I like Sandra Bullock, not least because she reminds me of my dynamo aunt Virginia... Here's my interview with her (Sandra, not Virginia)
http://www.independent.ie/entertainment/day-and-night/features/sandra-bullock-no-bull-1826484.html
By Susan Daly
Sandra Bullock must have asbestos fingers. Ignoring the dainty silver spoon resting by the cup of steaming liquid in front of her, she plucks out a herbal teabag between thumb and forefinger and squeezes it dry. This isn't a woman to stand on ceremony.
She's similarly unafraid to plough into the things that really tee her off. The word 'cougar', for example. It has been bandied about with alarming frequency in recent popular American culture in reference to older women-younger men romances.
On the face of it, the plot of new movie The Proposal -- in which Sandra plays a hard-faced publishing editor who coerces her assistant, played by Ryan Reynolds, into a sham engagement -- prowls that same territory. Bullock is 44; Reynolds is 32.
She rolls her eyes at the C-word. "What it sounds like is that there's this woman who's seemingly decrepit and old, who is preying on these young, nubile men, who can't defend themselves, who are cowering in a corner, can't call their mother, and this woman is sucking the life blood out of them," says Bullock, raising her eyebrows.
She can't understand why anyone would have an issue with an older woman-younger man dynamic in the first place.
"When people say it's a taboo, I ask, 'Is it really?'" she says, quizzically. The Proposal, rather than trumpeting the age difference in a self-regarding 'aren't-we-controversial' way, barely references it at all. (Apart from one smart remark from Betty White's mischievous 'Gammy Annie' when she first meets Bullock.) On the contrary, there are several gags about the family 'baby blanket', which take for granted the possibility of her character Margaret Tate falling pregnant.
When Margaret and Andrew (Reynolds) start to fall for each other -- I'm not giving anything away; the film does otherwise stick to the conventions of a Hollywood romance -- it feels quite natural. Life is like that, says Bullock.
"They might have different ages, but they are in the same place. How many people have we lost the chance to share a great time with because of our pre-conceived notions of what this relationship should look like, age-wise, colour-wise, whatever?" she says emphatically.
And it's not lip service with Bullock. Despite the 12-year age gap, she and Reynolds have been friends for many years after meeting at the dinner party of a mutual friend. Reynolds says that it's a friendship strong enough to survive "a scene in which I'm wearing nothing but Sandra Bullock". More of that anon.
Her marriage four years ago to motorcycle builder Jesse James likewise bucked Hollywood's expectations of its A-list actresses. He is a multi-tattooed man's man who custom-builds motorcycles and is five years younger than Bullock.
"I married him because he WASN'T an actor!" she laughs. At the main press conference for The Proposal earlier in the day, she chides a journalist for referring to James as an actor.
"He's a welder!" she insists, which might be downplaying it slightly. James became a fairly well-known TV personality in the US when his work was documented in shows including Motorcycle Mania and Monster Garage, and he was a contestant on Donald Trump's Celebrity Apprentice earlier this year.
Upstairs, in a private room of a London hotel after lunch, Bullock says she feels her husband's job is more interesting than hers.
"When people see him, I see their eyes light up, and they light up for the right reasons," she says. "Not because of celebrity but because this man has actually accomplished great things that other people can't. He's extraordinary. He can make cars fly. I mean -- come on! I can't do that!" She forgets that she did make a bus fly 15 years ago in Speed (with a little help from CGI), thereby catapulting herself into the star league.
She has since moved away from the role of accidental heroine in favour of showcasing a generous talent for comedy. While she tapped her serious bone for more recent movies including Infamous and Crash, her fanbase has been built on the endearing muddle of vulnerability and goofiness that she displayed in hits such as While You Were Sleeping, Miss Congeniality and Two Weeks' Notice.
The Proposal is all the better for her cheerful willingness to take pratfalls and make a fool of herself in the noble pursuit of physical comedy. Here is Bullock negotiating a quayside ladder in stilettos and skirt; here she is running around a field in wellies and a dressing gown, a yappy little dog under one arm.
And then there is the Nude Scene. Bullock is too honest to feign surprise that it is the moment in the film she has been asked most about on her promotional tour around Europe. The synopsis is that Reynolds and Bullock's characters end up wrestling naked in an accidental kerfuffle.
Much has been made of the fact that it is Bullock's first all-nude movie scene. That said, her naughty bits are covered up by her left arm and a loofah: "I said, 'Just get me a little sponge'. They gave me a loofah! Ow!'" She maintains that it's not a sexy scene -- it's intended to be awkward-funny.
"To do a sex scene, it's just lame, they are never memorable or sexy," she says. "I did it because it's not superfluous; it was really funny in this context."
For the record, Bullock is in tip-top shape. But she claims: "You don't remember me because when Ryan takes his clothes off, you're like: 'Oh dear Jesus'. It's pretty impressive."
Ryan says similarly self-deprecating things in her favour, a strategy that succeeds in deflecting any media-generated heat from the moment. Their friendship survived intact, thank you very much, and their spouses -- Reynolds is married to Scarlett Johansson -- are cool with it.
But doesn't the fact that Bullock and her co-star fall for each other, literally and figuratively on screen, mean that this funny movie could be defined as a romantic comedy? And didn't a certain Sandra Bullock say that romantic comedy was a dead duck? Sandy -- as director Anne Fletcher and Reynolds refer to her -- prefers to call The Proposal a comedy with some romance in it. She acknowledges my eyebrow raised in scepticism. "You often find with comedy -- and this is why I stopped doing it -- people so wanted good comedy so badly that they were willing to go to bad comedy. And I thought, 'This is so wrong. We're getting paid and we're making mediocre films and I can't do it any more'."
Bullock refused several times to get involved in The Proposal, but after reading the script, she found herself seduced once more.
"I thought, 'Wow, I'm incredibly shocked that this is an even two-hander and that the female role was written as cleverly as it was, with so much fun stuff to do'."
Bullock believes it harks back to the screwball comedies of the 1930s and 40s. "Those were two-handers, the barbs going back and forth. You can't make Katharine Hepburn a lampshade -- she's not going to stand for it!"
I don't imagine Bullock suffers much nonsense either. She's not aggressive, but she's certainly not the ditzy girl-next-door of her star-making early movies. She's easy to like, level-headed, more interested in restoring old buildings (she calls herself a frustrated architect) than she is in worrying about what she looked like in the buff at 44.
If there is a vanity about her, I can't see it. She's wearing a floaty, one-shoulder chiffon top but the outfit is roundly beefed up by a pair of sensible pinstripe trousers and court shoes. Her hair is pinned back to show off that famously aquiline bone structure. She looks strong.
Bullock has learned to toughen up by running her own production company, Fortis Films. "Now I more wisely pick and choose what I want to do because I don't want to leave home any more. I've found something that takes priority over my work."
Home is in Austin, Texas, her "sanctuary" where one of her refurbished buildings houses a diner, a bakery, a flower shop and a grocery. It's also in Long Beach, California, where she is a hands-on stepmother to James's three children from previous relationships. On each press trip she has had to make in the past four years, they have brought one of the children so they can dip their toes in foreign cultures.
Bullock wants them to have that same ease with travel that she gained from a peripatetic childhood with her German opera singer mother between the US and Europe. Ireland has become a family favourite. "I don't go there for work. I like to keep it as the place where I enjoy myself rather than having to work. It's just so heavenly."
But if The Proposal turns out to be the redemption of the rom com -- it is already Bullock's first US opening weekend box office No1 in 10 years -- will Bullock be prepared to trade in more of her full off-screen life to follow up its success? The fabulous Betty White, better known to Irish audiences as innocent Rose from The Golden Girls, is still going strong in The Proposal at the age of 87. Would Bullock like to be still charming our screens at that age if we will have her?
"No. I wouldn't want to be, no," she says firmly, as if I were quite mad. Well, one thing's for sure, she has no future as a lampshade.
Friday, July 17, 2009
Poor aul' commuters
http://www.herald.ie/opinion/comment/no-wonder-commuters-are-reckless-drivers-1822652.html
From the Herald, Wednesday July 15 2009
By Susan Daly
The highest rate of penalty points are being awarded to the counties with some of the lowest road death rates. Now what's wrong with this picture?
Dublin's commuter counties -- ones like Kildare, Carlow, Laois and Meath -- have the worst points records in the country.
This implies two things. Either the unfortunate commuters of Leinster collectively drive like Jessica Tandy before Morgan Freeman took the wheel from her in Driving Miss Daisy.
Or, with hundreds of thousands forced on to the same worn routes every morning to get to work, catching offenders is like shooting fish in a barrel.
Even if the second instance is true, we can't be seen to complain.
If you're slapped with penalty points, you were doing something wrong. It's a fair cop, guv (The argument remains, of course, that scarce traffic garda resources are being deployed to stop prangs on the Naas dual-carriageway when they might be better served reining in young men careening around country bends to their deaths.
What the chart-topping points rates really reflect is the utter frustration with which commuters face their drive to work each day.
Unsynchronised traffic lights along a dual carriageway, jams, roadworks -- is it any wonder that a motorist might lose their reason and do something stupid and unsafe?
The most recent census figures revealed that one in six commuting motorists leave home before 7am to make it to their workplace in time. That's 285,000 tired and irritable automatons, some of whom, no doubt, drive with one eye shut to give half their face a lie-in.
The distance people live from work has doubled since 1991, to an average of 10 miles.
And I'll bet you a can of Red Bull that the median conceals the many who live not just a town away from the office, but an entire county -- sometimes two. These are folks who shave, go to work and come home to shave again.
This was the price of owning your own home during the boom: you couldn't expect your children to grow up with a Dublin accent. And now, locked in to negative equity with falling house prices, they most certainly can't trade up to move closer to the big smoke.
So they continue to pack themselves into their sardine cans every morning, hoping for the day helicopters become tax-deductible purchases. A survey of commuters a short time ago found that humans are an adaptable bunch -- we find crutches to distract us from the awful boredom and stress of long journeys to work.
Some people chew gum and eat sweeties, some meditate and pray, some admire the good-looking driver stopped next to them at the traffic lights.
Others get road rage, or indulge in what the boffins call "self-generated audio coping", ie, singing and talking to yourself. Talking to yourself? It isn't an overstatement to say that commuters have their sanity ground down, tailback by frigging tailback, every single day.
They take chances they might not normally take if they were simply pootling about on a leisurely weekend drive.
They speed up to try and catch the fickle rhythm of green lights on the Naas Road. They seriously consider undertaking that truck on the hard shoulder to escape the M50, otherwise known as the second circle of hell.
They try to surreptitiously use their mobile under the steering wheel to tell the creche they will be late picking up the children.
All of these actions rightly deserve penalty points -- and make motorists rich pickings for Garda statisticians.
But there is a difference between commuters making mistakes out of desperation, and those motorists who drink-drive or speed for thrills. There is nothing thrilling about trying to make it home in time to fry some chops for the kids before 9pm. Commuters are no angels -- but they don't deserve to be demonised either.
From the Herald, Wednesday July 15 2009
By Susan Daly
The highest rate of penalty points are being awarded to the counties with some of the lowest road death rates. Now what's wrong with this picture?
Dublin's commuter counties -- ones like Kildare, Carlow, Laois and Meath -- have the worst points records in the country.
This implies two things. Either the unfortunate commuters of Leinster collectively drive like Jessica Tandy before Morgan Freeman took the wheel from her in Driving Miss Daisy.
Or, with hundreds of thousands forced on to the same worn routes every morning to get to work, catching offenders is like shooting fish in a barrel.
Even if the second instance is true, we can't be seen to complain.
If you're slapped with penalty points, you were doing something wrong. It's a fair cop, guv (The argument remains, of course, that scarce traffic garda resources are being deployed to stop prangs on the Naas dual-carriageway when they might be better served reining in young men careening around country bends to their deaths.
What the chart-topping points rates really reflect is the utter frustration with which commuters face their drive to work each day.
Unsynchronised traffic lights along a dual carriageway, jams, roadworks -- is it any wonder that a motorist might lose their reason and do something stupid and unsafe?
The most recent census figures revealed that one in six commuting motorists leave home before 7am to make it to their workplace in time. That's 285,000 tired and irritable automatons, some of whom, no doubt, drive with one eye shut to give half their face a lie-in.
The distance people live from work has doubled since 1991, to an average of 10 miles.
And I'll bet you a can of Red Bull that the median conceals the many who live not just a town away from the office, but an entire county -- sometimes two. These are folks who shave, go to work and come home to shave again.
This was the price of owning your own home during the boom: you couldn't expect your children to grow up with a Dublin accent. And now, locked in to negative equity with falling house prices, they most certainly can't trade up to move closer to the big smoke.
So they continue to pack themselves into their sardine cans every morning, hoping for the day helicopters become tax-deductible purchases. A survey of commuters a short time ago found that humans are an adaptable bunch -- we find crutches to distract us from the awful boredom and stress of long journeys to work.
Some people chew gum and eat sweeties, some meditate and pray, some admire the good-looking driver stopped next to them at the traffic lights.
Others get road rage, or indulge in what the boffins call "self-generated audio coping", ie, singing and talking to yourself. Talking to yourself? It isn't an overstatement to say that commuters have their sanity ground down, tailback by frigging tailback, every single day.
They take chances they might not normally take if they were simply pootling about on a leisurely weekend drive.
They speed up to try and catch the fickle rhythm of green lights on the Naas Road. They seriously consider undertaking that truck on the hard shoulder to escape the M50, otherwise known as the second circle of hell.
They try to surreptitiously use their mobile under the steering wheel to tell the creche they will be late picking up the children.
All of these actions rightly deserve penalty points -- and make motorists rich pickings for Garda statisticians.
But there is a difference between commuters making mistakes out of desperation, and those motorists who drink-drive or speed for thrills. There is nothing thrilling about trying to make it home in time to fry some chops for the kids before 9pm. Commuters are no angels -- but they don't deserve to be demonised either.
Tuesday, July 14, 2009
Me a swan? Ah, go on!
Might be a good way of getting a cheap haircut in this climate, mind you...
My article on TV makeover shows in today's Indo:
http://www.independent.ie/entertainment/tv-radio/why-we-just-cant-get-enough-of-the-shows-that-change-your-life-1820355.html
As the new series of 'How Long Will You Live?' starts tonight on RTE, Susan Daly takes a look at the amazing boom in makeover television.
Change is possible: it's the mantra of hundreds of TV shows around the globe dedicated to making over every element of a person's life. Transform your face, body, wardrobe, house, garden, car, dog -- even your children can be brought up to scratch.
There is a recognisable format to these programmes. A target is identified, a crack team of experts roll in to cajole or coerce change in some area of their less-than-perfect lives, the transformation is revealed, tears are shed and everyone goes home happy. But what happens when the cameras have stopped rolling?
Dr Mark Hamilton, presenter of RTE's How Long Will You Live?, has made return visits to participants whose health issues he tried to take in hand a year ago. The results will be shown in a revisit series which begins tonight on RTE1 at 8.30pm.
"I actually looked forward to the revisits more than the initial eight weeks we did with the patients," says Dr Hamilton.
"Not all of them are on the same scale as when we left, but the vast majority have retained something of what we tried to show them.
"When I was first in talks with the production company about doing this programme, I was clear that I didn't want it to be a quick fix for telly.
"Although you have to make things watchable, all of the suggestions we were making were tailored to each person, so that they would be sustainable."
How Long Will You Live? is a step removed from what might be regarded as the more shallow makeover shows. It addresses serious health issues, like living with coeliac disease, or trying to combat a lifetime smoking habit.
The other major lifestyle overhaul show on RTE this year, Operation Transformation, worked on a similar premise. "We were looking at the bigger picture," says Pat Henry, who was the motivational guru for the participants.
"You see other programmes going on about face lifts and body lifts, but what most people in these shows need is a mind lift. My job was to help them deal with the negativity that is being thrown at us all every day, and realise their potential."
The holistic approach to mind and body of these programmes seems tame compared to the shows playing on the digital channels every weeknight.
House and garden makeover programmes continue to be hugely popular despite the economic downturn -- fantasy and aspiration about how we would like our lives to be have a strong pull. How many of us, for example, watch Masterchef while sitting on the couch with a takeaway?
Voyeurism is a huge part of the attraction, of course. Who can resist a peek into the dark corners of someone else's failings?
Watching Trinny and Susannah ripping fashion 'crimes' out of their victims' wardrobes is the televisual equivalent of sneaking into your neighbour's house to root around in their underwear drawer.
It's safer to watch it happening second-hand, but it still feels a bit naughty -- and fun. There might even be an element of schadenfreude to the popularity of makeover shows.'
Some shows are just car-crash television: it's horrifying but you can't look away. The MTV series I Want A Famous Face followed young people as they underwent multiple cosmetic procedures designed to make them look like their favourite celebrity. The results were often freakish, and the participants disturbingly vulnerable.
MTV didn't pay for the surgeries, unlike The Swan -- formerly presented by Dubliner Amanda Byram -- or Extreme Makeover, both of which involved major surgical overhaul of their subjects.
"I think some of the shows with plastic surgery and cosmetic dental work don't change what is going on in the person's head," says Pat Henry.
"I think of the mind as a computer that needs to be reprogrammed sometimes; say, if you have a boyfriend who is constantly telling you that you're fat or ugly, just changing the exterior is not going to change how you think about yourself."
New research suggests that audiences too can be negatively affected by the more extreme of the makeover shows. A study by the University of Southern California found that they led young women to feel more insecure about their bodies.
When Australia got its own version of Extreme Makeover in 2004, the country's Society of Plastic Surgeons sounded a warning at the hike of inquiries its members would get as a result of the show.
"That's a bad thing, because it's inducing people who would not normally consider cosmetic surgery," said the society's president Alfred Lewis. He added, the programme "raised the spectre of multiple surgical procedures" and trivialised their associated risks.
Even the less invasive makeover shows can work on the insidious premise that a successful life is one accessorised by the correct soft furnishings, the most flattering haircut, the 'pimped-out' car or the most tasteful water feature.
One of the most entertaining makeovers featured on RTE's Off The Rails had journalist Nell McCafferty valiantly fighting the attempts of Caroline Morahan to brighten up her style palette of black and black.
Celebrities seem to have a high 'failure' rate in the testing aftermath of makeover shows like Celebrity Fit Club. This is partly because there are gossip mags waiting to catch and chronicle their moments of weaknesses; but also because their motivation to participate in the first place might have been for a fee or exposure purposes, rather than a desire to change.
For civilians, too, it's the will to transform that dictates if they can sustain their new makeovers into the future.
"It's often the ones who are doing it for somebody else -- their child, their partner -- who don't quite manage it," says Dr Hamilton.
Whether makeover shows have crossed the line of good taste or not, they are here to stay. They are not a new phenomenon -- over 50 years ago, housewives would tearfully compete on NBC's Queen for the Day in a bid to win life-enhancing prizes like a washing machine
"I have had several experiences where I've met a taxi driver or someone in a hotel where I'm staying who says that they say something on the show that they have tried to put into practice in their own life," says Dr Hamilton.
Pat Henry has had similar feedback from viewers. "The people on our programme were very normal and people felt they could relate to them. They thought: I could do that."
- Susan Daly
Change reaction . . . Milestones in the makeover shows
CHANGING ROOMS
Responsible for a boom in DIY, the show was at its most entertaining when the cameras caught the look of horror on some home owners' faces as they were presented their sitting room decked out in faux fur throws and glitterballs. Possible origin of the term 'inferior designer'.
WHAT NOT TO WEAR
Trinny Woodall and Susannah Constantine were the queens of mean as they poked, prodded and bullied women -- in the guise of tough love -- into what they regarded as more shape-appropriate clothes.
HOW TO LOOK GOOD NAKED
Gok Wan is presented as the salvation of the style-makeover show. His aim, he says, is to improve women's body image, a goal largely reached by allowing his charges to cry profusely on his shoulder while complimenting them endlessly on their fabulous "bangers".
SUPERNANNY
Nanny Jo Frost descends on chaotic families to diagnose and provide solutions to their children's out of control behaviour. Introduced the concept of the 'naughty step' to a million households -- and gently proves that in most cases, yes, we should blame the parents.
THE SWAN/ EXTREME MAKEOVER
The Swan, fronted by former Irish model Amanda Byram, came first but the Extreme Makeover brand has processed hundreds of desperate participants through multiple cosmetic surgeries in a bid to let their inner beauty shine. Through, er, their outer beauty.
THE BIGGEST LOSER
Five years after the first US series, the show has been franchised all over the world. Obese contestants compete to lose the highest percentage of their starting weight for huge cash prizes.
While the contestants are given exercise and nutrition programmes, there are also temptation and challenge obstacles to be overcome in every episode.
My article on TV makeover shows in today's Indo:
http://www.independent.ie/entertainment/tv-radio/why-we-just-cant-get-enough-of-the-shows-that-change-your-life-1820355.html
As the new series of 'How Long Will You Live?' starts tonight on RTE, Susan Daly takes a look at the amazing boom in makeover television.
Change is possible: it's the mantra of hundreds of TV shows around the globe dedicated to making over every element of a person's life. Transform your face, body, wardrobe, house, garden, car, dog -- even your children can be brought up to scratch.
There is a recognisable format to these programmes. A target is identified, a crack team of experts roll in to cajole or coerce change in some area of their less-than-perfect lives, the transformation is revealed, tears are shed and everyone goes home happy. But what happens when the cameras have stopped rolling?
Dr Mark Hamilton, presenter of RTE's How Long Will You Live?, has made return visits to participants whose health issues he tried to take in hand a year ago. The results will be shown in a revisit series which begins tonight on RTE1 at 8.30pm.
"I actually looked forward to the revisits more than the initial eight weeks we did with the patients," says Dr Hamilton.
"Not all of them are on the same scale as when we left, but the vast majority have retained something of what we tried to show them.
"When I was first in talks with the production company about doing this programme, I was clear that I didn't want it to be a quick fix for telly.
"Although you have to make things watchable, all of the suggestions we were making were tailored to each person, so that they would be sustainable."
How Long Will You Live? is a step removed from what might be regarded as the more shallow makeover shows. It addresses serious health issues, like living with coeliac disease, or trying to combat a lifetime smoking habit.
The other major lifestyle overhaul show on RTE this year, Operation Transformation, worked on a similar premise. "We were looking at the bigger picture," says Pat Henry, who was the motivational guru for the participants.
"You see other programmes going on about face lifts and body lifts, but what most people in these shows need is a mind lift. My job was to help them deal with the negativity that is being thrown at us all every day, and realise their potential."
The holistic approach to mind and body of these programmes seems tame compared to the shows playing on the digital channels every weeknight.
House and garden makeover programmes continue to be hugely popular despite the economic downturn -- fantasy and aspiration about how we would like our lives to be have a strong pull. How many of us, for example, watch Masterchef while sitting on the couch with a takeaway?
Voyeurism is a huge part of the attraction, of course. Who can resist a peek into the dark corners of someone else's failings?
Watching Trinny and Susannah ripping fashion 'crimes' out of their victims' wardrobes is the televisual equivalent of sneaking into your neighbour's house to root around in their underwear drawer.
It's safer to watch it happening second-hand, but it still feels a bit naughty -- and fun. There might even be an element of schadenfreude to the popularity of makeover shows.'
Some shows are just car-crash television: it's horrifying but you can't look away. The MTV series I Want A Famous Face followed young people as they underwent multiple cosmetic procedures designed to make them look like their favourite celebrity. The results were often freakish, and the participants disturbingly vulnerable.
MTV didn't pay for the surgeries, unlike The Swan -- formerly presented by Dubliner Amanda Byram -- or Extreme Makeover, both of which involved major surgical overhaul of their subjects.
"I think some of the shows with plastic surgery and cosmetic dental work don't change what is going on in the person's head," says Pat Henry.
"I think of the mind as a computer that needs to be reprogrammed sometimes; say, if you have a boyfriend who is constantly telling you that you're fat or ugly, just changing the exterior is not going to change how you think about yourself."
New research suggests that audiences too can be negatively affected by the more extreme of the makeover shows. A study by the University of Southern California found that they led young women to feel more insecure about their bodies.
When Australia got its own version of Extreme Makeover in 2004, the country's Society of Plastic Surgeons sounded a warning at the hike of inquiries its members would get as a result of the show.
"That's a bad thing, because it's inducing people who would not normally consider cosmetic surgery," said the society's president Alfred Lewis. He added, the programme "raised the spectre of multiple surgical procedures" and trivialised their associated risks.
Even the less invasive makeover shows can work on the insidious premise that a successful life is one accessorised by the correct soft furnishings, the most flattering haircut, the 'pimped-out' car or the most tasteful water feature.
One of the most entertaining makeovers featured on RTE's Off The Rails had journalist Nell McCafferty valiantly fighting the attempts of Caroline Morahan to brighten up her style palette of black and black.
Celebrities seem to have a high 'failure' rate in the testing aftermath of makeover shows like Celebrity Fit Club. This is partly because there are gossip mags waiting to catch and chronicle their moments of weaknesses; but also because their motivation to participate in the first place might have been for a fee or exposure purposes, rather than a desire to change.
For civilians, too, it's the will to transform that dictates if they can sustain their new makeovers into the future.
"It's often the ones who are doing it for somebody else -- their child, their partner -- who don't quite manage it," says Dr Hamilton.
Whether makeover shows have crossed the line of good taste or not, they are here to stay. They are not a new phenomenon -- over 50 years ago, housewives would tearfully compete on NBC's Queen for the Day in a bid to win life-enhancing prizes like a washing machine
"I have had several experiences where I've met a taxi driver or someone in a hotel where I'm staying who says that they say something on the show that they have tried to put into practice in their own life," says Dr Hamilton.
Pat Henry has had similar feedback from viewers. "The people on our programme were very normal and people felt they could relate to them. They thought: I could do that."
- Susan Daly
Change reaction . . . Milestones in the makeover shows
CHANGING ROOMS
Responsible for a boom in DIY, the show was at its most entertaining when the cameras caught the look of horror on some home owners' faces as they were presented their sitting room decked out in faux fur throws and glitterballs. Possible origin of the term 'inferior designer'.
WHAT NOT TO WEAR
Trinny Woodall and Susannah Constantine were the queens of mean as they poked, prodded and bullied women -- in the guise of tough love -- into what they regarded as more shape-appropriate clothes.
HOW TO LOOK GOOD NAKED
Gok Wan is presented as the salvation of the style-makeover show. His aim, he says, is to improve women's body image, a goal largely reached by allowing his charges to cry profusely on his shoulder while complimenting them endlessly on their fabulous "bangers".
SUPERNANNY
Nanny Jo Frost descends on chaotic families to diagnose and provide solutions to their children's out of control behaviour. Introduced the concept of the 'naughty step' to a million households -- and gently proves that in most cases, yes, we should blame the parents.
THE SWAN/ EXTREME MAKEOVER
The Swan, fronted by former Irish model Amanda Byram, came first but the Extreme Makeover brand has processed hundreds of desperate participants through multiple cosmetic surgeries in a bid to let their inner beauty shine. Through, er, their outer beauty.
THE BIGGEST LOSER
Five years after the first US series, the show has been franchised all over the world. Obese contestants compete to lose the highest percentage of their starting weight for huge cash prizes.
While the contestants are given exercise and nutrition programmes, there are also temptation and challenge obstacles to be overcome in every episode.
Tuesday, July 7, 2009
Smart drugs and smarter airline bosses
Since I posted last week, I have been to London to interview Sandra Bullock - funnier than I thought she would be - and to the South of France for a very serious interview on a very serious subject (it would be flippant to insert the relevant smiley/unsmiley faces here).
So it's fitting that two pieces I have published in newspapers today display the eclectic range of subjects I write on.
The first is on the abuse/use of cognitive-enhancing drugs by students in the Irish Independent...
http://www.independent.ie/lifestyle/are-smart-drugs-cheating-our-students-out-of-their-future-1808926.html
The second is a piece I wrote at 7am this morning for today's edition of the Evening Herald on Ryanair's delightful proposal to rip out some of the seats on their planes in favour of stools. Charming man, that Michael O'Leary...
http://www.herald.ie/opinion/comment/if-oleary-could-hed-make-us-flap-our-arms-1809445.html
ARE SMART DRUGS A CHEAT?
Tuesday July 07 2009
By Jeremy Laurance and Susan Daly
Certain households -- those containing exam-sitting students -- may have noticed a peak in their consumption of coffee last month. Caffeine-loaded energy drinks have long been stimulants of choice for students struggling to burn the midnight oil.
But what if students began to turn to more serious stimulants to enhance their performance at the end of term?
Ritalin is a stimulant drug, best known as a treatment for hyperactive children. But it has also found a ready black market among students, especially in the US, who are desperate to succeed. Users say it helps them to focus and concentrate, and this has been confirmed in research studies on adults.
David Green, a student at the University of Harvard, told The Washington Post: "In all honesty, I haven't written a paper without Ritalin since my junior year in high school."
Matt, a business finance student at the University of Florida, claimed a similar drug, Adderall, had helped him improve his grades. "It's a miracle drug," he told The Boston Globe. "It is unbelievable how my concentration boosts when I use it."
Dr David McGrath, of Trinity College Dublin's Student Health department, says that student-health services in Ireland are aware of the problem.
"It is rarely an issue with Irish students at the moment in our experience," he says, "but we frequently find students from abroad using it as a cognitive-enhancing drug."
These students have often originally been prescribed the likes of Ritalin for a diagnosis of a genuine disorder such as ADHD -- but then they don't necessarily take it in the way it was prescribed to them. "Some will only use it when they want to cram before an exam," says Dr McGrath.
Student health medics try to keep an eye on this abuse of such stimulants -- "that would be a lot of our workload at the start of the year, trying to determine that those who come to us needing these drugs prescribed have been diagnosed by a consultant psychologist" -- as drugs like Ritalin are subject to stringent controls.
"You can't just walk into a pharmacy and buy these. We don't issue them for people who say, 'Oh I tried my friend's Ritalin and it worked for me'. These drugs should never be opened up willy nilly to people over the counter, because they have side-effects and can interact with other medicines, even herbal remedies. They are as strongly controlled as morphine -- and with good reason," says Dr McGrath.
Of course, the internet is a potential source of drugs. "I would imagine that there is no drug that you can't type in the name and find online," says Dr McGrath, "but the drugs you receive in the post might not be the drugs that they are marketed as."
Still, there are no specific regulations governing the use of chemical cognitive-enhancing. Is it really cheating? Some experts have condemned the trend and accused students of gaining an "unfair advantage" by doping, without explaining why it is any more unfair than hiring a private tutor or paying for exam coaching.
John Harris, director of the Institute for Science, Ethics and Innovation at the University of Manchester, and editor-in-chief of the Journal of Medical Ethics, has made the provocative suggestion that it is time to embrace the possibilities of "brain boosters".
Professor Harris says that the arguments against the drugs "have not been persuasive" and that society ought to want enhancement.
"It is not rational to be against human enhancement," he writes. "Humans are creatures that result from an enhancement process called evolution and moreover are inveterate self-improvers in every conceivable way."
Although no drug can be guaranteed safe and free of all side-effects, Ritalin has been judged safe enough for children with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), and has been widely used to treat them over many years, he says.
The drug is a stimulant which was introduced in 1956 and appears to influence the way the brain filters and responds to stimuli.
It increases energy as well as confidence and has been compared to cocaine.
Possible side-effects are typical of stimulants and include insomnia, loss of appetite, dizziness and depression on withdrawal.
Kieran Fitzpatrick is Welfare Officer with the Union of Students in Ireland. He says the USI would definitely not advocate the use of medication to sharpen brains at exam time.
"It is medication, it has side effects, there can be increased heart rate," he says. "And what happens after the exams are over? Do people develop a bit of dependence, do they go through the trauma of withdrawal?"
The ethics of the debate over whether 'smart' drugs are cheating is less important than initiating research into how their misuse can "tamper with the human body", Fitzpatrick believes.
Writing in the online British Medical Journal, Professor Harris says the use of cognitive enhancing drugs should be seen as a natural extension of the process of education.
Drug regulatory agencies should assess the benefits and risks in the same way as they would for any other medical intervention.
"Suppose a university were to set out deliberately to improve the mental capacities of its students.
'Suppose they further claimed that not only could they achieve this but that their students would be more intelligent and mentally alert than any in history.
"We might be sceptical but if the claims could be sustained should we be pleased?"
His answer is an unequivocal yes. He concludes that it is unethical to stop healthy people taking Ritalin to enhance their mental performance.
But in total disagreement, Professor Anjan Chatterjee from the University of Pennsylvania argues in the BMJ that there are too many risks.
In the US, the drug carries a "black box" warning, the most serious, because of its high potential for abuse, serious adverse risks on the heart and the risk of sudden death.
He adds that there are cognitive trade-offs in taking Ritalin, with a loss of creativity, and points out that "being smarter does not mean being wiser".
He raises the spectre of children at top preparatory schools taking Ritalin in "epidemic proportions" and pilots, police and doctors being pressurised to take it when on-call.
Professor Bert Gordijn, chair of Dublin City University's Ethics Institute, similarly argues that there is a concern that if certain groups start to use 'smart' drugs to get an edge, then there might be societal pressure for everyone to use them.
"What seems abnormal today could become normal tomorrow," says Prof Gordijn. "We are talking about medicalisation here."
There isn't any empirical research in Ireland on the use of enhancement technologies, but Prof Gordijn believes that there is a general tendency globally for them.
"While medicine has focused on curing disease, now it's coming up with improving on the traits of normal people.
"You see this with the rise in cosmetic surgery, or in the endeavours in sporting medicine which are more about enhancing performance than curing disease."
Progress often carries risk, says Professor Harris. The development of "synthetic sunshine" (firelights, lamplight and electric light) could have forced people to work through the night.
The answer was not to ban it but to introduce laws to regulate working hours.
"The same is or will be true of chemical cognitive enhancers," he concludes.
IF O'LEARY COULD HE'D MAKE US FLAP OUR ARMS...
By Susan Daly
Tuesday July 07 2009
Are you right there, Michael? Just when you thought Ryanair had removed all the frills it possibly could, it changes the definition of the things we should consider little extras. You know, crazy luxuries like seats and such.
The latest missive from the low-fares, who-cares airline outlines plans to perch passengers on stools so more cargo -- sorry, humans -- can be squeezed on a flight. It's the equivalent of that schoolboy prank of pulling the seat out from under you when you're not looking.
Michael O'Leary has already put the call in to Boeing to find out if his evil genius can be accommodated. He is taking as his model the Chinese airline Spring, which introduced stools to increase its passenger load by 50pc and cut costs by 20pc.
Enterprise and communism make for uneasy bedfellows, but you can see how it might be inspiring for O'Leary. Ryanair would refer to passengers by number rather than by name if they thought it might cut down on the paperwork.
It is entirely possible that this is another flier from O'Leary, the CEO of an airline that ran a competition for new money-generating ideas. The winner: to charge customers for using the onboard toilets. It has yet to come to pass, but O'Leary managed to keep his poker face long enough for the publicity fires to be stoked.
Stunts
Publicity stunts are a huge part of Ryanair's advertising -- Michael O'Leary is a rare breed of millionaire who is happy to dress up as a priest or a giant mobile phone in the pursuit of the next shekel. But what if this latest wheeze is true? Would you take a stool to save even more money on a flight already discounted to peanuts? The truth -- which O'Leary has built his business on -- is many of us probably would.
We have surprised ourselves by how much we can get used to. Remember the public outrage when O'Leary announced he would be charging for a cup of tea or coffee? The Liveline phones were hopping red-hot for days.
No matter how we grumbled, we kept booking with O'Leary's dastardly empire because the fares kept plummeting. The real test of O'Leary's success was when other airlines, emboldened by his brazenness, followed suit.
That is why it didn't seem at all unfeasible when the story about Ryanair's latest plan began to emerge. Initially, it was reported that passengers might be asked to stand at the back of the plane in exchange for the lowest of low fares. I guess that wouldn't go down well with the air safety people.
I'm just wondering where this will all end. They might consider getting rid of those big, expensive planes -- if birds can fly, surely we lazy passengers can grow some wings. Stop moaning, people, it's progress.
So it's fitting that two pieces I have published in newspapers today display the eclectic range of subjects I write on.
The first is on the abuse/use of cognitive-enhancing drugs by students in the Irish Independent...
http://www.independent.ie/lifestyle/are-smart-drugs-cheating-our-students-out-of-their-future-1808926.html
The second is a piece I wrote at 7am this morning for today's edition of the Evening Herald on Ryanair's delightful proposal to rip out some of the seats on their planes in favour of stools. Charming man, that Michael O'Leary...
http://www.herald.ie/opinion/comment/if-oleary-could-hed-make-us-flap-our-arms-1809445.html
ARE SMART DRUGS A CHEAT?
Tuesday July 07 2009
By Jeremy Laurance and Susan Daly
Certain households -- those containing exam-sitting students -- may have noticed a peak in their consumption of coffee last month. Caffeine-loaded energy drinks have long been stimulants of choice for students struggling to burn the midnight oil.
But what if students began to turn to more serious stimulants to enhance their performance at the end of term?
Ritalin is a stimulant drug, best known as a treatment for hyperactive children. But it has also found a ready black market among students, especially in the US, who are desperate to succeed. Users say it helps them to focus and concentrate, and this has been confirmed in research studies on adults.
David Green, a student at the University of Harvard, told The Washington Post: "In all honesty, I haven't written a paper without Ritalin since my junior year in high school."
Matt, a business finance student at the University of Florida, claimed a similar drug, Adderall, had helped him improve his grades. "It's a miracle drug," he told The Boston Globe. "It is unbelievable how my concentration boosts when I use it."
Dr David McGrath, of Trinity College Dublin's Student Health department, says that student-health services in Ireland are aware of the problem.
"It is rarely an issue with Irish students at the moment in our experience," he says, "but we frequently find students from abroad using it as a cognitive-enhancing drug."
These students have often originally been prescribed the likes of Ritalin for a diagnosis of a genuine disorder such as ADHD -- but then they don't necessarily take it in the way it was prescribed to them. "Some will only use it when they want to cram before an exam," says Dr McGrath.
Student health medics try to keep an eye on this abuse of such stimulants -- "that would be a lot of our workload at the start of the year, trying to determine that those who come to us needing these drugs prescribed have been diagnosed by a consultant psychologist" -- as drugs like Ritalin are subject to stringent controls.
"You can't just walk into a pharmacy and buy these. We don't issue them for people who say, 'Oh I tried my friend's Ritalin and it worked for me'. These drugs should never be opened up willy nilly to people over the counter, because they have side-effects and can interact with other medicines, even herbal remedies. They are as strongly controlled as morphine -- and with good reason," says Dr McGrath.
Of course, the internet is a potential source of drugs. "I would imagine that there is no drug that you can't type in the name and find online," says Dr McGrath, "but the drugs you receive in the post might not be the drugs that they are marketed as."
Still, there are no specific regulations governing the use of chemical cognitive-enhancing. Is it really cheating? Some experts have condemned the trend and accused students of gaining an "unfair advantage" by doping, without explaining why it is any more unfair than hiring a private tutor or paying for exam coaching.
John Harris, director of the Institute for Science, Ethics and Innovation at the University of Manchester, and editor-in-chief of the Journal of Medical Ethics, has made the provocative suggestion that it is time to embrace the possibilities of "brain boosters".
Professor Harris says that the arguments against the drugs "have not been persuasive" and that society ought to want enhancement.
"It is not rational to be against human enhancement," he writes. "Humans are creatures that result from an enhancement process called evolution and moreover are inveterate self-improvers in every conceivable way."
Although no drug can be guaranteed safe and free of all side-effects, Ritalin has been judged safe enough for children with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), and has been widely used to treat them over many years, he says.
The drug is a stimulant which was introduced in 1956 and appears to influence the way the brain filters and responds to stimuli.
It increases energy as well as confidence and has been compared to cocaine.
Possible side-effects are typical of stimulants and include insomnia, loss of appetite, dizziness and depression on withdrawal.
Kieran Fitzpatrick is Welfare Officer with the Union of Students in Ireland. He says the USI would definitely not advocate the use of medication to sharpen brains at exam time.
"It is medication, it has side effects, there can be increased heart rate," he says. "And what happens after the exams are over? Do people develop a bit of dependence, do they go through the trauma of withdrawal?"
The ethics of the debate over whether 'smart' drugs are cheating is less important than initiating research into how their misuse can "tamper with the human body", Fitzpatrick believes.
Writing in the online British Medical Journal, Professor Harris says the use of cognitive enhancing drugs should be seen as a natural extension of the process of education.
Drug regulatory agencies should assess the benefits and risks in the same way as they would for any other medical intervention.
"Suppose a university were to set out deliberately to improve the mental capacities of its students.
'Suppose they further claimed that not only could they achieve this but that their students would be more intelligent and mentally alert than any in history.
"We might be sceptical but if the claims could be sustained should we be pleased?"
His answer is an unequivocal yes. He concludes that it is unethical to stop healthy people taking Ritalin to enhance their mental performance.
But in total disagreement, Professor Anjan Chatterjee from the University of Pennsylvania argues in the BMJ that there are too many risks.
In the US, the drug carries a "black box" warning, the most serious, because of its high potential for abuse, serious adverse risks on the heart and the risk of sudden death.
He adds that there are cognitive trade-offs in taking Ritalin, with a loss of creativity, and points out that "being smarter does not mean being wiser".
He raises the spectre of children at top preparatory schools taking Ritalin in "epidemic proportions" and pilots, police and doctors being pressurised to take it when on-call.
Professor Bert Gordijn, chair of Dublin City University's Ethics Institute, similarly argues that there is a concern that if certain groups start to use 'smart' drugs to get an edge, then there might be societal pressure for everyone to use them.
"What seems abnormal today could become normal tomorrow," says Prof Gordijn. "We are talking about medicalisation here."
There isn't any empirical research in Ireland on the use of enhancement technologies, but Prof Gordijn believes that there is a general tendency globally for them.
"While medicine has focused on curing disease, now it's coming up with improving on the traits of normal people.
"You see this with the rise in cosmetic surgery, or in the endeavours in sporting medicine which are more about enhancing performance than curing disease."
Progress often carries risk, says Professor Harris. The development of "synthetic sunshine" (firelights, lamplight and electric light) could have forced people to work through the night.
The answer was not to ban it but to introduce laws to regulate working hours.
"The same is or will be true of chemical cognitive enhancers," he concludes.
IF O'LEARY COULD HE'D MAKE US FLAP OUR ARMS...
By Susan Daly
Tuesday July 07 2009
Are you right there, Michael? Just when you thought Ryanair had removed all the frills it possibly could, it changes the definition of the things we should consider little extras. You know, crazy luxuries like seats and such.
The latest missive from the low-fares, who-cares airline outlines plans to perch passengers on stools so more cargo -- sorry, humans -- can be squeezed on a flight. It's the equivalent of that schoolboy prank of pulling the seat out from under you when you're not looking.
Michael O'Leary has already put the call in to Boeing to find out if his evil genius can be accommodated. He is taking as his model the Chinese airline Spring, which introduced stools to increase its passenger load by 50pc and cut costs by 20pc.
Enterprise and communism make for uneasy bedfellows, but you can see how it might be inspiring for O'Leary. Ryanair would refer to passengers by number rather than by name if they thought it might cut down on the paperwork.
It is entirely possible that this is another flier from O'Leary, the CEO of an airline that ran a competition for new money-generating ideas. The winner: to charge customers for using the onboard toilets. It has yet to come to pass, but O'Leary managed to keep his poker face long enough for the publicity fires to be stoked.
Stunts
Publicity stunts are a huge part of Ryanair's advertising -- Michael O'Leary is a rare breed of millionaire who is happy to dress up as a priest or a giant mobile phone in the pursuit of the next shekel. But what if this latest wheeze is true? Would you take a stool to save even more money on a flight already discounted to peanuts? The truth -- which O'Leary has built his business on -- is many of us probably would.
We have surprised ourselves by how much we can get used to. Remember the public outrage when O'Leary announced he would be charging for a cup of tea or coffee? The Liveline phones were hopping red-hot for days.
No matter how we grumbled, we kept booking with O'Leary's dastardly empire because the fares kept plummeting. The real test of O'Leary's success was when other airlines, emboldened by his brazenness, followed suit.
That is why it didn't seem at all unfeasible when the story about Ryanair's latest plan began to emerge. Initially, it was reported that passengers might be asked to stand at the back of the plane in exchange for the lowest of low fares. I guess that wouldn't go down well with the air safety people.
I'm just wondering where this will all end. They might consider getting rid of those big, expensive planes -- if birds can fly, surely we lazy passengers can grow some wings. Stop moaning, people, it's progress.
Tuesday, June 30, 2009
Hell's Kitchen
I had one of my most eye-opening days ever recently, following an Environmental Health Officer through a plethora of food-selling venues. It won't stop me eating out though!
Here's my report in today's Independent... and how I look in a hairnet. Nice.
http://www.independent.ie/lifestyle/a-day-in-the-life-of-an-environmental-health-officer-1797220.html
By Susan Daly
Tuesday June 30 2009
I bought a chocolate brownie recently that was one month out of date. One whole month. I got a refund from the coffee shop and didn't think much more about it.
What I should have done was report it to my local Environmental Health Officer. As portrayed in RTE reality show, The Enforcers (Thursday, RTE1, 8.30pm), these are the guys and gals who brave the heat of the kitchen to protect consumers from bad food safety practices.
Philip Devenish, the Environmental Health Officer (EHO) who agrees to let me shadow him for a day, carries nothing more menacing than a green notebook and an inquisitive air -- but he makes grown men nervous.
Our first port of call is at 8am to a small food manufacturer in northwest Dublin.
"This is nerve-wracking for me," confesses the fast-talking owner. I am handed my deeply unflattering uniform for the factory floor inspection: white overcoat, hairnet, bright blue plastic bootees.
To my untrained eye, the facility looks impeccably clean. Philip hones straight in on a broken plastic lid that sits on a vast vat of stewed fruit -- plastic debris could easily fall unnoticed into the mush.
Foreign objects are the bane of the food safety complaint system. By the time a consumer brings in an object, as happened recently in Philip's area when a man claimed his mouth was cut by glass in a sandwich, the food has been thrown away. When proof is impossible, prevention is preferable.
I have a nose about in a giant flour bin, while Philip asks more pertinent questions about labelling and use-by dates. He pops his head into the staff bathroom for good measure. "You can tell a lot about a business from its toilets," he nods sagely. These ones are spotless.
Our next client is another matter. We're off to meet up with a mobile catering van, or 'chuck wagon'.
The van we are looking for whizzes past on the other side of the road as we sit at traffic lights. Philip notes the driver/owner is wearing disposable gloves while driving. "I hope he's not preparing food with the same gloves," he muses.
We do a quick U-turn when the light goes green -- I'm secretly hoping for a 'chuck wagon' chase that doesn't materialise as our target pulls into an industrial estate.
The driver greets us with bravado. He has already set up shop and has a line of hungry shift workers waiting for breakfast rolls.
There are lots of sausage-related cracks from his customers as Philip inserts his digital temperature probe into the meat products sizzling under the hot grill. But Philip is not smiling as he delivers his results: "Your fridge needs to be colder, and your hot box needs to be hotter".
The owner has an answer for everything -- his own thermometer was "definitely working an hour ago", but not now, when Philip tests it. He has ordered the new water tap that Philip suggested on his last visit, but it's not come in yet.
Philip probes along the edge of the floor covering -- an EHO spends a lot of time peering into nooks and crannies -- and emerges with a finger dripping with dark grease.
"My mother blitzes the van every Friday," the owner protests, "but she's away for two weeks."
Philip is a skilled diplomat: he offers advice and guidelines, and tries to understand the limitations of the van operation. "The guys we called into earlier are in food by trade," explains Philip later, "but some people are in food by default."
This issue of inexperienced caterers has become more urgent in recent months as people with redundancy money attempt to set up their own small businesses with no previous expertise. "They need a lot of support and guidance," he says.
So much for the stereotype of the EHO roaming the streets baying for businesses to shut down.
"A few younger colleagues might have that 'I am the law' swagger," says Philip. "We're generally doing our best to keep businesses open -- we want the food industry to thrive."
On the other hand, he notes, 'light touch' regulation doesn't work. The rapid response to the recent pork dioxins scare here is reassuring. In previous Scottish and Welsh E.coli scares -- a little boy died in the Welsh one in 2005 -- the root of the problem was traced back to too-lenient supervision of certain butchers' shops and abattoirs.
Philip occasionally encounters the kind of aggression I thought was reserved for vehicle clampers and lawyers. In a recent battle with a repeat offender, Philip felt lucky to be accompanied by a much more solidly-built colleague.
"The owner started to get overheated, and I'm of, well, smaller stature, so I think having this tall guy with me helped! He backed down," he smiles.
"I've had one allegation of racism," he adds, "As in: 'You're only picking on me because I'm such-and-such'."
There are language problems with some foreign national food workers, and a number of food safety courses are now targeted at helping such businesses understand their requirements.
"Foodstuffs being reportioned from larger bags without proper labelling is a problem," says Philip.
Then there are the bizarre finds -- a colleague of Philip's recently came across a bag of goat heads, skin and teeth intact, in one inner city shop.
We have no aggression on today's round. All of the food businesses we visit know we are coming -- Philip had to pre-arrange appointments because he is being accompanied by a flat-footed member of the public, ie, me.
So there are no mouse droppings to note -- all have their pest control reports up to date. "Although that's no guarantee," says Philip, who remembers one shop where cereal boxes had been badly gnawed.
Then there was the pub that had rat poison scattered like birdseed across the floor of a back room. "They also claimed they weren't serving food -- the kitchen was in bits -- but I found whole slabs of meat hanging in a cold room."
Philip has only seen live rats on one occasion in his 10 years in the job. On foot of a tip-off, he arrived an hour before opening time at a small food business to watch bread rolls being delivered and left on the pavement. The rats arrived shortly afterwards to feast on them. "When the owner arrived to open up, all she did was clap her hands to chase the rats away. When I followed her inside, she was picking out the rolls that hadn't been chewed on, for later use."
Thankfully, we don't have a big cockroach problem -- yet. "There have been cases of the eggs being laid in the seams in hessian sacks of rice and then hatching here," he says.
Yet Philip has no problems eating out on his own time. When we stop for lunch in a canteen, the toilets are closed but there are some available in a building across the way, so he lets it go. "I have selective blindness on my day off," he says wryly.
The afternoon rolls on with visits to a wildly varying range of premises. Among the 150 businesses on Philip's visit list, he has supermarkets, hotels, foodstores, pubs, restaurants, takeaways, delis, chippers and catering trucks.
The striking commonality is how much paperwork the businesses -- big or small -- are required to keep. Core temperatures of food and storage facilities have to be taken at all points along the journey from delivery to plate.
One young chef in a pub restaurant we visit seems to be swimming in sheafs of paper, but reluctantly agrees that it means he can keep track of how efficiently his fridges are working -- and argue for a new one from the owner.
A chip shop run by a charming Italian-Irish family is so clean I would eat a battered cod off their floor, but even they are encouraged to keep better track of the temperatures of their frozen food.
"It's to protect yourself," urges Philip. How right he is -- we call to a counter-top deli on foot of a public complaint of food poisoning and they are able to produce a massive paper trail that follows their chicken from farm to baguette.
But danger is everywhere apparently: Philip spots a tray of lettuce sitting out 'at ambient' (room temperature). "Listeria can grow on salad," he warns.
At the end of the day -- horror stories included -- I'm somewhat reassured about the back rooms of the food industry. If EHOs make a business owner nervous, it's because they are doing their job properly and protecting us all: industry and consumers.
It also gives me cause to think about the bag of spinach leaves I left out on my kitchen counter at home. I keep that to myself.
http://www.independent.ie/lifestyle/closing-down-restaurants-its-all-in-a-days-work-1797221.html
Tuesday June 30 2009
* The work of the Environmental Health Officer has a broad scope. As well as food control monitors like Philip Devenish, EHOs also work in these areas: water monitoring, cosmetics control, tobacco control, housing, port health (monitoring food imports), childcare facilities, infectious diseases, air pollution, noise pollution, pest control, poisons control, hygiene education.
* EHOs are employed by the Health Safety Executive (HSE), and their reports make them the "eyes and ears" of the Food Safety Authority of Ireland (FSAI). Records of prosecutions, closure, enforcement and improvement orders can be accessed by any member of the public on www.fsai.ie
* Even though an EHO can close down a business if there is a "grave and immediate danger to public health", under the 1998 Food Safety Act, there are generally a number of steps a business goes through before they are shut down. The business gets an Improvement Notice for non-compliance with food safety legislation, and then an Improvement Order -- issued by a district court -- if they don't comply with the notice. If this order is ignored, then a Closure Order can be served without further warning.
Monday, June 29, 2009
Mmmm, carrots
From today's Herald
http://www.herald.ie/opinion/comment/bad-things-happen-to-even-healthiest-eaters-1796037.html
By Susan Daly
Monday June 29 2009
Carrots -- how do you eat yours? At this time of year, a crunchy salad with shreds of grated carrot on top sounds appetising. On a bitterly cold day, there is comfort in the perfect marriage of carrot and parsnip mashed with a knob of creamy butter.
Carrot sticks dipped in hummus. Steamed discs of carrot to add levity to a roast dinner. It's the vegetable that keeps on giving.
Well, forget all the slicing, dicing and mashing. The men and women in the white coats are now telling us that whole-cooked carrots are the only way to go to increase the anti-cancer properties of the veg. Excellent. That's one more tiny piece of joy sucked out of everyday life. Did we really need to know that cooking carrots to our own particular taste could be the difference between life and death? How much money was spent on a study to tell us that yes, eating carrots is good for us -- but it can be even better if we do it in this very specific way?
The finding shows how ludicrous the industry of fear has become.
The world is so hungry for a tidy solution to the Big C that studies like this get commissioned, funded and lauded for throwing up even the tiniest morsel of advice. Something that can make a catchy headline; something to justify the project. No doubt, the researchers' motivation is good but they play on our deepest anxiety: that when it comes to cancer, there is always something we can do to prevent it.
Here's the real newsflash: sometimes bad things happen to good people. Think of all the children who suffer from leukemia and other childhood cancers. They haven't had time to build up a carcinogenic lifestyle of obesity, alcoholic overindulgence or a smoking habit. So the plague of guilt descends on their parents: was it something we did? If we had fed our children whole-cooked carrots; if we had not given them dairy products, would it have helped?
If you were to adhere to every minor food warning that is released into the media, you would very quickly descend into a tailspin of panic and madness. The only study I'm interested in reading at this stage is one that definitively sorts out the conflicting advice we have been given over the years. Drink lots of tea -- it's full of antioxidants. Don't drink tea -- the caffeine will be passed onto your unborn child and give them ADHD. Drink wine -- it's good for the heart. Don't drink wine -- it will give you breast cancer. Eat meat -- it's full of iron. Don't eat meat -- it's carcinogenic.
Research is vital of course, and we all hope that some day the magic cure to human ills will present itself. We know from studies that there are links between smoking and lung cancer, overexposure to the sun and skin cancer, alcoholism and liver disease. But let's not get in our knickers in a twist over the small stuff. Stress can be a killer too.
http://www.herald.ie/opinion/comment/bad-things-happen-to-even-healthiest-eaters-1796037.html
By Susan Daly
Monday June 29 2009
Carrots -- how do you eat yours? At this time of year, a crunchy salad with shreds of grated carrot on top sounds appetising. On a bitterly cold day, there is comfort in the perfect marriage of carrot and parsnip mashed with a knob of creamy butter.
Carrot sticks dipped in hummus. Steamed discs of carrot to add levity to a roast dinner. It's the vegetable that keeps on giving.
Well, forget all the slicing, dicing and mashing. The men and women in the white coats are now telling us that whole-cooked carrots are the only way to go to increase the anti-cancer properties of the veg. Excellent. That's one more tiny piece of joy sucked out of everyday life. Did we really need to know that cooking carrots to our own particular taste could be the difference between life and death? How much money was spent on a study to tell us that yes, eating carrots is good for us -- but it can be even better if we do it in this very specific way?
The finding shows how ludicrous the industry of fear has become.
The world is so hungry for a tidy solution to the Big C that studies like this get commissioned, funded and lauded for throwing up even the tiniest morsel of advice. Something that can make a catchy headline; something to justify the project. No doubt, the researchers' motivation is good but they play on our deepest anxiety: that when it comes to cancer, there is always something we can do to prevent it.
Here's the real newsflash: sometimes bad things happen to good people. Think of all the children who suffer from leukemia and other childhood cancers. They haven't had time to build up a carcinogenic lifestyle of obesity, alcoholic overindulgence or a smoking habit. So the plague of guilt descends on their parents: was it something we did? If we had fed our children whole-cooked carrots; if we had not given them dairy products, would it have helped?
If you were to adhere to every minor food warning that is released into the media, you would very quickly descend into a tailspin of panic and madness. The only study I'm interested in reading at this stage is one that definitively sorts out the conflicting advice we have been given over the years. Drink lots of tea -- it's full of antioxidants. Don't drink tea -- the caffeine will be passed onto your unborn child and give them ADHD. Drink wine -- it's good for the heart. Don't drink wine -- it will give you breast cancer. Eat meat -- it's full of iron. Don't eat meat -- it's carcinogenic.
Research is vital of course, and we all hope that some day the magic cure to human ills will present itself. We know from studies that there are links between smoking and lung cancer, overexposure to the sun and skin cancer, alcoholism and liver disease. But let's not get in our knickers in a twist over the small stuff. Stress can be a killer too.
Friday, June 26, 2009
For Noelle
http://www.herald.ie/opinion/comment/i-was-treated-in-crumlin-25-years-ago-and-it-hasnt-changed-i-wonder-why-1787402.html
By Susan Daly
Wednesday June 24 2009
Much can change in 25 years. Empires can crumble, floods can change the face of the earth -- even Mary Harney can get a new hairdo.
What cannot seem to earn a makeover is Our Lady's Hospital for Sick Children in Crumlin. The day I discovered that deja vu is not a trick of the mind was the day I stepped over its threshold for the first time since 1981. As a small child, I had a heart operation in the hospital. I recovered well, went home and, thankfully, have never suffered a day of serious illness since.
A quarter of a century later, I was back to spend time with my young cousin, who was receiving treatment in Crumlin for a life-threatening condition.
Now, you would expect a sense of familiarity with the place where you yourself went through a major life experience. But as I walked down the corridor to my cousin's room, I thought: This place hasn't changed one bit.
I rang my mother later that evening to describe the ward. "Sure, of course you know it, it's the same one you were on," she said. "And it sounds exactly the same as it was in 1981."
Now there's a sobering thought. The same attempt to lift the teabag-coloured walls with a few cartoons; the same low-ceilinged feeling of claustrophobia; the same jam-packed rooms in which my mother would take turns with the family of another little girl at visiting time because they couldn't all fit in. In short, no place to cheer up a child.
Although I know there have been some new extensions to the building in recent years, the only outward change I could see on my cousin's floor was the addition of a fish tank.
My cousin loved the distraction so much she would stand in front of it in her little dressing gown for as long as she dared before someone would hustle her back to bed. It is a nice touch.
For some of my cousin's frequent visits, her family were put up in a lovely shared house near the hospital so she could be treated as an outpatient.
The house, I believe, is part of a wonderful charitable scheme -- not State-sponsored, please note -- where houses are donated or bought and refurbished for this specific purpose.
It was a welcome advance from the trek my mother had to make that particularly icy winter to the only B&B she could afford, somewhere on the nether reaches of Dolphin's Barn.
It is absolutely necessary to say that one other thing had not changed in the years between my stay in Crumlin and my cousin's: the attitude of the staff.
Nurses, doctors, attendants, porters -- all of them utterly professional, caring and dedicated to doing their best with the resources they have for sick children. And it is also necessary to say that Our Lady's gives the most advanced treatment and houses a world-class Children's Research Centre (again, wholly funded by donations). But what other public building hardly changes at heart in 25 years?
Since the early 80s we have hauled ourselves out of a recession, rode the boom and plunged back into financial chaos.
Our main train and bus stations have modernised, government departments been refurbished, whole new magnificent edifices built for public administrations.
How can a children's hospital -- where the surroundings are so vital to their inhabitants, where many spend Christmas and holidays and weekends and endless days and nights -- receive so little attention?
It is gratifying to see TDs and senators pay a visit this week to Our Lady's in Crumlin.
Too often the people who are crunching the numbers and making cruel cutbacks are not in contact with the real, live people their decisions affect.
And I have been merely addressing the works needed on an ageing building -- at least my cousin got to see the inside of Our Lady's and did not languish on a waiting list.
My sincere hope is that the politicians who reached out will realise that a children's hospital is no place to cut corners.
By Susan Daly
Wednesday June 24 2009
Much can change in 25 years. Empires can crumble, floods can change the face of the earth -- even Mary Harney can get a new hairdo.
What cannot seem to earn a makeover is Our Lady's Hospital for Sick Children in Crumlin. The day I discovered that deja vu is not a trick of the mind was the day I stepped over its threshold for the first time since 1981. As a small child, I had a heart operation in the hospital. I recovered well, went home and, thankfully, have never suffered a day of serious illness since.
A quarter of a century later, I was back to spend time with my young cousin, who was receiving treatment in Crumlin for a life-threatening condition.
Now, you would expect a sense of familiarity with the place where you yourself went through a major life experience. But as I walked down the corridor to my cousin's room, I thought: This place hasn't changed one bit.
I rang my mother later that evening to describe the ward. "Sure, of course you know it, it's the same one you were on," she said. "And it sounds exactly the same as it was in 1981."
Now there's a sobering thought. The same attempt to lift the teabag-coloured walls with a few cartoons; the same low-ceilinged feeling of claustrophobia; the same jam-packed rooms in which my mother would take turns with the family of another little girl at visiting time because they couldn't all fit in. In short, no place to cheer up a child.
Although I know there have been some new extensions to the building in recent years, the only outward change I could see on my cousin's floor was the addition of a fish tank.
My cousin loved the distraction so much she would stand in front of it in her little dressing gown for as long as she dared before someone would hustle her back to bed. It is a nice touch.
For some of my cousin's frequent visits, her family were put up in a lovely shared house near the hospital so she could be treated as an outpatient.
The house, I believe, is part of a wonderful charitable scheme -- not State-sponsored, please note -- where houses are donated or bought and refurbished for this specific purpose.
It was a welcome advance from the trek my mother had to make that particularly icy winter to the only B&B she could afford, somewhere on the nether reaches of Dolphin's Barn.
It is absolutely necessary to say that one other thing had not changed in the years between my stay in Crumlin and my cousin's: the attitude of the staff.
Nurses, doctors, attendants, porters -- all of them utterly professional, caring and dedicated to doing their best with the resources they have for sick children. And it is also necessary to say that Our Lady's gives the most advanced treatment and houses a world-class Children's Research Centre (again, wholly funded by donations). But what other public building hardly changes at heart in 25 years?
Since the early 80s we have hauled ourselves out of a recession, rode the boom and plunged back into financial chaos.
Our main train and bus stations have modernised, government departments been refurbished, whole new magnificent edifices built for public administrations.
How can a children's hospital -- where the surroundings are so vital to their inhabitants, where many spend Christmas and holidays and weekends and endless days and nights -- receive so little attention?
It is gratifying to see TDs and senators pay a visit this week to Our Lady's in Crumlin.
Too often the people who are crunching the numbers and making cruel cutbacks are not in contact with the real, live people their decisions affect.
And I have been merely addressing the works needed on an ageing building -- at least my cousin got to see the inside of Our Lady's and did not languish on a waiting list.
My sincere hope is that the politicians who reached out will realise that a children's hospital is no place to cut corners.
Party envy
My Nightwatch col for today's Day and Night mag... Wish I'd brought some mint sauce for that lamb... yum.
http://www.independent.ie/entertainment/day-and-night/columnists/nightwatch-susan-daly-1791566.html
By Susan Daly
Friday June 26 2009
Why have a disposable barbecue when you can roast an entire lamb over a homemade spit on the beach? That is not a question I often ask myself -- and that's why I am not the queen of parties. I could only stand, open-mouthed, as two newly hatched 30-year-olds of my acquaintance organised the best open-air party I have ever been to. On a beach. In Sligo. With frig-all money.
In those conditions, the best I could have procured would have been a ham sandwich -- more sand than ham -- and a lukewarm bottle of pear cider. (Now hush up, cider purists; how can something be wrong when it tastes so right?) My dynamic duo managed to source a lamb carcass from somewhere outside Strandhill, heft it onto a spit welded by an engineer friend and rig the whole medieval enterprise up in a natural amphitheatre carved out in some giant sand-dunes. Someone strung Chinese lanterns across a hastily assembled washing line; another brought garden torches to flicker brightly beside the sacrificial lamb. And apologies to vegetarians, but that was one damn tasty baby animal.
Acoustic music for what was quickly dubbed 30Fest -- I've never been to a party that is so rocking people want to give it an official name -- was provided by members of a band one of the girls play in. A French dude who happened to be wandering in the area dropped by to sound a mournful trumpet in the background. Just as festivities were beginning to die down at around 3am, a woman stood up and belted out a note-perfect jazzy rendition of Summertime. One of the more hunter-gatherer types came back from the beach with a new batch of driftwood to keep the bonfire burning.
As the sun rose, everyone sobered up enough to channel Bosco and pack up a bag of rubbish each until the dunes were left spotless. The spit was dismantled and the remains of the lamb spirited to the nearby house of a local surf champion, who made up a giant lamb curry in his kitchen at six in the morning. I went back to my tent to stare at the canvas ceiling and wonder: where did it all go so right?
It's a terrible affliction, to have the time of your life but still be dogged by the nagging feeling that I Could Never Have Organised That. My own 30th was the usual unholy trinity of pub-DJ-cocktail sausages. I had a great time -- but only after days spent worrying that nobody would turn up. I'm not a particularly angsty individual, but being responsible for other people having a good time makes the nerve ending in my left eyelid twitch like crazy. Fun is an ephemeral and fickle concept. One woman's tent-surf-roast lamb extravaganza could be the stiletto-loving woman's hell.
Layered on the party angst, of course, is party envy. How did those girls pull off something so simple, but so magical? The June bank holiday heatwave helped, I guess, but still: Why can't I be that original, that laidback, that ... cool! This is the point at which you need someone to step in and slap you with a wet towel for being childish. It shouldn't matter who has the bouncy castle at their party, as long as we all get a go.
I know I'm not alone with the party envy. Remember all the fuss over Millennium New Year's Eve; everyone scrutinising where you were going to spend it, how you were going to mark the moment; who was going to be there with you. People spent a fortune to hire yachts to sit on the cusp of a time zone so they could say they rang the Millennium in twice. I was in the back garden of a house in Terenure, trying to ignite a damp firework, wondering if my ex was having a better time somewhere else. My sister, if I remember rightly, rang at half-eleven to say she was tired and going to bed early. Sensible girl.
The trick, it seems, is to stop worrying. Do what you enjoy and like-minded people will follow. As I lay in that tent in Sligo, the rising sun spreading a comforting glow over my toes, I gave up the ghost of parties past. Parties don't run on good hosts alone -- they need gracious guests too. All invites gratefully accepted.
http://www.independent.ie/entertainment/day-and-night/columnists/nightwatch-susan-daly-1791566.html
By Susan Daly
Friday June 26 2009
Why have a disposable barbecue when you can roast an entire lamb over a homemade spit on the beach? That is not a question I often ask myself -- and that's why I am not the queen of parties. I could only stand, open-mouthed, as two newly hatched 30-year-olds of my acquaintance organised the best open-air party I have ever been to. On a beach. In Sligo. With frig-all money.
In those conditions, the best I could have procured would have been a ham sandwich -- more sand than ham -- and a lukewarm bottle of pear cider. (Now hush up, cider purists; how can something be wrong when it tastes so right?) My dynamic duo managed to source a lamb carcass from somewhere outside Strandhill, heft it onto a spit welded by an engineer friend and rig the whole medieval enterprise up in a natural amphitheatre carved out in some giant sand-dunes. Someone strung Chinese lanterns across a hastily assembled washing line; another brought garden torches to flicker brightly beside the sacrificial lamb. And apologies to vegetarians, but that was one damn tasty baby animal.
Acoustic music for what was quickly dubbed 30Fest -- I've never been to a party that is so rocking people want to give it an official name -- was provided by members of a band one of the girls play in. A French dude who happened to be wandering in the area dropped by to sound a mournful trumpet in the background. Just as festivities were beginning to die down at around 3am, a woman stood up and belted out a note-perfect jazzy rendition of Summertime. One of the more hunter-gatherer types came back from the beach with a new batch of driftwood to keep the bonfire burning.
As the sun rose, everyone sobered up enough to channel Bosco and pack up a bag of rubbish each until the dunes were left spotless. The spit was dismantled and the remains of the lamb spirited to the nearby house of a local surf champion, who made up a giant lamb curry in his kitchen at six in the morning. I went back to my tent to stare at the canvas ceiling and wonder: where did it all go so right?
It's a terrible affliction, to have the time of your life but still be dogged by the nagging feeling that I Could Never Have Organised That. My own 30th was the usual unholy trinity of pub-DJ-cocktail sausages. I had a great time -- but only after days spent worrying that nobody would turn up. I'm not a particularly angsty individual, but being responsible for other people having a good time makes the nerve ending in my left eyelid twitch like crazy. Fun is an ephemeral and fickle concept. One woman's tent-surf-roast lamb extravaganza could be the stiletto-loving woman's hell.
Layered on the party angst, of course, is party envy. How did those girls pull off something so simple, but so magical? The June bank holiday heatwave helped, I guess, but still: Why can't I be that original, that laidback, that ... cool! This is the point at which you need someone to step in and slap you with a wet towel for being childish. It shouldn't matter who has the bouncy castle at their party, as long as we all get a go.
I know I'm not alone with the party envy. Remember all the fuss over Millennium New Year's Eve; everyone scrutinising where you were going to spend it, how you were going to mark the moment; who was going to be there with you. People spent a fortune to hire yachts to sit on the cusp of a time zone so they could say they rang the Millennium in twice. I was in the back garden of a house in Terenure, trying to ignite a damp firework, wondering if my ex was having a better time somewhere else. My sister, if I remember rightly, rang at half-eleven to say she was tired and going to bed early. Sensible girl.
The trick, it seems, is to stop worrying. Do what you enjoy and like-minded people will follow. As I lay in that tent in Sligo, the rising sun spreading a comforting glow over my toes, I gave up the ghost of parties past. Parties don't run on good hosts alone -- they need gracious guests too. All invites gratefully accepted.
Sunday, June 21, 2009
I'm luvvie-ing it
Is an A-list star necessarily a great actor? Are all theatre actors unsung heroes? I asked some casting agents to throw light on the issue in yesterday's Irish Independent...
http://www.independent.ie/entertainment/film-cinema/its-a-star-turn-1781591.html
It's a star turn
Jude Law gets rave reviews for his stage Hamlet, and proves that it is possible to be both a tabloid celebrity and a great actor, writes Susan Daly.
Saturday June 20 2009
Jude Law is without doubt a famous man. Unfortunately for the classically-trained actor, much of his celebrity has stemmed from a dramatic personal life rather than his portrayal of dramatis personae.
A turbulent marriage to Sadie Frost, an engagement to another, younger, actress, Sienna Miller, scuffles with the paparazzi and then Nannygate -- when he slept with his children's minder -- have earned him inches in all the wrong columns.
It must be gratifying for Law to now find himself featured further towards the back of the newspapers, where he is receiving rave reviews for his turn as Hamlet in London's West End. Law's performance apparently shows "rare vulnerability and emotional openness". As the theatre critic in The Guardian put it: "People who come to patronise him [Law] as a movie star essaying the great Dane will be in for a shock."
That, as the prince might say, is the question. Jude Law is not tabloid fodder because he's an actor -- it's because he's a movie star. And snobbery from old stage hands would dictate that a pampered film star is not really up to the job of treading the boards. "It's quite reductive, that notion that because an actor has experienced an emphasis on fame and celebrity, talent should be excluded from that bracket," says Holly Ni Chiardha, casting director with the Abbey Theatre.
AIndeed, while stars like Julia Roberts and Matthew Broderick made critically-savaged turns on Broadway, Ireland has witnessed its fair share of famous movie faces making a successful transition to the stage. The performances of Ralph Fiennes, James Cromwell, Susan Sarandon, Tim Robbins and Frances McDormand in Irish theatres have all been well received. It is worth noting though that most were returning to roots which they firmly planted on the stage in their youth. Law, too, was a celebrated young stage actor before finding on-screen success in films like The Talented Mr Ripley and Cold Mountain.
Alii Curran, a former director of both the Dublin Fringe Festival and the Peacock Theatre, masterminded the appearances of Tim Robbins and Susan Sarandon, Samantha Morton and of Frasier star John Mahoney, in Dublin. "It was clear from Tim and Susan that their background was in theatre," she remembers.
She says that the opportunities in television in particular are such that an actor can now mould an entire career without ever doing stage work. "They can establish themselves as popular stars very quickly because of luck and iconic status," she says. So are they not proper actors if they don't have stage craft? Curran laughs unabashedly: "I belong to the old school, so I would say: No!"
Not that there are only movie stars without great talent, adds Curran, citing Mickey Rourke in last year's The Wrestler, and Halle Berry's Oscar-winning turn in Monster's Ball, as examples of genuinely transformative performances. "The best actor for the role is not always box-office so they are not cast," says Curran. "The movie industry is very cynical." This is how the term 'bankable star' is applied to such questionable talents as Adam Sandler, Cameron Diaz and Eddie Murphy.
Alan Stanford -- actor, director and producer for over 40 years -- believes that a great film star can also be a great actor. "I watched Laurence Olivier when I was a drama student, as he came to the end of his time on stage, when he was running the Old Vic [in London])," says Stanford. "He trained for the theatre and he was the matinee idol of the West End. Then he went to Hollywood, where he did Wuthering Heights and was a major star. Then he had another major stage career as director of the national theatre, and then went back to have a second film career in his later years."
Holly Ni Chiardha points to Stephen Rea as a very recognisable movie actor who started in theatre, working with the likes of Beckett and Sam Shepard and who has now rekindled his relationship with the Abbey, acting this year in a new Shepard play written especially for him and fellow actor Sean McGinley.
"Any actor is a very brave soul to jump into that career," says Ni Chiardha. "It can be difficult for a Hollywood star to go onto Broadway because the press has preconceived notions about them." Katie Holmes for example, better known as Mrs Tom Cruise and star of Dawson's Creek, surprised critics by acquitting herself brilliantly in a revival of All My Sons last year on Broadway.
Much of the contrast between screen and stage acting, says movie and TV casting director Thyrza Ging, is simply a matter of technique. "Obviously the two mediums need different styles -- in the States, young actors grow up acting for camera, whereas ours still essentially start with theatre and go from there."
Ging believes that all of the Irish actors who have become film stars got there on talent. "There is an element of the big break, but make no mistake, Joel Schumacher [director of Colin Farrell's breakthrough film, Tigerland] wouldn't have taken a chance on Colin if he hadn't thought he had the acting chops to do it."
Alan Stanford, who has worked with many of Ireland's most famous names in his time, agrees: "Brenda Fricker, Donal McCann, Daniel Day Lewis, Liam Neeson, Gabriel Byrne, Brendan Gleeson, Cillian Murphy, Gerard McSorley -- they were stunning stage actors as well as successful film actors. Daniel Day-Lewis gave a Hamlet that was very highly regarded."
On the other hand, there are brilliant actors in Ireland who are not easily recognised by the public and work extensively in theatre. The names Eileen Walsh, Tom Vaughn Murphy, Marie Mullen, Ali White, Derbhla Crotty, Dearbhla Molloy, Aidan Kelly and others constantly pop up when you ask any Irish casting director to name their favourite actors of today.
Even on celluloid, some of the best actors can mine away on the seam-edge of fame. Orson Welles once claimed that "the greatest actor who ever lived" was a French character called Raimu.
"It is great to see someone like Philip Seymour Hoffman finally get recognition," says Ali Curran, "because he's not the classic good-looker, but he came through with great roles and crossover roles, much as Heath Ledger did."
So are we being a bit tough on our A-list stars -- will we ever see them as great actors? When asked to name his acting greats of the current generation, Alan Stanford namechecks Robert de Niro and Al Pacino, middle-aged men both. "I'm a great believer in a degree of survivability to be considered a great actor," insists Stanford.
"Meryl Streep was always wonderful but she's now unsurpassable. Despite what Shakespeare said, you are not born great. You are born with the potential for greatness."
ALL A-BOARD: Famous (and infamous) screen to stage transitions...
JOHN GIELGUD in Hamlet, New York (1936): Gielgud played the Danish prince many times to universal acclaim before he became more latterly associated with movies. A stark contrast to that famous review of Laurence Olivier’s 1937 Hamlet in the Old Vic: “Mr Olivier does not speak poetry badly. He does not speak it at all.”
LAURENCE OLIVIER in Macbeth, Stratford-upon-Avon (1955): Hollywood power couple Olivier and wife Vivien Leigh created one of the most enduring Macbethian couples of the 20th century.
PETER O’TOOLE in Macbeth, London (1980) Alan Stanford tells it: “His Macbeth in the Old Vic was a bit disastrous and he did a terrible Dublin accent for Juno and the Paycock in Dublin. But he was an extremely fine Hamlet.”
CYD CHARISSE in Grand Hotel, New York (1992): Fred Astaire and Gene Kelly’s old screen dancing partner was cruelly savaged for her debut Broadway performance at the age of 71 for coming across “as someone mistakenly embalmed while still alive and now trying hard to emerge from premature mummification”.
JULIA ROBERTS in Three Days Of Rain (2006): Roberts “staggered hesitantly” through this dreary comedy-drama, but her star power ensured its 12-week run sold out immediately.
http://www.independent.ie/entertainment/film-cinema/its-a-star-turn-1781591.html
It's a star turn
Jude Law gets rave reviews for his stage Hamlet, and proves that it is possible to be both a tabloid celebrity and a great actor, writes Susan Daly.
Saturday June 20 2009
Jude Law is without doubt a famous man. Unfortunately for the classically-trained actor, much of his celebrity has stemmed from a dramatic personal life rather than his portrayal of dramatis personae.
A turbulent marriage to Sadie Frost, an engagement to another, younger, actress, Sienna Miller, scuffles with the paparazzi and then Nannygate -- when he slept with his children's minder -- have earned him inches in all the wrong columns.
It must be gratifying for Law to now find himself featured further towards the back of the newspapers, where he is receiving rave reviews for his turn as Hamlet in London's West End. Law's performance apparently shows "rare vulnerability and emotional openness". As the theatre critic in The Guardian put it: "People who come to patronise him [Law] as a movie star essaying the great Dane will be in for a shock."
That, as the prince might say, is the question. Jude Law is not tabloid fodder because he's an actor -- it's because he's a movie star. And snobbery from old stage hands would dictate that a pampered film star is not really up to the job of treading the boards. "It's quite reductive, that notion that because an actor has experienced an emphasis on fame and celebrity, talent should be excluded from that bracket," says Holly Ni Chiardha, casting director with the Abbey Theatre.
AIndeed, while stars like Julia Roberts and Matthew Broderick made critically-savaged turns on Broadway, Ireland has witnessed its fair share of famous movie faces making a successful transition to the stage. The performances of Ralph Fiennes, James Cromwell, Susan Sarandon, Tim Robbins and Frances McDormand in Irish theatres have all been well received. It is worth noting though that most were returning to roots which they firmly planted on the stage in their youth. Law, too, was a celebrated young stage actor before finding on-screen success in films like The Talented Mr Ripley and Cold Mountain.
Alii Curran, a former director of both the Dublin Fringe Festival and the Peacock Theatre, masterminded the appearances of Tim Robbins and Susan Sarandon, Samantha Morton and of Frasier star John Mahoney, in Dublin. "It was clear from Tim and Susan that their background was in theatre," she remembers.
She says that the opportunities in television in particular are such that an actor can now mould an entire career without ever doing stage work. "They can establish themselves as popular stars very quickly because of luck and iconic status," she says. So are they not proper actors if they don't have stage craft? Curran laughs unabashedly: "I belong to the old school, so I would say: No!"
Not that there are only movie stars without great talent, adds Curran, citing Mickey Rourke in last year's The Wrestler, and Halle Berry's Oscar-winning turn in Monster's Ball, as examples of genuinely transformative performances. "The best actor for the role is not always box-office so they are not cast," says Curran. "The movie industry is very cynical." This is how the term 'bankable star' is applied to such questionable talents as Adam Sandler, Cameron Diaz and Eddie Murphy.
Alan Stanford -- actor, director and producer for over 40 years -- believes that a great film star can also be a great actor. "I watched Laurence Olivier when I was a drama student, as he came to the end of his time on stage, when he was running the Old Vic [in London])," says Stanford. "He trained for the theatre and he was the matinee idol of the West End. Then he went to Hollywood, where he did Wuthering Heights and was a major star. Then he had another major stage career as director of the national theatre, and then went back to have a second film career in his later years."
Holly Ni Chiardha points to Stephen Rea as a very recognisable movie actor who started in theatre, working with the likes of Beckett and Sam Shepard and who has now rekindled his relationship with the Abbey, acting this year in a new Shepard play written especially for him and fellow actor Sean McGinley.
"Any actor is a very brave soul to jump into that career," says Ni Chiardha. "It can be difficult for a Hollywood star to go onto Broadway because the press has preconceived notions about them." Katie Holmes for example, better known as Mrs Tom Cruise and star of Dawson's Creek, surprised critics by acquitting herself brilliantly in a revival of All My Sons last year on Broadway.
Much of the contrast between screen and stage acting, says movie and TV casting director Thyrza Ging, is simply a matter of technique. "Obviously the two mediums need different styles -- in the States, young actors grow up acting for camera, whereas ours still essentially start with theatre and go from there."
Ging believes that all of the Irish actors who have become film stars got there on talent. "There is an element of the big break, but make no mistake, Joel Schumacher [director of Colin Farrell's breakthrough film, Tigerland] wouldn't have taken a chance on Colin if he hadn't thought he had the acting chops to do it."
Alan Stanford, who has worked with many of Ireland's most famous names in his time, agrees: "Brenda Fricker, Donal McCann, Daniel Day Lewis, Liam Neeson, Gabriel Byrne, Brendan Gleeson, Cillian Murphy, Gerard McSorley -- they were stunning stage actors as well as successful film actors. Daniel Day-Lewis gave a Hamlet that was very highly regarded."
On the other hand, there are brilliant actors in Ireland who are not easily recognised by the public and work extensively in theatre. The names Eileen Walsh, Tom Vaughn Murphy, Marie Mullen, Ali White, Derbhla Crotty, Dearbhla Molloy, Aidan Kelly and others constantly pop up when you ask any Irish casting director to name their favourite actors of today.
Even on celluloid, some of the best actors can mine away on the seam-edge of fame. Orson Welles once claimed that "the greatest actor who ever lived" was a French character called Raimu.
"It is great to see someone like Philip Seymour Hoffman finally get recognition," says Ali Curran, "because he's not the classic good-looker, but he came through with great roles and crossover roles, much as Heath Ledger did."
So are we being a bit tough on our A-list stars -- will we ever see them as great actors? When asked to name his acting greats of the current generation, Alan Stanford namechecks Robert de Niro and Al Pacino, middle-aged men both. "I'm a great believer in a degree of survivability to be considered a great actor," insists Stanford.
"Meryl Streep was always wonderful but she's now unsurpassable. Despite what Shakespeare said, you are not born great. You are born with the potential for greatness."
ALL A-BOARD: Famous (and infamous) screen to stage transitions...
JOHN GIELGUD in Hamlet, New York (1936): Gielgud played the Danish prince many times to universal acclaim before he became more latterly associated with movies. A stark contrast to that famous review of Laurence Olivier’s 1937 Hamlet in the Old Vic: “Mr Olivier does not speak poetry badly. He does not speak it at all.”
LAURENCE OLIVIER in Macbeth, Stratford-upon-Avon (1955): Hollywood power couple Olivier and wife Vivien Leigh created one of the most enduring Macbethian couples of the 20th century.
PETER O’TOOLE in Macbeth, London (1980) Alan Stanford tells it: “His Macbeth in the Old Vic was a bit disastrous and he did a terrible Dublin accent for Juno and the Paycock in Dublin. But he was an extremely fine Hamlet.”
CYD CHARISSE in Grand Hotel, New York (1992): Fred Astaire and Gene Kelly’s old screen dancing partner was cruelly savaged for her debut Broadway performance at the age of 71 for coming across “as someone mistakenly embalmed while still alive and now trying hard to emerge from premature mummification”.
JULIA ROBERTS in Three Days Of Rain (2006): Roberts “staggered hesitantly” through this dreary comedy-drama, but her star power ensured its 12-week run sold out immediately.
Wednesday, June 17, 2009
Cover girls
I love it when a sub inserts an exclamation mark to spice up a paragraph - not. Anyway, here is my airbrushed piece from today's Irish Independent.
http://www.independent.ie/lifestyle/independent-woman/fashion-beauty/now-theyre-airbrushing-the-cover-girls-bigger-1775680.html
NOW THEY'RE AIRBRUSHING THE COVER GIRLS BIGGER
Magazines have been notorious for retouching the cover shots of their models so they look thinner. Now a backlash has editors trying to do just the opposite. Susan Daly reports
Wednesday June 17 2009
The worst-kept secret in the beauty and fashion business is that an airbrush is a model or celebrity's best friend. Traditionally, this piece of technological wizardry has been used to slim down limbs and banish blemishes on digital photographs so that they are seen fit to grace the cover of a magazine.
The argument against this retouching of reality has been that it is harmful to impressionable readers, leading to eating disorders, body dysmorphia and issues of low self-esteem as they try to attain the impossible perfection presented in these photographs.
Well, the reality just got grimmer -- and slimmer. Alexandra Shulman, the influential editor of UK Vogue magazine, has written a letter to all the major fashion designers to warn them that she is now having to ask her photographers to make her cover models look bigger!
The sample sizes which many designers provide for photoshoots are so tiny, she says, that she has to hire ever-increasingly skeletal models to fit into them.
These models are so thin that she fears alienating her readers altogether. Her photographers must now use all their trickery not to take these girls down a size -- as was more traditional in the wafer-thin fashion world -- but to beef them up.
Robin Derrick, creative director of Vogue, backed up Shulman's claims. "I spent the first 10 years of my career making girls look thinner," he said, "I've spent the last 10 making them look larger." The size zero debate has gone sub-zero.
It's ironic, really, that a fashion magazine editor is complaining about having to skew reality to make her models acceptable to readers. For years, the same editors would have argued that no-one wants to buy a dress from an overweight model (for overweight, read a size 10 and up).
Flawless, thin, impossibly beautiful and generally white -- that was the type to which cover girls conformed.
Side by side with Shulman's move back to healthy-slim, we are told there is a backlash against the doctoring of magazine cover images altogether. Airbrushing and digital manipulation is out: undoctored beauty is in.
French Elle recently flirted with reality by featuring three celebrities without make-up on their cover of their April edition. The inclusion of bare-faced ladies in a high-fashion mag was internationally applauded, although the "au naturel" celebrities featured -- actresses Monica Bellucci and Sophie Marceau and supermodel Eva Herzigova -- are genetically blessed with fabulous bone structures to begin with.
Anna Wintour, the formidable editor-in-chief of US Vogue, has also been embracing diversity in her previously rigid cover girl criteria. When the Ethiopian model Liya Kebede posed for the May edition, she followed Beyoncé and Michelle Obama to become the third black woman in a row to appear on the cover.
"About a year ago, we talked about the global conversation about diversity in fashion, and we took it very seriously," said Patrick O'Connell, a spokesman for US Vogue.
US Vogue, lest we forget, was also the magazine that published a cover shot of an almost unrecognisable Oprah Winfrey in 1998. Winfrey spent months shrinking herself to Anna Wintour's acceptable parameters for the style bible.
"If you want to be on the cover of Vogue and Anna Wintour says you have to be down to 150lbs -- that's what you gotta do," said Winfrey, which is a worrying statement from the apparent queen of self-empowerment and self-respect.
That Wintour is doing a U-turn can only be good, right? Yet some see such talk of diversification as merely trend-driven, a stunt to keep readers attracted to an industry that sells fantasy in the form of luxury items.
When Italian Vogue published its "Black Issue" in June of last year, featuring only black models, it sold out within 72 hours -- but was criticised in some quarters for tokenism.
Cover fakery is still widespread. Actress Kate Winslet protested against GQ lengthening and slimming her legs to stick-insect proportions in 2003. Fast-forward to late last year and she denies that Vanity Fair airbrushed her semi-naked body for an Oscars issue, although she admitted to six hours of make-up, hair and light set-ups for the shoot.
Dove cosmetics launched a viral video on the internet last year called Evolution that caused quite a stir. It showed one average-looking woman being transformed through make-up, re-styling, lighting and digital retouching to produce a model-worthy photograph. "No wonder our perception of beauty is distorted," read the kicker line on the video.
The Swedish Ministry of Health has launched a similar campaign to show the country's teenagers how model shots can be manipulated.
A separate website controversially published two photographs of country singer Faith Hill last year -- one in which she looks like the naturally attractive 40-something mother that she is; and the other in which she has been freakily Photoshopped to look like a woman in her early 30s for the cover of Redbook magazine.
This is the same magazine that did a Frankenstein job on Julia Roberts for a cover story in 2003, using a picture of her head from a 2002 paparazzi shot on top of a photo of her body from the 1998 Notting Hill premiere.
The photograph was accompanied with a headline that read, with no trace of irony, "The Real Julia".
The tricks of the trade are no secret. Digital photo manipulation can trim fat, even out skin tone, banish blemishes, add shine to hair, even change the colour of an outfit.
New York magazine was accused of "whitewashing" Michelle Obama on their March cover by giving her a Barbie pink lipstick and lightening her skin tone, although they defended it as an "illustration" rather than a photograph.
A good sign that an image has been airbrushed is when the skin is so flawless that it seems plastic and unreal. The sardonic celeb-style website gofugyourself.com regularly takes a poke at hyper-real cover photos -- its archive has a worryingly long list of entries. The model and actress Jenny McCarthy highlighted her own dodgy covershot for last month's US Shape magazine.
The shot, she admitted, had undergone "a crap load of airbrushing ... I have freckles ... and stretchmarks that you do not see here, and they add a little shadowing to make these muscle things happen that don't exist on my body."
Even with the digital paintbrush out of the picture, there are ways to fake a flawless portrait. People magazine made a big fuss of its 100 Most Beautiful list in 2007, which included 10 celebrities looking dewy-faced without -- gasp -- their make-up, or airbrushing. But clever photographers' tricks were used to flatter the women (including Jessica Alba, Jessica Biel and Rachel Bilson who are in their 20s and wrinkle-free anyway).
Several of the pictures were taken with a long exposure, disguising small imperfections. The shots were also overexposed to the point that the brown-skinned Rosario Dawson looked positively white -- all to fade out uneven skin tone, spots and freckles.
Most of the women were shot wearing white clothing, against a white background, to act as a further natural reflector to fill in dark shadows and blemishes. The women also stood in front of wind machines to tease some energy into their tresses.
But should we worry so much about smoothed-out stars giving false example when fantasy has always been the nub of showbiz? Think of those soft-focus, up-lit portraits of the earliest Hollywood stars.
Black and white is so flattering, darling. Some historians believe that even the iconic bust of the Egyptian queen Nefertiti -- the world's first beauty queen -- may have been touched up.
The artist who created it is thought to have straightened her nose and smoothed creases around her mouth to present her in the most flattering light. With the idealisation of beauty so culturally-entrenched, it may take more than a few celebs sans slap to change it.
http://www.independent.ie/lifestyle/independent-woman/fashion-beauty/now-theyre-airbrushing-the-cover-girls-bigger-1775680.html
NOW THEY'RE AIRBRUSHING THE COVER GIRLS BIGGER
Magazines have been notorious for retouching the cover shots of their models so they look thinner. Now a backlash has editors trying to do just the opposite. Susan Daly reports
Wednesday June 17 2009
The worst-kept secret in the beauty and fashion business is that an airbrush is a model or celebrity's best friend. Traditionally, this piece of technological wizardry has been used to slim down limbs and banish blemishes on digital photographs so that they are seen fit to grace the cover of a magazine.
The argument against this retouching of reality has been that it is harmful to impressionable readers, leading to eating disorders, body dysmorphia and issues of low self-esteem as they try to attain the impossible perfection presented in these photographs.
Well, the reality just got grimmer -- and slimmer. Alexandra Shulman, the influential editor of UK Vogue magazine, has written a letter to all the major fashion designers to warn them that she is now having to ask her photographers to make her cover models look bigger!
The sample sizes which many designers provide for photoshoots are so tiny, she says, that she has to hire ever-increasingly skeletal models to fit into them.
These models are so thin that she fears alienating her readers altogether. Her photographers must now use all their trickery not to take these girls down a size -- as was more traditional in the wafer-thin fashion world -- but to beef them up.
Robin Derrick, creative director of Vogue, backed up Shulman's claims. "I spent the first 10 years of my career making girls look thinner," he said, "I've spent the last 10 making them look larger." The size zero debate has gone sub-zero.
It's ironic, really, that a fashion magazine editor is complaining about having to skew reality to make her models acceptable to readers. For years, the same editors would have argued that no-one wants to buy a dress from an overweight model (for overweight, read a size 10 and up).
Flawless, thin, impossibly beautiful and generally white -- that was the type to which cover girls conformed.
Side by side with Shulman's move back to healthy-slim, we are told there is a backlash against the doctoring of magazine cover images altogether. Airbrushing and digital manipulation is out: undoctored beauty is in.
French Elle recently flirted with reality by featuring three celebrities without make-up on their cover of their April edition. The inclusion of bare-faced ladies in a high-fashion mag was internationally applauded, although the "au naturel" celebrities featured -- actresses Monica Bellucci and Sophie Marceau and supermodel Eva Herzigova -- are genetically blessed with fabulous bone structures to begin with.
Anna Wintour, the formidable editor-in-chief of US Vogue, has also been embracing diversity in her previously rigid cover girl criteria. When the Ethiopian model Liya Kebede posed for the May edition, she followed Beyoncé and Michelle Obama to become the third black woman in a row to appear on the cover.
"About a year ago, we talked about the global conversation about diversity in fashion, and we took it very seriously," said Patrick O'Connell, a spokesman for US Vogue.
US Vogue, lest we forget, was also the magazine that published a cover shot of an almost unrecognisable Oprah Winfrey in 1998. Winfrey spent months shrinking herself to Anna Wintour's acceptable parameters for the style bible.
"If you want to be on the cover of Vogue and Anna Wintour says you have to be down to 150lbs -- that's what you gotta do," said Winfrey, which is a worrying statement from the apparent queen of self-empowerment and self-respect.
That Wintour is doing a U-turn can only be good, right? Yet some see such talk of diversification as merely trend-driven, a stunt to keep readers attracted to an industry that sells fantasy in the form of luxury items.
When Italian Vogue published its "Black Issue" in June of last year, featuring only black models, it sold out within 72 hours -- but was criticised in some quarters for tokenism.
Cover fakery is still widespread. Actress Kate Winslet protested against GQ lengthening and slimming her legs to stick-insect proportions in 2003. Fast-forward to late last year and she denies that Vanity Fair airbrushed her semi-naked body for an Oscars issue, although she admitted to six hours of make-up, hair and light set-ups for the shoot.
Dove cosmetics launched a viral video on the internet last year called Evolution that caused quite a stir. It showed one average-looking woman being transformed through make-up, re-styling, lighting and digital retouching to produce a model-worthy photograph. "No wonder our perception of beauty is distorted," read the kicker line on the video.
The Swedish Ministry of Health has launched a similar campaign to show the country's teenagers how model shots can be manipulated.
A separate website controversially published two photographs of country singer Faith Hill last year -- one in which she looks like the naturally attractive 40-something mother that she is; and the other in which she has been freakily Photoshopped to look like a woman in her early 30s for the cover of Redbook magazine.
This is the same magazine that did a Frankenstein job on Julia Roberts for a cover story in 2003, using a picture of her head from a 2002 paparazzi shot on top of a photo of her body from the 1998 Notting Hill premiere.
The photograph was accompanied with a headline that read, with no trace of irony, "The Real Julia".
The tricks of the trade are no secret. Digital photo manipulation can trim fat, even out skin tone, banish blemishes, add shine to hair, even change the colour of an outfit.
New York magazine was accused of "whitewashing" Michelle Obama on their March cover by giving her a Barbie pink lipstick and lightening her skin tone, although they defended it as an "illustration" rather than a photograph.
A good sign that an image has been airbrushed is when the skin is so flawless that it seems plastic and unreal. The sardonic celeb-style website gofugyourself.com regularly takes a poke at hyper-real cover photos -- its archive has a worryingly long list of entries. The model and actress Jenny McCarthy highlighted her own dodgy covershot for last month's US Shape magazine.
The shot, she admitted, had undergone "a crap load of airbrushing ... I have freckles ... and stretchmarks that you do not see here, and they add a little shadowing to make these muscle things happen that don't exist on my body."
Even with the digital paintbrush out of the picture, there are ways to fake a flawless portrait. People magazine made a big fuss of its 100 Most Beautiful list in 2007, which included 10 celebrities looking dewy-faced without -- gasp -- their make-up, or airbrushing. But clever photographers' tricks were used to flatter the women (including Jessica Alba, Jessica Biel and Rachel Bilson who are in their 20s and wrinkle-free anyway).
Several of the pictures were taken with a long exposure, disguising small imperfections. The shots were also overexposed to the point that the brown-skinned Rosario Dawson looked positively white -- all to fade out uneven skin tone, spots and freckles.
Most of the women were shot wearing white clothing, against a white background, to act as a further natural reflector to fill in dark shadows and blemishes. The women also stood in front of wind machines to tease some energy into their tresses.
But should we worry so much about smoothed-out stars giving false example when fantasy has always been the nub of showbiz? Think of those soft-focus, up-lit portraits of the earliest Hollywood stars.
Black and white is so flattering, darling. Some historians believe that even the iconic bust of the Egyptian queen Nefertiti -- the world's first beauty queen -- may have been touched up.
The artist who created it is thought to have straightened her nose and smoothed creases around her mouth to present her in the most flattering light. With the idealisation of beauty so culturally-entrenched, it may take more than a few celebs sans slap to change it.
Tweenies
Giving parents a break in yesterday's Herald...
http://www.herald.ie/opinion/comment/miley-madness-shows-parents-will-always-put-children-first-1774854.html
By Susan Daly
Tuesday June 16 2009
What has 20,000 legs and emits a high-pierced screaming noise? A sold-out stadium full of pre-teen Miley Cyrus fans!
Anyone planning to pass the O2 venue on the two nights in December when the Hannah Montana star is in residency would be advised to keep a pair of earplugs handy.
Judging by the excitement with which the tickets to her debut Irish shows were snapped up in a matter of minutes, there will be pink-clad little girls bouncing off the walls like rubber balls.
Of course, if you train your ear carefully over the din of the screeching, you may hear the distinct sound of someone sucking lemons.
What a disgrace, tut-tut the sourpusses, up to €85 a ticket! It's far from concert tickets when we were reared. Children today are so spoiled, overindulged, pampered... (insert your own horrified adjective here).
To give the party-poopers their due, it is striking that sales of expensive tickets to children's gigs would go through the roof so quickly at this time.
We are told that there is a great deal less disposable cash floating around these days.
The spotlight this week is on the plight of the increased number of families applying for back-to-school grants. When money is tight for sturdy shoes and schoolbooks, indulging a child's Disney-sponsored obsession is not a priority.
The quick sell-out of the Miley Cyrus gigs is also in stark contrast to the slowing sales of adult music festival tickets. Some one-off gigs targeted at a generation of old hipsters who are now the parents of Miley fans did not receive the rapturous response the promoters might have expected.
A certain purple-clad Princely one pulled the plug on his Croker gig last year amid tales of sluggish sales.
The same reports swirled around the cancellation of the Eagles concert that was to be held in Galway at the end of this month.
Yet we can only presume that the parents who are keeping a tight rein on their own social spending were the ones to stump up for the Miley extravaganza.
(Although, as the banks were so eager to extend credit to anyone with a pulse until quite recently, it's not inconceivable that there are 11-year-olds running wild out there with personalised credit cards.)
It would be easy to be judgmental of such a parent. Children have to learn they don't always get what they ask for, right? In certain circumstances, yes.
A good parent won't allow their child to stay home from school just because they don't like the cut of their headmaster's jib. Nor will they let them stay away from the dentist because they are afraid. Some bitter pills just have to be swallowed in childhood.
But perhaps the parents who decided the Miley Cyrus night out was one issue they were willing to submit to have bigger fish to fry.
Many families have pulled back on the annual summer holiday, on birthday parties, on food bills.
They may well have decided that this will be the one treat - and birthday present rolled into one, if they are smart -- that they can make sacrifices for. Who are we to judge someone for wanting to give their child one standout memory for the year?
It is always a parent's instinct to deprive themselves before they see their children go without. In another less fortunate country, that might be a mother putting food in her child's mouth before she quiets the gnawing of her own empty stomach.
Here, it's more a sacrifice of the little luxuries. It's all relative, but it's the same biological impulse. That is why that emergency procedure on a plane of pulling on your own oxygen mask before attending to your child's goes against the grain.
It only remains to be seen if the ticket touts manage to take advantage of parents who don't want to disappoint their children. We would have to draw the line at paying €1,200 for a Miley ticket. You could get a small pony for that.
http://www.herald.ie/opinion/comment/miley-madness-shows-parents-will-always-put-children-first-1774854.html
By Susan Daly
Tuesday June 16 2009
What has 20,000 legs and emits a high-pierced screaming noise? A sold-out stadium full of pre-teen Miley Cyrus fans!
Anyone planning to pass the O2 venue on the two nights in December when the Hannah Montana star is in residency would be advised to keep a pair of earplugs handy.
Judging by the excitement with which the tickets to her debut Irish shows were snapped up in a matter of minutes, there will be pink-clad little girls bouncing off the walls like rubber balls.
Of course, if you train your ear carefully over the din of the screeching, you may hear the distinct sound of someone sucking lemons.
What a disgrace, tut-tut the sourpusses, up to €85 a ticket! It's far from concert tickets when we were reared. Children today are so spoiled, overindulged, pampered... (insert your own horrified adjective here).
To give the party-poopers their due, it is striking that sales of expensive tickets to children's gigs would go through the roof so quickly at this time.
We are told that there is a great deal less disposable cash floating around these days.
The spotlight this week is on the plight of the increased number of families applying for back-to-school grants. When money is tight for sturdy shoes and schoolbooks, indulging a child's Disney-sponsored obsession is not a priority.
The quick sell-out of the Miley Cyrus gigs is also in stark contrast to the slowing sales of adult music festival tickets. Some one-off gigs targeted at a generation of old hipsters who are now the parents of Miley fans did not receive the rapturous response the promoters might have expected.
A certain purple-clad Princely one pulled the plug on his Croker gig last year amid tales of sluggish sales.
The same reports swirled around the cancellation of the Eagles concert that was to be held in Galway at the end of this month.
Yet we can only presume that the parents who are keeping a tight rein on their own social spending were the ones to stump up for the Miley extravaganza.
(Although, as the banks were so eager to extend credit to anyone with a pulse until quite recently, it's not inconceivable that there are 11-year-olds running wild out there with personalised credit cards.)
It would be easy to be judgmental of such a parent. Children have to learn they don't always get what they ask for, right? In certain circumstances, yes.
A good parent won't allow their child to stay home from school just because they don't like the cut of their headmaster's jib. Nor will they let them stay away from the dentist because they are afraid. Some bitter pills just have to be swallowed in childhood.
But perhaps the parents who decided the Miley Cyrus night out was one issue they were willing to submit to have bigger fish to fry.
Many families have pulled back on the annual summer holiday, on birthday parties, on food bills.
They may well have decided that this will be the one treat - and birthday present rolled into one, if they are smart -- that they can make sacrifices for. Who are we to judge someone for wanting to give their child one standout memory for the year?
It is always a parent's instinct to deprive themselves before they see their children go without. In another less fortunate country, that might be a mother putting food in her child's mouth before she quiets the gnawing of her own empty stomach.
Here, it's more a sacrifice of the little luxuries. It's all relative, but it's the same biological impulse. That is why that emergency procedure on a plane of pulling on your own oxygen mask before attending to your child's goes against the grain.
It only remains to be seen if the ticket touts manage to take advantage of parents who don't want to disappoint their children. We would have to draw the line at paying €1,200 for a Miley ticket. You could get a small pony for that.
Monday, June 15, 2009
Dublin can be heaven...
From the Evening Herald
http://www.herald.ie/opinion/comment/paradise-found--and-its-right-under-our-noses-1771311.html
PARADISE FOUND... AND IT'S RIGHT UNDER OUR NOSE
By Susan Daly
Friday June 12 2009
Don't it always seem to go, that you don't know what you've got till it's gone? The residents of Dartmouth Square in Dublin 6 were singing to Joni Mitchell's tune when they found themselves locked out of their own private park four years ago.
Businessman Noel O'Gara had spotted a loophole that allowed him to buy the lease to the park from Dublin City Council for a pittance.
He locked out the residents and at one stage planned to turn it into a concrete car park. As Joni predicted in Big Yellow Taxi, he wanted to pave paradise and put up a parking lot.
I lived off nearby Northbrook Avenue at the time and remember being both bemused and amused by the hullabaloo as O'Gara stood there brazenly flogging tiles from the disputed patch of grass. Bemused, because I had only been vaguely aware of the square although I passed near it every day. Amused, because it didn't really affect me -- the only people who were ever permitted to use that park were those who could afford to live in the grand houses on its leafy fringes.
I wondered back then if the residents had previously bothered to use the park all that much. Now that Noel O'Gara has this week agreed to reopen it to them, they are pledging picnics and barbies, plays and concerts -- all to prove that this is an amenity worth keeping intact.
Dartmouth Square is a lesson to us all to make the most of what we've got on our own doorstep.
It can be difficult to raise our eyes from the pavement as we tread the same well-worn paths between home, the office, the supermarket and the local, week in, week out. But we are so blessed in Dublin.
We live in a city with more urban green space than any other European capital. Much of this is contained in the expanse of the Phoenix Park --but there are other gorgeous little oases of peace -- and they don't require a private residents' key.
One of my favourite finds was the Blessington Street Basin, a former city water reservoir that is now home to herons, cranes, ducks and flowering lilies. The first time you stumble into its tranquility, the contrast with the roar of the traffic at the top of Dorset Street is so startling, you will honestly believe you have gone stone-deaf.
The same can be said for the Iveagh Gardens, a Tardis-like park secreted through a small gateway off Harcourt Street.
The first I heard of it was almost seven years after coming to live in Dublin. My sister came to visit and starting raving about this lush, tree-lined amphitheatre where she had eaten a takeaway sandwich. It's a sad moment when it takes a day-tripping culchie to point out what has been under your urbanite nose for years. That's the secret to finding these hidden gems: act like a tourist in your own neighbourhood. I took the Ghost Bus tour for a laugh with my auntie -- also a visitor -- and was gobsmacked when our guide brought us to a former graveyard at the back of Wexford Street.
It has a ruined church in the middle of it, and some headstones still recline against the boundary walls. All the bodies were reinterred in other consecrated ground some years back, and office workers now sprawl out on the grass for a lunchtime breather. "Here Lies Sean O'Driscoll, on his coffee break, June 12, 2009."
If anyone has a favourite hideaway spot in Dublin, I'd love to hear about it. It will be our little secret. I promise.
http://www.herald.ie/opinion/comment/paradise-found--and-its-right-under-our-noses-1771311.html
PARADISE FOUND... AND IT'S RIGHT UNDER OUR NOSE
By Susan Daly
Friday June 12 2009
Don't it always seem to go, that you don't know what you've got till it's gone? The residents of Dartmouth Square in Dublin 6 were singing to Joni Mitchell's tune when they found themselves locked out of their own private park four years ago.
Businessman Noel O'Gara had spotted a loophole that allowed him to buy the lease to the park from Dublin City Council for a pittance.
He locked out the residents and at one stage planned to turn it into a concrete car park. As Joni predicted in Big Yellow Taxi, he wanted to pave paradise and put up a parking lot.
I lived off nearby Northbrook Avenue at the time and remember being both bemused and amused by the hullabaloo as O'Gara stood there brazenly flogging tiles from the disputed patch of grass. Bemused, because I had only been vaguely aware of the square although I passed near it every day. Amused, because it didn't really affect me -- the only people who were ever permitted to use that park were those who could afford to live in the grand houses on its leafy fringes.
I wondered back then if the residents had previously bothered to use the park all that much. Now that Noel O'Gara has this week agreed to reopen it to them, they are pledging picnics and barbies, plays and concerts -- all to prove that this is an amenity worth keeping intact.
Dartmouth Square is a lesson to us all to make the most of what we've got on our own doorstep.
It can be difficult to raise our eyes from the pavement as we tread the same well-worn paths between home, the office, the supermarket and the local, week in, week out. But we are so blessed in Dublin.
We live in a city with more urban green space than any other European capital. Much of this is contained in the expanse of the Phoenix Park --but there are other gorgeous little oases of peace -- and they don't require a private residents' key.
One of my favourite finds was the Blessington Street Basin, a former city water reservoir that is now home to herons, cranes, ducks and flowering lilies. The first time you stumble into its tranquility, the contrast with the roar of the traffic at the top of Dorset Street is so startling, you will honestly believe you have gone stone-deaf.
The same can be said for the Iveagh Gardens, a Tardis-like park secreted through a small gateway off Harcourt Street.
The first I heard of it was almost seven years after coming to live in Dublin. My sister came to visit and starting raving about this lush, tree-lined amphitheatre where she had eaten a takeaway sandwich. It's a sad moment when it takes a day-tripping culchie to point out what has been under your urbanite nose for years. That's the secret to finding these hidden gems: act like a tourist in your own neighbourhood. I took the Ghost Bus tour for a laugh with my auntie -- also a visitor -- and was gobsmacked when our guide brought us to a former graveyard at the back of Wexford Street.
It has a ruined church in the middle of it, and some headstones still recline against the boundary walls. All the bodies were reinterred in other consecrated ground some years back, and office workers now sprawl out on the grass for a lunchtime breather. "Here Lies Sean O'Driscoll, on his coffee break, June 12, 2009."
If anyone has a favourite hideaway spot in Dublin, I'd love to hear about it. It will be our little secret. I promise.
Friday, June 12, 2009
When will this end?
Who would want to be in Big Brother these days... My piece from the Indo today:
http://www.independent.ie/entertainment/tv-radio/whats-a-nice-girl-like-noirin-doing-in-a-house-like-this-1770892.html
By Susan Daly
Friday June 12 2009
What is a nice Catholic daughter of a missionary doing in a place like Big Brother? On paper, Noirin Kelly, Ireland's only representative in the tenth series of the reality show, should be a fish out of water.
Since the late Jade Goody stripped down to her 'kebab' seven years ago, the erstwhile TV social experiment has gained notoriety as a hideout for freaks, fame-seekers and, occasionally, very troubled souls.
Noirin's family in Cabinteely would be appalled to think that their pretty 25-year-old girl could in any way fit that bill. Her parents met when Noirin's Irish father Peter was a missionary in Kenya; he brought his wife Jacinta home to Dublin where they raised a good Catholic brood of two girls and five boys, now aged from 27 down to seven.
"She'll keep out of trouble," said Peter, on hearing the news that his second eldest had entered the Big Brother house. "She'd be religious enough. We all have our faith." Noirin's mother Jacinta praised her daughter as "the girl who would walk out and find gold".
It is clear Noirin comes from a tightly-knit family, not lacking in love nor morals. Her parents' faith in her is heartening -- one hopes it won't be betrayed by her stint on Big Brother.
The stringently secret nature of the show forced Noirin to tell her mum she was going to London to meet a friend when she was in fact attending the show auditions. The family were shocked when she popped up on TV last week --they thought she was in America.
And as sure as rocks have creepy-crawlies under them, a 'friend' has already handed over pictures of Noirin posing in scanty undies to a tabloid.
It was revealed that Noirin had previously featured on a high-profile reality show, The Real World in Australia, which saw her frolicking topless in a hot tub.
Noirin's mum has hinted that she is not naïve about the possibility that her daughter might play to the cameras. Jacinta said she will watch the show for now, but may have to look away if Noirin does anything "silly".
Noirin's hunger for attention in the belief that fame and fortune will also be in attendance is no longer a novelty among BB applicants. It was a different story when the first-ever Irish contestant, Anna Nolan, entered the house in its first season in 2000. She believed no-one would even watch it.
One night shortly before the launch of the show, she told her plans to friends in the pub. "One of them said, 'Why on earth would anyone want to watch that?' and we changed the subject," she said.
After series five, it became clear that the programme-makers were casting ever more eccentric characters in a bid to keep viewer attention alive.
George Lamb, host of spin-off show Big Brother's Little Brother, is puzzled by the characters he interviews when they emerge from the house. "It's weird what drives someone to go and be a part of it," he said.
The fact that contestants will literally do anything to get on TV is fully exploited by the programme makers.
This year, the contestants had to submit to bizarre tests on the show before they became "fully fledged" housemates.
Two contestants, a posh boy called Freddie Fisher and a glamour model called Sophie Reade, had to change their names by deed poll to Halfwit and Dogface respectively. Two others, single mother Saffia Corden and former Mr Gay UK contestant Charlie Drummond, were ordered to walk over broken glass -- not realising that it was safe sugar glass, the kind which is used in movie stunt scenes.
Noirin agreed to have her eyebrows shaved off by another contestant, and glasses and a moustache drawn on her face in permanent marker.
Noirin Kelly is not a talentless desperado by any means -- she's a former athletics star, and a manager for Dunnes Stores -- but the clarion call of potential fame is strong enough for her to allow her face to be... well, defaced... for public consumption.
The debasement and humiliation could well be for naught. Dermot O'Leary, former host of Big Brother's Little Brother, remarked: "When I first started on Big Brother (in 2001) people never really wanted to be famous. It was just a by-product of what happens when you're on that show . . . I don't think people should go on Big Brother thinking 'I really want to be famous' with any longevity."
Those few who do not sink without trace have found that Big Brother fame is not without its complications. Although the last days of Jade Goody have barely faded from our TV screens, the current batch of BB hopefuls don't appear to view her as a cautionary tale.
True, Jade's notoriety allowed her to create a trust fund for her two sons by allowing cameras to follow her as she died of cervical cancer. But that pay day was bitterly earned over seven years in which public perception of her character was created through the prism of her first innocent turn on Big Brother in 2002, and four years later on Celebrity Big Brother.
Her first appearance branded her ignorant, childlike and unsophisticated; and she emerged from the latter with the labels of bully and racist.
Her third Big Brother appearance -- on the Indian version to offer reparation for her attacks on Bollywood star Shilpa Shetty -- ended abruptly with her being informed on camera that she had cancer.
While audiences for reality TV are in decline overall, Noirin, an evidently bright girl with a head for business, might have been better off applying to The Apprentice if she wanted maximum exposure.
Despite showing on a traditionally low-rating weekday night, The Alan Sugar-fronted show increased its audience to a record high of 8.1 million at the start of the 2009 series.
In any case, wannabes don't need BB anymore when they recreate the experience with the help of a home camera and a video-sharing website like YouTube or Vimeo. And guess what -- Noirin Kelly is already featured on a video on Youtube, having a dance-off with a male friend in someone's front room. Why, she's famous already.
http://www.independent.ie/entertainment/tv-radio/whats-a-nice-girl-like-noirin-doing-in-a-house-like-this-1770892.html
By Susan Daly
Friday June 12 2009
What is a nice Catholic daughter of a missionary doing in a place like Big Brother? On paper, Noirin Kelly, Ireland's only representative in the tenth series of the reality show, should be a fish out of water.
Since the late Jade Goody stripped down to her 'kebab' seven years ago, the erstwhile TV social experiment has gained notoriety as a hideout for freaks, fame-seekers and, occasionally, very troubled souls.
Noirin's family in Cabinteely would be appalled to think that their pretty 25-year-old girl could in any way fit that bill. Her parents met when Noirin's Irish father Peter was a missionary in Kenya; he brought his wife Jacinta home to Dublin where they raised a good Catholic brood of two girls and five boys, now aged from 27 down to seven.
"She'll keep out of trouble," said Peter, on hearing the news that his second eldest had entered the Big Brother house. "She'd be religious enough. We all have our faith." Noirin's mother Jacinta praised her daughter as "the girl who would walk out and find gold".
It is clear Noirin comes from a tightly-knit family, not lacking in love nor morals. Her parents' faith in her is heartening -- one hopes it won't be betrayed by her stint on Big Brother.
The stringently secret nature of the show forced Noirin to tell her mum she was going to London to meet a friend when she was in fact attending the show auditions. The family were shocked when she popped up on TV last week --they thought she was in America.
And as sure as rocks have creepy-crawlies under them, a 'friend' has already handed over pictures of Noirin posing in scanty undies to a tabloid.
It was revealed that Noirin had previously featured on a high-profile reality show, The Real World in Australia, which saw her frolicking topless in a hot tub.
Noirin's mum has hinted that she is not naïve about the possibility that her daughter might play to the cameras. Jacinta said she will watch the show for now, but may have to look away if Noirin does anything "silly".
Noirin's hunger for attention in the belief that fame and fortune will also be in attendance is no longer a novelty among BB applicants. It was a different story when the first-ever Irish contestant, Anna Nolan, entered the house in its first season in 2000. She believed no-one would even watch it.
One night shortly before the launch of the show, she told her plans to friends in the pub. "One of them said, 'Why on earth would anyone want to watch that?' and we changed the subject," she said.
After series five, it became clear that the programme-makers were casting ever more eccentric characters in a bid to keep viewer attention alive.
George Lamb, host of spin-off show Big Brother's Little Brother, is puzzled by the characters he interviews when they emerge from the house. "It's weird what drives someone to go and be a part of it," he said.
The fact that contestants will literally do anything to get on TV is fully exploited by the programme makers.
This year, the contestants had to submit to bizarre tests on the show before they became "fully fledged" housemates.
Two contestants, a posh boy called Freddie Fisher and a glamour model called Sophie Reade, had to change their names by deed poll to Halfwit and Dogface respectively. Two others, single mother Saffia Corden and former Mr Gay UK contestant Charlie Drummond, were ordered to walk over broken glass -- not realising that it was safe sugar glass, the kind which is used in movie stunt scenes.
Noirin agreed to have her eyebrows shaved off by another contestant, and glasses and a moustache drawn on her face in permanent marker.
Noirin Kelly is not a talentless desperado by any means -- she's a former athletics star, and a manager for Dunnes Stores -- but the clarion call of potential fame is strong enough for her to allow her face to be... well, defaced... for public consumption.
The debasement and humiliation could well be for naught. Dermot O'Leary, former host of Big Brother's Little Brother, remarked: "When I first started on Big Brother (in 2001) people never really wanted to be famous. It was just a by-product of what happens when you're on that show . . . I don't think people should go on Big Brother thinking 'I really want to be famous' with any longevity."
Those few who do not sink without trace have found that Big Brother fame is not without its complications. Although the last days of Jade Goody have barely faded from our TV screens, the current batch of BB hopefuls don't appear to view her as a cautionary tale.
True, Jade's notoriety allowed her to create a trust fund for her two sons by allowing cameras to follow her as she died of cervical cancer. But that pay day was bitterly earned over seven years in which public perception of her character was created through the prism of her first innocent turn on Big Brother in 2002, and four years later on Celebrity Big Brother.
Her first appearance branded her ignorant, childlike and unsophisticated; and she emerged from the latter with the labels of bully and racist.
Her third Big Brother appearance -- on the Indian version to offer reparation for her attacks on Bollywood star Shilpa Shetty -- ended abruptly with her being informed on camera that she had cancer.
While audiences for reality TV are in decline overall, Noirin, an evidently bright girl with a head for business, might have been better off applying to The Apprentice if she wanted maximum exposure.
Despite showing on a traditionally low-rating weekday night, The Alan Sugar-fronted show increased its audience to a record high of 8.1 million at the start of the 2009 series.
In any case, wannabes don't need BB anymore when they recreate the experience with the help of a home camera and a video-sharing website like YouTube or Vimeo. And guess what -- Noirin Kelly is already featured on a video on Youtube, having a dance-off with a male friend in someone's front room. Why, she's famous already.
Wednesday, June 10, 2009
My hero
I interviewed the kind and generous Ken Loach, director of Kes, Riff-Raff, Ladybird Ladybird, Bread and Roses, The Wind The Shakes The Barley etc etc, on his new film Looking for Eric, which stars Eric Cantona.
Paste in this link to the Film Ireland website to read the transcript. Total gent....
http://www.filmireland.net/2009/06/04/desperately-seeking-eric/
Paste in this link to the Film Ireland website to read the transcript. Total gent....
http://www.filmireland.net/2009/06/04/desperately-seeking-eric/
Tuesday, June 9, 2009
Knitting your own yoghurt
My op-ed in today's Herald
http://www.herald.ie/opinion/comment/how-i-discovered-its--not-easy-being-green-1766806.html
By Susan Daly
Tuesday June 09 2009
I know how the Green Party feels -- my own green credentials have taken something of a hit of late. The salad window box wilted to death when I was away for the weekend.
It is safe to say I will not be self-sufficient in homegrown food this summer. Pipe dreams of growing tomatoes in a pot and bottling them for winter like some class of Amish housewife have come to naught.
Things were so different about a year ago when it became clear that we would have to start tightening our belts. There was a rash of lifestyle articles telling you how to raise a chicken on a balcony, grow veggies in a half-barrel, make briquettes from wet paper, knit your own yoghurt.
Curtains
It seemed that the patriotic thing to do was to embrace the simple life. Fashion your shoes out of last season's leather belt, create a party dress out of a pair of curtains a la Scarlett O'Hara in Gone With The Wind. Retro gardening and bread-baking books shot back to the top of the bestsellers' list for the first time in decades.
But it all got a bit exhausting, didn't it? Those of us who continue to have a job still have to work as many hours as before. Walking everywhere is a nice jolly hockeysticks idea when the sun is shining, and you have nowhere to be in a hurry. Finding two hours to walk the kids to school, walk yourself to work, then to the supermarket to pick up the dinner on the way home is not always realistic.
Convenience is still paramount -- few have the time or energy to churn their own butter from the milk of a cow kept in the back garden.
We have adapted in some ways; we might not get up at 4am to grind corn and bake our own bread, but we probably now know which supermarket has the cheapest sliced pan. It's just that we perhaps bit off more wholesome, organic fare than we could chew.
It was reported recently that some of the councils who assign allotments in the greater Dublin area were taking several of the patches of land back from people who had failed to actually grow anything on them.
There was a lot of tut-tutting from seasoned allotment users over these fair-weather farmers. But to be fair I'm sure the road away from the vegetable patch is paved with good intentions.
There was something almost spiritual about the idea of growing one's own food after years of thoughtless takeaways and stockpiles of expensive food bought in a fancy deli, destined to rot in the chiller cabinet of giant American-style fridges. We were a little ashamed of our excesses and we wanted to feel the refreshing sting of austerity.
I don't think we should feel too bad that we haven't instantaneously turned into survival experts. Not too long ago, showing you were not one of wasteful ways just meant putting a housebrick in the toilet cistern to save water on a flush. We can't expect to suddenly morph into Bear Grylls clones, building our own bicycles from two sticks of wicker and a punctured football. Do you think Michelle Obama is hoeing that giant vegetable patch in front of the White House all by herself? Is she heck.
Saying that, it might be nice if there were a few free council-run classes available to people who would like to give the old self-help lark another try. Clothes-altering lessons and urban garden courses might well reinvigorate our good intentions. It takes time for new habits to take -- who would have thought ten years ago that we would all be religiously separating our paper and plastic?
In the meantime, if you don't want to pull up your lovely rose bush to make room for a potato drill, don't worry about being called selfish and irresponsible. Enjoy the view -- at least it's free.
http://www.herald.ie/opinion/comment/how-i-discovered-its--not-easy-being-green-1766806.html
By Susan Daly
Tuesday June 09 2009
I know how the Green Party feels -- my own green credentials have taken something of a hit of late. The salad window box wilted to death when I was away for the weekend.
It is safe to say I will not be self-sufficient in homegrown food this summer. Pipe dreams of growing tomatoes in a pot and bottling them for winter like some class of Amish housewife have come to naught.
Things were so different about a year ago when it became clear that we would have to start tightening our belts. There was a rash of lifestyle articles telling you how to raise a chicken on a balcony, grow veggies in a half-barrel, make briquettes from wet paper, knit your own yoghurt.
Curtains
It seemed that the patriotic thing to do was to embrace the simple life. Fashion your shoes out of last season's leather belt, create a party dress out of a pair of curtains a la Scarlett O'Hara in Gone With The Wind. Retro gardening and bread-baking books shot back to the top of the bestsellers' list for the first time in decades.
But it all got a bit exhausting, didn't it? Those of us who continue to have a job still have to work as many hours as before. Walking everywhere is a nice jolly hockeysticks idea when the sun is shining, and you have nowhere to be in a hurry. Finding two hours to walk the kids to school, walk yourself to work, then to the supermarket to pick up the dinner on the way home is not always realistic.
Convenience is still paramount -- few have the time or energy to churn their own butter from the milk of a cow kept in the back garden.
We have adapted in some ways; we might not get up at 4am to grind corn and bake our own bread, but we probably now know which supermarket has the cheapest sliced pan. It's just that we perhaps bit off more wholesome, organic fare than we could chew.
It was reported recently that some of the councils who assign allotments in the greater Dublin area were taking several of the patches of land back from people who had failed to actually grow anything on them.
There was a lot of tut-tutting from seasoned allotment users over these fair-weather farmers. But to be fair I'm sure the road away from the vegetable patch is paved with good intentions.
There was something almost spiritual about the idea of growing one's own food after years of thoughtless takeaways and stockpiles of expensive food bought in a fancy deli, destined to rot in the chiller cabinet of giant American-style fridges. We were a little ashamed of our excesses and we wanted to feel the refreshing sting of austerity.
I don't think we should feel too bad that we haven't instantaneously turned into survival experts. Not too long ago, showing you were not one of wasteful ways just meant putting a housebrick in the toilet cistern to save water on a flush. We can't expect to suddenly morph into Bear Grylls clones, building our own bicycles from two sticks of wicker and a punctured football. Do you think Michelle Obama is hoeing that giant vegetable patch in front of the White House all by herself? Is she heck.
Saying that, it might be nice if there were a few free council-run classes available to people who would like to give the old self-help lark another try. Clothes-altering lessons and urban garden courses might well reinvigorate our good intentions. It takes time for new habits to take -- who would have thought ten years ago that we would all be religiously separating our paper and plastic?
In the meantime, if you don't want to pull up your lovely rose bush to make room for a potato drill, don't worry about being called selfish and irresponsible. Enjoy the view -- at least it's free.
Thursday, June 4, 2009
Don't be a solicitor
New opinion pieces from me in the Evening Herald...
http://www.herald.ie/opinion/comment/follow-your-hearts--the-one-crucial-lesson-for-class-of-2009-1761457.html
By Susan Daly
There is a lame old joke that says teenagers are world experts in any subject they don't have to sit as an exam.
The reality is that teens rarely feel like masters of the universe. And for the Leaving Cert class of 2009, the world is a more uncertain place than ever before.
It has been several long years since a generation of secondary school students faced graduating into such a volatile world.
In the 1980s and into the early 1990s, the twin spectres of unemployment and emigration loomed outside the school gates.
Going to college was an option that merely delayed the inevitable -- that all skills and qualifications were for export.
Sobering
Such a brain drain could happen again, we are warned.
Already it is clear that the current crop of third-level students will have few jobs waiting for them when they graduate.
This has been a sobering thought for the Leaving Certs filling out their CAO/CAS forms this year.
What do you choose to study when the only place your degree certificate might be appreciated is on the wall of your parents' sitting room?
Actually, there is something to be said for not having your future decided by the demands of the marketplace.
Two newly-qualified solicitors of my acquaintance were worrying last week about the fact all their hard work in college, at Blackhall Place, and as trainees at law firms for a pittance -- 'devilling' as the practice is known -- might have been in vain.
There are no openings for them in this new climate.
The irony, as they see it, is that they only got into law because, at the height of the boom, it seemed like a career path lined with fortune and security. They are not even sure they like the job itself all that much.
If there is one lesson the Class of 2009 could take from them, it is this: Don't apply for a course just because it might end in a secure job. Do something because you love it.
That way, no matter what the state of the workplace when you finally graduate, you will never resent the time you spent getting there.
Stress
Studying subjects that lead into a course or trade you are interested in makes the Leaving Cert seem much less onerous.
The exam that, as adults, we look back on as unnecessarily stressful has been especially so in recent years.
The pressure teenagers were under to get points for jobs that were seen as desirable -- but not necessarily the jobs of their dreams -- led to an unsustainable round of grind schools, tutors, and extra financial and emotional stress for the family.
Children were struggling through higher mathematics, or languages, or two science subjects, without necessarily having the aptitude for them, because they were entry routes to "careers with status".
There is no point claiming that the cold wind blowing in on the job front won't cause sleepless nights for teens -- but it is important that they know the outlook is not bleak.
My sister finished school in 1989 -- she was one of the few of her age in her area to stay in Ireland, at least initially. Five years later, as I sat my Leaving, the economic climate was giving hints of a silver lining.
But, having watched my sister's generation decimated no matter what course of action they took, I decided to just go with what I liked and hope for the best.
I did not think to get into a course that might ride the crest of the coming wave. I have never made pots of money -- but I have been happy to potter along doing something I'm passionate about.
I hope the same for the Class of 2009, so that even if the river of prosperity is slow to rise again, they will always be paddling their own canoe.
http://www.herald.ie/opinion/comment/follow-your-hearts--the-one-crucial-lesson-for-class-of-2009-1761457.html
By Susan Daly
There is a lame old joke that says teenagers are world experts in any subject they don't have to sit as an exam.
The reality is that teens rarely feel like masters of the universe. And for the Leaving Cert class of 2009, the world is a more uncertain place than ever before.
It has been several long years since a generation of secondary school students faced graduating into such a volatile world.
In the 1980s and into the early 1990s, the twin spectres of unemployment and emigration loomed outside the school gates.
Going to college was an option that merely delayed the inevitable -- that all skills and qualifications were for export.
Sobering
Such a brain drain could happen again, we are warned.
Already it is clear that the current crop of third-level students will have few jobs waiting for them when they graduate.
This has been a sobering thought for the Leaving Certs filling out their CAO/CAS forms this year.
What do you choose to study when the only place your degree certificate might be appreciated is on the wall of your parents' sitting room?
Actually, there is something to be said for not having your future decided by the demands of the marketplace.
Two newly-qualified solicitors of my acquaintance were worrying last week about the fact all their hard work in college, at Blackhall Place, and as trainees at law firms for a pittance -- 'devilling' as the practice is known -- might have been in vain.
There are no openings for them in this new climate.
The irony, as they see it, is that they only got into law because, at the height of the boom, it seemed like a career path lined with fortune and security. They are not even sure they like the job itself all that much.
If there is one lesson the Class of 2009 could take from them, it is this: Don't apply for a course just because it might end in a secure job. Do something because you love it.
That way, no matter what the state of the workplace when you finally graduate, you will never resent the time you spent getting there.
Stress
Studying subjects that lead into a course or trade you are interested in makes the Leaving Cert seem much less onerous.
The exam that, as adults, we look back on as unnecessarily stressful has been especially so in recent years.
The pressure teenagers were under to get points for jobs that were seen as desirable -- but not necessarily the jobs of their dreams -- led to an unsustainable round of grind schools, tutors, and extra financial and emotional stress for the family.
Children were struggling through higher mathematics, or languages, or two science subjects, without necessarily having the aptitude for them, because they were entry routes to "careers with status".
There is no point claiming that the cold wind blowing in on the job front won't cause sleepless nights for teens -- but it is important that they know the outlook is not bleak.
My sister finished school in 1989 -- she was one of the few of her age in her area to stay in Ireland, at least initially. Five years later, as I sat my Leaving, the economic climate was giving hints of a silver lining.
But, having watched my sister's generation decimated no matter what course of action they took, I decided to just go with what I liked and hope for the best.
I did not think to get into a course that might ride the crest of the coming wave. I have never made pots of money -- but I have been happy to potter along doing something I'm passionate about.
I hope the same for the Class of 2009, so that even if the river of prosperity is slow to rise again, they will always be paddling their own canoe.
A white recession
A feature published by the Irish Independent on June 02 about how the recession is affecting the use of cocaine in Ireland (or not, as the case may be)...
http://www.independent.ie/lifestyle/independent-woman/health-fitness/cocaine-the-largest-threat-to-civic-society-that-we-face-1757782.html
COCAINE: 'The largest threat to civic society that we face'
By Susan Daly
Of all the decadence associated with the Celtic Tiger, cocaine was the most insidious. A relatively expensive drug five years ago, when it cost about three times' the price of heroin, its use was largely associated with the middle classes. It was seen as a sociable drug, one to be snorted from immaculate glass dining tables in wood-floored apartments, washed down with champagne.
Now that the party is over, has time also been called on the use and abuse of cocaine for young professionals?
A quick -- and admittedly unscientific -- anecdotal survey among acquaintances suggests that it is still popular.
"I know a solicitor who says it is still rife among her graduating class even though they're all finding it hard to find jobs," one 26-year-old told me. A 32-year-old estate agent says that it's no longer an "every weekend" drug, but that he saves it for "special occasions". Such as? "Birthdays, New Year's Eve, that kind of thing".
Gerry Cooney is an addiction counsellor at the Rutland Centre, one of Ireland's largest private drug and alcohol rehab centres.
It is based in the south Dublin suburb of Templeogue, and treats patients from the age of 18 up.
"There seems to be no huge change in patterns of people coming to us," says Cooney. "Typically it is a lot of professional people, for whom it is the drug of choice."
The attraction to cocaine as a so-called recreational drug are obvious, says Cooney.
"We don't see the vast majority of people who take it here because they take it on a Friday and still manage to work on Monday.
"When we get to see people is when their weekends start happening on a Thursday, then a few nights a week -- and then they start taking it in the morning before going to work."
But surely the recession, and the shrinking reserves of disposable cash, have put a kibosh on cocaine use? "Rationality doesn't come into it," says Cooney. "People think that they are not addicted because cocaine is not as physically addictive as heroin, for example. But cocaine has strong psychological dependence -- I think people are starting to discover that actually they can't give it up when they are made redundant and need to cut back. It's no longer a choice."
Cooney also believes that cocaine has retained its image as a clean, party drug. "Recreational drug use, as it's called, is a misnomer. I don't like it -- it makes cocaine sound very seductive and possible and manageable."
This is the image that a €650,000 advertising campaign by the HSE aimed to deconstruct last autumn.
Just over 70pc of under-35s said the poster ads would make them think differently about using cocaine, while 93pc said the radio ads taught them about the dangers of mixing cocaine and alcohol.
Dr Chris Luke, a consultant in emergency medicine in Mercy Hospital, Cork, is dubious. "There's no evidence that education about drugs works," he says.
"Saying that, we have to keep trying. I'm interested in educating parents and target groups to get the message home. I am trying to ventilate what we, the staff on the frontline, see when we treat 1.2 million people passing through our emergency departments every year."
And what Dr Luke sees convinces him that cocaine is as big a problem across the board as ever.
"We used to see a pattern where Paddy would come in drunk at midnight, flail about the place, be stitched up and asleep by 3am, and come in and apologise the next day.
"Now he is awake with cocaine all night, the violence goes on and on. I have seen eight ambulance men and policemen all sweating, trying to restrain such a guy, even though he might be handcuffed."
Beyond "dinner-party bores", he also notices a link between cocaine, the drug that is perceived to be less devastating to the community, and a horrendous spate of violence.
"My concern with cocaine is that I see it as the largest threat to civic society that we face. Guns are coming in on the same crates as this stimulant for violence -- it's a recipe for Mexican-style anarchy."
He says that he has quipped previously that the recession "might be the cure for cocaine use" in the country.
He does think that there is a levelling off of usage among the middle classes, but that cocaine is becoming more widespread among teens and criminals.
"Gangsterism is a recession-proof industry -- these guys have access to loads of cash."
Tom Brady in this newspaper reported on an EU-wide survey this year which showed that 4pc of the Irish population over the age of 15 are regular coke users, taking two grammes a week.
A survey published by researchers from Queen's University Belfast this month identified the rise of cocaine use among school-goers aged 13 to 16 years in 43 schools across Belfast, Ballymena and Downpatrick.
Up to 7.5pc of students in the schools were using cocaine by the time they were in their final year.
It seems astonishing that students can buy a drug that up to recently only high-earning professionals saw as affordable.
A garda source tells me that while the Garda Drugs Squad is currently officially pricing the street value of cocaine at €70 a gramme, it can be bought in reality for around €50 a gramme. If a buyer takes 10g -- as often happens when a group of friends club together -- the price can drop to as little as €30 to €40 a gramme.
Essentially, a weekend's cocaine supply for the price of two decent bottles of wine.
The perception of coke as a drug of choice has now filtered down to the extent that its use has become normalised among a new generation, many of whom come from deprived areas.
The Tallaght Local Drugs Task Force Strategic Plan 2008-2013 highlighted the growing prevalence of cocaine use among children and the blasé practice of 'speedballing' -- mixing cocaine and alcohol, or taking cocaine before heroin.
The problems highlighted in the report were not unique to Tallaght, but were countrywide, the authors said.
And yet Government support for drug schemes in these areas is being drastically cut. Stuart Fraser, co-ordinator of the Chrysalis Community Drug Project in north Dublin's inner city, says their funding has been hit by 30pc.
"It is the disenfranchised who are suffering in these public sector cuts," he says.
Yet the myth of glamour persists about cocaine, possibly because the middle classes still view it as a little luxury. Dr Chris Luke sees it as symptomatic of a society that still has its head in the sand about all our drug problems.
He says wearily: "I joke that working in the emergency department has given me two perspectives on drugs -- one is bleak, and one is apocalyptic."
http://www.independent.ie/lifestyle/independent-woman/health-fitness/cocaine-the-largest-threat-to-civic-society-that-we-face-1757782.html
COCAINE: 'The largest threat to civic society that we face'
By Susan Daly
Of all the decadence associated with the Celtic Tiger, cocaine was the most insidious. A relatively expensive drug five years ago, when it cost about three times' the price of heroin, its use was largely associated with the middle classes. It was seen as a sociable drug, one to be snorted from immaculate glass dining tables in wood-floored apartments, washed down with champagne.
Now that the party is over, has time also been called on the use and abuse of cocaine for young professionals?
A quick -- and admittedly unscientific -- anecdotal survey among acquaintances suggests that it is still popular.
"I know a solicitor who says it is still rife among her graduating class even though they're all finding it hard to find jobs," one 26-year-old told me. A 32-year-old estate agent says that it's no longer an "every weekend" drug, but that he saves it for "special occasions". Such as? "Birthdays, New Year's Eve, that kind of thing".
Gerry Cooney is an addiction counsellor at the Rutland Centre, one of Ireland's largest private drug and alcohol rehab centres.
It is based in the south Dublin suburb of Templeogue, and treats patients from the age of 18 up.
"There seems to be no huge change in patterns of people coming to us," says Cooney. "Typically it is a lot of professional people, for whom it is the drug of choice."
The attraction to cocaine as a so-called recreational drug are obvious, says Cooney.
"We don't see the vast majority of people who take it here because they take it on a Friday and still manage to work on Monday.
"When we get to see people is when their weekends start happening on a Thursday, then a few nights a week -- and then they start taking it in the morning before going to work."
But surely the recession, and the shrinking reserves of disposable cash, have put a kibosh on cocaine use? "Rationality doesn't come into it," says Cooney. "People think that they are not addicted because cocaine is not as physically addictive as heroin, for example. But cocaine has strong psychological dependence -- I think people are starting to discover that actually they can't give it up when they are made redundant and need to cut back. It's no longer a choice."
Cooney also believes that cocaine has retained its image as a clean, party drug. "Recreational drug use, as it's called, is a misnomer. I don't like it -- it makes cocaine sound very seductive and possible and manageable."
This is the image that a €650,000 advertising campaign by the HSE aimed to deconstruct last autumn.
Just over 70pc of under-35s said the poster ads would make them think differently about using cocaine, while 93pc said the radio ads taught them about the dangers of mixing cocaine and alcohol.
Dr Chris Luke, a consultant in emergency medicine in Mercy Hospital, Cork, is dubious. "There's no evidence that education about drugs works," he says.
"Saying that, we have to keep trying. I'm interested in educating parents and target groups to get the message home. I am trying to ventilate what we, the staff on the frontline, see when we treat 1.2 million people passing through our emergency departments every year."
And what Dr Luke sees convinces him that cocaine is as big a problem across the board as ever.
"We used to see a pattern where Paddy would come in drunk at midnight, flail about the place, be stitched up and asleep by 3am, and come in and apologise the next day.
"Now he is awake with cocaine all night, the violence goes on and on. I have seen eight ambulance men and policemen all sweating, trying to restrain such a guy, even though he might be handcuffed."
Beyond "dinner-party bores", he also notices a link between cocaine, the drug that is perceived to be less devastating to the community, and a horrendous spate of violence.
"My concern with cocaine is that I see it as the largest threat to civic society that we face. Guns are coming in on the same crates as this stimulant for violence -- it's a recipe for Mexican-style anarchy."
He says that he has quipped previously that the recession "might be the cure for cocaine use" in the country.
He does think that there is a levelling off of usage among the middle classes, but that cocaine is becoming more widespread among teens and criminals.
"Gangsterism is a recession-proof industry -- these guys have access to loads of cash."
Tom Brady in this newspaper reported on an EU-wide survey this year which showed that 4pc of the Irish population over the age of 15 are regular coke users, taking two grammes a week.
A survey published by researchers from Queen's University Belfast this month identified the rise of cocaine use among school-goers aged 13 to 16 years in 43 schools across Belfast, Ballymena and Downpatrick.
Up to 7.5pc of students in the schools were using cocaine by the time they were in their final year.
It seems astonishing that students can buy a drug that up to recently only high-earning professionals saw as affordable.
A garda source tells me that while the Garda Drugs Squad is currently officially pricing the street value of cocaine at €70 a gramme, it can be bought in reality for around €50 a gramme. If a buyer takes 10g -- as often happens when a group of friends club together -- the price can drop to as little as €30 to €40 a gramme.
Essentially, a weekend's cocaine supply for the price of two decent bottles of wine.
The perception of coke as a drug of choice has now filtered down to the extent that its use has become normalised among a new generation, many of whom come from deprived areas.
The Tallaght Local Drugs Task Force Strategic Plan 2008-2013 highlighted the growing prevalence of cocaine use among children and the blasé practice of 'speedballing' -- mixing cocaine and alcohol, or taking cocaine before heroin.
The problems highlighted in the report were not unique to Tallaght, but were countrywide, the authors said.
And yet Government support for drug schemes in these areas is being drastically cut. Stuart Fraser, co-ordinator of the Chrysalis Community Drug Project in north Dublin's inner city, says their funding has been hit by 30pc.
"It is the disenfranchised who are suffering in these public sector cuts," he says.
Yet the myth of glamour persists about cocaine, possibly because the middle classes still view it as a little luxury. Dr Chris Luke sees it as symptomatic of a society that still has its head in the sand about all our drug problems.
He says wearily: "I joke that working in the emergency department has given me two perspectives on drugs -- one is bleak, and one is apocalyptic."
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