Langue et Parole

Enda Kenny and Micheal Martin 'clashed' yesterday over the issue of language skills and satisfying the needs of multinationals who have to import foreign language speakers to fill thousands of vacancies. In particular, PayPal took a few shots at the state of language graduates in the country.

(You can read the full match report: Kenny admits concerns over standards of language teaching after PayPal jobs news (via The Journal.ie) http://jrnl.ie/523895 )

The most intriguing part of the discussion is the following statement from Enda, during leader's questions:

'Kenny accused Martin of seeking to restore his own pilot programme, saying many schools were taking independent measures to teach foreign languages to their students.

The MLPSI had been “of benefit”, Kenny said, but it “does not meet the views of where we’re headed for the future” – when modern languages would be “absolutely critical for the development of the country”.'

Read what he said again and see if you can tell what he's saying. 

THE MLPSI, which cost €2m per year to run and provided language teaching in 550 primary schools, was axed in the last budget. A temporary reprieve was provided, to allow the MLPSI to see out the academic year. By the time they had axed the MLPSI, it was working with a skeleton staff of two, and yet they still provided schools with an opportunity to learn French, Spanish and German among others. They will now be out of a job, not to mention the many teachers who were in their employment to provide the classes. 

These languages provide us with the tools to conduct trade and cultural dialogue properly with other countries. Take German as an example: We export billions of Dollars worth of goods to Germany, a land which remains completely untapped to us, primarily because of a lack of language and cultural skills. Our exports admittedly nearly  halved  between 2008 and 2010 for obvious reasons, but business is still there to be done. 

All languages suffer. Access to the Spanish speaking world remains largely untapped, bar ordering a cup of Barry's tea in Fuerteventura. Russian, Portuguese, not to mention Polish and Hindi, are only learned by the tiniest minority. High-tech, agri-tech, pharmaceuticals, engineering, we have it all in spades, but we could have more, but for the pathetic language skills possessed by our workforce. 

Part of the problem, indeed the whole problem, rests on attitude. A true story: A friend of mine, who moved to Germany last year, told me he was attending the language classes provided by his employer. The sessions consisted largely of Irish lads asking how to say 'sure it's grand' in the case they had an unfortunate misunderstanding in a bar when they're having 'the craic'.  

Rather than unlock whole cultures, rather than see the career opportunities such learning might provide - my friend definitely works in the high end of high tech industry - is our attitude that we have the lowest possible expectation of ourselves? If so, where does this come from? There are many suspects, but this is a widespread conspiracy: From parents and students, one group happy they learn anything at all, the other often resistant to applying themselves (a way too complex issue to dismiss with 'laziness'), to educators and the mandarins running the system, the former either overburdened or under-resourced (including developing their teaching and language skills), the latter more interested in resolving issues in Maths and Science, due to the fact that low achievement isn't confined to the language classroom - it's endemic among our young. The tragedy is that apart from the economic benefits of learning a language, we risk a cultural atrophy, we risk ignorance of fascinating, beautiful, tragic civilizations who languages are the vehicles of Cervantes, Voltaire, Kant, Tolstoi, Adam Mickiewicz and Valmiki among others.    

When Kenny dismisses the MLPSI on partisan grounds, when his Sub-Sir Humphryspeak mangles the English language to the tiniest particles of meaningless sounds, what possible hope can we have for leadership in terms of language policy in Ireland? What possible hope is there for retaining the multinationals enticed here by the alleged high quality of our education system, who were, either by design or delusion, brought here ultimately under false pretenses,    

COMPARE THE MERKEL.COM

The Euro crisis, like Ming Flanagan, is an embarrassing debacle that refuses to go away. In the midst of it all, Europe's only heavy hitter, Angela Merkel, has been hit heavily. After nearly half a decade of telling everyone to do crazy things like save their money and stop being lazy, she's caving in. In Berlin, the knives are being sharpened, and she's currently residing comfortably under her desk. Now 170 leading German economists have attacked her in an open letter, and one of her fiercest critics, former chancellor Helmut Schmidt, has with no little gravitas damned the beleaguered 'Madame Non' with faint praise.

Merkel: all smiles and sunshine

2012 Merkel's is her annus horribilis. Her party, the CDU, have been shown the door in every regional election held this year. Her coalition partners, the FDP, are mid implosion, and yet their leader, a man who would rather be in Afghanistan wearing a 'Jihadists for Jesus' T-Shirt than be a politician, managed to bully her into submission over misfired veto of Joachim Gauck's succeeding her handpicked Federal President, the scandal prone Christian Wulff.


Although personally popular up to now, Merkel's tough stance on the sovereign debt issues of the club med countries has cost her dearly. Moreover, it has cost her people too: the level of hostility shown towards ordinary Germans underlines the point that in barely half a decade, Germany's postwar reputation has been put to the sword, as Merkel's characteristic caution has been defined successfully in the discourse as malevolent inaction.

The home front isn't much rosier. Discontent has grown over the absence of a resolution to the crisis. Merkel's lack of substantial consultation with the Bundestag has led to challenges of the EFSF bailout mechanism at the German constitutional court, whose judges have come under increased pressure to react to political events. Enter Helmut Schmidt, former chancellor and grand seigneur of German politics. His interventions have gone largely unreported in Britain and Ireland, despite the fact he has effectively defined the case against Merkel's stance in Europe. At 93, Schmidt's political activity remains far greater than either of his other successors, Helmut Kohl or Gerhard Schroeder, and his influence on political debate accordingly remains undiminished.

Helmut Schmidt: Germany's last great smoker

He is also capable of surprises. He spoke in support of Merkel at an event in Berlin on Tuesday last, acknowledging the great challenges of being chancellor at this time. Daily broadsheet Die Welt reported Schmidt's speech as a backhanded statement of support, applauding her defeats at the G8 and G20 meetings as great tactical victories. Schmidt recently said Merkel is good at political tactics, but to what purpose was anyone's guess. Who said the Germans don't do humour?

Undermining Merkel's approach of narrowly defending Germany's interests, Schmidt has also called for a radical subordination of German concerns to the greater European good. (In December last he even reminded the SPD party conference that those who forget the historic reasons for anchoring Germany in a European Community are in danger of forgetting Germany's historic responsibility to the project.) He has also recently co-authored/co-sponsored a blueprint for a way out of the crisis with Jacques Delors, attempting to offer a pragmatic paradigm for the Eurozone in the future. 

Tomake things worse, Suedeutsche Zeitung reports that 170 leading economists have written an open letter to Merkel on her handling of the crisis. She has responded by questioning their competence. She can afford to do little more for now: her popularity is at its highest for three years. Unfortunately, anyone who knows the fate of our own dear Bertie Ahern will know that popularity won't save your bacon forever.


For all her personal popularity, Merkel is becoming politically isolated, domestically (fatal) as well as internationally (chronic). It's easy to be popular when your firm with the Greeks, whose political class has been the apotheosis of the dilettantism of modern European life, a sordid disgrace in this whole Euro fiasco. Unfortunately for Merkel, she isn't a typical CDU leader, and they'll soon want one of their own. 

Cardinal Sin

I'm not an admirer of Cardinal Sean Brady. I'm not a hater of him either. He no has doubt some positive qualities. He is clearly an educated man, with a Doctorate in Canon Law. He is a man of deep faith: but he's in deep trouble. And he did not get to the top in the Irish hierarchy, merely because he looks good in scarlet. So how come he's managed to make a monkey of being the Primate? The reasons are as clear as they are complex.

Cardinal Brady

Sean Brady was involved in an 'investigation' of abuse allegations against Fr. Brendan Smyth so half-assed, so insulting to Smyth's victims, that nearly four decades on, it's still a potent source of anger toward the clergy. The scandal as it erupted in the early 1990's defined the rupture between the church and its congregation. Whereas Eamon Casey had been a scandal which exposed an almost comical duplicity and hypocrisy within the hierarchy, the handling of Smyth exposed the chilling manner in which the church chose to abuse it faithful: be it their trust, their obedience or their children, the Catholic Church ran roughshod over not only those who questioned them and those who would follow them.

It's strange to think that in the twenty years since Smyth infamously eyeballed photographers as he was led away by prison guards, that the almost cartoonish and grotesque villainy of Smyth was not enough for the Church to want to clean house and open up. The reaction at the time was enormous. The amusement around Eamon Casey soon became horror with the emergence of Smyth. All the while, the church did as it does. Nothing.

The social upheaval of the early 1990's brought about astonishingly little real change. The majority still go to mass, as is their right, and with which I have no quibble. Priests are still reasonably respected figures in their communities. The churches are still the dominant interested parties in Irish education, causing everything in schools to revolve around either religion or sex. And despite Ruari Quinn's desire to change, how much really will for a new social ideology other than the ideology of making do with dwindling resources. There are compelling reasons why real change is a long way off.

As a child growing up, I was quite unaware of the Church's waning power, because I was not bought up in that tradition of 'deference' to the hierarchy that appears to be the cause of the then Father Brady's subordinating of his common morality to his duties as an officer of the Church. I'll return to this again, but what I'd mention first is a personal memory: I remember that my father, then being Father Trendy on the television, was not to everyone's liking. His act was 'blasphemy' to some. I think we even received some hate mail. Not, however, from the clergy, but from lay people. The clergy saved their ammunition when it came to Dermot Morgan for later when he died. At the time he was on the Live Mike, he pulled up the blinds to let new, uncomfortable light shine on Ireland. Most of all, however, he liberated his family from the mental connection between subservience to the Churchmen and well practiced Catholicism.

This was the exception however and not the rule. The Irish happily revel in shouting about their rebellion: they won't pay the household charge (even when they aren't liable to), or fork out €50 for their septic tank (even when they don't have one). We claim to harbour a sneaking regard for those who play fast and loose with the law for their own gain. We are an beneath it all, a servile people. The protests over the IMF/EU bailout are not mass uprisings. An officer of the law will still get a timid 'yes, Guard' when stopping a wayward driver. When the taxman cometh, most cough up. So it was with the British, and so it was with the Catholic Church.

We are recidivist Conservatives, allowing pregnant schoolgirls to be refused an education until we remember which century we're supposed to be living in. When the ugliness of our everyday cowardice is exposed, the perpetrator is protected to save ourselves from our own complicity. Child abuse, the dirtiest of all Ireland's little secrets, therefore remained unreported, the abusers unchallenged. The victims were afflicted with stigma, the families were fearful of shame. The desire for certainty, which the church offered after independence, was seized upon by the faithful and exploited by their supposed moral guardians.

So what of Sean Brady? Resignation is the least of his worries. Morally he's incapable of coming up with the goods. He can't apologise without making it about his anguish. Society doesn't care about that. It's not about co-opting victimhood to make you feel better. When you've wronged someone, the hardest thing to say is sorry and mean it for purely unselfish reasons. For a man of such ability as he must be, he appears imbued with such an ego, albeit an institutionally defined ego, that means he could attempt to avoid taking responsibility for his actions and those of the Church. That manner of apology, and the real atonement that would inevitably follow, is too much for him and the hierarchy, with a few notable exceptions. When that happens, Irish society as a whole can start the real process of self examination about child abuse that we have never had to guts to engage with: to liberate ourselves from the timidity and the Juju of our ancestors and to define our relationship with God in a real and heartfelt way.


 

Compacted

I've a hard time pigeonholing Gerry Adams. Is he a man of destiny, who brought the extremists in from the cold? Is he a wily tactician, guiding Sinn Fein to reclaim the Republican mainstream in the south? Or is he the man best qualified to demonstrate what a cat's bum looks like by puckering his lips and holding his arm over his head? One thing's for certain, in the realm of details, he has as good a grip on them as Enda Kenny. And that doesn't bode well for anyone.

Nothing in the world of politics makes my heart leap with joy as much as a politician debating with the facts, or some convincing notion thereof. Even if it's tenuous from one end to the other. If it's watertight, if it possesses elegant logic, wrapped up in a bow of oratory ribbons, then stick me in the front row with popcorn and a copy of Thomas Paine's Common Sense. One thing is clear, though. There is not a single politician of note in the mainstream who has the savant-like grasp of data to win an argument, the skill to apply cool analysis and clear, concise language to discuss the topics of the day. There isn't even a decent rabble-rouser who can read his staffer's cheat notes these days. There is, not to put too fine a point on it, a distinct lack of politicians who can explain what the hell is going on. Not least, in the realm of Europe, not least the Fiscal Treaty.

To some, the Fiscal Compact sounds like an obscure brand of makeup. Some may even think it is. Very few might be able to explain what is in this short treaty, and even fewer will vote on its merits. As short as it is, 24 pages, as straightforward as it might be, we'll never know, cos we won't read it. To our detriment, we won't get a politician hard working enough or articulate enough to earn their wage and make a decent case for or against it. Enter big Gerry from Belf...I mean Louth.

Adams had to come clean when accused by FG's Paschal Donoghue of misrepresenting the views of leading Irish economists: Quotes were taken out of context, characterizing them as arguing against the Treaty on Stability, Coordination and Governance. They were all, in fact, of the view that this treaty was the only show in town as far as ending the Eurocrisis was concerned. Cue Adams explaining that yes, it was arse, but, but, but. Cue also the sound of someone from his office opening up the Evening Herald Jobs Section.

This scene made Adams, whose place in history is assured, look like a rank amateur, and that maybe one day he wouldn't have his biography discussed by Mary Wilson some weekday evening. If Sinn Fein is to be a viable alternative to the current government, if it is to eclipse the carrion rump of FF, then it needs to know more, say more, make more sense and generally not come across like a bunch of gobshites who came down with the last shower. As Richard Boyd Barrett learned this week, when even Enda Kenny can score cheap debating points off you, that's not a good sign.

Richard Boyd Barrett in heated debate with Kenny (right)

In the head-to-head between the Adams and Kenny, the best beard and the best barnet in the Dail, Kenny was putting it up to Adams to defend his claim that the treaty would drive the destiny of the Irish electorate into the hands of unelected officials in Brussels or elsewhere. Adams' claim is obviously hokum. That EU train left the station some time ago. Moreover the treaty, a rerun of the stability pact supposedly agreed prior to the Euro's introduction, requires more than just a vacant soundbite. Similarly, Kenny's assertion that our little vote has nothing to do with anyone else in the whole wide world is also nonsense: Yes, it is interrelated with the Dutch elections, the German regional elections, the future of Merkozy (as long as THAT lasts) and more importantly, with the future of the country, which at any rate has been index-linked to continental Europe since 1973.

The vote is on the 31st of May. So far, a convincing argument for or against the treaty has been absent from the discourse. Since we can't even trust our politicians to tell us what to do, we may actually have to get up of our lazy, apathetic backsides and read the thing ourselves.

If you want to, you can read it here. Or print it out and Pritt-Stick it to your TD's head.

Fornication: First Offence.

I have to be perfectly honest. I love the whole renaissance for the 1980's and 90's. Wham Bars are back in the shops and I get to wear skinny yellow jeans without much risk of a beating. I even woke up this morning with Spandau Ballet stuck in my head.

What I don't love, in fact, what I hate, is the refrying of the X-Case judgement. In particular Michelle Mulherin's contribution to parliamentary democracy last week, when she managed, either by design or disaster, to make the X-Case an issue of sex and morality in society. Clearly the X-Case has about as much to do with sex and morality in society as sock puppets have to do with drive-by shootings. When saying something, we must remember to to be clear. A government, Helmut Schmidt once said, cannot be built on ambiguities. And definitely not, one might add, on plain confusion. Hats off to the Dail Technical Group, who showed the cojones no government since the early 90s has been able to show in attempting to enact legislation based on a Supreme Court judgement - Government by the book according to due process as set out in the constitution.

In making this bold step, however, they have opened the door to opponents of abortion in any circumstances to reopening the debate on the X-Case. Whilst they have the mic, they'll attempt to set the reset button on society's mores using this most inappropriate of contexts, namely legislation that emanates from a rape case.

Mulherin did exactly this, whether she likes it or not. In her use of the term 'fornication' to describe sex outside of marriage, she made a judgement call on those whose behaviour differs from hers. To say, 'Hey guys, there's a real problem with the way society has not recognized the repercussions of letting people do what they like without considering the consequences', is one thing, but she didn't do that. And this wasn't the place to do what she did.

The X-Case has been characterized by its opponents as legislation proposed to let people get off the hook for being in difficulty. Unfortunately for her, this goes against what she has said about the X-Case: that is, that she's accepts the judgement.


To prove a point, here, with thanks to broadsheet.ie, below is a key excerpt from Mulherin's interview with Brendan O'Connor last night on RTE TV, just to prove the point.

Mulherin: “I accept the X case in the sense that it decided that in a situation where the mother’s life was at risk then in that limited circumstance there could be a termination.

O’Connor: “And only in that limited circumstance?”

Mulherin: “Yes.”

Nothing too nutty there. Mulherin's point about our society was indeed valid: did we allow for freedom of choice to exist without the ability to consider the consequences? Do people have an adequate sense of personal responsibility in their actions, particularly in the most intimate context possible for a person? Are the Irish now a little too flaithulach for a fling and damn the consequences? The problem is, that this wasn't what she did. She dug out her old vinyl collection and played Des Hanafin's Greatest Hits at full blast instead. Now the neighbours are complaining and we all have to go to work tomorrow.

I don't mind people using religion to consider moral questions (I do, sometimes). I don't mind people being against abortion (nobody wins from it). What I object to is discourse which is ill conceived, ill expressed and ill defined; which is emotive, emotional and conducted with murky motives. Mulherin couldn't recognize the seriousness of the debate she was participating in and chose instead to use a word (fornication) which any fool can tell you has a negative connotation, to make her own point. She is a law graduate and is extremely articulate. You can't tell me she didn't realize that when choosing her words in the Dail last week, that she would cause a ruckus. Instead of raising an important issue in its own context, she made a judgement, in my view mischievously and without full respect for the debate that was at hand. And she made it when it was neither warranted nor appropriate.   

It's now 20 years since the X-Case. We have not progressed one bit since then, nor have we improved the standard of debate on this or any other issue. Intelligent, mature debate on serious questions, on issues which are immediately pressing, seems as far off from being realized as the X-Case judgement will be passed into law. Instead we have been treated to this tawdry sideshow. Thanks, Shelly!

No Job for a Lady

Watching Enda Kenny's speech at the Fine Gael Ard Fheis last weekend, mercifully less sub Kenneth Williams than usual, one thing struck me. Look around him. Right next to him, the dissidents, Simon Coveny, a knackered Richard Bruton and Lucinda Creighton. More striking still, of the twenty odd people sitting around him, bar five people, they were all men. In the words of Police Academy - "Johnsons, Lassard, as far as the eye can see." There's not a large representation of women in the Dail, 25 in all, 15% of the population of the Lower House. (See http://www.nwci.ie/blog/) The question is, why?

Penelope Keith plays an MP in 'No Job For A Lady'. 
Now get back in that kitchen and make us a rasher sangidge!

It seems odd, given that women are among the brightest minds in the Dail - Lucinda Creighton, brooding in the front row left of Enda, has been appallingly overlooked over the years. Rosin Shortall flexed her intellectual muscles in committees in the last Dail. In the past we had Liz O'Donnell, Olwyn Enright, Gemma Hussey, even, Mary O'Rourke and Mary Hanafin displayed considerable intellectual rigour in their time. Joan Burton was the Opposition Finance voice in the last Dail, when FG couldn't even decide who was leading the party.

In the shakedown following the last election, women remain underrepresented in Enda's government. But why?

Is it because:

• He's the fairest one of all?
• They're all taller than him?
• He has shoe envy?
• He doesn't want people with a better hair than him at the cabinet table?

I reckon this under-representation is because of a deeply ingrained institutional sexism, compounded by an deeper ingrained hostility in Irish politics towards education and cultivation. In our political class, does intellectualism hold the currency it does in the rest of Europe? Absolutely not. And it is the habitus of Leinster House, an unthinking 'it's always been this way' mindset.

Easy personal advancement in Irish politics is predicated on two things: expedience and (institutional) experience, and both genders have been complicit in this evolution. Being articulate, being well educated and intellectual is bad enough, but being female as well? No way.

So Joan Burton, loses out to Noonan and Howlin, so Creighton has to follow some truly uninspiring men around Brussels despite knowing her brief and knowing Europe better than anyone in the current government, with the exception of Noonan.

But this isn't just about women. Think of all the clever men who have lost out over the years because of this attitude towards intellect: Noel Brown, Justin Keating, James Dillon, David Andrews (Ray Burke's understudy!), Brian Lenihan Jr., who only belatedly got the nod from Bertie, and Martin Mansergh. All either didn't make it, or made it too late, and only when all other options were exhausted. Many more have avoided politics altogether and worked in the private sector.

It was Dr. Garret Fitzgerald who wrote in the journal Studies in 1964 about Ireland's prevailing hostility towards intellectualism. Each woman and man mentioned above is an intellectual on some level. The choice for them is a short lived career, the middle rung of junior ministerships, slumming it with with the backwoodsmen of this world, or rot in the Seanad making excellent speeches no one will hear, as Mary Robinson and Ivana Bacik have had to endure. Robinson broke free, and sure, look what happened. We had two former law professors in a row as President, making a mockery by stringing words together into 'ideas' and 'cogent thoughts'. Imagine if they'd had real power. But they wouldn't. Not unless a senior jock gets busted and Coach looks to the subs bench for a nerd to make up the numbers.

Thank God politics isn't the private sector, because as Bill Gates pointed out, a nerd will probably end up being your boss. For those brought up in the culture of Irish politics, if you're really unlucky, your boss might even be a woman. Here's the highlights of Enda's Ard Feis Speech, thanks to The Irish Examiner. Johnsons, Lassard...


 

22 Things we could do with the money raised from Big Phil's Household Charge.

The Real Big Phil last night at a Press Conference in Kilkinny.

1. Build a generator large enough to harness Ireland's greatest untapped energy source: Cork's self satisfaction.
2. Invest in researching the gene for underachievement in Irish sports teams.
3. Put a ring of steel around Courtown in June.
4. Pay for a search party to find Bertie Ahern's receipts.
5. Dig a hole big enough for Bertie to crawl into. (See above. Keep the topsoil ready,  lads...)
6. Buy enough kebab meat to skewer on the Spire and sell to unsuspecting tourists.
7. Straighten Enda's mouth when in 'sincere mode' 
8. Pay off Joe Higgins
9. Plug in a giant speaker to play 'Bring me Sunshine' on Eyre Square every other day.
10. Finish Croke Park. Seriously.
11. Roller skates for Michael D.  
12. Send Jedward abroad. Just until the coast is clear.
13. Zogabongs (What Zig and Zag had on their heads).
14. Tie a yellow ribbon around every millennium tree planted in sympathy with 'da pooer plane paypel of  Ireland'.
15. Get Benji Riordan to wrap his tractor round at least one (with thanks to Brendan Grace).
16. Find a use for Leitrim, beside Section 23, cos that worked.
17. Have Teddy's Ice Cream open 24 Hours.
18. Remove all the fencing along the Cliffs of Moher.
19. Provide people with the skills to do the Irish Times Cryptic Crossword. It's not right to think you're clever cos you can finish the Simplex, and aul wans are racing away with the weird looking puzzle to the left. It's Ireland's real dirty little secret.
20. Canonize Daniel O'Donnell.
21. Get loadsa to ducks to nest on Leinster Lawn during the Dail Term.
22. Finally get the Angelus bells to overlap properly with Metallica.

Couldn't have happened to a nicer person. Really.

Check out Martyin Turner's cartoon of the unctious Pee Flynn. If only you could get it printed on loo roll. I couldn't find it online, but jeez, this pic gives you a good idea:

Yours to cut out and keep. On the mantelpiece to keep the little 'uns away from the fireplace. urrgh *shudders*....


If nothing else, the Mahon Report will cause those, whose fattening snouts were stuck in the national trough of dodgy dealing and parish pump hustling (see above) to get their oily, curly tails yanked for good measure in print, albeit belatedly, to the disgrace of our society. 


The other thing which is fun to observe is the Irish Times or Sam Smyth or Fintan O'Toole  jump up and down about the fact that, like the smart kid in class who knows the answer to an awkward but obvious question. They were right all along. But how good is it to be right about the fact that in Ireland, we have a sneaking regard for two bit chancers and local hoodlums parading as 24 carat statesmen and figures of reverence? To know that really we can't help our basest desires for money and low brow influence and not be listened to is really a damning indictment of our collective standards for ourselves.  


One question remains unanswered is: will anyone actually swing for this? Probably not. So we may pillory while the Mahon sun shines. Let the games begin. 

The Mother of All Women

Mammy relaxing in her luxurious pad...

Here's the link for my feature article published in the Irish Examiner yesterday, March 14th, 2012. Really chuffed with it. As someone said,  "let's see what a guy with a German mother has to say about his experience of Irish mammies." Love it.

the link is here: The Mother of All Women

Note: Thanks to those who helped - interviewees, friends and everyone else. More to come! (that's enough fawning, get back to work!-ed.)

Guten Morgan!: Mrs. Thatch!

Guten Morgan!: Mrs. Thatch!

Mrs. Thatch!

Press coverage around 'The Iron Lady' has shrieked of a conspiracy, a right wing glossing over of Mrs. Thatcher's dark side. The film's makers have even been accused of, duh, duh, DUHHHH, humanizing Britain's only female PM. The truth is, it does, and that's no bad thing.

If you don't like 'The Iron Lady', that's fine. It's not your cup of tea. You may carp about its lack of historical detail, or even accuracy. You might wish, it focused on the miners' strike rather than on Thatcher in the advanced stages of dementia, talking with her dead husband Denis.

Most of the objections to this film are simplistic and ideologically based. They think she was an evil negative force in the world and want their viewpoint to be given celluloid validation. They're not looking at the actual film,which although superficially about a major political figure is actually about the transitory nature of fame and power.

A case in point, the controversial scene where Thatcher goes to buy milk a the beginning of the film. Scurrying back to with her shopping, bemused and confused, what's clear is that Thatcher, like many of the elderly, is invisible to the rest of us. Her battles, her passions and her considerable fame, such as it was, are irrelevant to the majority of the population alive today. Even her son Mark lives abroad and has no intention of coming to visit 'Another time perhaps', she suggests when he calls. As with many elderly parents hoping to see their children, even the longest serving British PM of the 20th century lacks definitive powers of persuasion with her absent son.

Britain's current leader, whom Thatcher, played by Oscar-bound Meryl Streep, calls 'quite a smoothy', will go the same way.

The last vestiges of her former glory surround her: the official portrait on her kitchen wall, the secretary half-heartedly leafing through her Filofax for appointments, these are physical manifestations of the obscurity all people are destined for.

Some bits of the film are inspired, others not so. Her early years are brilliantly captured, and it wasn't all good. However, portraying Thatcher as instrumental in ending the Cold War (she was famously opposed to German reunification, the final political act of the Cold War) is just wrong. It also skirts over her internal conflicts with the Heathites in her party, which could have truncated her leadership had it not been for the Falklands War.

Some viewers also mightn't get all the historical minutiae, and that's a shame. Dealing with it would make a great film, or a long one depending on how good it's rendered, but that's another film, not currently showing in Omniplexes around the world.

If the film's director, writer and stars all argue that the film is apolitical, it's not to hide an unpalatable political narrative, it's just the film isn't particularly political. Thatcher's family and friends have also been frosty about the film, so it's hardly the hagiography it might be construed as being. Furthermore, the charge of humanizing Thatcher, the same charge leveled at the makers of 'Downfall' about Bruno Ganz's depiction of Hitler, is an outrageous distortion of Thatcher's term in Downing Street. She may have been, in the words of Ben Elton, a 'nasty old witch', but she was a democratically elected 'nasty old witch', who respected and understood the cut and thrust of democratic politics, and thrived on it. And was shown the door by it.

Incidentally, for an accurate account of Thatcher's years in power, google BBC's documentary, 'Thatcher: The Downing Street Years'. For an entertaining, semi-fictitious drama about a significant historical figure, watch The Iron Lady.

GE11 - it's the Big one!!

I'm working on it okay??!!!!!

The Election's off to a hectic start, and just about everyone has an opinion on what'll happen. From Fintan O'Toole to the fool who said on Twitter that Labour were a civil war party, they're all at it. I will as well. God knows how to make it funny, but we'll figure it out... 


the absurdest of times calls for the seriousest of debates. It's not what we'll get, but we might just stumble ona few truths along the way. .

The End - a Kenny

It's truly a matter of some skill: the implosion of FG the face of the least popular government in the history of the state. Only the blueshirts could, like Ronnie Rosenthal, hoof the ball into the car park when all that's in their way is a lot of net. This is of course not the first time that FG lost its bottle in the face of flatline polls. The problem is, though, not the polls or Enda Kenny per se. It's their judgement to begin with.

Having lost the country's most famous economics commentator, having sidelined the young and restless in the FG family (Please, if anyone finds Lucinda Creighton, then contact the papers before she ends up on the side of a milk carton), after letting Leo Varadkar speak in public ever, it can only be said that they have neither the guts nor the guile to lead anyone, let alone themselves. So it's now a choice between Eamon Gilmore and a Labour front bench as familiar as the Angelus at tea time or Brian Cowen. Will it be whiskey or the gun?

Go on the real super eagles!!

Okay, so I'm biased. But like it or lump it, I'm rooting for Germany. Australians may find that comment funny, but this is just getting serious.

Germany have the youngest team since 1934, when the coach was a bespectacled Nazi called Otto Nerz. These days it's a dandy called Jogi, and the mentality is more attractive than in those dark days of the 1930's: is it typically German though? They want to win. Check. They have a focussed training program. Check. They wear snazzy white jerseys. Check. After that, it gets more interesting.

Contrary to the lazy assumptions of many people, the Germans aren't gong to win on the back of mythical eficiency. They'll be a glorious, romantic mess, and, yes, they'll get through the group stages demonstrating that they are resilient, resourceful and willing to give it their all. But they're not efficient and haven't been in two decades. It's going to be way more interesting than that.

This is just about as good as it gets for the world Cup, where every macth so far has been as dull as the drone of a Vuvuzela. A Young, hungry and slightly ramshackle German side against an Aussie selection of seasoned pros, who'll bring the game to them with guile and no little style. Thankfully Croatia aren't playing, so they have no obstacles but their own will to win.

In the end, I'll be shouting for the Germans. They need at least a couple of fans from our part of the world, so bring it on.     

Nachdenken ueber Rudolf G. With apologies to Christa Wolf

My uncle Paul put it best. We can't afford to lose any more gentlemen. So it was true of my grandfather, Rudolf Garmatz, nicknamed 'Apo', whose name I still haven't deleted from my phone, a thoroughly modern activity that people must perform when someone dies. I don't think I ever will, nor do I want to. Not out of melodrama, but because he should still be alive. It suited him so.

The man I was conscious of as my grandfather began quietly, and ended quietly. In actual fact he'd been born in the middle of a storm in 1919. To me, as a small child, he was the quiet one. The first phase of this perceived silence, was because he was so in awe of my grandmother, that he couldn't get a word in, if he wanted to at all. He worshipped her until she died in 1992, and then she left him unexpectedly, and with characteristic panache, alone. For the first time since 1946, the year he met her, he opened his mouth.

Anyone who met him was suitably impressed. Exceedingly well read, and clever enough to have processed his reading, he had the ability to talk to you about anything and always assume you knew what he was talking about, without that awful knack of lesser people, who rub your nose in the slightly less scant knowledge they possess. Perhaps it's because he never assumed to know as much as he actually did. I only ever saw it in one other person, Brian Jacob, a Geologist who, like Rudolf, the world could have done with for a few more years.

Rudolf was a man's - and woman's - man. He could speak as easily to Franconian Farmers as to Paul McGrath or Helmut Schmidt. He could say enough to be interesting but leave showing off to everyone else.

The sheer span of his life, his 90 years, a colleague commented, took in so much of what we call history. He called it his generation's "absence of normality". He remembered the hyperinflation as a small child in 1924, took in a lot more in the years after - the Hitler period, war, the everafter; Some things we knew about, other things, we found in envelopes, were curated over a lifetime: official letters from places no longer existing like Stettin, ending in "Heil Hitler" lie next to postcards from army comrades and drinking pals in Berlin in the early 40s. North Africa, medals, pictures of a dashing man in uniform - he was still regarded as something to look at until well on in his life; Postcards from his girlfriend, my grandmother, a pair of smart, emryonic hippies. Wirtschaftswunder, cars and work, the union work, "Scheiss GEW" as my grandmother thundered. Other stuff emerged from the envelopes - the secret life of a polymath, letters to the asking him demonstrate a slide rule he'd invented for the newly established West German Army. They didn't need it after all - neither did he need them as it happened. He wrote Maths books instead. He loved the creativity of Mathematics like no teacher I ever encountered in Ireland: games, a counting method using your hands like a rudimentary binary code: Leibniz for the playground.

Those yellowed photos and notes you dredge up from a box in the attic of your mind are in death, what you survey as the debris of a lifetime, partly in fascination, partly in horror, partly in joy. To every raised eyebrow, every 'wow', he sits in his chair saying, 'Oh that', or some Teutonic growl like that. No man ever rolled the letter R quite like him, nor did any man play down his own contribution to the world as effectively.

In the last decade of his life, we'd go to his birthdays because we knew - though we tried to ignore it, that not many more might come along. Not that we let on to him. Anyway, if he cared that there weren't, he hid it well. He had the dignity that allows a man to do what he likes, without the slightest hint of self consciousness. As if he didn't mind what people thought, but he'd wear a shirt and tie anyway. The man could drink without the affliction of looking like it was a dirty activity, and give you a great time without you noticing, always with ice cream soaked in Bailey's to sweeten the deal.

When a loved one lives in another country, it's hard to explain, especially to Irish people, how they can be close to you. I'd say in the last weeks of his life "My grandfather's 90, and he's not feeling so well", a look of sympathy would be replaced very soon with a blank stare, as understanding was replaced with 'who-gives a shit', when it turned out he lived several hundred miles away in Hamburg. He might as well have not existed as far as they were concerned. Sure wasn't he foreign?

That's why I was angry when he died, in the midst of a storm, as it happens, peacefully in a hospital in Klein Flottbek. The storm caused a rush of wind to blow the flagpole down outside his, now his son's, home.

It was hard to explain why I'd be upset - "sure wasn't he far away anyway, and you can't be close to just anybody?" For the misty-eyed Irish, not being able to understand the irrelevance of location is as maddening as it is perplexing. They of all people should have understood. To dwell on how the place of my birth let me down yet again, however, wouldn't have been Rudolf's style, which is another reason why I'm not half the man he was. And writing it in a blog would have drawn a whithering response from him anyway.

So as I think about him, I consider many things, some the self indulgent rubbish that bereaved people consider on the way from Miss Havisham to getting up for work: how I'd lost a father figure that no one, not even my own dad could have been - he was a daddy, not a patriarch like Rudolf. The latter outlived the former by twelve years to the hour, living exactly twice as many years.

Other things remembered are tangible. The every morning drive to the bakery, the iconoclasm of calling a bread roll a 'Schrippe' rather than the locally preferred term 'Rundstueck'; cutting up apples at the dinner table, eating cherries by a windmill next to local orchards, and spitting the stones out accross the levee towards the river Elbe and Hamburg. In silence.


After all, why ruin a good moment with chatter?

The evolution of Mary by Albert Einstein

From the online edition of the Irish Times: (about her!)

“Have I got this right? One of the wost ministers (ever) who was too lazy/stupid/unprofessional to do anything to stop the abuses in FAS - or to bring those officials in FAS to account - is now moved to a new department with FAS following her?
God help the children - the mind boggles at what calamities are coming their way.”


Even the ASTI should be able to kick her ass. Surely.





See more @ http://www.irishtimes.com/blogs/politics/2010/03/23/reshuffle-early-verdict/

Bon Anniversaire

Normally on days like this, I get a bit maudlin and ramble on about how much I miss my dad. It's true, to paraphrase Shakespeare, he was from this world untimely ripped, and we are the poorer for it. But the times of looking back with regret and sadness just aren't those of now. A man like that needs people to look ahead, the next plan, the next project and give it your all. What if he'd lived? As he would have said, 'if my aunty had balls she'd be my uncle'. So we've resumed the struggle. Mooney last week and an adventure in rural broadband next.

That's what I'm going to do to mark his 12th year of passing, of being my past, when I was someone else: I have a bag of ideas to open up,turn upside down and empty onto my living room floor. Make sense, make art make fun.

So to my dear departed da, happy anniversary. You'd have loved the future. D.

PS. if you want to see how good he was, just watch the video of him being Bertie and enjoy

Radio (is the ) One

Here's the link to my appearance today on the Mooney Show on RTE Radio One. About halfway through the show. Talking property and Tedfest. Some combination!

click here

Awwwh...George Ree

Mr. Lee went to Leinster House. He then went home. Irish Politics is two bit flea circus to the Funderland of, say, the Athens of Pericles. George Lee discovered that being successfully courted by FG was all that Enda Kenny had in him. Other than that single master stroke, Kenny has shown all the political nouse of a particularly careless dog in a manger.

It's not clear to me whether or not George Lee should have left or tough it out, or take any last minute front-bench buy off. FG really didn't handle him well. He was more than just a crowd puller, which is what he was being used as. Some media reports, however, suggested that some in FG didn't like his profile or his brain. They liked him like FHM likes Abi Titmuss: clearly for her editorial skills.

Irish politics is funerals and medical cards and all the guff that comes when national politicians have to deal with the minutiae of the village pump, the preserve of the Maurice Hickeys of this world. Our politics of clientelism brought us the construction boom, the very state of affairs that will lead us to be next week's Greece. Do they care? Possibly, but Lee's assertion of an 'institutionalized' body politic seems too accurate to dismiss.

In the End Mr. Ree was in a very very ronery place. Maybe one day he could have made it, but he wanted to help in the here and now, in a situation he felt he could solve. In fact, that's not what politicians do. They fudge and cajole and gladhand. Are these the acts of statesmen? Nope, but then again, name me any figures in Irish politics who'd fit that moniker. There's more of a chance of Stephen Hawking moonwalking than managing to count such figures more than one hand.

Life in Leinster House, you see, has all the dynamism of an over 90's swingers' party, it's purring old boys and the mock solemnity of the parliament's hallowed halls: Floors as shiny as Jacky Healy-Rae's cowlick. Even the very foyer is emblematic of the republic's stagnation. For every Free State turncoat, there's some Anti Treaty gunman gawping at you. They should replace them with the most disturbing works by Francis Bacon they can muster overnight and shake them out of their cosy slumber. Meanwhile big farmers made good and teachers with no other promotion prospects strut around as if being there equates great intelligence or achievement. It doesn't. For many, getting elected involves getting enough yahoos down your local to put a number next to your name and hope that the maths does the rest. Then hold on for dear life so the Taoiseach's aide-de-camp can come wave you bye-bye one your way to the great Dail bar in the sky, whilst the least dimwitted of your offspring assumes what he thinks is rightfully his, which is all bullshit anyway.

George Lee knew this, though maybe not explicitly. Hanging on for dear life, is not about shaking up the system to which you cling. Reforming the banking system is not going to happen. Changing our dependency on construction and manual labour is never going to happen when the decisions politicians are happiest with are ponying up the cash for a John F Kennedy visitors centre or some such parochial nonsense. Two words prove my point: Digital Hub. Nuff said.

You may as well be straight with the electorate and shove off. It was the wrong place to go to, but the right place for him.

Football, the Brits, the War

I go away thinking that the Second World War had become a thing not of memory but of Sunday afternoon war movies that, interestingly, aren't part of the Sunday schedules anymore. That's because they're from my childhood, when there were still enough war veterans around who needed a reminder of their brush with awfulness as they dozed off after their Sunday roast.

They're mostly dead now, and the war is now just a set of cliches that get trotted out when needed. As happened the other day with the German Football teams away strip. You know it's a World Cup year when...

It's black, you see. It's interspersed with bits of gold that to me were redolent of the flag of the liberal German movement of 1848, and of the Urburschenschaft, the first nationalist college fraternity, founded in Jena, whose colours formed the basis of the flag, now used by the democratic Federal Republic. They, on the other hand, thought that the new jersey looked like the uniform of the SS!



I forget that I can read. I forget that I, unlike some yobs the British media pander to, am reasonably historically literate.

One, the SS never trotted around in airtex shorts being told your glory days are behind you. Two, the guys wearing the kit at best had grandparents who were kids during the war. Why trot out this shit? Because there's a world cup, and it's what you do.

A friend of mine asked, what have England and the English media got out of this episode? Getting to annoy the Springer media in Germany, whose title Bild and Die Welt went to town on this story is certainly one significant but not very difficult achievement.

What puzzles me, though, is that this didn't happen when people who remember the war are extremely old. Stranger still, it's only really been going on with the English media since the 1996 European Championship. That time, it lead to the death of a Russian, mistaken for a German in Southampton after England crashed out to the old enemy.

Even still, that was 14 years ago, and little has deviated from this cycle of behaviour in the English press. Given that it's only January, more is set to come.