit extreme there are serious concerns being raised about the nature of some of these collisions and the impact they have on the body. In particular, concussion is causing concern among those involved in the sport and despite the precautions that have been put in place to protect the players, there is still a worry about the long term implications to the players’ health.

While there is a serious side to the story, there is also something a bit silly about trying to avoid contact in a contact sport. To do that means changing the nature of the game or doing away with it entirely. Playing rugby without being able to tackle is a bit like playing hurling without a stick. So if this is the way forward then let’s look at some of the likely implications.

For the 2020 Olympic Games we could see the javelin competition being held without the javelin just to avoid anyone getting speared. So you could have the thrower going through the motions and pretending to throw and the guys marking would have to estimate where they thought the thing was likely to land and mark that spot.

The guys in the rowing competitions would have to do without their oars because those things could give someone a nasty bang on the head. So the idea is that the rowers would sit in their little boats and hold on to the sides and just float with the current. First one over the line wins.

The Marathon would also have to go I’m afraid because running on the public road is just too dangerous so all the runners would have to use tread mills within the confines of the Olympic Stadium. This would be much safer for everyone.

Boxing, fencing and gymnastics need to be addressed to but I’m working on it.