Virtuous reality

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I was tickled by the above cartoon in the current edition of Phoenix.

We live so much of our lives these days in a virtual world that things can get very confusing and full physical human contact is often not appreciated. So much easier to press a button than climb to the top of the mountain to actually meet the Man.

The cartoon reminded me of a poem by Pat Ingoldsby in his 2011 book Hitting Cows with a Banjo.

There are also resonances of a story told by Eamonn Andrews, Chairman of the RTÉ Authority 1960-64 when Ireland set up its first TV service. He quotes a remark of a child on seeing snow for the first time, "Look Mammy, snow, just like on television".

So, what's real's real, and what's not isn't.

Fanny, my arse!

In the Irish Senate, in the course of a debate on the abolition of the Senate, Senator David Norris accused Fine Gael TD Regina Doherty of "talking through her fanny".

This caused no small uproar and Norris subsequently tendered a sort of an apology saying he didn't intend to offend anyone.

He is quoted as saying, though, that he could defend his use of terminology in an academic debate.

Now the offence taken, by a lot of people, was to the reference to the female genitalia implied in his remark. Other people felt he hadn't gone quite that far, so to speak.

So if we're going to have an academic debate let's have it now.

From my favourite online dictionary (wictionary.org)

fanny (plural fannies)

(UK, vulgar) The female genitalia.

Her dress was so short you could nearly see her fanny

(North America, informal) The buttocks; arguably the most nearly polite of several euphemisms.

Children, sit down on your fannies, and eat your lunch.
Get off your fanny and get back to work!

(UK, vulgar) Sex; similar to North American pussy

This club is full of fanny.

Now, it seems to me that Senator Norris's only defence, if defence it be, is to say he was using the term in the North American sense.

And for this Joycean scholar to have to resort to American usage to make his case would surely be the supreme irony.

Over to you David.

Booming

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Recession?

What recession?

Let me take you on a short walk along the Irish Life Shopping Mall, which connects Talbot Street to Abbey Street in the centre of Dublin city.

We'll just check out the Abbey Street end, seeing as how that's the end we're at.

No shortage of thriving businesses. Furniture, I think, ...

... and a fashionable barber shop ...

... and a clothing shop ...

... that is so big I need two pictures to cover it ...

... and a cosmetics shop, I think ...

... a hairdressers ...

... and a smartphone shop ...

... and back out into the open air on a sunny sunny day.

What could be more pleasant?

We've turned the corner, seen the light at the end of the tunnel and savoured the green, green shoots of home.

All full ahead and steady as she goes.

Now where did I see this lady from the hairdressers before?

Ah yes, she used to work in the hairdressers in that big TCD commercial development in Pearse St.

I remember her because she was one of the victims of the Dublin Titter who went around obscuring invisible nipples with blue paint. Maybe that's why she left there to come to work here.

But the Pearse St. façades were fakes, were they not?

Didn't I blog them myself.

Booming my arse. You'd better believe it.

Every shop front I have just shown you represents a vacated premises. They are all fakes. The place is coming apart.

Lack of demand? Upward only rents? Increased rates?
Drug infestation in the centre city?

And more to come, much more.

Very, very scarey.

Biometric

So the Irish passport is going biometric, whatever that means. When I first heard it I had visions of my upcoming passport renewal involving a personal visit to some wired up room in the Passport Office, where I would be given a lie detector test and the retina of my eyes would be scanned into heavily enrcrypted digital coding.

When the time came, however, it appeared to be just more of the same. Fill in the form, get 4 photos and have two of them endorsed at the local Garda station, make sure to send in the current expiring passport, and of course pay up. Nothing new here, or so it appeared.

Then came the phone call from the Passport Office. "Oh, am I in trouble?" says I, with visions of Edward Snowden and Bradley Manning alternating with all the derogatory names I had called Obama over the last few years.

"Yes, but nothing serious" came the reply, from a very civilised and friendly young lady. "There is glare on your glasses in the photo and we can't do the biometrics."

Fortunately she said I could just send in two more, unendorsed, photos without the glare and all would be well. I thanked her and headed for the nearest chemist.

Their effort was not a success, and the glare from the flash persisted. Normally you could turn your head a little sideways to deflect the flash, but not anymore. Now they had to see the whites of your eyes head on. And, no, I could not take my glasses off.

I eventually ended up in a One Hour processing unit and this guy knew what he was at.

"Take your glasses off, and put them back on, but keep the sides well above the level of your ears." And, indeed, it was that little tilt that squared the circle.

Now the nice lady will look deep into my eyes and see my soul.

And process my application.

As I sent in the extra photos, I wondered if I could get a job training those people in chemists who take passport photos for the new biometric age, using the tip I picked up in the One Hour place.

Might just be a gap in the market there.


Update
The passport arrived in the post, and I went looking to see what was biometric about it.

The first thing that had struck me when I saw pictures, such as the one at the top of this post, of the front cover, was to wonder if that little thing at the bottom was a chip of some sort. I still don't know the answer.

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Some personal details redacted

Otherwise the passport looked just like the previous one.

Then I noticed a certain roughness at the centre of the page illustrated above, and the same roughness in the corresponding position on the underside of the page. There was nothing to be seen though.

Intrigued I held the page up to the light and what did I see?

Me, as illustrated below (pinhole version)

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I sincerely hope that everyone who has renewed their passport since the onset of this biometrics thing finds the same.

I'd hate to think the NSA were sticking pins in my effigy.

Now I come to think of it. I have been feeling a bit off these last few days.

Ah well.

Luceat Lucinda

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Now that the die is cast, I can reveal the real reason why Lucinda Creighton got the chop.

It has nothing to do with the current legislation, whip or no whip. It has nothing to do with what I'm told was a very good job done during the Irish EU Presidency. It has nothing to do with her being better looking than Enda.

It is because of her disrespect for the flag, the European Flag. Some people, like me, are very fussy about the flag. Not just taking it down as sunset and raising it at sunrise. No. The problem arises when it is flown the wrong way up.

Lucinda now becomes No.9 on my list of upside down fliers of the EU flag. And her the Minister for Europe. Oh dear.

Her sin, in this case, was to be sending out a subliminal message that the EU and the Euro were in trouble.

See below.

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Lucinda's own Official Website

Accidental Art

The lads at the Come Here to Me! blog are always collecting first class graffiti from Dublin car parks.

This is something quite different. It is a piece of art created on a wall by a casually parked car and the angle of the sun earlier today.

The carpark is at Dunne's Donaghmede, and neither the car nor the wall have anything to do with me.

You can see both the car and the art in the shot below. It is a reflection from what we used to call the radiator, the shiney part across the front of the car. I checked it by selectively obstructing the light.

Isn't that something?

Free Range Battery Hens

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My visualisation of a concept from Doug Rogers. Doug knows a bit about hens but a lot more about batteries.

The view is of part of No.7 Battery (Dublin South) seen from inside the Martello Tower.

Lost and Found

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The above sign is at the junction of the N11 and the Wyattville Road at Loughlinstown.

It does not point to the end of the rainbow, where, these days, one might expect to find a crock of euro. Nor does it point to the euro lost property office, where the upright denizens of Ballybrack, unlike those of Hadleyburg, might be expected to have surrendered loose euro found along the roadside.

It does point to the European Foundation for the Improvement of Living and Working Conditions, formerly the residence of the Catholic Goodmans, and subsequently the Protestant Domvilles, and now this EU institution. Like every other body nowadays it has to have a pithy familiar title, hence Eurofound.

There is only one thing wrong with the sign.

The European insignia is upside down. The stars should be pointing up, not down.

An upside down flag is an internationally recognised sign of distress, and who can deny the current distress in which the euro finds itself. A distress which infects the living and working conditions of almost everone in the State at this moment.

So perhaps the sign, while not exactly telling us something we don't know, is an attempt to empathise with our plight.

It is the eighth incidence I have come across of such a breach of EU protocol, the others being: the French and Hungarian embassies and the EU Commission Office in Dublin, the European Parliament, Sinn Féin, TG4, and the hoopla stall at the Sásta Festival in Wexford Town.

My thanks to the ever vigilant Niall O'Donoghue for spotting this one and for the above photos.

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Update 27/8/2013
This is turning into a plague. Two more turned up in the month of August. The first in the online edition of the Irish Times on the 13th and the other, spotted and photographed by my worthy apprentice, Vivion, at Kylemore Abbey on the 22nd. The Abbey is forgiven, as I understand they expressed firm purpose of amendment when their sin was pointed out to them.

That makes ten and counting.

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Update 9/7/2015
My loyal and ever diligent apprentice informs me that, following an inspection last week, he can report the Kylemore EU flag is now flying correctly. Full marks to the Abbey.

However, the way the EU and Eurozone are going they may have to reverse this in the near future to reflect the current distress.

E

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This detail from a current poster in my local supermarket.

Relax.

The E is not forgotten.

Just misplaced.

Check out the larger image.

A Plateful of Mortal Sins

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Saw these guys on Dublin's Grafton Street the other evening.

Silent immobile art. Well, almost immobile.

They sometimes slowly moved their hands in greeting and occasionally exchanged positions, but mostly immobile.

And a bit sinister?

A friend, on seeing the above photo, thought the guy at front right " has a wonderful face. Like a plateful of mortal sins."

Judge for yourself.