1945, von Weizaecker and learning from history...

The following was published in November in the GDI Bulletin, was intended for teachers, but some of it seemed timely following the news this morning of Richard von Weizaecker's death. His passing has been disgracefully cursory in the German broadcast media so far. 


When Bundespräsident Richard von Weizäcker addressed the Bundestag thirty years ago next May, he distilled the great truths about 8th of May 1945. “Der achte Mai”, he said, “war ein Tag der Befreiung”. Every five years, the symmetry of 1945 allows us not only to never forget the twelve years of the Hitler regime in Germany, but to return to a year which throws up exciting, uncomfortable and necessary topics which we as teachers of German can address to great effect.
One of the components of the senior German syllabus is one of cultural competence. And yet frustratingly, whilst the Alltagkultur of German speaking countries is recognised, the history of German speaking people is overlooked. This is a great pity, as for teachers of German, there is a compelling case for German history being part of what we teach.

To that end, 1945 allows students, all aware on some level of the significance of the year, to delve into four powerful digits and discover what life was like at this moment in time. Some teachers might use Ernst Jandl’s poem 1944/1945 as a useful starting point, before delving into other aspects of the year the war ended.

That year was eventful to say the least. 1945 was the year of the Dresden Bombings, captured in Kurt Vonnegut’s classic novel Slaughterhouse 5; the Flüchtlingstreks of some 12 million Germans from east of the river Oder, whilst at one stage seen to be politically suspect to discuss, can and should be discussed in its proper context: Europe as the year, as one British veteran pointed out on a BBC documentary, the year the people of Europe were on the move.

1945 was also the year of the final defeat of the Wehrmacht and the disintegration of the Nazi regime; Of Stunde Null and the moment when Germany, technically, ceased to be; when civilisation wended its way to the defining moment of the last half millennium: The Holocaust.
Discussions can and should inevitably lead to Auschwitz. And that is important. Whilst the moral and factual aspects are again well known, a learner of German should know about what ordinary Germans knew, how they struggled to acknowledge the true scale of genocide committed by on their behalf by many of them. For many families this was a time to bury terrible secrets, as seen in Tomi Reichental’s excellent recent documentary about one of his captors.

The ‘deep brown stain’, as historian Harold James refers to it, tarnishes the Germans sense of collective self. The years which followed, certainly the decades after World War Two, lead to decades of prevarication, dishonesty, denial and the struggle with what ordinary Germans has endured, and reconciling that with what they had perpetrated. For every lie, however, there was a truth that would out. The consequences of 1945, the unholy mess of that year, from military defeat, mass starvation and migration, to demagoguery and unprecedented genocide, make this a year which stands on its own merits as a unit of learning; One which can be done with great ease with colleagues in other subjects.  

Resources are plentiful. It is a great tribute to this country that the Holocaust Education Trust receives as much public support as it does. The Goethe Institut and other institutions have also touched upon individual aspects of this tumultuous year. Online, the BBC has many fine documentaries which can be used, as is true of the German public broadcasters like ZDF and ARD, many of which are readily found in specific archives. For those who wish to ditch watching amusing clips of dancing cats on YouTube can find programmes and films which can be didactised easily enough. All one needs, as always, is time.

The reality is, that the outcomes of examining 1945 in the language classroom is not only to create a departure from familiar territory – of itself a good reason to take this on – but also allows students to analyse, speculate, describe past events and make critical evaluations, all the while using constructions and vocabulary which students will require at senior cycle.

To be perfectly honest however, if there were one overriding reason for using this year in our classes it is because it is the morally right thing to do. Racism is still with us, ignorance is still in our own society ‘es hört nie auf’ as Günter Grass wrote at the end of Im Krebsgang.

In my own classroom I have used on multiple occasions the words of Bundespräsident von Weizäcker on the 8th of May 1985, the most significant speech I would argue of the Bonn Republic. His appeal to the young act as the learning outcomes for students of this year and what it signifies:

“Die Bitte an die jungen Menschen lautet:
Lassen Sie sich nicht hineintreiben in Feindschaft und Haß gegen andere Menschen, gegen Russen oder Amerikaner, gegen Juden oder Türken, gegen Alternative oder Konservative, gegen Schwarz oder Weiß. Lernen Sie miteinander zu leben, nicht gegeneinander.
Ehren wir die Freiheit. Arbeiten wir für den Frieden. Halten wir uns an das Recht. Dienen wir unseren inneren Maßstäben der Gerechtigkeit.
Schauen wir am heutigen 8. Mai, so gut wir es können, der Wahrheit ins Auge."

This is an activity we can all share in, 70 years on from the most resonant year of the 20th century.  

An Absence of Isms: When exactly did 'terrorism' become mere 'terror'?

We live in a world of without ideals. The world gets viewed through a prism without -isms. As the French go for a wee stroll through the Place de la Republique, Francois Hollande hopes the locals don't use it as an opportune moment to clobber him over the head with a rolled up copy of Charlie Hebdo for being the most disappointing leader of any republic since Richard Cromwell. 'Tumbledown Dick' (a useful moniker for the current Monsieur President), is a symbol, to my limited understanding, of the failure of republicanism in England. This despite the best efforts of the beneficiaries of the aforementioned failure, the House of Sachsen-Coburg-Gotha, to aid the cause.

Later on, during a march to reaffirm French national unity and reiterate traditional French values of liberté, egalité, fraternité, the politicians of Europe will be at the forefront of that march: Hollande, Merkel and himself from Castlebar. What each has in common is that none of these figures actually stands for anything. They are symbols of the dull muddling through, that takes precedence over inspired thinking. In such a world, language changes and adapts to suit the needs of the people using it. The media, being platforms of communication using language, provide the discourse and mediation. What is unsettling has been the supplanting of ‘terrorism’ over the last years with the abridged word 'terror'. Bush 2 (not a fan of sequels at the best of times, but this was a doozy) embarked on a 'War on Terror' following the 9-11 attacks. This week again the Paris attacks, replete with hashtags and anodyne debate, was branded the Paris Terror Attacks, the BBC leading the charge to change the meaning of words and concepts through subtle change. 

So what? Close enough? Not at all. Terror is an emotion, a feeling; a sensation when in a place of danger, in peril, like when you are about to be cornered at a party by someone whose entire conversation will consist of what point on the public sector pay scale they're on and your wing-person has mysteriously vanished to find drink. Or hide in the loo. 

Terrorism, however, is part method, part ideology. Was Bush engaging Navy Seals to clear the Bogeyman from under his bed or seek out the perpetrators of an unprecedented attack on the US by zealots who used terrorism as a means of furthering their warped viewpoint? Or both? Similarly, the real terror of an attack on the freedom of speech, which the attacks of Paris come to symbolise, is the fuzzing at the edges of language and the truth it tells. To allow inexactitude renders free speech useless. When an –ism here or there is abandoned for base feelings; unformed emotions that are to be mediated and groomed, and to be done in the fuzziest and scariest of ways through official discourse.   

Whatever about the merits of satire, a concept we in Ireland sporadically toy with before deliberately confusing it with silly voices, it has at its core the bravery to say exactly what you mean in all its savagery. The writers and cartoonists of Charlie Hebdo, like Jonathan Swift, like TW3, like the late lamented Scrap, and Martyn Turner all have in common the ability to use language exactly.

This is the bravery to say what you mean using language in its exactitude. In a world where unequivocal ideology has attacked our vague little world, it should be met with the power of clarity.

The Nelsons

Since Mandela's demise, I've been wondering about what a noble name Nelson is. So in memory of President Mandela, and all the other great Nelsons, I thought I'd list as many great nelsons as I could...


Nelson Mandela. or Mr. Madiber, as he was called ironically in the Guardian today
(Horatio) Nelson. Not even he expects anything of England next year...
Nelson Rockerfeller
Nelson Eddy
Nelson Munz
Willie Nelson
Nelson Kadogo, a character mentioned in a Not The Nine O'Clock News skit
Nelson the Elephant. Post op. Deed Poll. Nuff said.


In descending order of greatness. Bar the last one. That takes guts. And a big trunk...

Advent 1: Conducting Christmas

It's Advent. Ad  - bloody  - vent. Some will be trying to filter the music and sparkly bits with a futile telepathic ad (-vent)blocker, but not me. I love it. This is my time. The reasons are simple, but they all boils down to the soundtrack.

For the next month we get mugged by Mud, nagged by Noddy and Slade (I know it's Christmas, you nerk...) as we wait for the coming of a saviour. For me, musically, anyway, that's Händel. His Messiah may have been premiered in April, it may be ubiquitous without us really understanding it, but Christmas (in Dublin, anyway) would not be Christmas without it. And Advent is a time to wait for goodness.  





Which leads me neatly onto this. Looking for a decent version of the not-quite-as-well-known-but-actually-better-part of the Messiah, 'Worthy is the Lamb', I stumbled across a familiar name: Otto Klemperer. He conducted that version, and struck a chord with me, ahem. He did some of his best recordings in old age, conducting Wagner's Flying Dutchman in Abbey Road at the same time the Beatles were figuring out how to fit a sitar into a pop tune, and whether or not decorating Ringo's kit would give him hay fever. He was old and tweedy, but he had rock n roll sensibilities. His version of Wagner's maritime epic is so choppy, you need to clear the seaweed out of your ears after each listen.



It's a truth we don't tend to acknowledge in classical music - mainly because most people don't concern themselves with it, but the personality of a conductor is essential to the personality of the music.Go onto Youtube and find out. Music may soothe the savage beast, but rather then soothing it should rattle.

You may not make it to any of the places they'll play Händel, you may not have the reddies or the inclination, but do go onto YouTube, google the 'Messiah', and while you're at it, add 'Klemperer'.  And turn your speakers up to 11. 

Master of Disaster

"Let me make it absolutely clear", sniffed the Master, mascara running like oil slicks from behind her over sized shades. "That money was not a top up of any sort, I earned every penny, fair and square. I was seeing private patients and, well, sure you know yerself, they were professional fees."

Well, that's okay. No problemo, Masta. All good. It's always a relief when the health and welfare of babies and mothers is under the watchful eye of someone whose work practices are more akin to Lionel Hutz doing shoe repairs in his legal practice than solemnly acting to manage two thousand people in a manner akin to James Robertson Justice in the 'Doctor at...' films of the 1950's.

Double jobbing was not of the invention of anyone in the HSE today nor indeed the upper echelons of the wider civil service. They found the Enormous Trough of the Mighty when they got to Hawkins Street, sure it wouldn't have been even thought of to not stick the snout in. But they are in good company. Other famous double jobbers include:

• Walter White: Chemistry teacher and Meth dealer. I'm only at season two, but he seems really cool...
• Oskar Schindler: Humanitarian and not-very-talented- munitions maker. Nice chap. 
• Dudley Moore in the film Micki and Maude. Married two women and got them pregnant at exactly the same time. Following his bigamy and deceit being exposed, he ended up babysitting all of his children after.
• Eoin McNeill: Academic, Minister and member of the Boundary Commission. That went swimmingly, didn't it?

It wouldn't be fair to mention anyone still alive or not fictitious, because that'd be rude. And that's the height of our worries in these times of crisis.

With hospitals fatally running over budget, the vast majority of the elderly not receiving their necessary treatments to which they are entitled, and maternity hospitals, Holles Street included, being grotesquely under resourced in man-power, facilities and the wherewithal to effectively care for the most vulnerable people at the most vulnerable times in their lives, now's the time for senior management in the healthcare system to be doing what someone in the twittersphere charmingly referred to as "nixers".

They clearly haven't enough to be doing, and be jaysus, that three grand a week just isn't cuttin' it...

November 9th 1918, 1938 & 1989

November 9th - a day that has become like Heine's triple curse: the date for Germany's turning points. Below Brecht's poem 'An die Nachgeborenen' and its English translation from 1967, reprinted by Harpers in 2008. Read. Remember.

I

Wirklich, ich lebe in finsteren Zeiten!
Das arglose Wort ist töricht. Eine glatte Stirn
Deutet auf Unempfindlichkeit hin. Der Lachende
Hat die furchtbare Nachricht
Nur noch nicht empfangen.

Was sind das für Zeiten, wo
Ein Gespräch über Bäume fast ein Verbrechen ist
Weil es ein Schweigen über so viele Untaten einschließt!
Der dort ruhig über die Straße geht
Ist wohl nicht mehr erreichbar für seine Freunde
Die in Not sind?

Es ist wahr: Ich verdiene nur noch meinen Unterhalt
Aber glaubt mir: das ist nur ein Zufall. Nichts
Von dem, was ich tue, berechtigt mich dazu, mich sattzuessen.
Zufällig bin ich verschont. (Wenn mein Glück aussetzt, bin ich verloren.)

Man sagt mir: Iß und trink du! Sei froh, daß du hast!
Aber wie kann ich essen und trinken, wenn
Ich dem Hungernden entreiße, was ich esse, und
Mein Glas Wasser einem Verdursteten fehlt?
Und doch esse und trinke ich.

Ich wäre gerne auch weise.
In den alten Büchern steht, was weise ist:
Sich aus dem Streit der Welt halten und die kurze Zeit
Ohne Furcht verbringen
Auch ohne Gewalt auskommen
Böses mit Gutem vergelten
Seine Wünsche nicht erfüllen, sondern vergessen
Gilt für weise.
Alles das kann ich nicht:
Wirklich, ich lebe in finsteren Zeiten!

II

In die Städte kam ich zur Zeit der Unordnung
Als da Hunger herrschte.
Unter die Menschen kam ich zu der Zeit des Aufruhrs
Und ich empörte mich mit ihnen.
So verging meine Zeit
Die auf Erden mir gegeben war.

Mein Essen aß ich zwischen den Schlachten
Schlafen legte ich mich unter die Mörder
Der Liebe pflegte ich achtlos
Und die Natur sah ich ohne Geduld.
So verging meine Zeit
Die auf Erden mir gegeben war.

Die Straßen führten in den Sumpf zu meiner Zeit.
Die Sprache verriet mich dem Schlächter.
Ich vermochte nur wenig. Aber die Herrschenden
Saßen ohne mich sicherer, das hoffte ich.
So verging meine Zeit
Die auf Erden mir gegeben war.

Die Kräfte waren gering. Das Ziel
Lag in großer Ferne
Es war deutlich sichtbar, wenn auch für mich
Kaum zu erreichen.
So verging meine Zeit
Die auf Erden mir gegeben war.

III

Ihr, die ihr auftauchen werdet aus der Flut
In der wir untergegangen sind
Gedenkt
Wenn ihr von unseren Schwächen sprecht
Auch der finsteren Zeit
Der ihr entronnen seid.

Gingen wir doch, öfter als die Schuhe die Länder wechselnd
Durch die Kriege der Klassen, verzweifelt
Wenn da nur Unrecht war und keine Empörung.

Dabei wissen wir doch:
Auch der Hass gegen die Niedrigkeit
Verzerrt die Züge.
Auch der Zorn über das Unrecht
Macht die Stimme heiser. Ach, wir
Die wir den Boden bereiten wollten für Freundlichkeit
Konnten selber nicht freundlich sein.

Ihr aber, wenn es soweit sein wird
Dass der Mensch dem Menschen ein Helfer ist
Gedenkt unsrer
Mit Nachsicht.

I
Truly, I live in dark times!
An artless word is foolish. A smooth forehead
Points to insensitivity. He who laughs
Has not yet received
The terrible news.

What times are these, in which
A conversation about trees is almost a crime
For in doing so we maintain our silence about so much wrongdoing!
And he who walks quietly across the street,
Passes out of the reach of his friends
Who are in danger?

It is true: I work for a living
But, believe me, that is a coincidence. Nothing
That I do gives me the right to eat my fill.
By chance I have been spared. (If my luck does not hold,
I am lost.)

They tell me: eat and drink. Be glad to be among the haves!
But how can I eat and drink
When I take what I eat from the starving
And those who thirst do not have my glass of water?
And yet I eat and drink.

I would happily be wise.
The old books teach us what wisdom is:
To retreat from the strife of the world
To live out the brief time that is your lot
Without fear
To make your way without violence
To repay evil with good –
The wise do not seek to satisfy their desires,
But to forget them.
But I cannot heed this:
Truly I live in dark times!

II

I came into the cities in a time of disorder
As hunger reigned.
I came among men in a time of turmoil
And I rose up with them.
And so passed
The time given to me on earth.

I ate my food between slaughters.
I laid down to sleep among murderers.
I tended to love with abandon.
I looked upon nature with impatience.
And so passed
The time given to me on earth.

In my time streets led into a swamp.
My language betrayed me to the slaughterer.
There was little I could do. But without me
The rulers sat more securely, or so I hoped.
And so passed
The time given to me on earth.

The powers were so limited. The goal
Lay far in the distance
It could clearly be seen although even I
Could hardly hope to reach it.
And so passed
The time given to me on earth.

III

You, who shall resurface following the flood
In which we have perished,
Contemplate –
When you speak of our weaknesses,
Also the dark time
That you have escaped.

For we went forth, changing our country more frequently than our shoes
Through the class warfare, despairing
That there was only injustice and no outrage.

And yet we knew:
Even the hatred of squalor
Distorts one’s features.
Even anger against injustice
Makes the voice grow hoarse. We
Who wished to lay the foundation for gentleness
Could not ourselves be gentle.

But you, when at last the time comes
That man can aid his fellow man,
Should think upon us
With leniency.

–Bertolt Brecht, An die Nachgeborenen first published in Svendborger Gedichte (1939) in:Gesammelte Werke, vol. 4, pp. 722-25 (1967)(S.H. transl.)

posted 2008 on http://harpers.org/blog/2008/01/brecht-to-those-who-follow-in-our-wake/ 

I've been married to Liverpool FC since 1985. I could have been a self respecting fan of Southampton, by dint of being impressed with a pic of Steve Williams in a shiny Admiral made kit in a Shoot annual we got from a neighbour now long since departed. But no. Liverpool were for me. It was a marriage made in heaven until Wimbledon and that penalty against Wimbledon.

Mesut Oezil. Really.

Since Arsene Wenger went Arse-ways and look what happened: I've been having a football fling with that French floozie in North London. By floozy I mean of course more Madame Pompadour, but watching L'Arsenal is like going to the ballet. Even on a bad day they'd rather lose pretty than win ugly. More Joan Fontaine than Julian Dicks. 

I'll be rooting on in a stripy shirt and a string of onions around my neck, munching on Currywurst, in total-aestheto-football-ecstacy. 

Sorry 'Pool, you broke my heart too many times. And that's before even mention Paul Stewart... You'll always be my club, but you're warned...

Throw the Booker at them.

I'm writing a book. Yes, I can confirm that I'm going to take all my unfinished ideas, baseless bragging from my early twenties and finally get it together. It will be a mammoth epic of 34521 pages, its plot complex and clever, based around the blueprint for traffic management in and/or around Junction 13 of the M50 in the run up to Christmas Eve. I'm also hoping to have it finished by next Tuesday. Despite its length, complexity and thoroughly unrealistic completion date, not to mention my chronic inability to finish colouring a book let alone write one, I still stand a better chance of winning the Man Booker prize than Colm Toibin.

Although Toibin happens to be the greatest creator of fiction we've produced since Bertie Ahern's legal team at the Mahon Tribunal, the great man is in danger of becoming the Ivan Lendl of international literature. Unless judging committees for book prizes stop infusing their decisions with the cruel pleasure of deliberately overlooking a man whose persistence, let alone talent, deserves to be rewarded, Toibin's only comfort will be when he wins the Nobel Prize. This of course will be soured by the BBC calling him British, and you just can't unring a bell.

Given his perceptibly shabby treatment by Booker, Toibin's next novel will be called "The Testament of Colm" and will consist of: one slightly scrappy looking jotter page, drenched in a tin mug of Pernod, with four words scrawled in regularly interchanged order over and over again: when, prize, give and sodding.

Schürrle not!

Years ago I went to see Swan Lake and I can remember two things - the disappointment that the dancers didn't sing  - it looked like God sat on the remote and hit the mute button - and the raw athleticism of ballet. It was wonderful, and it didn't look all that complex either. It was simple moves done well. Cue a dreadful football match and Andre Schürrle.

Say what you like about the Irish team, chances are you have. Nonetheless, they looked an awful lot less embarrassing (and embarassed) than every previous game during Trapp's tawdry stint as Irish coach, when they were clunky, fearful and losing. They were respectably rubbish. Oddly, though, Germany weren't much better. They gifted two soft goals, and one which was every bit as poetic, every bit the contradiction to the German character. Andre Schürrle balanced a ball as if it were a bubble in danger of bursting, turned himself carefully and planted it with the grace of the White Swan into the Irish net. Eat your heart out, Natalie Portman.

Even in the most pedestrian of things, you can find a little beauty. Germany does simple things well. The tale of Germany's football resurrection starts with a man in the German FA getting into his car, driving across Germany and doing clinics in close ball skills in every backwater he could find, where there was even a suggestion of football being played. The likes of Schürrle came out of that. A simple plan gave rise to the poetic.  

To steal a line from Yes, Minister. the match may have been a dunghill, but it grew a beautiful rose. Shame it was against us...

Little Boy Blue (-shirt) and Labour's Love's Lost

Last weekend's Seanad vote reminded me why failure is weirdly rejuvenating for Enda - Every time something goes wrong, his indeterminate middle age recedes to display a little boy in daddy's suit, pretending at grown ups. Really it's quite sweet.

Like all children, he didn't want to admit that he got it wrong, in all humility. And like all childish things - he tried to break up with 29 FG Senators, who got an electorate less responsive than Ariel Sharon plugged out to explain in no uncertain terms that breaking up is hard to do.

This'll get awkward when they keep turning up, persistently giving him gifts, like a gun rack for their 'anniversary'. Not having a need for a rack, not possessing a gun or guns for that matter, poor Enda will have to keep smiling through his buachaill grin until he looks again like a man of indeterminate middle age clothed in Enda's very own suit.

Meanwhile Eamon Gilmore. Nuff said, really. My wife and I once went to lunch with Michael D. and by the end he had me volunteering to canvas for Labour. No really, it's not a joke. Still waiting for the punchline nevertheless.

Meanwhile, here's footage from FG's first day back in Leinster House; Upper House undemolished.
   

Love/Hate and Wagner: What the Seanad Debates Showed Me

In the process of wondering about Wagner, and the coolness of Black Dog by Led Zeppelin on Love/Hate, I had an image of lovable psycho-scalawag Nidge sitting in the place of Brian Hayes with John Crown giving out ad nauseum, before Minister Nidge-Weasel launches into his speech about not giving a toss about any of them ("I don't give a shit about any of them...I love Trish, n' all, but...").

There he's sat in the Seanad chamber, our Minister (sorry...JUNIOR Minister. By the way, why is minister even capitalised?) telling John-Boy Crown he likes to lick himself at night. Cue the outrage and the pompous defending of comments in the subsequent non-news cycle. You wonder why they would abolish the Seanad.

I still believe in its current form, the Seanad's one redeeming feature is it has the possibility of circumventing the parish pumpery of the lower house. By allowing panels of candidates to be elected by varied interests, like the colleges, you give an in to politics for the voices in a society instinctively suspicious of the educated as Ireland. The Seanad is, however, only as good as its members, and this is no golden age of parliamentarians. There's no WB Yeats or Mary Robinson sitting in those smurf-arse blue Bargain Town dining room chairs.

Sending Hayes in to rile the few Senators present with his iPad and his street-style 'tude has its own delicious irony. He's no Yeats and he's definitely no Robinson. What he represents in politics is the piggy for whom one end of the trough used to be as good enough as the other. When he wasn't good enough for his constituency, where did he find safe harbour? Hayes obviously doesn't think he needs them anymore. All trapeze artists think they don't need the net until they half way down and wondering what will stop them smashing into the dirt.

If politics is a theatrical Gesamtkunstwerk, then Hayes is Alberich in Das Rheingold: he's renounced love and will steal their gold. The Rhein maidens, who I assume are Fidelma Healy-Eames and Ivana Bacik in blondie-Fraeulein wigs, are warbling their distress to Pat Kenny, who in this case is Wotan, having the giant Denis build him Valhalla in a Dublin 2 office block behind a Sally Army hostel. The production is only marginally worse than this year's Bayreuth, and the score's been switched with a Big Tom chord book.

I want my money back. I love politics 'n' all, but...

Big Dave

Sen. David Norris is a giant. He's brave, he's fearless, he's eccentric as a stoat wearing tapshoes and a Glengarry, and he's been the reason why watching Oireachtas report when draining the last of your eight cans of Dutch Gold turns out to be a viable alternative to CSI.

This month, Sen. Norris has been taking on the political Goliath that is Enda, but who intellectually anyway wouldn't be David's equal by a very long shot. His "outburst" against first-term TD Regina Doherty may have been choice in terms of language and it may have gifted Enda's vanguard of radio rentamouths a sideshow to distract from serious charges regarding FG's attitudes to government. But the question still begs: has FG gone mad altogether on power, when they can force through votes on abortion and Seanad abolition, but can't seem to get their fingers out on banking regulation, debt relief, tackling the mortgage crisis, local government reform or the high price of Bruce Springsteen tickets? 

FG seems to have confused getting into government with a mandate to exorcise about eight decades of not being loved enough. Will this all work out though? With a vote on the Seanad in the offing, flawed language and poor law as it may be, according to Sen. Norris at least, it could still all fall apart from Enda. If the upper house survives, he'll have a chamber full of very vengeful blueshirts waiting in the long grass. Break out the popcorn, so, and enjoy what may be a bloody spectacle. Someone else will sort out the country, I'm sure.

For your entertainment, Norris' best bits from the last month on Enda and the notorious Regina monologues. Enjoy! 

On Enda...

On the Regina monologues...

A Day Well Spent...

The vote on the Protection of Life during Pregnancy Bill is a big moment for many. For me, it's a new low in our public discourse and our body politic. It’s an honest opinion, so if you like it, fine, if not, that’s your fine too. I respect your opinions irrespective of what it is, so please respect mine:

A civilised society should have debates, where argue your case, weigh up the merits of all opinions, make a decision and then go home. It’s not bad thing to be pro-choice. It’s also not a bad thing to be deeply uncomfortable with abortion and decide you’re against it. Both sides have valid arguments.  If the last nine months are anything to go by though, we are anything but civilised, let alone a society. The people, who suffer, meanwhile, are manifold. Here are a number of things more pressing than the current grotesque show on display this morning in Dail Eireann, and what I believe the debate around abortion has revealed so far.

According to the CSO, 87,100 people left Ireland in 2011, of which 91% were under the age of 25. You can extrapolate from the total sum, which have emigrated since the economy imploded in 2007 and 2008. The country is in penury and every working person, public and private sector, has been put to the rack, vilified for earning a living or blackmailed into accepting ever poorer working conditions. Sure, what else can you do – there’s nothing else out there. It’s an easy lie to believe, and we do, and are scared to believe otherwise. We're victims, we have no choice. Sure, no one would believe us anyway.

Yet we wonder when the banking crisis, which is the cause of our travails, will finally elicit visible outrage. The tragic fact is that it may not, whether through snobbery (if you see a Republican Sinn Fein flag at a protest, many would be turned off joining it – but short sighted product placement is what they love to do, our political groups, though I never recall seeing a pic of Jim Larkin holding a Dr Pepper at a street protest) or through fatalistic apathy. The case has not been convincingly made for outrage. If it had, the streets would be full. Those who want it otherwise must try harder to convince people who are jaded and worried in a real and day-to-day way.

After five years, a banking enquiry has not met – or rather, no investigation has taken place that has been either the impetus for justice in the face of our ruin or the template for a reformed banking system that will serve the needs of our society. The tittle-tattle of the Anglo tapes has simply shown what we already knew about Drumm and Co. and the ineptitude of the authorities to front up on big promises to get to the bottom of what happened in our banking system.

Childcare is nearly totally unregulated and it costs more to send your child to a crèche than to the poshest of private schools. Not once has this been addressed, neither the cost of provision nor the quality of worker in this area. This was supposedly an election issue as far back as 2002 and yet still lingers unpleasantly. Parents, who might otherwise choose a different life, have been penalised for having children at all, who by the way, will be paying off our mess. A sector of our economy and our society exists, where working with children is below working in a supermarket on the economic and social food chain, despite the onerous responsibility those working in the sector face and the importance a good, well trained childcare worker has for the wellbeing of our children.

Our children are forced through a dysfunctional education system that is top heavy not only on religion, but an industry-led agenda that treats the formation of young minds, one of the greatest tasks of mankind, into the creation of unthinking worker bees; stymies creativity and curiosity, eschews intellectual rigour or active citizenship – education, where every little helps, and education helps very little to stop our economic and social rot.  The economic consequences are clear for this, far more damaging, however, is the thinness of our intellectual fabric. So much for reaping the benefits of the good years.

We can’t get 4000 homeless off our streets; we can’t stamp out the drugs epidemic destroying not only urban but also rural communities, where the plays of future John B Keanes will be reworked via the horrors of an Irvine Welsh novel. Yet we can afford a debate about abortion.

This is the Ireland of 2013. These are pressing issues. Faced with such pressure, who can blame people ill -equipped and unqualified to take on these challenges but to retreat into fantasy.

Abortion is still a hot-button topic, thanks to a tragic accident, the cause of which is likely a failure of procedure, by extension a failure of leadership. The ensuing discussion has long since diverged from an initial question of adequate care and clear guidelines for medical professionals to one which neither resolves those questions nor will resolve the real, intractable ethical questions around abortion.   

Meanwhile, Ireland festers unnecessarily in the sunshine.

To each person animated by the abortion debate I ask you this: if you really care about life, on either side of the debate, why aren’t you putting your anger and passion into something a damn sight more important than a row about the very existence of abortion in this country? Accept that people’s circumstances are not always black and white – not every woman has a choice and not every abortion is about exercising a choice like a consumer. It's time to find a common ground.  Every woman who has experienced the tragedy of miscarriage, of complications in pregnancy, or rape, or incest or even dumb luck has their plight cheapened by an insulting knockabout that should have been resolved a generation ago. For that, we can thank our public representatives, elected and unelected. This debate that would have been resolved when I was in my early teens had it not been for the near criminal negligence, laziness and procrastination of politicians who were so ignorant, they thought the X-Case was a sci-fi cop show.

To every one of the 166 paid gobshites in Dail Eireann on either side of the debate on abortion, to every activist who’d rather spend their days outside a dead toff’s former 18^th century shag pad-turned doss house for the culturally inbred and intellectually disadvantaged, I ask you this: why can’t you have a simple, civilised conversation with each other about the provision of health care that doesn’t include emotive language, crude stereotyping of the other side and their arguments, that doesn’t reduce the death of an unborn child or of a young woman into a pantomime that insults not only the dead but also the living.

We would be deserving of better, if we didn’t seem to accept it so readily.

@gutenmorgan  

Deutschland Ueber Alles - Day 2

 a "something"-eating grin...

One of the interesting things about the Anglo Tapes scandal is its ability to independently throw up distraction from the big issues. The central issue of the Anglo Tapes is of course that Irish bankers are not only highly skilled business people, wedded to due diligence, but when they get together, they make funnies like a boss.

As one former Anglo exec John Bowe is heard calling David Drumm, crooning "Deutschland ueber Alles", the two then crack up at the power of their own comedy prowess.  Unsurprisingly, this hasn't gone down well in Germany, as the Irish Times report this morning http://www.irishtimes.com/news/germans-not-pleased-as-anglo-mocking-makes-front-pages-1.1443095  with a helpful illustrative screen shot of a Swiss newspaper. One report, in the tabloid Bild newspaper, whilst far from 100% accurate, paints a colourful picture of the Anglo's taped trio and is worth a read. 

What may upset the Germans the most, however, is that there appears to be no plans for a tour of Germany's comedy clubs by Messrs Drumm, Fitzgerald and Bowe.

Meanwhile, as the government look for an 'axis of collusion' between Anglo and Fianna Fail, silly season has officially begun. A serious debate, meanwhile, is sitting, lonely, in a studio in RTE, sobbing, whilst Myles Dungan passes it paper hankies. 

@gutenmorgan 

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.