A Different View
The difference between looking at something and actually seeing it
A Different View with Dave O’Connell
It’s a thought that crosses my mind every time I see a group of tourists stopping in their tracks in the middle of town – does anyone actually look at anything anymore instead of simply photographing it and then never looking at it again?
Go into any Cathedral or historical edifice in the world and all you see are visitors with cameras and iPhones at the ready to snap everything that comes into sight – instead of actually looking at the attraction, letting it wash over you and recording the experience in your mind’s eye instead.
Take a quiet moment for reflection, read the brochure; stop, stand and look all around you – and then if you want to capture the moment for posterity, take out your camera and try to capture what you’ve felt in a visual format.
Then the photograph might mean something to you when you find it fifteen years later.
But most of the time it looks like a competition to see who can snap the subject the most, and from as many angles as possible before swiftly moving on to the next target and repeating the process over and over again.
It’s the same thing at concerts – as soon as the band’s big song comes on, it’s camera phones out, recording devices on and phone calls made to people who couldn’t be bothered to come to the gig so they can experience said big hit in glorious fuzziness.
If they wanted to hear the singer, they’d have bought tickets. Even if they wanted to hear the song, they’d play it on their home stereo rather than down a phone connection from a hall or a tent.
It wasn’t always that way, probably because we didn’t have too many cameras and no mobile phones – but it doesn’t mean we don’t have memories of cities visited, gigs witnessed, experiences enjoyed.
And even decades later, you can see them in your mind’s eye – whereas if you’d taken a photograph, you’d have been looking through a lens and now, given that your chances of finding said photograph are virtually nil, you’d remember little or nothing of it at all.
Sometimes it’s enough to enjoy the moment yourself and remember it in your own way, without a photographic or audio crutch to lean on.
It also makes the moment better for others; their view of the stage isn’t blocked by your camera held over your head, or their path isn’t blocked by forty tourists taking a photograph of a window.
There’s nothing wrong with capturing the moment – but first you should experience that moment, rather than approaching every Church like an adrenalin-fuelled Marine who will shoot anything on sight and ask questions as to what they shot much later.
What’s the point of coming home from your holidays with hundreds of digital images of things you cannot, for the life of you, remember?
We don’t want to be spoilsports or dissuade visitors from capturing the west’s beauty for posterity – but at least look at it first to see if you actually like it….and then shoot away to your heart’s content or at least until there’s no memory left on your phone.
For more, read this week’s Connacht Tribune.
A Different View with Dave O’Connell
The only time in your life that you should ever utter the words: “Do you know who I am?” are if you’ve just had a bang on the head or you are unfortunately suffering from dementia.
Because, otherwise, the phrase ‘do you know who I am’ only serves to make things a whole lot worse.
Normally, the phrase is unleashed towards late night door staff on a wave of alcohol – and never once in the history of time has it produced the result the utterer had intended.
The doorman may well know who you are which is often the very reason you’re not getting into the place in the first instance – or if he doesn’t know who you are, he won’t be unduly influenced when he does, unless you’re a famous movie star or his long-lost cousin.
‘Do you know where I am?’ might often be closer to the phrase you’re looking for, because that would serve you well when you’re looking for a taxi.
‘Do you know who I am?’ is a threatening phrase that in truth wouldn’t frighten the cat. But if you’re anxious to dig the hole a few shovels deeper, you should follow up with ‘I’d like to speak to your manager.’
Managers can be elusive at the best of times, but they’re normally rarer than hen’s teeth when it comes to the small hours of the morning – and even if they’re there, they are most likely watching proceedings on CCTV…just so they know who you are, in case you yourself can’t remember.
‘I’d like to speak to your manager’ suggests that you and he or she are from the one social sphere which is several strata north of the one occupied by door staff.
For more, read this week’s Connacht Tribune.
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A Different View with Dave O’Connell
As it turned out, we were much closer to a Eurovision win than we could ever have imagined – not Ireland, of course, because we’ve now mastered the art of just sending cannon fodder to be blown out in the semi-final.
No, this was just two of us – myself and our eldest – who were lucky enough to be at Anfield for the Reds’ recent win over Brentford, where positioned in the seat right in front of us were four happy lads from Finland.
One of them, we now know, was Käärijä, the singer of the catchiest song at Eurovision, Cha Cha Cha.
But just a week before 7,000 people sung his catchphrase at the Eurovision Arena, he and two his mates – accompanied by an older bloke who had to be either his dad or from the national broadcaster – sat anonymously in the same corner of the lower level of Anfield’s Main Stand.
He was utterly unknown to us as well of course, and the only thing that saw him stand out was his green nail varnish. Live and let live, of course, but it still ensures that you make an impression even if it looks like you were just very late for St Patrick’s Day.
Käärijä may well be Liverpool’s greatest Scandinavian fan, although the bar for that is set fairly high, given that they invade the city in greater numbers every two weeks than the Vikings did just once during the first millennium.
Equally, he may not be a football fan at all – although, as the rest of the week proved, he sure loves a crowd.
Positioned as we were in the corner of the Main Stand, the next section to us, around the corner in the Anfield Road Stand – currently adding a top layer – was occupied by the visiting Brentford supporters.
For more, read this week’s Connacht Tribune.
Connacht Tribune Digital Edition App
Download the Connacht Tribune Digital Edition App to access to Galway’s best-selling newspaper.
Click HERE to download it for iPhone and iPad from Apple’s App Store, or HERE to get the Android Version from Google Play.
Or purchase the Digital Edition for PC, Mac or Laptop from Pagesuite HERE.
Get the Connacht Tribune Live app
The Connacht Tribune Live app is the home of everything that is happening in Galway City and county. It’s completely FREE and features all the latest news, sport and information on what’s on in your area. Click HERE to download it for iPhone and iPad from Apple’s App Store, or HERE to get the Android Version from Google Play.
A Different View with Dave O’Connell
Contactless payments reached a record €17.9 billion in Ireland last year – up by 31 per cent on 2021, as people came out from under their Covid shell and appear to have left their cash behind them.
Figures from the Banking & Payments Federation found that – despite the cost-of-living increases – the Irish public made three million contactless payments a day, worth an average of €53 million in the final quarter of 2022.
Given that there are 3.8 million people in Ireland over the age of 18, that means that almost every single one of us tapped the card every day last year.
And again, on the presumption that there are a few who still prefer peeling a fifty off a wad of notes, the true figure may be even higher, as we eschew actual money every time we go into a restaurant, bar or shop.
Then comes the monthly morning of reckoning when you open your statement – electronic of course because, like paper money, banks don’t deal in paper statements anymore either – and your guilty secrets unfurl like a rap sheet before your very eyes.
Five taps of a Friday night in the local, followed by a five-ounce burger meal on the way home.
And just why did you need a family-pack of crisps when a small bag would have done? Was all that beer and wine really for a party, or a night in just for one?
Cash provided plenty of dark corners to ignore your profligacy, but there are no hiding places in the contactless world.
Worse still, until that morning of reckoning arrives, you’ve no clue how much you’ve spent, and handing over the card doesn’t hurt half as much as parting with hard cash.
For more, read this week’s Connacht Tribune.
Connacht Tribune Digital Edition App
Download the Connacht Tribune Digital Edition App to access to Galway’s best-selling newspaper.
Click HERE to download it for iPhone and iPad from Apple’s App Store, or HERE to get the Android Version from Google Play.
Or purchase the Digital Edition for PC, Mac or Laptop from Pagesuite HERE.
Get the Connacht Tribune Live app
The Connacht Tribune Live app is the home of everything that is happening in Galway City and county. It’s completely FREE and features all the latest news, sport and information on what’s on in your area. Click HERE to download it for iPhone and iPad from Apple’s App Store, or HERE to get the Android Version from Google Play.
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