The O'Bamas Came "Home" - 50 years after JFK, they buggered off farily lively...

It's fifty years after JFK’s visit to Ireland, which explains why Ryan Tubridy’s foot is tapping like Thumper on speed under his desk. With the Obamas on our shores fifty years to the week since that momentous visit, what’s left of America and its court at Camelot? A bunch of fluff and bull, as it turns out, not that it stopped us gorging on it, eating off retro sixties Formica plates.

By pure coincidence, the G8 met in Fermanagh the week of the anniversary. Treacle oozed out of my radio speakers, as the circle was complete, at least as far as RTE was concerned: Another Democrat President with film star qualities and Irish links was here on the old sod. Never mind that Obama's ties to Ireland are more tenuous than Andy Townsend’s claim to save with the Irish Permanent - things were Offaly grand this week as we basked in the knowledge that world affairs were being directed a son of the Faithful County. 

We got the full, hard hitting coverage, as RTE went into nostalgia overdrive. The Obamas were the kerosene on a bonfire of JFK hokum: beacons of broadcasting gold being lit from Montrose to the back-arse of New Ross all the way to Fermanagh via Glendalough and Dalkey. From a million midges in Wicklow, to a millionaire midget in a pub in Dalkey, every movement of the US first family was documented by the national broadcaster, who told us they had the greatest time ever anywhere of any human at any time in history.

Back in the real world, Barack was trying to solve intractable geopolitical problems like: wondering what the hell Dave Cameron puts in his hair to keep it that way and why his NSA staff are always surfing the net. His thoughts got derailed by some blondie gobshite with a walk like a kick in the knackers, who kept banging on about not being worried about changes to international tax law, whist crying into his Google-branded hanky, wearing a t-shirt saying “Mr 12 ½ %”.

Conveniently overlooked was the fact that the main event was in the UK, and this was all at Mr Cameron's behest. FLOTUS and the kids going south was a not unpleasant sideshow. Soon enough, Berlin beckoned, as they followed Angie and the trail of burning Drachma notes she left in her wake.

Our interest in this visit was parochial, evidenced by the empty and undignified fawning over our day trippers from Washington. Whilst JFK visited us specifically, what does it say about Ireland fifty years on that we so desperately sought importance from this least important aspect of a visit taking place in the North, in which we had no hand, act or part? Is it right to seek something about a visit that really had nothing to do with us, other than to keep Obama's wife and kids occupied for a few hours? Is it not really a sign of just how flabby we've become in our thinking?

  

We are arch practitioners of this sort of pantomime: whilst Glendalough is indisputably gorgeous, and we rightly showcased it, what was it for? Our sense of our importance by connection with the US, by blood ties and tax breaks, may to some be canny, but only if it gets you something, be it investment or respect. That was the reason for this approach in the past. What is really Irish – the social and cultural complexities, the grim beauty of our people and land – was airbrushed to fit a hackneyed formula. They even took them to Riverdance  - the 20 year old Riverdance - to show our cultural vitality.

If the sideshow had had any importance, it would have come from changing the paradigm, even a little: The Obamas would have done more good for Ireland and had more fun visiting the poorest in Dublin – but no, we play to pastiches and they got schlepped off to a diddyparlour in Dalkey to have their ear bent by southside alicadoos over Cottage Pie instead. Ironically, US reportage of the ‘bored’ Obama daughters shows the jig is up. 

As if on cue, another event showed the double standards our blinkeredly lazy world view possesses. In Dublin, Japanese PM Shinzō Abe was greeted with utter indifference by the media and the public. This, despite the global economic significance of his country. It was also the first visit of a Japanese head of government since independence. It is mortifying not only because of Japan’s significance as a global player, but because it’s rude. It shows how unless they speak English, we couldn’t give a toss. Now isn’t that the measure of a country in need of friends?   

We need to kick our American habit and begin to welcome everyone equally. We need to realize that by playing the cuddly eejits, we'll have little else to back up any claim that Google or Intel or any other multinational should stay here in the event that corporation tax takes a lift to the top floor. 

Imagine if we showed our authentic selves. We might actually to turn that notorious corner with greater skill and flourish and sooner than we will on our present, stodgy strategy. If we showed ourselves in this manner abroad we might - just might - get taken seriously.  

NEXT WEEK: MORE AUDIO Guten Morgan! Check out @gutenmorgan for tweets!

The Seanad. And the way it might look at you. . .

Today,  we go audio!!!!!!!! To discuss the impending abolition of Seanad Eireann, and the real reason Enda wants rid of it.

Enjoy!

Guten Morgan: A Regularly Irregular Look At Ireland by Donnchadh Morgan on SoundCloud

Martin Prince and Alan Shatter: Never seen in the same room together...

It’s not as though it wasn’t bound to happen. The cleverest kid in the class (not my words, the Indo’s yesterday) can take different forms – some have the smarts to succeed in their field. Some know they’re smart and don’t take action about it. Some, criminally, know they're smart and do everything in their power to demonstrate they are, only to end up demonstrating that they’re also prize numpties. I know, cause I’m such a numpty. How horrified was I then, when I realised that Alan Shatter and I were stuck in the same intellectual lift together. That is not an image I can claim to prize.

Minister Shatter in better times

I've never been sure about Alan Shatter. Despite my love of national politicians dealing with national politics, which he has done, often with great aplomb, when he lost his seat in the bloodbath of 2002, I felt a wry smile creep across my 23 year old face, as another blowhard blueshirt failed to a land a single punch on a FF government begging to be kicked in the swingometers. Shatter found himself back to trading in his beloved two letters for the less desirable four: CLLR - it sounds like a local radio station, or an acronym for a highly unpleasant yet thoroughly unlifethreatening disease.

A similarly unpleasant feeling can be sensed eleven years later, when looking for an appropriate analogy for Alan Shatter’s career as a minister in this current crop of Dad’s Army rejects – all wanting to be as youthful as Ian Lavender, all actually as old as Arthur Lowe, all as capable as Clive Dunne.

Shatter’s approach to his highly sensitive (and I would argue highly contentious) double portfolio has appeared to be thus: never answer a question or complete a pressing task when you can attempt to take the moral high ground on something. And recently, this desire to prove his superiority to the opposition rabble has been to be at the very least woefully indiscreet. He is, not to put too fine a point on it, bloody awful at his job.

Whatever about Mick Wallace or his cringe inducing sidekick Ming Flanagan (I remember by the way when he had street cred, and that was when John Bruton was Taoiseach) being in the headlines over traffic offenses, Alan Shatter has displayed an alarming inability to disengage from parliamentary sideshows that present themselves in the course of daily politics.  

Robert Plant about to beat that annoying antique dealing kid
from the 80's in a game of rock paper scissors

Of all the things offensive about this period of non-news is the traffic of thoroughly irrelevant, prurient and tedious tit-for-tat leaks and tale telling that has hallmarked a time when abortion (another retro 80's distraction) education, the state’s finances, though higher on the playlist of the government iPod, constantly get lost in the shuffle, like the rogue Richie Kavanagh tune on an otherwise Indie-only music collection.

Worse still is that Shatter, rather than accept that Flanagan and Wallace are political lightweights, engages them. When he screwed up this week on TV, which he did, his subsequent apology was anything but gracious. Then again, can you be gracious when you make a balls of something, despite knowing you are so smart, so potentially able and have fallen so low. Can you possibly have humility, when your ego screams for you to prove you’re the smartest at all times, despite evidence that your ability is not matched by wisdom?

The answer, Alan, is no.

I’ve been there, frequently and even as recently as this afternoon - and I feel for him. Some reticence, however, can go a long way. For a man who possesses his razor sharp intellect, surely his judgement should usher him towards dealing with crime and state security in a sober and sensible way.

 

But no. Not Al. If Real Madrid decided to prove their greatness by choosing to play Finn Harps of a Saturday, then there's only one team gaining in stature: Minister, welcome to Ballybofey!

      

Some things just can't be spoken

Watch "Hugh Laurie & Stephen Fry - Where is the Lid?" on YouTube

When you click the link above,  you'll understand. Some things defy prose and need to be sung. Like a spot of bloody sunshine.

It just so happens that in a world filled up with banalities, our little country seems a much more wonderful place when sun makes its overdue return, though is nonetheless less likely to stay for a week like Billy Connolly and even less likely to give out to  photographers.

In a week where carbon dioxide levels reached 400ppm, when the earth's climate is projected to be at prehistoric heights by the end of the century, Ireland remains damper the dampy dampington, the dampest fish on the dampest fishtank in the parish of St. Fluich.

I'll happily take any inkling of this and burst into song when the  weather's like today.

Mrs. Sylvia Hughes reports from the Champions' League

Efficient.

Efficiency.

Brutal

Ruthless

efficient again....

ich ich ich

Panzerman, panzerman

I could hardly speak after Dortmund, soon to be eviscerated by fully tax compliant Bayern Munich, followed them with a powerhouse performance, I've struggled to watch in snippet form on YouTube.
Then I read the first match reports this morning and the 'e' word emerged.

Rafa Honigstein's spiritual predecessor

Ach du

German football up the the late 70's was as carefree, physical, damn it, as fun as last night and last Tuesday. But not many people want to hear it in our part of the world, for it exposes an offensive ignorance of the whole central European culture of football. The person I blame however, for turning every match report involving a Bundesliga side into a fugue of Plath's most harrowing work is Lothar bloody Matthaeus. A man so steady, so physical, so reliable. Eff...well, you get me. He was all that, but, like a 1982 Ford Fiesta that just keeps going, he was as boring as hell, and likewise you could hear him coming two blocks away. Thanks God he retired and is a distant memory. After this week, he is for sure.

Boring old Lothar, we have had to kill you. Efficient German football, we're through. Just tell the copy editors, ok?

Leo Varadkar was accused by one trade union Leader this evening of "knowing nothing about industrial relations negotiations (sic)".

The Minister

Good thing, then, that Leo Varadkar knows so much about transport policy, given his many years of study in medical school.

Nothing beats the phrase 'suitably qualified', though 'rentamouth' is quite appealing too.

Good thing also, that the trade unionist in question knows so much about negotiation.

Ciao Papa! An Essay 15 Years on.

So it's done. Benedict is no more. He has ceased to be. Bereft of the pontificacy, he rests in peace, the English for Castel Gandolfo. Joe Ratzinger is a Pontif-ex. 

The Honourable Member for Eastleigh

And with good reason too. Why would you be the head of an organisation doing its level best to imitate the baddies at the end of The Dark Crystal? This is a time when the Vatican Bank needs yet another attempted clean up and child sexual abuse keeps creeping out from under the gargantuan carpet it was swept under. The only thing now is to wonder when will the hammer blow for Catholicism come out: That Pope Benedict was actually, and most nefariously of all, a Liberal Democrat.

It couldn't be true, but already there are the tell tale signs: the collection of signed copies of John Cleese's self-help books in the pontifical library; the desire to be neither one thing nor the other, from God's Rottweiler to slightly twinkly Pontifex. And there's a nagging feeling that Chris Huhne may try to make a spectacular, yet utterly miscalculated late run in the Conclave next week; and that's why he resigned his seat in the House of Commons. Anything's possible: even Ikea furniture could be made of horse. 

Anything is indeed possible. It's fifteen years to the day since another priest parted the scene, namely my late father, Dermot Morgan, who played priests among his many guises. He had a few more though: father, brother, husband, partner, pal, teacher, writer, columnist (The Sunday Tribune and Evening Herald got some great copy from him, showing his intelligence and whimsy). 

Not the Honourable Member for Eastleigh

But there's one more. Last Sunday on his archive show, John Bowman used Dermot's greatest professional moniker: satirist. Yes, he was a comedian, writer and allsuch and more, but he was always more Armando Ianucci than Hal Roach. The sad part is, that with very few examples, satirists seem to be an endangered species when we need them the most.  

More than ever, the country's high and mighty need the arse ripped mercilessly out of them. Not because it's funny, but because there is still a level of buffoonery dripping off the backsides of the big (almost exclusively) men on Merrion Street that needs to be scooped up and slapped all over their faces. There's still too much lazy consensus and even lazier discourse; not nearly enough humility from our public representatives who still confuse the national interest with their own interest. There are very few exceptions indeed, in that septic tank of swollen egos and stupidity. You get the government you deserve. 

The country is ripe for satire. 

Let's not confuse Mike Yarwood with Jonathan Swift. Let's not think 'cos someone can make people laugh it means you have taken on Dermot's mantel. He did both. He walked that tightrope himself, with varying degrees of success. And he paid the price for being, in the final analysis, true to himself.   

They're out there, though. Watching The Irish Pictorial Weekly and their like minded brethren, for example, makes me think of the natives malevolently lurking in the bushes in Fitzcarraldo. Enda is Klaus Kinski, so. Ollie Rehn is Werner Herzog. 

I'm (very cautiously) optimistic, but we've been here before.   

Satire, as Swift said, is a sort of glass, wherein beholders do generally discover everybody's face but their own. We need that glass held up more than ever, to beat the bastards over the head with it. 

Anything is still possible. Everything's still to play for. Happy anniversary, Pops. 

#popening

It was  originally published on Tuesday, is on my Blog on Thursday,  which means it should cause outrage in the Daily Mail, giving Hilary Mantel a breather by next August.

http://www.irishexaminer.com/lifestyle/features/humaninterest/down-with-these-sort-of-popenings-223133.html

Pope-a-dope

Und Tschuess...

I'm using this opportunity, as Father Vince Lombardy reads out Pope Benedict's statement of resignation, to officially rule myself out of the running to replace Pope Benedict as supreme Pontiff and wearer of the (Prada) shoes of the fisherman.

I would like to thank my friends, family and colleagues for all their support in my decision, and would ask you to respect my privacy at this time.

I would also like to thank the Holy Father for scheduling his stepping-down for the forthcoming 15th anniversary of the death of my father. I didn't think he'd do it, but he has just DM'd me on Twitter to confirm as much.

He was also good enough to deny rumours that he is to replace Rafa Benitez as Chelsea Manager.

Clarifying Labour's Position on Abortion

Labour has come in for some criticism about its vote on Clare Daly's private member's bill this week in the Dail. On the surface, it looks like Labour's TDs voted against legislating for abortion. It's time to set the record straight, before misconceptions spiral out of control.

Labour TDs - the ones who were turned up - didn't vote against abortion, they simply didn't vote for legislating for the X-Case and that's totally different. Furthermore, the voting strategy of Labour had nothing to do with parliamentary gamesmanship or engaging party political tactics. This was about waiting for the report from the Expert Group - the bits that weren't leaked - and coming to a rational and responsible  decision in due course, a mere 20 years after the Supreme Court were capricious enough to rule in favour of a teenage rape victim terminating a pregnancy she never wanted.

Having come out from under their desks, Labour are now standing tall (look at Brendan Howlin) and taking a principled lead. Never mind that every Fine Gaeler, the TDs of the senior coalition partner, voted against the bill. Sure, FG is the party of Michelle Mulherin, the Devil's Nuala, and stands for cut backs to, well, everyone. Literally. With a machete. At least that's how it's been since Garret left and took the party's only functioning braincell back to Palmerstown Road without telling Alan Dukes.

No no, Labour are making a brave stand for proper legisl...regul....whatever Eamon and Enda tell them to stand for, and not what James Reilly blurts out either and then flatly denies saying, one second later.

This is about leadership and meeting groups of experts. Nothing more. All in its own good time.

This is intellectual rigour (mortis). 

Yes. But No.

The shock result of the referendum - and we're only talking in preliminaries, so we can't leap to judgement - is that 40% of people don't like children, and  - quel surprise - many of them are working class. The shock result - and we can't leap to judgement - from the preliminary results is clear: knackers hate children.

Anyone who voted no obviously has contempt for the progenitors of ruined dinners out, pub floors sticky with Club Orange and King Crisps, for Star Wars' Jar Jar Binks and the scourge of Balamory. None of the no votes have anything to do with the government, side isues, a lack of understanding of the reasons for the amendment, moral, ethical or legal reasons; and absolutely nothing to do with the arch villain of the Yes campaign, Alan Shatter. Anyone who voted no gleefully slips notes under the doors of National Schools with the phrase 'There is no Santa' scrawled in crayon, and they genuflect when they hear the theme song to Jim'll Fix It.

I would instinctively have voted yes. Reading the proposed amendment, however, I noticed it did a passable impression of half baked adoption legislation being shoehorned into the constitution. The constitution, as I understand it, is a basic law upon which the legal and ethical principals of a state are based, not the day to day laws which emanate from it.  To me, the presence of specific sanctions regarding adoption lead to unease about voting yes. As I considered my vote, should I have taken a leap of faith that politicians will always do and say what is right, or should I demand greater intellectual rigour in creating the laws of the land?  

Could this issue have been dealt with in legislation? Were all avenues exhausted in dealing with the nuts and bolts details of adoption legislation, of child welfare legislation, before taking the drastic and costly step of amending the constitution, a step that needs careful and intelligent judgement. 

Furthermore, given the comments of someone like Alan Shatter - who appears to gleefully wallow in his own perceived (and utterly misplaced) superiority over anyone who disagrees with him - a yes vote begins to wobble. What I had as misgivings about the amendment, has lead to one clear decision: following his masterclass in pomposity on Radio One this morning, I will never ever ever ever ever ever ever *breathes in* EVER vote as directed by Minister Shatter, without prior legal and psychiatric advice.
 
The local yahoos who spoiled their votes with tiresome slogans about Sean Quinn are in the extreme minority. And there is admittedly also a teeny weeny minority who will always be too stupid to vote even in the X-Factor. The right wing nutters who think the constitutional amendment would allow children to be taken away on the whim of the state were negligible in number, but they were noisy and disingenuous, and got airtime thanks to that annoying but necessary evil, the McKenna judgement. That's before any Supreme Court judgement makes the yes campaign look like they're trying to pull a fast one over the electorate, even if that appearance is entirely unfounded, giving the nutters unwelcome ammo.   

Not everyone who voted no, however, could possibly be extremist or stupid. Not everyone who voted no can have had a disregard for the rights of children or be susceptible to conspiracy theories.  And not everyone who voted no has contempt for the rights of children.

I didn't like the amendment, because it looked like Fisher Price legal practice attempting to address (ironically) very grown-up legal problems. Rather than poo poo the levels of the no vote and the low turn out, those in power need to examine how they deal with complex constitutional issues and how they choose to debate its (de-) merits. In a country that has failed children as spectacularly and as criminally as Ireland, in a society that connived either by action or by silence in the treatment of children, this referendum campaign did absolutely nothing to make amends. 

  

 

Christmas.Yes. Already.

I never new that we were the highest spenders per household in Europe for Christmas. Absolutely amazing. According to businessetc.ie, Irish households will spend "€965.80 with an average €499.60 spend on gifts". Brilliant - Whilst everyone else in the EU dines on water and a side order of misery, I'll be live-skyping myself devouring Turkey stuffed with pheaseant, stuffed with foiegras, chestnusts and some IOUs into the spartan dining rooms of Berlin and Athens.    

Another interesting fact from this report was that the average socializing spend this year will amount to €177.90. The average punter in 2006 would have taken that out as 'just in case money' going up and down Wexford Street, whilst Bertie smirked at us benevolently from every street corner. I once ordered a €6 pint of Guinness - it was not, as you'd imagine for the price, poured personally by Arthur Guinness, as the Rolling Stones did an acoustic set just for little me. It was in fact bought in a crowded city center boozer, where everyone was hammered and the music was awful. The only thing impressive was that it didn't kill me: It was the worst pint I ever drank and tiny Euro symbols got lodged in my windpipe. 

It leads me to wonder about other numerical figures that came out today and what they say about Ireland; the pay of some IRBC executives tipping the half million mark being one, the greatest irony being that Fianna Fail's Michael McGrath asked the question to get the answer. FF as the 'bFF' of probity and prudence? I even spotted a Tamworth outside wearing a bomber jacket and goggles, reading a well-thumbed copy of 'Biggles'.  

Another startling stat was in education. 90% of the total secondary school population now goes to complete their schooling. Fifteen years ago it was just over 80%. The worst performing areas are Limerick and Dublin cities. In other news, bears seen sensationally walking towards forest with bumper pack of Charmin loo-roll to prove a point. So poor is the state of Irish education that the question has to be asked, how many students could actually spell 'Biggles' at a push? Answers on a postcard to Enda. He's not in the office today, so be patient.  

Ready for Take Off...

The fact that more kids are staying in school comes from the welcome realization that education is important, even with catastrophic stats in student retention, literacy and numeracy, science, languages and a child health and nutrition time-bomb ticking louder by the day; not to mention that we have the lowest rate of investment in education of any EU country. We're a country with fabulous petrol stations and shabby looking outhouses for kids to learn in.

All our problems, however, are about to be solved! We've got a referendum on children on Saturday. If the turnout's high enough for a No vote, then children will be abolished. We'll use the freed up cash to develop a time machine, so uncle Arthur can pull me a decent pint. Alternatively, though more realistically, we could plump up the IRBC's executive wage bill.

It's all about priorities.  


     

Satire: Death by a thousand writs

Anglo: the Musical sounds really promising. It appears to be a comedy about, but more importantly, a satire of our recent turmoil, thanks in huge part to the eponymous bad bank. Sadly, the main man in the whole sorry saga cannot, for legal reasons, be mentioned. His puppet is put back in its box, never to be seen again. And so it's now a comedy show with its of laughs and funny songs, but how much satire survives? Will it stand up with this last minute rewrit(e) or have the killjoys successfully come out to play?    

The response of the show's producers, as reported in the Indo, is like a face of bravery being slapped onto a freshly shot corpse. The law getting involved is no problem: they (the show's writers) "are writing a puppet based musical comedy. It is very funny and we are being responsible in making it." The troublesome 's-word' is missing from the copy. The job of a spokesman is sometimes utterly unenviable.

It's nice to know Anglo is funny and it's reassuring the show's makers have been 'responsible', I was worried about the possibility of 'irresponsible' satire. Anglo has been treated to an insidious and kafkaesque kind of censorship, namely censorship by reasoned legal advice. The intervention of the DPP and Seanie Fitz's lawyers, while legally justifiable, means an opportunity for creating satire may be lost, and satire is a rare and delicate thing in a cozy little country like Ireland - by extension, free speech, a property equally challenged in Ireland, will be just a little more eroded.

More disgusting than disquieting is complete absence of anger among the public. So blind are the regular folk of Ireland to the wrongness of the country's continuing struggle to mete out justice in the aftermath of our economic collapse.

Meanwhile, the most telling satire was found in real life, a mere mile from the Bord Gais Energy Theater, where TD Stephen Donnelly took on the head of Bank of Ireland, Richie Boucher. This one the lawyers couldn't kill, as Stephen repeatedly hectored Boucher to explain the definition and calculation of negative equity. Each time he received the same mumbled answer, straight from Planet Stonewall. Exasperated by the end, Donnelly, who excellently recapped Boucher's responses for the plain people of Ireland watching on YouTube, described the BOI boss's testimony witheringly as being "most illuminating". The Oireachtas Finance Committee Chair was, tellingly, was more deferential to Boucher in thanking him for his presence. Anthony Jay and Jonathan Lynn could not have scripted anything finer. In Ireland, however, we nix that at the outset, all satire is short lived or incidental. 

The real life heroes and villains have, inevitably, kept the best material for themselves. Between the actors in our little economic tragedy and the state's own lawyers, we can't successfully fight to get a platform to describe our ruined reality. Maybe we're not deserving of satire or the efforts of those who wish to produce it, or, indeed, of justice in the aftermath of our banking crisis. That would be "entirely our own fault".   
 

Aviva Zapata - Notes on the Lansdowne Massacre

When the final whistle went, with the crowds already streaming out, the score said it all. As cheery quips about Angela Merkel are replaced with recriminations and accusations, one fact has already presented itself: The scoreline was extremely flattering. To us. We were hockeyed last night and the visitors should have won in double figures.

Herr Oezil sagt hallo

Never mind the fact that Marco Reus has hairdo like a 1980's Lesbian baddy from a sub-Lethal Weapon comedy thriller. Never mind that the creators of Ren and Stimpy do double takes each time the camera closes up on Mesut Oezil. Germany were something else last night. They had style, finesse, interesting hair (see above) and they had the killer instinct. A team of devastating substance.

There's going to be a lot of talk about Trap (he should go - duh!), that the players aren't of the calibre we need to perform, their confidence went, bla, bla, bla. A lot of excuses and platitudes. The scoreline, the Lansdowne Massacre, showed a gulf between the two sides. This was not a gulf in class, however, but in work ethic. The two teams had more in common than you think, which makes last night all the more frustrating, and anger being an all the more welcome emotion among the Irish sporting public.

Both teams have coaches who need to justify themselves in the eyes of many. Both teams have players, whose commitment to the cause has been called into question by more than just the die hard Dunphys and malcontents. Germany's side has been in the firing line since they failed to turn up against Italy in the Euros, whom they themselves flattered after their blue-tinted humbling in Warsaw: some players wouldn't sing Germany's anthem, an indication of a lack of pride when compared to the Italians; a lack of hunger, an absence of desire to get down and dirty with teams who aren't willing to let them play their brand of Sexy-Fussball. The word Weicheier kept getting trotted out in the German press - these guys, literally their cojones, were too soft. 

The scoreline, and that it should have been worse, is a testament to us not getting the point and needing to be punished for it. In football, as in economics, as in social policy, as in most aspects of life, we are too insular for our own good; too unwilling to look beyond our anglophone comfort zone to see what to do right; too unwilling to prise our heads from that familiar English speaking dark place to get the point and get on with it.

Germany are only as good as they are today, because ten years ago, a guy from the German FA traveled up and down the country doing coaching clinics to identify new talent and emphasize fine ball control skills. They even went to Mecklenburg, a godforsaken place with a population of one inbred stork, some lonely looking skinheads sitting on a sand dune, and Toni Kroos. They found him on Germany's Craggy Island and nurtured his talent in elite training schemes. They put in the spade work and look what happened: Hard work pays off.

Too often we're about the quick fix, be it in terms of our economy - Bertie's Ponzi scheme Tiger - or indeed our football - sign up for any oul' English club and toil away at Rochdale for the rest of your life. How ambitious! Imagine if we were as flighty, as whimsical, as romantic as we are, but were rigorous and brave in what we did as well.

Like Mrs. Doyle, we are hardship fetishists. We get off on the misery. Imagine if we were all that but also diligent, organized, open minded and had a plan as well. We shouldn't be so ignorant of Germany, or indeed ignorant of so many other non-English speaking countries that do things better than us. Despite the abundance of raw talent we so patently have in every corner of life, we have done little more than regress to scraping moral victories. We deserved to be punished last night, if only to remind us that we are capable, if not deserving, of so much better. 
    

We come in Peace, We leave in Pieces.

It's important to know when you're beaten. Labour are stubbornly unaware. Which is why it's important.  And because it's important, Labour are stubbornly unaware. Go figure.

It's also normal to back up members of your own party when they are attempting to execute the policies agreed in the program for government. Save in the event that circumstances dictate otherwise, or under the following exceptions:

• Enda said so. 
• James Reilly threatened to sit on your chest unless you let him put primary care centers wherever he bloody well liked. 
• You got Foreign Affairs and just don't give a monkey's any more, because you're like Dick Spring and that's all that matters now. 
• The party colleague seeking your support is a girl.

This last point really haunts me, because of an inescapable and thoroughly overlooked fact:  the Cabinet is a collection of older men, the cabinet table groaning under the weight of dandruff and empty packets of Complan. They are collectively as old as the remaining members of The Grateful Dead would be if accurate Carbon 14 Dating could indeed used to gauge their accurate age. Michael Noonan is so senior, he was able to cry 'sketch!' just as Kevin O'Higgins came out of mass declaring 'Thank God that Civil War is finally over!'

What's more, whilst Enda Kenny put on his curious statesman face for the cover of Time - that one which is one part Liam Cosgrave to two parts Quentin Crisp- Labour, having faced down their nemesis when she resigned last week, want to summon the remaining faithful to the Red Flag over the issue of fee paying schools. 

Coalition Leaders

If this were a TV show, we'd watching a long forgotten episode of Steptoe and Son. Enda is Harold, sitting in a tin bathtub with his hat on. You can guess that in Harry H. Corbett's stead is one E. Gilmore of "leafy" Dun Laoghaire. Eamon's declaring he'll leave, shouting 'You horrible little man!', just as Enda, having goaded Eamo to go, looks at him with puppy dog eyes and asks manipulatively, 'You'd never leave me would you, Eamon?' You know what happens.

An historical note: Harry Corbett, a gifted stage actor, played Hamlet after Steptoe. The story is that no one took him seriously after his stint on the telly with Wilfred Brambell. A similar fate awaits Mr. Gilmore, beloved of his credibility.
   
I'm no betting man, but this is my prediction, and I tend to be right about this - one of the following will happen: a) James Reilly will resign following the botched announcement on the fate of the National Children's Hospital (b) FG will force a Labour climbdown over fee paying schools and make Gilmore's position untenable, or (c) the only thing flakier than ministerial scalps come budget time will be Labour's grassroots. After the dizzying spectacle of total implosion on Merrion Street, we'll all wake up and realize it was all a dream; that Enda Kenny is in fact a lizard from the same planet as Robert Englund in the original series of V, and thus barred from standing for a seat in Mayo, reptiles traditionally running in Roscommon-Leitrim, miles away from Castlebar.  

Following the ensuing and inevitable anti-Gilmore heave and FG's 'grand' coalition (as in, 'sure it'll be grand') with FF, Labour will be lead by a jar of Chiver's Lemon Curd. Its interpersonal skills may be untested, but can only be better than those of the incumbent - through sheer charisma it'll maintain a respectable showing at the polls in March 2013: irrespective of an actual election, it'll show up, just looking respectable, occasionally even letting the women get a look in.
 

 




   

Sick in Swords?

We watched with fascinated horror as Minister James Reilly began the last phase of his career as Health Minister. Denial and anger both came in quick succession, depression and acceptance are soon to come. This is not a good time for the biggest of Enda's cabinet of rubber lions.

Swords and Balbriggan are two places in Reilly's constituency, and close to his political heart. They were shoehorned onto a list of places which are to get primary care centres. Admittedly, Swords is a rapidly expanding urban area, whose population exploded during the 'good times', thanks to what we now know to have been largely short-sighted property wheezes, when Ray Burke was the tallest hog in that particular trough. Like all such farm yard animals, he was up to his curly tail in property swill, and despite Bertie's tree climbing escapades, it turned out that this little piggy had to go wee-wee-wee all the way to Dublin Castle.

Interesting about Swords is that one of the first things to be built amid the miles and miles of suburban beigeness was not a school or a hospital, but a shopping centre. Public transport wasn't updated, and so many commute from within the pale as if they were country students hanging out on George's Quay on a Friday, hoping to bus it home to mammy in Galway or Castlecomer or god-knows-where with a smile and a bag full of skundies; which is exactly what the people of Swords are forced to do to get home from Dublin city centre. Whilst a big new road was built, many, many houses were too, filling the new road with chronic traffic jams, they forgot or ignored issues around basic infrastructure.

When the list of new primary care centres came out, was Reilly cyphening scant resources into his own backyard? Certainly not! This episode was too cackhanded to be a classic constituency stroke. This was a heady mix of ministerial hubris and gross incompetence. I think I know why. Hear me out:

Dublin politicians, whilst good at coming across as dodgy and well versed in blatant parish pump-ery, lack the finesse of their rural counterparts when it comes to being bona fide shucksters. Noone pulls a stroke for votes like a country politician: a swimming pool and leisure centre? *ding* - you are re-elected! Things not looking good for your voter base among rural parishes - how's about a new clubhouse for the local GAA -*ding* - proceeed to Leinster House! Dublin politicians just haven't the savvy, the street smarts to pull a fast one like that and still be loved. With the exception of He Who Shall Remain Nameless in Drumcondra, urban, particularly Dublin TD's haven't the ability for the sort of clientelism to book your return ticket to Kildare Street every five years.

Alan Shatter bored himself out of office in 2002 with Abbeylara. No-one cared about it on the mean streets of Rathfarnham. What he lacks in backyard-intuition, he makes up for in pomposity, the Kate Middleton row being exhibit A.

Eamon Ryan is a policy expert of the first order, but has the integrity of George Washington. Gone from Dublin South without so much as an Eamon Ryan Eco-Leisure Centre in the middle of Marley Park.

It takes a particlar brand of TD to moot a casino in the shape of the White House as sound economic investment and be carted out on a thousand shoulders on election night. And Reilly did nothing of the sort.

My theory, and it's just that, is mundane in comparison, but no less lethal. Having seen the original list of twenty locations made up by Roisin Shortall, Reilly and his Sir Humphrys added a few more places to put their stamp on it. Swords - and North County Dublin in general - is in dire need of basic infrastructure, as this region is: a) closer to Dundalk than Dublin and b) bursting at the seems in a timeframe that would make Tallaght's transition from country village to urban reality TV backdrop seem like a gradual inevitability. Reilly's choice of Swords, whatever about Balbriggan, was sound. Had this been naked vote grabbing, he'd brazen this out; it wasn't. He probably won’t.

Reilly’s no shuckster, but he’s other things: blind to not running roughshod over a hard working and intellectually razor sharp Minister of State, definitely. And what's more, Shortall's a woman. To go over the little woman's head must have been irresistible in the plain-as-day-FG culture of Alpha male-ism. But Shortall's tough and not for being treated like that, whatever about the absence of tangible support from her leader this evening.

In short, a man in opposition who talks the big talk needs to have the ability to back it up when he’s on the other side of the chamber. From Stubbs Gazette, to not challenging consultants, to Roscommon Hospital, to this debacle: this may be as good as it gets.

Euro crisis and some refreshing honesty.

Whilst some politicians tell tales to satisfy their own ends, former German Chancellor Helmut Schmidt gave a short but candid  address to tens of thousands of onlookers in the German city of Muenster yesterday, having been awarded the city's peace prize.

The 93 year-old grandfather of the single market didn't let the good vibes get to him. "We Germans will have to sacrifice a lot to make Europe a success." Cue enthusiastic applause. All smiles and sunshine so.

Interestingly, he's the only serious German politician to highlight the country's historic responsibility to sort out the Euro-Crisis.

Watch "Helmut Schmidt begeistert Münster" on YouTube

The IMF Recommends/Their Satanic Majesties Request

Michael Noonan has said the IMF recommendation to have a residential property tax at .5% is simply a recommendation and not an instruction to government regarding policy.

Minister Noonan also revealed that he only just found out from IMF officials that the word 'gullible' has been removed from the Oxford English Dictionary, but felt that the recommendation to look for himself was not an instruction to look, though the suggestion was admittedly a learned and eminent one, given it was from the IMF, the saviour of Greece, Argentina and Zambia, and that he would take it on board nonetheless.

In response to this news, the Labour Party has indicated that this and other cuts to education will be resisted vigorously, at least until Eamon Gilmore says otherwise, or FG backwoodsm....backbenchers get their 'all important' abortion vote.

In the meantime, the only Croke Park renegotiation will be between Galway and Kilkenny, a more civilized affair altogether. However, the attendance of so many politicians at recent GAA fixtures in an attempt to appear like normal people, means that, to paraphrase the great P.J. O'Rourke, we might get a few on to the field (we'll tell them there's an allowance down there for them or something) and maybe, juuuuust maybe, the Tribesmen and the Cats might knock some sense into the silly bastards.

Intellectual integrity ftw! - What didn't make it into Enda's speech in Cork...

E. Kenny at Beal na mBlath

Given the choice, some people think Enda Kenny would rather beat a septuagenarian football coach to the top of a hill than read the latest Diarmuid Ferriter tome. It gets worse. Some people think that details of history or other "facts" aren't his strong point. Indeed, correct referencing appears to be completely beyond him and his flunkies. To disprove this slur, I personally dived into the dumpster behind Fine Gael HQ under cover of darkness to find what I needed to set the record straight. Here's what I found.    


Bael na mBlath didn't work out for Enda. Given that most Irish politicians think an "oration" is something rude, was anyone really surprised that An Taoiseach was caught making inaccurate historical references about FG Godfather Michael Collins and his dealings with the Ruskies? The cat is firmly out of the bag, the bag has been set on fire. The huddled masses whisper in Castlebar as he walks by. He knows they know, they know he knows: he knows they think he knows very little. If only they knew...


So here, finally, the discarded list of top ten absolutely totally verifiable "facts" that anyone in FG knows is true, which were unwisely sacrificed in the final edit for that reference to Lenin, and indeed other members of the Beatles, because someone thought you had to exaggerate things to make FG seem relevant and edgy.

1. DeV was against the treaty only because Arthur Griffith beat him at Jenga at the post-negotiation wrap party in London, following an adjucation by Collins. #soreloser.  
2. God is a big farmer.
3. James Dillon invented Subbuteo.
4. Michael Noonan armwrestles Mario Draghi like a mofo at every Brussels summit. Noonoo gets concessions, Mario gets a wrist fracture. 
5. Leo Varadkar has found the instruction manual to Lucinda Creighton. 
6. Ernest Blythe MADE the Abbey Theatre.
7. The Pope came in '79 'cos Cosgrave told him to.
8. Enda's speech on clerical abuse was a bold act of leadership. 
9. Five TDs in Mayo. Nuff said.
10. Abortion is an election issue.

This finally and categorically puts to rest the foul notion that FG is full of anti-intellectual chest beaters and jocks. The officials responsible for this disaster have been dismissed and exiled in disgrace to the Irish consulate in Tahiti.

Under (Blood) Pressure

As you may have noticed, my brothers and I are involved in the excellent Irish Heart Foundation's September campaign against blood pressure. 10,000 people die each year from heart disease and stroke and your blood pressure is central to your cardiovascular health.

Among the media stuff we did, I was on The Morning Show on TV3 last Friday, chatting about blood pressure, my late father and my apparent desire to steal Martin King's job. You can watch by clicking the link above on "The Morning Show".

For more info on getting your blood pressure checked, go to http://www.irishheart.ie 
 - do it, you're worth it!