A Different View
A pint of plain minus following day’s pain
A Different View with Dave O’Connell
As oxymorons go, alcohol-free Guinness is right up there with Government intelligence – our greatest export neutered by taking the only thing of real substance in it out of it.
Alternatively this might be the saviour of the nation – a way to drink Guinness to your heart’s content and then drive home and be perfectly fine for work the next morning.
Diageo has been forced into action in Indonesia – the world’s biggest Muslim-majority country – after the government clamped down on alcohol sales this year.
And given that the company controls around 15 per cent of the Indonesian beer market – until last year was the world’s fifth-biggest market for Guinness – it could hardly stand idly by.
Although the ban doesn’t apply to big supermarkets and restaurants, its implementation already seen a 40 per cent fall-off in sales there – so now Guinness Zero is set to bridge the gap.
Bearing in mind that the Guinness you get in Ireland bears little more than a passing resemblance to the saccharine Guinness you get in Africa, one might presume that Asian tastes are different to ours as well.
So perhaps they are starting this process with a very different product in the first place.
But what if it works?
How great would it be to get a pint of Guinness with no alcohol in it?
You could go out again on a Tuesday night and not worry about a headache that will last you through the rest of the week.
You won’t have to wait for a taxi or someone to collect you because you’ll be perfectly able to drive yourself home.
And best of all, you won’t get people coming up to you in your local asking you why you’re drinking orange – viewing you with overt suspicion or spreading stories that you’re just back from John of God’s.
Of course part of the attraction of the pint of Guinness is the kick off it but equally, if you weren’t drinking, think how nice it would be to still enjoy that sense of anticipation as your pint slowly settles to black with a creamy head in front of you…even if the alcohol is gone out of it.
It’s quite a task of course because most of the alcohol-free beers and lagers currently on the market have all the attraction and consistency of a pint of Jeyes fluid – taking the alcohol out seems to take all of the good with it.
But if anyone can crack it, Guinness can – so let’s go with the flow.
In praise of politicians
There will be plenty of abuse hurling at them from all quarters – including possibly this one – over the next few weeks, but just before they come under starters’ orders, it is timely to heap a small trailer-load of praise on our politicians.
Not just the elected ones either but also those who would seek to displace them – because it takes courage and bravery to put yourself forward for election…or, more likely, rejection.
None of the rest of us have our work analysed in forensic detail, at least every five years – and none of us is open to the scrutiny that those who represent us and aspire to represent us are.
Some of what we all say about them may well be true, but often the criticisms are not alone not valid, they’re not even factually correct.
Collectively, politicians are too easily dismissed as underworked, overpaid and on the make.
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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