A Different View
The joy of pure escapism – from Dinny up to Dallas
A Different View with Dave O’Connell
There was a time when the earth as we knew it almost came off its axis when RTE decided to call an end to the shenanigans of Benjy and Batty and Maggie and Minnie in Leestown.
Because sitting down with the Riordans was part of what we were; and going out on a Sunday night, it had become the national signal that the weekend was over before everyone went back to school and work.
Without this touchstone we were left to flounder – even allowing for new arrivals like Pat Barry in Bracken or Dinny and Miley in Glenroe.
And then – in a parallel universe and a world we knew nothing about – a family of feuding oil barons from Texas came into our lives.
In the blink of an eye, the Ewings of Dallas replaced the Riordans in the national psyche.
We didn’t even question how this could happen – after all, tuning in to watch farming families enjoying time off in Johnny Mac’s traditional Irish pub is one thing, but evesdropping on JR and Cliff Barnes at the Oil Baron’s Ball wasn’t the sort of stuff we grew up with.
But then the secret to a good book, movie or even television show is that it offers you the chance to suspend disbelief, to escape into a world that has nothing to do with you and to spend an hour in an alien land.
Why else would we have grown up reading Enid Blyton’s Famous Five, the adventure of two brothers, their sister, their friend and a dog as they traipsed around Kirrin Island where they found more adventure and crime than you’d encounter on the streets of Baghdad on a Saturday night?
Everything in their world was jolly – even when it was jolly awful – and they drank lashings of ginger ale at a time when we thought the height of sophistication was Orange Cadet.
They went on ‘jolly japes’, got themselves into ‘awful scrapes’ and wore galoshes to keep their feet dry and they trapped dangerous criminals with nothing more than their intellect and Timmy, the curious dog.
But Julian, George, Dick, Anne and Timmy the dog had first appeared on the printed page back in 1942 – in Five on a Treasure Island, going on to feature in 21 further adventures.
And six years ago, the publishers decided that all of these phrases from back in the war years were out of date with the modern, high-paced world the children of today live in.
So – for that reason and the fact that you cannot use phrases like dirty tinkers or reveal you’re feeling awful queer – they decided to update the language of the children’s classics for a modern audience.
So “mercy me” was changed to “oh no!”, “fellow” to “old man” and “it’s all very peculiar” to “it’s all very strange”.
To read Dave’s column in full, please see 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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