A Different View
Heatwaves just bring on the worst of middle-aged rants!
Maybe it’s the recent heatwave that brought times past back to mind – not because we grew up in long, hot summers, but because it didn’t matter whether it was sun or showers….once the school year ended, we were outdoors until the next school year began.
First off, you got up in the morning – as opposed to the early afternoon – and once you had a breakfast inside one (one option, no menu) you were out the door and you played until your dinner and then went back out again until it got dark.
Furthermore you were uncontactable from the moment you got up until the moment you came home for dinner – and nobody worried if they hadn’t heard from you for at least eight hours.
But then this was a different era, back in the seventies (and you could equally make it the fifties or sixties) because there really were very few distractions.
Now parents have to organise play dates so that their little treasures can meet other like-minded juniors for shared sulking that they’re being made to interact with something other than the control console for a video game.
But back before Playstations, Ninetendos, X-Boxes or video games, we lived in a world where there was one television channel – hence, no need for a remote control – and even then it didn’t come on until the late afternoon and closed down after the National Anthem around 11pm – not that you’d still be up at that stage anyway.
It was the era before mobile phones too – and for many families a time before even telephones in the house.
Because the mobile still had to be invented, you couldn’t have imagined a world where you could text your friends or tweet to tell them what you were having for your dinner.
But against that, all your friends were real, actual people – not people you ‘liked’ but never met.
You made and met your friends outside, on the street, in school, on the football pitch – not via cyber space. The upside was that this ensured you’d always recognise your friends in the street.
We fell out of trees, into nettles, got hurt on football pitches and when you went home your mother dug out a plaster for your knee, not the number of a solicitor so you could sue the relevant authority.
We played cowboys and Indians with nothing more than a length of willow and a taut piece of twine; we could amuse ourselves for hours with just a tennis ball.
Truly the summer seemed to go on forever and we came home tired and ready for sleep – now we rear creatures of the night who log onto 4OD until their little eyes turn square and blue.
And while we sniggered at our parents when they used to say they grew up in more innocent times, we actually did – you rode a bike without a helmet, you travelled in cars with no baby seats, boosters or indeed seat belts – and sometimes you hung on for dear life in the back of vans with no seats at all.
Of course time doesn’t stand still and the main reason that kids seem more spoiled today is that parents spoil them; they’d settle for your time instead of your money right up to the age of 14.
Then they’d gladly pay you to avoid breathing the same air as you in public, although they are like homing pigeons when it comes to finding you for the few bob they need for a new Playstation game that is required about twenty minutes after the thing came off the presses.
The truth is that you know they wouldn’t swap places with you after all your old stories of tough times past – and the reality is that you wouldn’t swap with them either, because they were the days of our innocent youth.
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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