The Poet's Thumb

The Poet’s Thumb irregular election diary

2011-02-19T09:26:00.001Z

Tuesday 8^th February 2011

Bryan Dobson has been tweeting some Election Zen from FG’s press conference this morning (spelling and grammar all Bryan’s):

At FG presser - Enda to discuss public service reform - strangely, he's doing it outside the FG HQ - will we hear him above traffic noise?
Asked FG handler why we're outside the HQ for presser with Enda K. Said they want to change the optics and "won't keep you too long".
Do cold hacks ask fewer questions?
FG news conf. Passer by shouts "go on Enda"
Enda can;'t be heard - we gathering closer!
Enda K says FG committed to protectiion of frontline public services.
Enda K will seek 30,000 reduction in public service staff numbers
Someone in a chicken suit has just arrived at the FG news conference - one of the hazzards of holding it outside
Richard Bruton is now trying to be heard above the traffic.
Enda K says job cuts can be achieved on a voluntary basis
Enda K public service job reductions could cost around a billion euro
Enda K says the money would be borrowed
It gets better! Enda is now posing with a group of frontline workers - a teacher, a guard, a nurse, a doctor - the chicken has is ejected
To clarify - I believe the frontline "workers" at the FG event are actors
FG say 30,000 reduction in public service numbers will yield savings of E10b over 5 yrs at possible cost of E800m to E1bn
FG news conf - the "chicken" was from the Sun newspaper. And yes, he did cross the road.

Wednesday 9^th February 2011

The Great Debate (#tv3ld)

Vs.Vs.

Who won? You decide.

Monday 14^th February 2011

Dear oh dear oh dear oh dear but I am finding this election a wee bit dull. Even as I pull my election anorak on over my political anorak, and weigh up yesterday’s Red C poll findings I’m still looking for that moment that defines an election. You know the sort of thing involving ladders and lampposts and on-street arguments and the like. The kind of thing that might sway against an overall majority...

Never mind though. Micheál Martin has stepped in to keep us all entertained with his Chinese impressions. Once again, the election revives a craggy island moment.

In my own neighbourhood I have watched as residents stare out the windows pining in vain for the knock on the door of a baby-kissing, handshaking candidate on the trail. Alas, only one has called, and he was from the greens. Most of the doors remained shut. Anyway, the Irish Times have prepared a cribsheet for when canvassers call, ever the optimists.

Tuesday 15^th February 2011

The Kraftwerk Debate

The Star called it for Enda Kenny, while the old lady insists there was no clear winner. I beg to differ. I think the real winner of the debate was the fourth estate, and the legions of Twitterati who got to shout at the telly.

For the hacks there was lots of copy generating TV without having to leave the sofa. You could even knock out a couple of hundred words on the fact that John Gormley wore a (borrowed) blue tie while the rest wore red. Plus, you get to say things like 'By not losing, Enda won.’ All party faithful emerge thinking their man did fine, while swing voters are left to ponder the significance of body language, bon mots and 'knock-out blows.’*

I even heard Noirin Hegarty this morning declare Gerry Adams the ‘alpha male’ of the debate. That might go some way toward explaining why he’s got Enda in a bear hug in that IT photo. He gave a playful hug to Michael Martin at the end too, good old locker room stuff. Never had Gerry down as a hugger…

The last word to Fintan O’Toole, who tweeted this about 45 minutes into the debate: “This is all strangely lacking in urgency. You'd never know this country was in the biggest crisis in the history of the State.”

*Last night’s favourite cliché ©Anne Doyle RTE Nine News.

Wednesday 16^th February 2011

A visualisation exercise*.

I want you to picture grey rolling clouds rolling toward you across a post apocalyptic landscape. You're in your bare feet on a field of concrete and broken glass. You haven't eaten for a few days, nor have you washed. There are no humans, just a few mangy dogs sniffing around. There's a splinter of dust lodged in your eye causing you to weep with discomfort. You have an aching tooth in your lower jaw. There is a howling wind and a car alarm blaring. All hope is lost. All is dust, pain, loss and foreboding.

This isn’t Ireland after Jedward at Eurovision (although we may endure a more punishing rate of interest from the EU/IMF as a result of their entry so you can’t rule it out).

This isn’t Mullingar after a Crystal Swing concert.

This is Ireland under a Fine Gael overall majority*.

Thursday 17^th February 2011

Ned O’Keefe provided this moment of paranoid rhetoric. While it might be beyond parody, it did remind me of this – Fianna Fáil, The Anarchist Party.

Perhaps most compelling election moment I’ve heard about in the last 24 hours is the experience a colleague in Cork. She met Simon Coveney last Friday, and engaged him in a discussion about the consequences of job losses in the public sector. Jackie was treated to a haranguing lecture from Simon. I can only guess at its ferocity, but he felt compelled to tweet this confessional later the same night.

Elsewhere, a potential FG majority receives a loquacious and thoughtful endorsement from Sarah Carey in today’s Irish Times. Regardless of your opinion, it is a wonderfully manipulative piece of writing and I would be proud myself to pull off something of this calibre. It borders on evil genius, and I mean that as a compliment.

Simon, Sarah and a (Sanguine) Varadkar on yesterday’s Morning Ireland are clearly of the view that the remaining FG election campaign should be conducted like a Song of The Sirens. That’s enough alliteration for now. Stock up on yer beeswax.

Friday 18^th February 2011

FG’s website declares that unions, along with bankers, bondholders and developers, are the vested interests that have ruined the country. It’s a convenient bit of baiting the electorate, and it finally comes to light.

David Begg’s letter to Fine Gael was picked up by the Irish Examiner newspaper’s front page this morning. David was interviewed this morning on RTE’s Morning Ireland while Enda Kenny’s interview later in the programme saw the issue of ‘vested interests’ raised as the first question. Meanwhile, Seamus Dooley of the NUJ responds to Lucinda Creighton’s comments on the same issue earlier in the week in the Irish Times letters page here (10^th letter under ‘general election’).

As the general election enters its final week, much of the focus seems to be around the confrontations between Labour and Fine Gael on a whole range of issues, with the other parties increasingly pushed out to the margins.

But stuck in a far more vulnerable margin are the staff of the Davenport Hotel who’ve been removed from payroll for refusing to sign new contracts which would cut their rate of pay to the newly reduced minimum wage. Ministerial assurances during the Dail debate on reducing the minimum wage now exposed for the bunkum we knew it was.

My evening at home interrupted by a very rude FG canvasser who blames everything on social partnership. Not much intelligence, emotional or otherwise, on show, is this what to expect from an FG majority?

Suffering as I am from sleep deprivation today, courtesy of a very unsettled child last night, I am forced to conclude that my youngest son is less to blame for my cumulative sleep deprivation than Vincent Browne. For those of you heading to bed at a more reasonable hour, here’s a quick summary of his entire election coverage.

Kilkenny Broomwagon post

2010-08-01T17:18:00.000+01:00

Tour de Kilkenny. Saturday July 31st 2010

In my Wicklow preamble I know I mentioned just how much I enjoyed this particular cycling event last year. So you can imagine how much I was looking forward to this one. Better yet, Daragh was coming along to do it too, so there would be someone to talk nonsense to on the drive down and the drive back.

Oooh but the little things.

Tyre bulges? Wasn't sure what they meant but everything seemed fine. Had noticed them before my last spin in the mountains and when nothing bad happened thought nothing of it. 150 odd kilometeres with those bulges in place so you get complacent, stopped thinking about them. Even when my tyre was flat when I took it out for Kilkenny.

Other little things. Trip computer battery was dead. My inner stat bunny rendered dormant. Then there was the small bird (swallow possibly?) that pinged off the windscreen on the way down. Last time I got a speeding ticket (August 2001) I had killed a bird on the road and could not separate the two events. But the one in 2001 was a raven, so it was all very Edgar Allan Poe I guess.

There was also the slagging off of BMW jeep drivers on the drive down. Guess what vehicle the Broomwagon turned out to be?

Almost Shakespearian portents of doom when you stack it all together.

Even the philosophical conversation on the early morning drive about my struggle to maintain focus, commitment, a positive outlook about my cycling motivation this year. Ah yes, it all makes sense now, this was a test.

The day started well. Everything was living up to expectations, for which Marble City Cycling club deserve great praise. Well organised, well marshalled, great food (very important), and above all a really great atmosphere among the participants.

Great pace from the start, a large fast bunch. The first 50km as far as Thomastown you can get lucky and bunch ride well above your usual average speed. The drag just before Thomastown spreads things out a bit but I was gunning faster and better than last year on that one.

Thomastown to Inistioge is 7km but it doesn't feel like it. Seriously, bang, flash, gone. Are we here already?

So you hit Woodstock and the world just comes to a standstill. A steep, winding, punishing climb in an atypical Irish village. While it is a shock to the system it is a very enjoyable climb. I was doing fine, still managing to keep Daragh in my sights at this stage, which alone is a sign of improvement.

There I was, doling out words of encouragement to the strugglers, and the walkers (lots of them at this point), telling them about the lovely descent that awaited them. My good cheer was short lived and I never made it to that descent.

PCHFFFhhhhh!!! Was that mine? Yep. Puncture.

Ho hum, punctures I can handle.

It got worse. Inch long gash in the tyre. Enquiries as to my situation from fellow cyclists go from reassurances that 'I'm grand thanks' to 'you wouldn't happen to have a spare tyre would you?'

One chap stops and produces a cross section of tyre (he said he always carries two, which I will also do from now on) which patches the tyre perfectly. I can continue. I thank him, he goes (may the good fortune of the road be with you always kind sir) and as I am pumping the wheel I find gash number two, almost as big as the first, and wider.

I try to solicit more tyre sections as the riders, fewer in number now, struggle past. No joy.

I phone Daragh to explain what's happening and that I will go down to Inistioge to see if I can find a taxi. I phone home to relay my fate and assure all that I'm fine.

I roll back down that steep hill very gingerly indeed.

There is no such thing as taxis in Inistioge (beautiful village, you must visit). But the Broomwagon shows up and I get into it relieved and crestfallen at the same time.

Oh cruel fate.

We trail two cyclists for a long time. One of them is 74 years old and was drinking in the view of the Nore valley on Woodstock hill when we meet him first. He explains he hasn't been in the area since 1952. He's recently had a triple bypass. He struggles at Inistioge to finish the climb but after that he's fine and we don't see him again until the food station at around 80km. He gets a rhythm going after the descent, and metronome-like just motors on. I love that. I want to do that when I'm 74.

The other is a big man from the Comeragh CC. He's looking uncomfortable. His legs cramp badly and we pick him up and deposit him at the food station. He is reunited with friends, gets some sustenance and is revived enough to continue. Happy days.

We follow the 160km route before we switch vehicles for a return to Kilkenny. Another boards.ie cyclist, John, is by the road holding his twice snapped chain aloft. I feel his pain.

Then there were two in the wagon. We're even explaining to the volunteer driver (who isn't really involved in the club, he's just doing this as a favour to a mate) just how low down the food chain we are when we ride the Broomwagon. "There's greater honour in an ambulance finish" we tell him. Almost in unison.

We switch vehicles. As we move all the gear we spot a fresh tyre which nobody knew about. Me and John just look at each other. We say nothing to the driver.

Curses.

Back at the clubhouse Daragh takes a picture of me and John in the wagon and offers words of comfort. He's great company on the drive back to Dublin but as soon as I drop him home the grey clouds of disappointment descend on me.

Buggerbuggerbuggerbugger.

I'm over it. You have to take the bad days with the good. I learned something new. I still enjoyed myself.

But Karma, like gravity, is a harsh mistress. As Daragh likes to remind me, "What she giveth, she taketh away".

Next year Kilkenny, next year.

Philip Glass (solo piano) at the National Concert Hall, Dublin, Tuesday June 22nd 2010

2010-06-25T17:25:00.001+01:00

The opportunity to see Philip Glass play was unexpected. For some time now I’ve been looking forward to seeing anybody perform his work here. The Kronos Quartet, for example, has performed his work brilliantly, as have countless others.

Kronos are touring, but don’t venture any closer than London (Hackney Empire, July 22). More’s the pity.

But Philip Glass is touring (and looking fit and well aged all of 73), and last Tuesday he played in Dublin, performing Études and other works for solo piano at the National Concert Hall in Dublin.

A friend saw him perform in a cathedral in (I think) Drogheda a couple of years ago. On that occasion he played the organ and had a small ensemble with him. But this was going to be Glass alone with his piano. I did wonder if his style of small, repeated sequences would work as well without the drama and weight of heavy strings, which for me is what his sound is all about.

I needn’t have worried.

Tuesday night was about as great a summer’s night as you could hope for. Earlsfort Terrace, drenched in peachy-warm evening sun, was awash with people looking cool, well dressed and tipsy in anticipation. And why wouldn’t they?

While I was queuing for a drink at the bar I heard a group behind me talk about the Glass compilation CD for sale in the foyer. I think it might have been called Greatest Hits, but they were talking about what a good name for such a compilation might be. Breaking Glass, Shattering Glass etc. I turned around and offered ‘A Glass Menagerie?’ Thankfully they found this amusing rather than intrusive. Which is nice, because nobody likes a smart arse.

Funnily enough, the audience seemed more self-consciously well dressed for the evening than Glass himself. He ambles on to the stage with a hesitant, almost bumbling, professorial air. Dressed in a dark check shirt and dark trousers, his is unselfconsciously casual. He speaks in a very quiet, almost husky voice.

Long Manhattan vowels, the elegant, educated Upper East Side variety (or at least what I imagine these to be. I am projecting quite a bit here. I mean, he was born in Baltimore, Maryland for a start). Tousled dark hair, tall, bespectacled. It is nevertheless hard to believe he’s 73, and hard to fathom his body of work: more than twenty operas; eight symphonies (with others already on the way); two piano concertos and concertos for violin, piano, timpani, and saxophone quartet and orchestra; soundtracks to films and countless collaborations with everyone from Ginsberg to David Bowie. I am by no means familiar with all of this work, I am barely scratching the surface as it is.

Before he comes on stage the crowd is skittish, nervous even. It is expressed through the medium of territorialism as people search for their seat number. And the mock patience everyone affects for the people for whom they have to stand up so they can take their seats.

Sitting directly in front of me is Mike Scott. Lead singer/songwriter with The Waterboys. He is a little taller than I would like him to be (because I'm going to have to lean a bit to the left to see Philip Glass). He makes notes throughout the performance, and gives the only audible 'whoop' during the applause after Metamorphoses. No other 'celebrities' in attendance. At least none that I noticed.

Two men taking seats in the centre of our row arrive talking on their phones. Right up until the house lights dim they are passing a phone to each other talking in turns to some other third party. I find this a little irritating, and will them to shut up and settle down. They eventually do, but not before one of them whips out his iPhone to take a picture of Glass as he walks onstage.

It is at this point I realise that I am more than a little (unnecessarily) uptight.

Glass introduces the first piece, which will be eight of his 16 Études (‘Studies’). He explains that he is ‘still working on them’ and has so far learned to play 10 of them (‘that is why they are called Études’), there is a ripple of polite laughter. High art and self deprecation conspire to put everyone at ease.

These pieces are completely new to me. Composed between 1994 and 1999, he later describes them as ‘children from the same family who don’t look much alike’. It’s a good way to describe them. It takes a while to settle into the listening, but they are great pieces. There is a barely noticeable pause between each one, just enough to let you know he’s changing from one to another.

The next piece, Mad Rush, began life as a piece played on a cathedral organ. He was commissioned to write something of ‘indeterminate length’ some time in the late 1970s, for an event with a guest speaker (I couldn’t quite make out what he said here but I think it might have been the Dalai Lama, but I’m really not sure). Whoever hosted wasn’t sure when the speaker would arrive, so Glass had to keep playing. He shortened the final piece and developed it for piano in 1980. Choreographer Lucinda Childs devised a solo dance for it, and they toured it, he says, ‘for years’.

No dancer tonight, just the music, and it is intense, a bit wild. Every so often there is a big crash of keys that suggests the heavy blast of the organ. Watching him play, how he moves, long fingers pounding out big notes but looking elegant, balletic even. It is hypnotic to watch.

His website says that his (early) music immerses “a listener in a sort of sonic weather that twists, turns, surrounds, develops.” It is as good a description as I can offer of what is happening in Mad Rush, but by the end I feel properly immersed in this sonic (and stormy) weather.

The sonic storms prove to be soporific for my wife, whose head lolls back in sleep, and as her head hits the back of the chair she is snapped awake. This happens twice. In her defence, the baby was unwell the night before (hay fever I think) and she didn’t get more than two hours unbroken sleep at any stage. She’s not alone. A heavily pregnant woman in the row in front has drifted off completely, slumped to one side. Her partner has that look that says “I can’t believe you’re missing this!” I know how he feels, but missus Thumb insists later that she heard every note played.

Next up proves to be the highlight for me. Four Metamorphoses, a set of piano pieces drawn from both the film A Thin Blue Line by Errol Morris and a staging of Kafka’s Metamorphosis, for Gerald Thomas’ Kafka Trilogy. He says that, ‘As both projects were undertaken at the same time, the music seemed to lend itself well to a synthesis of this kind’. Or, to put it another way, the children in this particular fanily all look more like each other.

They are incredible. I lose myself in this one completely. I can’t even tell how long they are, I am surprised as the four pieces end, purely because time and space no longer seem to have any meaning. He can’t top that. He really can’t.

Oh but he does.

The next piece doesn’t feature in the programme. It’s called Wichita Vortex Sutra. He tells the story of how the poet Allen Ginsberg, who wrote the poem of the same name in 1966, used to perform the piece to a composition by Glass. They would play it together whenever Ginsberg was available, but he also had a recording of Ginsberg’s reading which he would use in performance. A few years after Ginberg died he dusted off the recording and plays it from time to time. He says that he wants to play it in Dublin, as it is a city of poetry and writers (I’m paraphrasing, but you get the idea).

At this point I am a little wary, as I have seen footage of Ginsberg ‘performing’ before, and have always found it remote, pretentious and, well, just a bit mad really. I’m not expecting to like it at all.

But for all its eccentricity, it works. Ginsberg’s poem is an incantation to all the deities to end the war (Vietnam was in full swing when he wrote it). He was driving across Kansas at the time, so there is this element of a wild shamanistic jaunt across these abandoned plains. Ginsberg conjures up the image of a jiggling fat belly like I’ve never heard and I can picture this naked, Sweeney-like, raging poet, prancing across vast plains. The music is interwoven perfectly, ebbing and flowing in tandem with Ginsberg’s recorded voice. Wild, beautiful and crazy. I am very glad I got to hear this.

When it ends Glass takes his polite bows, and the applause is warm and intense. A few take to their feet, which eventually means we all have to, but it feels a bit contrived. He returns to the stage, and introduces a short encore from A Thin Blue Line, 'Short,' he says, 'so that we can all go home'. Another ripple of laughter. He plays. A soothing palm across our brows after the trip on the Vortex.

More applause, more standing, polite bows and thanks. He’s gone.

Yeah, you really had to be there…

A friend has loaned me a copy of Koyaanisqatsi, described as a ‘filmic landscape with Godfrey Reggio’.

The Glass remains half full.

I hate the World Cup. There I said it. And I hate football too.

2010-06-18T15:51:00.000+01:00

Who can forget Luciano Pavarotti’s soaring rendition of Nessun Dorma as part of the Three Tenors concert on the eve of the World Cup final in 1990? It immortalised the event, the singer and the song, and for many is far more memorable than the match that followed it (West Germany beat Argentina 1–0).

Of course, we remember that contest a lot more for Ireland’s journey through the competition which ended in heartbreak when Salvatore ‘Totò’ Schillaci put us one-nil down in the quarter finals in Rome. A nation wept as another chanteuse, Edith Piaf, sang Non, je ne regrette rien over RTE’s edited highlights of Jack’s army in action.

There wasn’t a dry eye in the country for months afterwards when either song was played.

But as a self-confessed ‘football atheist’ it is telling that I can remember the songs better than the players names, the scorelines, or anything else that permits entry to a water-cooler conversation about the so-called ‘beautiful game’. It is the lingua franca among all men (and a growing number of women), the glue that holds them all together. If it wasn’t for football they’d probably all go to war with one another.

Those of you who share my antipathy for the game (which I like to describe as twenty-two millionaires chasing a leather ball) will understand how socially crippling is our indifference to the offside rule, the four-four-two formation or the significance of being drawn against Lichtenstein in the qualifiers. I don’t understand any of it.

But it’s everywhere. You cannot escape football. We live in a society shaped by its seasons and measured by the distance between world cup competitions. Is there no escape?

In short, no. It is here to stay and moaners like me are asked to kindly shut up, because they “can’t hear what Dunphy is saying about the skittishness of the FIFA-supplied balls.”

To those of you enduring this World Cup with indifference, I feel your pain.

But I have one more piece of bad news. There is no memorable song this year.

Just the ugly drone of the Vuvuzela.

My 2010 Wicklow 200 (with an historical preamble)

2010-06-15T18:15:00.001+01:00

My best days on the bike are always the ones that arrive with the least amount of fanfare. The days that sneak up on me and I find myself at the starting line in some part of the country, shivering in the early morning chill, facing 100km of roads unknown.

For example this year, a charity ride to Kilkenny in May proved to be one of the best rides in a while. My fitness was improving despite late training efforts. Weather and road conditions (once we got off the awful Dublin to Naas N7 stretch) turned out perfect. Companions of varying ability proved to be delightful company on the day. Three days of a work conference faced me in Kilkenny and I’m certain that the bike ride put me in the right frame of mind to face it.

The Wicklow 200 is different though. And last Sunday was my second effort.

I started thinking about doing the Wicklow 200 in July 2008, almost a full year before I attempted it. It was the ultimate event to test my passion for cycling. Ireland’s oldest and best known cycling challenge, I wanted to see what it felt like to be able to say I had done it.

After buying a decent road bike (a Focus Cayo 2008) I went for a spin with a group of cyclists from the Boards.ie forum. It was a stark lesson in just how the hills can test you. To this day I haven’t yet repeated the attempt to climb from Kilbride to Sally Gap; I prefer to approach from Kippure or Laragh. The descent to Kilbride (which I did for the first time that day) is a heart stopper in terms of speed, and I maintain a healthy respect for it.

But, 86km later, I was euphoric and exhausted. More please.

My first ever event ride was a couple of weeks later. The Martin Earley Tour of Kildare. “It’s flat” they all said. “It’ll be easy” they all said. Torrential rain and storms ripped across the country the night before. The ride out to Naas (that awful N7 again) was into a chilling headwind. Not so much a warm up as a leg-sapping prelude.

In short, I spent the day watching every single cyclist pass me by. At one point I was convinced there was nobody left behind me (there probably wasn’t). At 65km my legs just gave out and I struggled home to sympathy and a burger.

The Wicklow 200. Really?

Winter, and a bout of Hepatitis A, came and went. I had gone on a few club spins with Orwell Wheelers and confidence and fitness were beginning to grow. But bouts of training were intermittent. However, every time I went out, a little bit of improvement was measurable. Descending became gradually more confident. Hills became less humiliating, less daunting. A little technique made its presence felt.

Orwell organised a club spin in April 2009 as a preparation day for the Wicklow 200. 120km or so of climbing and rolling road proved good preparation and a lot of fun. Shortly afterwards I got a taste of faster group riding on a Swords club spin to Drogheda and back. Despite dropping off the back of the group for the last 20km I had a great day. Feeling stronger.

On June 7th 2009 I had my first go at the Wicklow 200. The patchy training programme and group rides were a help on the day. It was cold up at the Sally Gap. I wore my winter jacket. I teamed up with a couple of Boards riders and pedaled on through bouts of sciatic pain, numb hands and cramping knees.

I finished it in 12 hours, 23 minutes point to point. In total about 10 hours cycling time according to my trip computer. Burger and chips at the UCD finish line never tasted so good. So the Wicklow 200 was done, but all I could think about was what to do next.

Summer 2009 saw me return to Kildare and knock a half hour off my ‘09 time. It was my first significant measurable improvement. That summer I also entered the Ring of Kerry (easier and a lot of fun) and the Tour de Kilkenny (harder and a lot of fun).

By the end of the summer I had completed about 960km of event riding. Fitness was at an all time high and it was a good way to make the most of a summer which offered little respite (banking crises galore, deep recession, public sector / union scapegoating, days and days and weeks and weeks of rain).

But after Kildare, nothing. I didn’t touch the road bike again until spring this year. Why? Hard to say. I had a notion to rejoin the beginners club spins with Orwell, but Sunday mornings are family time, and if the baby’s been awake all night, you can’t leave your (already sleep deprived) wife to go cycling in the hills.

Work was encroaching on weekends too as the debate about public sector pay gathered heat. The bike would have to wait.

Finally, after a long break off the bike, and a winter hiatus from the bike commute of about two months, I rode out with Daragh (on his brand new Planet X) into the hills to prepare for this years Wicklow event.

Daragh proved himself to be a natural. His plea on our first spin to ‘take it easy on me’ could seem like a hustle in retrospect. But, to be fair, he had no idea of how good or bad he was on a bike. And as far as he was concerned, as a cyclist who had already completed ‘De Wicklow’, I had more miles under my belt.

But he cruised up to Glencullen with enviable ease on our very first day out. Subsequent spins saw him cruise even more coolly up Stocking Lane, a punishing climb that takes you out of the city from Rathfarnham. It’s always an enviable quality to make climbing hills look easy; a quality that served him well last Sunday.

I started out at the same time as last year, a few minutes before 7am, with Daragh. With the first few kms on the N11 and uphill, I had that sensation of quickly losing breath as I tried to warm up.

Turning off for Kilmacanogue, the first of many ascents appeared, and as we split from the 100km route toward Glencree it got warmer, faster, cycling in big bunches. I find it hard to get a pace on that route up to Glencree. It is lovely countryside but the gradient is uneven.

Turning up through Glencree, the switchback revealed Powerscourt Mountain shrouded in a very heavy mist. Sunshine quickly turned to wet conditions with very poor visibility. Oh bugger.

I met Tom and Caroline, regular Boards cyclists and companions on that first ever Wicklow spin in 2008. Both recent converts to racing, I was aware that the ascents that I struggled with came very easily to them. Both moved on quickly after we’d chatted a while, my pace very much a ‘slumming’ pace for them.

As I reached the top of Powerscourt Mountain, one of my favourite climbs, I was feeling pretty relaxed. Less enjoyable, depending on conditions, is the exposed road that flanks Mount Kippure and leads to the Sally Gap. In a headwind it’s a nightmare. Shrouded in mist, well, it’s no fun really.

I spotted the 30km mark on some obscure part of the road. A voice in my head began to speculate about turning back, because 170km of this I could not take. I reasoned that it might get better by the time I reached Kilbride. It did. But the descent from the gap to Kilbride was taken gingerly, with wet brakes and poor visibility, everyone was forced to adopt a similar approach.

09.22am. Kilbride water stop. 47.6km
Everyone is wet. Stopping for long really isn’t an option as you’d cool too quickly and cramping could follow. I lash into a banana, text home my progress report, top up on water and say hi to a couple of familiar faces. As soon as possible I am back on the bike.

11.30am. Donard food stop. 85km.
I am ravenous. And tired. But the 40-odd km stretch from Kilbride was good, better than I remember it. Feeling strong most of the way and the weather has picked up. I’m definitely riding better than last year, I wonder if I can beat my ’09 time?

I meet Sean Kelly. He pokes fun at my full fingered gloves. The hardest man in Irish cycling has effectively just pointed out how soft I am. He’s not wrong.

I meet Daragh in Donard, he is preparing to get back on the road. He’s been there about half an hour. He offers to wait for me but I decline, knowing that any unnecessary hanging around just saps the energy. I wish him well and he goes.

I realise I’ve lost my shades. Bugger. I try to retrace my steps but it’s fruitless, I could have lost them anywhere after Kilbride as they were clipped into the top of my helmet. Momentarily I am fazed. I phone home. Wife has her hands full with screaming child. I go for a sandwich.

Feeling restored I am back on the road. I let go of the fact that the shades are gone. I take a painkiller for my knee which has been cramping badly whenever I get out of the saddle to climb. One of the better decisions of the day as the pain is quickly gone and doesn’t come back.

Onwards and upwards to Aghavanagh.

I am joined by a couple of guys who are brimful of enthusiasm and chat. They express admiration for the pace I’m setting (24kmh and holding steady), and one latches on to my wheel. It passes the time and they prove to be good company. No names are exchanged. Just war stories and bragging rights. They plan to cycle to Kilkenny for a stag do. Or cycle back, depending on their hangovers.

I clock my fastest ever descent (62.7kmh) on a small straight descent just before Aghavanagh. It takes me by surprise. It’s my only measurable personal best of the day.

Aghavanagh is often mistaken for Slieve Maan. It looks like a bigger climb from a distance than it really is. I’ve heard people call it ‘the appetiser’. I inadvertently cause upset to a woman doing the event for the first time. “What do you mean that’s not Slieve Maan?” She doesn’t sound happy. In my defence, I tell her it’s better to know in advance that it isn’t. Her friend looks worried, or cross, I can’t quite tell.

I take a breather at the top of Aghavanagh and take on some food and water. I put on the rain jacket as the weather is closing in again. A guy behind me, who seems to be taking responsibility for keeping a group together, assures his friends that the rain will be ‘soothing’ as we face the two big climbs of the day. I compliment his positive outlook, we all laugh the type of nervous laughter that precedes any folly.

And so to Slieve Maan. In the early stages the gradient is punishing, but it levels off, I just can’t remember where. I have only one goal. Get to the top without stopping / without my feet touching the ground. I’ve seen people hammering this climb and having to stop because their heart rate is too high. Trying to make the pain end quickly. It never works.

I take my time, easing up the gears as the gradient changes so that I am not spinning too hard. Slowly but surely my speed is climbing from 5 or 6kmh to 10kmh and holding. It hits me that the ascent is very quiet. Nobody is speaking. Before I know it, I’m at the top.

14.00. Top of Slieve Maan. 117km done.
Water refill, banana, some liquorice and no hanging about, I’m off to face Shay Elliott (Glenmalure).

The descent again is slow (unfortunately, as this is one of the truly great descents in Wicklow) because the road is wet and warm. The surface is like butter. A controlled single file descent, with grit hissing and spluttering off everyone’s brakes, is the only sound.

At the bottom people are waving us down, the road is closed. Two ambulances have sealed off the road. “IS everything OK?” I ask one of the guys stopping traffic. “No” is the curt reply. We are asked to dismount and are allowed to walk past. A woman is being stretchered, the full treatment, head brace, everything. No sound, is she conscious? I don’t know. I try not to look, but spy her hand looking pretty busted up. I find out later she’s OK, a broken wrist but otherwise fine. Where she came down it could have been a lot worse.

The Shay Elliott climb is very similar to Maan in gradient and distance. Again, people are quiet. I stop only to allow the ambulance to pass. Otherwise the pace is good and I’m feeling fine. Some are walking their bikes up the hill. I offer words of encouragement as I pass. You want to be encouraging without being patronizing. I’m only pedaling as fast as some of the walkers.

I share the last 500m with a club cyclist from Mayo. We swap stories and the company makes the last bit dissolve effortlessly. I salute the Shay Elliott memorial at the top, and remember my struggle at the same point last year. This feels like progress. But the clock says I’m not doing it any faster than before.

14.45. Top of Glenmalure / Shay Elliott memorial. 124.5km done.

When you’re up there, one of the best views of the day is looking back toward Slieve Maan. The sun was shining, it looked pretty good to me, all the more beautiful because it’s behind you. It’s done.

The next part is 15km, mostly downhill, toward Rathdrum for the second and final food stop of the day. Sometimes the road surface is just plain awful. The broken tarmac as rough and bone shattering as Belgian cobbles.

An informal and impromptu group is formed, two of whom I realise I’ve been riding in parallel with for most of the day already. With two strong riders in front there is a nice drafting effect most of the way to Rathdrum.

15.33. Rathdrum. Final food station. 60kms left.
Into Rathdrum and the ‘one sandwich per person’ standard ration for the event is doled out with tea. Hot tea. Lovely tea, best recovery drink on the planet.

A man of considerably advanced years sits down beside me looking miserable. He complains that his fingers turned white coming down Sally Gap. Then he complains that the room is very warm. He speculates that he might get pneumonia.

I take a very mature approach and retreat from the conversation to update my Facebook status. Nobody I know is here so I must reach out to my virtual friends. Who all seem to have better things to be doing judging by the lack of ‘likes’ and comments when I report my progress.

Ho hum. The heavens open. Heavy this time. Bugger.

I don’t wait for the rain to stop. I head for Avoca, roads vary but there is one lovely stretch of smooth tarmac that has the added downhill slope you long for at this stage. It doesn’t last.

As time wears on there seems to be a lot more climbing than we were promised, but it is still much nicer than the bumpy drag between Rathdrum and Roundwood on last year’s route.

I no longer have a bearing on where I am as this is the first time I’ve been on these roads. The first unfamiliar terrain of the day. Briefly we are out on the N11, but redirected for Kilcoole. On a nice quiet road, which is plenty wide and empty, a speeding tarmac lorry whizzes past a bit too close for comfort. Deliberately I do not doubt. It takes a particular type of ignorance and malice, but this guy has it.

The roads become dreary and endless, and I am counting down the KM stages ten at a time. I have four liqourice sticks left. One each for 160, 170, 180 and 190kms. It is an oddly comforting ritual, and an energy boosting necessity. The stretch from the N11 would be so much better in a group, but alas, none to be found. Just a solo plodder like myself, and we alternate, but not in a way that affects pace.

190km, and it is starting to look like suburbia. We must be close. I can’t remember if the route takes us back on the N11 stretch we took at the start. I’m too tired to think or navigate. Just point me the right way please.

A couple of familiar roundabouts are passed and the clock says 195km done. A civil Defence van catches my eye to the left.

It’s the finish line! 5km early (yep, same as last year). I don’t know if it’s my trip computer or by design but I’m done, it’s finished. Momentary joy and some genuine applause from well wishers.

The word from Daragh ‘The Rookie’ is startling. He finished at 17.02. Clearly it’s got everything to do with the bike…ah, I wish. What a great time, all I can do is doff my (sweaty) cap.

18.58. Finished.

So, my ride time both years was roughly 10 hours or so. But, for the record, my official start and finish times for both years:

2009 (pictured at the UCD finish line)

Cyclist Number 43 - Start 06:51:04 - Finish 19:14:30

Time 12:23:26

2010 (Pictured at the Greystones finish line)

Cyclist Number 0606 - Start 06:54:11 - Finish 18:56:57

Time 12:02:46

Twenty minutes. And less pain, and better recovery. It all counts as progress.

And there’s always next year.

Lost...the plot

2010-05-25T16:28:00.000+01:00

So the final episode of Lost aired on RTE Two last night. The Guardian review is kind while the Irish Times review is kinder still, even if the headline seems to suggest otherwise. Having given up on Lost a couple of seasons back, I decided to drop in for a last look. I wasn’t necessarily expecting a neatly concluded ending with all the questions answered. The writers had created too many plot cul-de-sacs in six years for that to be possible.

Besides, I can live with ambiguity. The Sopranos finale, while it seemed to annoy a lot of viewers, was sublime. It dared to be existential, vague, abrupt and brutal. Lost didn’t dare do any such thing. Instead, it played with the idea of an afterlife which pandered to all religious beliefs. Crucially, it pandered to the idea of an afterlife which is recurring in American television and which probably owes its origins to It’s a Wonderful Life. No angels as such (unless you count the return of Christian Shepherd…it’s all in the name dontcha know), just a benign state of existence suffused with bright light and big love.

In itself I suppose it was fine. Reflecting back on it, I am glad that I gave up on it when I did. The only thing the show ever did really well was the suspense endings. A lot of the character story arcs were banal, and relied upon fairly recognisable TV character fodder (the good doctor, the redneck thief, the beautiful girl who courts trouble, the hitman, the fat funny guy, the drug addicted rock star), and while the back and forth storytelling was occasionally very good, it was a convention that made more than a few of the 118 episodes fairly dull. Having said that, the show’s concept, particularly in the first two seasons, worked very well.

But, like eating biscuits all day, it could make you feel undernourished. I’m being unfair, because the TV shows to which I am comparing it (Sopranos, The Wire, Mad Men) offer so much more in terms of genuine sustenance, and I have to acknowledge that the makers of Lost really only had one goal, and that was to entertain. In fact, in interviews they have said that what they really hoped was that the show would be axed after a couple of seasons, amass a cult following, and then have people talk about what a great show it might have been. I can see their point, so to keep it going for six seasons meant it could always become a victim of its own success, and the expectations of Lost viewers.

Well, they appeared to have dodged that bullet. But a lot of people must have abandoned the show along the way, as I did.

But, on the plus side, a very good looking cast. Good characterisation, particularly Locke, and the very likable Charlie and Hurley. Beautiful location, well shot and edited and so on and so forth.

It could have been a worse ending mind. It followed some of the same plotline progression as The Prisoner, of which I am a fan. But that show ran to just 17 episodes, collapsing under the burden of expectations. Under pressure to finish it, Patrick McGoohan’s self penned finale was a psychedelic blur which saw the protagonists arrive back in London. The outcry forced McGoohan to flee for Hollywood. But, it left a cult legacy, a mass following, and great affection for a show that pushed the limits of television at the time. Pity the remake is such a lot of dross.

So farewell Lost. Hopefully something at least as entertaining will take your place.

In praise of cake. And Mrs Beeton.

2010-05-17T17:56:00.000+01:00

So, following my incoherent ramblings in my last post, I might as well write something in praise of something constructive that I managed to do. And it is all with thanks to Mrs Beeton, Victorian superwoman.

I came across a newspaper article about her recipe for Victorian spongecake (in honour of Regina Victoria herself). The really brilliant bit was how to determine the quantities of the ingredients. I will share this with you now...whoever you might be.

Take four eggs. Weigh them in their shells. When you have determined the weight, take the same weight of self-raising flour, sugar and butter.

That's it. The clever bit. The other three ingredients must weigh the same as the eggs. For this, I feel Mrs Beeton deserves a round of applause.

Anyway, cream the butter and sugar, then mix in the eggs. Then fold in the flour. It should flop off the spoon. If it doesn't it is too thick so add a little milk to thin. Only a little.

Grease two 20cm baking tims and then line them with greaseproof paper. Divide the batter between the two, pop into an oven (180 degress centigrade) for 25 minutes.

Take them out, let them cool a little before turning out on to a wire rack. Then gently peel off the greaseproof.

When cooled, add a layer of strawberry jam, then a layer of whipped cream. Yesterday I also quartered a handful of strawberries and threw them on the cream. Then put the other sponge on top.

Voila. Cake. Mrs Beeton style.

My efforts pictured.

In praise of Charlie Brooker

2010-05-17T14:59:00.000+01:00

This is Charlie’s column from today’s Guardian. As ever, it manages to capture a mood that would otherwise struggle to gain expression. In this instance, it is that emotive response to the arrival of the Tories back to Downing Street, but with the unexpected appendage of the LibDems, and the frustration of not having the cast of instant bogeymen a Tory mob was supposed to provide.

He can poke a sharpened stick into the eye of most things and manage to make it true and funny and the same time.

I wish I could do that.

Clever bastard.

Why write a blog at all? I should just post links to all of Charlie's columns with the heading: Something I wish I had written myself but I am clearly bereft of the skill and ingenuity and work ethic that would make such a feat possible.

Come to think of it that's probably not such a bad idea.

Then I could write something about, oh I dunno. Cake or something.

Blood, flags and idiots

2010-05-12T15:57:00.000+01:00

So it kicked off outside Leinster House last night. A protest against the bank bailouts ends in a bit of head walloping because the flag-bearers for the Socialist Workers Party, a minority presence in the crowd, try to storm the gates of the Dáil.

The thing that worries me most about the SWP is the singular lack of imagination they seem to collectively possess. What were they going to do when they got inside? Run around the car park? It would have been worth letting them in just to see what they would do. I suspect the instructions for the revolution don’t have much detail beyond “storm the gates”; presumably there is an expectation among the Trotskyite leadership that the first few dozen will be shot anyway.

What is irritating is the knock-on effect. The protest was attended by a broad mix of people, which I took as a very positive sign (though I was at home watching telly, soft lad that I am). One apolitical friend of mine brought his kids, and it was all going well until the SWP did their best to claim some glory. Unfortunately, this behaviour alienates everyone else, so a broad coalition of protest to Government economic policy is now unlikely. Thanks a lot guys.

It is ironic too, that this comes in the wake of comments by Vincent Browne (Sunday Business Post) and Patrick Freyne (Sunday Tribune) last weekend about Irish peoples unwillingness to take to the streets to protest. Both are excellent writers and they have a point; but the papers they write for howled with derision at the protests last year led by the Irish Congress of trade Unions (Ictu). In February and November, Ictu led protests that drew 100,000 plus in peaceful demonstration against the economic policies clearly designed to force working people, children, older people and welfare recipients to pick up the tab for the well documented failure of a handful of criminally arrogant money chasers.

Were the Irish praised for their ‘lack of apathy’ or ‘fighting spirit’? Nope, the protesters were accused of being greedy, self-interested public servants hanging on to their gilded jobs, pensions and salaries. When public servants held a one-day strike in opposition to expected pay cuts, their efforts were undermined by the media (including the state broadcaster) and presented as a day that public servants migrated north of the border to do some shopping. Journalism at its very worst

A year or so of being browbeaten into ‘sharing the pain’ means that Irish people have been, to a large extent, beaten into submission. Why stick your head above the parapet? If you have a job, be grateful, hunker down and shut up. That’s the message. When people buy in to that they have no appetite for protest.

Much less when a handful of Socialist Worker vendors try gain entry to Leinster House.

The revolution will not be organised.

Cheese and Tories

2010-05-08T00:20:00.000+01:00

When I saw the headline and read the first line of this letter (Dreaming of worker harmony) from today’s Irish Independent my heart sank ever so slightly. However, it turns out to be something not nearly as divisive as I had feared. It's cheesy and a bit smug, it's based on a poem by Mary Stevenson that often appears on relegious calendars and the like, but it caught my attention today because I though it was another nasty divisive cut between public sector and private sector workers. And it wasn't, well, not really.

While it is looking increasingly likely that some form of Tory-with-accesory (LibDems or a clutch of Independents) mob is going to take over the reins in the House of Commons (thank you Rupert), I think it is worth noting the origins of the word ‘Tory’ (courtesy of Wikipedia).

The word derives from the Middle Irish word tóraidhe; modern Irish tóraí: outlaw, robber, from the Irish word tóir, meaning "pursuit", since outlaws were "pursued men". It was originally used to refer to an Irish outlaw and later applied to Confederates or Royalists in arms. The term was thus originally a term of abuse, "an Irish rebel", before being adopted as a political label in the same way as Whig.

And here was me thinking the tories were a just a bunch of power hungry posh robots feasting on human flesh at the Bullingdon Club. Turns out they were Irish Rebels all along. Unless the Wiki entry is nonsense?

Peace out.

Xenos and Blarney

2010-05-06T11:25:00.000+01:00

Sadly, the tragic death of three bank workers in Greece following a petrol bomb attack on a bank, during yesterday’s protests, has been reduced by a lot of the newspapers today to more puns about ‘Greek Tragedy’ etc. The Daily Mail even has a tasteless ‘What have the Greeks ever done for us?’ trivia page. Nothing like a little bit of euro-sceptic xenophobia (a word given to us by the Greeks) to gloss over a human tragedy. Thankfully, more reliable coverage of what is happening in Greece is available.

What is clear is that the numbers taking to the streets to protest against the austerity measures in Athens is a mere fraction of the number that turned out for protests by the Irish Congress of trade Unions in February and November last year. I think that is why no media group has even attempted to report on the numbers involved. Any coverage I've seen it never looks like more than a few hundred people.

Hardly a revolution. And certainly not a reliable barometer of what Greek people feel about the EU / IMF bail out.

A little closer to home, the Xenos serving your coffee and fluffing your pillows is under a thinly veiled attack that betrays just how low some people are prepared to stoop in this crisis.

Unhappy that the hotel concierge is Lithuanian? Dismayed that the chamber maid is Polish? Ah, there’s nothing quite like a bit of casual racism thrown into the debate about staffing in the Irish hotel industry (this one has legs, I can tell). And of course, the 'concerned' proprietor is from Blarney; a placename synonymous with people talking large volumes of utter nonsense.

I worked as a hotel porter in London in the glorious summer of 1987, and I would have sympathised with any visiting tourists who may have been dismayed that I wasn’t a proper, full-on, born-within-earshot-of-Bow-bells cockney.

Funnily enough, they NEVER WERE. I could hardly Adam n’ eve it.

Arts Lives – Colum McCann: ‘Becoming a New Yorker’

2010-05-05T12:22:00.000+01:00

I watched this documentary on RTE last night (you can watch it via this link here). I can’t resist anything shot in New York. They could make a documentary about pebbles or dust or nails and I would watch it if it was shot in New York. The place has a magical hold on me.

But hopefully that doesn’t suggest I am without some sense of quality control. There were other reasons to watch this programme. Principally, for anyone lucky enough to have read McCann’s superb novel Let the Great World Spin, the film was a welcome revisit to the world that inspired that book.

Standing on the Brooklyn Bridge looking back at the island of Manhattan, McCann described how that heavy urban landscape freaked him out when he went there first. But it was imagining the intimate minutiae of human life taking place in the basements, behind the windows, on the corners of that teeming city that provided him with inspiration. I’m paraphrasing, but that was the essence of what he said. It makes sense of his work.

He says of himself that his own life (happily married, happy upbringing in Dublin, lives on ‘posh’ Upper East Side in a nice, though unostentatious, apartment with wife and three kids) is not something that he would want to read about. So his work is an always a leap of imagination, though in fairness, backed up with meticulous research.

One of his earlier novels (The Side of Brightness - 1998) was inspired by the homeless people he encountered living in the tunnels of the New York subway system; a micro city that provided shelter, warmth and a hiding place for thousands of displaced and forgaotten people.

Dancer, another acclaimed novel, is an imagined life story of the ballet dancer Rudolf Nureyev, which portrays the dancer’s life on the journey between post war Russia and the decadence of 1970s New York nightlife (‘a time before excess was tragic’) as he puts it.

I haven’t yet read his other novels, but I will. McCann seems to excel at rendering these imagined lives in loving detail. The characters in Let the Great World Spin had me hypnotised. As each of their stories concluded I missed them, I ached for them. I could see their eye colour, touch their skin, smell their breath. As real and as intimate as you could be in the presence of the printed word. It is truly a beautiful novel, and I cannot remember the last time a book took hold of me like that.

As it happens, just after I finished reading it in January, I immediately picked up The Corrections by Jonathan Franzen which I really enjoyed, but for much of the time I was reading it I struggled to leave Let the Great World Spin behind. I know I will have to read it again.

Without question, McCann is a writer whose work warrants close attention, respect, but above all, affection.

Colum McCann’s Wikipedia entry and official website.

Gerry Ryan (1956 – 2010)

2010-05-04T13:04:00.000+01:00

The whole country has been shocked by the death of the broadcaster Gerry Ryan last Friday (30th April). He was, without question, a big presence in every Irish household for the last 25 years or so. Love him or hate him (and I’ve often felt both, sometimes simultaneously), for someone with so large a presence for so long to depart without warning is a big shock.

Over the last few days I haven’t been able to get him out of my mind. As much as anything, his passing at only 53 years of age is a harsh reminder of life’s brevity. He was only 12 years older than me, but like everyone else, I’m hoping to live longer than that. His death coincides with the passing of a lovely neighbour of mine who died last Thursday, aged only 46, after a long struggle with illness. So needless to say, matters of mortality have preoccupied me.

But I have also had reason to think about my own ‘Ryan moments’.

The first was in Grafton Street in Dublin in the summer of 1984. I was standing with two friends at the junction with South Anne Street, and Ryan came striding up the street in, what was then, a very fashionable rain mac and quite the bouffant mullet. I was an impish young snotty teenager, and for some reason I decided to call him a ‘poser’ as he walked past. My friends snickered (the desired effect I suppose), but he rounded on me and challenged me. “Did you just call me a poser?” “Erm, yeah…”, suitably chastened, this was probably barely audible, I was crumbling inside. “And what exactly are you guys doing here anyway?” he asked us in a manner that only made me feel even sillier. “Eh…posing?” I ventured – I thought if I appeared helpful the stand off would come to an end quickly. “Exactly!” he said, although less angry by now, I think he realised we were just a bunch of young eejits without any malice toward him. Then I changed tack, affecting the tone of the newly acquainted, “Aren’t you Gerry Ryan off the radio?”, “I am, yeah” he responded, although there was no sign he was even remotely flattered by the recognition. There was a brief, awkward pause, after which he suggested that we do something more constructive with our time. I cringe at the memory of my puerile behaviour that day, but at least he put me in my place.

His late night radio show during the 80s was good company. His playlists were a little more commercial than Dave Fanning (whose programme preceded it) but I do remember turning on the radio one night just as he began to play Shine on You Crazy Diamond by Pink Floyd. It was the first time I’d heard it in its entirety, and I remember his voice coming on after the fade out. Conspiratorial almost, like he’d just shared something special with you. The song has been a favourite ever since.

When he switched to the morning slot in 1988 I was working morning shifts in a petrol station. He was my constant companion each morning from 9 to 12. There had never been a show like it really. It was driven by the issues raised by the listeners, in much the same way that Gay Byrne had done, but he was consciously speaking to a new generation who had just come of age. It was cheeky, taboo bursting stuff, but he set the tone for the day and we were all invited to take part.

In 1991 I was in my last few months in college, and the ‘Gulf Crisis’ became the ‘Gulf War’. I was enormously anxious about the whole thing. To see the high tech US military machine mobilised just gave me a terrible sense of foreboding. The Cold War had never delivered on Armageddon, but it seemed like this conflict could. Ryan expressed that anxiety too. I can’t remember what he said the day we awoke to the news of air strikes in the gulf, but I do remember he played Crazy by Seal (“And you know we’re never going to survive unless, we get a little crazy”). It seemed to sum it all up and offer a survival strategy at the same time. It actually helped me calm down.

In 1991 or 1992 he had a TV show called Secrets. I was in the audience one night because a friend of mine was competing in a Karaoke competition on the show. It was a tedious experience. Several hours recording a one hour show that was a sort of Noel’s House Party without the budget. RTE radio stars rarely translate to TV, but it doesn’t stop them trying.

In 1994 he presented Eurovision, and again I was in the audience. Not for the broadcast, but the dress rehearsal the night before. After twenty odd forgettable eurotrash numbers I was numb. But he kept reminding us that the interval act was worth sticking around for. You could tell he was excited about it. Turned out to be Riverdance, and the dress rehearsal audience reacted the same way as the live audience the following night. A beat of incredulous silence after the last note was played, and then rapturous applause and a standing ovation. Worth the wait, even if it has taken on something of a ridiculously successful and cheesy afterlife.

In recent years, while I couldn’t listen to his show anyway regularly (because of work), I did always try and tune in to hear his review of the morning papers. I have to review the papers myself every day in work, so if I was driving in to the office he gave me a bit of a preview. He could capture the colour of the day’s events in that fifteen-twenty minute slot very well.

Without question, we will all be poorer without him.

May Day thoughts making me maudlin

2010-04-30T13:23:00.000+01:00

As it is the eve of May Day, marked in so many different cultures in different ways, I was reflecting on the significance of the date for the international labour movement this morning.

Our government, our state broadcaster and most privately owned media have stirred up resentment between workers in the private sector and public sector in Ireland over the last two years.

It has been a brilliant tool of deception, as we have simultaneously witnessed greedy speculation rewarded with huge compensation for taking the country to the brink of economic collapse.

So much easier to diffuse anger against a political and wealthy elite if ordinary workers are caught up in a polarised argument over who has suffered most.

The language of the trade union movement - words like 'solidarity', 'workers', 'rights' - and a communal sense of the need for social justice have become sneering punchlines for the enemies of trade unionism.

And as people retreat inwardly in response to the overwhelming scale of the economic crisis, is the sense of solidarity among workers and communities more or less attractive to them? It is very hard to say.

There is research by Behaviour and Attitudes that suggests that, among all of the institutions, trade unions are still largely trusted, moreso than the press, the government, the church or indeed the banks. Although it concludes that while opinion on trade unions rises and falls with the tide, it is currently at an all time low.

Nevertheless, it is certain that there is no other civil society organisation working to protect workers from exposure to the type of exploitation that follows the worship of unfettered free market economics.

We are facing a decade of uncertainty, doubt, and fear of the legacy of those bank bailouts, especially for future generations.

In May 2010, it is worth remembering that ordinary workers need the labour movement now more than ever.

Maudlin? Yes. But still optimistic.

Occasional politics

2010-04-29T15:59:00.000+01:00

And so with howls of indignation the media have sliced Brown open, extracted their apology on the steps of Gillian Duffy's house and will continue to cover an election scrutinising the character of Gordon Brown.

24 hours on, it just seems ridiculous. The Euro is potentially facing collapse. The deficit (Gillian Duffy's main concern yesterday when she spoke to the PM) is massive. Whoever the Chancellor is after Thursday 6th May is going to be delivering some very bad news shortly after taking office.

Hung parliament? Who knows at this stage; but it did feel like the drubbing of Brown yesterday was designed to smooth the way for David Cameron to take over.

With any luck, sometime soon somebody will start to talk about the economy. Oh look, there's a debate tonight...