Sunday, January 29, 2012
Saturday, January 21, 2012
Emigration
All together now - emigration is bad, no good can ever come of emigration, everything about emigration is dreadful and detrimental. This is the narrative that our media have decided upon on our behalf. Any questioning of this definitive incontestable truth will be viewed in a very dim light.
It has been decided for us that we are not interested in hearing about the possible positive aspects of emigration. The enhancing of life experience, the broadening of cultural reference points, the opportunities to travel. It has been decided that our citizens would be diminished beyond repair by exposure to any cultural stimuli outside Celebrity Banisteoir, Operation Transformation or Don’t Tell the Bride.
You remember a few years ago when we were strutting around the place telling each other how much we loved tofu and Balinese hot stone therapy? Well all the positives from that era about having a global perspective have morphed into negatives. Now to express a fondness for anything beyond gazing into a slurry pit in Drumshanbo or watching Killinaskully on a loop is to commit high treason. Michael Noonan just found this out.
There was a picture of a woman on the paper yesterday with a mournful look holding aloft a photo of her son and daughter. At first glance I assumed it was some horrific fatal traffic accident but it turns out the kids have just moved to New York. You know the New York where we could all go for weekend frock buying trips there a few years ago. It’s an evil fuckin’ place altogether now evidently. It’s got nothing to offer, you’ll never be seen again and you’ll lose track of what’s happening on Fair City. Óchón, óchón.
It has been decided for us that we are not interested in hearing about the possible positive aspects of emigration. The enhancing of life experience, the broadening of cultural reference points, the opportunities to travel. It has been decided that our citizens would be diminished beyond repair by exposure to any cultural stimuli outside Celebrity Banisteoir, Operation Transformation or Don’t Tell the Bride.
You remember a few years ago when we were strutting around the place telling each other how much we loved tofu and Balinese hot stone therapy? Well all the positives from that era about having a global perspective have morphed into negatives. Now to express a fondness for anything beyond gazing into a slurry pit in Drumshanbo or watching Killinaskully on a loop is to commit high treason. Michael Noonan just found this out.
There was a picture of a woman on the paper yesterday with a mournful look holding aloft a photo of her son and daughter. At first glance I assumed it was some horrific fatal traffic accident but it turns out the kids have just moved to New York. You know the New York where we could all go for weekend frock buying trips there a few years ago. It’s an evil fuckin’ place altogether now evidently. It’s got nothing to offer, you’ll never be seen again and you’ll lose track of what’s happening on Fair City. Óchón, óchón.
Tuesday, January 17, 2012
January 17th. Later.
It's hard to keep pace with ye olde technology. We decry it as passive communication, as moving us all to a cold, clinical place but we actually can't get enough. We send an e mail rather than make a phone call whenever there’s the option. We embrace any facility whereby we can avoid spontaneous conversation.
These things take hold because there is a massive appetite for them. If nobody wanted to communicate like this all these innovations would just fade away. Think of the three page text that took ten minutes to compose you invariably got recently when a fifteen second call would have got the same job done.
Despite what they might say people will go to extraordinary lengths to avoid talking to people with whom they are not closely acquainted. Friendship, like oil, has reached peak levels. Awkwardness and social ineptitude is where it's at. Just how the geeks who run everything now like it. Never let it be said.
These things take hold because there is a massive appetite for them. If nobody wanted to communicate like this all these innovations would just fade away. Think of the three page text that took ten minutes to compose you invariably got recently when a fifteen second call would have got the same job done.
Despite what they might say people will go to extraordinary lengths to avoid talking to people with whom they are not closely acquainted. Friendship, like oil, has reached peak levels. Awkwardness and social ineptitude is where it's at. Just how the geeks who run everything now like it. Never let it be said.
January 17th 2012
On the radio this morning Simon Coveney said that “last year more than sixteen people were arrested for fuel laundering”. What did Simon Coveney mean by this? Did he mean that seventeen people were arrested or did he mean twelve thousand four hundred and forty two? Or perhaps eighty seven, or six hundred and twelve or one hundred and eleven thousand two hundred and three.
It is not clear. And I thought Simon Coveney was all about transparency.
It is not clear. And I thought Simon Coveney was all about transparency.
Friday, January 13, 2012
January 13th. Friday Incidentally.
Iceland is effortlessly cool. Bjork is from there. Sigur Rós are from there. The accent is beautiful. The landscape is beautiful. The people are beautiful. Their style is unique. The documentary Heiml on Sky Arts last night featured Sigur Rós’ homecoming tour of 2006 and is the most effective promotion of a place I have ever seen. Is there an Irish band that could make an equivalent programme, are there settings as inspiring in this country, are we as cool as the Icelanders? We think we are.
I’ve never been to Iceland but I know now that it’s the greatest place on earth.
I’ve never been to Iceland but I know now that it’s the greatest place on earth.
Tuesday, January 10, 2012
Later, January 10th 2012
Technology is great. Progress is great. The super duper turbo on my car has shit the bed and is in the process of generating an eight hundred euro repair bill for me over at the mechanic’s. I have a super duper Hotpoint Aquarius dishwasher that refuses to contemplate any delph on the top shelf, let alone clean it. I have a super duper scanner that doesn’t work necessitating frequent trips to the office centre in town to, get this, use their fax machine. (Don’t forget to factor in here the mortification of asking someone for a fax number in 2012, you don't recover from that overnight). On the kids game console you can either have a black and white picture or sound, but you can’t have both. The two year old wedged a video tape in the VHS player (I know, I know) that cannot be extracted. I have a super duper geothermal heating system that does not generate any heat in 40% of my house. The fridge creates, all on its lonesome, a two litre pool of water in the bottom vegetable drawer every three days. I have a super duper motion sensing outside light that I can only turn off by getting up a step ladder and removing the bulb. I can watch something on YouTube as long as I’m within a four foot radius of the modem.(Uncongested broadband Mr. Eircom, are you quite sure?) The screen on my phone disintegrated, I can’t read anything on it and can’t use any of the spare ones in the house because they have all been locked by evil bastard other networks. The baleful machinery Gods are politely requesting that I show them more respect. And I have no choice but to comply.
January 10th 2012
Black Mirror.
Nothing on the telly? Embroidery circle cancelled? Click the link to go to the Channel 4 catch up site and have a look at Black Mirror, Charlie Brooker's frightening three part take on now and the not too distant future.
Nothing on the telly? Embroidery circle cancelled? Click the link to go to the Channel 4 catch up site and have a look at Black Mirror, Charlie Brooker's frightening three part take on now and the not too distant future.
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