Sad to say the show hosted by Richie McCormack and Michelle Doherty, and produced by Charlotte Flood, is no more. The two presenters are moving on to better things! I”ve spent a little time on the tops of buses wondering what made their show better than others.

Firstly, the tunes. They had some really, really, really good music on the show, and weren”t afraid to say if they found something wasn”t good (mention Adele to Richie and you had no one to blame but yourself). Secondly, the humour of McCormack was usually spot on the ball, but was never boorish or at the expense of someone else: it was never sarcastic or bitter. Hence, theirs was the one show not headwrecking in the morning.

I started listening to them during my early morning jogs at 6am, back when I was able to jog five days a week. They were the perfect start to the day, especially when things were so tough taking care of Mum at the time

The last show was Friday, 14th September 2012, and below are links to some of the songs they played; lads, you will be missed…

dEUS – Instant Street

Violent Femmes – Blister in the Sun

Led Zeppelin – Kashmir

Mumford and Sons – I Will Wait

Bellx1- The Great Defector

LCD Soundsystem – All My Friends

And it happened on Monday the 10th September 2012.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/19299984@N08/7976507568/

We could all have been gone in a moment.

Puts it all into perspective, doesn’t it?

Play this, please, and read.

Sunday afternoon we had occasion to go to Dundrum for the weekly supplies. On the way back this song was playing on the stereo.

It’s the song that plays in Blade Runner, when Rachel discovers/confirms that she in fact is not human, but a replicant. Despite having memories of a mother, and a childhood, she in fact has been alive for less than a decade. She has no mother, and in fact is not connected to any person in the human race at all.

I know what its like to see my mother’s body die, and to have that daily grief in my life, but obviously for different reasons. Rachel looses her mother and her sense of identity as a human in one swoop while mine passed away last year after a gruesome battle with dementia and Alzheimer’s. Her passing has taught me a truth of the Universe: it doesn’t matter how much you love something, or how tightly you hug it to yourself in a desperate effort to keep it, or how much your soul is built upon it. Time will take it away from you and  the world. You might be there to see it, you might not. But its time on the earth is finite.

Now we have a child; a little connection to the future. He carries my soul with him everywhere, and so I fear terribly for him, fear terribly the loss of him. He’s a magnificent invader on all the barriers and fortresses I’ve built up over the years. Nothing I say or do will stop me caring enormously about this person, about his care, his safety, his experiences and his opinion of me. I can’t help that. I’m connected to him, tied to him and to his father in a vulnerability I’ve never had before. But you can’t fear a loss if you have nothing. You can’t have that fear of a loss of a connection if you are out in the rain with nothing in your pockets. When you’re within by the fire is when you’re at risk, and that is the scary part.

So I’m left with this. All that I adore will one day be gone from this earth. I only get this time allotted to me. I simply must make the most of it. It seems that, these days, each experience has the potential to hold to the highest purpose in a way it never did before. I wish all of you the sense to never take your place by the fireside for granted.

The Feminist Community are not fans of Fifty Shades.

Feminists and readers with taste have been making their dislike of Fifty Shades of Gray known. Go to Google.com and type in Fifty Shades of Grey feminist criticism, and you’ll see plenty of online responses to this BDSM erotica trilogy. The book has as it roots fanfiction for the Twilight trilogy, but it has moved very much away from that.

The book is not brilliantly written, but huge bestsellers are rarely highbrow literary fiction. What seems to really annoy feminists (of which I am one) is the fact that the sexuality in the book is so asinane, so stupid and potentially so damaging. The BDSM conduct is disrespectful and with none of the built in safe guards that are normally expected. It seems wrong to many in that community, and should not be encouraged.

This book is not fostered upon us

Be that as it may, there are some things about it that need to be considered. Firstly, there is the undenialable fact that it is extremely popular. I know, I hate that fact too, but it is seemingly what a lot of women in the western world are reading at the moment. And by a lot, I mean the majority of us. The book has sold 40 million copies world wide. Think on that. That isn’t a cultural impostion, that is a cultural phenomenan. This ‘ideal’ is not being fostered on us, it is instead one that a lot of us seem to have had within us for quite some time. This is us, Ladies, looking back at ourselves and it ain’t so pretty.

And just what are the men up to?

Of course, it’s nothing compared to the porn industry created for men. Websites now exist that provide free porn, most of it uploaded by amateurs (Youporn is one example). There is so much porn out there right now that actors in the adult film industry speak of being paid less and less for their scenes. It still is an industry that generates millions each year, and is influencing mainstream entertainment more and more (see True Blood for examples). The male focused porn industry has been around for a long time, it doesn’t make any apologies for itself. The same can’t be said for porn focused on women – there may be practitioners of it, but there isn’t an industry, and there is still a strong sense of guilt amongst those forty million as to why they buy and enjoy that book.

A less idealistic world….

So we get to realise that, like our male brothers, we are grubby, small and petty. We aren’t the fairer, gentle sex, but instead can find things as darkly fascinating as men. It isn’t a soothing notion, but knowing it for a fact reveals reality to us, and so we’re able to come to a mature understanding of ourselves. Hopefully it is an understanding that is without shame or incorrectly placed idealism.  Hopefully.

I’m in the process of putting together a novella of about 20,000 words. The first draft is done, and now I need to stop.

Yes, you read correctly. I need to stop writing and sit back and do nothing. This is because while I may know what I am doing, I don’t know, really, what I am writing. This text is full of allusions, metaphors and sideway meanings that I have not discovered yet. There is, I’m beginning to realise, a hidden structure underneath this story, something that is mimicking a fairy tale from long ago. It’s hiding there, like an underground cellar, and I need to uncover it. But which one? Cinderella? Sleeping Beauty? Not sure. Don’t know.

But if I push it, the whole house of cards will collapse and I’ll be left with nothing. This structure can’t conform to my own conscious decisions, it has to be allowed to come to fruition by itself (at least initially – editing is still a conscious decision, obviously). It can’t be made ‘Perfect’ in any arbitrary way, it has to have its own logic. Like the random but correct surface of a walnut, it must be what it is if it is to have any authenticity.

I am rambling. Firstly because I have thirty seconds to type this blog out. Secondly because this is not an area of intelligence controlled by my pre-frontal cortex. Instead it is decided by my spine, like dancing, and if I over think it, none of it will make sense.

Very impressed by Sinead O’Hart’s daily blogging, I am determined to give it five minutes each day and see what happens.

As my last blog was so short I decided to give the topic another go. One thing I did that had a huge impact was read The Da Vinci Code by Dan Brown. This book changed my life.

It is awful! That is nothing in of itself, there are thousands of bad books published each year. But at that time my colleagues at the office believed it. The place was in South Dublin and the boss’s wife, a bad tempered tennis club member and social climber, would come in each day and rant about the true nature of reality/society/Christianity that the book revealed.

“Eaux, but it is so trueau!” she’d start in her south Dublin accent. “To think, we all had the wrong idea for yeaurs!” There would be no point in explaining to her that we all have bloodlines going back years, that the past does not contain anything more sacred than the present, and that if you were really interested in the true nature of Christianity you should go out and help someone rather than purse your lips at the yaught club.

So I set myself to writing The Stone, deliberately making history as bloody, ignorant and uncaring as the present. So a cul de sac of literary endeavour led me to discover a new demand for literary honesty within me, and set me on the path where I am now.

This blog entry is written while the little man is waking up behind me, so sorry all, I have moments and nothing more.

The smallest change that had the biggest impact was on the 8th October 1999. I turned left, instead of right, and it lead me on the path I am on now.

And if you think you’re getting more details, unfortunately you’re not!

The Irish Constitution, somewhere around Article 40, guarantees the right of free speech. Surprise surprise, however, this is not an absolute right, and so we’re obliged to pay heed to a body of Common Law that has grown up since the start of the State. One of the major concerns of the State is the prevention of the Tort of Defamation (remember Tort? see an earlier entry of mine for more information).

Now, quickly, lets look at the definition of Defamation. It is, according to the Defamation Act 2009, any statement that tends to injure a person’s reputation in the eyes of reasonable members of society. To be defamatory, a statement has to be published, it has to refer to the complainant, and it has to be false.

Some statements can be declared privileged; you can have Absolute Privilege as in the case of statements in the Dail, Seanad, for a judge in Court and a barrister on his feet. Same goes for reporters giving accurate reports of statements in the Dail and of Court procedures, for fairly obvious reasons. Qualified Privilege exists in a delightfully vague statement where “there is a legal, moral or social duty to communicate the information and the recipient has a similar duty to receive it.” One example I read of this is an employee making allegations of theft regarding a second employee to the boss, for example. However, the potential for confusion in this area is pretty obvious.

There are defenses for the charge of Defamation, but one of the crucial factors to be aware here is the huge damages that have been awarded by Irish Juries. Denis O’Brien seems to be a huge success in this area, winning €750,000, no less. The only person who was awarded a larger amount was Fr. Reynolds in the ‘Mission to Prey’ case, and he was awarded €800,000.

In this country, we have to acknowledge that there is a class of person who can utilise these laws with much greater ease than others. This, coupled with the fear of media organisations of the financial costs of cases, means that there is a silencing of comment concerning real issues. How about the situation concerning XXXXXXXXXX [REDACTED] who seems to have threatened the XXXXX XXXXX [REDACTED] so as to ensure that their behaviour remains undisclosed? How can justice be seen to exist in such a country, when a mere mention is enough to stir the beasts?

That Article mentioned at the start of this blog post is one of many created by the founders of this State intended to grant protection to its citizens. However, this Article along with others can merely be considered to have the depth and strength of toilet paper, as it grants no protection whatsoever.

Some further reading, put here for no particular reason whatsoever;

• http://www.broadsheet.ie/2012/08/10/deadly-cold-logic/
• http://politico.ie/irish-politics/8689-denis-o-brien-vincent-browne-threat-to-sue.html

Next Post;

Suggested by @clarabel: The smallest change that had the biggest impact.

Here is a Podcast of me being wonderful;

http://www.podcasts.ie/2012/08/podcasts-ie-showcase-no-26/

I declare to God, Iain….. Right, be careful what you wish for, kids.

The creation and development of Tort Law, and Negligence law in particular, is similar to a long, rambling conversation to be found at a dinner table. The guests gradually imbibe the port and cheese, and as their digestions cope with the rich food they happily give forth on various topics. The weather. Politics. The welfare state. And occasionally the duty of care owed to one who is not in a contractual relationship with another party.

“Damn it Geoffrey, was that a belch or a ruling on East Indian shipping routes?”

Tort law is a civil wrong, rather than a wrong that is classed as a crime. Take, for example, the idea of Defamation. The State does not prosecute this under a criminal code, nor does it seek a custodial sentence upon conviction. Instead, it is a charge pursued by the injured parties and the result if found to be so is usually a financial penalty.

Findings of Negligence starts off with the unpleasant story of Donoghue v.s Stevenson. Here the plaintiff was served a drink that her friend had bought in a cafe. However, the decomposed body of a snail was found within it.

“For God’s sake, Mabel, it’s all protein.”

This meant declaring an injustice was done to the plaintiff who drank the liquid (and who suffered gastroenteritis), a new legal relationship other than that of a contractual malfeasance.  The law has since been casting around creating new variations of this obligation since then, which is labelled Duty of Care. The Duty of Care to my neighbour varies depending upon the circumstances of each particular case, the parties involved, the  level of knowledge of each party, and so on.

So once Duty of Care is established, it is thereby up to the Courts to decide if there is any negligence on the part of the defendant of that Duty of Care. If the Court has decided that (for example) an employer, who has contracted out catering to a company who has its  employees on site, owes a duty of care, it is then obliged to ask if that duty was upheld; was the employer negligent or not? The standard used is that of Reasonable Care, and focuses on Proximity of Relationship and whether or not injury was Reasonably Foreseeable in the circumstances.

Nicely headwrecking, wouldn’t you say?

So where does the connection to Madonna come into it? Well, lets take a quick glance at old Madge, shall we? Madonna’s career started in the 1980s, and has continued to this day. The discography of her tracks has a long and winding road, one that might almost be said to have an unclear or uncertain context:

Seriously. Can you say what’s going on here?

And that is why the discography of this world class entertainer is in fact an excellent metaphor for the development of negligence. Take either issue out of the context of its development leads to chaos and confusion on the part of the observer. It means that that both of these wide-spanning phenomena has its own evolution, and to see it out of that pathway will make it empty of meaning. In art, as in life, the devil is in the detail.

Next up on the blog; I am taking up @Susan_Lanigan’s suggestion of ‘Libel Laws and abuse of same’.