A Different View
Merit in slowing down to take whole lot in

A Different View with Dave O’Connell
Perhaps the future of television is watching paint dry or kettles boil, after all – given the triumph of the BBC’s recent experience with slow TV which in turn mirrored the success of similar experiments in Scandinavia.
Highlight, if that’s not too dramatic a term, of the BBC Four Goes Slow series was a two-hour show featuring nothing more than barge making its way slowly down a becalmed canal – with no editing, music or commentary – which attracted more than half a million viewers.
All Aboard! The Canal Trip was filmed with one camera strapped to the front of the barge gently floating down the Kennet and Avon Canal, capturing nothing more than other boats, beautiful scenery and the occasional passer-by.
The show, in which the only sounds were birdsong, barking dogs, rippling water and the chugging of the engine, averaged at 506,000 viewers and a peak of 599,000, above the BBC Four slot average of 340,000.
And this wasn’t a once-off either; BBC Four’s earlier efforts included Dawn Chorus: the Sounds of Spring, which attracted 423,000 viewers, followed by another 423,000 viewers for its documentary that was about nothing more challenging than the making of a glass jug.
A three-hour tour of the National Gallery, also without any commentary, drew 252,000 viewers – and another Handmade programme on the making of a steel knife, pulled in 339,000 viewers.
None of these would qualify as a massive hit in terms of audience percentage – a new Channel 4 cop series called No Office, written by Paul Abbott, the man who made Shameless, drew two and a half million last week – but it still shows that not everyone wants to see life living at breakneck speed.
And whether it’s on the telly or in reality, there are few things in life more soothing than the sight of still water gently lapping off the bank or the side of a boat.
But this isn’t just about the effect of water; slow television – and indeed slow movies – work across a whole variety of fronts to prove that sometimes we just want something that doesn’t make us concentrate so hard.
The artist, and now film director, Sam Taylor-Wood for example once filmed David Beckham asleep and turned it into 107 minutes of a movie for the National Portrait Gallery back in 2004 – and the sad truth for the rest of us is that Becks is so damn perfect that he doesn’t even snore or break wind when he’s out for the count.
Long before that, Andy Warhol’s slow movie Sleep from 1963 showed poet John Giorno sleeping for five hours and twenty minutes.
It’s a concept that Big Brother have taken to new depths – putting cameras into the dormitory that houses wannabes, has-beens and never-will-bes so that we can see the nocturnal habits of people we’ve never heard of.
For more, read this week’s Connacht Tribune.
Connacht Tribune
If you don’t know who you are, the door staff have no chance

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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Connacht Tribune
Eurovision is just a giant party that could never cause offence

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.
Connacht Tribune
Tapping is contactless – but it’s soulless too

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.