Worm's I View

Bread and Circuses

2011-02-01T01:16:00.016Z

To these political activists who want to put their case by slagging the 'opposite' side, I have a message for you. Would you try to convince a drunk at a party to vote for you? So why insist on trying to change the mind of the convinced, when there are so many floating voters out there - like me - who are open to suggestion, waiting to be convinced?

I enjoyed a bit of Brian-baiting as much as the next person, but frankly, it's starting to irritate. The focus has shifted, but the baiting continues, and is engaged in by everybody, it seems to me. We now have Me-hole Martin, Where-is-Enda Kenny, Moan Burton, John Gormless, and Baron Adams. I must say though, that the jibes at Sinn Féin are more bitter - references to Bank withdrawals, etc. may sting all the more because of relatively recent history, but for what purpose?

"Absentem laedit cum ebrio qui litigat"
Brian Cowen - Footnote in History, please take note

I still think that there is a sleight of hand afoot, so to speak. We are being entertained to 'the greatest show in Ireland' with this General Election, while the serious business of policy is more of a side-show. Policies regarding Health Care, Social Protection, Enterprise Development, and of course, the ones we have all become familiar - not to say experts in - within such a short time - The Deficit, Sovereign Debt, Burning Bondholders, et al.

We should live in a community, not an economy, as a man from Bartlemy I believe it was, once said. Manque de peau, here we are, in a failing economy, with windbags of all shapes, sizes, colours and creeds, telling us how they'll solve these problems. I know they won't. Maybe it would be better if they did less - efficient politicians are even more frightening than the inept.

I feel for Elaine Byrne - with the people who nearly took the plunge. I honestly believe though, that the talents of the likes of Fintan O'Toole, David McWilliams, etc. would be better used as commentators and advisors. Look at George Lee - what a sad loss to us all THAT was. Is it possible that in 10 or 20 years time, there'll be a younger version of one of Somerville or Ross (they are beautifully co-ordinated names, in fairness, aren't they) will be out on the hustings saying something like: "Dun Laoire Rathdown is a Ross Seat".

We are, unfortunately and fortunately, a tribal nation. Look at us. We have Fianna Fáil - the Soldiers of Destiny, and Fine Gael - The Tribe of the Gaedhal, since the 1920's. We shouldn't forget that a Taoiseach was an ancient tribal chieftain, and a Tánaiste was his heir apparent, or the person appointed where a chieftain had been deposed. We still retain that tribal attitude to our representatives, each constituency is a minor kingdom. This explains so many of the good things about ourselves, our sense of community, belonging to a place - as exemplfied by the GAA, This also explains why people will vote for 'their local man'. Shur, isn't he one of our own. We heard them on Pot Kennay's show lately - from Tipperary.

The thing is, they're not really one of our own, other than when the call comes every few years or so. hey've been seduced by the big Gathering, the Dáil, where they play on the senior team, God help them.

So we have neither fish nor fowl nor good red herring - other than the red herrings that Jim Higgins talked about - the ones that the Fianna Fáil / Green Party Government has been 'throwing at white elephants' over the last few years.

God help us.

The Optimistic Cynic - or the Informed Idealist...

2011-01-09T00:40:00.004Z

I suppose that the fact that the father of Cynicism was the son of a Banker should not surprise us, as we stumble into the second decade of the 21nd Century. Poor old Diogenes. That barrel can't have been too comfortable, and with so many admirers, you'd think that he could have got himself a flash apartment overlooking the Adriatic. Of course, he would have said that "that which is valuable is battered with that which is worthless, and that which is worthless is battered by that which is valuable" - go figure.

Still, it's vaguely comforting to know that 2,300 years ago, there was a man who was prepared to go against the grain, to suffer the ridicule of the fashionable, for his ... ideals? Ah, and so we come to the question...

Was the father of Cynicism - and ultimately of Stoicism - actually an Idealist? Well, of course he was. He was a thinker and a philosopher. He didn't suffer fools gladly, and he described himself as a dog. "I am Diogenes the Dog. I will fawn upon those who are kind, bark at those who are greedy and bite scoundrels."

My kinda guy then. I suppose he's most peoples' kinda guy - unless he was your neighbour. He'd be a pain in the arse if he was your neighbour. Most oddballs are. He'd be distinctly uncomfortable. Most idealists are.

As I continue to think about 'the state we are in' and the knocking down of all the idols on all the pedestals that we have built ourselves; spiritually, socially, financially, culturally, They are all coming tumbling down.

We need leaders. We need people who are prepared to be ridiculed. We need people to become indignant - as Stephane Hessel would have it - but not tooo much...
Remember the lessons learned in previous centuries - In a vacuum, a leader can become too powerful.

The Greatest Love Song...?

2010-12-27T23:55:00.005Z

It struck me this morning, as I woke from a scanty sleep and looked at my equal (not better - no way!) half, that Love is very over-rated. Not that I don't love my 'other' half, I do actually. I tried to sit up, and wrench my shoulderblades back into a more natural position, and he sat on the edge of the bed and negotiated the minor minefield of putting on his socks. The cause of our discomfort (apart from encroaching age) lay flat on his back, legs akimbo, arms astretch, oblivious to the pain he had inflicted during the night! Our son. Our darling boy - not so darling at four in the morning when he insinuates himself in between us and pushes the duvet down to our knees, but he says "love you Mom" as he does it, and you can't get cross then can you...

The wretch. But it was ever thus. I remember looking at my daughter when she was about 4 months old, and being convinced that babies develop the smile reflex at a few months old because otherwise the human race would have come to another dead archaeological end. They smile, and instantly, we melt. We coo, gurgle ridiculously and provide food, shelter, electronic goods, overpriced shoes... and of course, Love! I sound like a right curmudgeon, and it's true. Put it down to the pain in my neck that still hasn't gone away 16 hours later...

Being a curmudgeon is probably the reason that I can't read a Mills & Boon book. When the cool clean hero looks adoringly into her eyes and tenderly wraps a blade of grass around her trembling finger, I tend to think something like "Yeah, give it 10 years and 2 or 3 babies, and you'll be lucky to get that adoring look is when you serve up the hindquarters of a bullock on top of a mound of spuds, my dear girl".

If ever I wrote a love story, my hero and heroine would be so boring... I would model them on my favourite love song. Not by Celine Dion, Bryan Adams, or even Chopin... No, I'd have Seán Eoin Ó Suilleabháin as my choice. Here are the words of Mise 'gus Máire, a story of a man who loves his wife, has a twinkle in his eye and good range to his voice! I won't do it the injustice of translating it. It's perfect just as it is.

Mise ‘gus Máire

Táimse ‘gus Máire go sásta ‘nár n’aigne,
Ó nascadh i bpáirt sinn ag an altóir ró bheannaithe
Thug sise grá, thar cáirde ‘gus fearaibh dom
Thógas ar láimh í, ‘s go brách, brách ní scarfaimíd
Bead-se ‘seinnt cheoil dí, poirtíní beál agam
Reics fol dí-ó, reics fol dí ai de dil aigh dí.

Tá mo theaghlach san áit is fearr ar an mbaile seo,
I bPáirc an tShrutháin, a sharaíonn cead acra
Cruithneacht a’ fás ann chomh h-árd leis na clathacha
‘Is mé ‘feitheamh don tráth san go bhfeice mé aibidh é
Bead-sa seinnt cheoil dí, poirtíní beál agam
Reics fol dí-ó, reics fol dí ai de dil aigh dí.

Tá torthaí a’fás im gháirdín go slachtaithe
Úlla, spiúnáin agus cúiríní dearga
Siúcre i mála le ráithe go taiseithe
Chun subh is mílseáin don bháb, ‘is don bhanaltra
Bead-sa seinnt cheoil dóibh, poirtíní beál agam
Reics fol dí-ó, reics fol dí ai de dil aigh dí.

Sí mo chéile-se Máire, an stáidbhean mhodhúil mhaisiúil
A’faire ‘n chliabháin, ‘is an páiste ‘r a sheascaireacht,
Stoca ‘na lámhaibh, ‘is na bioráin innte preabarnaigh
Í a’cniotáil, ‘is a’crónán do’n leainbhín
Mise a’seinnt cheoil dóibh, poirtíní beál agam
Reics fol dí-ó, reics fol dí ai de dil aigh dí.

Sé mo ghuí chun an Árd-Mhic na grásta do scaipeadh orainn,
‘Is go leanfaidh an t-ádh seo, gan gátar ná easba sinn,
Nuair a thiocfaidh lá an áirimh ar Mhághaibh úd Jhosaifet
Go dtóga Dia ar láimh sinn anáirde go Parrathas,
Bead-sa seinnt cheoil ann, poirtíní beál agam
Reics fol dí-ó, reics fol dí ai de dil aigh dí.

No reason to feel shame

2010-11-19T01:02:00.000Z

Today, the Taoiseach, Brian Cowen, leader of our country told me that I had no reason to feel shame. Strange that I do not feel comforted. Stranger still that he is talking about feeling anything at all. But these are strange days we're living in.

When it comes right down do it, why should anyone feel shame?
The Bankers? Their function is to make a profit for their owners/shareholders. They will charge the highest rate they legally can, and as much as the market can bear.

The Developers? See above...

The Regulators? They were appointed and directed by Government. Shure they were only doing what they were told... weren't we all?

The Mortgagees? Well, 'everyone' said that they'd be left behind if they didn't get on the property ladder - so is it their fault if they tried to live the dream? If the Bankers told them that they had confidence in their ability to pay, who were they to disagree?

And so we come to Government. What are their responsibilities? Is it not the case that they DO have a responsibility to civil society, not the markets. We are their shareholders. Their function is to oversee that the Bankers, the Developers, and all the rest, are Regulated. They do this by appointing people of substance and authority to Regulate. They develop policies according to their manifestos. They legislate in order to protect civil society from insatiable greed and unfettered criminality.

No, Mr. Cowen, I don't feel shame. I don't feel much of anything except anger, that that's all directed at YOU and your inept, corrupt, excuse for a Government.

How DARE you condescendingly state that I need feel no shame.
We'll get through this. My daughter will probably never get to College.
But we'll feel no shame...

My son has had one holiday away, a long weekend with friends in France, in his nine years. He'll probably not see the likes for another 10 years. He'll be lucky to get to Leaving Cert, let alone College. But we'll feel no shame...

I'll probably not have a job after Christmas, my husband will be bloody lucky to keep his part-time job. We'll both have to work like lunatics - probably in the black economy if we're lucky enough to find something. But we'll feel no shame...

When we're choosing between a doctors fee and the electricity bill...
When we're cutting back on those little luxuries we tend to get a taste for - like food...

We'll feel no shame...

I will tell everyone who will listen that the Troika of ineptitude; Fianna Fáil, the PD's, the Glasraí, did this.

I do not feel any shame.

I feel anger.

Cliché-Fest of the Vanities

2010-10-10T11:52:00.005+01:00

As I'm writing, I'm listening to Philip King, Ed Walsh, Ruari Quinn, Ilonna Duffy, and Harry McGee on Marian Finucan's show. Oh, and I almost forgot - John Gormley. It's Saturday, 10th October at 12 noon. It's like a little microcosm of our society.

Ed Walsh is an academic who wants retribution - now that's a dangerous combination. It's one that I can absolutely understand, and I can feel his fury. His comments on Bertie in the Cupboard were the best I've heard.

You really get the sense of Ahern as Leprechaun, dancing on a cliff-edge. The exTaoiseach who spent years carefully weaving the rope that bound him to his brothers, who in their turn created the net that enmeshed (not to say ensnared) all of us. The net that binds all of us ultimately to him, and his ilk - the FF tribe. And there he is, dancing in delight at the security that rope gives him. He holds tight to the pot-a-gold that he helped fill as he granted constructive wishes; the heavy pot-a-gold that will pull all of us over the edge.

John Gormley - Is he an innocent abroad? A politician who should never have gone beyond the local council? Or an ecowarrior out of his tree? In any event, the feeling he engenders in me is that of self-preservationist dressed as a statesman, a bit player who's now in a panic 'cos he's seen how close to the cliff-edge we are. He was just out searching for pods of dolphins, ignoring the danger signs because he had a higher purpose. But I doubt he signed up for this...

Ilonna Duffy - mostly silent. I don't know enough about her, as far as I know she's one of that rare species - even rarer than Leprechauns: a successful Irish business woman operating in Ireland. She's probably pragmatically looking for the best position on the cliff-edge - and who'd blame her.

Harry McGee - deals in facts. They are devastating. He is the one who shines the spotlight on the facts. The facts tell the story themselves. The facts tell us that there was a culture of incompetence, entitlement, greed, waste... He's trying to tell us that the rope is tightening, that the dancing Leprechaun is looking into the abyss - I get the feeling that the abyss has been looking into the dancer for a long, long, long time.

Ruairi Quinn - is a sober and astute politician, long inured to opposition. He is the engineer who is trying to estimate the gradient of the cliff, the counter-weight needed, the depth of the foundation needed. He obviously doesn't trust the Leprechauns who said that this edifice could hold. He looks with a jaundiced eye when they say that they will lead the people along a four-year path out of the crisis. He's wise to the ways of Snake Oil salesmen.
Cow-cough-linehan is no Moses leading his people out of Egypt... and that took 40 years, not 4.

and Philip King - the poet, musician, visionary.
His views will be derided and ridiculed, and he will be called a pollyanna.
But he made a good point, that this state, and every other state, came about because of poets and visionaries. At the end of it all, if we have not been bled dry by the zombies, I hope that there will be some visionaries who will emerge. Why can we not see that we need the visionaries, the one's who look beyond the cliff, the breakers, to the clean blue ocean that could wash the filth away. Some will drown, but lifeboats can be built

This Government in Ireland in October 2010 want our blood. They've taken our money and our childrens' money. They've taken our time, our energy, our spirit, and now they want our blood.

I'd spill my own first.

2010-09-28T00:34:00.003+01:00

I've been sucked back into looking at the political stories of the day. It's doing my head in, I'm sick of it, yet still - I must WANT to punish myself. I've even toyed with the idea of joining a political party, something that I have always assiduously avoided. I'll know next week if that's something that I want to do - or not.

I believe that we are reaching the end of "Representative Democracy" in the form that it has taken over the past x hundred/s years. It appears to me to be self-evident that the incremental steps that lead to a huge shift in the shape of the world are about to reach a tipping point. That's big - isn't it? Yes and no. You see, I believe that there's more to this than our little problems here on the west coast of Europe. There are a few straws that I see floating in the wind, all pointing to one outcome, but I don't have the expertise or background to even verbalise these properly. Nevertheless, here are a few of those straws.

1. Something in my gut tells me that there's a symmetry to all things. The pendulum always swings - sometimes it's a backlash, sometimes imperceptively slowly. The trend has been towards globalisation, and I think that trend must now reverse. There will be many reasons; uncertainty and lack of confidence causing a fall-off in markets world wide, Peak Oil (probably), and many more that I don't understand.

So what is the reverse of Globalisation? I suppose that it must be Localisation. It was interesting reading David McWilliams blog tonight.
http://www.davidmcwilliams.ie/2010/09/27/recovery-is-going-to-be-local
Wierd to see your thoughts reflected in the writings of a well-known economist!

2. I think that IT and communications technology is going to cause as big a revolution as the printing press did in its time. News is now instant and interactive. We don't have the filter of journalists, broadcasters, etc. any more. DBT (Dan Boyle's Tweet) would be a good example. Mainstream media is now running to catch the coat-tails of 'new media'. The instant nature of new media is important, but it's that interactivity that's really key. Anybody with a computer can join in. Not just consuming the story, but telling it too.

There's more, but I'm tired. I think the answer is Participative Democracy - but I'm too tired to even try to explain. Leadership is required - leaders who are big enough to risk everything - failure especially.

Trust and Politics

2010-09-11T03:22:00.002+01:00

This grieving for the boom is messing with my head still. I didn't get sucked in to the excess, so maybe I'm grieving that I didn't even get to enjoy the party while it lasted, and now I'm getting a hangover by proxy.

I know - we all know - that we're being lied to, conditioned, prepared. The parties are on an election footing, and the gloves are off. But somehow, it feels like an inter-necine war... There's an element of collegiality still about the members of the political classes that is stomach-churning.

A few months ago, when I was still more angry than sad about what was happening, I felt like manning the barricades. If someone - anyone - had stood up and said they were as mad as hell and they weren't going to take it anymore, I'd have stood shoulder to shoulder with them. Knowing me, I'd probably be wearing a hoodie that'd cover my face for all intents and purposes.

Yes, I'm still a victim of respectability. Staunchly middle-class parents, with aspirations to be upper-middle-class, ensured that I still can't imagine myself voting Sinn Féin for instance. A sad reflection...

The anger has turned to fear and loathing. I don't recognise myself anymore. I spend endless hours at night, reading the commentaries of experts. I still don't know any more than I did then. There's a kind of paralysis that I know I'm not alone in feeling. I want to be active, to actively contribute to the destruction of the political classes we have spawned. I worry that that same creeping paralysis is becoming more and more apparent.

News stories are less and less shocking. But not because of content, but because of conditioing.

It's bad.
It's really bad
It's REALLY really bad.
This could kill us
It's attacking
We're dead - RIP Ireland

And there are those who see themselves asmembers of the Party! Dead maybe, but STILL members of the Party. Martyrs to a grubby cause. This country is becoming radicalised in a whole new obscene way...

Please someone clean and minty - save my sanity.

"They either don't know - or they're lying"

2010-08-13T14:45:00.002+01:00

Listening to Joe Duffy - for once. Normally, I don't get to hear it, cos I'm at work, but I'm at home today.

There's a man on talking about leaving for England. He calls himself 'a survivor'. Fair play to him. He reckons that there's something very wrong here. How perceptive of him. they don't have the money to get driving lessons - especially in rural Ireland, so he's going.

He said "They either don't know - or they're lying". That's the most perceptive statement that I've heard in a long time.

My brain is in a kind of paralysis. Between the Politicians and the Meeja, both are complicit in sucking the oxygen out of the air - at least that's what it feels like to me...

I'm off to read a historical novel... a bit of alternative perspective would be good

Grieving for 'da boooom'?

2010-05-17T23:56:00.003+01:00

What stage are we at as far as the grief for our lovely and ever-so-defunct (ka)boooooom? I looked up the 7 stages. According to one source, they are:
1. Shock and Denial
2. Pain and Guilt
3. Anger and Bargaining
4. Depression/Reflection/Loneliness
5. The Upward Turn
6. Reconstruction and Working Through
7. Acceptance and Hope

I wish these stooopid politicians would STFU and leave us grieve at our own pace, for heavens sake. They keep on mixing the messages - once minute feigning shock, the next trying to tell us that reconstruction is immanent. Yah-right!

I've had my fill of them - all of them.

Anyone for participitative democracy - anyone? Anyone at all?

Pension Blues...

2010-04-28T01:25:00.002+01:00

The other day, the guy from the company that handles my PRSA came to meet me. He's very personable and agreeable. He's a brilliant salesman - and not in a shark in a sharp suit kind of way. More the old-fashioned way of telling you what he does, what the benefits are - and he's believable... boy, is he believable.

I checked on a savings-cum-life assurance policy that I've been putting about €60 a month into since about 1988 the same day. About €20 of it was 'savings' and the balance was life cover. It was some quare scheme of a thing whereby the savings allowed you to claim tax-relief I think. I never have claimed the tax relief though. I remembered that it was meant to 'mature' when my daughter went to college, so I asked what the value was. I am now the proud owner of €85 savings. Imagine that - after 20+ years of saving! We wouldn't want to be breeding doctors, now would we...?

So, I don't believe in PRSA's. I still have one, mind you. It's a Pascal's Wager sort of thang. (And no, I don't believe in that Catholic God that I was born and bred on either, but...) I reckon that I'll have about tuppence-ha'penny when it comes to that PRSA, but the company pays € for € what I put in, so I keep putting it in.

I'm probably fairly representative of about 95% or more of this 'society' we live in. I love my family. I work hard. I care for my neighbours. I contribute as much as I can. I will NOT retire at 55 - not if I have a choice. I do NOT break the law in any significant way (said she, as she remembered that the tax is up on the car since the beginning of April...) I will NOT have Directorships and Memberships of Boards etc. being offered to me. I'm not important enough.

I don't want to sound self-righteous, self-congratulatory, or smug. But here's the thing. I LOVE my job. I KNOW that I do it well - well parts of it anyway. I KNOW that I've earned my salary when it comes through - my record is 36 hours straight through without a meal-break to get my stuff done for a deadline. I KNOW that I contribute to my community by doing this job. I KNOW that there are 45+ people who are working, who more than likely would not be in that position but for the work I put in. I KNOW that there are 250+ people who benefit directly from the work that we do, day-in, day-out, even if most of them don't know about the background work that has to be done.

I often wonder what my life would be like now if I had taken another path. If I'd put in this much effort at a business of my own, or another 'big-business' of some kind, would I have developed the skillsets, ruthlessness and instinct for the carotid necessary to get to an equivalent position. I doubt it, but who knows. I've known a few of them, and they are utterly alien to me.

I will probably regret not having spent more time with my children - the old adage of people never regretting that they didn't spend more time in the office. It might sound resentful and jealous, but it's the truth - I KNOW that I can sleep at night. When I wake in the morning, I might dread looking in the mirror, but that's an age thang. It's not the little imps of conscience knawing at the synapses behind furtive eyes.

But there are pensions and then there are Pensions. Some Pensions are worth multiples of an ordinary joe's salary. Some might have to be stalked and pestered into giving - sorry that should be 'Gifting'them back.

Well, my life may not be that luxurious, but I can still only wear one set of clothes at a time, or eat one meal at a time, or sleep in one bed at a time. And that sleep - short and all as it is usually - is precious to me. That might not be good enough for the buiceanna móra making "gifts" of their pensions back today.
No, not good enough for them - but 'tis good enough for me.

Post NAMA Depression - the Remedy!

2010-04-07T00:10:00.006+01:00

I realised on the 4th of April - Easter Sunday - that NAMA-paralysis had taken control of my brain. I woke up with the word Anglo seared onto my brain, honestly. I had spent the previous three days following every post, tweet, radio and TV interview on the subject.

I had dragged myself out of bed each morning, since I was off work (not by choice I might add). I dragged myself from my PC at 2 am, 3 am, even later... I had calculated and recalculated how much I would end up paying for Anglo, for NAMA in general. I had day-dreamed about what tortures I would inflict on Seanie (Fitzpatrick), Patrick (Neary), Fingleton, Drumm, Cowen, Ahern, Linehan, the list goes on and on and on and on... I was burned the hell OUT.

To make matters worse, I had promised my little boy that I would take him, and his two best friends, out for the day on that particular day - Easter Sunday. Well, the state of the economy, the world, the political landscape, are inconsequential trivia to a nine-year old boy. And so they should be. So off we went to Cool Wood in Killarney.

The drive was fine - not too long. The children didn't know where they were going so I kept the conspiracy up til we arrived. The lads ran after geese, who ran back at them hissing like mad. They searched for eggs and got tons of treats. The emus looked at me in that vacant supercillious way they have. The lama patrolled his patch with the watchfulness of a presidential bodyguard. The sun shone briefly. People nodded to each other and smiled to themselves while they watched the childrens' delight in finding a little plastic egg... and eggs means T R E A T S !!

When the rain started it was just a sprinkle, not a downpour. We were ready to leave in any case, so we made our way home and I fed the lads before taking them home. By then the rain really was bucketing down, but we'd had a good day, they were happy, and my brownie credit points were at Anglo levels.

Arriving at one of the boy's houses, I missed the turn and had to reverse... BAD MOVE. Distracted by the fog from the hot little lungs that had been screaming in the back of the car, the drivers side of the car went off into a shallow ditch on the roadside. It wouldn't have been a problem except for the rain.

I was stuck in mud as slick as an estate agent. Now this should have been when my depression, which had lightened during the time with the boys, should have kicked back in. Normally, if something goes wrong with the car, I'll sit in the driver's seat and bang on the wheel in frustration. But somewhere during the manoevering myself out of the car and knee deep in cold mucky water, gathering stones to shove under the wheel with cold mucky fingers, I started to giggle.

I called my husband when it didn't work and I dug myself deeper. My daughter sent me a text saying "What's up, what's wrong, r u OK? /" I sent a message back - "I'm fine, car stuck in the mud and me covered in it!" with a picture attached of me complete with mudpack. The giggling got worse, and I thought it was hysteria, and tried to hold it in. But when I slipped and got my bottom thoroughly soaked as well, with the concerned Mom of Boy 1 looking on, I just started to laugh properly.
What else was there to do...!

D'you know, that belly-laugh did me the world of good. The depression lifted. I'd still love to engage in a little light torture, but I'd do it through ridicule rather than red-hot pokers - and that's progress in my eyes.

Do-the-(re)-Shuffle

2010-03-24T00:32:00.005Z

"Shuffling is a procedure used to randomize a deck of playing cards to provide an element of chance in card games. Shuffling is often followed by a cut, to ensure that the shuffler has not manipulated the outcome" - from Wikipedia

To be honest, I think this image here is a bit more appropriate for todays events in Kildare Street...

http://www.4to40.com/images/games/fun/musical_chair.gif

but hey - who am I?
A lowly Worm is all...
Still, there are a lotta lotta Worms out there.
In all sorts of places.
Doing all sorts of jobs.
And if we're cornered - who's to say?
The Worms could turn...

Lá an Mháthair (not Mothers' Day - Mother's Day)

2010-03-18T01:53:00.007Z

Ok - it's just a pesky apostrophe... what I mean is - this is not about Mother's Day, it's about the Day I became a Mother.

When I first found out that I was pregnant, the idea of childbirth terrified me. Literally a case of 'ar eagla na h-eagla'. It was the fear that frightened me. The idea of this quite large thing coming from this very small place just did my head in. About a week before my first baby was born, I was marching down Patrick St. in Cork, absolutely refusing to waddle like a pregnant woman does, when I missed the pavement and stepped down on the street. There was this sensation in my belly a sinking feeling, and boy did I waddle away after that. But as I walked on, there were a lot of people walking toward me, and it just struck me 'All of these people have been born, someone has been through childbirth so that these people could be here'. So what's the big deal, they could do it, I can do it. and from that moment, I had no fears, total acceptance, que sera sera, if I tear apart, if I break up, I will - so be it. I was told afterward that that sensation was probably the baby's head engaging, and I figure that the hormones really kicked in at that stage, and that's why my fears abated.

When labour started, a few days later, my body know exactly how to cope. It was the only time in my life when my mind and my body/brain separated and each dealt with its own priorities. The natural drugs that the body releases did their job, and my mind took off and floated while the body got on with the job in hand. In between contractions I was cold, calm, flat, white, then as the pain built up and concentrated into a hard, blazing hot, fist of pain, and then relaxed and spread out again as the contraction subsided.

Time can take on strange properties. As labour went on time stretched and stretched, and my mind searched for things to occupy it while this was going on. As the time of birth approached, I thought of my other, how she had been roughly the same age as I was then when her first child was born. But when I was born she was 43, so I had never known her as a young woman, and even though my head knew that she had once been young, I had never acknowledged those other versions of her that had preceded my birth. Sometimes when I come across someone like a teacher I had when I was very small, for a single instant, I become again that ungainly ugly, gap-toothed little girl with scraggy hair and big ears, and then my adult self slips back into place again.

But that little girl is still there somewhere inside me, and so is the smart-ass, swaggering, teenager that I was, and all the other versions of me to date. They haven't gone away - they're just encapsulated by later versions. But I had never acknowledged Mother as anything other than 'Mother' - the role. Then, just before baby arrives, there's this pause. Not a lull or a calm, but a pause full of expectation and panting breaths, and in that moment it struck me that now I was becoming Mother. and that terrified me, because Mother to me meant two things. I loved her dearly, but she was also the source of the most intense irritation to me, and I didn't want to be like her. And now here I was, on the point of becoming her, becoming Mother. And there was no way that I could change that. But also I realised that she had gone through this same process, and I felt a kinship that I had never felt before, and the fact that my baby was a little girl meant that this process was being repeated again, and again. There's a sort of mirroring of the push-pull of birth, and the push-pull of versions of ourselves, and the push-pull of the relationships we have with people.

And then these versions of ourselves are battling for a bit of territory as well. Often when we change from being one version to another, it's quite sudden. One moment you're single, the next you're married. One moment you're married, the next you're a widow(er). Other people regard you as being the 'new' you immediately, but generally we have to evolve or grow into the new version. Another image I had thought of using in this poem was immediately the new baby was born, they put her on my stomach. I could feel this wave of expectation from the mid-wives and from within myself, to go 'Ahh, isn't she gorgeous' but I just went 'Yuchh'. My expectation of a baby was soft, and warm, and pink and cuddly. But this was cold, and slimy, and wrinkly, and purple, and I thought 'Ohmigod, I am not NOT ready for this - Help' Just because I've been through the process of childbirth, that does not mean that I automatically click into Mother-mode. I still don't know how to change a nappy, I've never done it in my life. Why is it expected that I automatically know if she's sick, or dying of hunger, or choking? I don't know how to do all of this Mother-stuff yet. I don't want to be Mother - My mother. I don't know if I can be Me - Mother because this version of me is too new, the skin doesn't fit yet, I'll have to grow into it.

Then when the baby cried for the first time, I went through that same acceptance thing that I had before. This was all part of a process. The likelihood was that this baby would probably have babies too, and so on, and so on, and the parts fitted a little better together in the jig-saw which had been thrown at me, higgledy-piggledy in this maelstrom of hormones and sensations and unaccustomed events. I was just one more piece of this continuous line of mothers and daughters which stretches back unimaginable distancesWe all cry - we cry in sorrow, in grief, and we cry when growing pains and other pains afflict us, and we cry with happiness, and with joy.

My daughter’s name is - Joy.

Mother's Day

And then each second sagged on the clock on the wall,
And the pain pulled and pulled in and in to the core.
Bone will break
If it must
It'll wrench the flesh to dry dust.

Morning welled up and spilled over the window,
Drenching the cold, milk-white, walls with its light.
But I am
Full of heat,
There is blood, on the flat snow-white sheet.

I wish to dissolve in a still, dropping, pool
Of crystal and ice, to dive down to the deep.
Numb my heart
But I gape -
Blot it out - no, no, look - no escape . . .

Mother ? My mother ? Me ? My daughter ?
One more heave,
My world shifts.
But my self is the same,
Though cells will divide and they cluster and grow,
Turn old and dry wrinkle and shrivel and die

Deep in that womb, weeping that woman,
Holds baby, the beauty, the bride,
The wife, mother, widow - all cry.
They push and then pull, and they bawl.
They all cry.

Brian O'Driscoll for President !

2010-03-13T17:46:00.007Z

Oh yes!
I think Brian O'Driscoll would make a great President.
He has the capacity to lead, with a disarming and honest face, and the twinkle in the eye is is bright as David Norris' for a start!
Oh yes, I'd vote for him in a nanosecond - but maybe he has better things to do.

Here's a conundrum.
When commentators talk about rugby, there's a phrase that's often overused:
'they lay their bodies on the line for the team'.
As a nation, we can produce sports people of the calibre of Brian O'Driscoll, Ronan O'Gara, Paul O'Connell, John Hayes... the young turks, Bowe, Heaslip, the list goes on. And that's just the rugby. There are stars of equal stature in Hurling, Football, Horseracing, Athletics, etc. Hurling is a magnificent game. I love that unique mixture of balletic athleticism, lightening speed and the precision of a poet. But for pure passion, give me rugby...
It's the one sport I follow.

As a small child, I remember sitting beside my father to look at matches. It's strange, looking back. We lived in a GAA heartland; my brothers all played Gaelic football; and my father zealously followed the Cork team through good years and bad. My dad was the mildest of men. Many said he was too mild for his own good. Except when it came to rugby.

My memories are filled with grainy black-and-white pictures together with strikingly colourful language from the normally calm, sombre man beside me. And this was in the era of the ban, remember! He would swear and grumble, curse the damned Welsh, call down the Ides of March, call the Scots and Sassanaigh all the names under the sun, plus some that never will see the sun. He idolised Jack Kyle, Mike Gibson, Willie John McBride. They were his heros, and he, of course, was mine - so maybe they became my heros by proxy. Whatever the reason, I still love the honesty of effort, stepping up to the mark with nowhere to hide, the craic of the third half, the brotherliness. A glimpse into an utterly male domain.

Though he died in 1983, last year, during the 6 Nations, I felt my Dad beside me as I sat on my sofa. We bobbed and weaved, we pulled, we pushed, we felt every tackle, we breathed so deep in an effort to will them the strength to go another inch, and another inch. And together we inched our way, all the way to the Grand Slam. Oh, how he would have gloried in it.

They gave every ounce they had for each other.
The trust in each other was absolute and unwavering.
The ultimate in teamwork.
And they still are -
And the new breed show all the signs of carrying the torch forward to yet another level.

So, what's the conundrum?

Well, if we can produce heros like this,
and we can produce artistry like Yeats, Joyce, Shaw,
Ó Riordáin, Kavanagh, Wilde, Swift, Eileen Gray, ...
scientists like Boole, Beaufort, Tyndall, Boyle...
Pantridge, Anthony Clare...
engineers like Ferguson, Holland, Callan, Mitchell...
and I couldn't even TRY to list the musicians, singers, dancers - think about it,
Spillane, John Field, Ó Riada, Sinéad O'Connor, U2, Riverdance, . . .

All uniquely Irish, all magnificent in their field.

So the conundrum?
If we can produce these magnificent beings, why on earth are we making do with Cowen, Coughlan, Lenihan, and though I'm convinced that Kenny, Gilmore et al would do better, I don't know how much better they would be.

We should have inspirational politicians, God knows that we need them.
We need passion. The capacity to 'lay the body on the line for the team'.

Cometh the hour - where is the (wo)man ?

The ceremony of innocence...

2010-03-09T00:43:00.006Z

I'm sitting here, a lowly worm, thinking about a line of a poem... "the centre cannot hold..."

I had to go and look it up. It's WB Yeats

The Second Coming

"Turning and turning in the widening gyre
The falcon cannot hear the falconer;
Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;
Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,
The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere
The ceremony of innocence is drowned;
The best lack all conviction, while the worst
Are full of passionate intensity."

The world is falling apart - and it is really falling apart. The idols feet of clay have been revealed. So many idols, so far to fall... It's worth looking up Daniel 31-33.

And yet, my dog looks at me with those adoring, watchful eyes. She doesn't care if I have money - or not, if I'm fashionable - or not, if I'm intelligent - or not, even if I'm kind - or not.
She just loves me, and because she trusts me totally, I'm captivated. I could no more let her suffer for an instant than I could stick a knife in my own eye.

All these greed-driven people who have brought the world to this pass, I'm sure that most if not all of them have dogs, and children, and partners who love them. What is it that brings people from innocence to corruption?

I'm sure that nobody sets out in life to be voracious. That's what hunger does to you. Hunger is caused by a lack of resources. If your perception of the world is that you lack resources, hunger builds, you become voracious. Even if the resources are there - but the perception is that they are not - then the animal instinct is to gorge and gorge.

Is that what happened? Is the predatory instinct so strong that it shows through the behavioural niceties that we call 'society'? Animals have a pecking order. I have a horrible sinking feeling that this chaos is a consequence of the falling apart of the old pecking order. Are we feeling the unforeseen birth-pangs of a meritocracy, and where will that lead us?

Geez, my head hurts... time for this worm to go.
Especially having mentioned
THE P WORD (ie. peck)

Staying sane in a crazy world

2010-03-03T02:01:00.002Z

As I mentioned in my first (and far from perfect) post, the world is gone mad...

It seems to me that pedastals are crashing all around us, in wild abandon.

Church leaders are outsinning the sinners they forgive so grudgingly
B(w)ankers are broke
Regulators are decidedly irregular
Gombeens are complaining that they're being compared to politicians now
To top it all, I hear that Obama has said "No, I can't" - stop smoking that is...

And yet, there's a little voice in my head saying, "this is healthy skepticism, not cynicism".

Oh oh, this post was about staying SANE in a crazy world, and here I am, writing down what the little voice in my head is saying!
Time to stop.

"You don't have to be perfect to start, you just have to start"

2010-02-25T09:22:00.002Z

Well, it's the 25th Februray, 2010, and I've started a blog!

I have no idea if I'll do anything with it, or if it will be one of those sad, dormant historical documents you come across on the Web from time to time. But I've started. I feel that I have a worm's eye view of where I am in the world, and that that's worth putting down on (cyber) paper.

I have serious concerns about the world I live in. I've lived in Ireland through the first decade of the 21st Century. It has not been edifying to look at this world from my WIV (worm's eye view, anyone?). We've had Developer Fever, the Ryan Report, baNAMA, Lea's Cross, Banksters, the Murphy Report... the list goes on, and on, and on.

Over the last few weeks/months, we've had

John O'Donoghue dragged kicking and screaming from his Cathaoir
The untimely announcement of Brian Lenihan's illness
The departure of George Lee from politics
Deirdre de Burca's hissy fit
Willie O'Dea (no relation! I don't even have a shadow of a moustache, k?)
Trevor Sargent's exit as MOS

This Worm is sick of it all!

Most of all, I'm sick of seeing the 'Tiger' devouring it's cubs, or at least exporting it's best and brightest again. My friends are leaving in droves, I'm stuck in the mud here - family commitments, financial commitments, etc.

Ok, that rant is now over.