A Different View
Reliving radio days behind the wheel of your car
There was a time – and it wasn’t that long ago – when a radio was an added extra in your new car. But then again so were seat belts, so we shouldn’t really wonder.
Now you wouldn’t even see them on a spec list because the assumption is that your new motor has a six-speaker sound system – and the seat belts are standard even for the middle passenger in the back.
But I can still recall the thrill of the first car I owned with a radio – one with buttons on it (not on the steering column) to move you from medium-wave to long-wave and two nobs to adjust the volume or change the station.
Not that there was much call for changing the stations, to be honest, because 2FM was still in its infancy and Radio Luxembourg’s range was never designed with the undulations of the west coast of Ireland in mind.
So you had a choice of about two and a half stations, which came in and out of coverage depending on your speed and height above sea level.
Half the time it sounded like someone trying to play music down a CB – Citizen Band radio or glorified walkie talkies if you’re too young to remember them – but it was the luxury of listening to music while driving that made it seem like the greatest thing since the wireless.
Next step up was a radio that had a cassette slot so that, if the two songs playing on the radio were rubbish, you could lash on a tape of the Buggles singing Video Killed the Radio Star and you were laughing all the way to your destination.
There had been a precursor to the cassette of course and the big old cars could accommodate the big old eight-track, even if it looked like you were trying to insert a book into your dashboard.
But the pre-recorded tape – or better still the C60 you copied from Larry Gogan’s Top 30 at the weekend – meant that you had the choice of what you wanted to listen to. I can still remember a brand new Mazda 323 that had a cassette facility and four speakers in the doors of the car; I sat for ages outside my house with the music on, until the neighbours thought I’d either locked myself out of the house or I had lost the power of my lower limbs.
The sound was superb, if only because the alternative was a record player with more scratches than a child dragged through a bush of thorns. We thought technology had reached its zenith.
Only it hadn’t, because the CD player was just a glimpse away over the horizon. And while initially the cost of these little silver slivers was prohibitive, they gradually came down in price to a point where the cassette was the Betamax of the audio tape world.
That said, your average car was still a distance from a CD player as standard – so improvisation was called for until technology had caught up with our insatiable demands.
They invented a set of wires – musical jump leads, if you like – that allowed you to put your portable CD player on the seat beside you, with a flex from the player attached to a fake tape that went into the cassette slot, and a charger that slipped effortlessly into the cigarette lighter.
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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