A Different View
Cars and technology show their strength in numbers
A Different View with Dave O’Connell
There are many different ways in which we get hung up on numbers – did you ever, for example, wish a woman a happy fortieth and live to tell the tale? But while the sands of time can apparently be held back by shedding the odd digit, marketing relies more and more on ever-increasing numbers for its success.
Take the iPhone or iPad – no sooner has the iPad 2 or iPhone 5 hit the shops than the expectation begins for the iPad 3 and the iPhone 6. And just because the delay may prove unbearable, there’s the iPhone 5S model coming down the tracks to bridge the gap.
Of course the reality is that the differences are minimal, more often than not, an extra button here a half a millimetre shaved off there, a gimmick or two…..and you have a whole world of people with a year-old phone who now feel they possess the modern equivalent of a Betamax video recorder.
And yet if you look at the iPhone, apart from a couple of minor advances, it still does what its predecessors did – it makes and receives phone calls, it has internet access, allows you to take and store pictures, to download music and videos and read your emails.
But it’s all down to the number – which is why we are now just over a month from a change in car registration, so that instead of waiting for the end of the year, we now have new numbers every six months.
Motorists didn’t want to buy a 13 car six months into the year – but the motor dealers hope that a 132 car will hold the same appeal as a new car in January held since we moved away from our old Galway IM and ZM number plates.
You’ll actually be buying the same car in July as you were in May, but it will feel different – and possibly cost more – because it has an extra 2 on the registration.
This works in movies and music too – once upon a time, there was an album called Now That’s What I Call Music!, a compilation of big hits from that not-so-golden generation for the industry.
The first Now! album – released towards the end of 1983 – featured such luminaries as Phil Collins, Kalagoogoo, Howard Jones, UB40, Limahl, Heaven 17, Bonnie Tyler and Culture Club, with eleven numbers one on the double album.
So almost 30 years on, Now 84! came out in March with 43 tracks from people, most of whom weren’t born when the original came out – with the obvious exception of Fleetwood Mac and the Justice Collective who re-recorded He Ain’t Heavy for the Hillsborough Fund.
But Pitbull featuring TJR, Wiley featuring Chip, Rudimental featuring John Newman & Alex Clare or Devlin featuring Diane Birch? They may be the latest stars of Now! but they could equally all be living across the road from me in blissful poly-habitation, for all I know.
When the first Now! came out, they probably hoped they’d knock six albums out of it, but such is its instant recognition now, those who still buy albums don’t even need to see the track listing – they know Now 84! is newer than Now 83! and that Now 85! will be here in plenty of time for Christmas and that 30th anniversary.
Rule of thumb then for a happy life – numbers are always better and more appealing when they’re on the increase….except when it comes to a woman’s age.
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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