Tag: Off the Point (Page 4 of 4)

A Matter of Censorship…

25th March 2009 / Abigail / 3 Comments

Today I’m jumping on a bandwagon. I don’t normally comment on matters that fall outside my own little world but this is a story that I just couldn’t let pass unremarked. I’m not the only person writing about this today and I won’t be the last.

If you’ve missed the saga of the guerrilla artist who managed to hang a two less than flattering portraits of our esteemed leader Brian Cowen in two separate art galleries then you could be forgiven. The story was just a bit of fun initially in the tradition of any good satirical stunt. It was a short item at the end of the 9 o’clock news on RTE, the state broadcaster on Monday. Something along the lines of the kind of “And Finally” stories they used to have on the ITN news just rather less cute.

What’s made things go a bit nuts is the reaction of Brian Cowen’s political party, Fianna Fail. Now if you’re not familiar with Irish politics Fianna Fail are the party that has been in power for the majority of Ireland’s existence as a republic. They’ve been in power in one coalition or another right the way through the Celtic Tiger years and are now presiding over the disaster area that is the Irish economy at the moment.

Since one party has been in power throughout the boom and now the bust the finger of blame has been pointed squarely in their direction by various commentators. Their popularity has plunged in the most recent polls. In February the Irish Labour Party passed them in the popularity stakes for the first time. The nation is decidedly pissed off.

So really it’s hardly surprising that this sort of thing happens and hanging a couple of pictures is hardly the same as taking to the street with burning torches…is it? Well, when the gardai turned up at the offices of Today FM radio station demanding to see emails between a researcher and the artist because he could be looking at various criminal charges including criminal damage and incitement to hatred. Apparently “the powers that be” wanted action taken.

And that’s not all. Yesterday RTE issued an apology after the 9 o’clock news for any offence they’d caused poor sensitive Mr Cowen. Since then the clip of the original segment has become harder to find on the website and captions have been changed.

The net result of all of this has been that picturegate has gone global. It’s made the London Times and the New York Times to name but two and the story looks set to run for quite some time especially since a 35-year-old teacher called Conor Casby has voluntarily turned up to talk to gardai. If it finds it’s way to court I will definitely write about it here.

Irish satire is generally a fairly toothless affair. During the years of prosperity the sharp jokes about politicians and politics that had always been such a feature of the Dublin sense of humour in particular became noticeably muted. People didn’t seem to want to rock the boat. Now that it’s rocking anyway that “fuck you” attitude has returned somewhat. The problem is that the politicians seem to have lost their sense of humour in the intervening years. Well, Fianna Fail’s po-faced attitude has made them look like the little tin gods they are. It was a well aimed pot shot that could have given people a chuckle but if the t-shirts available from Irishelections.net with the full frontal caricature from Allan Cavanagh are anything to go by, Biffo had better get used to seeing himself in the buff!

Remembering why you do it…

5th March 2009 / Abigail / 1 Comment

Back in January I wrote about the overturning of the life sentence for child rapist Philip Sullivan. I discussed the sentencing in rape cases in the Irish courts. Working down in the Four Courts you get to see a lot of things that you wouldn’t necessarily agree with.

I’m used to writing nice, clean, impartial copy on the facts of the case for work but here I don’t have to be quite so impartial. This blog contains my own views and while, even here, I might hold back on occasion if there’s something I feel strongly on it will eventually be written about.

Writing a blog can feel a bit like shouting into the darkness. You sit at your computer and type away and chances are the vast majority of readers will drop by without leaving a comment. That’s why when someone does comment on something I’ve written it is always much appreciated.

I got a comment for the Philip Sullivan piece a couple of days ago that quite simply made this thing I do worthwhile. I’ve had comments on court related posts before but usually from people who disagree with my point of view. This comment on the other hand was from someone who has good reason to feel passionately about the subject of rape sentencing because she has been through the ordeal of facing her rapist in court. You can read the comments at the bottom of the Sullivan post.

Way back when I first considered journalism as a career I had visions of being the kind of crusading hack that you see in the movies. After a total of five years in college I was happy to get whatever shift work came my way and any crusading tendencies got quickly swamped by the necessity to pay the bills and a general news room cynicism. The problem with being on a general news beat, especially in broadcast journalism, is that stories rush past so quickly during a day that you don’t really have time to have an emotional reaction to any of them.

When you’re stuck finding enough stories to fill five minute hourly bulletins there’s no time to save the world. Even as a freelance I find myself writing about stuff I know will sell rather than anything that will make a difference.

Down in the courts it’s easy to get blind to it all. There’s such a never ending stream of human misery down there that a certain gallows humour tends to develop and stocks of sympathy run dangerously low.

But I suppose deep down inside, what I’m really looking for is appreciation, in a rather puppy like way. I know that the dream has always been for someone to come up to me and say, spontaneously without me fishing for it, that they love what I write. I’m not talking about editors and agents here but about the end readers. I became a writer because I had an emotional response to what I was reading and I suppose that’s what I want to give to someone else.

This has ended up a rather advanced navel gazing exercise so please excuse me. I was proud to receive the comment on the Sullivan post and it made me think about why I became a journalist in the first place. That bleeds into why I became a writer and this is the result.

Hard Not to Feel Just a Little Excited…

20th January 2009 / Abigail / 0 Comments

I wasn’t going to post about Obama’s inauguration today but it’s a bit hard to ignore. I’ve watched a couple of inaugurations over the years but none of them quite like today’s.

I remember watching Bill Clinton being sworn, on an old 1960s black & white telly that was all I could afford at the time. The Rainbow Coalition had just been voted in here, a combination of Fine Gael, Labour and Democratic Left elected after Labour walked away from previous partners in government, Fianna Fail after a string of scandals, most notably the mishandling of prosecutions against paedophile priests.

Back then I was skint and on the dole but it all seemed so optimistic, finally walking away from conservatism, cronyism and corruption into a bright new future. I remember watching Clinton’s inauguration from the big old iron bed I’d bought in a junk shop and, with the help of my boyfriend at the time sanded down and painted with Hammerite.

It was a particularly cold January that year and bed was usually the warmest place to sit to watch anything longer than half an hour. It was a lovely flat, a big basement one bedroom with sole access to a rambling over grown garden but I remember it being very cold!

Fast forward eight years and it was all change; Democratic Left merged with Labour and Fine Gael seemed to have lost the knack of getting elected. Over the course of Clinton’s two terms I had completed two college courses in journalism, split with both the boyfriend and the iron bed (I regret the loss of the bed) and met and married the Husband.

I remember arriving into work to write Internet news updates in the weeks after George W Bush had been elected to yet another story about hanging chads. The whole election process in the States seemed murky and sordid. Mind you things here had changed considerably as well. The Celtic Tiger had been spawned and the centre right dream team of Fianna Fail and the PDs were slaves to Mammon.

Financially I could afford to put the fire on by the time Dubya came to power but the policies on either side of the Atlantic didn’t sit easily with me. These were the days of the Teflon Taoiseach (Bertie Ahern) whose grinning face we seemed doomed to put up with for many years to come. In a post 9/11 world the bogeyman seemed to lurk under every bed and dark shadows lurked behind all the glitz.

But today it’s all change again. After 8 years of wars and suspicion in the US and scandal and corruption in Ireland something really had to give. Bertie jumped just before anyone could push and before the failing economy totally scuppered what little reputation he had left and Barack Hussein Obama has been sworn in today as the first black president of the United States.

Life is a little more scary these days with more responsibilities and less money. After eight years I’m back at the freelancing, even if there have been a few steps up the ladder. I don’t work in commercial radio anymore for a start!

Watching the ceremony it was hard not to be moved by the sense of optimism and hope that was being welcomed in. Back when Clinton got the job I was in my twenties and optimism came so easily. These days I’m a lot more cynical. It’ll take more than a single day to right the harm done over the past eight years.

But today’s not the day for talking about that. I’ll join with the general consensus today in wishing President Obama well and hoping he can live up to the task he has before him…listening to his inauguration speech it sounds like he’s going to have a pretty good stab at it.

Here in Ireland we’ve a way to go yet but today it feels like a return to more caring, socially responsible way of life may, just may be possible. I’m not belittling the economic mess we find ourselves in but we couldn’t go on the way we were. Ireland was in danger of losing any soul or sense of self it had for a crazy chase after crass commercialism and greed.

Today I’m just very glad to have witnessed a piece of history and remembered the past. Quite frankly I’d much rather live in a world where America is a benevolent patrician force rather than a hulking bully wielding a big stick. Now we seem to have got that one sorted maybe we can get Ireland to cop on as well.

By the way, if you missed the inauguration you can find the text of Obama’s speech here. I’m off to make dinner now safe in the knowledge that tonight the world seems like a nicer, warmer place for once. Long may it continue.

On the Lack of Flea Markets in Dublin…

18th January 2009 / Abigail / 3 Comments

I was wandering around town yesterday, past the Cornucopia Restaurant (which reminds me, I haven’t been there in years, I wonder why) when a poster on the wall caught my eye.

I stopped in my tracks…could it be? Was it possible that at long last there was a flea market in Dublin again? Stopping in my tracks I wandered over to take a close look at the poster and saw that, yes indeed, there was a flea market in Dublin again and, even better than that, it will be on next Sunday.

When I got home I checked the website given on the poster and discovered that this was not to be an isolated event but will be happening every month – and I’d already missed the first two.

I should probably explain at this point why I get so excited about the prospect of rooting around other people’s discarded junk. Actually maybe this isn’t quite the time for that, I’m not going into my squirelling tendencies in a public forum like this! But seriously, I’ve often lamented the lack of flea markets in modern Dublin.

When I first moved here, in the early 90s there were several, scattered around the city centre. Mother Redcaps, The Dandelion, The Blackberry Fair were all favourite haunts and the source of most of my interior design in those impoverished days.

The Blackberry Fair in particular was where I found the 60s kitch cream cube of a tv that might have only been a black and white but for the 20 old Irish pounds I paid for it was all I could afford. It still works a treat by the way and with it’s rounded corners and polarising clip on screen is a little design classic that wouldn’t have looked out of place in a set from the Avengers or The Prisoner.

You could get anything there, from beanbags to 8-tracks to strange twisted bits of metal that could have been used for just about anything. I remember buying a massive ppine chest of drawers with a serious list to one side that I always meant to sand down and renovate but never got round to it.

Most people I knew in those days would have been advocates of what’s now known as shabby chic. It wasn’t because it was trendy back then, it was because it was cheap and quirky and there was always treasure to be found amongst the junk.

Going to a market at the weekend was a foraging mission like no other. You might have an idea what you were looking for but in the end you could literally come home with anything. Even looking around my living room now I can see a couple of vases and a 70s wooden lamp that were market finds.

I used to come home with bizarre finds – an antelope horn mounted in silver, oil lamps, a replacement lid for an old slow cooker. Not to mention the fantastic vintage clothes finds…

The problem was that when Dublin got rich the markets closed down one by one. The Dandelion was the first to go, followed a couple of years later by Mother Redcaps, there so long it was a Dublin institution. They closed because people had stopped coming and people were so busy with the bright shiny things they could now afford that they didn’t even mark their passing.

By the time the Blackberry Fair closed down nobody even murmured.

We had become too grand to root around in bric a brac. We didn’t want it if it wasn’t new and preferably designer. We’d go to markets if they sold organic vegetables or expensive crafts but the true flea market was just too messy and cheap to satisfy us anymore.

True, in recent years, websites like Freecycle and Jumbletown have sprung up to allow unwanted items to find a home but it’s not really the same.

There’s nothing quite like wandering around a collection of stalls with a steaming cup of tea in a polystyrene cup searching for overlooked treasure. Maybe it’s my seventies upbringing showing through but I’ve always loved renovating and customising and making do. I’m the kind of person that can’t walk past a skip without having a look.

But the markets that Dublin used to have suited the city. To be honest I think I prefer the somewhat grimier Dublin from those days. You could always get the designer stuff if you wanted it, Brown Thomas is hardly a new addition, but you had the rest as well.

Now as we head back into economic blackness the penny is beginning to drop that maybe we threw out the baby with the bathwater. It’s all very well having the luxury but if you don’t have the money you need to be able to get hold of the junk and get creative. These days there doesn’t seem to be much choice, it’s luxury or nothing in most places.

I’ll be going to the Dublin Flea Market next Sunday and I urge you to as well. Maybe if this one really takes off Dublin can see it’s markets flourish again and we can be skint with a bit more grace, after all these days, thanks to shows like Bargain Hunt on the BBC, everyone know you never know what you’re going to find among the jumble.

On the Enduring Attraction of Dr Who…

4th January 2009 / Abigail / 3 Comments

I ended up getting completely distracted yesterday afternoon by the impending announcement about the next actor to be cast in the role of Dr Who. I ended up in a texting conversation with the brother-in-law trying to guess the name as we both waited for the announcement to be made.

Ever since I can remember I’ve been mad about Dr Who. The earliest shows I can remember watching were part of that familiar Saturday evening line-up in the seventies…Basil Brush, Star Trek and Dr Who. The doctor was the stand out highlight. I like science fiction but I’m not a complete sci fi nut but with Dr Who it was different.

As a child of my time, I’m very much in the Tom Baker camp when it comes to naming my favourite Dr. It’s very much a matter of age since the series has been running for more than 40 years and the role itself has been played by ten different actors. Matt Smith, the new guy is number 11. Ask someone who their favourite doctor is or was and they’ll invariably mention the actor who played the part in their childhood so for me it’s Tom Baker, but the husband, being a few years older, leans towards John Pertwee. My nephews on the other hand, being eight and nine are firmly in the David Tennant camp, though at least their dad has made sure they’re familiar with the old series as well.

Forgive me if I’m sounding geeky, I’ve been a Dr Who geek long before the current hysteria. It was always the highlight of the week when I was small and I still look forward to the Christmas special with way too much enthusiasm. I might not hide behind the sofa these days but still find it easy to suspend disbelief and get into the adventure.

I can remember visiting friends and acting out our own scenarios. I seem to remember arguing to toss quite heatedly because I never got to play the doctor myself, reluctantly conceding that the doctor had to be a boy (something the show’s producers obviously agree on!). I remember how I cried when the robot dog K9 was retired for the first time to cheer loudly when Tom Baker wheeled in a large cardboard box stamped K-9 mark II.

The one toy I wanted to quite obsessional levels, and never got, was a battery operated K-9 like this one.

Years later, once the show was revived and the husband finally got me a remote control K9 – it quite made my Christmas – even if it had arrived almost thirty years late. For some reason the show had a special place in the imagination that no other science fiction show before or since has ever managed to quite match.

When a friend who was also an avid fan and used to act when he was younger got a part in a show with Patrick Troughton. I was far more jealous that he had got to act with a former Time Lord than over the fact he had a main part in a high profile tv series.

I think my appreciation has changed over the years. Since the new series started I watch it with as much appreciation for the writing as the whole Time Lord mythos. When I was a kid I wanted to be in Dr Who. I wanted to be a companion (once I got my head around the fact I couldn’t be the doctor) and take part in the adventures I watched every Saturday teatime.

These days I’d prefer to write the adventures. I’ve been known to daydream about how the circumstances might come about (once I’d managed to become a best selling author and media darling etc, etc, etc.). Well when you’re sitting in your pajamas in front of a blank page struggling to find the words you need for that first paragraph when the deadline’s far too close and you’re wondering why you ever got yourself into this in the first place, you need the odd carrot!

The idea of actually putting dialogue into the mouths of the doctor and his current companion is ludicrously attractive. To maybe write a classic episode that people remember just as I can still remember episodes that went out in the mid seventies.

But I’ll just have to keep dreaming about that. It’s not as if I’m even a script writer. But you never know. When I was a kid I never really thought I’d be an actual published author. And a person has to have ambitions!

Christmas Windows and Travel Plans…

30th November 2008 / Abigail / 0 Comments

I’m off to Ennis tomorrow as part of the Devil in the Red Dress push…more book signing and interviews in a quick round trip. Last time I was there I was researching the book, this time it’s published and on the shelves.

There’s less pressure this time round but it’s still a busy enough schedule…why the train trip needs two changes I will never understand! Plenty of people want to go to Ennis, why do they make it so awkward to get there?

Still I’m looking forward to it. It’s a pretty little town, not to mention the fact it’s the setting for my action…I’m also taking the opportunity to catch up with some friends so it’ll be fun.

In between interviews this week I’ve been trying to make some headway into the whole Christmas palaver. The Christmas windows have been up for the last couple of weeks and as usual they’re light years away from the fairytale visions that used to make a trip in to go Christmas shopping so much fun years ago. It’s something that bugs me every year.

Back then you could go and look at the windows for Brown Thomas, Clerys or the Daddy of them all, Switzers and see moving puppets telling a Christmas story. These days it’s all about making a stylish buck. The shop owners won’t give the hard sell a rest for a couple of weeks during a season when people will always go shopping regardless.

It all changed several years ago when Switzers closed down and Brown Thomas took over. The Switzers window used to be famous. It would be unveiled without much pomp at around the same time as the Christmas lights went up on Grafton Street.

First look would always be at night. I can remember stopping on my way home from a night out when I was in my twenties and the window was there in all it’s glory. There were a few of us there and we all stopped and listened to the Christmas tunes belting out across the icy street and walked slowly along the length of the shop watching the animated story unfold in each successive window.

There were dozens of people there by the time we got to the last window. Everyone was smiling and talking and laughing and it was suddenly just that little bit closer to Christmas and a little bit of cynicism had melted away.

Those days are long gone now though. In these times of economic uncertainty I notice that even the more ornate displays carry price tags (once banished for the festive period). Arnotts on Henry St has probably made the best effort with a miniature city glowing around the designer clad dummies.

Brown Thomas, where the Switzers windows used to be is this year just a celebration of consumerism. Maybe I’m being needlessly nostalgic but I think it’s sad that those windows are consigned to an Ireland long gone. The Celtic Tiger has died or is at least in serious decline, it would have been nice to see shop owners do something just for the fun of it…something to make the kids happy and make it seem a little more like Christmas.

A gesture like that might even encourage more people into their shops than dangling shiny goods in front of their noses that will just put more strain on the credit card.

Now ok, this Christmas I’d rather people concentrated on buying books (I have a vested interest after all) but I miss the Christmas windows and I’d like to see them back! Who’s with me?

Off the Point: Why Can’t you take Photographs in Irish Museums?

13th October 2008 / Abigail / 0 Comments

It’s Sunday evening and I don’t feel like talking about all matters legal with work looming on Monday morning, so I’m resurrecting an old tradition. From here on in Sunday is to be a day of reflection…and possibly irritation.

To kick off a long standing annoyance the subject of photography in Irish museums and galleries. Now the husband and I are recently back from a short break in Bordeaux. There being not a lot to do in the town when you’re there doing nothing we ended up in the Musee d’Aquitaine. Turns out that the history of the region goes back to Neanderthal times and Bordeaux itself has a history going back to the Romans.

Being a photographer, the husband had the camera with him and happily snapped away throughout the museum. When we got back to Dublin we had a few days before either of us were back in work so we decided to go to the National Museum to have a look at the bog bodies (as you do). As soon as you walk into the place there are signs forbidding photography of all kinds which just doesn’t seem very friendly.

After watching several tourists being barked at for trying to photograph the vaulted ceiling of the museum building we made some enquiries. What’s the story? You can walk into a museum in London or Paris or Prague and whip out a camera without a peep from the security guards but here in Ireland you need special permission to photograph the exhibits.

Over the years we’ve come up against the problem several times – the husband usually has a camera somewhere about his person – and it’s always the same. The one thing that isn’t the same is the explanation.

The OPW, apparently forbid photography because their properties keep appearing on EBay being flogged to unsuspecting Americans (allegedly). The reason we were once given in the Natural History Museum was that it interfered with the sale of post cards. In the National Museum last week we were told it was a copyright issue. Apparently the 1928 Copyright Act made the National Museum the property of every man, woman and child in Ireland, all of whom would have to give permission before people could take photos. Well it’s an interesting one anyway.

If you ask me it smacks of pure mean spiritedness but if there’s a relatively logical explanation I’d love to know it. I understand banning flash photography when you have light sensitive exhibits but all cameras?

Even if there is a logical reason why photography is banned it seems like a daft rule. If people are coming to Ireland from all over the world, used to taking photos to remember their trip it just doesn’t make sense. Quite apart from anything else, two out of the three reasons we’ve been given are tied to a rather unattractive suspicion of the rest of mankind and an officiousness that’s just embarrassing. I’d almost rather it was down to simple meanness.

I know it’s possible to make an appointment to come in and take photographs, certainly in the National Museum on Kildare Street, but last thing I heard, you had to give a good excuse.

If anyone out there knows by this prohibition is they please let me know. Otherwise lets get the revolution started and all turn up armed with our Polaroids. It might not be a big issue in a world economy that seems to be going bang right now but it’s the little things that count…and if the economy does do bang we’ll all have a lot more time to wander round museums…and at times like that a hobby is a good idea!