T.C.D.
Dan Boyle interview | Richie McCaw v Plato | T HE B ANKERS | Winter in Miami
Noughties in focus The pick of the decade’s fashion, TV and self-help literature
Volume 117 | Issue Three | January 2010
Issue 3.indb 1
12/01/2010 23:29:54
Editorโ s letter Conor James McKinney
I
tโ s only occurred to me now, two months after the fact, that this column in the last issue made reference to the days getting longer. As youโ ve probably noticed by this stage in your educational career, days tend to shorten in winter. If we had more science students on staff, this sort of thing wouldnโ t happen. Well, here we are in January, still as prone to silly mistakes and just as eager to talk about the weather. As I type this, my teeth are chattering louder than the keys, because the heating hasnโ t been turned on in the Publications Office yet, and Front Square has been roped off as a health and safety risk because of the icy cobbles. Classic College, that. With many of the Miscellany team homeless, on holidays or stranded in Co. Longford, a skeleton crew braved the elements to bring you an issue with politics at its heart. Elaine McCahill, having slipped and skidded up Kildare Street to interview Senator Dan Boyle, provides our centrepiece (page 12). Two former editors of this publication anatomise the banking crisis on page 30, as Jean Acheson (2008) reviews the new book by Senator Shane Ross (1970). Michael Wynne lays the blame for everything squarely at Bertieโ s door (page 16), whilst Tom Lowe reminds us that whatโ s done in our names within Trinity matters as well (page 11). Elsewhere, weโ ve articles about rugby, radio and resolutions, among much else. Thereโ s something for everyone in this issue, I should think. And if you donโ t think much of it, donโ t get mad โ get writing. This is your magazine, not mine.
T.C.D. Miscellany 6 Trinity College Dublin 2 www.miscellany.ie editor@miscellany.ie Printed in Co. Wicklow by Conway Media Limited
editor deputy editor assistant editors sub editors chief copy editor copy editors layout & design
Conor James McKinney Aoife Oโ Reilly Niall Brunell, Elaine McCahill Rachel Gregg, Louisa McIndoe, Sehreen Quereshi Dana Davis Fionnuala Barrett, Polly Dennison, Sarah-Kate Geraghty Martin McKenna
T.C.D. Miscellany is funded by a grant from DU Publications Committee. This publication claims no special rights or privileges. Serious complaints should be addressed to: The Editor, T.C.D. Miscellany, 6 Trinity College, Dublin 2. Appeals may be directed to the Press Council of Ireland.
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Senator Boyle (left) and Ciarรกn Cuffe TD outside Leinster House. All photos courtesy of the Green Party.
INTERVIEW POLITICS THE ECONOMY
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Dan Boyle in serious mode: the former accountant helped negotiate an agreement with Fianna Fail that saw the party enter government in 2007.
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A phenomenon that could be likened to that of a group of pubescents who have discovered their genitals and canโ t stop masturbating
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Issue 3.indb 2
12/01/2010 23:29:57
CULTURE REVIEW
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Volume 117, Issue 3 Contents Diary of a Fresher Lara Stewart changes course
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Diary of a Graduate Hugh McCafferty misses Ireland’s heating culture
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The art of email dodging Sarah Walker has mail
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Survival tips for living at home Cianna O’Connell on surviving in the family nest
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10 Amused and B.Mus.Ed Tara Monaghan takes inspiration from a recent graduate
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If you want something, ask for it, and believe that you will get it, the universe will give it to you. There. Easy as that
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11 Capitations should vote down censorship proposal Tom Lowe is not impressed 12 Are we there yet? Elaine McCahill interviews Senator Dan Boyle 16 The money malaise Michael Wynne contemplates our economic downfall 18 The highs and lows of Noughties fashion Sarah-Kate Geraghty examines recent sartorial history 20 Proceed with caution Matthew Martin reflects on the violence of the last decade
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3 RECREATION REVIEW
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6
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22 Ireland’s six stabs at reality TV gold Domhnall O’Sullivan recalls some derivative dross 24 Restoring the Wren Aoife O’Reilly adds a touch of tradition
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21 New Year’s resolutions are bad for you Christine O’Mahony takes a new stance on resolutions
25 Self help or no help? Ryan Kenny takes on the self-help industry
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26 The golden age of radio Jean Morley on the relevance of radio today
Hooky put his experience with the oval ball to good use as a celebrity bainisteoir.
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28 An openside’s manifesto, or, why cheating is OK Dominic Gallagher on when cheating is all good 30 Ross’s revelations: The Bankers reviewed Jean Acheson gets down and dirty with the banking crisis
ce into the World Cup.
32 Welcome to Miami (bienvenidos a Miami) Kate Rowan visits the South Florida metropolis
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34 The Last Word With Mark Walsh
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T.C.D. Miscellany is a full participating member of the Press Council of Ireland and supports the Office of the Press Ombudsman. This scheme, in addition to defending the freedom of the press, offers readers a quick, fair and free method of dealing with complaints that they may have in relation to articles that appear on our pages. To contact the Office of the Press Ombudsman go to www.pressombudsman.ie.
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Issue 3.indb 3
12/01/2010 23:29:59
Old Miscellany
1965
Not just a Robinsons’ affair when great issues are at stake
A
week may be an extraordinarily short time in which to write an overdue essay, but it’s a long time in politics. The big stories as we go to print will quite probably have faded away by the beginning of the new term. Even bearing that caveat in mind, the latest goings-on north of the border are the subject of such protracted, macabre
fascination that to restrain from comment is impossible. Northern politics is always colourful, given the personalities involved. While in many troubled polities elected representatives are routinely sent to jail, Northern Ireland is surely the only one in which being sent to jail is a prerequisite for a political career. While those days are behind us, Gerry
Adams and Peter Robinson, the “big beasts” of Republicanism and Unionism respectively, have both seen the inside of a prison cell. They might almost have wished for such a sanctuary in recent weeks as the media storm thundered. The parallels between the two situations are remarkable. Both involved a family member (Mr Adams’s
brother and Mr Robinson’s wife) whose actions have caused controversy. In both cases, those actions have been condemned by the principal. But their level of knowledge about these wrongdoings (as Iris Robinson’s financial indiscretions seem to be) has put them under pressure. As a deluge of gleeful Facebook posts highlight, the fact that the dup’s travails revolve around a Mrs Robinson’s affair with a much younger man give this scandal the true air of soap opera. But amusing as the situation must seem to northern
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Issue 3.indb 4
12/01/2010 23:30:07
A few words with The law lecturer
What’s your name? Eoin O’Dell. Where are you from? I’m a Kerryman in exile in Dublin. Sum up your job in one sentence. How about one word? Overworked! I’m a Fellow and Senior Lecturer in Law; and for the last three years, I’ve been the Chair of the Statutes Review Working Party. How do you travel into College in the mornings? Reluctantly — I’m not a morning person. Usually by car. What’s your favourite thing about College? The students — after all, without them, College would have a reason to fire me. And your least favourite thing? The students — especially when their phones go off in lectures. How has College changed in your time here? The students — there are so many more of them. Do you ever go to any student society events? Yes, especially debates and rugby matches; and I participate too, in choral concerts and chess matches. nationalists, it is the one most likely to have serious and long-term consequences for the politics of the Six Counties. At time of writing, Peter Robinson has “temporarily” stepped down as First Minister of Northern Ireland. This comes at a crucial time, as the discussion of devolved policing and justice powers rumbles unsatisfactorily on, and dissident republicans lurk in the shadows, occasionally emerging to launch cowardly attacks on psni officers. At this juncture
it is hard to resist the conclusion that Mr Robinson’s political career is over. That is a pity. But it would be a tragedy if his departure were to slow progress towards total normalisation of life in the province. Even if these talks progress, a close relationship between Sinn Féin and the dup will continue to be a vital component in a stable Northern Ireland. Gerry Adams’s resignation, if it comes, would not jeopardise the current understanding that the parties seem to have
reached, since Martin McGuinness would surely take over the leadership in the short term. Mr Robinson retains his position as party leader, for the moment. But by contrast with Mr Adams, he has no obvious successor. A power struggle within the dup would be debilitating. And if the Unionist electorate were to grow disillusioned, the key question then is cui bono: their mainstream rivals in the uup, or Jim Allister and the hardliners of the Traditional Unionist Voice? — Ed.
Do you ever read any of the college newspapers? Yes, it’s the only way to find out what’s going on in College. Ever go for a drink in the Pav? Yes, especially on Friday after work in summer. What’s your favourite book? Two equal favourites here: Wuthering Heights by Emily Brontë and Midnight’s Children by Salman Rushdie. Got any advice for students? In the immortal words of The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, “Don’t panic”! 5
Issue 3.indb 5
12/01/2010 23:30:12
Diary of a Fresher Lara Stewart
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Issue 3.indb 6
REFERENCING A BIT WRECKING, REALLY o it’s 2010 and Michaelmas is done and dusted. Quite a scary thought, especially as I transferred to a different course very late into the game. I have nine, nine weeks of work to catch up on! It was a leap of faith, but I am so glad I did take that chance. I’m now studying Sociology & Social Policy. I’ve heard some people refer to it as “SocSocPol”, which in a written medium works but throwing it into conversation I’d feel a bit of a prat. The downside to changing halfway through is that every day I’m bombarded by Facebook photos of weekends away where course groups have crews and gangs and hootenannys. I still know absolutely no one in my course. It’s like the first day of Freshers’ Week for me every day — like some sort of odd Groundhog Day scenario. Hell, even the mature students have their own tight-knit posse going on. They sit at the front of the big lecture halls together and wave each other in from the masses. Maybe I should ask them to adopt me into their circle. That unsettled feeling is a source of constant doubt at whether I should have transferred at all. But I have to be mature and look at things in the long term. While I loved the French and Russian languages/ courses separately, studying them together was hard and not enjoyable. Whereas now, even though I will more than likely be studying over the summer in order to pass the supplementals, and have no friends, the course is so interesting and I really enjoy the lectures. I turned in two essays just before Christmas and while I’m sure they were crap (try writing a politics essay on the role of the judiciary in a democracy having only attended one lecture), I’m proud for having handed them in at all and making a stab at it. By the way, referencing is the most painful and irritating part of college and that’s actually fact. It’s like when you take a tiring long-haul flight, touchdown at the airport waving your hands in the air and
exclaiming “Yay! I’m here at last!” only for your Dad to tell you there is a twohour, bumpy bus journey up the side of a mountain in store. Suddenly you wish you were back on the flying part of the journey. When I hit the word length target on an essay I’m overcome by joy and sweet relief. Then comes the bumpy bus ride of citation and referencing. I should probably include my highlights of Michaelmas so far. I discovered the Players Theatre in about Week 8 and I think it’s fab. Definitely worth checking out a play there if you get the chance. I also tried out the gym. I felt like a fattie in the Arts Block. Seriously, tourists must wonder if there’s a food shortage in there by the look of some of the students. Anyway — the gym. I didn’t have a clue where to start, so hopped cautiously on a machine that looked simple enough. Tried to stay on for as long as I could so I didn’t look like a complete wimp. Ten minutes was all I could hack. I dismounted and nearly hit the floor, thinking I was going to either faint or throw up. After 30 mins of cardio, I contracted an intense case of the jelly legs too. It felt like I was in a bad comedy sketch. Other gems have included discovering a rogue, working socket in an already halffull Lecky, arriving into college one Friday for a two-hour lecture to discover it cancelled, and a cracking night out with my bestest friend Hannah to see Steve Aoki. Something I didn’t expect when I started here was the amount of times I would hear the phrase “Trinners for Winners” from people I hadn’t seen in a while. Ugh, even writing it makes me cringe. What’s the general consensus on that term anyway? You rarely hear it discussed inside these halls, yet I’m sure most of us have heard it used at least once. Maybe we’re all just modest. Nah, don’t think so. Lara Stewart is a Junior Freshman student of Sociology and Social Policy.
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12/01/2010 23:30:13
Diary of a Graduate Hugh McCafferty
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Issue 3.indb 7
DOUBLE GLAZING? NO NEED, WE’VE GOT WHISKEY t is not uncommon, when one leaves the country for an extended period of time, to look at weather reports from Ireland and smugly grin. In an age of great uncertainty, the one thing of which we can all be sure is that the weather at home is always shit. The past few weeks have been a resounding testament to this great constant: snow, ice, biting cold, blocked roads, disrupted air traffic, people stranded in their homes — Ireland has truly outdone itself. However, despite all this, my capacity to rub it in the face of my friends and family has been sadly limited. Because, at the end of the day, regardless of how bleak it is outside, or how much it rains, hails or freezes, at least you fuckers have central heating. In the popular imagination, Japan is the land of tomorrow. It is a technological utopia, where bullet trains transmit passengers to their destinations in an instant, omnipresent vending machines provide all of life’s necessities at the touch of a button and toilets, in addition to warming, washing and wiping, perform a variety of everyday chores around the house. In such an advanced country the age-old discomforts of winter have long been consigned to the dustbin of history by all manner of sophisticated innovations. Right? Wrong. And nothing illustrates this point more than my apartment. Located in the industrial city of Kitakyushu on the western island of Kyushu, the building is known as a kyoushokuin juutaku, which roughly translates as teachers’ apartment block. As you might have guessed from the name, this type of housing is reserved for teachers only. The poor bastards. Let us go then, you and I… through certain half-deserted streets… and see how crap my apartment really is… Come on in, then, it’s freezing outside! What’s that? The temperature hasn’t changed noticeably since you came in? Why, that’s the central heating, silly — there isn’t any! And double-glazing wasn’t really in vogue when these apartments
were built (or at any point since then). But you’re welcome to have a bit of a huddle around my lovely little kerosene heater. Although, you probably shouldn’t leave it on for too long — those fumes give me the worst headaches! What’s that, you’d like to use the toilet? Well, be my guest! But you’ll definitely be surprised by what you find in there… That’s right! A squat toilet! I’ll give you a thousand yen if you manage not to defecate all over yourself! OK, OK, that was a joke, I do have a sit-down toilet, but a friend of mine (who used to live in a juutaku a few miles away) had one of those for three years. But he doesn’t anymore — because his building was recently condemned and torn down! Maybe you should just take a long, hot shower. That’ll have you nice and toasty in no time! Oh wait, I forgot the antiquated gas heater broke down the other day, so, er, maybe we should just have a lovely cup of tea. And if that doesn’t warm the cockles, then we can just neck this bottle of whiskey, pass out and hope we don’t die of exposure in the night! Bottoms up! Of course, not everybody lives in such a poorly insulated dwelling as mine, but the proportion that do is a little shocking. Also, teachers here are free to live wherever they like but many (including the majority of foreign teachers) choose these juutaku because the rent tends to reflect the low temperatures. If anything, though, the intense cold of the last few months has taught me two important lessons. Firstly, Ireland may be a bleak, wintry wasteland (for the majority of the year), but no matter how bad it gets, there’s always somewhere out there that’s just a little bit worse. And secondly, Irish people, no matter where they go in the world, will always find something to complain about. Hugh McCafferty graduated from Trinity in 2009 with a degree in Psychology. See more at www.whatthefukuoka.blogspot.com.
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12/01/2010 23:30:13
College
The art of email dodging Trying to sift through the mounds of College-sanctioned spam to find that vital deadline is a skill as valuable as any other you’ll learn at university. by Sarah Walker
I
’m being email stalked. Every day, an ominous “ping” sounds, and my heart freezes. It began lightheartedly enough. Subject: Welcome to MyProspects. You could even argue that I brought it upon myself, having signed up for this service dogmatically marketed by the Careers Advisory Service. For a while I kind of enjoyed the attention, felt special even. One month and 57 ignored emails later, I’m at the end of my tether. No, I do not want to attend the University of Southampton open day, nor do I want to partake in an online careers fair. I first began to have serious doubts when a job was advertised for a Permanent Purchaser at Jaguar Land Rover. What would I do? Go around buying cars all day? Postgraduate study in the School of Engineering, Bangor, Wales? Five emails worth. Physics Enhancement Course 2010? I felt pretty sorry for the MyProspects troll that had to stay up and send me that particular vacancy result at 5.30 on the 26th of December. The really creepy mails only come once a week. Those are the ones with my name in the title: “Sarah, get to grips with your dissertation”. Or “Sarah,
improve your job hunting skills”. “Capitalise on your summer” felt vaguely like I was being encouraged to turn to prostitution. Theoretically, I could just remove myself from their mailing list. But that’s what they want. I’ll just have to live in fear and bide my time until they tire of me, or I get a real job. This technological terrorising led me to study the wasteland of my email bin. I realise I’m one of the lucky ones, who doesn’t get spammed by anything I don’t bring upon myself. My poor father still hasn’t got to grips with Gmail after being run out of Yahoo town by 12 emails a day offering him free Viagra trials. I, like many of you Noughties children, have two email addresses. One is my Trinity email, which I use for everything important. The other is my Hotmail, which in true adolescent fashion is something embarrassing and spelled incorrectly on purpose. Only those of you close to me will find out the unsavoury details. It was this hotmail address into which I poured my childhood social networking efforts, sending e-cards and getting my daily Bebo hit. Some of the college mail I receive now is as insignificant as that rubbish. But how many of these countless emails do we actually compute? The daily slew of mail can provide serious distraction, but often not enough to actually reply or remember what they said. When I asked around my friends there were Trinity Librarian Robin Adams (left) and friend compose a Gentle Reminder. mixed
reactions to the college email system. While most, like me, check their email at least once every day there are those who only read the ones they want and never open the rest. One of my friends has checked his emails approximately six times in four years of college. Last time was November, when his inbox numbered around 2,000 new mails. When I expressed my amazement he explained that he goes to class so little his email can only contain the bad news of N/As and bitchy emails from lecturers, so it’s more of an avoidance thing. While I don’t personally have a problem with the Students’ Union weekly newsletter, the amount of other crap College sends sometimes gets to me. I don’t see why every single undergraduate in the entire university has to be alerted when there’s an after-hours lecture on Stalinism’s influence on interpretive dance. And the only surveys I’m ever interested in taking are the ones which pay cold hard cash. Don’t try to insult me with a book token. There’s nothing worse than waiting on an important email, because every new one you receive seems laughable in its utter uselessness. Nothing in the world makes me feel more alone than when the only person who cares enough to contact me is the Chief Steward to tell me that I won’t be able to drive through the Nassau Street entrance. It doesn’t matter to him that most of us don’t have cars. It’s simply his job to make us feel bad about our automotive poverty. And is there anything more ironic than “A gentle reminder from the library”? The Deputy Librarian always puts me in my place if I think I can get away with using the 24-hour library at a time that would actually be convenient to me. Like after Christmas, or when I’ve had every important essay due this term. The triumphant “Library Closure” subject line ruins my plans of glorious wholesome study every time, leaving me wondering if these people want me to succeed academically at all. But I feel that when I do leave college I’ll miss these constant reminders of the failure of our college system to be of use whenever I actually need it. I’ll think fondly back to the days where I’d invite myself along to every event that has “Light refreshments afterwards” in small print at the bottom of the email. I’ll even talk about that time I crashed the Climate Change lecture and got within biscuit-table distance of Mary Robinson, recalling with glory that I was even going to smile at her, until I noticed they had Bourbon Creams. Sarah Walker is a Senior Sophister student of European Studies.
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Student Life
Survival tips for living at home Practical advice for keeping the peace with the parentals, and avoiding the steely gaze of disapproval at your extracurricular antics. by cianna O’Connell
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Sober up at least an hour before returning home. Everyone loves a good night out. The dancing, the drinking, the heel-induced falls, the loss of valuable personal items, the overpriced shots and all the other drunken antics are intrinsic elements of student life. Once your taxi pulls up outside your family home, however, the fun comes to a screeching halt. The seemingly insurmountable task of getting yourself safely into bed without waking another family member slowly dawns on you. You immediately regret that last order of Jägerbombs. “Everything will be OK”, you slur to yourself, “I am as sober as a sandwich and will be a model of stealth and subtlety”. Things begin swimmingly. You successfully navigate your way up the garden path. Suddenly, disaster seems imminent. The key! IT DOESN’T FIT THE LOCK! Never fear, never fear; twiddling works like a charm. Next: the attempted preparation of a silent postmidnight snack. You decide that you are in the mood for Rice Krispie buns. Unfortunately, after melting an entire bar
A student can never enter a family home without creating a cacophony of rousing noises of cooking chocolate, you realise that the breakfast cupboard does not contain the requisite cereal box. Again, never mind, Fruit & Fibre will have to do. Later, in bed, whilst consuming your sticky chocolate wholegrain concoction, you assure yourself that no one in the house heard your re-entry and that your initial fears of being too drunk were entirely unfounded. You are wrong. A family home is considerably larger than most student accommodation. Unlike a modern apartment or college halls, it is also usually considerable older. Floorboards screech like warring foxes. Granite tiles react
with your stilettos to send reverberations throughout each room. Kitchen appliances whirr and family pets bark. No matter how colossal an effort is made, a drunken student can never enter a family home without creating a cacophony of rousing noises. Unless you sober up at least an hour before returning home, you may endure steely parental glances in the days that follow. You may also have to spend a considerable amount of time cleaning congealed cooking chocolate from the microwave.
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Remember that trends acceptable on the high street may not be acceptable in the family home. I am not a fashionable person. I generally only know what’s “in style” from perving on pretty girls walking around the Arts Block (sorry, by the way). Also, I live by the mantra of “If It’s on Sale in Topshop, Then It Is Generally OK”. A month or two ago, I began to see girls out on the town in see-through lace camisoles. I decided that I wanted such a top. Luckily enough, Topshop had an abundance of them on sale. This meant they were, yes, OK. My mother did not agree. “WHAT IN THE NAME OF... oh yeah, that’s great, that’s just great... why don’t you have a sign on your forehead saying ‘Hey lads I’m up for it’... no selfrespecting woman should wear something see-through…”. I began to argue back: “But everyone wears them, they’re...” “THEY’RE LINGERIE IS WHAT THEY ARE! Now, at 20 years of age you’re entitled to do what you want but... JAYSUS LIKE!” I put a T-shirt on underneath.
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Accept that you will never have a duvet day. Ahh yes, isn’t that what we all dreamt about in sixth year? Long days of doing absolutely nothing, lounging around in a Penneys’ onesy, watching a bit of Dr
Phil… This dream, however, can never become a reality for students stuck at home. Mothers see an idle twenty-yearold as an unforgivable waste of resources. There is always a list of chores to be done: putting on washes, cleaning out the shower and ironing shirts that you don’t even wear. Also, if you think a mighty hangover will grant you any clemency, think again. It only serves to heighten a mother’s already over-zealous desire for punishment.
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Become asexual. Seriously. I strongly advise anyone living at home not to have any interest in members of the opposite sex. If you are an eldest/only child, non-platonic friends are seen in the same light in which the conquistadors viewed the Native Americans. The first time I invited a boy home, my sister was in such shock that she fled to her bedroom and declared sanctuary. When the same poor boy accepted my mother’s stammered invitation to stay for dinner, my sister asked if she could eat hers in the sitting room. Even attempting the simplest of activities with a non-platonic friend in the family home will result in embarrassment. dvds will be interrupted by a shout of; “ARE YOU TWO SNOGGING IN THERE? Aoife wants to get her phone charger but is scared to go in! Will I send her in?” Which will inevitably be followed by a frenzied whisper of “Mum! Oh my God, oh my God, why did you say that? I’m not going in. Oh my God!”
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Move out. Or else find generous friends who are willing to welcome family-home refugees into their apartments. You can always offer to make them chocolate Fruit & Fibre buns in return. Cianna O’Connell is a Senior Freshman student of Law. 9
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College Culture
Amused and B.Mus.Ed With the Noughties consigned to memory it’s time to look the next ten years in the eye and perhaps find the inspiration to do it in the success of a recent Trinity graduate. by Tara Monaghan
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t’s that time of the century again. A new decade and I’m panicking. The next time I welcome in the next ten years I’ll be almost thirty. Logically this is a long time away but memories of the millennium party still linger freshly in my head. This new decade calls for a fresh perspective and dare I say a direction? With no idea where I want to go and with no facebook application to guide me, I look for inspiration from the people who have travelled the road I am about to shift up a gear on. Inspiration comes in many forms but none so refreshing as Ailish Tynan, soprano and graduate of Trinity’s Bachelor’s degree in Music Education (B.Mus. Ed). Having heard nothing but praise for her outstanding repertoire and achievements before going into her lecture given at the Royal Irish Academy of Music last month, I expected the stereotypical opera singer, narcissistic and far removed from the average music student. How I love being wrong! She couldn’t be farther from my description. She seems
Ailish credits her time in the B.Mus.Ed course as a considerable factor in her success to have an air of positivity about her and radiates fun. Her smile is infectious as she describes her life as a student and speaks about her singing career. After spending several years at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama in London, she hasn’t lost her lovely Mullingar accent either. She is by no means affected despite her outstanding success and a list of achievements as long as my arm, including having won the rté Millennium Singer of the Future award and Rosenblatt Recital prize at the bbc Cardiff Singer of the World competition. Ailish’s career is not typical of the B.Mus.Ed graduate. After spending four long years studying the practice of music education, educational issues and the sociology of education just to name a few modules, Ailish has spent all of two
weeks teaching in a secondary school. Knowing she had her teaching career to fall back on she braved the big bad world of classical music with only three arias for her audition for the Covent Garden Programme at the Guildhall — which didn’t even meet the specified requirements. However it is a testament to her personality that her potential was picked up on and she was accepted, a huge achievement as she is the only Irish person ever accepted to the exclusive course. She carries this experience with her in many aspects of her life particularly in performance and auditions. “The music business needs people who are full of life, creativity and ides, as this is what transmits to the audience”, she says. “Nobody in the audience cares about what a diminished triad is. It’s about having a good time”. Ailish credits her time in the B.Mus. Ed course as a considerable factor in her success. Aside from the performance, composition and aural aspects of the course’s content, it is the years of hard work and dedication required to even pass that have given her the perfect attitude and mind frame to tackle the competitive world of opera. In her first year at Guildhall alone she learnt over 200 songs, six operas and several orchestral works. Having coped with the serious pressure which rewarded her with her degree she does not feel it on the stage. This is particularly good for her singing voice and contributes to her sterling performances which she demonstrates at ease for us throughout the lecture. With such a beautiful trained voice it baffles me to why anybody would not aspire to sing like her instead of modern pop artists. After training so hard for so long her opinion of reality shows like The X Factor couldn’t be lower. “You have to learn your trade and work for fame”, she says. She stresses that these fast lane to fame shows don’t teach you how to cope with the fame and the pressure noting in particular Susan Boyle’s breakdown after her failure to win Britain’s Got Talent. “She should be in
some mental institution and don’t get me started on Katherine Jenkins!” she jokes. Ailish is no stranger to critics and mentions that elements of the B.Mus. Ed course, in particular the psychology modules, have been extremely helpful in coping with the bad as well as the good news. With one hundred to one hundred and fifty shows a year and having only ever cancelled one concert in her lifetime (because she lost her voice) Ailish is truly inspirational as regards her diligence and self-discipline which she says she attained at Trinity, where she “learned what hard work was”. However, opera is not all about hard work. She tells us that you have to be “full of joy and life” and “not afraid to do stupid things on stage” as this is extremely effective and not only fun for the audience to watch but also to do. Having achieved so much already I wonder what she has left to do and what she aspires to achieve. She tells us she’d love a phone-in show with the bbc where she could sit back with a cup of tea and listen to other people talk about their lives. Performing on stage every second day of her life, it is not hard to see why. She is a little far away from this goal having already lined up work in Beatrice et Benedict for Opera Comique in France, Haydn’s Nelson’s Mass with the rté Symphony Orchestra and much more for the New Year. Although I sincerely doubt I will ever become an opera singer (partly due to the fact I don’t take singing lessons) I cannot help but aspire to be as dedicated and upbeat as Ailish Tynan in whatever I happen to stumble upon in the next ten years. To be so enthusiastic for life is truly inspirational. Tara Monaghan is a Senior Freshman student of Music Education.
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College POLITICS
Capitations should vote down censorship proposal The Senior Dean wants student representatives to give him new powers of censorship in Trinity. T.C.D. Miscellany thinks that this is a very [REDACTED] idea. by Tom Lowe
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his term, Trinity’s Capitation Committee will vote on a new Terms of Reference document, which includes a provision allowing the Senior Dean to withdraw from campus any publication that he feels could be damaging to College or individuals. The Senior Dean, who himself proposed the initial draft of the document, claims that his office’s proposed new powers are necessary to ensure that College doesn’t find itself legally liable for the content of studentproduced newspapers. Whatever the Senior Dean’s intention may be, the effect of these new rules will be to designate a single member of College staff as the overseer and censor of newspapers and magazines in Trinity. As Treasurer of Trinity Publications, I sit on this Committee — which is composed of student representatives from the Students’ Union and Central Societies Committee, among others, in addition to various members of College staff with responsibility for student services. Due to the structure of the Capitation Committee, the discussion of this measure has, thus far, been merely instrumental — we’ve argued over the logistics of its implementation, its necessity, and its potential legal ramifications: however, there has been little to no discussion of what it means for freedom of speech in Trinity. It is my opinion that this issue, which is important to anyone who cares about how their university is run, should
not be only discussed behind closed doors, on an unaccountable and politically charged committee. This decision, which will be made in the name of students by their representatives, should be discussed by the people who rely on the publications of Trinity College to provide them with independent and trustworthy information. If you’re reading this article, then that means you. A free and fair press is vital to a healthy and happy community, and Trinity’s is no exception. Several times in recent memory, investigative journalism published in Trinity’s newspapers has exposed the wrongdoing of College officials. Indeed, in recent months, it has been revealed that College has been expropriating as tuition Muzzling the fees two-thirds student press is in of the money that nobody’s interest. students pay for non-academic services. This news broke nationally, was discussed in the Dáil and the state’s Comptroller and Auditor General is now investigating the matter. This is why we need our media to be free to tell the truth. Student media must necessarily break news which could damage the College’s reputation, cost College staff their jobs, or embarrass individuals. This is their role in the College community, and it keeps people honest. That’s not to say that that a bad editor can’t cause damage with unjustified
personal attacks — but newspapers that are properly and independently audited have an unparalleled capacity to provide truth and reason, where before there were only opinion, half-truth and dogma. Happily, Trinity’s student publications are subject to such independent scrutiny. All of the major publications in Trinity (including this one) have in the last two years become full members of the Press Council of Ireland, which arbitrates legal disputes on the content of newspapers and magazines — indeed, just recently, Trinity News resolved a long-running dispute with its help and with no recourse to the courts. Apart from the damage it will do to students’ rights, this measure is wholly unwarranted. Under the proposed document, the Senior Dean is allowed to remove a publication from circulation “to prevent College being held liable for any wrong or injury occasioned by the publication… this power may be exercised in order to avoid liability for defamation”. With this wording, all it takes for
A free and fair press is vital to a healthy and happy community, and Trinity’s is no exception a Senior Dean to justify having all copies of a newspaper removed from campus is to demand that the newspaper reveal its sources for a sensitive story — a demand which would naturally be met with scorn — and claim that the story amounted to defamation. Giving the Senior Dean these new powers takes the power of censorship, currently held by the external Press Council, from outside Trinity and places it squarely within its walls, in the hands of an individual. Not only that, but it renders the Senior Dean essentially unaccountable for his actions when he does choose to use his new powers. It is entirely possible that a Senior Dean’s interests might be at odds with those of the student body and even the long-term stability of the College itself. The proposed legislation gives personal, biased discretion on a decision which should, undeniably, be made independently. The Senior Dean’s worry that one of Trinity’s publications could land the Provost, Fellows and Scholars in the dock is far-fetched. However, even accepting that it might happen, the negative consequences for students’ rights make this a measure that all student representatives should oppose. Tom Lowe is a Junior Sophister student of Economics. He is Treasurer of Trinity Publications and a Scholar of the College. 11
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Senator Boyle (left) and Ciarán Cuffe TD outside Leinster House. All photos courtesy of the Green Party.
interview politics the economy
Are we there yet? The Greening of government still has a long way to go, but according to Senator Dan Boyle, the journey is in the best interests of both his party and the country. by elaine mccahill
s you enter the gates of Leinster House on Kildare Street, you immediately get the feeling that this is an important place. A place where big decisions are made and where outbursts like “Fuck you, Deputy Stagg” are not commonplace. It has an aura of dignity that signifies its pivotal role in Irish life. At 12
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the moment, you wouldn’t be corrected for believing that the role the Government is playing is pivotal in making everyone miserable. Pay cuts, tax increases, child benefit cuts, pension levies, public expenditure cuts… it appears that every morning we’re being lambasted with bad news. News that’s going to make life a little bit more difficult (except the cuts on booze in the Budget). As students, we’re just lucky that we have the means to attend our classes in warm lecture theatres rather than being a recent graduate leaving the local social welfare office with a ba in one hand and the dole in the other. Everyone has questions they want answered, everyone also has a craving for hope but no-one really knows who to turn to. Miscellany turned to Senator Dan Boyle of the Green Party. Boyle is currently the Party Chair of the Greens and was nominated to the Seanad by An Taoiseach Bertie Ahern after he lost his seat in the Dáil in the 2007 general election. While this might have been a low point for some, Dan has on taken the position with the same fervour he would if it had been in the other house of the Oireachtas. To him the Seanad has a “better
“We have to do things as well as free fees to encourage better access” window into the Ireland of today” as it has a completely different setup to the personality-driven antics of the Dáil. “The Seanad is kind of cast aside. I found that the level of debate and the degree of scrutiny of legislation is far better than the Dáil. It’s structured differently and has a different political culture, it’s less about point-scoring; it’s about day-to-day activity and it’s more about a long-term vision of society and how it can be improved with the legislation you’re talking about.” The Green Party was founded in 1981. The first Green Councillor was elected in 1985 and in 1989 the party took its first seat in the Dáil. Currently the Greens have six tds in the Dail with three of them holding ministries. John Gormley is Minister for Environment, Heritage and Local Government, Eamon Ryan is Minister for Communications Energy and Natural Resources, and Trevor Sargent was appointed Minister of State for Food and Horticulture. These are impressive numbers for a relatively young party, especially in comparison with the Irish institutions that are Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael. Senator Boyle attended the Regional Technical College in Cork, the presentday cit. He studied Business Studies and followed it into accountancy but
it wasn’t long before he realised that figures were not for him, describing his change of heart as a “Damascene conversion”. He wanted to go into youth work and so completed a Community Care course in cit. Describing his time as a youth worker, Boyle says, “It’s largely working in the shadows, working at night”. His time spent working with Cork City’s youth gave him in an insight into working with different people, with local councillors, ascertaining when certain systems weren’t working and then endeavouring to find a solution. “My own local community group would’ve interacted a lot with local councillors and at the time I wasn’t very impressed, so that kind of encouraged me to get involved in a political party and to run for elections.” His experience in this area made him more aware of social problems and as such he has “always described myself as a social Green”. Small wonder, than, that while the coalition partners seem to be ad idem as regards economic issues, he candidly admits “where we have difficuty with Fianna Fáil is the social issues”. Even if they haven’t managed to promote their social agenda in government, the Greens have managed to have an influence in other areas of interest to students. One fear we’ve all had of late was the possibility of the re-introduction of college fees. However, the Greens came to the rescue of all of us grateful students and re-negotiated their programme for Government with Fianna Fáil which included a promise not to re-introduce fees. However, the question remains as to whether or not this made access to college more equal. Not everyone in this country has the option of
furthering his or her education at thirdlevel. “One of the difficulties with the free fees … is that it didn’t improve access … in fact it kind of made the social divide even worse.” Boyle says this in relation to more families sending their children to private schools for primary and secondary as they didn’t have to pay college fees later on. However, this trend is undergoing a massive change with the downturn in the
Dan Boyle in serious mode: the former accountant helped negotiate an agreement with Fianna Fail that saw the party enter government in 2007. 13
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Just as the Leinster/Munster rivalry keeps Irish rugby strong, Boyle is convinced that the divisions with the Greens are “healthy”. economy. Boyle does admit that “we have to do things as well as free fees to encourage better access” but that he doesn’t see fees being introduced within the lifetime of this government which is a comforting thought as long as a general election isn’t called before 2012. When asked if he thought there was going to be a general election in this first year of a new decade, Boyle is confident that after surviving the last six months, the Government has the strength to carry on. “I’d be very surprised if there was a general election in 2010.” It is no secret that the majority of the citizens in this country have little faith in our political leaders, but Boyle does not “have any greater confidence that any other combination of political parties would do any different or any better”. It would appear then that we’re stuck with the best of a bad bunch, as it were. Questions have often been asked about the Green Party’s alliance with Fianna Fáil. One wonders if they are sacrificing their policies in order to stay on the good side of Ireland’s most successful political party. Boyle claims that this is not the
case and professes to be “amazed at the amount of opposition spokespersons who seem to know our policies and our principles better than we do ourselves!” He dismisses the sell-out idea as a “bit of a myth”, claiming that “you have to get your feet dirty”. His justification for staying in government with those who are protecting the banks while homes all around the country fall to pieces is because the Greens are learning. “We have to learn what it is to be a government minister, we have to learn what it is to deal with civil servants and we have to learn what it is to be a party in government and not a party of opposition. These are lessons that we are learning very slowly”. The Greens are still learning the ropes and developing themselves as major players. There has been a large level of rather public dissent within the Green Party of late as a result of their choosing to go into Government with Fianna Fáil, among other issues. According to Boyle, this level of disagreement is “healthy”. He says, “There are people who have left, there are people who have joined. The people who have left is a kind of coalition of interests … nama … child benefit … that comes with being in Government. Membership has remained relatively solid”. While Boyle may be confident with the current Government and his party’s staying with them, his confidence in the National Asset Management Agency
(nama) has never been absolute. In August, as the Green Party’s financial spokesperson he said that confidence in nama would have to be “earned”. It is now January, the Government has passed the legislation and the nine-member nama Board has been announced. While Boyle has yet to give his full blessing to nama, he believes “it is the least worst of the options” — the other option being to let the banks collapse in on themselves under the burden of their toxic debt. “It’s a mechanism and all other mechanisms will involve considerable cost to the Irish tax payer. nama delays the input of the taxpayers’ money. It has a better payback over the short
Snapshot of a senator » Senator Dan Boyle is Chair of the Green Party and Deputy Leader of the Seanad. » He is 47 years old and married with one daughter, currently studying in England. » After a career in youth work in Cork City, he made his first political breakthrough in 1991 upon his election to Cork Corporation, as it was then. » A self-described “social Green”, he has gelled well with his Fianna Fáil partners in government on economic issues.
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Dan Boyle outside the Mansion House with colleagues Mary White, Trevor Sargent, Ciarán Cuffe, Eamon Ryan and Déirdre De Búrca. term. There are a lot of uncertainties especially about nationalisation.” Concerns have been raised that those chosen to oversee nama are not removed enough from the financial sector that brought the country crumbling to its economic knees as fast as Michael Fingleton picked up his infamous bonus cheque. The Greens had considerable influence in the election of the members of the board, even to the point of specifically nominating certain members, and Boyle states that those on the board were chosen because “they weren’t compromised in any way, they weren’t bankers”. He is particularly taken with its chairman, former head of the Commission on Taxation, Frank Daly: “Frank Daly is a person I have a lot of time for. His recommendations will help change our taxation system in the next number of years. He’ll be a good chair of nama.” Only time will tell if the “least worst” of the options will come good and drag us out of this economic cesspit. Increasing taxes once again after the Emergency Budget in April last year was not an option, according to Boyle. It would further stifle the economy as people would be once again less inclined to spend money. Fast forward to the Budget of December 2009 and you have a series of widespread cuts. Social welfare, child benefit, education, health… across the board, Lenihan wielded his sharp sword against our blunt economic performance with fervour. However, given the cuts
from the country’s education system, how will universities and colleges fund the vital research that could eventually restore Ireland to economic stability? Although he suspects that Ireland may have “too many universities”, Boyle agrees that education is a top priority and claims that it wasn’t hit as hard as other areas were: “Education was the one area that wasn’t hit. That was done for a reason because we feel an economic benefit and a government that cuts back on education is a society that will pay the cost for that in the long run”. As true as that is, it is not reflected in the figures. Instead of investing in Bulgarian holiday homes, we should have been investing in education, from
Only time will tell if the “least worst” of the options will come good and drag us out of this economic cesspit primary through to university level. It is safe to say that we can’t depend upon the unstable construction industry ever again. We cannot place our economic survival in the hands of an industry that is about as dependable Pete Doherty turning up to a gig sober. Boyle agrees, saying, “We are certainly not going to be dependant on the construction boom in the future”. His party supports a property tax as part of a drive towards a “wider tax base”, although it will be interesting to see whether the Green preference for
a levy based on site value will be taken on board when the tax is eventually promulgated. In true Green fashion it appears that in the long run, renewable energy is the way forward. Harnessing our wave, tidal and air power is the recycled key to economic stability. “We’ve made the pitch that in terms of renewable energy we can be a net exporter of energy and that not only can we reduce our dependence on fossil fuels with our own natural resources, we can create enough energy to sell to other countries, and not only to sell the energy but to create the hardware that’s needed to produce that energy and sell the technology that goes with it.” It seems like the obvious choice for a country as weather-focused as Ireland. We may have a sick finance minister but as Boyle says that “that’s his decision and he obviously feels well enough in himself” to carry on. What we need right now is hope and Lenihan is certainly a poster boy for having an optimistic attitude. As we begin a new decade, a new era in the government of Ireland needs to come about. The Green Party have some good, reasonable ideas and Fianna Fáil would do well to listen. The Greens may still be learning but they’re definitely travelling in the right direction (on public transport, of course). Elaine McCahill is a Junior Freshman student of English Literature and History. 15
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Politics Economy
The money malaise As the “land of a thousand welcomes” falls to its economic knees, one student casts a critical eye over those who brought this mess to our beleagured shores. by Michael Wynne
ack in 2007, before the state of all things fiscal turned manifestly rotten, Bertie Ahern, as mis-leader of the land, boldly, if unsubtly, pronounced that those whinging misery-guts forecasters who warned of a coming slide in the national fortunes should — literally — go hang their sorry selves, or find some other means of ending it all, which (according to the ever-judicious Bertie) their entire killjoy attitude would suggest they’d prefer to do in any case. Presumably, the rationale was that if only the deadwood doomsters would sweep themselves into oblivion, the path 16
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would be cleared toward a hand-rubbing grub-Utopia of collective cheerful accumulation of things, things and more things, as endless as it was blissfully mindless. This must be the most blatant, and twisted, example of reverse psychology in Irish history. What was in fact potentially suicidal (as is now humiliatingly obvious to many — or ought to be) was believing in and acting on this heartless, self-regarding vitriol (to call it rhetoric would be to dignify it obscenely). For many who did so now find themselves jobless, or living on significantly reduced means, while inhabiting, very insecurely, houses worth a great deal less than the mortgages that, in many cases, under their new and disimproved circumstances, they could not possibly live long enough to clear. Some financial advisers have taken to suggesting that those in such precarious circumstances (and there are currently around 30,000 families thus straitened) simply abandon the twin millstone of negative equity and unemployment and decamp to Australia. This situation was not helped in any way by the cutbacks in the December Budget (the most striking feature of which some of its opponents held, was its lack of imagination, as much as its lack of heart and soul), which amounted to the most deliberately contemptuous attack on the worse-off that this State
A phenomenon that could be likened to that of a group of pubescents who have discovered their genitals and can’t stop masturbating has ever perpetrated, in order to shore up the wealth of the arch-capitalists who propelled us on the road to Depression. Desperately strapped times demand desperately unethical remedies, it seems. For the first time ever, those perceived as in the generally middle-income bracket are, in effect, often struggling as seriously as society’s chronically impoverished members. “Éireann go broke”, indeed — as one New York Times headline had it in the early days of the Irish economy’s free-fall. It is beyond dispute that Bertie, Biffo and their breed — among them the head honcho bankers — are to blame for the complacent lack of foresight that led to the current state of affairs and all the distress arising naturally from it. But they’re only partly blameworthy. We — that is, ordinary citizens, or “consumers” as the economic jargon has us — went along with their principles (or lack thereof ) with blithe abandon and cannot
be entirely excused. For, at the height of the Tiger (more like Vulture) Era, it was we ourselves who were readily galvanised by the loud encouragement (with the tacit approval of the governing powers, and minimal criticism from the country’s “commentators”) to indulge our basest impulses toward Greed and Envy — words that, at the boom’s peak, at least one financial institution explicitly used in an advertising campaign as catch-phrases denoting all that is ultimately inspiring and desirable. Not that we needed encouragement. All through those ostensibly flush years, our overexcited revelling in a delusory profusion of cash was a phenomenon that could be likened to that of a group of pubescents who have discovered their genitals and can’t stop masturbating. We really were — to echo the title of a recent TV series — fatally addicted to money. This came home to me with some force a year or so before everything soured (as if overnight), when I met by chance a fellow Irishman on mainland Europe and, within moments of our maiden (and only) conversation, he automatically began talking about the property he owned back in Offaly — as if it went without saying that this was the one thing that legitimised his existence. Now, many have realised that their scramble to get onto that once muchvaunted property ladder has turned into an unwitting leap from an upper rung with a neck-noose securely in place — in purely financial terms, of course. For what many are also realising is a thing D.H. Lawrence once pointed out in his exhilaratingly direct way — that whether we speak about money or property, it’s all the same. Elsewhere, the same writer says,
“Nothing, not even the most fanatical dogmas of an iron-bound religion, can insulate us from the inrush of life and inspiration, as money can”. That this sentiment seems to us like the last word in eccentricity shows how low we’ve come in our uncritical embrace of the money madness: it’s become something more than second nature to us — just as much through bad times, as through apparently good. Perhaps it’s not too much to hope that a fresh generation will be immune — or, at least, less immediately susceptible — to the insane tyranny of the Money God, and that it might, somehow, be more equipped to develop the kind of critical objectivity that fosters foresight and eliminates complacency: in other words, that it cultivates the kind of self-sufficiency that makes money the secondary, purely functional thing that it is, or should be. It has to be said, however, that so deep and widespread is the monetary disease that there is scarcely a soul who
This must be the most blatant, and twisted, example of reverse psychology in Irish history is untainted by it. In the midst of mass acquisition, the inconvenient critical faculty tends to wither and when this happens the subsequent terrain invariably turns into a pretty dimly lit moral and mental minefield. In an early edition of the latest season of The Late Late Show, while plugging his “autobiography” (knocked together, apparently, by some American academic), Bertie did his usual grubby, simpering, shoulder-shrugging, arse-shuffling, eye-welling routine, with the familiar fund of “lovable” man-of-the-people platitudes and dim-witted, “Sure amn’t I just the same as yous”-style banter. Sadly, if predictably, the studio audience (not to mention the host) fell for it wholesale. Little was said about his own personal shady dealings, and nothing about how he shamefully misled us before stepping aside as taoiseach — just in the nick of time, before the going got messy and the fiscal quagmire began to thicken and spread. As round after round of applause broke out, it was hard not to imagine that the former premier sat there repeating, in his famously cunning mind, “Suckers!” — a marginally less harsh word than rat, the term of affection used for him behind his back during his time as leader, even by some of his FF colleagues. Not that they could talk. Michael Wynne is a postgraduate student in the School of English. 17
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Hot
Dior Homme creates a seductive line that could make our men look good. If only they could afford it.
Sienna Miller reinvents the festival look with bohemian chic at Glastonbury.
Beckham’s faux hawk attracted more headlines than his football skills.
The irrepressible Ugg boot. Unfortunately taken over by D4 heads sporting juicy couture. Ouch.
Not ‘00
‘01
‘02
‘03
‘04
History Fashion
The highs and lows of Noughties fashion by sarah-kate geraghty
I
started out the decade a surly teenager. One day I was shown a copy of Vogue and glimpsed, blinking and bewildered, the aspirational world of fashion. From that moment onwards I was seized with a passion for fashion that hasn’t gone away and hasn’t done my bank account any favours. But having dragged myself through a decade that saw the rise and fall (and rise again) of the wag alongside Kate Moss, I look back and wonder whether there really was a defining look of the Noughties? The Sixties had bouffant hair on the one hand and hippy chic on the other, the Seventies saw men’s hair and beards grow out of all proportion, the Eighties was all about big shoulders and even bigger hair, while the Nineties saw us shrinking back to minimalism. But what can we say about the Noughties? Nothing instantly springs to mind — and yes, I have spent the best part of the decade thumbing my way through fashion mags
in a youthful and somewhat deluded search for inspiration. It took me a while to realise that the Marc Jacobs Spring/ Summer collection, on a Penneys budget, might not necessarily translate well to the dancefloor in Wezz. While previous decades have had a definitive look, this one saw designers picking and choosing from previous decades, like magpies looking for anything shiny and sparkly to feather their nests. This is a decade that started out with combats and belly tops and has ended with jeggings and long tops. The sad part is that, looking back, only the more hideous trends spring to mind – Crocs being a particular offender. Yes, they may be practical and indeed admirable footwear when worn out crocodile hunting in Florida, but they take on a whole new level of hideousness when worn by a hoard of mothers and their children as they do the weekly shop. It might be cute for little Oisin, Saffron and Tristan to all wear shoes
that match Mummy’s — but that doesn’t make them right! Further to this we grew accustomed to the sight of identikit teenage girls kitted out in Uggs. I admit they are incredibly comfortable but as to overall style it’s debatable. Lets just say that they probably have Christian Dior spinning in his grave. However this was also the decade that saw heels grow ever higher and more unmanageable. People literally drooled over Louboutin shoes and Manolo Blahnick became a byword for sophistication thanks to Carrie Bradshaw et al. Turning my attention briefly to the domain known as “Men’s Fashion”. Trends in this area saw the rise and rise of the metrosexual. Who knew in the early exciting days of 2000 that we would actually be watching ads for male moisturiser, telling people to recharge and refresh, by 2009? Who knew that David Beckham would bring us the faux hawk? Ah the faux hawk… rebel hair for
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The ultimate shoe fetish. I’ll never get back those hours spent ogling at them in Brown Thomas.
Ahh the Birkin bag... every girl’s fantasy with a waiting list of ten years. Posh has one in every colour.
Hot
Power shoulders, bodycon, sequins... yes ladies, the Eighties are back with a venegance. Embrace your inner Madonna. Crocs. Originally designed as a spa shoe. NOT to be worn outdoors with socks. In fact, resist the temptation to wear them full stop. ‘05
‘06
the decidedly non-rebellious. An indecisive hair cut if ever there was one. Somewhere between punk and office friendly it sat happily with neither, disappointing the real punks out there and only mildly annoying your boss. One we will happily and hopefully leave behind. On the other hand Dior Homme brought us a range of slim line suits for men, so it wasn’t all bad! As we roared through the decade on the back of the Celtic Tiger, fashion in Ireland veered ever more wildly towards blingin’ bags, blingin’ hair and blingin’ tans. The bigger the bag and hair, and the more orange the tan, the better. The economic boom has a lot to answer for when it comes to the rise of the It-Bag and competitive shopping. Just to say you were on the waiting list in Brown Thomas for the Birkin bag in the latest shade of brown had a lot more to do with the desirability of the item than any real fashionable aspirations. And yes, for some people knowing that they were buying a bag that Victoria Beckham owns — one in every colour apparently — was the greatest draw. Anyhow, I digress. Sienna Miller — back in the more innocent days when she was engaged to Jude Law and before he slept with the nanny — ushered in boho-chic one sunny hazy afternoon at Glastonbury. Gypsy skirts, gillets, long blonde hair à la Brigitte Bardot coupled with the vague feeling that the wearer probably hadn’t
‘07 washed in a while because they were too busy tying love beads in their hair, epitomised this look. Of course it was killed off as soon as everyone’s Mum decided that they liked the look of those comfy gypsy skirts. In contrast to this, designers brought the “Lady” back into fashion. High collars, lace and bows adorned every conceivable shirt, skirt, jacket and dress. Surprisingly Margaret Thatcher was
It took me a while to realise that Marc Jacobs Spring/ Summer collection, on a Penneys budget, might not necessarily translate well to the dancefloor in Wezz cited by some as an inspiration for this look. Who knew the Iron Lady could conquer fashion? As an antidote to all this delicate frippery, fashion drifted inexorably towards power dressing. Just when you thought it was safe to say you would never be bothered by a padded shoulder again, they were back with a vengence. While people in the know liked to call this new version of the padded shoulder “architectural”, “structural” or “dramatic” it’s still a padded shoulder, and it has dragged us further back into an eighties time warp than any recession ever could.
‘08
Not ‘09
To say that fashion has borrowed heavily from the Eighties throughout the latter part of the decade would be an under-statement. Indeed it would do the resurgence in this fashion almost an injustice. Neon brights, leggings, midheight heels and hair dressers gently trying to persuade us that big hair is back. All indicators of how quickly people forget the fashion crimes of the past decades and make them their own again. This brings me back to my original point — how can we recognise a discernable style characterising this decade when fashion has borrowed so heavily from the past? We have had everything from diamante strewn displays of excess wealth to home grown hippy style, with Uggs in between. An indecisive decade if ever there was one. But it did give us more scope for creavity, at this point no one will look twice if you decide to take Doyle’s by storm dressed as a punk going to visit their granny, its all cool! Essentially the need to conform religiously has evaporated over the past ten years. This is something I wish my teenage self had known at the time, but hey the early years are all about learning and we have learnt a lot in the early years of the 21st century — mainly that it is now alright to wear black with navy. May the shopping and the creativity continue! Sarah-Kate Geraghty is a Senior Sophister student of Law. 19
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Politics
Proceed with caution The Noughties have been and gone, leaving only a legacy of broken promises, war and fanaticism in their wake. by Matthew Martin
H
ere we stand, at the turn of the decade. The end of those naughty years spent, for me at least, growing through those awkward phases from the age of ten to twenty. Through terror plots and invasions and global summits and assassination attempts, successes and failures, the suicide of public figures and the warmongering of authorities both right and left. Through the second-phase explosion of the multimedia age in the form of the internet. Through the social networking and video-streaming that has so transformed our lives and positively defined the coming age of generation Y. And every newspaper in the December month of 2009 had a magazine devoted to “the Noughties” that recapped, in a concise photograph and blurb couplet, the sum of all that the decade had to throw at us. The Big Picture in pictures, and short, digestible paragraphs. Early in the decade, the word “chav” brawled its way into the Oxford English Dictionary under a new meaning, loosely translating as a lower-class, uneducated and ignorant individual. Tony Blair’s New Labour government was seen by many to have failed to deliver on its three-worded mandate of “education, education, education”. We did, after all, need a new word to describe these uneducated delinquents — such was their uniformity and population. That government had perhaps been distracted in its endeavour. What with devolving power to Europe, Stormont, Hollyrood and the Welsh parish council and with various mini-wars to get into and out of, it forgot about the poor children. But cue events, dear boy: the globalisation of a new one-way pilgrimage for some brainwashed individuals, suicidal terrorism served as the carpet under which all of these minor
domestic issues could be swept and in arrived these new times of heightened insecurity. Just as the UK had pacified a fantastically extended internal terrorist threat of one kind, in July of 2007 its capital was attacked by an internal threat borne of a completely different nature; one with an even longer history and an even more fundamental motivation, all wrapped up in Islam. The pre-recorded videos of these newly deceased headcases spouted all over the news just days after they decided to blow themselves up along with 52 other commuters. I got the day off school early and walked back to a friend’s house to see that red bus-top ripped open. Repeated scenes of people walking from smoking train stations with bandaged and bleeding heads, reciting their dazed and disbelieving accounts of what had happened that morning, surrounded by chaos and body bags. It didn’t seem real. Throughout 9/11: the Big the decade, hunPicture of the dreds of similarly Noughties? suicidal events occurred all across the globe and the ones that didn’t succeed got foiled or failed. And on Christmas Day of 2009, to round off the decade’s craziness, the zeitgeist of which really began on September 11th 2001, a 23-year-old former UCL student by the name of Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab strapped a bomb to his leg and tried to take out a plane mid-flight en route from Amsterdam to Detroit. Upon interview, he warned of the countless others who would follow in his footsteps to fulfil his task, and succeed where he had failed. Someone once told me that what you’re doing as the New Year rolls in is
in someway reflective of how that year is going to go for you. Personally, after the clocks struck twelve I was swiftly removed from the club I was in and forced to spend the remainder of the night making temporary friends outside, in sub-zero conditions. Damn smoking ban. No longer can I smoke to my heart’s discontent in a public place. And as time passes on who knows what I will or will not be able to do to my heart’s discontent without further intervention from authorities with whom I completely disagree. I couldn’t escape reality in those humming minimalist beats until time passed long into the afternoon of the 1st. Instead I was out in the streets of Shoreditch, listening to TJ from Bolivia talk about his hombres and how if I come to Boleeevia he will protect me as he knows everyone and everyone knows him. We talked about how to defend oneself in volatile situations, direct combat, and we picked people from the crowd of fellow humans and considered what to do in order to dismantle their particular stances. Pilled-up people will talk about anything, forever. By this stage of the night, around seven in the morning BMT, 93 people had been killed in a suicide bombing in Pakistan, and the radical leader of a group called Islam4uk was writing to the relatives of dead British soldiers, urging them to convert to Islam or face hellfire. The island was about to be coated in ice from head to toe and the prime-minister was to suffer the embarrassment of a second coup to remove him from his position of power. I don’t know what there is to look forward to in this coming decade. I remember sitting at a bar in an airport watching the private-sector news channel stream live information — the Copenhagen climate talks had collapsed into cataclysmic disarray, the rioters fighting police outside, the protesters inside marching at a steady pace, the whole façade failing to come up with any extended declaration on carbon emission aspirations, let alone a mandatory treaty on long term plans for anything at all. Meanwhile there were severe weather warnings out all across Ireland and the UK, Ireland having been flooded from Cork to Kill, and Luton and Gatwick airports forced to shut down due to the snow. And everywhere was having the wettest, the coldest, the superlative everything on record. It had been every year for a few years now, and, it’s expected, for a few years to come. Matthew Martin is a Senior Freshman student of Mental and Moral Science.
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Philosophy recreation
New Year’s resolutions are bad for you Spent December in a stupor of food, drink and partying? Instead of killing yourself to achieve unrealistic goals, make those resolutions work for you. by Christiane O’Mahony
C
hristmas has come and gone again, with its happy clutter of parties, dinners, and reunions. Every year it seems surprising how quickly January arrives, an unwelcome visitor calling a reluctant end to the festive season. I think there is a mental block about December. It’s as if Christmas is too precious to be quantified simply in terms of a day count. I prefer the heightened drama of “Happy Christmas, see you next decade” to “Happy Christmas, see you next week”. I am a slow beginner in January, and even now I am still rooting around for the last of the Christmas chocolates, staying up past my bedtime, wearing my pyjamas all day and feeling extremely disappointed that there aren’t back-toback movies on all day. It’s hangover time. January is, for the earnest, a time of self improvement. A brand spanking new year, with a new diary and a new calendar, and then you think “I say,
why not a new me too?” A me that gets up early, jogs at dawn, grows my own herbs, and enjoys a solitary after dinner chocolate before putting the box away. A me that doesn’t stalk boys I fancy on Facebook and instead reads the paper each day and writes quirky intelligent blogs and listens to interesting podcasts and does a sun salutation each morning and no coffee after 4 p.m. plus no carbs after 7 p.m. and and and... We can wax lyrical about our endless flaws and shortcomings; we are experts on the subject. The most common New Year’s resolutions are, unsurprisingly, to lose weight, get fit, quit smoking, be more charitable, be more organised, get out of debt. If you google it, there are thousands of sites dedicated to making your resolutions work this year. The fitness and health industry cash in on this tradition. ‘Tis the season to be sorry. But research shows that only 12% of people actually stick to their resolutions. Apparently, men tend to fail because
their goals are overambitious, and could benefit from making more concrete and specific goals. Whereas women tend to fail because they keep quiet about their resolutions and therefore don’t get the encouragement they need to succeed, particularly when they slip up. It all started out with the Romans God Janus; the god of beginnings and the guardian of doors and entrances. He was depicted with two faces, one on the front of his head and one on the back. Thus he could look backward and forward at the same time. At midnight on December 31st, the Romans imagined Janus looking back at the old year and forward to the new. Perhaps for the Janus-inspired, well adjusted minority, the new year is a time when you can reflect in a healthy way and resolve in a realistic way. If you are not a Roman god, it can lead to what psychologists would call counterfactual thinking. The “what if” syndrome. What if I had worked harder, saved more, drank less etc. But research shows that this type of thinking can lead to negative affective states like regret, dissatisfaction and envy, which, in turn, can strongly colour perceptions and judgments, causing people to perceive situations in less favorable terms (e.g., as riskier or less promising) than would otherwise be the case. So thinking about how much fitter you would be if you had joined a gym this time last year makes you feel unhappy, which, in turn, makes you perceive the idea of joining a gym this year in a negative way. You think “Well, I’m never going to stick to it anyway”. So now that there is scientific proof that the guilt doesn’t work, why not put the whip away and do something different this year. Ditch the New Year’s resolutions, and with them, the feelings of guilt and personal inadequacy. What about a New Year’s vice instead? This year I’m going to sleep in more, sleep around more, watch more trashy TV, enjoy myself instead of feeling guilty, make more mistakes, think and worry less, stop trying to be nice and be naughty instead (Santa surely has gone off duty for a while). I recently came across a quote: “I believe you should live each day as if it is your last,” (this is generally where they suggest that you should dance and sing in deranged abandon, but this one says) “which is why I don’t have any clean laundry, because, come on, who wants to wash clothes on the last day of their life?” So here’s wishing you a fat, sleepy and happy 2010! Christiane O’Mahony is a Senior Sophister student of Psychology. 21
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recreation review
Ireland’s six stabs at reality TV gold With Big Brother setting the viewing standard for some truly gripping, if cringe-worthy, moments, this has undoubtedly been the decade of reality TV. Time to reflect on some home-grown contributions to the genre. by Domhnall O’SULLIVAN
1
Celebrity Farm Broadcast in 2003, rté’s answer to I’m a Celebrity… Get Me Out of Here! replaced Ant and Dec with future mep Mairead McGuinness, Jordan with Twink, and the tropical rainforests of Australia with a rural farmhouse in Wicklow. Despite the usual cheesy Irish format (contestants were not simply “voted out”, they were “turfed out”) and the unashamedly C-list celebs (the winner was Fair City’s George McMahon, “Mondo” for anyone that watches it) the
show did exactly what a reality TV show is designed to do — disgust the critics while hooking the viewers and tabloids. In other words, although it was a shite excuse for what used to pass as entertainment, the week-long series produced enough drama in the shape of drug stories, in-farm conflict, mental breakdowns and even accusations of perversion to shock yet keep enthralled viewers throughout the country. A resounding success which set the precedent for Irish reality TV shows to come.
2
The Restaurant The longest-running Irish reality TV show (boasting seven series to its name) has throughout the years continued to produce a stream of culinarily keen celebrities to undertake the role of head chef for a day. It has also managed to maintain a steady viewership, no mean feat for a show in which phrases such as “braised lamb shank”, “black truffle sauté” and “chocolate fruisillade” are bandied about with reckless frequency. Perhaps what
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has kept us watching is the enjoyably disdainful wisdom of resident critic Paolo Tullio, who has inspired many an Irishman to complain to his wife that “the spuds seem to be lacking in textural depth today, Mary”. Or perhaps it is the satisfaction of watching someone like Enda Kenny receive a shite score of 2 out of 5. Either way, The Restaurant continues to go from strength to strength.
3
Cabin Fever Those who questioned the idea of challenging ten people with absolutely no nautical experience to sail a creaky old schooner around the Irish coastline were spectacularly vindicated when the vessel was shipwrecked off the coast of Donegal just two weeks into the series. A clear case of reality television going too far, but nevertheless a media hit, with tabloid headlines rejoicing unreservedly at the ironic fact that the accident occurred on Friday the 13th. rté doggedly decided to continue the show using a replacement boat, but although ratings remained high following the initial excitement, we were all secretly disappointed when the voyage was successfully completed. Or maybe that was just me.
ranging from the gorgeous Glenda Gilson to the gorgeous Marty Whelan faced with the challenge of taking over as bain-
“the spuds seem to be lacking in textural depth today, Mary” isteoirí of various gaa club teams around the country. In yet another nod to the fact that we clearly revel in watching foolhardy celebrities fail at impossible tasks, the show, won by Whelan, was another huge success. Such a success that a second series was recently screened to similar audience figures last, Derek Davis taking the honours this time around. An entertaining mix of non-sporting public personas and sport.
6
The Apprentice After gameshow formats such as Who Wants To Be A Millionaire? and The Weakest Link had,
let’s face it, flopped after being imported to Irish stations, tv3 took a considerable risk in producing and broadcasting an Irish version of The Apprentice. But despite the probability that neither Donald Trump nor Alan Sugar have ever heard of Bill Cullen, the show was yet another reality TV success. Middle-class Irish audiences used the business savoir-faire instilled during the years of the Celtic Tiger to put themselves in Bill’s chair and berate Sarah’s “organisational underperformance” or Mark’s “commercial awareness”. So although most of you have probably forgotten last year’s winner already (it was English Steve), The Apprentice has basked in consistently solid viewership figures and an unoriginal yet reliable format. Like Big Brother except not pointless. Domhnall O’Sullivan is a Senior Sophister student of European Studies.
4
Fáilte Towers With a million viewers reported to have tuned in to watch the final episode, the 2008 show, presented by the annoyingly nice Aidan Power and the flamboyantly annoying Baz Ashmawy, was another solid success for rté. The unique format, which involved placing 13 celebrities in charge of a county Louth hotel for a fortnight, sounded unfortunately mundane at first. But a motley crew of hen parties, strippers, homesick Japanese tourists and rampant nudists provided more than enough problems to make eventual winner John Creedon and co. make John Cleese look like a model hotelier. The mandatory mental breakdowns were of course supplied, the tears this time coming courtesy of ex-Eurovision hopefuls Donna and Joseph McCaul, as well as Michelle Heaton and rté weather’s own Evelyn Cusack. In short, exactly the type of entertainment that we like to see on the box on a Tuesday evening, and a show format that has since been deemed worthy of interest by several overseas production companies.
5
Celebrity Bainisteoir In the words of one of the shows producers, another “uniquely Irish family entertainment programme”. Series one was aired in 2008, with eight celebrities
Hooky put his experience with the oval ball to good use as a celebrity bainisteoir. 23
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Culture reCreation
Restoring the Wren Recalling the festive fun of Wren Day in her native Longford, our beloved deputy editor decides to educate the Dubs and calls for Wren Day in the streets of the capital. by aOiFe O’reilly
P
eople from Dublin, in my general experience, don’t know of nor go on the Wren. This saddens me, as it’s quite fun. If you want to do it right, going on the Wren involves dressing up in old raggedy clothes and covering your face with paint or a scarf. It’s kind of like Hallowe’en in December. You and your mates thus proceed to travel around all the nearby houses and sing at the occupants until they give you money. Extortion, really. I love it, despite the fact I may be considered a tad too old for such shenanigans. Sadly a lot of the younger kids around my homeplace in Longford have lost interest. Unlike Hallowe’en, when it is generally accepted you should only go out once it gets dark, Wren boys and girls may be expected to call at any point during the day. However, while I was preparing during the day I only had two Wren girls come calling. They didn’t even dress up. They didn’t sing carols or Christmas songs, only modern ones.
Wren Day rundown celebrated on the 26th of December, Wren Day is believed tohave originated in pagan traditions. Druids would use the wren to foretell the future and in some legends the wren betrays the Irish to Viking invaders. Originally a wren would be hunted, stuck on top of a pole and the event celebrated by the “mummers” or wrenboys. Nowadays Wren Day is a unisex event, the wren is fake if present at all and the whole thing seems to be about having a laugh and hitting people up for a few quid.
Not that that’s a problem, but they didn’t even know the words to half of them. So I gave them a little bit of money and then set my dog on them. As you may have gathered, the weather at home was pretty extreme this year. It snowed once or twice for a while and the temperature dropped so much it didn’t melt. But it was a strange kind of snow. It refused to compress and stick together no matter how much you squashed it. The general temperature was so low that the diesel froze in the tank of our car — and yes, we did have antifreeze in the diesel. It just wasn’t strong enough to deal with the very low temperatures this year. All the salt was bought up out of the nearby shops as was most of the coal, briquettes and wood. So we had to chop down a tree and use it instead. I’m not saying whose tree it was *cough* Coillte *cough*. With all this in mind, perhaps I am being a little cruel. It may be that the weather drove many would-be Wrenners back indoors. But it didn’t stop us. Oh no. This year the disguises involved eyeliner — good for creating fake facial hair on a guy, as well as making him scream when you prod him in the eye by accident. It involved all those neon eye shadows that were so “in” during that whole rave revival thing. Buyer’s remorse troubled us no more. It involved black, red and purple lipstick. At the same time. On the same face. It involved the clothes you wear to bring in the coal and play with the dog. I finally broke out those huge, ridiculous Abba platform shoes that my mother wanted me to wear to my first disco. Then I nearly broke my neck on the ice, so I gave them to my sister and wore a pair of hobnail steelcap boots instead. Paired with a ratty scarf to
cover my face and oil-stained jeans, I was good to go. My sister reverted to the neon ages and produced articles of clothing so acidic in colour they left afterimages on my retina. Teamed with a black balaclava it was a winning combination. My cousin — and his guitar — used eyeliner and lipstick, as I mentioned earlier. He seemed to secretly enjoy it. That and the exceptionally tight leather trousers. Plus beanie hat and Fagan-esque fingerless gloves, of course. I changed my dog’s normal collar to a studded black one and off we went. I think we did well because we left it for so long. People hit the bottle during the day and got all generous. That and the fact my dog was snarling. It’s her play-thing, but only we knew that. So after we did all the houses in the village, we hit the pub. That was fun. They thought we were hired entertainment and stared at us when we went around rattling the collection can. Then they re-
Yes, we have two pubs for a population of less than 150 alised what we were and thought it was great and were happy to give us stuff. We got free drinks as well as money. There isn’t even a word for how great that was. So then we went to the other pub. The road was pure ice, so we attempted to create a sleigh out of cardboard. It failed. So all three of us climbed onto the one-seater go-cart and got my dog to pull us along. That may sound like animal cruelty, but I was pushing from behind so she wasn’t doing all the work. By the way, yes, we have two pubs for a population of less than 150. The second pub is an ancient establishment heated by a massive black boiler in the corner. There, the people — mostly old men — were even happier to see young people out. More coins for us. But we felt a little uncomfortable receiving money from old people. Yes, some of them have thousands of euro stashed in biscuit tins under the mattress. But others can barely afford to keep their houses warm. So we left and went rambling again in random directions. The cold provided amusement in itself as we all kept slipping and sliding and — on one memorable occasion — had to try and drag the go-cart out of a deep trench. As I said, I think Wren Day should be reintroduced in Dublin. Just imagine the logistics of collecting from so many houses/pubs and retrieving a go-cart out of the canal. Aoife O’Reilly is a Senior Freshman student of Science.
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Culture
Self help or no help? As we usher in a new decade, we are encouraged to usher in a new version of ourselves too. One student examines the plague that is self-help books. By Ryan Kenny
I
’ve noticed that there always seems to be a lot of those “self-help” books floating around at this time of year. Surely that’s a misnomer though, isn’t it. I mean, how could they be “selfhelp” books, I didn’t write any of them, so surely its “Someone-else-help”. But whatever they’re called, they tend to poke their heads out again around this time of year. You know the sort, the ones that mysteriously appear on a side table one morning, filling a space you were sure was filled by that half eaten box of chocolates when you went to bed last night; the ones that seduce you with their promises, that whisper sweet nothings in your ear. “Anything is possible” they tell you “I’ll make all your dreams come true” they tell you. And, for a while you get swept away in the heady rush of it all, you get sucked into their world, dazzled by the promises of fame, fortune, power… and then you wake up one morning half way through January and find that you’re alone in a motel room with a note telling you she’s actually married and has a family in Florida (or that you’re still a slob and have been watching far too much daytime TV). I’ve realised that since they really don’t actually do anything at all, except leave you to rot on a bed of broken promises and shattered dreams, these books can be divided up depending on how they go about distracting you from this fact. The more common types are the
If you want something, ask for it, and believe that you will get it, the universe will give it to you. There. Easy as that infuriatingly upbeat motivational ones. If they were people, these books would always be too happy to see you, and would always talk too loud and make every sentence an exclamation!, generally saying annoyingly encouraging things at you in an American aerobics instructor’s voice; like: “You can do it!” and “Way to go! Keep it up!”. You know, the sort of
people who leave you with the kind of slight buzzing headache you get after six cups of coffee. These are the books that have titles like “YOU Can Change YOUR Life NOW”. They have calendars and checklists and ten point plans and goal charts and weekly assessment charts and just generally enough paper work to stop you realising you’re not actually doing anything for at least a month. The other type is more unusual, but far more interesting. These are the books that promise to impart some sort of mystical wisdom. My favourite of these is The Secret. First of all, what a fantastic piece of marketing, I mean, who hasn’t defrauded a small child with that one before? “I’ll tell you a really cool secret if you give me your money”. Unfortunately not even my youngest cousins fall for that one any more, but apparently millions of Americans did. They bought 16 million copies of the thing. For those of you were lucky enough not to have been enlightened before now, here it is. The Secret, not just any old lower case secret now, but THE SECRET, entirely free of charge. If you want something, ask for it, and believe that you will get it, the universe will give it to you. There. Easy as that. Just order it up, and the Great Invisible Waiter will deliver it straight to your table. Like all branches of mysticism,it has a small group of “believers” who can explain away any failure of their particular system. Unlike the other books they don’t try to hide the fact that you aren’t really accomplishing anything, they just say that, if it’s not working you’re obviously not doing it right. What’s that? You didn’t win the lotto and cure cancer yesterday before lunch you say? And you asked for the sauce on the side? Ah yes, you clearly
didn’t want it enough, you didn’t believe enough, you didn’t think positively enough. What a load of bollocks. It’s funny though, because things like that do happen every once in a while. I remember one night last year I was walking home from a night out with a friend. It was a cold night and she said she wished she had a coat, clearly mistaking me for the kind of guy who likes to go to the trouble of buying a coat, wearing it, putting it in a cloakroom, and then walking home without it. Luckily, my extreme lack of chivalry went unnoticed, because, not two minutes later, three guys walked around a Dr Phil: the king corner going the of the self-help other way, and one industry. of them just said “Here’s a coat” and handed her a spare coat he was carrying. Why he had it or why he gave it to her I have no idea. I found myself doing something similar on New Years Eve when I opened my back gate expecting some friends, and instead found some chap I had never laid eyes on in my life. He said he had been on his way into town for New Years and heard the party from the Luas stop and wondered if he could come in. I opened my mouth to mutter something about a private party, but instead found myself handing him a drink and telling him to come on in. I have no idea why I did it, or who he was for that matter, but he was the talk of the party for about two hours and then disappeared again. So maybe it can’t quite manage world peace, but I suppose optimism never hurt anyone, and believe it or not, every once in a while something good actually happens. Ryan Kenny is a a Senior Freshman student of Philosophy, Political Science, Economics and Sociology. 25
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CULTURE review
The golden age of radio Despite the unstoppable march of television, the seemingly marginal position of radio in modern society has allowed it to become far more entrenched in our daily lives. by Jean Morley
alk to Joe on…” As soon as the maudlin Irish reel takes over the airwaves, you know it’s time to wolf down your sandwich, switch off the television, and settle down to an afternoon of national complaints. Adore or abhor him, Joe Duffy has become the nation’s ombudsman, questioning everything from balloting teachers with a licence to spend to Tesco security tags, to my personal favourite, over-eager buskers playing on the dart. “Well Joe, there might have been a tune in the accordion, but he certainly couldn’t find it”. Although I’m on Team Joe myself, he’s not so much an isolated media giant as shining example of a certain style of media talent littering Irish radio. Marian Finucane, Cork’s Neil Prendeville and the ever-popular Ray D’Arcy, each one is an everyman appealing to those who won’t get heard elsewhere and certainly not by their local council office. Now Joe does a great line in sympathetic “mmms” and “aaahs”, but it isn’t merely the personality of the radio presenter which engages the listener and coaxes him to confess. In Ireland, it is radio itself which talks a human truth. Radio has the ability, far more than TV or print, to interrogate our day to day lives. Unconvinced? Forget your Prime Time, your Frontline and swish young rté reporters doorstepping bankers on evening TV. Switch on the telly at
around half past Joe — sorry, two — and ask (in your best Joe-brogue), “What’s the story?” An off-season Oprah is handing out fridges to overjoyed audiences, good neighbours are becoming good friends and, meanwhile, Away in a Home, more children are being integrated into Irene’s family. But, moving Brayside, rather than Bayside, while Bláthnaid and Anna taste-test mince pies and ogle over dresses, the most difficult questions they will ask about the country are likely to be in their phone-in quiz. (Hint: answer C, the capital of Ireland is indeed Dublin, but a shockingly high number of callers will race to the phone before reading the question correctly and answer D, Ireland. They will also forget to ask the billpayer’s permission.) Although we might question the sanctity and the sanity of the subjects discussed on daytime radio, producers include the unpalatable, presenters say what cannot be said and peer into people’s lives to the point of intrusion. Meanwhile, the only thing current about Irish daytime TV are the raisins that The Afternoon Show chefs fling into their cake mixture. One programme attracting a
considerable amount of attention for its public agenda is The Ray D’Arcy Show on Today FM. D’Arcy has slid into the role of fairy godfather, helping listeners realise dreams of romance and love. Duties have included acting as a (re)matchmaker, uniting a man with a woman he chatted up whilst travelling on the Aircoach and steering people to show gratitude to their spouse in his recent “Big Christmas Thank You”. But lest Ray be considered a presenter of tales of bland “human interest”, his recent social services has generated considerable controversy. When a mother in Dublin sought Ray’s help in tracking down the father of her newborn child, the “Copperface Jacks mystery father” she met in Ray D’Arcy, the the club, listenfairy godfather of ers worried about Today FM. threats to her personal privacy and the future life of her child. Even more radical was the show’s recent “Sexperiment”, when, following an interview with a prominent psychologist, Ray and co-host Jenny urged listeners to have more sex with their partners. The results were
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unprecedented, with the Irish Daily Mirror reporting in September that nearly 30 Irish women saw their pregnancies as directly influenced by the stars’ advice. There has been considerable pubtalk over the ethics of reality TV and its Susan Boyle fairytales but surprisingly little debate over reality radio. All that’s certain is the demise of the radio announcer who gently introduces chart hits to an apathetic listenership. Here to stay is the kind of radio presenter who not only engenders new attitudes, but very possibly, a new generation of children. Admittedly radio has always been a dynamic medium, but there are valid reasons it is becoming lodged in the Irish social sphere. Clare Duignan, managing director of rté Radio, argues that radio is “embedded in the Irish psyche”. Maybe she’s right; as our potholes will testify, we’re a nation of talkers relieving problems by chat. But more than this, radio appeals to a battered, recessionary Irish psyche. Considering Duignan’s announcement this week that that daytime radio listening is up 87% in the past year, talktime radio is feeling the benefits of recent economic events. A few years ago, studies were carried out into the listening habits of British housewives, with the Radio Advertising Bureau announcing that an overwhelming majority tuned into commercial radio each week. These days, we can substitute the unemployed or redundant man or woman for the monied housewife, the lady listening as she goes about her work for those out of a job and dealing with the distress of a radically altered lifestyle. Recent radio must become socially aware if it is to appeal to a more varied, but also, world-weary listenership. Much of the power of radio lies in its ability to be both omnipresent and invisible, at once. Like a copy of the Metro, it injects free snippets of information into our day, but unlike printed news, it doesn’t remain strewn across park benches until someone picks it up. It is inconspicuous and informative, a propagandist’s dream, seeping into our lives in unnoticeable ways. Commuting from work, queuing in shops, making conversation with taxi drivers at the end of a night; radio is rarely central to our thoughts, but quietly focuses some part of the brain. Also, the fact that radio only partially reveals identity, acquainting us with an individual’s voice but little else, makes it a medium through which people are most happy to discuss themselves. While it’s difficult to imagine a guest discussing their std on Irish television, it sounds like standard fodder for
Radio Gaga: people are turning to the cheap entertainment of the radio as the economy sours. a phone-in show. The revolutionary role of radio will be familiar to those alive during the heyday of pirate stations, or those alive after the shambolic film The Boat That Rocked. It might be a failed exercise in nostalgia, but the one thing the film does well is the glorious art of the video montage. The park, the schoolroom, the loo, there is nowhere immune to the force of the radio, but it is a force amplified by the
a mother in Dublin sought Ray’s help in tracking down the father of her newborn child, the “Copperface Jacks mystery father” DJ’s location somewhere off-land. The message is simple: radio has a power in direct proportion to its peripheral relation to everyday life. Should the DJs be forced to moor inland, cut their hair and conform to conservative Britain, the popularity of the station could never survive.
With radio’s great tradition of mystery in mind, it is fascinating to consider the recent direction of radio on this island. As programmes become more centrally located in listeners’ lives, can the medium sustain its sociological bent? The focus on realism has repercussions for imaginative work; apart from the odd late night radio play, new Irish dramatists can expect very little airtime in 2010. These days, people want validation from the media around them and producers noticing these trends can expect to do well. David Tighe, managing director of Dublin’s newest station, Radio Nova, announced plans for the station’s 2010 launch last weekend. If he carries out his promise to “talk to, rather than at, the listener”, we can expect a new minister in the Church of Joe and yet another station profiting from gold-plated social service. Jean Morley is a Senior Sophister student of English Studies. 27
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sport philosophy
An openside’s manifesto, or, why cheating is OK In certain sports, pain is gain; inflicting just a little of it on the opposition is all part of rugby’s rich tapestry. Henry’s handball, on the other hand, was just plain dirty. by Dominic Gallagher
re there moral absolutes in rugby? This question troubled me as I lay at the bottom of a ruck with a couple of well-fed props on top of me. I had just cheated, illegally handling the ball in the ruck, before being smashed, and, faced with the possibility of some quiet, reflective time, I decided to ponder the morality of my actions. I have often made the excuse when charged with cursing on the field by my dear mother that sport isn’t real life, and so generally accepted views of morality don’t actually apply. Sport, my argument goes, is a bubble where artificial rules exist. The act of touching the ball down at one end of the pitch has no relationship with gaining five points and feeling elated. If we can create these rules that allow such huge outbursts of joy and 28
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sadness then surely we can take away some of the rules that dictate how we go about achieving them. To avoid justifying gladiator-style death matches it is necessary to add a condition. Sport is anything that both sides of the opposition can participate in repeatedly. American football allows high tackles, while rugby doesn’t; both have imposed different views of morality. UFC allows punching on the ground, boxing doesn’t. This shows that no conduct is wrong in sport except what goes against the rules of the sport. But having just broken these rules, I thought miserably about how my chances of getting on heaven’s First XV had faded (what would the free gear be like?). But then, I reasoned, the problem with rugby is that although there are rules, quite a lot of the game revolves around how good you are at breaking them. A player is applauded for his skill if he can slow down the opposition’s ball by handling in the ruck or by not rolling away. Unlike other sports, his opponent will grudgingly respect him as well. So, if the written rules are not the defining criteria of what is wrong in rugby, by what principles should we play? Why was there outrage at “Bloodgate” (English Premiership side Harlequins faked a blood injury to get a sub on) but Neil Back’s famous flick (at a key moment in the Heineken Cup final, he knocked the ball out of the scrumhalf’s hands into his side of the scrum) was thought of as a moment of genius? I think the answer lies in the importance of the referee and his officials in rugby. He is treated with a respect that is not seen in other sports because he plays a much more active role and is given much more authoritative powers. Soccer, for example, does not have the sin bin. Another factor is that the majority of play in rugby happens very near the referee as the ball is generally carried forward. The referee can therefore sprint to keep up — unlike Gaelic football where the ball ping pongs between ends of the pitch and the referee is often a great distance from the point of contact. This means that in a rugby match you are not only playing the opposite team but also the referee. It’s fair because he’s on a much more even footing. It creates an interesting sub-game within the real game that adds another dimension to this complex sport. Any
Thierry Henry (centre) and his left hand (right) cheated France into the World Cup. cheating is fair in this sub-game as long as the ref has the capacity to notice it. The referee can catch you if you try and go offside, but he is powerless to pick up on whether you are using fake blood. In the same way it’s wrong for one of the front row to fake an injury in order to have uncontested scrums because he has no medical knowledge and has only your word to rely on. If all referees were doctors who examined the injury then faking would become a great skill and consequently not cheating. This outlook also places more emphasis on the role of captain. He alone can talk to the referee and he has to build a rapport with him to be best able to influence his decisions and interpret his mood. Football does not have this philosophy because of the nature of the game. Thierry Henry’s handball was skillful but it remains dishonourable because the referee in football is too far Well, he should away to be able to have rolled away. catch such cheating and it was a matter of integrity between him and the Irish players that none of them broke the rules. What about cheating that may result in pain for the opposition? For example, a prop boring in (making contact at an angle which will hurt his opponent and force him to turn) or a player hitting the outhalf late after he has passed the ball (when he’s still tensed) removing him from the next passage of play. I would be in favour of both. My reasoning is
neither are going to cause serious injury and both can be picked up by the referee. Pain is part of the game and inflicting it is a skill that will help your team win. Smashing someone in the ribcage who has reached up to catch a ball will cause much more pain than hitting an outhalf marginally late. If that’s accepted then I see no reason why the astute dispensing of lesser pain shouldn’t be. Obviously any foul play like eye gouging is wrong as it risks causing serious injury. Stamping on someone’s upper body is a difficult one, as it can’t be ruled
In a rugby match you are not only playing the opposite team but also the referee out on the grounds that it causes serious injury. It however serves little purpose in terms of helping your team win, unlike a late hit in the chest which will wind your opponent. It is vicious and wrong, whereas raking (diagonal movement of foot across the torso of a player lying in an illegal position) is sufficient to act as a deterrent to those who would lie on the wrong side of the ruck and slow the play down. Richie McCaw is the best No. 7 in the world. He is widely respected for his ability to cheat in every match he plays. Despite not being the strongest, or fastest, he manages to kill ball and buy crucial time for his team’s defence to realign through shrewd and cunning play. It is a joy to watch. Plato would surely have played alongside such a philosopher. The props on top of me finally rolled away and I got up happily with a clear conscience. Dominic Gallagher is a Junior Freshman student of the Two Subject Moderatorship. He is an Ireland under-19 international. 29
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The Economy Politics Review
Ross’s revelations: The Bankers reviewed Former Miscellany editor and Trinity Senator Shane Ross tells the less than edifying story of how the country’s financial elite brought us to the brink of ruin. by Jean Acheson
ost people can hum the tune to Ireland’s recent economic woes: the wreckless lending played in tempo allegro, the property bubble accelerando, pianissimo financial regulation, the a cappella chorus by a few lonely economic and business commentators, ending with a fine crescendo of major debt, uncertainty and stress both for taxpayers and the markets (financial, property, bond). Shane Ross has taken the trouble to write out the actual score, and, to be honest, that is an exceptional service to the general public. In fact, reading the book made me feel bad. With all the recent Budget talk, I’d half-forgotten the sheer scale of re-capitalisation of aib and Bank of Ireland in early 2008; the memories of McCreevy and Cowen in Finance had dimmed somewhat; I didn’t know that the chief executive of Bank of Ireland earned ¤4 million in 2007; and I had no idea that the leader of the Green Party was in full support of the bank guarantee before Brian Lenihan had even made that decision. The book begins by way of a prologue set in a Dublin restaurant in November
2008, where Ireland’s bankers and regulators gathered to celebrate the retirement of chairman Brian Patterson from the Financial Regulator: the last supper, Ross labels it. (Of course, this last supper was slightly different in that most of the people present would go on to be crucified.) Next, Senator Ross takes us through a brief history of Irish banking; turns out there have been scandals and bailouts before, just nothing quite so big. In fact, to this twenty-first century mind, the FitzGerald government’s bailout of aib in the 1980s seems like peanuts. The chapter on Seán FitzPatrick, former chief executive and chairman at Anglo-Irish Bank, is compelling reading (kind of akin to the fascination we feel with the bad guy in that horror film). A comparison to Charlie Haughey in the first paragraph gives you a flavour of the analysis. Under FitzPatrick’s watch,
lending at Anglo rose to a staggering ¤73 billion in 2008. Just to put that in context, total tax revenue for the Irish state that year was about ¤40 billion. “A building society on crack” is how one London investment house put it. Enough said. I wish, however, that Senator Ross had gone to town more on the Financial Regulator. Their lack of action before and during the banking crisis speaks for itself, but considering the consequences of the lack of supervision, greater examination of how and why they failed in their duty would have Big personalities been welcomed. behind big The “princimistakes. ples-based approach” they took to regulation — i.e. trust the bank boards to do the right thing — could more appropriately have been called the principals-based approach, for in practice the
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regulator fully and fulsomely kowtowed to the principal men and women in Irish banking. Throughout his term in office, the former head Patrick Neary arranged no unscheduled visits to banks whatsoever. Only one fine, a paltry ¤50,000 on Irish Nationwide in October 2008, occurred. In contrast, the uk regulator (by no means considered a heavy-handed institution) imposed fines worth over £27 million on banks and building societies between January 2008 and June 2009. Ross concludes that the Financial Regulator was a victim of the system and “the culture of common purpose”. But that’s not good enough. It is a conclusion that highlights one of the weaknesses of the book: it is strong on storyline and personality but a little weak on the underlying causes of what happened. Saying that greed begets greed and power corrupts only takes us so far in the analysis. Where did the culture of common purpose originate? Why was our gamekeeper not strong enough to withstand the poachers? The book goes into great (and useful) detail on the main characters in Ireland — the deadly triumvirate, as Ross calls it, of bankers, developers and politicians. But a little more focus on the system in the abstract — the forces of self-interest which come into play when a market is left wholly to its own devices — would have added to the book. Deciding how much regulation — if any — is needed is both an economic and political choice, that is to say it boils down to ideology. A free market system thrives on selfinterest but there’s usually a threshold effect beyond which such self-interest is destructive. Someone in power decides this point; equally, someone in power can ignore this point. The book is big on personality, but small on the philosophy of power. It is a very good introduction
It is strong on storyline and personality but a little weak on the underlying causes of what happened to analysing the what and how, but not necessarily all the whys hovering over the failure of both our elected and nonelected officials to act. There are some other minor things that grate. The language is at times annoying: Ireland’s bankers had gone bonkers? I adore alliteration almost as abundently as any additional associate, but that’s just… aggravating. It almost reads (dare I say it?) like a David McWilliams book, that is, a book that hopes to one day be a television narrative. In addition, Senator Ross does the usual thing of referring to certain Dublin suburbs in his analysis of the prevailing culture,
Senator Ross, left, was best man at Eamon Dunphy’s wedding in September 2009. but honestly, informational asides on someone’s secondary school, religious background and golf handicap are by no means the full story. (In addition, if you want to make the Great Dublin Four Argument, just make it; don’t infer it in biographical details, that’s just lazy journalism.) He makes a tantalising reference to Spain at the end — and how their more prudent financial regulation has saved their banking industry from collapsing along with their property sector. Considering how Ireland is still being regularly lumped into comparisons with Spain (and other peripheral eu states) in international commentary, a little more on their differences and similarities would have been helpful. But perhaps that is asking for too much. After all, this is a book about Ireland, about Ireland’s “tawdriness”. The book ends with a conclusion that most people would find sensible. In the end it’s not the elected government what done it: it was the permanent government. The oligarchs of Irish banking who orchestrated our problems have,
along with the civil servants at the Department of Finance, created a solution beyond our control: nama. That’s fair enough, but Senator Ross only paints a full portrait of the former and not the latter. When it came to the permanent government, the focus of the book is mainly on Patrick Neary, the former head of the Financial Regulator; a bit more on other key staff in Finance and in the Central Bank would have left the conclusion, although intuitively correct, on stronger ground. All that said, this book definitely deserves a wide readership. It is a highly readable, revealing take on what went on behind closed doors, who talked things up, who didn’t bark, and how our banking and political systems evolved over the past few decades. Amid the din of recession and recrimination, Senator Ross’s clear-sighted style should be music to our ears. Jean Acheson is a Senior Sophister student of Economics. She is a Foundation Scholar and a former editor of T.C.D. Miscellany. 31
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Travel
Welcome to Miami (bienvenidos a Miami) America has always held a distinct attraction for Irish travellers and while the main connection has been with the east coast, Miami also offers a sublime experience. by Kate Rowan
rowing up I was exposed to lots of references of Miami through popular culture. As a young child I was first made aware of the South Florida metropolis by the sitcom Golden Girls centring around the lives of four young at heart retirees. Then the 1990s brought Will Smith rapping us a Welcome to Miami and the link with the music world continued with the rise in popularity of Latin inspired pop by many stars such as Enrique Iglesias, Ricky Martin and Jennifer “J-Lo” Lopez who could call Miami their home. Unfortunately the fact Miami had also gained fame from 1980s prime time crime favourite Miami Vice and the classic Scarface and the truth that the city is the hangout of real gangsters hardly
gives the place a glowing reputation. It was of course where fashion designer Gianni Versace was murdered outside the gates of his mansion in 1997. Piled on top of the negative image created by the link with both real and fictitious crime, Miami is widely perceived as the party girl of the US east coast. South Beach in particular is infamous for wild partying when college students throng SoBe during spring break.I remember a particular episode of midNoughties teen drama The O.C. where some of the characters ventured out of California for a to visit a grandmother and this just happened to be during spring break. The incongruous combination of the scantily clad revelers and a retirement home really struck me. However, after twice visiting Miami it is how different cultures meet and complement each other in the city that that struck me
most, making it a very special destination that rises above all preconceptions. The best way I have heard Miami described is as “The New York of the Caribbean”. There is that same feeling you get in the Big Apple, a sort of buzz of “this is a place where things happen” with downtown boasting a similarly fabulous skyline . Then there is the wonderful sense of being somewhere tropical and exotic, driving from the airport along palm fringed causeways on the way to Miami Beach. We were very jet-lagged the morning we arrived on my first visit to Miami, walking around Macy’s on Meridian Avenue in South Beach. Despite the fact my mind was a bit fuzzy I couldn’t help but notice how Spanish was the predominant language spoken in the department store. Macy’s is a shopping institution that I always associate with America yet in this beautiful recently renovated branch I didn’t feel like I was in the States. A few years previous to my trips to Miami I had been to Cuba, which is geographically close to Miami — and in one way culturally very similar — yet Cuba’s political regime makes it seem a million miles away. There is the same clingy clammy heat, picturesque beaches and azure sea and sky but Miami’s multitude of smooth highways and luxury sports cars and SUVs is in sharp contrast to Havana’s potholed streets, ancient automobiles and lurching over-crowded buses. Many Cubans who decided to leave Castro’s “socialism in the sun” settled just across the Florida straits in Miami and brought with them their culture, which adds so much to the city. Another feature Miami shares with New York
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is a selection of very distinct areas and neighbourhoods. Her northern cousin is beloved because of the diversity between the chic Upper-East Side, the arty Greenwich Village and trendy TriBeCa, the same can be said for Miami. The Cuban émigrés settled in and around Eight Street (more commonly known in Spanish as Calle Ocho) and from there the Little Havana neighbourhood grew. It is not a particularly attractive area but is very atmospheric, despite not possessing the Cuban capital’s crumbling Spanish Colonial architecture. At the epicentre of the neighbourhood is Maximo Gomez Domino Park where senior citizens while away the hours. We had read that you had to be over 55 to gain access to the park but a very friendly local opened the gate for us to walk in and have a look around. Little Havana also boasts a host of vibrant tiled murals celebrating Cuban-American culture. Many of the original residents have moved to more affluent suburbs but there is constant stream of migrants from other parts of the Caribbean and Latin America. Just across the causeway is Miami Beach with South Beach, or SoBe, and its iconic Art Deco District of statuesque 1930s buildings painted a wonderful rainbow of ice-cream pastel shades. The streets of SoBe can seem oddly quiet by day, due the fact the majority of the area’s tourists are enjoying the beaches but the whole area explodes into life after dark. If you are in need of some culture, just a block from the deservedly famous 11th Street Diner you will find the Wolfsonian Institute, which as well as the building being a stunning example of Art Deco architecture, containing an impressive collection of decorative and propaganda art and furniture, also houses a stained glass window by Irish artist Harry Clarke that was deemed too risqué by the Irish government in the 1930s and was exiled to South Beach! Further up Miami Beach in the Mid Beach area is more fascinating architecture in the form of Miami Modern or MiMo style that was developed in the 1950’s by Maurice Lapidus. Two of the best examples of this are the Fontainebleau and Eden Roc hotel resorts, which have both recently undergone extensive refurbishments. Both hotels attracted big name celebrities back in the early 1960’s after Castro came to power in Cuba and the likes of the Rat Pack, Elvis and Marilyn Monroe moved from hanging out in Havana’s glitzy hot spots to Miami. The height of this period of glamour for the city was immortalised on screen in scenes from the James Bond film Goldfinger shot in the Fontainebleau.
A memorial to southern Florida’s Native Americans at the Miami River mouth. Back over the causeways and there is the Downtown area of Miami which for a long time had a very bad and deserved reputation for being run-down and dangerous but with huge investment from City Hall and the growth of the financial district there, it is an area on the up. Mary Brickell Village is a pleasant area adjacent to the financial district that has a great selection of restaurants and has a sophisticated yet relaxed vibe. Then not too far away, close to the port of Miami, the streets have the feeling of a South American city. It is fascinating how the cultures of North America, the Caribbean, Latin and South America
The Wolfsonian Institute… houses a stained glass window by Irish artist Harry Clarke cohabit so closely. Just south of Downtown is the vibrant and eclectic Coconut Grove which was once a hippy hang out but has since been somewhat yuppified making it a great place to shop as it mixes well known chains and designers with independent boutiques and vintage shops.You may recall Coconut Grove as the home of the colourful Fockers played by Dustin Hoffman and Barbara
Streisand in Meet the Fockers. North of Downtown, the Design District, as the name implies, is a hotbed of creativity particularly in the area of furniture and interior design. A lot of quirky restaurants and bars have sprung up recently in this area and it was on my way back to our downtown hotel from the eccentric Michy’s restaurant that I experienced probably the most memorable and atmospheric taxi ride of my life. It was the night after the news of Michael Jackson’s death broke and our taxi driver had a DJ deck perched on the passenger seat of his car playing Jackson’s hits. The driver was a huge fan and talked about going to see Jackson live. It was a rather surreal experience to be driving through the neon lit balmy night with the music playing as if Jackson himself was singing in the taxi! It is true that Miami can be brash and loud on the surface but you do not have to go too far to see that the city has a lot of heart and individuality that makes me want to return again and again. Sometimes it is hard to put it into words but there is just something about Miami! Kate Rowan is a Junior Freshman student of Sociology and French. 33
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The Last Word With Mark Walsh o that was Christmas. We’re now right in the post-Christmas lull. I love Christmas, I really do. But this year it really made me realise how old I’ve gotten. I was the last person in my family to get up on Christmas morning. I’m the youngest in the family. What’s happened to me? I was shouted at by my family to go downstairs and open the presents with them. I grumbled and staggered out of bed, covering up the unwanted morning erection with a dressing gown. Down I went. Opened up the presents that I’d bought myself. They give me the money, I buy my presents. My parents wouldn’t understand the presents I want. For the record, and this is for all you fine ladies out there, I did get myself a sexy little external hard drive. I can hear you all swooning already. So if any of you want to swap data sometime, or maybe just backup your current hard drive, just form an orderly queue and I’ll see what I can do. Be patient though doll-face, I’m packing a whole extra terabyte of storage now, so I’m really fighting the bitches off. So I already knew what all my presents were – bar one. It was socks. Remember when we were young and would look at our presents with awe and amazement? Well I didn’t want to appear ungrateful. I’m there looking at my socks for several minutes, pretending to be interested in them. 100% cotton, wow! I love socks, I’m always wearing them so I am, how did you know? Even in the buildup to the holidays, I noticed myself ageing. I had to buy a new pair of jeans. I haven’t shopped in so long. I can’t bear it at all anymore. There’s too many people around. All of them ambling along without a care in the world. Don’t these people realise I’ve told my Mam I’ll be home by six p.m. for the lasagne? I’m fucked if I’m reheating it. Back in the days when I cared about my appearance, I’d buy jeans based on how good they looked. Mincing around the fitting room, checking myself from all angles. Ooh, do these make my arse look a bit plump? How’s my crotch bulge looking in ‘em? Not now though. All I care about now is getting the jeans with the biggest pockets. I was there checking the pockets of all the jeans in the shop, not caring how they look. As long as they’re not too flamboyant or anything, I’m happy. So that’s two things I now require in jeans: big pockets, and zero flamboyancy. The su had a big end of term frat party organised. I read the description, about drinking games, beer pongs, and bangin’ choons and that
“Now though, I just worry that if I went out drinking in the afternoon, then to a club in the evening, I’d need to poo. I don’t want to shit in a nightclub, up to my ankles in someone else’s vomit. Even if it was my own vomit I’d be less than pleased”
sort of thing. A year ago I’d have eaten that right up. I’d have been all enthusiastic, looking forward to it all week, making sure I got my mates to go. This year I read about it and just thought to myself how it all sounds very loud. Nah, think I’ll stay home and watch the Late Late instead. Have some beans on toast or something. That’d be nice. Wait, who’s on Jonathan Ross tonight? Might give him a go instead. Fuck it, I’ll see. OH! I’ll pick up some sweets on the way home and all. I’ve seen a few new events advertised around Facebook and the likes. There’s now some nights starting really early and they’re trying to sell it to us as not just partying the night away, but partying the day away too. Again, the Mark Walsh of one year ago would have jumped in with both feet. All day drinking? Right up my alley mate. Give it to me. Give me all the promiscuity, depravity and debauchery you can throw at me. Now though, I just worry that if I went out drinking in the afternoon, then to a club in the evening, I’d need to poo. I don’t want to shit in a nightclub, up to my ankles in someone else’s vomit. Even if it was my own vomit I’d be less than pleased. And you’d want to line your stomach well by eating a lot during the day, to prepare for all the drinking. But sure then you’re only increasing the chances of having to do a nightclub poo. It’s a bloody nightmare. What if I got so drunk I didn’t realise how bad my need for a shit was? What if I literally shit myself and had to go home? I couldn’t walk onto a Nitelink covered in shit. I don’t think a taxi would take me either. But these are the things that rush through my mind now, at the ripe old age of 19. Honestly, just pass me the Werther’s Originals already. I do still go out. But often I find that about halfway through the night, I’m asking myself if I’d rather be at home, alone and playing Football Manager or something. In fairness though, the answer isn’t always yes. Then there’s New Year’s. What a crock of shit. It’s one of those nights where YOU SIMPLY MUST DO SOMETHING AND HAVE FUN. I don’t think I’ve ever had a really good night on New Year’s. Last year the nightclub I was in actually forgot to do the countdown. I know 2010’s going to be good anyway. I know this because I topped up my 30 days of free texts on the first of January. So basically I’ll just have to top it up at the start of every month from now on. No more confusion. No more being taken by surprise when you get that message telling your free texts are up. This, my friends, is living the dream. Mark Walsh is a Senior Freshman student of Business, Economic and Social Studies. See more at www.walsho.net.
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student-oriented graphic design
Graphic design by students, for students. (at student prices) Check out our portfolio at
www.fatcatdesign.org Posters/yers ₏50 for societies Issue 3.indb 35
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