WHAT is a Tik Tok Taoiseach to do? With his ratings ramping up like the price of Oasis tickets, it seems like sunlit uplands are the only direction of travel for Sincere Simon who keeps popping up on my socials holding forth at the UN, hugging babies with wild abandon. and generally giving the impression of a fella with his sleeves rolled up who is ready to lead the nation for a couple of generations.
This change in fortune in the polls is surprising in many ways. The scandal over the National Children’s Hospital is entering what feels like a third century and Harris was centrally involved in the contractual stages as Minister For Health. Likewise, the housing crisis is going nowhere with desperation entering Celtic Tiger proportions for young couples clambering to get on the property ladder and those less fortunate having to deal with handing over most of their hard earned wages to landlords, as if the Brits had never left. It is worth reminding people that the existing government parties presided over much of this.
Polls can be taken with a pinch of salt, as we all know, and maybe Sinn Féin can peak again at the right time, come the election, but at the moment they are firmly in the doldrums.
Hence, there must be a lot of pressure on Harris to announce an election at this point. Impatient backbenchers must surely be salivating at the thought of better days ahead, especially with so many Fine Gaelers leaving politics to explore pastures new – or the great Consultancy Gig in the Sky, as I call it.
Unfortunately for Harris, he has promised himself into a corner on this, having previously sworn – probably on the life of one of the cute little babies he was holding for a photograph – that there would be no election before the end of the full term.
What Simon says and what Simon does could end up being different things.
Heating talk is heating up
EVERY year, around this time, I find myself hovering over the keyboard, writing about my urge to turn on the heating for the first time. I went back to last year’s column to investigate and sure enough, to the week, the same crisis was enveloping me. Some years, I exercise restraint and make long dinner-table speeches to my poor family about wearing woolly jumpers and how Charlie Haughey used to encourage us to tighten our belts in the 80s. I extemporise wildly about Bovril and how the thermals we wore were probably flammable and go on at great length about how a one degree reduction on the thermostat can affect your carbon footprint.
But this year, I have to say, I’m in more of a generous mood. I think the main reason is getting solar panels in and doing my darndest to cut down our electricity costs using our new battery system, all summer. Paying a few cent for a bit of comfort feels ok.
I also remember what it was like in the 80s when there was no such thing as a central heating system and we would huddle around an electric fan heater every morning perished with the cold, pining for June.
This year, pushing up the thermometer a degree or two in the morning feels like something I should be giving my children. Don’t judge me, West Cork.
Homework ain’t so bad
SPEAKING of children – I have some bad news for them.
I read with interest during the week that a study from Maynooth University has concluded that homework is a good thing.
We haven’t really entered the ‘homework battle’ stage of life with our ones yet, largely because of the rather liberal attitude to homework that exists in their primary school. There is no homework at all until October and after that they are treated to a menu of options they can choose from, like they are ordering sushi in a restaurant rather than being put through their academic paces.
I have to bite my tongue at times like these. I went to a primary school which had me doing three to four hours of homework at the weekends – in second class! In some schools there was indiscriminate violence conducted by teachers on a daily basis, but that’s a story for another day.
Hence, if things seem a bit easy-going in the school, I put it down to my own hang-ups rather than anything their brilliant and kind teachers are doing wrong.
The joy of getting older is that you are more aware of all your massively unhelpful hang-ups and prejudices and learn to manage them – well at least most of the time.
The results of the Maynooth study, which focuses on secondary school homework, are not surprising.
It concluded that a ‘little and often’ approach enhanced students’ performance and was just as effective as longer-duration assignments.
So all those hours crying over a history assignment instead of a dose of Saturday morning TV were a waste of time!
I knew I was better off watching Pajo’s Junkbox!
Short-duration tasks, lasting up to 15 minutes, and done on a consistent basis, seem to be the sweet spot in secondary school.
So, as is often the case, common sense wins in the end. Now, if only we could apply some common sense to the nonsense that is our Leaving Certificate.
