Posts from — December 2008

Originally uploaded by _Polarity

Camera phones are worthless and shit. They involve too much sacrifice. That’s been the party line for the last decade and we’re not budging. For all my college years, militantly armed with a canary yellow Nokia 5110, all I wanted was a phone on which I could call people and be called in turn, on a screen illuminated in luscious neon green. And I would, maybe, send a text message or two, but not by using predictive text and certainly without photos. Photos are taken on proper cameras, not phones. A plastic peephole in the back of a manky handset does not a camera make. Even the fancy-shmancy louvred shutter graphics on the iPhone mean little to me. Phones is phones. Cameras is cameras. And the internets is on computers and computers alone.

FOLLY YOU HEATHEN! THE INTERNETS IS EVERYWHERE! IT’S IN YOUR SITTING ROOM, IT’S ON THE STREET AND IT’S VIBRATING IN YOUR PANTS!

Oooh, so it is. Hello there. I still don’t like phonecams, but I will admit that the internet on a phone has been a revelation.  I now use a Blackberry Pearl, because I’m still a closet purist and I like my phone to look like a phone, but I have it rammed with as much subtle connectivity as my bunleibhéal tech knowledge will allow. Twibble is on there for Twittering while I’m on the go, or even on the loo. (My Dad had a landline installed in the bathroom, meaning I can take calls simultaneously). My Gmail, into which I feed five email addresses, is on there too, and its constant connectedness helps me distract myself from mundane tasks, like driving a car or concentrating on real work. My Google Reader is my phone’s browser home page, feeding me a stream of news and nonsense, generously mixed, and my Google Calendar is synced with my Blackberry calendar. As a result, my phone buzzes more often than a bee with epilepsy. Internet stuff is shovelled into my little fruity handset like grain into the neck of a foie gras goose and its red ‘pay me attention’ light blips its message of internetty fullness almost constantly. It begs to be played with.

And I do, I pander to it. I answer its every buzz, blink and brrring. I am not alone. The like of iPhones and Blackberries are fucking huge right now (see pic – wowsers). In fact, if you go onto Flickr and search for pictures tagged with the word ‘Blackberries‘, the majority of the results are entirely bereft of real berries. Swollen phones abound in their stead, phones which won’t stain your hands or clothes in the slightest, nor get seedy bits stuck under your dentures, but which will taste absolutely shit if baked into a crumble.

People aren’t buying them for their imaging capabilities, either, it’s for the constant stream of words they bring us, handily supplied by the magical, omnipresent internet. When we’re not talking to people, we want to be chuckling at their 140-character messages and reading their news. And phones with internet capability make it so. It can only get better.

This rambling post serves very little purpose indeed, but I should point out that it was inspired by Mr Tom Raftery, who appropriately Tweeted earlier from his iPhone that ‘phones will be the primary Internet device by 2020′, while expressing disbelief that it will take that long. If, in the space of five months, a Luddite like me can be swayed to constantly pull a phone out of his pocket and read stuff it has plucked from t’internet, he’s probably right.

Now I’m off. It’s blinking at me. I have to go.

I will wear your name in public for 55kms. I will sweat on your name, quite possibly slobber on your name, get it covered in filth and make it smell quite bad. I will, quite possibly, drag your name or that of your company through the muck at times, literally rather than figuratively. I will ask you to pay for the privilege, and I will then write about it and take photos of the process, and tell people how great you and your company were to allow me borrow your name for a night.

What am I on about? THIS. It’s the 55km adventure race that I’m very excited about, the Art O’Neill Challenge in aid of the Stuart Mangan Trust.  I’m running in it, and I’m looking for sponsors. The money goes to help Stuart Mangan, whose spine was snapped at the C1 level, leaving him totally paralyzed and unable to breathe without a ventilator.

It’s a good cause, and if you contribute to it, I’ll embroider your name or company logo on a piece of clothing which will accompany me on the race. The choice of garment will depend on number of sponsors that have to fit onto it.

If you’re a regular punter, a €10 donation will get your name on the chosen garment. If you’re a corporate sponsor, it’ll be €100, which is, granted, a lot more, but read on. For that €100, I’ll embroider your corporate logo on the garment in full colour. Normally, setting up a corporate logo for embroidery would cost you €55. But because I run an embroidery company, A Stitch In Time, I’ll waive that fee, and as well as doing a good deed, you’ll have your logo on file for good. That means any time you need any promotional items done up, all you have to do is call/email/Twitter me and I’ll have your stuff embroidered and on its way to you with minimum fuss.

The sponsorship link is here. Drop me a mail at markham [at] astitchintime [dot] ie  with ‘Mangan’ in the subject line once you’ve donated and we’ll sort out the rest.

Asceticism ain’t my cup of tea. I admire true ascetics, but I like stuff. I like doing stuff that requires using stuff, which usually means getting new stuff if it’s a first time. Everything requires something. Even running, one of the simplest pleasures in life, requires a natty pair of shoes with gel insoles or the like, perhaps torsion control soles or a fancy-pantsy lacing system. A nice dryflo top is also good, and if you’re going long-distance, you’ll possibly be wanting a Camelbak, which opens up a new world of possibilities for stuff, because you have a way of carting around more stuff. For a brief while, while living in Sydney, I embraced the minimal running attitude, walking barefoot to the beach in the morning wearing nothing but a pair of lightweight running shorts before putting in a few sandy miles of athletic asceticism. It didn’t last long, and even then, the shorts were nice Nikes (i.e. ‘stuff’) so it was a pointless act. Pretty soon I put my runners back on, clipped a new iPod shuffle to my Asics vest, adjusted my sunglasses and hit the road, all stuffed up.

Why am I shitting on about stuff? Well, it’s the Christmas, isn’t it? This is stuff season. People are going batshit crazy for stuff and the acquisition of stuff right about now. It’s the time of year when wankers who say: ‘Oh, I really don’t have much stuff – I don’t need it’, have to pinch themselves in their trouser pockets to avoid letting utter hypocrisy spill out their big, materialistic gobs. The less stuff you claim to need, the more expensive your stuff tends to be. Faux-asceticism, that vomit-inducing ‘I don’t need stuff’ moral-high-ground ‘ism’, is worse than greed.

Back to the running. I’ve registered for a 55km adventure race on January 9. Olympic rower Gearoid Towey is the man behind the Art O’Neill Challenge, and he’s roped me in too.  The whole shebang starts at midnight for the walkers, 2am for the runners, and sends its participants on a route from Dublin Castle to Glenmalure, to arrive in time for a breakfast roll. Glenmalure is one of my favourite spots in Wicklow. I usually like to drive there, but hey, running there from the city centre at night in deepest winter sounds like a shitload of fun too.

Apart from the physical challenge element, this is a major stuff acquisition opportunity. In fact, they helpfully post a list of stuff you HAVE to get before you’re allowed race – mandatory kit, they call it. I am excited by this. I will have to buy maps, and I LOVE maps. Maps and charts are among my top items of stuff, and the compass to go with them is a nice little retro stuff item, as is the space blanket.

Stuff that has ‘space’ in the name is also extra exciting.

I’ll need new shoes, a headlamp (good, good), tights (good), and carbohydrate gel packs to stuff in my new Camelbak (very good indeed).

And, when I hobble into Glenmalure at the far end, I’ll need plenty of First Aid Stuff.

More on the physical side of the race later this week, once I get over the stuff excitement.

Originally uploaded by krisheding

There was a day, about three months ago, when my hip was in such agony I was reduced to dragging myself around the floor of my house by my arms, and just trying to lie still. Searing pain shot down my leg to my upper calf, and the whole area around my hip felt weak and tender, so I couldn’t put any weight on my left leg. I would be woken at 4am by pain in my lower back, having only got to sleep by using heavy doses of painkillers and anti-inflammatory drugs, which caused my stomach to churn and ache. Their effects wore off after two hours.

I’m 28 years of age. This was not normal.

I had endured back problems since my late teens, and ran the gauntlet of physiotherapists, herbalists, nutritionists, and fitness instructors. They told me I had a weak left buttock, an over-developed iliopsoas muscle, tight hamstrings, loose hamstrings, magnesium deficiency and an aversion to wheat.  None of their advice amounted to anything constructive. They tried, but they failed. I still ached.

Eventually, when things became unbearable this year, I went to the A&E in Loughlinstown, where two junior doctors told me there was nothing wrong with me. I felt like I was being eyed up as a candidate for painkiller-dependency, trying to slyly cajole a prescription for a fix. His tests are negative, he must be having a laugh. I went back four days later and was BERATED by another doctor for not waiting a week before coming back. What was I doing there? Had I not been told to leave it for seven days?

‘But I can’t walk or sleep’, I told her. The vacuum of sympathy was overwhelming.

I finagled a meeting, forcefully, with a consultant in Loughlinstown, and spent two full mornings, a fortnight apart, waiting in line to see him. For anyone who hasn’t dealt with the public health system, bring a book. Unless you are bleeding directly onto the floor or holding your own organs in with your hands, you’ll spend a lot of time waiting. Doctor A took two visits before admitting the problem was beyond him, and sent me up the chain to Doctor B a week later. Doctor B, a decent chap, sent me for more x-rays and an MRI, and then brought me back in. At this stage, the A-bomb was dropped. Arthritis, specifically, Ankylosing Spondylitis. With a sombre, sympathetic face, I was referred to Doctor C, a specialist in rheumatology in St Vincent’s Hospital. I feared the worst case – that I could be in a wheelchair by my late forties, with parts of my spine fusing. I assumed my sporting life was over. I have run marathons, I mountain bike, surf and sail.

But I’d have to wait further or confirmation. Doctor C was a busy man. It would be a year before an appointment in his public clinic opened up. Another year of agony, downing ulcer-inducing painkillers, and uncertainty.

‘I’d pay to go private – is that an option?’, I asked the secretary.

Well, private is a different story. The waiting list is only six months if you’re willing to go private, I was told.I was pencilled in for June 24, 2009.

For fuck’s sake. I began to recall the times I had defended Mary Harney, and cringed. This is not a health system, I thought. This is anarchy. This is an absence of organisation.

In desperation, I went to the hospital’s website and looked up rheumatologists. There were three, including Doctor C. I rang the secretary for another, and explained my symptoms, and the ordeal to date.

‘You sound young,’ she said. ‘What age are you?’

I’m 28.

‘Well we should get you in soon, then. I can fit you in on Friday.’

She rang Doctor C, who had my scans, results and x-rays, and said that they’d need them sent across, and, get this, Doctor C was ANGRY that I’d gone and sought another appointment. Wait six months or wait four days? No-brainer.

This was progress. There was a further glimmer of hope when I stepped into Barry Bresnihan’s office in Sandymount. On the floor, in a pile of charts, was one marked ‘Michael Flatley’. I was going to see the man who serviced the most well-worn ankles in Ireland.  Encouraging. Ten minutes later, after a definitive and clear-cut diagnosis, Prof Bresnihan (a former London Irish and Ireland rugby player) ushered me out of his office with the words: ‘This is the first day of the rest of your life’. He shook my hand and told me I’d be taken care of.

Four weeks after starting treatment, I’m signing up for a 55km Ultra-race from Dublin Castle to Glenmalure, over the Dublin mountains and into Wicklow. At night. And barring the lack of fitness coming from a few sedentary, arthritic months, I reckon my body will carry me all the way now.

I can run, cycle, and swim without a hint of pain or discomfort. I could kiss Barry Bresnihan.

But all that happened only because I could afford to go private. If I was Jo Shmo, public patient, with the same condition, I’d be waiting until next Christmas for a diagnosis. My arthritis would be progressing unchecked, getting worse, eating into my worklife, my sleep, affecting my every movement.

For anyone who thinks the health system works – you are wrong. The health system only works if you can afford to pay for a different level of service. If not, expect to fight your way upwards through a raft of junior doctors, lose days waiting in corridors, and spend plenty of time on hold while paper is shuffled and your call is batted from department to department. The difference between public and private is like night and day. The private system is the officer’s mess. The public is the trenches.

Thankfully, for me, this war is over. For now.

Alkos, who posted a photo a day for the last 1158 days, has hung up his camera. He snapped Dublin surreptitiously, flitting in and out of people’s lives in 1/500th of a second, like an angel with an SLR.

His was the only photoblog I followed religiously – there will be no filling of the void.

It seems you can still buy his prints, though. I like his crazy, bartering style: ‘Buy me a book, I’ll send you a print’. I meant to interview him for the Sunday Business Post, but my year has been a rollercoaster of craziness, angst, death, arthritis and procrastination, and I never got around to it, unfortunately.

Fare thee well, Mr Alkos photo man. Fare thee well.

New Year’s Resolutions are crap. I have a lonely post-it of them inside my Moleskine diary/coffee tray. The only one I got around to was ‘Be less tolerant, more belligerent’.(*)

This year I’m whittling it down to: ‘Get more good shit done’

THIS crazy challenge, running/hiking from Dublin Castle to Glenmalure at night on January 9, will be job one.

Join me?

Quick observational blast for you because I’m a busy little bastard today:

• Was at a lecture on broadcast commissioning ethics in UCD last night, chaired by Fintan O’Toole, with Claire Duignan from the RTE and Guardian Columnist Steve Hewlett pontificating. Claire shared one interesting morsel from Monday night. Between 9pm and 10pm, 78% of Irish viewers were watching Irish-made broadcasting. And of that, TV3′s high-profile unreality TV cringefest The Apprentice got a measly 21%. The lion’s share went to Prime Time Investigates‘ great documentary on Traveller life. (A few weeks before the show started recording, Mr Cullen & Ms Lavin asked someone I know to come on board. They reacted like they’d just been asked to jump out of a plane without a parachute)
• In 1993, when the RTE’s mandate was amended to demand they source more material from independent producers, RTE spent IR£5million on 30 hours of external programming. In 2008, they will have spent €30million, receiving 1000 hours of external production material. That has gone from £160,000 per hour to €33,000 per hour, crudely calculated on the back of a napkin. How times have changed.
• The Irish Times yesterday had NO property supplement, just page 30, filled with features and ONE lonely sales ad from an estate agent (Knight Frank – Kinnity Castle is for sale, folks.), and one ad for a lovely loft office in Westland Row from Trinity Real Estates. Ad revenue plummeting much?
• If you havent’ bought a single album this year, just go and buy Fleet Foxes. That’s all you’ll need. If you’re happy, it makes you happier. If you’re wallowing in misery, it’ll make that feel okay too. It lulls you off to sleep and gently stirs you out of it at the far side of the night. It is all things to all men.
• The Blog Awards ’09 are live. Go register. YES, I WILL BE THERE. Stop salivating and go do some real work, you desperate internet sluts. (*)

There’s nothing like a bit of local politics to heat the blood. And nothing, simply nothing, heats the blood more than local politics with a self-serving tinge to them.

Back in the day when Betty Coffey was a Fianna Fáil Councillor for Dun Laoghaire, a set of traffic lights appeared on Corrig Road. Said lights had the effect of backing up traffic for a long way down the road, with a ridiculously long right flick going in one direction – the direction of Betty Coffey’s house, as it happens.

And two weeks ago, when a local resident dropped a leaflet into my letterbox, a flag was raised. It related to a plan for eight speed bumps on my road, and a further nine on Killiney Road. That’s 17 speed bumps (and a few mini-roundabouts) along a stretch of road maybe 0.8 of a mile long.

I got angry, and fired off a ranting email to the local councillors, fully expecting to be ignored. For good measure, I asked Maria Bailey (FG) and comrade Eamon Gilmore (Lab) to STOP SPAMMING my bloody letterboxes. (I have two, so I get double the spam).

Kudos to Gareth Crowe and Barry Andrews (FF) and Cllr Carrie Smyth (Lab) for their measured responses to said ranting email. A whopping DOUBLE FAIL to Maria Bailey (FG) for trying to defend the traffic plan, and for then promising to stop spamming me, and breaking that promise a week later, dropping junk mail in my letterbox again early this week.

Incidentally, Maria Bailey lives on the road where the traffic plan is being implemented. Are we noticing a pattern? *Cough* *Coffey*

Email tennis continues below the fold.

[Read more →]

It’s not just procrastination that’s kept this website silent recently. It’s insecurity, it’s not knowing what is the proper tone of voice to use online. Since the end my first foray into online writing, The Big Drought, I’ve become hesitant to ‘be myself’ online. Sometimes it’s fine to be yourself, to unshackle the id from the super-ego. But other times it’s not. If I was myself in during my driving test (cursing, stereo up to 11, one hand on the wheel and the other on the trackball of my Blackberry) the chances are good I’d spend a lot more time on public transport. If I was myself, fully, in a job interview, I’d be a lot more familiar with the interior of the Monkstown job centre than I am now. Or back in Golden Discs, Dun Laoghaire, dealing with Westlife-fan junkies and the old lady who used to pee herself at the counter and smile.

If I was myself in print, however, I’d be in court. A lot. And if I was myself in court….

In career mode, I am perfectly capable of writing restrained and measured articles for publication, where readerships, advertisers and media law have to be taken into account. But this blog ain’t the New York Times. Bitch.

Yet, I find that I restrain myself when writing online for some reason. Out of fear that a sweary outburst or two will mean a lost job somewhere down the line, I hold back.  I am spiritually and emotionally constipated as a result. The truth is that I write best when I’m either positively animated about a topic, or spitting acid with anger. The pic to the right has been my Bebo/Facebook/Twitter avatar for a long time now, and probably best represents my preferred tone of voice. Angry, with a touch of bitter sarcasm. I lobbed off an email to the local councillors last week, dripping with sarcasm and spite, and a friend said to me ‘You may have to interview them some day, you know’. It put the shits up me, until I realised that they were the ones who’ll have to be worried if I’m interviewing them. (I’ll post it later). I don’t like politicians, as a rule. And I don’t particularly care which among them like me.

I find that the most compelling blogs are the most ascerbic ones. Twenty Major was good in his time, Mr Mulley is at his best when ranting and carries that persona over into his professional life.  Sabrina Dent routinely makes me spit food onto my keyboard with her tweets, and Graham Linehan’s recent dissection of the Irish Times profile on him made me cackle (check out the url, it differs ever-so-slightly from the headline..) . If you haven’t read the blog of Ian Carter, editor of the Croydon Advertiser, you should. He has no problem ripping into his reporters and readers when they step out of line, or try to interview a mannequin because they forgot their glasses. There are others in the same vein. Andrew Sullivan, the CJR, the list goes on.

On the other hand, the blogs that are mere repositories for work, a floating online CV, are at best bland and at worst, embarrassing.

So, fuck it. I’m unleashing the id. It’s a risk, but I reckon it’s worth it. There’ll still be the re-posts from my alter-ego, the sensible, creative journalist type, when I’m working along those lines, but there will be swearing and ranting.  It’s best to be honest (although let’s not go nuts). I’m a nice guy, but I’m an angry motherfucker a lot of the time too, and with reason.

Let’s rock.