A Different View
Extreme ironing could put the passion into pressing
There is a fledgling sport known as extreme ironing where people take ironing boards, clothes and irons to perilous places – top of mountains, ski slopes, into a white water raft – and risk life and limb as, at the same time, they take the creases out of their tee-shirts.
According to the Extreme Ironing Bureau, extreme ironing is “the latest danger sport that combines the thrills of an extreme outdoor activity with the satisfaction of a well-pressed shirt”.
I mention this against the backdrop of recent comments from the self-styled Domestic Goddess, Kirstie Allsopp – presenter of Location, Location, Location – who opened a can of worms by claiming that women secretly love doing the ironing because it keeps them sane.
If positive mental health was a side-effect of ironing your clothes, I’d be a lot saner than I am now – because by default rather than any design on my part, I’m the principal ironing board operator in our house.
That said, the closest I’ve come to extreme ironing is trying to do shirt collars while watching football on the telly. It may not equate to scaling the Alps but it can still hurt when you burn your hand while not concentrating on the hazardous task at hand.
Kirstie – or to give her her proper title, the Honourable Kirstie Allsopp – believes that women secretly love doing chores like ironing and many find it soothing to do mundane tasks around the house.
“I’m absolutely convinced that those repetitive tasks that one does every day, organising and regularising one’s home, and keeping it tidy, is enormously therapeutic. I know it is for me, and I have many, many working mum friends who feel the same,” she said recently.
Let’s hope she’s more authentic than that other Domestic Goddess, Nigella Lawson, who was happy to bake all the Christmas cake you could imagine when the cameras were rolling – but then hired the caterers in to do the real thing when Yuletide actually came over the horizon.
The truth of the matter is that nobody likes ironing; it is boring, repetitive and never-ending. But if it isn’t done, then clothes multiply like rampant rabbits and take over the downstairs of your house.
That’s why it would be good if extreme ironing was more than a niche sport … if it actually made it onto the list for the Olympics, for example.
Because then it would be seen as a manly pursuit, a dangerous hobby, a challenge as opposed to a chore.
Purists of the sport claim that it was started in 1997 in the English city of Leicester by resident Phil Shaw in his back garden. With ironing on the agenda but preferring the idea of an evening out rock climbing, he decided to combine the two activities into a new extreme sport.
In June 1999, Shaw, who uses the nickname ‘Steam’, embarked on an international tour to promote the activity across the US, New Zealand, Australia and South Africa.
An encounter with German tourists in New Zealand led to the formation of Extreme Ironing International, and the German Extreme Ironing Section or GEIS.
According to Wikipedia, some locations where such extreme ironing have taken place include the side of a mountain; a forest; in a canoe; while skiing or snowboarding; in the middle of a street; underwater; whilst parachuting, and under the ice cover of a lake.
As extreme ironing has branched off, the conditions can gain in extreme activity – variations now include ironing and bungee jumping which really would have to be seen to be believed.
In March 2008, a team of 72 divers simultaneously ironing underwater set a new world’s record for number of people ironing underwater at once – which sort of defeats the purpose in that the whole point of ironing is to do it when the clothes are dry.
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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