A Different View
Fruity fortune for auction with those grapes of wrath
A Different View with Dave O’Connell
When I happened upon a recent headline that read: “Bunch of Grapes sells for £8,350”, I thought that seemed like an extraordinarily low price to pay for one of Galway’s most popular pubs.
And indeed it was ridiculous…but for a whole other reason – because that was what someone paid for an actual stem of grapes at an auction in Japan.
The bunch of about thirty grapes, each roughly the size of a table tennis ball, are of the Ruby Roman variety and sold for 1.1m yen – or in our currency, about €320 a grape.
And immediately there are a couple of issues here – who knew, for example, that you bought grapes at an auction? And who could feel entirely happy about swallowing a €320 grape?
It was news too that the Japanese consider this particular Ruby Roman variety to be a status symbol – perhaps the symbol of the ‘more money than sense’ brigade.
Incredibly this mind-bogglingly expensive grape isn’t even top of the fruit charts – that honour falls to the melon, which serves as a status symbol akin to a vintage wine, and is given as a high-ranking gift.
A pair of melons fetched 1.5m yen at an auction last year – and let’s have no cheap jibes about Samantha Fox.
The back story to these Ruby Roman grapes is that they are only grown in Ishikawa prefecture – and to qualify for their special status, each grape must weigh at least twenty grams and have a sugar content of at least eighteen per cent.
They even have their own website run by the Ishikawa prefecture, tracking the cultivation back to 1992 when seeds of the Fujiminori variety were sown.
Over the years, they were then cultivated into the Roman Ruby variety, which was named after submissions from the public in 2004. The first grapes went on sale in 2008, and prices have been rising ever since.
The buyer of this bunch of grapes was a man called Takamaru Konishi from western Japan, who was thrilled to display them at his store before giving his customers a sample taste.
You’d understand it more if the grapes came in the form of wine because we all spent a little more than we should, under the influence.
A friend of mine, for example, came home from a charity golf night once, having paid €200 for a pair of socks worn by the guest of honour, a former Ryder Cup star.
Said star, it must be said, was rather surprised to fetch such a high price for his socks. And despite the two hundred quid for the charity, it made for an uncomfortable night for him, wearing his shoes sockless.
Because these €200 socks were just the ones he grabbed from the sock drawer that morning – he hadn’t worn them at Muirfield or the Belfry or even playing crazy golf.
To read Dave’s column in full, please seet his 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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