Archive News
Good news for couch potatoes Ð the end of the diet is nigh
Date Published: 09-Jan-2013
You’d have to pity poor old smokers and fat people in January – because you cannot turn on a television this week without being hit by a tsunami of ads to help you give up the fags or shed the pounds, all in the pursuit of a new you.
Frankly, it seems utterly ludicrous to take on either ambition at a time when half the country is up to the same trick – better to wait for a quieter time when nobody really notices, so that your inevitable failure is less painful.
But good news could be on hand for those who don’t want to bow to peer pressure, those who are quite happy to stay eating buns on the sofa – because a Government Minister in the UK has admitted that all of these crash diets aren’t worth the effort.
Indeed Jo Swinson, the Liberal Democrat Equalities Minister, wants to ban bogus crash diets and outlaw celebrity-endorsed quick fixes – on the grounds that they don’t work.
Now we’ll ignore that fact that, if the Brits started banning things that didn’t work, the Lib Dems themselves would be first in the firing line – because Ms Swinson might well have a point.
If you want to lose weight, lose it gradually – not by drinking nothing but cabbage soup for a few weeks until you smell like the inside of an old sock.
And as for taking little tablet supplements instead of your dinner, well you’re definitely losing weight alright – but it’s from the grey mass between your ears, if you think this is the key to a new you.
Indeed even us rounder people know that it’s about controlling the size of the portions you eat; it’s about more of the five a day fruit and veg, less pizza and burgers and more exercise.
But if, quite frankly, you couldn’t be bothered, then the Yanks have come up with a lazy man’s way to a new, slimmer you – they call it CoolSculpting and all it means is that there are experts who will freeze the fat out of you as you read a fitness magazine.
Your doctor will place a device on the target areas that pulls the fat bulges in between two cooling panels in order to freeze the fat cells beneath the skin.
The treatment takes about an hour, depending on the area that is being treated, and is described as ideal for “anyone who has exercise-resistant, unwanted bulges of fat.”
Or what we tend to common refer to as fat, lazy people.
The drawback is that the cost of CoolSculpting starts at $750 per area – and each love handle is considered one area – and it can take about two to four months to see a noticeable reduction.
Nonetheless, the end results are said to be long-term and are ‘ideally maintained by healthy eating and exercising’ – or presumably by going back for more fat freezing sessions as January edges onto the horizon.
Two notes of caution at this stage – CoolSculpting is only available in the US as yet, and even there, you’ll find other health and fitness experts against it.
Dr Michelle Copeland, for example, who is a New York plastic surgeon, says that CoolSculpting can leave a visible transition line from where the fat was frozen and where it was not, which she refers to as a ‘step off deformity’.
For more, read this week’s Connacht Tribune.
People’s living conditions less than 100 years ago were frightening. We have come a long way. We talk about water charges today, but back then the local District Councils were erecting pumps for local communities and the lovely town of Mountbellew, according to Council minutes, had open sewers,” says Galway County Council archivist Patria McWalter.
Patria believes we “need to take pride in our history, and we should take the same pride in our historical records as we do in our built heritage”. When you see the wealth of material in her care, this belief makes sense.
She is in charge of caring for the rich collection of administrative records owned by Galway County Council and says “these records are as much part of our history as the Rock of Cashel is. They document our lives and our ancestors’ lives. And nobody can plan for the future unless you learn from the past, what worked and what didn’t”.
Archivists and librarians are often unfairly regarded as being dry, academic types, but that’s certainly not true of Patria. Her enthusiasm is infectious as she turns the pages of several minute books from Galway’s Rural District Councils, all of them at least 100 years old.
Part of her role involved cataloguing all the records of the Councils – Ballinasloe, Clifden, Galway, Gort, Loughrea, Mountbellew, Portumna and Tuam. These records mostly consisted of minutes of various meetings.
When she was cataloguing them she realised their worth to local historians and researchers, so she decided to compile a guide to their content. The result is For the Record: The Archives of Galway’s Rural District Councils, which will be a valuable asset to anybody with an interest in history.
Many representatives on these Councils were local personalities and several were arrested during the political upheaval of the era, she explains.
And, ushering in a new era in history, women were allowed to sit on these Rural District Councils – at the time they were not allowed to sit on County Councils.
All of this information is included in Patria’s introductory essay to the attractively produced A4 size guide, which gives a glimpse into how these Rural Councils operated and the way political thinking changed in Ireland during a short 26-year period. In the early 1900s, these Councils supported Home Rule, but by 1920, they were calling for full independence and refusing to recognise the British administration.
“I love the tone,” says Patria of the minutes from meetings. “The language was very emotive.”
That was certainly true of the Gort Rural District Council. At a meeting in 1907, following riots in Dublin at the premiere of JM Synge’s play, The Playboy of the Western World the councillors’ response was vehement. They recorded their decision to “protest most emphatically against the libellous comedy, The Playboy of the Western World, that was belched forth during the past week in the Abbey Theatre, Dublin, under the fostering care of Lady Gregory and Mr Yeats. We congratulate the good people of Dublin in howling down the gross buffoonery and immoral suggestions that are scattered throughout this scandalous performance.
For more from the archives see this week’s Tribunes here
Date Published: 23-Jan-2013
SLIGO 0-9
GALWAY 1-4
FRANK FARRAGHER IN ENNISCRONE
GALWAY’S first serious examination of the 2013 season rather disturbingly ended with a rating well below the 40% pass mark at the idyllic, if rather Siberian, seaside setting of Enniscrone on Sunday last.
The defeat cost Galway a place in the FBD League Final against Leitrim and also put a fair dent on their confidence shield for the bigger tests that lie ahead in February.
There was no fluke element in this success by an understrength Sligo side and by the time Leitrim referee, Frank Flynn, sounded the final whistle, there wasn’t a perished soul in the crowd of about 500 who could question the justice of the outcome.
It is only pre-season and last Sunday’s blast of dry polar winds did remind everyone that this is far from summer football, but make no mistake about it, the match did lay down some very worrying markers for Galway following a couple of victories over below par third level college teams.
Galway did start the game quite positively, leading by four points at the end of a first quarter when they missed as much more, but when Sligo stepped up the tempo of the game in the 10 minutes before half-time, the maroon resistance crumbled with frightening rapidity.
Some of the statistics of the match make for grim perusal. Over the course of the hour, Galway only scored two points from play and they went through a 52 minute period of the match, without raising a white flag – admittedly a late rally did bring them close to a draw but that would have been very rough justice on Sligo.
Sligo were backable at 9/4 coming into this match, the odds being stretched with the ‘missing list’ on Kevin Walsh’s team sheet – Adrian Marren, Stephen Coen, Tony Taylor, Ross Donovan, David Kelly, David Maye, Johnny Davey and Eamon O’Hara, were all marked absent for a variety of reasons.
Walsh has his Sligo side well schooled in the high intensity, close quarters type of football, and the harder Galway tried to go through the short game channels, the more the home side bottled them up.
Galway badly needed to find some variety in their attacking strategy and maybe there is a lot to be said for the traditional Meath style of giving long, quick ball to a full forward line with a big target man on the edge of the square – given Paul Conroy’s prowess close to goal last season, maybe it is time to ‘settle’ on a few basics.
Defensively, Galway were reasonably solid with Gary Sice at centre back probably their best player – he was one of the few men in maroon to deliver decent long ball deep into the attacking zone – while Finian Hanley, Conor Costello and Gary O’Donnell also kept things tight.
For more, read this week’s Connacht Tribune.
Date Published: 23-Jan-2013
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