Dancing for the fun of it
June 30, 2006 — sharonaOne of my favourite quotes of all time:
Work like you don’t need the money,
Dance like nobody’s watching
Love like it’s never going to hurt…
On that second one: check this guy out!
One of my favourite quotes of all time:
Work like you don’t need the money,
Dance like nobody’s watching
Love like it’s never going to hurt…
On that second one: check this guy out!
I will as ever provide a pre-emptive strike against myself: I have no patience. I don’t mean I only have a little, sometimes, I mean that I am devoid of it. Utterly.
As a result, everyday life tends to piss me off. Waiting for a bus that’s running late. Waiting to be served in a restaurant. Even walking behind insanely slow people who are supposedly in just as much of a hurry to be at work by 9am. Don’t get me started on people who show up late for things. I could smack them all across the head with an anville (such as the thing currently residing on O’Connell bridge), but if it’s any consolation I become twice as angry with myself as I would with them if I am running even a minute or two late.
One thing that really gets to me is when you have an appointment - doctor, dentist, solicitor, whatever - at a specific time. And you arrive a few moments before that time. And you sit “patiently” awaiting your alotted time slot. And it passes. And then you start reading a magazine consoling yourself that any minute now the relevant member of staff will mis-pronounce your name using the excuse that they’ve only lived in this country for 30 years and sure why on earth would they learn the language.
Twenty minutes pass. You become aware that the end of the magazine is nigh and as you flick through filler pages of bad photos of bad people and ads for worse people you wonder to yourself what to do next.
Somehow we have convinced ourselves as a society that to approach a staff member and point out that you have so far been kept waiting half an hour is impolite on our part. How the hell did that happen? They said they would fix your tummy/teeth/eyes at 2:30pm. Why on earth are you still sitting in a waiting room at 3:02pm being subjected to the “hottest and nottest beach bodies 2006″??!
It’s a self-perpetuating mess and maybe it’s the fault of the late people. If everyone is given a 30 minute slot, and every appointment takes 15 minutes, then where and how can this backlog develop unless some desperately inconsiderate plonker insists on being late because their lives are so much more important than us?
My dad has a strict policy on punctuality which certainly applies here. If someone keeps you waiting, it simply shows that they believe their time [I had to spend an extra twenty minutes brushing my hair] is fundamentally more valuable than yours [I have been standing at this landmark for twenty minutes re-reading old text messages waiting for your over-groomed ass to show up]. When you think about it like that it makes it that much more difficult to accept excuses.
Yes, you’ve guessed it: only the full text will do…
New Irish may save language
John Waters 26/06/2006
The surely unsurprising news that the standard of spoken Irish is, as one newspaper headline puts it, “in freefall” may represent the most critical moment for generations in the story of the “first official language”.
The news is indeed bad: one in six pupils failed all Irish-speaking tests; a roughly similar proportion could not converse successfully about any of a range of specified subjects; even in Gaeltacht schools, the standard of spoken Irish has declined significantly. One interesting finding of a study by a number of TCD academics under Dr John Harris relates to the disillusionment of teachers, who feel they bear a disproportionate share of society’s responsibility for preserving the language. It appears that even parents who want their children to learn Irish are unwilling to do much that is practical to support this. The reasons include, predictably, the belief that Irish is of little “use” in the modern world and the consequent communication to children of a lukewarm attitude to it.
We have a tendency to see such phenomena as consequences of mere apathy and neglect, but really they are the scheduled outcomes of a systematic programme of suppression. We are not simply indifferent to the language, but have a programmed antipathy to it that expresses itself as much in our elaborate shows of tokenistic esteem for Irish as in our repeated failure to make it part of our active culture. The language is not simply dying - it is the victim of an attempted assassination.
But two developments offer hope. The first is the much-denigrated but rapidly growing Gaelscoil movement. (The Harris survey found that more than 90 per cent of Gaelscoil pupils are reaching high standards in spoken Irish.) The second is the largely unreported fact that there is now in existence an organisation for foreign nationals who wish to become fluent in Irish. This body, iMeasc, already has over 40 members, all of whom have a high degree of fluency. Established last year by Dutch journalist Alex Hijmans and Australian translator Ariel Killick, iMeasc has already established itself as an informal network and lobby group for immigrants with an interest in speaking Irish. The group is currently lobbying for State-funded Irish classes for immigrant children living in Gaeltacht areas or close to Gaelscoileanna, as well as the collation and distribution of trilingual phrasebooks (Polish-Irish-English, etc). The range of activities iMeasc offers includes bellydancing, yoga and African drumming - all through the medium of Irish.
About one-third of the group’s members come from non-English-speaking backgrounds, most having learnt Irish before coming here. Some are able to make their living using a language they learned from scratch without any element of compulsion, patriotism or cultural piety. By its very existence, iMeasc confronts one of the central tenets of our ideology of modernity: that “progress” ineluctably means the standing-down or dilution of native cultural values. Much media comment in recent years has centred on the idea that, in order to be “welcoming” to immigrants, we must put aside elements of the surviving indigenous culture that may create “discrimination” against outsiders. This is an utterly spurious idea, based not on openness towards outsiders but on hatred or ourselves.
Writing to the Minister for Justice last year as part of its campaign against a proposal to exclude immigrants from the Irish-language dimension of the entrance examination to An Garda Síochána, iMeasc stated: “It is an entirely dangerous and short-sighted approach to indicate, from an official level, that it is reasonable for immigrants to completely disregard an important aspect of Irish culture.”
It could result in immigrants being scapecoated for dissipating native culture.
Racism, long before being directed outward, is honed and refined in the processes of self-loathing which have been hardwired into the post-colonial consciousness. Speaking recently with iMeasc members, it struck me how simple would be the rehabilitation of the language if we could first of all convince ourselves that speaking it was not a mark of backwardness or insularity but an emblem of our belonging to the diversity of world cultures. This, if we can state the issue above the babble of post-colonial pseudo-progressivism, could be the defining idea in our attempt to integrate large numbers of people from outside. But we first of all need to see that our attitudes towards Irish are not rational responses to true facts but ancient antagonisms instilled for a political purpose.
Intellectually, we know it already, but the problem has little to do with intellect, being deeply ingrained in the society’s unconscious. And since shame was the main instrument of that process of self-obliteration, it is appropriate now that immigrants have taken to themselves the responsibility for shaming us in the other direction.
© The Irish Times
Just when I thought I was done blogging for the day (damn that lack of home-web-access!) I found this site, and I had to post it.
Why? Because it’s a compilation of one-star reviews of what are supposedly the 100 greatest books of all time. And it contains such fantastic lines as:
(reviewing Ken Kesey’s One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest)
“I guess if you were interested in crazy people this is the book for you.”
I have but one thing to say : BUDDA
Personally I think it’s a self-explanatory situation.
As such, I shall say no more, except: Best Idea Ever
The start of the summer is classic silly-season in the papers. Particularly once the leaving cert is over, and the 20 or so daily stories about Jemima Puddleduck and her woeful Biology exam have been run and re-run to death, there’s a delightful lull as everyone goes on holidays and nobody is left to run the country (badly), or apparently commit any truly newsworthy crimes (nonsense I’d say, but anyhoo…)
The other result of exam season being over, is an influx of new employees into mostly service industries such as restaurants, bars and shops. For the first few weeks, this means lots of untrained staff who have absolutely no idea what they’re doing. And it’s no fun to watch.
I drink coffee before work most mornings. Because frankly, without it, I would fall asleep at my desk (and not necessarily because of being tired, though that does tend to be a factor given the prevalence of chronic insomnia in my life!).
On Wednesday morning I arrived at my usual place of coffee-consumption, to be greeted by a new staff member. She’s about 18, and gormless as anything. It doesn’t help that there were only three people on : One supervisor, one relatively new member of staff who was at that 40+ age of returning to a job that was designed for people with less intelligence and for that matter less dignity and thus seems somewhat out of place, and this new girl. To say that the supervisor looked highly strung would methinks be fair.
It’s all too obvious when someone has never used a till before, especially at 8am when faced with caffeine-starved “professional” types busy hurrying themselves to work and in no mood to be delayed. It is equally easy to assess a person’s skill and/or experience with a coffee machine (and yes, trust me, there’s skill involved), and under the same conditions one person incapable of doing either should surely never be doing both.
It was always going to be a disaster. The supervisor, or ‘only one in the building with any idea of how things were meant to work’, was trying to make most of the coffees in the hope that customers wouldn’t complain about the standard of it or the speed at which it was made. Good decision. From that vantage point she could see what her other staff members were (or in this case weren’t) doing, correct them, and attempt to charm the customers with her bleached follicles and equally bleached dentals!
Poor little-miss-summer-job. She had short fingers, which didn’t help matters, and I don’t know if it was a lack of training or a lack of basic common sense but she seemed to be doing things all-at-once while simultaneously doing them in entirely the wrong order. Her supervisor looked close to a nervous breakdown and frankly their colleague looked like she was planning her new patio furniture.
As the week progressed, I would love to say that things improved, but alas they did not. I don’t like to be harsh but if I was the supervisor little-miss-summer-job would be looking elsewhere by this afternoon.
It’s the problem with in-at-the-deep-end style work. You either sink, or swim, but if you’re stranded mid-water still gasping for air three days later, it’s probably time to give up…
Yes, I should be shot for that headline (or perhaps given a sub-editing job in the publication in question?)
So, there I was, strolling happily along westmoreland street in the direction of my morning cofee, about to grab my freesheet to digest with said coffee before work - and then, as if from nowhere, three Metrovians (as I’ve decided to christen them) appeared.
Now, I think it’s fair to say the people of Dublin have gotten used to freesheet distributors -though if the various transport/refuge agencies would similarly get used to it and provide recycling points that would be a marked improvement on the current situation. Kudos to Pearse Street DART station for the being the first to bother, but whatever about bus stops, every city centre LUAS and DART station [which by its very nature is stationary!!] should have a facility for dumping your paper with a clean conscience. A rant for another day.
Anyhoo, the Metrovians were gliding happily along Westmoreland Street this morning, distributing their wares with a new-found ease. Yes, I said gliding. The three young ladies came equipped with rollerblades, strikingly blue outfits and baseball caps, and wristguards. It was fantastic. Admittedly I didn’t actually take a Metro (I almost never do), but those who were in the path of the Metrovians (should I copyright that word?! or is it too late!!) seemed more eager than usual…
I do try not to admire marketing ploys - if only because it suggests I have fallen for some sort of evil scheme or trick! But sometimes they deserve a bit of credit and this is one of those cases. Bravo, Metro.
Today came the horrible, desperate news that Top of the Pops will be no more - the last show is airing on July 30th.
I’ll be the first to admit that I haven’t watched it regularly in a couple of years, but then I seldom got to see tellies let alone relax for a full half hour, so that’s hardly my fault.
It’s amazing that an institution like TOTP could be brought to its knees, but I don’t buy the excuse that it’s because of MTV etc. I mean, in fairness, MTV almost never play music anymore!
I blame the musicians.
TOTP was about the live music experience. The magic of the likes of Dusty Springfield (who appeared on the very first show back in 1964) performing those songs live… Nowadays there just aren’t enough artists out there who are a real enough to pull it off. Victoria Beckham squawking into a microphone that isn’t even on doesn’t exactly count, and it certainly doesn’t inspire awe or admiration.
TOTP was something that all real artists aspired to - the pinnacle if you will. If you made it to Top of the Pops, you had made it, full stop. Nowadays it seems to have become an excuse for Simon Cowell’s latest creation to get those extra 15 minutes of fame with the mass-produced (in every sense) track they’ve released three days before christmas.
If TOTP had a choice, it might have given up long ago…
R.I.P.T.O.T.P.
Yes it’s true, i’ve been a bad blogger again - but it wasn’t my fault! total absence of internet access outside of work hours is the ultimate cause, and one which methinks begs the forgiveness of anyone who may or may not have noticed my absence.
Having said that, developments in the outside world, along with the total absence of developments in my “professional life” have forced my hand..
Normally I’d link to the following article, but given how much I want to rip it to pieces I think that a full text is only fair.
The following is from the RTE news website:
Guantanamo deaths a ‘good PR move’ - US
11 June 2006 21:22
A senior American official has described the suicides of three detainees at the US detention centre at Guantanamo Bay in Cuba as a ‘good public relations move to draw attention’.
Colleen Graffy said the deaths were part of a strategy and ‘a tactic to further the jihadi cause’, but taking their own lives was unnecessary.
The deaths were described ‘not an act of desperation but an act of asymmetric warfare’ by US Navy Rear Admiral Harry Harris, commander of the camp.
The US military is continuing to investigate the deaths of the three men.
Two of the men were identified as Saudi. One was Yemeni. They are the first prisoners to die at the camp since it was opened four and a half years ago.
Since then there have been a total of 41 suicide attempts and a rolling hunger strike with 18 at the camp currently refusing rations.
Three weeks ago prisoners attacked camp guards with pieces of furniture in one of the most serious incidents to have occurred there.
Around 460 men remain at the camp with just 10 charged with crimes under a military tribunal system.
The case of one inmate, who is seeking to have his trial carried out in open court, is currently being considered by the US Supreme Court.
Where to start - where, oh where, to start.
It’s incredible the extent to which - in a worrying number of situations - you assume a situation is as bad as can be, and then somehow it gets worse. It/They/We hit an all new low. This is a prime example.
Let’s ignore, for the moment at least, the “George W. Bush is the worst thing that ever happened to planet earth” debate. And the argument that he is in fact profoundly, incredibly stupid. All that aside. This is a whole. New. Low.
The above news story goes beyond the issue of torture, the issue of rendition - the supposedly ‘current’ issue of Irish involvement in rerndition flights. It mentions, but goes way beyond, the fact that 18 prisoners at Guantanamo are on hunger strike. It goes past the abu ghraib photos. This goes beyond the various other levels of humililation and dehumanisation that the arab world has been subjected to for the last five years (if not infinitely longer).
Because the US “authorities” - the same people who mere days ago celebrated an act of murder as though they might declare a national holiday, because THAT’s so noble - have decided their spin on this incident is that they killed themselves as a PR stunt. That they killed themselves as a further act of war. That this is on some level a kind of justification for the continued detention of hundreds of prisoners in a way that goes against almost every basic human right, whatever about international law.
Here are the words that leave me speechless. One more time…
The deaths were described ‘not an act of desperation but an act of asymmetric warfare’
Unbefrickinglievable…
