Ireland's Big Issue 267 (September 2021)

Digital Edition

EXCLUSIVE

Sept 2021 Is 267 Vol 19

Ian Bailey In his own words

“I’ve spent twenty years fighting to clear my name.”

New Digital Edition Until it’s safe to go back on the streets.

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Ireland Moving Forward

JOBS FOCUSED RECOVERY The EU has committed to reducing emissions by 55% by 2030. This ambitious target can be achieved if we as policymakers remove the barriers and provide proper incentives.

The new CAP for 2023-27 has been finalised in Brussels, with €10.7 billion secured for Ireland. Now, the national implementation plan must maximize the benefits for our farmers.

As the Parliament’s lead MEP for UK trade matters, including the implementation of the Protocol, I’m working to highlight the economic opportunities that exist for businesses on both sides of the border.

The Irish economy was strong when Covid-19 hit, and Ireland’s Economic Recovery Plan and National Recovery and Resilience Plan will drive a green, digital and jobs-led recovery.

Seán

seankelly.eu sean.kellymep @seankellymep

KELLY

MEP

eppgroup.eu EPPGroup @EPPGroup

YOUR VOICE IN THE EU

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Contents

Going Forward The Covid-19 pandemic has taken its toll on us, like it has on many other magazines, organisations and businesses globally. Among the problems facing us are: Our new landlord’s reluctance to come to a compromise on rent for an unused office during the pandemic and threat to hike rent meant we had to vacate our home of 20 years, The genuine public fear of physical interaction makes putting a magazine on the streets problematic.

The advent of a cashless society.

Unfortunately, all have contributed to a landscape that has irreversibly changed since the Big Issue first hit the streets in 1995. To meet this challenge, Ireland’s Big Issue have reluctantly decided to host the magazine digitally-only for the immediate future. We will revisit this decision as time moves on and circumstances change.

We thank you for your support to-date and ask that you continue to help us help those on the margins of society.

This has always been our aim and shall continue to be our driving force.

Digital Edition Contacts: Editor: Sean Kavanagh Ireland’s Big Issue Email: info@irelandsbigissue.com

Contribute via PayPal at: info@irelandsbigissue.com

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changed the trajectory of Bond storylines & helped Sean Connery break away from imposter syndrome and realise his commercial value as a Hollywood actor.

We Need to Rethink Hostels Why are the homeless choosing tents and the streets over a hostel bed - and what does this indicate? Sineád Dunlop reports.

Page 23 The Beautiful Game

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Shaun Anthony looks at the new Netflix film, The Beautiful Game - inspired by the Homeless World Cup.

Letter to my Younger Self – Annie Nightingale BBC Radio 1’s first female DJ, Annie Nightingale (81) has a word or two for her 16-year-old self.

Page 28 Small Climate Change - Devastating Local Consequences

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Dagomar Degroot explains how the climate has never changed anywhere near as quickly or profoundly as it’s changing today.

Digital ID Systems & Their Impact Eve Hayes de Kalaf writes about how nation states can weaponise internationally sponsored digital ID systems upon vulnerable communities.

Page 32 Sexual Companionship Anne Brockman speaks with Jessica Philipps, a sexual companion enabling people with disabilities to have sexual experiences they couldn’t have without her support.

Page 10 Ian Bailey - In My Own Words

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Ian Bailey speaks exclusively to Ireland’s Big Issue.

From College Drop-Out to World Respected Surgeon

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Samantha McMurdock recently had a chat with renowned brain surgeon Dr. Rahul Janidal who explains how operating on cancer patients helps him find inspiration and heroism.

The Bond Franchise: Bitterness, Power, Arrogance & Money Shaun Anthony looks at Diamonds are Forever, the film that

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Issues: Talking Point

We Need to Rethink Hostels

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ineád Dunlop asks why homeless people are choosing to sleep in tents or in doorways over a warm bed in a hostel - and more importantly, what can be done to protect some of the most vulnerable in society?

Chief Executive of Dublin City Council, Owen Keegan stated recently that a “proliferation” of tents across Dublin’s city centre is adding to the public’s notion that streets like Mary Street and others are not safe. He went on to suggest that there was no need for the vast number of people residing in tents across the capital as there’s sufficient homeless accommodation for them all.

city centre - resulting in him requiring surgery) so to choose sleeping rough indicates there’s real problems within the hostels.

Microaggression in action

The claims that there’s an abundance of accommodation for our city’s homeless, with Why choose 150 beds available sleeping rough over each evening, but a hostel & what that those living does this tell us? on the streets had no reason to be The question perhaps there - and their Mr. Keegan should presence was just ask is, what is wrong “edginess” is illwhen people would informed. We can rather risk their assure Mr. Keegan lives sleeping on the that these people, streets or tent than many of whom are avail of a warm hostel newly-homeless bed with a roof over their heads? Truth of the matter is, due to the pandemic (losing employment, unable to that the majority of homeless people actually fear using pay the mortgage etc) are not there to be edgy. They hostels (90% who’ve used them in Dublin have witnessed are not people who are acting poor for the novelty. You violence and drug use during their time there, simply cannot make educated, informed countless others observed other residents statements about a social issue self-harming, not to mention bullying as complex as homelessness ….the majority of homeless people and intimidation), surely this tells us and be so flippant to suggest that action must be taken to improve the help is there but people actually fear using hostels… safety in emergency accommodation somehow choose this edgy - and immediately. This is not a slur lifestyle …. it comes off as on shelter staff who work hard but are often sanctimonious, and dare I say it, a college leavers (with little experience) who are there micro aggression. because they need practical training in a social care setting for their C.Vs. A housed person should not be the voice of the homeless person We are all acutely aware how dangerous the city streets are, Olympian taekwondo fighter Jack Woolley would When a homeless man or woman chooses to sleep in a testify to that (he was hospitalised after an assault in the tent or in a doorway over the comfort of a hostel bed, 4

a red flag should be raised and an urgent action plan streets of Belfast instead of availing of a hostel bed and established. Simply making blind statements, like the her findings illustrated that many of the men she’d spoken one made on presenter Kieran Cuddihy’s programme with had been exploited, victimised and threatened in on Newstalk hostels which that being in a caused them tent “is much acute feelings less safe” is of vulnerability, simply not exposure and the belief held unease. One by countless man, Kyle homeless described being people who’ve “constantly experienced on edge” and trauma and “always on anxiety in the guard.” In hostel system. fact, most Mr. Keegan is of the men a good person interviewed I’m sure and preferred to, has a social according to conscience but McMordie, he is not in a “prioritise position to be wellbeing” as the voice of hostels posed every homeless “greater risk person - he than sleeping has not lived rough.” their lives.

McMordie This is akin to also found a white male that many of believing he can the homeless tell the story of a black woman who men she interviewed felt they lived under Jim Crow laws - it’s “lacked control” in the hostel ill informed and ludicrous. environment and had “no It is an outcome of a system that renders Respectfully, Mr Keegan control over their living ill-suited accommodation acceptable and a oneis speaking from the space”, and had “no choice size-fits-all approach that is outdated. comfort of a warm home. over where they stayed and Yes, on the surface I don’t who they stayed with” and think any of us could imagine many felt they had no control choosing a tent over a warm bed in a over their routines. monitored environment, but the fact that droves of homeless people, in reality, feel safer on the streets The fact that a homeless person makes the choice to leads to one big question - why? And what needs to be sleep rough over a hostel should not confound any of us, done about it? nor is it an irregularity driven by individual pathology.

It is an outcome of a system that renders ill-suited We’ll always have those who believe the stereotypes, accommodation acceptable and a one-size-fits-all that homeless people don’t want to avail of a hostel bed approach that is outdated. because their behaviour is monitored - and certainly, that could possibly be the case with some - but to believe that What can be done? most homeless people are anti-social and disruptive is classism at its worst.

Evidence [An International Evidence Review by HeriotWatt University] has shown that enabling people who are Situation mirrored in the north sleeping rough to access a settled home of their own with access to support if they want it, works. That is the goal PhD researcher Lynne McMordie recently carried out we should be setting, ill suited hostels are not the answer. an investigation into why people choose sleeping on the 5

Issues: Life

Letter to my Younger Self Annie Nightingale

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ach issue we ask a well-known name to write a letter to their 16-year-old self. This issue journalist Annie Nightingale CBE (81) takes on the challenge. Annie was the first female presenter on BBC Radio 1 (in 1970) and is its longest-serving presenter.

afterwards. Much the same story on my paternal side. So, no grandparent relationships. A not unusual situation in my generation. Of course because that was my own experience it seemed perfectly normal to me. No complaints.

What I did not realise growing up was how much family structure would affect my life.

I was an only child. The reason? Adolf Hitler. I was born in the Blitz. My dad was a London firefighter.

By the time World War Two was over, my parents thought it was a bit late to enlarge their family (and other parents thought it too.) But what was different for me was this.

My father was one of four Nightingale children, but I am the only issue from any of them. Which meant no cousins, nephews nor nieces.

I didn’t feel lonely as an only child. On my father’s side it was as though I had five parents. For company I sought friendships of my own [which I found in] several sets of sisters. I would be warmed into their families but began to notice something My mother was the fifth of disquieting. My own parents were not six children. Few of them had children either. happy together. “I am very And my mother did not get disappointed in your on well with her They had lived through father” my mother family. two world wars, food rationing, blackouts, would say to me.

“God chooses bombing. Yet they never complained...

“We were not your relations, suited” he said to me, thank goodness you after she died at quite a young can choose your friends” she would age. So that’s probably why I sought the say. Which gave a pretty good idea of what company of children outside the family she thought of her siblings. Her mother was home. I wish I had shown more compassion dead before I was born and her father soon 6

towards my mum and dad when I was a of-fact. I thought everyone with a talent teen. They had lived through two world was BORN with it. That it was a gift. They wars, food rationing, blackouts, bombing. didn’t have to try or work hard. WRONG Yet they never complained and always WRONG WRONG. It’s the grafters who managed to make trips to our local air get on. They just… work very hard. That’s raid shelter, Twickenham Film Studios, the dirty secret to success. I had to prove or crouching under the table in our firstthat I could succeed in what I wanted to floor flat, something of an adventure. But do. Become a journalist. I hadn’t shone at what I noticed as I hung out at the homes English, I hadn’t shone at anything. No one of friends, was that NONE of the parents in my family had been to university, no-one seemed to get on or be happy together. thought I should go. I pleaded to take It’s The mums seemed to be a one year course at a the grafters who get on. trying so hard to be polytechnic. After that, That’s the dirty secret to success. perfect housewives. But I HAD to get a job. No there was a brittleness to it. The dads came home in the evenings – this was suburbia – in shiny status symbol cars and were grumpy and hostile to their wives. And worse behaviour than that was murmured about too. This didn’t seem at all right. On my father’s side, my two adored aunts, stayed resident at the family home, never even setting up homes with the men they had married. Perhaps this is what drove me to support the feminist cause and to find a way into the wider world.

But I was so ill-equipped to deal with it.

Why, oh why was I so lacking in any selfbelief, or self-esteem. My dad had been told he had ‘an inferiority complex’. Perhaps he did, obliged to take over and ruin the family firm. He was not a born businessman. He was an artist and should have been allowed to follow his instincts. That’s what makes me so mad, today, to think of all the people, round pegs in square holes, never having a chance to pursue their dreams. My mother was denied a career in the U.S. by her own family.

question. There was no money for further education.

Once out in the world of work my naivety, gullibility, immaturity, lack of self-esteem and confidence came right out. And played right straight into the hands of the predators, the exploiters - the opposite sex, about whom I knew so so little, having been at a convent till I was 11-years-old, then an all-girls school. Add to that I was I headstrong, and not about to take any advice from elders.

My parents gave me a love of art, learning, humour, music and literature which have shaped my life , and for which I am eternally grateful. They did their best to cocoon me from the big bad world. But they could only do that for so long before I broke away. At least they didn’t force me to be a square peg [in a round hole]! I have gained a life of fulfilment which means everything to me. I think I broke their hearts leaving home so young. I’m full of remorse.

I was unbelievably naïve, gullible and trusting. I thought everyone was more talented, more intelligent, much clever than me. Not in a self-pitying way, just a matter-

Hey Hi Hello: Five Decades of Pop Culture from Britain’s First Female DJ by Annie Nightingale is available now (White Rabbit Publishing) 7

Issues: Current

Digital ID Systems and their Far-Reaching, Life-Altering Impact: How some countries are using digital ID to exclude vulnerable people around the world

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esearcher Eve Hayes de Kalaf writes here about how nation states can weaponise internationally sponsored digital ID systems upon marginalised, poor and vulnerable communities as the world creeps closer to an interconnectedness previously unseen.

The world has become interconnected at a level has come out of this work – Legal Identity, Race and we never before imagined possible. States, banking, Belonging in the Dominican Republic: From Citizen communications, transport, tech and international to Foreigner – highlights how, in parallel with World development organisations have all embraced digital Bank programmes providing citizens with proof of identification. their legal existence, The current the government conversation introduced exclusionary hinges on mechanisms that the need to systematically speed up blocked black Haitianregistrations descended populations to ensure that from accessing and every person renewing their on this planet Dominican ID. has their own digital ID. For years, people of We have not Haitian ancestry born in stumbled into the Dominican Republic this new age have found themselves of digital data in a fierce battle to (re) management obtain their ID. Officials unwittingly. claimed that for over International 80 years they had organisations such as the World Bank and the UN have erroneously provided people born to Haitian migrants actively encouraged states to provide citizens with proof with Dominican paperwork and now needed to rectify of their legal existence in an effort to combat structural this mistake. These people say they are Dominican. They poverty, statelessness and social exclusion. even have the paperwork to prove it. But the state doesn’t To achieve this, social policy has agree. deliberately targeted poor and These practices culminated ..a homeless man who can vulnerable populations – in a landmark ruling in no longer travel on public transport including indigenous and Afrobecause the bus company only takes card, 2013 that stripped Haitiandescended people and women – to descended people born in not cash payments.... ensure they get an ID card to receive the country of their Dominican welfare payments. By aiming to include nationality, rendering them stateless. marginalised populations, they are targeting groups that In response, a fight-back campaign called for the civil historically have faced systematic exclusion and have registry to provide all people of Haitian descent with been barred from formal recognition as citizens. their state-issued ID documents as Dominicans.

My research has revealed how states can weaponise internationally sponsored ID systems. The book that In a damning critique of global identification practices, 8

my research has revealed how international organisations at the time “looked the other way” as the state began weeding out and then deliberately blocking Haitiandescended people from accessing their documentation.

Who was deemed eligible for inclusion in the civil registry (meaning Dominican citizens) and who was excluded as foreigners (the Haitian-descended) was considered a sovereign issue for the state to address. As a result, tens of thousands of people found themselves without documentation and subsequently excluded from essential healthcare services, welfare and education.

Myanmar and Somalis in Kenya.

Debates like these are only going to become more prevalent over the next 10 years: a homeless man who can no longer travel on public transport because the bus company only takes card, not cash payments; an elderly African American woman blocked from voting because she cannot provide a federal-issued ID; or a woman told she has to stop working because the system has flagged her up as an “illegal” immigrant.

For people who find themselves excluded from this new digital age, daily life isn’t just difficult, it is almost impossible.

And while the need to speed up digital ID Closing registrations is the global pressing, in this identity gap post-pandemic world we We are seeing need to take similar cases a step back of this kind and reflect. of exclusion erupting around world. In June 2021, Calls for digital COVID passports, biometric ID cards I organised a conference at the and data-sharing track-and-trace University of London called systems are facilitating the For people who find themselves (Re)Imagining Belonging policing not only of excluded from this new digital age, daily life isn’t in Latin America and people crossing borders just difficult, it is almost impossible.

Beyond: Access to but also, increasingly, of Citizenship, Digital Identity the populations living within and Rights. In collaboration with them. the Netherlands-based Institute on Statelessness and It is high time we had a serious discussion about the Inclusion, the event explored the connections between potential pitfalls of digital ID systems and their faridentity and belonging, digital ID and citizenship rights. reaching, life-altering impact.

It included a paper on the French citizens caught up in BUMIDOM – known as France’s Windrush. We also heard about legal challenges brought by non-binary Eve Hayes de Kalaf is a research associate at people in Peru, the experiences of non-domiciled Cubans CLACS University of London, and School of rendered stateless, and the “anchor babies” debate over Language, Literature, Music and Visual Culture, whether children born to undocumented migrants should University of Aberdeen. be granted automatic access to US citizenship.

Courtesy of The Conversation / INSP.ngo The event ended with an international roundtable that examined the use of digital ID registrations for discriminatory purposes in other parts of the world.

This included discussions about vulnerable populations such as the people of Assam in India, the Rohingya in 9

IAN BAILEY: IN HIS OWN WORDS COPYRIGHT WORDS AND PICTURES Ian Kenneth Bailey, West Cork, 2021.

I lifted the phone, it was Eddie Cassidy of the Cork this is part one of a two parter. So before we get down Examiner on the line, he informed me of an incident, to the nitty gritty, a few words by way of background the discovery introduction: of a body of a woman in I was born in suspicious Manchester’s circumstances St Mary’s in Toormore Hospital on and asked me a bitterly to go there. As cold January an experienced night in freelance 1957.I grew journalist, it’s up above, the sort of behind and in information front of my that gets your late father’s adrenaline butchers running. I shop in asked Jules Shaw Heath, my partner Stockport. to get her My late camera and mother accompany me Brenda to the scene. worked Little did I in the shop know then serving Ken’s that taking homemade that call and sausages, following my potted meat “...twenty years fighting to clear my name of association with a terrible crime I had and faggots. professional nothing to do with.” journalist’s There was instinct would no shortage irrevocably of good alter the course food and of my life. when I was four or five my dad dressed me in mini butchers apron and mini boater My name is Ian Kenneth Bailey hat and taught me how BCL (Hons), LLB, LLM. By take the money at the ....taking that call and following background I am a journalist, till...I was stood on an my professional journalist’s instinct would poet and legal academic. I am orange box and he also irrevocably alter the course of my life.

64-years-old and have spent over taught me the trick of twenty years fighting to clear my name mental arithmetic and how to of association with a terrible crime I had nothing to do count the farthings, half pennies, pennies and with. shillings. At the age of five my mum, Brenda, produced my baby sister Kay and when I was six or seven my dad The Editor of The Big Issue recently approached me, sold his shop ‘Kenneth Bailey, Master Butcher and Son’ offering me the opportunity to write a feature article and to Lord Vestey’s Dewhurst’s chain of high street butchers.

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Editors Note

For three years we moved around the South of England where Ken was employed for twelve months in different locations as a teacher of butchery. We lived in places like Epsom, Chalfont St. Giles and Andover before we settled in Chosen Way, Hucclecote, Gloucester. So finally after a peripatetic gypsy existence we came to settle and start to put down taproots.

We settled in a green and pleasant suburb of the old Roman City of Glevvm, Gloucester, on the banks of the mighty River Severn. I was maybe eight and a half almost nine.

Since the tragic murder of Sophie Toscan du Plantier in 1996 much has been written about Ian Bailey. Mr. Bailey, although questioned by the Gardaí at the time, was never charged with this crime in Ireland. Indeed, the Director of Public prosecutions, in a 44-page analysis, tore apart the Gardaí case against him and criticised Gardaí misbehaviour in the investigation. The DPP report also suggested that Gardaí deliberately created a climate of fear in the area by spreading scare stories to locals and media, creating an athmosphere in which witnesses became more suggestible.

Mr. Bailey has been accused of seeking and loving publicity, but it could also be argued that he is taking every opportunity to highlight his innocence and defend himself; he has not run away . What do we know about Mr. Bailey beyond what is written in the media and chatrooms? I thought long and hard before offering Mr. Bailey the opportunity to speak in his own words about his life and the events of 23rd Dec 1996 that put him in the spotlight and shaped the course of his life since.

My formal junior school education was completed and at the age of eleven and Mr. Bailey agreed to our request, he could have given his story to any number of media outlets and received a five foot six I went up to the big boys handsome payment. He made it clear he was not interested in school...in my case an ancient church any payment and chose Ireland’s Big Issue magazine because school established in 1539 called The he felt he would get a fair hearing . Mr. Bailey has also Crypt School in Podsmead, Gloucester.( agreed to anwer any questions we put to him on conclusion It got its name for it had begun life in the of his story. crypt of St. Marys Church in Northgate Street). The Crypt was an all boys contemporaries I loved the Latin class, not alone for the Grammar School- unbeknown to me and unwittingly I love of the language, but because Latin then included had passed a selective streaming exam called The Eleven study of Roman history, architecture, poetry and the Plus. mythology...I just loved and The rule Crypt School, Gloucester. 1st XV age 17 still do the then back ancient tales in the late of feuding sixties was Gods and that all Goddesses, fresher 1st half devine, years had half to wear human....for Burgundy some reason red wine my favourite blazers deity was with gold Bacchus...the crested God of the pocket, Vine and fine peaked caps wine...I was and grey too young at SHORT the time to trousers. realise that I can was probably remember an early in the middle of winter with snow on the ground waiting warning sign.The school had its own Latin song Vivat for the number 13 bus from Hucclecote to Podsmead, an Scholla Cryptiensis, Flourish Scholars f the Crypt ...on hour long journey, my knees chattering and shivering... special occasions the whole school would be required it would now be classed as a form of child abuse. All to sing this anthem. The school had a well respected first and second year students had to study Latin, there reputation of sporting, academic and artistic creative was an option of Greek as well. Unlike most of my achievements. It also had a very active dramatic society 11

and each year presented a theatrical production. Over some of the reporters including Hugh Worsnip, whose the years I played roles in Macbeth, She Stoops to brother was famously on the Esta Rantzon TV show and Conquer, The Caucasian Chalk Circle, The Crucible a lady reporter called Viv Hargreaves. and others. At 15 I performed what was a in effect a one Anyway Tony told me a bit about the life of a reporter boy show as Dr. Knox in Dylan Thomas’ The Doctor and I was bitten and smitten. Subsequently I returned and The Devils – about Body Snatchers. For the plays to school and one day a huge swarm of bees descended with female roles the school joined forces with Ribston on the break time yard and caused chaos... 650 boys Hall Girls were running around Grammar which screaming, the fire proved a rare brigade arrived and got opportunity for out the hose to ward coeducational of the swarm...and I fumblings. was in the headmaster’s Outside I played secretaries office on the rugby and cricket phone to The Citizen. and inside That nights edition had badminton and a front page story about basketball ...I the drama “Swarm captained the cause storm at Crypt school team School ” quoting me and even lead as an on the spot eye them at 16 to witness reporter. an inter schools Between the ages of championship.

16 to 18 I authored At 17/i was Me, aged 24 on assignment for Birmingham Post & Mail, interviewing dozens of articles and selected for reports about school the head referee of English football. the England rugby matches, play under 19 colts reports and odd bits and made it through to the last 30 although I was never and pieces...I used to get half a crown or 2/6 per article capped. ...which at that time tended to get spent on LPs and As a young boy my father taught me singles. Music of all genres was also an how to read, telling me nursery early passion. I loved The Beatles, rhymes and poems and rock and roll, blues, country “I was on the official Royal rota I very often covered events as an approved correspondmy mother taught me and choral, folk and reggae. ent at which the Royals attended.” how to write. Brenda was So the time was coming always good with words when I needed to decide... and writing and looking back my choice was between going to that is why I was fiercely interested in English university to study archaeology and journalism. I and poetry. I won a junior school poetry competition also considered the law and the church and while I might at the age of eight the prize was a colouring book of have made a good barrister I would have probably made Longfellow’s Tales of Hiawatha. At that time The Crypt a terrible vicar like those I was subsequently to expose had two separate English O Levels, one for language the as a journalist. I wrote to The Citizen but they had no other for literature. My favourite subjects after English openings at that time for trainees. My friend there told were history, geography, science and particularly biology me that a freelance agency journalist was looking for a ...human and general and still Latin.In the English cub reporter...his name was John Hawkins who ran The classes essays were my speciality and looking back I Gloucester and County News Service. I applied attaching suppose its unsurprising I was to become a journalist. copies of my schoolboy journalism and the outcome was One of my dad’s friends suggested I might become a I became indentured to John as a trainee. I worked for reporter. An other suggestion, strangely, was that I would John for 4 years. He sent me off on a National Council because of my height make a very good policeman... for Training Journalism (NCTJ) course over two years anyway it was the former path I was to take. in Cardiff where they taught the cubs the rudiments which included shorthand, law, local government and One day during the school holidays at the age of 14/15 trade craft. The shorthand I learned was a new form that I went to visit the officers of the local evening newspaper, replaced Pittman, it was called T-Line and was easier the Gloucester Citizen, where I met a reporter called to learn but less efficient in terms of words per minute.

Tony Hall. He introduced me to the news room and to Being Welsh on my mother’s side I felt at home in The 12

Land of My Fathers. Back at HQ in Westgate Street, thousands of news reports and features ranging from Gloucester, my duties included covering courts and small filler stories for the tabloids to serious investigations council meetings, writing short scripts for the regional tv for the Observer and Sunday Times. In the early stations, BBC West, HTV, BBC Pebblemill and ATV/ eighties there was a major spying scandal story at the Central. My Government Communications speciality was Head Quarters and by dint of coming up with place and time I became the exclusive off lead journalist on that story. diary stories. The I also covered sports, football agency serves all rugby and county cricket and of the local, regional course horse racing at Prestbury and national Park, so beloved by the Irish. daily and Sunday They were great years and newspapers in as well as operating the news Fleet Street. business out of Cheltenham My holidays and Gloucestershire were great and breaks were fun. I used to cover polo and often spent equestrian event at Cirencester doing shifts on Park and the Badminton Horse the Birmingham Trials at Lord Beaufort’s Estate.

Post and Sunday On one occasion I was the only People. press representative at a charity By the late fundraising at Badminton house seventies my attended by Prince Charles and training had the comedian Spike Milligan. It come to an was a memorable night which end and it was ended up in a heated outdoor time for me to swimming pool.The host even move on. By kindly found me a bedroom. chance another The Cotswolds were a rich and freelance who ancient land and over the years had operated out a number of members of the Ian (28) with mum Brenda & nephew Timothy of Cheltenham British Royal family moved in. had gone into First was Prince and Princess television so Michael of Kent, then the there was a gap in the market for freelance out of the Queens daughter Princess Anne moved to Gatcombe Gloucestershire Spa Town. I wrote to all the papers, House near Stroud and then her brother Prince Charles television and radio stations offering my services as a bought Highgrove House and moved to the Royal freelance correspondent and all accepted my offer.

County. Charles of course went onto marry the People’s During this time I met an alluring lady journalist…we Princess, Diana Spencer. Because I was on the official fell for each other and married…unfortunately the flames Royal rota I very often covered events as an approved and flush of young love did not last long and we decided correspondent at which the Royals attended. The Queen to go our separate ways…it was probably my fault…I put and her mother often attended Cheltenham races and my freelance duties first…Ce La Diana became a patron and supporter of Vie. So I continued my local charities.

“Most of my friends in London journalistic career I attended these events were Irish rather than Brits and I was beginning to and commenced and the thing I remember yearn for a simpler less exacting way of life.” what was to become about Diana was that she a 13 year period seemed to have a habit of as a one man freelance flirting, using her sapphire blue operation working for local, regional and eyes to great effect. On several occasions I was national daily and Sunday papers from the red tops to present and was almost always the tallest member of the the Observer, Guardian and The Sunday Times. press pack and our eyes would meet...she always seemed very playful and would flutter her peepers at me.

My professional handle was that of Bailey of Cheltenham and over the years of operation I authored My first visit to Ireland was in April of 1986. A friend, 13

Nick Winnington Ingram had the use of his now late father John cottage at Arduslough on the Mizen Head.

The cottage was perched high on a hill overlooking the village of Crookhaven where Billy O’Sullivan ran his famous seaside bar. The reason for the trip was one to have an Easter break and also for me to meet the legendary retired foreign correspondent Pat Murphy.

Pat had been in Russia just prior to the Russian Revolution of 1917 and in Berlin in 1938 and had been a correspondent for many newspapers. I was meeting him to write a story for an English magazine. Pat with a patch over one eye lived in Crookhaven and there daily held court ... he spoke eight languages and would greet foreign visitors in their native tongue. I was blown away by not only the lovely, wonderful friendly locals but also by the rugged beauty of West Cork and after the trip I returned first to my little flat in South London and then back to Cheltenham to write my article.

In 1985 I was thinking of settling down with another lady reporter but before I decided to take an extendedbreak in the United States where I had sporting contacts, particularly in Charlotte, North Carolina. The deal was that I would play for Charlotte as a guest English player and Charlotte Old Boys RFC would supply a job , in my case working with huge chain saws cutting down enormous trees on private estates. After that I returned to Cheltenham but never got hooked up.

In the late eighties I was spending more and more time in London supplying stories to all the papers and doing

shifts at TVAM, an independent breakfast news station based at Camden Lock. I also got a three month contract to work in house for The Sunday Times at Wapping, where amongst others I got to meet Roy Greenslade and a very beautiful young Nigella Lawson who was literary editor. I got on well with Nigella who then went onto to marry John Diamond. Diamond died and Nigella famously remarried the Sachi brother.

Towards the end of the eighties I was beginning to weary of the news merry go round. The problem with freelancing is that you hardly ever managed to get holidays or time off.

At that stage I had made other trips to Ireland and just loved the people and the culture.

Most of my friends in London were Irish rather than Brits and I was beginning to yearn for a simpler less exacting way of life.

So in 1990 and early 1991 I began to plan my exit Brexit strategy. Nick had offered me the use for a month or two of the Crookhaven cottage. I had friends throughout Ireland and in the summer of 1991, having sold my house in Cheltenham, I relinquished my lease flat in Stockwell and hired a transported to move the worldly goods across the Irish Sea...and thus began 30 years ago my life in Ireland. A journey that would lead me into a tragic event that would impact the lives of many.

C IAN BAILEY WORDS AND PHOTOGRAPHS. PERMISSION NEEDED FOR RE-USE CONTACT 107867433@UMAIL.UCC.IE OR 00353 862066683

Word Power Over the next few issues we’ll be attempting to increase your word power. Have a look at the words below and afterwards see if you know their meaning.

Word Pronunciation

Answers

1. Demagogue Dem-gh-gog 2. Phlegmatic Pleg-mat-ik 3. Vicissitude Ves-iss-ah-chew-d 4. Gourmand Gorr-man-d 5. Heterogeneous Het-er-oh-gen-i-us 6. Impecunious Im-pek-you-nee-us 7. Philanthropic Fill-ann-throp-ik 8. Spurious Spew-ree-us 9. Orthodox Or-tho-dox 10.Nonplussed Non-pluhst 11.Commensurate Kuk-men-ser-it 12. Accretion Uh-kree-shuhn

1. A person, especially an orator or political leader, who gains power and popularity by arousing the emotions, passions, and prejudices of the people.

2. Not easily excited to action or display of emotion.

3. A change or variation occurring in the course of something.

4. A person who is fond of good eating, often indiscriminatingly and to excess.

5. Different in kind; unlike; incongruous.

6. Having little or no money; penniless; poor.

7. Characterised by philanthropy; benevolent.

8. Not genuine, authentic, or true.

9. Conforming to the approved form of any doctrine, philosophy, ideology, etc.

10. Completely perplexed by something unexpected 11. Corresponding in amount, magnitude, or degree.

12. An increase by natural growth or by gradual external addition; growth in size or extent.

OU score?

How did Y– Perfection!6-9 e 10 or mor t. n a Brilli one.

3-5 Well d o better. d t 0-2 Mus

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Proud Supporters of Ireland’s Big Issue and Homeless Street Leagues

15

Issues: Tales of Hollywood

The Bond Franchise : Bitterness, Power, Arrogance and Money

D

iamonds are Forever premiered 50 years ago in 1971. Shaun Anthony looks at the film that changed the trajectory of Bond storylines and how the film helped Sean Connery break away from his imposter syndrome and realise he could ask for - and be paid much, much more, his salary jumping from $16,000 to $1.5m for his 007 role.

When film producers Cubby Broccoli and Harry couldn’t stand him. Lazenby perceiving the Bond Saltzman created Eon franchise as over anyway, Productions and spurned maintained he declined to sign a Sean Connery’s request new contract and saw his future to become a partner, they moving on in the movie business were taking the chance that in more edgy roles; he was badly the James Bond franchise advised however and his career would work with different nosedived before it had a chance actors - but after the 1969 to prosper. Broccoli and Saltzman offering,’On Her Majesty’s meanwhile had their budgets Secret Service’ starring slashed enormously and told they’ George Lazenby (a car be filming at the Universal Studios salesman/model with no Lot in California where staff from prior acting credits) they United Artists would be were not so sure. Longtime supervising in future. On top of franchise editor, now film that, United felt it was time for director Peter. R Hunt James Bond to progress from the joined forces to make, club land culture of the British what they felt was a more sixties and now was as good a serious and authentic Bond time as any for change. movie with a new leading actor and a contemporary The producers Broccoli and ending, hoping to emulate Saltzman brought back the the success of Bonnie & camera crew from 1964’s Clyde, The Graduate and Goldfinger to try and recapture others of the time. Despite the successes of the past but they believing they’d ticked all also knew they needed some the boxes, the film with tactic to lure Sean Connery back Lazenby as Bond produced to play Bond, so in a bid to be Connery with Lana Wood as Plenty O’Toole a -26% downturn in global more forward-looking they hired cinema sales from the young writer Tom Mankiewicz previous Bond film in 1967, featuring (the son of All about Eve’s director Joseph L. Sean Connery, ‘You Only Live Mankiewicz) and nephew of Herman J. [Connery’s salary Twice.’

Mankiewicz who (with Orson Welles) entered] the Guinness Book wrote the screenplay for Citizen Kane of Records for the largest payment to inject some vitality into Richard Distributors United Artists who given to a single actor in the were experiencing financial Maibaum’s screenplay. This would difficulties were incensed. Cubby be the genesis of a two-film run of Guy history of film.

Broccoli and Harry Saltzman were Hamilton-directed, Mankiewicz-written called to head office and asked how they’d mostly U.S. set Bond exploits - first with Diamonds are made such an error. They were ordered to get rid of Forever with a cool (slightly rounder) Connery in Las George Lazenby immediately. Lazenby who preformed Vegas and then with Roger Moore in New Orleans in well in the role did not help his cause by his arrogance on Live and Let Die (of course, these movies did film some set with both crew and co-stars. Director Peter Hunt parts at Pinewood Studios as that was the home of Eon).

16

Cubby Broccoli and Harry Saltzman told United Artists leaving the country). they wanted an American Bond and felt they’d found Plot their man in John Gavin (who’d played Janet Leigh’s boyfriend in Psycho). Management at United disagreed The movie starts off with a consecutive opening sequence and insisted that Sean Connery was the only man for the in which Bond hunts down and kills Ernst Stavro Blofeld role and due (Charles Gray), to a severing head of Spectre, of ties between by drowning him Connery with in hot mud (made Saltzman with mashed and Broccoli, potato!) – a United revenge killing negotiated for the murder of directly with his bride Tracy the You Only (Diana Rigg) Live Twice from the previous actor’s agent Bond film, On for his return Her Majesty’s - but with Secret Service. no success.

The franchise Despite how was definitely many offers celebrating the were put on the camp element table, Connery of James Bond In the beginning, all smiles, Broccoli, Fleming, Connery and Saltzman told his agent (the casting of the answer was Bruce Glover a resounding and Putter Smith no. Knowing his weakness for the ladies, United sent as homosexual assassin’s Mr. Wint and Mr. Kidd) and Ursula Andress on a plane to sweet-talk on the over-the-top humour (casting of country their behalf. Connery laughed at their singer and sausage czar Jimmy Dean as manoeuvre but sent her back with Willard Whyte, a Howard Hughes Connery hated Broccoli, he a simple answer, “No.” type reclusive billionaire) would be felt Cubby was greedy for a staple of the franchise that would An offer he couldn’t refuse remain in place for the next threeunderpaying him... and-a-half decades. This, of course Finally, determined they were not was a sharp contrast to the final scene in making the film with any other actor in lead, On Her Majesty’s Secret Service in which Bond cradled they told Connery’s agent they’d pay $1.25m - which his dead wife in his arms. would enter the Guinness Book of Records for the largest payment given to a single actor in the history of film.

Diamonds are Forever takes a comedic turn when James Connery’s agent begged him to take the role, but the hooks up with Tiffany Case (played by Jill St. John, Edinburgh-born actor said he’d only make the film on whose character provided little besides injecting sex his own terms: he wanted a 12.5% cut of the profits, a appeal.) Hardcore Bond fans have said that Diamonds further 2-movie deal with guaranteed budgets of $1m are Forever is like two different productions merged into per film, a tight 18-week shooting schedule with very one finished product. There could be something in this generous payments for any overtime - and, in his mind conjecture as Bond writer Richard Maibaum clashed the most important aspect of the contract - he would repeatedly with writer Tom Mankiewicz and they just not have to speak or interact with either Broccoli or couldn’t agree. Since Mankiewicz’s contributions to Saltzman. His terms were accepted immediately - and the script provided the movie with its lighter moments it was official, Connery was back (upon completion and were not Maibaum’s style, it seems that United and of the film he donated his salary to a charity he had Eon favoured the lighter direction that Mankiewicz was established called the Scottish International Education navigating the movie towards.

Trust in Edinburgh to help keep young artists financially supported in exchange for not As entertaining as Diamonds are Forever is - even fifty years later (bearing in mind, parts of the film have 17

not aged well - not least, Bond’s proclivity for casually flick (some would argue, because his heart wasn’t truly in smacking women across the face), the film was a pure it - it simply served a purpose), Connery barely slept in cash-grab for Connery and a tactical move to set up Vegas, the environment was so stimulating that they shot his career for the immediate future. On top of the at night (the neon lights gave the impression of daylight) $1.25 million fee (over $18m in today’s money) that he and he caught shows, played golf and played on the slot received, machines all day (one George Lazenby with Diana Rigg in United agreed evening filming had Her Majesty’s Secret Service to a clause to be delayed because that gave him Connery wouldn’t leave a $2 million the casino without guarantee collecting his winnings). to produce/ During filming, star/direct/ Connery was also write any sleeping with his co-star two movies Lana Wood - Natalie of his choice.

Wood’s sister, (who Connery played Plenty O’Toole would explain … yes, the his motive names really were that upon the bad!!) film’s release, Connery and Broccoli “It’s not that eventually made peace I needed just shy of Broccoli’s the money…I’m a relatively wealthy man. It was the death in 1996 after a thirty-year feud. Connery hated fact that I put in an awful lot of work and energy into Broccoli for the Eon Productions slight and because he the Bond pictures and was not sufficiently rewarded. felt Cubby was greedy for underpaying him for You Only The producers were getting greedy. I had an awful time Live Twice and refusing to rectify the situation with a getting the money out of them.” top-up. Broccoli felt he had taken a chance on Connery and given him the vehicle that made him a star even though Ian Fleming the author of Lazenby who preformed Reception well in the role did not help his cause James Bond thought Connery unsuited for the role and likened him to an by his arrogance on set with both crew overdeveloped stuntman. Connery, on Diamonds are Forever was and co-stars the other hand thought Fleming was a number one at the box office total snob. for seven consecutive weeks; something that doesn’t happen these days.

On a $7.2 million budget, the film grossed over $115 Music million worldwide, a smash hit, like so many other Bond movies. Connery had now played Bond in six The original soundtrack, was composed by John Barry, films and was a top 10 box office movie star, and finally his sixth time composing for a Bond movie, Diamonds being paid like one, after earning only $16,000 in Dr. are Forever, the title song was the second James No just nine years earlier. Finally he called the shots Bond theme to be performed by Shirley Bassey (after and had the kudos to be taken seriously as an actor who Goldfinger in 1964). stood his ground - and of course he went on to enjoy a stellar career over the next three decades, starring in such classics as Murder On The Orient Express, The In Retrospect Wind And The Lion, The Man Who Would Be King, A Bridge Too Far, Highlander, and many many others, Looking back ‘Diamonds are Forever’ was not the best of culminating in a well-deserved Oscar for Best Supporting Bond movies, but it had Connery and was entertaining.

Actor in Brian De Palma’s 1987 The Untouchables People criticised the concept of a laser-shooting satellite, - but it was Diamonds are Forever that gave him the amongst other technical aspects of the plot but who confidence to stand up to the movie moguls fearlessly and cares – it entertained and sixty years after the franchise without a morsel of self-doubt. first began, people still look forward to the next Bond enough said.

Diamonds are Forever is far from Connery’s best Bond 18

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Konigssee Alpine lake coastline view, Berchtesgadener Land, Bavaria, Germany

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22

The Beautiful Game T

he Homeless World Cup is the inspiration behind a new Netflix film ‘The Beautiful Game’ which has started production in Rome. It will feature Bill Nighty and our own Love/Hate star Tom Vaughan Lawler and was written by Frank Cottrell-Boyce. Shaun Anthony reports.

The film idea was originally to have an Irish theme, starring Colin Farrell and Brendan Gleeson but as happens in the movie business, that never came to fruition and it is now based on an English team.

The writer Frank Cottrell –Boyce was inspired by individual stories of former players meeting with the Irish team among others at the Homeless World Cup, “I hope we gave him some inspiration.” says Irish Street league founder Sean Kavanagh. There are so many positive stories, people coming from really difficult situations overcoming adversity and turning their lives around. I’ve been privileged to be able to bring an Irish team to participate in the Homeless World Cup since it’s beginning in 2003. I’ve seen the changes it can produce in people. For our lads & ladies it is an eye opener. Peoples and teams from over 50 nations, each with their own cultural identity but all coming together sharing common bonds forming friendships and competing in a sporting competition. People perhaps for the first time realising their own sense of value, that they can contribute and be part of something positive. For many it awakens a realization and confidence that they as individuals have the ability to shape their own futures.

That’s what the Homeless World Cup is all about, changing lives.”

Homeless World Cup founder Mel Young said: “We are

incredibly excited to be the focus of the upcoming film The Beautiful Game. The Homeless World Cup Foundation uses our annual tournament and the power of football as a method of tackling homelessness throughout the world. We have impacted the lives of over 1.2 million homeless people since 2003.

The Homeless World Cup is our contribution to tackling the homeless problem across the globe but there is so much more to do. We have proved just how powerful football can be when it is applied to a social problem and we will keep striving to do more.

We hope that the work we do being told in The Beautiful Game inspires more people to join in and support future Homeless World Cups and together we can all aim to end homelessness forever.”

Irish Homeless Street leagues have commenced activity with leagues up and running for further information contact info@irishstreetleague.com

Facebook: Irish Street League Twitter: @IrishStLeague Web: www.irishstreetleague.com

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aster Make a posi ive diff rence . Help ch-ldren fe I safe and secure

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Develop chi dren 's self steer1 and sense of pride Support children to face the· r futures w· h confidence

· .�oster with us

To find out more about becoming a foster parent ring: 01-866-5291 or v:isit YIWW fiveriversfoste rii ng .ie &

24

The Perfect Podcast W

e attempt to bring you the best selection of podcasts each issue.

This issue we look at Jarlath Regan’s Irishman Abroad, Fin Dwyer’s Irish History Podcast and more.

Irishman Abroad - (Topical)

across the world of sport to pick their brains on all they’ve learned from working at the elite level.

An Irishman Abroad, presented by Kildare comedian Jarlath Regan presents a selection of diverse weekly podcasts featuring the greatest Irish people of all time talking about their lives, politics, health, wellness (and everything in between). Along with regular contributors Sonia O’Sullivan (Irishman Running Abroad), Marion McKeone (Irishman In America) and Tom Dunne (Selection Box), An Irishman Abroad is perfect for sticking on the headphone when you’re out for a walk (or a run if you’re energetic!)

My Therapist Ghosted Me (Comedy)

The Witness: In His Own Words (True crime) In 2005, Joseph O’Callaghan’s testimony helped convict two drugdealing gangsters for murder, and he became the youngest person ever to enter the Witness Protection Programme in Ireland. Now, as the men he put away agitate for release, he tells his extraordinary life story in his own words for the first time.

Following the publication of Nicola Tallant’s best-selling book The Witness, The Witness: In His Own Words is an ambitious and powerful documentary podcast series produced by the team behind The Stand with Eamon Dunphy.

The Mike Quirke Podcast (Sports) Inter-county manager and life-long sports coach Mike Quirke is joined by a wide range of people from various high performance, coaching and management roles 25

Presented brilliantly by Vogue Williams and Joanne McNally, ”My Therapist Ghosted Me” is the result of Joanne’s therapist doing just that! Ignoring her calls, refusing to answer the door at the clinic, or speak to her after she’d tracked him down at Enfield crematorium as he scattered his Aunt’s ashes. Despite it all, it’s often suggested that mates give the best therapy so Vogue and Joanne have got together to do just that - alongside a liberal helping of laughter as that too is said to be the best form of therapy. Together they will give you 100% unlicensed, uncorroborated but up front and honest advice on the abundance of issues they and many others continue to wrestle with.

Irish History Podcast (Historical) The Irish History Podcasts takes you on a journey through Ireland’s fascinated past. It’s not just dates but an enthralling account of our history, looking at daily life through the ages.

Fin Dwyer’s research is second to none and it’s impossible not to get absorbed right back in that very moment in time.

How to: You need to download an app like Acast from Google YPlay (if you’ve an Android device) or the App Store if you’ve an Apple device. Once the app has downloaded you can search for any topic that interests you & there will be a podcast that’s right up your street!

Screen Scene

Mr. Corman ***

Cinderella ****

Starring: Joseph-Gordon Levitt,Arturo Castro Run Time: 3 x 1hr (so far) Streaming on: Apple TV+ Available to stream from: Now

Starring: Camila Cabello, Pierce Brosnan.

Streaming on: Prime Video Run Time: 88 mins Available to stream from: 3 September

Written, directed, produced by and starring Joseph Gordon-Levitt (“500 Days of Summer,” “Inception,” “Don Jon”), “Mr. Corman” follows the days and nights of Josh Corman, an artist at heart but not by trade.

Prime’s romantic musical comedy Cinderella sees Cuban-American singer-songwriter Camila Cabello as the titual character in her acting debut. Cabello shines alongside Minnie Driver, Idina Menzel and our own Pierce Brosnan in this Columbia Pictures modern take on the traditional tale. In this 2021 version, ‘Ella’ aspires to build a fashion empire as apposed to expecting a prince to rescue her.

Things haven’t been going his way lately – his lifelong dream of a career in music didn’t pan out and he finds himself teaching fifth grade at a school in the San Fernando Valley, his ex-fiancé Megan has moved out and his high school friend has moved in.

Aware that he still has a lot to be thankful for, Josh struggles nevertheless through universal feelings of anxiety, loneliness and self-doubt. Darkly funny, oddly beautiful and deeply heartfelt, this relatable comedydrama speaks for our contemporary generation of 30-somethings – rich with good intentions, poor with student loans and working to become grownups sometime before they’re senior citizens.

The heroine’s shift from dreamer to proactive entrepreneur makes for a different kind of narrative, one the forces behind the project hope will inspire girls the world over. “It is a completely new telling of the story. I feel like other fairytales have values that are more antiquated and don’t reflect women accurately,” shared Cabello recently.

“In this Cinderella, she has dreams and ambitions, and she wants to save herself, not have a prince or anybody else save her.”

A treat for the senses and lovely to see the first ever Hispanic woman to portray Cinderella.

A beautiful film.

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Physical ****

Free Guy ****

Starring: Rose Byrne, Rory Scovel Streaming: Apple TV+ Run Time: 10 x 30 mins Available to stream: Now.

Starring: Ryan Reynolds, Jodie Comer.

Director: Shawn Levy Run Time: 90 mins Available to watch: At the cinema

Set in the idyllic but fragile beach paradise of sunny 1980s San Diego, “Physical” is a half-hour dark comedy following Sheila Rubin (played by Rose Byrne), a quietly tortured, seemingly dutiful housewife supporting her smart but controversial husband’s bid for state assembly.

But behind closed doors, Sheila has her own darkly funny take on life she rarely lets the world see. She’s also battling a complex set of personal demons relating to her self-image… that is, until she finds release through the unlikeliest source: the world of aerobics.

Free guy isn’t your average slapstick comedic film; between Reynolds and Comers comedic chemistry to laugh out loud moments it brings such heart warming fuzzy feelings.

Such a great film that really suits the tone we’re all living in right now. So funny, heartwarming with a poignant message. A must see film for all the family.

At first hooked on the exercise itself, Sheila’s real road to empowerment comes when she discovers a way to merge this newfound passion with the burgeoning technology of videotape to start a revolutionary business. The series tracks her epic journey from a stifled, overlooked enabler to a powerful, confident economic force, as Sheila transforms into someone we take for granted today (but was entirely radical at the time) – the female lifestyle guru. In addition to Rose Byrne, “Physical” stars Rory Scovel, Dierdre Friel, Della Saba, Lou Taylor Pucci, Paul Sparks and Ashley Liao.

Heartlands ***

Starring:Sharon Shannon Streaming: TG4 CatchUp Run Time: 4 x 30 mins.

Available to stream from: 25 August Sharon Shannon and her niece Caoilinn travel through Ireland’s Hidden Heartlands. They experiment by making jewellery from bog oak before playing their first live gig in over a year to a special audience at Clonmacnoise. They visit Portumna Castle and catch up with musical friends Seamus Begley and Mundy. Easy TV.

’re b now Ireland e u s s I g ter @Bi on Twit

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Issues: Environmental

Small Climate Changes Can Have Devastating Local Consequences – It Happened in the Little Ice Age

T

he Earth’s climate has not changed anywhere near as quickly or profoundly as it’s changing today. Dagomar Degroot reports.

In recent weeks, catastrophic floods overwhelmed after spring. In one such summer, in 1816, cold that towns in Germany, Belgium and the Netherlands, followed a massive volcanic eruption in Indonesia ruined inundated subway tunnels in China, swept through crops across parts of Europe and North America. northwestern Africa and triggered deadly landslides in India and Japan. Heat and drought fanned wildfires Less well known are the unusually cold European in the North summers of 1587, American West 1628 and 1675, and Siberia, when unseasonal contributed frost provoked to water fear and, in some shortages in Iran, places, hunger. and worsened “It is horribly famines in Ethiopia, cold,” author Somalia and Marie de RabutinKenya.

Chantal wrote from Extremes like these Paris during the are increasingly last of these years; caused or worsened “the behaviour by human activities of the sun and of heating up the seasons has the Earth’s climate. changed.”

For thousands Winters could be of years, Earth’s equally terrifying. climate has not People reported changed anywhere near as quickly or profoundly as it’s 17th-century blizzards as far south as Florida and the changing today.

Chinese province of Fujian. Sea ice trapped ships, Yet on a smaller scale, humans have seen waves of repeatedly enclosed the Chesapeake Bay and froze over extreme weather events coincide with rivers from the Bosporus to the Meuse. temperature changes before. It These In early 1658, ice so completely happened during what’s known covered the Baltic Sea that were cold snaps, not heat as the Little Ice Age, a period a Swedish army marched waves, but the overall story should seem between the 14th and 19th across the water separating familiar: A small global change in climate centuries that was marked Sweden and Denmark dramatically altered the likelihood of exby large volcanic eruptions to besiege Copenhagen. treme local weather with profound and bitter cold spells in Poems and songs suggest local impacts. parts of the world. The global people simply froze to death average temperature is believed to while huddling in their homes. have cooled by less than a half-degree Celsius (less These were cold snaps, not heat waves, but the than 0.9 F) during even the chilliest decades of the Little overall story should seem familiar: A small global change Ice Age, but locally, extremes were common. In diaries in climate dramatically altered the likelihood of extreme and letters from that period, people wrote about “years local weather. Scholars who study the history of climate without a summer,” when wintry weather persisted long and society identify these changes in the past and find out 28

how human populations responded.

What’s behind the extremes

to more cooling, more ice and so on. As a result, the comparatively modest climate changes of the Little

Ice Age likely had profound local impacts. Changing We know about the Little Ice Age because the natural patterns of atmospheric circulation and pressure also world is full of things like trees, stalagmites and ice sheets led in many regions to remarkably wet, dry or stormy that respond to weather while growing or accumulating weather. gradually over time. Specialists can use past fluctuations in their growth or chemistry as indicators of fluctuations Heavy sea ice in the Greenland Sea may have diverted in climate and thereby create graphs or maps the North Atlantic storm track south, funneling severe reconstructions – gales toward the dikes that show historical and dams of what are climate changes. today These reconstructions the Netherlands and reveal that waves Belgium. Thousands of cooling swept of people succumbed across much of the in the 1570 All Saints’ world. They also Day Flood along the suggest likely causes German and Dutch – including a series coast, and again in the of explosive volcanic Christmas eruptions that abruptly released Flood of 1717. Heavy sunlight-scattering precipitation and dust into the water pooling behind stratosphere; and slow, dams of melting internal variability in ice repeatedly regional patterns of atmospheric and oceanic circulation. overwhelmed inadequate flood defenses and inundated These causes could only cool the Earth by a few tenths central and Western Europe. “Who would not take pity of a degree Celsius during the chilliest waves of the Little on the city?” one chronicler lamented after seeing his Ice Age, however. And the cooling was not nearly as town under water and then on fire in 1602. “One storm, consistent as present-day warming. Small global trends one flood, one fire destroyed it all.” can mask far bigger local changes. Studies have suggested that modest cooling created by volcanic eruptions can Cooling sea surface temperatures in the North reduce the usual contrast between temperatures over Atlantic Ocean probably also diverted the rain-giving land and sea, because land heats and cools faster than winds around the equator to the south, provoking oceans. Since that contrast powers the monsoons, the droughts that undermined the water infrastructure of African and East Asian summer monsoons can 15th-century Angkor. Owing perhaps to the weaken after big eruptions. That modest cooling of volcanic dust These likely disturbed atmospheric veils, disrupted patterns of serve as a warning to govcirculation all the way into the atmospheric circulation ernments to redouble their efforts to limit North Atlantic, reducing the led in the 16th century warming to 1.5 C (2.7 F), relative to the flow of warm air into Europe. to severe droughts 20th-century average, This is why parts of Western that contributed to food Europe, for example, may have shortages across the Ottoman cooled by more than 3 C (5.4 F) even as the Empire. In 1640, the grand canal that rest of the world cooled far less during the 1816 year supplied Beijing with food simply dried up, and without a summer. a short but profound drought in 1666 primed the wooden infrastructure of European cities for a wave of Feedback loops also amplified and catastrophic urban fires. sustained regional cooling, similar to how they amplify regional warming today. In the Arctic, for How does it apply to today? example, cooler temperatures can mean more, longerlasting sea ice. Ice reflects more sunlight back into Today, the temperature shift is going in the other space than water does, and that feedback loop leads direction – with global temperatures already 1 C (1.8 29

communities might learn from some of the success stories of the Little Ice Age: Populations that prospered were often those that provided for their poor, established diverse trade networks, migrated from vulnerable environments, and above all adapted Restoring proactively to new environmental the chemistry of the atmosphere realities.

F) higher than before the industrial era, and local, sometimes devastating, extremes occurring around the world.

New research has found that extreme heat waves, those that don’t just will still take many decades after countries break records but bring down their greenhouse gas People who lived through the shatter them, become emissions Little Ice Age lacked perhaps the more common when most important resource available today: temperatures change rapidly. the ability to learn from the long global history of human responses to climate change.

These serve as a warning to governments to redouble their efforts to limit warming to 1.5 C (2.7 F), relative to the 20th-century average, while also investing in the Dagomar Degroot is associate professor of environmental history at Georgetown University. development and deployment of technologies that filter greenhouse gases out of the atmosphere.

Restoring the chemistry of the atmosphere will still take many decades after countries bring down their greenhouse gas emissions, and so communities must adapt to a hotter and less habitable planet. Nations and

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Courtesy of The Conversation / INSP.ngo

Issues: New Book Releases

Patricia Scanlan’s Book Club Patricia Scanlan was born in Dublin, where she still lives. She is a #1 bestselling author and has sold millions of books worldwide. Her books are translated in many languages. Patricia is the series editor and a contributing author to the award winning Open Door Literacy series.

This issue, Patricia brings her favourite books of the moment.

Albany Park – Patrice Chaplin (Clairview Books)

Unsettled - Rosaleen McDonagh - (Skein Press)

Sensual, vivid and sometimes shocking, Albany Park is the story of Patrice Chaplin’s youthful years: from a grey wartime childhood to exhilarating and dangerous adventures in Europe and a romantic infatuation that came about in a sun-drenched Catalonian city.

Patrice and Beryl, teenagers in the 1950s, live in Albany Park, a London suburb. Life is full of make-up, boys, trad jazz and Soho nightclubs; dreams are of Hollywood. Leaving behind dead-end jobs, they hitchhike across Spain, dressed in the alternative street fashions of the day: white lipstick, dangle earrings, drainpipe trousers. Their path leads to the ancient city of Girona and the charismatic poet, José Tarres. For Patrice it is a homecoming – a rebirth that will mark the end of a friendship and the beginning of a lifetime’s obsession.

Patrice is enchanted by José, but there are shadows on the sunlit days – a possessive mother, mysterious absences, rumours of women and whispers of espionage. With plans to elope seemingly aborted, she finds herself alone in Paris, taking work as a showgirl, arrested as a vagrant and escaping unwanted sexual advances. Only years later, returning to Girona as a writer, does she finally learn the truth about the enigmatic José, the first and true passion of her life.A riveting roller coaster of a read, this beautifully written memoir evokes memories of a time gone by and a sense of time and place that will never be, again. A tale of love unconditionally given, and youthful dreams that are brutally shattered, this superb chronicle, will keep you turning the pages as Patrice Chaplin lives life to the full, passionately, courageously and exuberantly, something she still does, in her magnificent eighties. I absolutely loved it!

These essays are not by an inspirational person. These essays are not by a supercrip. These essays don’t pathologise my Traveller ethnicity or my gender.

There was no triumphant moment of overcoming the violence inflicted on me. Instead, the pieces embody a diverse experience of what it is to be Irish.

There is no room for wanting to deny or overcome my impairment. There is no hiding my Traveller ethnicity. The opposite. This book finally allows me to take ownership of my fractured heart.

So writes Dr Rosaleen McDonagh activist, playwright, feminist and Irish Traveller, with a disability. A IHREC Disability Advisory Committee member and one of the founders of The Independent Living Movement. She is a member of Aosdána and holds a BA, two MPhils from Trinity College Dublin and a PhD from Northumbria University. She was appointed a Human Rights Commissioner in June 2020.

This gritty honest, immersive memoir will engage every emotion - I cried several times - as Rosaleen McDonagh a disabled Traveller woman who has suffered abuse, violence, and racism, and been lifted by love, family and friendship, writes of her determination to live life on her terms, overcoming barriers that seemed, as she encountered them, insurmountable.

It’s the little details that add so much, and stay with the reader, her dream of becoming a tailor; the pleated, plaid kilt with the buckle at the knee, her mother bought her, that she only got to wear once, because the nuns gave it to another child; the tear running down her father’s cheek after a shopkeeper refused to serve them. She writes with total honesty, no hint of self-pity, and the integrity that defines her.

Dr McDonagh deserves the acclaim that will undoubtedly come her way for this groundbreaking triumph.

31

Issues: Human Relationships

Sexual Companionship Makes Intimate Experiences Available To All

J

essica Philipps is a sexual companion. She enables people with disabilities to have sexual experiences that they couldn’t have without her support. Demand is high, but so are people’s misconceptions about her work. Her work is about helping those with disabilities to experience emotional intimacy, take ownership of their bodies and have positive intimate experiences. Anne Brockmann reports.

Jessica and Martin (whose name has been changed) are lying together naked. They only have time for one another. They gaze at each other, feeling the warmth of their bodies, touching skin, holding each other tightly for several minutes, caressing and knotting themselves together.

Both of them are fully present. The scene is underpinned by tenderness. After much touching, Martin experiences a sexual climax.

and love into the time spent with clients. It is also the time that the client pays for at the end, and not a specific service. This is because what happens during an appointment with Jessica, which usually lasts 90 minutes, is not categorically determined beforehand – it happens in the moment. Although Jessica excludes kissing and intercourse from her work, every sexual companion has different boundaries.

Traumatic experiences

Ideally, the feeling of The surprise? That togetherness that clients Jessica Philipps Jessica and Martin are experience with Jessica results Image Anne Brockmann not a couple. Martin in them obtaining sexual pays for time with gratification for themselves Jessica, and Jessica is a sexual companion. This has been or getting an idea of how they themselves can frame her career for more than 10 years. Although there is high sexuality in a potential relationship. This usually takes demand, she is still confronted with false impressions around six meetings. “In their encounters with me, many about her work. for the first time become aware of the It was at different types of touch – finding church that she most often Sexual companions like Jessica out that they can be dominant, met the residents . “As a result, I never Philipps allow people to have possessive, cautious, selfless or developed a sense of shyness,” she says, as she the sexual experiences that otherwise,” Jessica tells me. “A reflects on her interactions with people with they can’t have themselves lot here is about trying things disabilities. due to a disability. “The lack out and becoming familiarised. of privacy in residential homes; To begin with, it is often far from overwhelmed parents who don’t know how they romance, lust and desire. It’s about discovering should deal with the blossoming sexual needs of their your own body, your own sexuality and expressing it. pubescent children; elderly people with behavioural There is often a lot of uncertainty involved.” problems who harass staff in care facilities – this is exactly where the work of a sexual companion begins,” Jessica Amongst her clients there are frequently women who explains as she describes her job. “The question is how have had abusive and violent experiences linked to can you best interlink sexuality and disability.” sexuality. In order to be able to very slowly develop trust in contact with other people again, they visit Jessica for a The distinction between being a sexual companion and tantra massage, for example, which includes the genital prostitution is important to Jessica because with sexual areas. It is also not uncommon for the men who come to companionship, the element of emotional care is her Jessica to have also experienced something traumatic in first priority. She even says that she forms a surrogate connection with sexuality. “Many times, their relatives partnership with her clients while she is spending time have intended to do some good for the affected people with them. She puts all of her attentiveness, empathy by taking them to visit a brothel,” Jessica says. “However, 32

this well-intended action goes completely wrong.

“Have you ever tried to move a person with severe and multiple disabilities from a wheelchair and undress them?

That requires specialist knowledge, time, empathy and communication, which can sometimes only take place non-verbally,” she continues. “Nursing staff are trained for that. And the idea that the job is only finished with an orgasm sometimes leads to painful over-stimulation of the penis.”

Tuning in to universal human needs

massage. “One of my friends enrolled in a course, but she couldn’t participate due to a broken foot. I was her replacement, and that’s how it all started,” Jessica recounts. She quickly went on to learn more massage techniques, all of which she still offers today. She eventually expanded the treatments she offered to include sexual companionship.

To date, there is no recognised training for her occupation. The oldest, and therefore probably the most experienced organisation in the training of sexual companions, is the Institute for the SelfDetermination of the Disabled.

However, Jessica learnt about the job through other means. Nowadays, a 90-minute meeting with her costs 135 Euros. In rare, well-justified cases, health insurance will cover the costs, but most clients pay for the service out of their own pocket.

Jessica has had experience of interacting and working with people with disabilities since childhood. She grew up close to the Karlshöhe Ludwigsburg foundation, which looks after people with physical and mental disabilities. It was at church that she most often met the residents of Karlshöhe. “As a result, I never developed Jessica slips into a professional Jessica excludes kissing and intercourse a sense of shyness,” she persona for her work – that from her work, every sexual companion has different says, as she reflects on of the “soul child”. It is also boundaries her interactions with the name of her practice people with disabilities. in Leinfelden-Echterdingen, Germany. “A client gave me the name,” After completing her high school diploma, Jessica Jessica says. “She wanted to express the impartiality with took part in a voluntary work program for a year at a which I meet people.” residential group for people with disabilities in Stuttgart.

It was there that she first became aware of existing At the end of the workday, Jessica returns home, where attitudes and responses to dealing with the sexual needs her family is waiting for her. Her husband knew her of those in care. “I noticed that many rubbed themselves before she became a sexual companion, and he has no in a prone position on the mattress during an afternoon problems with her work. Showering is the ritual that she nap or started to masturbate as soon as their nappy uses to leave work behind before coming home. “I am was briefly removed. Colleagues laughed about it and entirely myself during work and really present,” she says, made sure that it was put back on very quickly,” Jessica “but a more secret part of my soul belongs only to me remembers. “My attempts to address the topic were and my family.” stifled.” She had similar experiences when she undertook casual work during her nursing studies.

Translated from German by Sarah Gallery The soul child

Courtesy of Trott-War / INSP.ngo

Jessica came to sexual companionship through tantra 33

Issues: Health Issues Many people would never believe you were actually a college drop-out.

From College Drop-Out to World Respected Brain Surgeon

In my teenage years I was the kid who got in a lot of trouble, I was antagonistic, I ran with the wrong crowd, so when I got to college and had all this time to myself in a new environment [he moved from Los Angeles to Berkeley, near San Francisco] I dropped out because I just wasn’t into school, I was enjoying the environment and wanted to learn the lessons that just weren’t taught in the classroom.

S

You amantha can’t have been that bad, didn’trecently you do a lot of volunteer work?renowned brain surgeon Dr. Rahul McMurdock sat down with

Jandial, author of the new book ‘Life on a Knife’s Edge’ to talk about how operating

Yes, cancer I volunteered at San Francisco General the AIDS crisis and then at an Alzheimers clinic …. this helped me on patients helps him findduring heroism and inspiration. learn a lot about myself.

Many people what have you generally observed about the But then you ranwould out of never cash. believe you were actually a college drop-out. psyche of those patients coming to terms with life-altering diagnoses?

Yes, I had to take a job as a security guard … it was very informing, taking that time out gave me time to think about In my teenage years I was the kid who got in a lot of what I wanted. trouble, I was antagonistic, I ran with the wrong crowd, I’ve noticed, in their time of crises, when the finish line is so wheninI love got to college and had all this years away and not decades, many of them, not all, some Falling helped though, didn’t it? time to myself in a new environment [he moved from Los Angeles to have flailed and go into denial, but most of them start to Berkeley, andthe ask, ‘Whyand didapplying it take a myself cancerto diagnosis [Laughs] near yes, ISan metFrancisco] a girl who Iisdropped now my out wifebecause and thatI made prioritise me think life about future just wasn’t into school, I was enjoying the environment for me to make quality of day and life a priority?’

So they something. She inspired me and made me realise my true direction in life. and wanted to learn become less encumbered the lessons that just with peopleofthey didn’t You’ve operated on thousands skulls and “It’s fascinating weren’t taught in the wanthope to interact with, brains and are the last for many people; that the cancer classroom. they became less stressedwhat have you generally observed about journey is a source out because the worry the psyche of those patients coming to terms You have was getting in the way with can’t life-altering diagnoses? of optimism for been that bad, of enjoying their day, so me…” didn’t you do a thereof is crises, a transformation I’ve noticed, in their time when the lot of line volunteer that surprised me, that finish is years away and not decades, work? despite this diagnosis, a many of them, not all, some have flailed and priority for happiness go into denial, but most of them start to and Yes, I volunteered wellbeing to take prioritise life and ask, ‘Why seems did it take a at San Francisco overtoand thisquality has really cancer diagnosis for me make of day General the inspired me. and life aduring priority?’

So they become less AIDS crisis and then encumbered with people they didn’t want to at an Alzheimers How doless you prepare interact with, they became stressed-out clinic ….the thisworry helped for agetting big cancer because was in the way of me learn their a lot day, about operation - after all enjoying so there is a transformation myself. many takethis countless that surprised me, that despite diagnosis, hours with you a priority for happiness and wellbeing But then youover ranand outthis of has cash. standing in uncomfortable positions. seems to take really inspired me.

Yes, had to prepare take a job security … it-was There’s two partshours to mywith ritual, is the night HowIdo you forasa abig cancerguard operation aftervery all many take countless youone standing in before, informing, taking that time out gave me time to think I like to fall asleep thinking about the anatomy of the uncomfortable positions. about what I wanted. cancer and how it might be invading a certain vessel or the brain, so Iabout crisisthe management mycancer mind,and There’s two parts to my ritual, one is the night before, I like topart fall of asleep thinking anatomy ofinthe Falling in love helped though, didn’torit? next day in the operating room, I’mnext struggling how it might be invading a certain vessel part of the brain,then so I the crisis management in my mind, thenifthe day in or first there’s a challenge, themy first thingby I do is pace the operating room, if I’m struggling or there’s a challenge, the thing I do is pace breath, doing thatmy I avoid [Laughs] yes, I met girl panic who isthat nowcomes my wife and that breath, by doing that I avoid and thefire, hyperventilation anda the with that.

By pacing my breath I stay calm, evenhyperventilation though my mind is on made me think about the future and applying myself to panic that comes with that.

By pacing my breath I stay it’s not frenetic, it’s not without focus. something. She inspired me and made me realise my true calm, even though my mind is on fire, it’s not frenetic, it’s direction in life. notas without focus.

I was reading in your book that proper breathing is as powerful Benzodiazepine sedative.

You’ve operated ofsomething skulls and I was in your proper Controlling the paceon ofthousands your breath is we can all do whenreading we’re facing acutebook stress.that My advice is breathing breath brains and are the last hope for many people; is as powerful as Benzodiazepine sedative. the way you are, but the moment you feel that stress, panic or fear creep in, maybe before a meeting with the boss, 34

What makes one person grow whilst another spirals into turmoil?

Controlling the pace of your breath is something we can all do when we’re facing acute stress. My advice is breath the way you are, but the moment you feel that stress, panic or fear creep in, maybe before a meeting with the boss, an interaction with a lover, you’ve missed the subway or maybe you’ve received an email that’s got you really stirred up - in that moment breathe in through your nose for three seconds and then three seconds out through your nose. Now there’s people who’ll tell you to breath in through your nose and out through your mouth - that’s a myth as the nose and the mouth connect to the windpipe that goes to the lung, so it doesn’t matter how you do it - just don’t inhale too fast or dump air out too quickly - that will work through the Vagas Nerve and literally calm the electricity in your body, we’ve seen that with brain surgical operations where people are kept awake with electrodes piercing the flesh of their mind.

It’s not necessarily personality, it’s the stress. If you’ve a cancer that’s curable that needs treatment, that might be easier to cope with, if you’ve been informed your child has died, that’s a different level of stress, so there’s different coping abilities for that, so we have to remain open that people’s pain and suffering is individual. What we’ve found is Post-Traumatic Growth, which is reverse PTSD where a person changes how they see themselves and life in general through their cancer journey - they develop a heightened sense of wellbeing that the crisis has guided them towards, whether that’s through faith, therapy or through the journey of their own interior minds. It’s fascinating that the cancer journey is a source of optimism for me - it’s where I find heroism and inspiration. It’s not depressing at at all - in fact, quite the opposite.

You mentioned the cancer patients who need to come back every twelve weeks to view their scans and face their fears and how the majority of these people ‘compartmentalise’ this process, i.e. they don’t think about the scan and potential bad news for eleven weeks but allow themselves only that week leading up to the scan to worry.

You’ve said that struggling with trauma and suffering is not a sign of failure but the necessary groundwork for personal growth. This sounds like Romans 5 in the Bible - is this where you obtained this viewpoint?

No. This isn’t my religious view Giving people platitudes My patients taught me this. Time but my personal view of seeing is often not the way it’s normal to be and again I noticed my patients patients come in, maybe from miserable… spoke of this and so I passed it a cancer diagnosis or a car on to my other patients, it’s an accident and seeing them have inter-collective experience. Some of to work through those traumatic my patients are frustrated when people say, memories. Memory is a malleable thing, it’s ‘Oh, you’ll be alright, you’ll beat cancer’ and they feel not a picture in a filing cabinet, it’s revisited and comes like saying, ‘You don’t know, I don’t know’. Every person with emotional context. Traumatic memories have a who goes in that MRI machine that will determine lot of emotional context and those can be visited with whether you have cancer or whether it has vanished or therapy, but how do you visit it so it doesn’t come with whether it’s coming back - that’s a tremendous stress all the emotional turmoil and intrusive nature of those memories? It IS possible, but not for everyone, it depends to face ever three months and who am I to judge and say, ‘Oh, you’ll be fine.’ When we ask these patients on the traumatic event, where you are in your life to be mindful or strong, I don’t think we can neglect there’s no golden nugget but knowing change is possible the severity of what they’re going through. Giving is enough to help many people. people platitudes is often not the way - it’s normal to be miserable for that week when a scan is scheduled, You spoke in your book of people growing when when you’re finding out what fate has in store for you. faced with dreadful news, like the compulsive The secret is - don’t let this misery linger too long, let’s worrier who stopped overthinking everything.

35

get the time in-between the scans to be protected so you can enjoy it. This is what my patients can get behind and believe in, not the positivity platitudes, but give people the freedom to have structured, difficult moments and that takes a lot of pressure of them by allowing them to be human and admit it’s okay to be weak, it’s okay to be strong.

You don’t necessarily see stress as a bad thing something I found quite strange.

Well, it’s important to be able to dial up stress when you need something done, the secret is not allowing it to stay around when you’re hanging out with your puppy or your kid. I find compartmentalising and breathing properly is incredibly helpful - and best of all, it’s free, these are OUR gifts, they don’t need to be monitored and sold, which in LA I see constantly and it frustrates m In your book you described going through a couple of decades of having a cloud hang over you as you were healing people, but you felt

36

you were also hurting them, like the young girl who woke up paralysed after surgery, so you went on to work in neurosurgery in developing countries and pushed yourself to take on the difficult cases no one else could do as a way to heal yourself - do you think we’re all plagued by the inner critic, and how do we silence it for good?

The inner critic is our source of empathy I feel. That case left me more humble, made me more empathetic, made me a better surgeon. I don’t separate myself from the emotions of the patient before and during surgery - in fact my emotional investment brings out the best in me, so I’d argue that I’ve used the inner critic to my advantage as it drives me to be the best surgeon I can be. * Life on a Knife’s Edge by Dr. Rahul Jandial (Penguin Life) is available now from all good bookshops, online and on Audible audio books.

s e k Jo In a murder trial, the defense attorney was cross-examining the coroner.

Attorney: Before you signed the death certificate, had you taken the pulse?’

Coroner: No. Attorney: Did you listen to the heart?

Coroner: No. Attorney: Did you check for breathing?

Coroner: No. Attorney: So when you signed the death certificate you weren’t sure the man was dead.

Coroner: Well, let me put it this way, the man’s brain was sitting in a jar on my desk. But I guess its possible he could be out there practicing law somewhere.

A guy goes to a nightclub and when the bouncer won’t let him in the guy asks, ‘Why not?’

‘Because you’re not wearing a tie’, says the bouncer.

‘But I have come all the way from the other side of town,’ says the guy.

Because laughter is the best medicine!

‘Is this alright?’ he asks the bouncer.

‘Well, alright then,’ replies the bouncer. ‘But I’ll be watching you, don’t start anything’.

The owner of a drugstore arrives at work to find a man leaning heavily against a wall.

The owner goes inside and asks his clerk what’s up.

“He wanted something for his cough, but I couldn’t find the cough syrup,” the clerk explains. “So I gave him a laxative and told him to take it all at once.”

“Laxatives won’t cure a cough, you idiot,” the owner shouts angrily.

“Sure it will,” the clerk says, pointing at the man leaning on the wall. “Look at him. He’s afraid to cough.”

At the height of a political corruption trial, the prosecuting attorney attacked a witness. “Isn’t it true,” he bellowed, “that you accepted five thousand dollars to compromise this case?”

The witness stared out the window, as though he hadn’t hear the question.

‘Sorry mate, but that’s the rules’, says the bouncer.

“Isn’t it true that you accepted five thousand dollars to compromise this case?” the lawyer repeated. The witness still did not respond.

So the guy goes back to his car to try and see if he can find a tie or something like one. He finds a set of jump leads, ties them around himself, and goes back to the club.

Finally, the judge leaned over and said, “Sir, please answer the question.”

“Oh,” the startled witness said, “I 37

thought he was talking to you.”

Bubba got drunk and died in a fire in his trailer. He was so badly burned that the morgue needed someone to identify the body, so they called his two buddies Jim-Bob and Billy-Joe to I.D. him.

Jim-Bob went in and the mortician pulled back the sheet. “Yep, he’s got burned up purdy bad. Roll ‘im over,” said Jim-Bob. The mortician rolled him over, Jim-Bob looked at his butt and said, “Nope, dat ain’t Bubba.”

Not saying anything, but finding it a bit strange, the mortician brought in Billy-Joe to I.D. the body. “Yep, he’s burned up real bad. Roll ‘im over,” said Billy-Joe. The mortician rolled him over, Billy-Joe looked down at his butt and said, “Dat ain’t Bubba.”

“How can you tell?” asked the mortician.

“Cause Bubba had two assholes,” replied Billy-Joe. “Two as*holes?

That’s impossible!” said the mortician.

“Yep. Everyone in town knowed Bubba had two as*holes, cause every time the three of us went to town, everyone would yell, ‘here comes Bubba with them two assholes!”

Yesterday I saw a guy spill all his Scrabble letters on the road. I asked him, “What’s the word on the street?”

What sits at the bottom of the sea and twitches?

A nervous wreck.

September's Top Sports Books S

haun Anthony brings you the best sports books each month. This issue he looks at Wray Vampiew’s Games People Played, Marcelo Bielsa: Thirteen Steps to the Premier League by Less Scott and more.

Games People Played: A Global History of Sport

by Wray Vamplew (Reaktion Books) Surprisingly, this is the first global history of sport book and is a rather heavy 454 pages long, but if you are prepared to read the sections that interest you, you’ll still be entertained by any number of myth-busting facts - for instance, we all view tennis as the sport of the upper-middle classes but after it was patented in 1874 under the grandiose name of Sphairistikè, everyone and their neighbour were smacking balls between rackets and by the middle of the 1900s, tennis clubs were operating in factories. Vamplew goes on to destroy the popular myth that the Brits invented sport, asserting that out of 22 of the most popular sports he examined, only 6 were invented by our British neighbours.

There’s lots of great information on football, cricket, golf, motor sports and countless others and countless trivia that would come in handy if you’re someone’s Phone a Friend on Who Wants to be a Millionaire like Captain Matthew Webb, who was famously the first person to swim the Channel, was also given a medal for diving off a Cunard liner in the middle of the Atlantic to rescue a sailor, and died in the rapids below the Niagara Falls? And how the marathon’s 26.22-mile distance has nothing to do with Pheidippides, or Queen Alexandra’s desire to watch from Windsor Castle but that it was simply that the 1908 Olympic organisers had to use a different entrance to White City stadium for the finish — which, as Vamplew described it, “necessitated some extra yardage.” Brilliant coffee table book that could be lifted time and again for enjoyment.

Marcelo Bielsa: Thirteen Steps to the Premier League by Lee Scott (Pitch Publishing) In June 2018 Leeds United made an appointment that shocked the footballing world. Despite being stuck in the 38

second tier of English football and tagged the Championship’s perennial chokers, they attracted one of the most revered coaches in world football. What followed captivated the hearts and minds of Leeds United’s legion of passionate supporters worldwide. Marcelo Bielsa has crafted a team in his image, a team that plays in an almost bewildering attacking style with fluidity across the pitch. Leeds have become synonymous with exciting, attacking, vertical football and this style has seen them promoted back to the Premier League.

Professional football analyst Lee Scott explains how, breaking down the tactics that have made Leeds so successful during Bielsa’s time. He shows just how they occupy spaces and overload defences; how they press and cut off passing lanes to deny the opposition space to attack in the defensive phase; and more than that, he delves into Bielsa’s mindset, to explain what makes the Argentine mastermind tick. Includes colour picture section. Brilliant read for any Leeds United fan.

Dark Blue: The Despair Behind the Glory – My Journey Back from the Edge by Shane Carthy (O’Brien Press)

Shane Carthy writes candidly about his journey over the last five years. He details, without hyperbole, the downward spiral which, days after producing a man-of-the-match display in Dublin’s 2014 Leinster under-21 final win over Meath, saw him wake up in St Patrick’s Mental Hospital.

Carthy also explains what eventually brought him back to where he is now, discovering a path where life is worth living. He hopes that through his words he can show people that there is a way out of the suffering they may be experiencing and the path, although difficult, is worth travelling. Inspirational and worth a read even if you aren’t a football fan.

D is c o u n

t Corne

r

The Haven Basin Education Centre Basin Lane, Dublin 8.

Contact: Sr. Rita.

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Email: thehavenbasinlane@gmail.com The Haven provides a caring and friendly space Where a variety of courses and other activities are available for adults in the local community.

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