A Different View
Your local paper – black, white and read all over
A Different View with Dave O’Connell
It was the legendary Sunday Times editor Harold Evans who defined news as something that somebody, somewhere wants to suppress. All the rest, he said, was advertising.
Another definition might be that newspapers are a balance of items that people want to see in them and things that people want to keep out.
It’s all good and well to feature in full colour when you’re winning county championships or getting seven A1’s in the Leaving – but when you’ve been caught speeding through your local village like Batman on his way to a crime in Gotham City, it’s a name check you’d prefer to keep to yourself.
Twice in recent days, I’ve heard the local paper held up as a stick with which to punish wrongdoers – although there’s probably no other context in which you’d find TV licence dodgers and men who consort with prostitutes in the same sentence.
The study of ‘sex buyers’ across five EU countries, including Ireland, found that the thing that most worried those caught was having their names published in the local paper.
Other than that, they didn’t really seem to be overly concerned, one way or the other.
The study across five countries – Ireland, Bulgaria, Cyprus, Finland and Lithuania – also found that sex buyers are mostly well-educated men in relationships and that two-thirds of them are earning more than €20,000 a year.
On the basis of their average salaries, there must be an awful lot of them out there, because the same report estimated that €25 billion is made from the sex trade in Europe, and €250 million of that is made in Ireland.
But that’s another story – the point here is that it wasn’t the infidelity that bothered the blokes….it was the fear of your name ending up in the local paper.
At the same time, RTE – when it isn’t leafing through the pages of local newspapers for stories – is running an infuriating radio ad which warns people of the danger they put themselves in if they do not buy a television licence.
There are the usual threats of a court appearance and a fine, which is fair enough – but the deal clincher is that your name will also appear in your local paper.
Trust me, it won’t. And we won’t hammer fellas who are caught without a lamp on their bike or a missing tail light on their tractor either.
Local newspapers don’t report licence fee convictions, because we’ve got more to be getting on with.
And our role is not to act like RTE’s stick to beat people with if they don’t pay their share of Marian Finucane’s massive wages.
All of this will change of course when Communications Minister Pat Rabbitte introduces the new broadcasting charge for those who don’t watch telly at all but who do have tablets or iPads to download their favourite shows.
But the money will still go to RTE alone even if you don’t watch it, and no doubt RTE will keep insisting that you will be caught if you don’t pay up and you’ll be dragged though the courts like a greedy developer who didn’t finish out the estate.
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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