HOW’S Dry January going? Are you struggling?
Perhaps you’ve adopted the Damp January approach instead this year, which is all the rage in the US, and leans into the current trend towards moderation?
It usually involves staying sober during the week but perhaps allowing yourself a bit of relief at the weekend. It makes sense, really - why give yourself The Bends by coming up to the surface too quickly after the holidays, right?
Or perhaps you have fallen off the wagon entirely and taken instead for Feck It We’ll Start Again In Feb option?
Maybe you’ve chosen to retain the Christmas status quo of generalised sloth and not really knowing what day of the week it is. Also, with February, you’re dealing with a much shorter month, which makes it more doable. And isn’t January painful enough without having to be sober enough to fully experience it?
Speaking of sobering things. I read a pretty shocking statistic in the weekend papers concerning the 21,000 Irish citizens who were granted Australian working holiday visas in the 12 months up to July of last year.
This is the highest figure in 16 years and happens at a time of apparent full employment. It’s far higher than during the depths of the last recession. Why would this be?
I suppose a job isn’t much use if you’re 30, sharing a room at the bottom of the garden with granny, and having to commute by kayak because you can’t afford the price of diesel.
There are ways to look at all this in a more positive light.
These are largely graduates travelling down under to have a big life adventure, in a beautiful continent, and most of them will likely return one day with all the experience, professionally and culturally, that this implies. A kind of software update for the nation, if you will.
But it’s a bit hard to accept this rosy view when our own health system is creaking and we have healthcare workers having to commute from Spain to be able to make ends meet.
Joyce’s line about the ‘Old sow still eating its own farrow’ still applies, it seems.
The globe is at his feet
AN example of an Irish person who spent time abroad to learn his trade and eventually came back home to settle down is the Golden Globe winner, Cillian Murphy, of course.
Cillian did us proud last week by winning best actor in a motion picture: drama for his riveting performance at the heart of Christopher Nolan’s Oppenheimer, an almost overwhelmingly bombastic biopic about the life of the American theoretical physicist credited with being the ‘father of the atomic bomb’.
Cillian beat the likes of Leonardo Di Caprio and Bradley Cooper to the award, but we’re mostly proud in Cork because the Ballintemple man hammered two Dublin fellas in the process.
The fact that there were three Irish actors in the running shows the rude health of our screen industry.
My jaw is still located somewhere below my knees, however, since reading about the $500,000 Golden Globes Goodie Bags that winners received at the ceremony.
The bags included items like private jet credits; yacht charters; a $400 bottle of gender-neutral perfume; six bottles of the world’s most expensive wine, Liber Pater, valued at $193,500; a fiveday luxury experience at the Ritz-Carlton Grand Cayman, valued at $20,000, and a body tattoo worth $2,500 from Atelier Eva, a fine art studio based in Brooklyn.
All for standing in front of a camera pretending to be somebody else, like. And it sounds like an awfully busy weekend for someone like Cillian who would simply prefer to do a spot of sea swimming and grocery shopping, by all accounts.
It’s fair to say the IFTAs will have to up their game. A bag of penny sweets and a copy of the Evening Herald might not cut it anymore.
Back to the foggy dew
THERE was disappointment for the Haven at the weekend after their heroic run in the All-Ireland club championship.
I feel for the players having to play in what are pretty ludicrous weather conditions at this time of year. A lot of club games on TG4 these days are more akin to scenes from The Revenant – ice, thick fog, the odd earthquake – you wouldn’t put your dog out in it.
I hear rumours that one of the fullbacks in the fog-laden Watty Graham’s Glen v Kilmacud Crokes game had to fight off a bear just before half-time.
It’s hard to get confirmation of any of this because very few people actually saw the game. And I am including the crowd, the television commentary team, the referee and half the players on the pitch, a few of whom could still be out there roaming around in the fog.
I'm nicely Bruce-d up
FINALLY, for those of you eagerly awaiting an update on my cranky Buy Better Presents For Dad campaign piece before Christmas, please let me tell you that it worked.
Santy brought Bruce Springsteen tickets after all.
