I STILL DON'T GET SPORT

I was dreading the Olympics.  I don’t really get sport.  The thought of two weeks of wall to wall competition of all kinds filled me with dread.

The Opening Ceremony cheered me up a lot though and left me a little better disposed towards the events themselves.  I actually found I quite enjoyed watching the track and field competitions.  I particularly liked the Javelin, Discus and Pole Vault – they have a balletic elegance and timelessness about them that appealed to me.   They seem to still carry the energy of ancient Athens.  The sprints and long distance races were exciting.   Mo Farah stands out for his sheer joy at winning his first medal.  His family presented a beautiful tableau as his wife glided majestically like a pregnant Goddess across the track to congratulate him while his young daughter jumped about and waved her flag.  A holy trinity of joy.

Who couldn’t but admire Usain Bolt with all his theatrical gestures and wonderful confidence?

Ireland’s Olympians did a great job too led by Katie Taylor who Sean Ban Breatnach gushingly elevated to the status of Queen Meabh and Marys McAleese and Robinson.  And sure why not – she is a gracious and wonderful ambassador for us – although I am too much of a wuss to watch boxing and really wish her sporting prowess was in something else.

There was all that joy and good humour but there was also plenty of pain and tears.  Athletes who ‘just missed out on gold’, who ‘only’ got a bronze, who ‘didn’t make the final’.  The interviews these athletes were forced to give as they came to terms with their disappointment made for some very uncomfortable TV.  I heard the words ‘failure’, ‘letting themselves and others down’, of ‘not being good enough’.  This is where I don’t get sport.

Every single competitor at London 2012 is an accomplished athlete... if they weren’t they wouldn’t be there.  Of course I understand they are driven to win and I accept that.  But I do feel that we don’t do enough to celebrate the taking part as the greater aspect of the games.

For me the bravest and most impressive competitor at the games didn’t win any medal.  She didn’t even come close.  In fact she came last in her 800m race – almost a full lap behind the winner.  Her name is Sarah Attar and she was one of the two female athletes from Saudi Arabia – the first time this country has permitted women to compete.  Wearing a long sleeved top and full leggings and a white hijab, Sarah was running for something just as precious and probably more important than gold or silver.  She was blazing a trail for women and young girls in her home country to follow.  She was cheered all the way home with a standing ovation.  This, for me, is the true spirit of the Olympics.

Call me naive but I truly believe that sport should be about the taking part and not just the winning... in fact I think it’s the taking part that should be wildly celebrated.  I have seen the consequences of ‘winning at all costs’ with young children in schools and it would literally break your heart.  I’m talking about the child who does their best but it’s not good enough and they get side-lined all the time.  This is something particularly prevalent in football.  Is it OK in sport to sometimes humiliate a child in this way?  Is it OK for the media to thrust a microphone under the chin of a devastated athlete and ask them ‘how they are feeling about not achieving better?’

In my simplistic world if you have done your best well that’s just good enough and you deserve nothing but praise and celebration.

The one athlete I saw who totally bucked the trend was young Tom Daley the British diver.  He was tipped as a possible gold medal.  He got bronze and he was thrilled.  His exuberant joyful celebration was in stark contrast to John Joe Nevin who felt he let everyone down by only winning silver.  Good on Tom Daley – what a great role model for doing your best and that being good enough.

London 2012 changed my mind about the Olympics – mainly due to the wonderful atmosphere that was tangible even when just watching on TV.  But it hasn’t changed what I think about sport.  I’m sticking to my guns on my belief that it’s not about the winning as much as about taking part.  I know – I just don’t get sport!

ARE THERE ADVANTAGES TO A SOGGY SUMMER?

SUMMER THAT NEVER ARRIVED!

So here were are – into August and still not a sight, not a smell of summer.  We have been deluged every month and have only had the odd day here and there when we experienced blue sky, sunshine and heat, all at the same time!

Yes it has been depressing.  Yes it has made me realise that we really do reside on a damp, island in the North Atlantic when, in our hearts, many of us Irish are Mediterranean by nature.  Personally I think the Spanish Armada may have a lot to answer for.  We are temperamentally far more suited to the long languid balmy days of our Southern European cousins but instead we seem to be marooned on the wrong latitude complete with our wooden decks (a huge health and safety hazard when wet) and garden furniture.  We are possibly the only country in the world where Indian Sandstone patios are washed of all colour within 12 months of their being laid in our gardens. (If you ever think of laying an Indian Sandstone patio please don’t waste your money.  It will look like concrete within a year).

Oh yes, it has been a washout of a summer and I think finally the realisation is dawning on many of us that it’s over!  There will be no summer.  Kids will be going back to school in three weeks.  A sunny September would be nice BUT NO BLOODY USE (sorry I know I am shouting).

So have there been any advantages of our soggy summer?  I have been wracking my brain on this one for the last few days as I battle a slide into depression as the realisation dawns that summer didn’t.  Here is what I have come up with so far.....

I have saved a fortune on what I normally spend in Garden Centres.  Over the years once neighbours gardens burst forth in glorious splashes of summer colour in wonderfully tended borders I get madly jealous.  Off I go and spenD money on stuff I know nothing about.  I plant things in the wrong place and they either die or go mad so that the following years I do it all over again and never have the garden I imagine in my head.  This year it’s been a case of “garden, what garden?”

On the same theme I have developed a love of natural wildflowers otherwise known as weeds.  As the rain on the windows blurs my vision the yellow splashes of dandelion down the garden can look quite pretty.  Equally I am not so afraid of huge, fat, ugly slugs anymore... they are everywhere.

We have done less entertaining.  We are hardly 'Party Kind and Queen' in this house but there is something about long warm summer days and evenings that makes you want to get the neighbours around for chilled proscecco... hang on, this is meant to be advantages... Scrap that!  I love those evenings, even if it means I have to cut the grass and do the edges.

Although that does bring me nicely onto cutting the grass.  There have been lots of Sundays – and this is one of them – that I meant to cut the grass only to be rained off.  So instead I took to the sofa with a book... or wrote a blog post!!


Those cheap rain-jackets we normally trail around with us during the summer months we now know without a doubt are not waterproof.  So we will be well prepared for winter this year.

Skies - there have been some amazing skies.. with sinister gun metal grey clouds banked up against each other.  In turn this leads to weird light.


So what else?

As I ran out of inspiration as to the positives of THIS LOUSY SUMMER I asked the Twitter Machine for some suggestions.  Have I ever mentioned how much I love Twitter?  With thanks to everyone – here are just a few of the suggestions I received.

@mrshmc said “no hanging out washing” which may be a plus for some but me... well I love nothing more than seeing a line full of washing blowing in the breeze, drying in the sun.

@landsleaving offered “no need to get in shape for the beach”.  Indeed... although those that know me know that is not an issue for me!  But I accept it as a valid advantage!

@miriamahern said she looks forward to autumn “as it is a more normal season”.  Yes I can’t wait for autumn now.. since we have been on the brink of it for months now!!  @snastablasta echoes this sentiment by her tweet “good preparation for winter”.  Too right.

@ornagh doesn’t mind working bank holidays this summer and @JSmediabox appreciates her summer holiday more than ever this year.

So there you are.  I did my best.  I have plumbed the depths of Twitter and my own psyche to come up with some good things about our rainy summer.  It’s been difficult.  In all seriousness the lack of sunlight can have a very depressing effect.  But really there is nothing much we can do.. we are at the mercy of the vagaries of Mother Nature who this year definitely seems to be menopausal.  And remember bad weather can only improve – next summer will be better – if only because it really can’t get any worse!

In conclusion the best I can offer is to grab a book, light the fire, read a book, enjoy comfort food and settle in – it’s almost autumn!

THANK YOU MAEVE

This week Ireland lost someone very special... a woman who embodied lots of  the very best things about being Irish.  A story teller par excellence.

My tribute to our Maeve from Dalkey is on the Writing.ie website.  Click here.

IRISH REPUBLICAN WOMEN 1922-41

Thanks to my friend Vanessa O Loughlin who runs the wonderful website writing.ie, I recently had the pleasure of interviewing the historian Ann Matthews who has written two books on Irish Republican Women.  What she has to say is fascinating to anyone with an interest in Modern Irish Politics or who wonders about how we get more women involved in politics.  You can read the article here.

Enjoy

STUNNING SPRINGSTEEN.

I am no expert but there are a couple of things I believe about music.  Firstly is that nothing is quite as evocative... aromas come close.. but music can bring you, body and soul to another place in a very complete way.  Secondly I believe that our musical tastes are formed when we are teenagers.. and the music you love then, as a young adult will remain forever the music that moves you, that touches your very core like no other ever will.  Sure as you get older you may develop an appreciation for classical or some other genre... but the music that you listened to in your formative years will forever be a part of you.

Arriving into the RDS last Wednesday I recognised myself in other middle aged women who dressed in the timeless uniform of jeans and tee shirts, their saggy middle bits and life worn faces seeming to lift as they prepared to be transported backwards in time.  As I munched on a spring roll I tried to ignore the damp patch on my shoulders where my rain jacket failed in its waterproofing.  I was slightly soggy but delighted to be inhaling the excitement and anticipation that was palpable.

On the pitch we stood making some small talk with those around us, afraid to drink our water as neither of us wanted to have to use the facilities.  It rained some more and once again like good teenagers we did our best to ignore the discomfort of water dripping down our necks.

Slowly the sky started to brighten.  A patch of blue appeared.  A watery sun was doing its best in the western sky and we divested ourselves of our jackets and tied them around what once was a waist.  The lights on the stage were being tested.

Moments later, without fanfare or fireworks, Springsteen appeared and that gravelly voice, so deeply familiar was filling the arena, accompanied only by his guitar and harmonica.  So it began – almost three and a half hours of a non stop, solid rock music masterpiece, enhanced by flashes of folk and gospel.   Overhead the clouds continued to melt and the sky became almost translucent.  A silent aircraft tore a vapour trail eastwards and seagulls seemed to wheel on the notes bouncing in the warm air.

The Springsteen themes of the working man, hard times and the struggle of life seemed particularly poignant at times as the night carried his music high into the sky in Dublin 4.  Spingsteen as preacher encouraged us all to recall those we missed and who were no longer with us.  An almost transcendent moment for me as I stood in the fading light on what would have been my brothers 48th birthday had he not chosen to leave it some 16 years ago.

There is an authenticity about Springsteen’s music which is only matched by his pure unadulterated joy in performing.  His smile filled the RDS time and time again on the big screen and more than once I found myself grinning back at him.. forgetting that I was not alone in the arena.

As the light seeped away we danced and sang the oldies, Born in the USA, Glory Days, Born to Run and of course The River.  I was 20 again...  and it was magic.

As I shuffled off the pitch at 11pm, my aching back and sore feet complained that 5 hours of standing was something I probably should have gone into training for.  But boy was it worth it.  And somewhere above the music I am sure my brother did too!


WITH THANKS TO IRENE WINTERS FOR THE TICKETS!!!

HAVE MARKETING DEPTS LOST THE PLOT OR WHAT?

Recently I have seen two ads which have made me cross.  The first one I encountered some weeks back, over my breakfast while perusing the Irish Times (one of my most cherished times of day).   Turning the page my eye was caught by an ad for Harvey Nichols which featured a woman who had quite clearly wet her pants.  Yep, Harvey Nichols was appealing to women to come and visit their sale where we may wet ourselves with excitement!   A woman who had supposedly pee’d her pants is not the image I expect to see in my Irish Times of a morning.  Most off putting of one’s breakfast.  The bad taste of the ad was staggering.  I don’t shop in Harvey Nicks (and I don’t generally pee myself with excitement about shopping generally) but are they not considered a high end store?  What was being said in this ad?  Is it now socially acceptable to pee your pants?  I was annoyed and stunned.

You can therefore imagine how doubly stunned I was the following day when the scene repeated itself almost exactly – breakfast, Irish Times, Harvey Nichols ad – but this time it featured a male model – and he had no wet stain on his pants! Dry as a whistle he was.  Now I was really mad.  So, Harvey Nichols thinks only women pee themselves with excitement.  However some chat about it all on twitter indicated that the same ad had appeared in a different newspaper a few days earlier and the male model had a wet patch.  Had the Irish Times called a halt on the peeing models?  All I can say is ‘yuck’.

Today Twitter brings to my attention a flyer that Centra are apparently distributing which is advertising a range of their ‘special offers’ under the banner ‘Children’s Allowance Day Deals’.  All kinds of products are advertised including a box of beer?  It was not just me who was annoyed.  Twitter was alive with comment – which as far as I could see was all negative.

But it got me thinking.  Both of these ad campaigns are so clearly ‘wrong’ - are they deliberate?  Have marketing executives and departments become so cynical that they think if they produce something in very dubious taste or clearly morally a bit suspect it’s bound to generate comment.  Are they operating under that old adage that ‘there is no such thing as bad publicity’

I cannot believe that both companies were so blind to their marketing guru’s line in patter that they could not see the poor taste and lack of judgement evident in both of these very different ads.  And both ads are clearly aimed at different target markets.

I would be fascinated to know the truth.  Either way I don’t agree with the ‘all publicity is good publicity’ philosophy.  I would be terrified to shop in Harvey Nichols – imagine trying on a pair of trousers that someone may have gotten over excited in?  Nah. Thanks.

A MAGAZINE FOR REAL WOMEN?

A new magazine dropped onto my desk this week......

You have no idea how I have longed to use that phrase.  Are you picturing me working in a fabulous office where, a constant stream of products drop onto my lap seeking my imprimatur?  In fact my desk is in my emigrant eldest daughter’s bedroom, where I work at a desk facing a purple wall!!  But I digress....

Regular readers will know that I harbour a dream of upping sticks and moving out of suburbia and into the country.  Wexford or Kilkenny would probably be my counties of preference as I would not like to be too far from the city of my birth.  I have been known to while away long hours when there’s nothing on the tellybox, surfing websites such as DAFT and MyHome looking for my alter abode.  In fact if I am to be truthful I actually have a saved list of properties on DAFT and on a day when I need to dream a different life I visit this list and drool over these quirky houses with orchards, vegetable patches, room for donkeys and hens... sigh.  My other dream is to bail out of life for a year and rent a cottage on the Aran Islands..... but that’s another story!  Suffice to say that although a Dub born and bred I seem to have the call of the country somewhere deep within my soul! Perhaps this stems from the generally happy memories of Irish Farm family holidays in the 70s.

Women’s magazines drive me nuts regularly... with their over emphasis on beauty and fashion and dieting!!  Pages and pages of impossibly gorgeous, very skinny, very young women interspersed with only perhaps one meaty article worth reading.  I know this is a massive generalisation and it does seem to apply more to UK than Irish magazines but still after years of trying everything from Cosmopolitan to Prima and Good Housekeeping I have given up.  I rarely buy magazines now... as a 50 year old woman with only a passing interest in clothes and makeup, I find them just too depressing.

When I cast a cold eye over the cover of the new Irish Country Magazine (from the Farmers Journal, dontchya know... yee haw) I was delighted to see a photo of a real woman, Catherine Fulvio, - looking beautiful but normal!  Some Irish magazines have often been guilty of taking Irish celebrity women and totally over-styling them so that you have to look twice to recognise who they are!

I am happy to say that my delight in the cover of ‘Irish Country Magazine’ continued as I perused the innards of this new publication.  I found meaty articles aplenty and some beautiful writing.  I was particularly taken with a column by Cherone Duggan who is an Irish farmers daughter studying in Harvard and who wrote about the joy of rain.  I hope she will be a regular contributor.

There is also a feature on daughters and fathers, and a wellbeing section which leads with an article by that wonderfully wise woman, Maureen Gaffney about regrets.

There is one fashion shoot (and again is not over styled but relatively normal looking), there is one beauty feature but there is also lots of gardening, interiors and food (with Neven Maguire and cover woman Catherine Fulvio).

So if you, like me, are not a fan of women’s magazines (‘cos they make you feel cross and depressed), perhaps have a look at Irish Country Magazine.... I liked it.  It costs €2.99 and is quarterly.  The summer edition is in shops now.

Now... I wonder would they consider a column by a Dublin ole wan who decamps to Inis Oirr for a year?