A Different View
Love may not last forever – but your tattoo surely will
A Different View with Dave O’Connell
There are few things to turn the stomach more effectively than the sight of an ancient tattoo on some part of an old age pensioner’s crinkled anatomy.
That’s not to suggest I have any predilection for oogling old people – it’s just a fact of life that there comes a time when one’s skin is best kept under wraps. And, begging the pardon of veteran broadcaster David Dimbleby who had his first tattoo this week, if there’s one extra reason for keeping it hidden, it’s the presence of a mistake from your youth.
Tattoos might seem like a really good idea when you’re 22 and off your face in Ibiza – but the problem is that these inky escapades don’t disappear with your hangover.
And fifty years on, after you’ve forgotten your own name – never mind Ibiza – ‘I love Mum’ will still be there to haunt you. The best you can hope for is that you had it drawn in such a secure place that the only one who will ever get to see it now is your geriatric nurse.
Obviously tattoos are a matter of taste and there are serious aficionados who can cover every inch of skin with ink if they so desire. And there are some tasteful tats that won’t cause you to swerve onto the footpath in shock and horror.
But then there’s overkill – the enthusiast who’d shave the top of their head just to make space for another work of art.
Take professional footballers – not the brightest race on the planet in the first place – who now feel that it’s important to completely cover your body in draws of everything from the Virgin Mary to Sci-Fi and the names of their children….or at least the ones they’re paying maintenance for.
Maybe there were tattoos before David Beckham, but it would be hard to see Bobby Charlton or Denis Law or Johnny Giles with love heart on their backs and massive wings on their shoulder blades.
And of course you don’t have to be a sports star to be addicted to tattoos – Sinead O’Connor is a veritable pin cushion at this stage, such is the amount of art on her anatomy. There are, quite conceivably, housing estates in Dublin’s north inner city with less graffiti.
The former world heavyweight boxing champion Mike Tyson has something on the side of his head that looks like he walked into a concrete wall and had stitches applied by someone whose previous experience was in the world of patchwork quilting.
But what he has actually done is managed to inflict greater destruction on his own face than his opponents ever managed in the ring.
Iron Mike is in the happy position that he knows it would take a brave man to poke fun at his body art – but someday Mike will be an old man, and the side of his face will look like an alien.
Because while tats on a toned body are one thing, crumpled drawings on a body that now has skin with the texture of the peel of an old orange left too long in direct sunlight is a different matter entirely.
You wouldn’t want your granddad going around with Love and Hate tattooed on his knuckles any more than you’d want to discover your granny had nipple rings.
And we’ve all committed indiscretions in own younger days that we’d prefer to forget in the fullness of time – but if you’ve had it emblazoned in permanent ink, you’re stuck with either a permanent reminder or a big bill for laser removal.
What started out as a drunken dare – or sometimes a last shot at holding back the onset of middle age – will stay with you forever.
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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