Hausfrau of the Year

I felt the well of creativity bubbling over last night when a twitter storm erupted over the annual Rose of Tralee frocks and personality vacuums. Not content to sit on the sidelines,being TV-less and unable to join in the collective slagging and begrudgery that such a spectacular evokes, I thought back to my childhood and the wonder that was the Calor Kosangas Housewife of the Year.

I cannot remember the Rose of Tralee being part of yearly life but I certainly recall my mothers hushing for the Calor Spectacular. I have vague recollections of nice frocks and ample buxom, the result of too many queen cakes, children and an ill fitted bra. The chortles and bingo wings, all vying for the golden toilet brush or whatever nonsense passed for a prize in those days. This was after all the era of blankety blank, where contestants sold their souls for a sprayed gold checkbook that connected to no checking account. Tweeter Orlaith Finnegan reminded me that there were speed cake icing and bed dressing rounds. This is perhaps where my mothers obsession with hospital corners on bed sheets originated. None the less the thought of frenzied housewifery had me in tears last night. But what would todays CKHY contestants have to demonstrate?

Its all about the host, you have to put the ladies at ease, a sort of horsewhisperer for housewives. Suggestions so far have included Eddie Hobbs, Gaybo, Tubridy all of which amount to just another Autumn schedule in RTE. Kudos to the tweeter that suggested Ivor Callely, but that level of permatan is likely to spook the hors..housewives. His fellow Senator and all round lovely bottom Ronan Mullens would make a fine host. He could have them eating out of his bag of oats with a gentle coo of residual catholic guilt, and fire them up for the ‘dirty look at the non catholics round’

Yes, indeed, what would we test these new age housewives on?

Complaint call to customer support in India round, where housewives battle through thick regional accents to solve their home broadband problems in as short a time as possible.

Baking at the office, where thoroughly modern housewives use their feet to blend and knead delicious cakes under desks ready for the oven upon arrival home.

The nipple stretch, where housewives see how far a breastpump can stretch their nipples in preparation for returning to work immediately after the birth of children.

The one hundred meter dash, restoring a minimalist home to its uncluttered finish with a child attached to each limb.

Full make up application and hair styling while making sandwiches and driving kids to school, this round also has the added challenge of avoiding the Gardai.

Feel free to add your own to the #CKHY stream on twitter or comment below

No teddy bears for me...

I won’t be attending the Electric Picnic this year, words that I thought Id never utter without heart wrenching disappointment and yearning. Ive gone every year, scraping together ticket money and packing wigs, sausages and clothes for all occasions to live in the sublime little world that Stradbally becomes for one weekend of the year. I look forward to meandering through groups safe in the knowledge that this is the cream of the country, the accepting, the fun loving and the cool. I relish making sure my hair is redder than Ronald McDonald and not using my phone for three days, meeting new people, seing improbably cool and interesting acts and people. I even wed my boyfriend two years ago in the blow up chapel, an emotional affair culminating in the exchange of lager cans. I have savoured the delights of hot showers in family camping and cleaning up doughnuts vomited by ten year olds at 4 am. But not this year. I have received a long summer of promotional emails and adverts, telling me all that has been added, but what has been taken away, Picnic gods?

When all is said and done price is the biggest obstacle. We used to save up and take the picnic as our yearly holiday, this year, when everything else is hurting, a €480 price tag for entry just isn’t in the coffers..each year we dutifully spent out first night at the festival collecting discarded glasses from the camp sites all night, this usually netted us spending money to enjoy the rest of the festival albeit tired from working our way through till 8 am.

The lineup: when the pill munching fiends of the nineties get bored in their late 30’s and 40’s it must be time to regroup....money to be made, festivals to be played, t-shirts to be bought. This years headliners have a long way to go before they reach the dizzying heights of cool that were Kraftwerk, Röyksopp, Nick Cave, Sonic Youth, New Order, Björk, Beastie Boys, The Stooges, The Chemical Brothers, The Flaming Lips, Sigur Rós of yesteryears. Given that this years’ line up is not as big as before and unlikely to have cost promoters as much , and the Dear Leader keeps telling us that costs have dropped throughout Ireland inc. it seems excessive that the picnic has not come down.

I’ve gone every year since 2004 without fail, I’ve partied with the best of them, I’ve laughed and cried and enjoyed the picnic, and it was something that I hoped I would never have to pack into a box and tuck away in the attic with the rest of the heady excesses of my late twenties and early thirties. I shall miss buying cans off a hippie in the woods late at night, or meeting strangers who share their smoke in return for company and giggles. The picnic has the unique ability to create groups where there was never groups before, to bring people together and make them feel like they are part of something bigger. But not this year, by keeping ticket prices the same they have sought a pound of flesh from thirty something’s who will find it easier to justify toasting that pound by their hearth and not a single use barbeque. It is a shame that for many people that enjoyed its beauty, its freedom of expression and its ethos it won’t be a ray of sunshine in an otherwise dreary Ireland.

Doing a PhD.

Imagine a circle that contains all of human knowledge:

By the time you finish primary school, you know a little:

By the time you do the leaving cert, you know a bit more:

With a bachelor's degree, you gain a specialty:

A master's degree deepens that specialty:

Reading research papers takes you to the edge of human knowledge:

Once you're at the boundary, you focus:

You push at the boundary for a few years:

Until one day, the boundary gives way:

And, that dent you've made is called a Ph.D.:

Of course, the world looks different to you now:

So, don't forget the bigger picture:

Keep pushing.

Falcon Crest all over again?

A drive through rural Ireland will unearth many an architectural gem. We have columns where columns were never meant to be, balconies that have only ever hosted a rotten iron patio chair and giant cast concrete eagles to overlook potholed driveways. What is the reason for these monstrosities? Can we blame the government? Well...frankly...yes.
The machinations of Biddy and Miley on Sunday night may have given you a few extra minutes before bed,but the highlight of the week was getting a look at Dallas. Hoping you would be let watch the whole lot, until somebody popped a collar button and put down a decanter and your mam would say ‘bed!’. In our house sex was something nobody did, ever, and certainly not on TV. None the less we grew up in love with the Americans, and anything they had to offer. Like many shows syndicated across the world Dallas and its ilk have found a place in our collective psyche, and also in our environment. Nobody asks how certain houses, built in the style of South Fork came to be, you might avert your gaze as you whizz past but nobody doubts how they came into existance. These 'one off' buildings were invariably built atop the habitat of the last mating pair of Unicorns, in a pristine and unspoilt area. These follies were OK’ed with more than a nod, they were lauded, held up as examples to the rest of us. THIS is how we roll, we have arrived, a few pints and a pat on the back to the local TD,' ah shur, good man, ill remember you on polling day...will you come round for the mass we’re having said to mark the first night in the new house?'. For everything is political at the end of the day, even ugly houses.

Looking through the synopsis for Dallas, Falcon Crest and Dynasty and correlating it with the average age of politicians in this country I’ve come up with a rather novel theory. We are being run by people who believe in drama ever after. The ebb and flow of the Irish political tide has indeed washed us closer the shores of the US; spiritually, economically & ideologically. In typical Irish fashion I shall judge a family by its boldest child and call Ivor Callelly out to defend this position.
Ivor grew up with J.R. a man that didn’t want money, he wanted more, more power, more perks, more spray tan. As Ivor relaxes in Sheeps head (not quiet the same ring to it as South Fork) he must be seeking comfort in the box set of Dallas. J.R. had these trials, these judgements, but he never backed down, thats just not Texan! Ivor is our Texan, one man standing brave, and tanned, in the face of uncertainty.Never back down, never say sorry, never admit you were wrong, its the Irish political way. Ivor has no doubt has taken comfort in his wives identification with Angela Channing, the matriarch of Falcon Crest who helped scheme and connive to stay on top. For Ivor does not need money, he does not need anything, he just wants power, and that is the key to 80’s soaps. All those Politicians who worked their way up through the constituencies watched this play out in the 80s. When manly men did JR impressions at Christmas parties and then went back to running Anglo after a liquid lunch, where a nod in the planning office secured that second set of Roman Columns to spice up the front, or made sure that Traveller halting site is nowhere near YOUR property.

When we have nothing of value to hold up as our own, then we are destined to continue to blindly follow that which has been prescribed by another society. The Arts has never abandoned Ireland but it will feel the brunt of cuts in the coming years, when all we are left with is FairCity as a reflection of Irish life then we really are in the proverbial. Id like a change please, a fresh start, enough looking to the past and over the water. It would seem as if a grand Falcon Crest type gesture is in order, like burning it down and starting afresh....