Draw Breath

A minor furore today over whether or not Coldplay has copied Joe Satriani's If I Could Fly with their song Viva La Vida. I have to say that close aural scrutiny does reveal a similar chord progression and melody line in parts. However, If I Could Fly is not the most memorable tune ever. Pleasant and all as it is, Viva la Vida is not one of Coldplay's strongest numbers either. In fact, I would be inclined to believe Coldplay when they say any similarity is coincidental. No danger of similarities between tunes during Coldplay's concert in Dublin on 14 September with Girls Aloud and Jay-Z as support. An eclectic mix which could make or break the evening!

Great news for all potential flat dwellers if all new minimum standards for rented accommodation  listed in today's Irish Times are realised.  It does come as a bit of a surprise, however, that these new standards are an enhanced version of standards issued fifteen years ago. It's the first that I and possibly most other students of the Nineties have heard of it.  

My own Dublin flat renting lasted for a period of around 10 years and the hallmark of practically all dwellings was that they were dilapidated. What's more, we queued for the privilege. On one occasion, I was fortunate enough to spot an ad in Irish in the evening paper for bedsits off the South Circular Road. There was still a sizeable queue. The best thing about one particular bedsit was that the water immersion tank was in a cupboard in my room, so whenever the meter was cranked up a bit of extra heat was generated. This was needed, given the cracks in both windows and the hole in the ceiling. In another, the landlord reliably informed me that the heavy creatures I could hear hurtling alongside the water pipes at night were simply little field mice coming in from the cold! Family members have had equally insane experiences;  one person cooked out of a cupboard for two years, another had a chipboard structure cum bathroom bang in the middle of her only room. I have often wondered since why we weren't even half tempted to complain.  The reality of the situation was that there was very little choice until the late Nineties; it was squalor or nothing on a tight budget.

As students, we at least had the hope that one day the standard of our accomodation would move on to another level. However, for a large number of Irish people on low wages and newly arrived immigrants, there is no such reality in the Ireland of today. Furthermore, while the sub-standard dwellings of the nineteen nineties were reasonably cheap (stangely enough, given the demand), today's newspapers and online ads carry hefty rents for addresses which are still, patently, as run-down as ever.

So, here's hoping that in the very near future all rented bathrooms will be “provided in a room separate from other rooms by a wall and door and containing separate ventilation”, that heating will consist of “fixed appliances capable of providing effective heating and proper ventilation”, and that the facade and common areas of rented accomodation will “be clean and well maintained”. If not, let's hope the flat dwellers of today are more aware of their rights and less afraid of pursuing them.

Alison Millar's documentary on Father Michael Cleary aired last night on BBC 1 and is a useful bookend to the history of Ireland over the past two decades. Filmed as a student project over the course of several months in 1991, Millar was privy to the banalities of a priest's domestic life. She was also witness to arguably the greatest single accelerant in the destruction of the Catholic Church in Ireland. Yet, due to her age or her naivity, Millar did not sense that anything was amiss in her portrayal of Father Michael Cleary's life with his house-keeper and her son. In the documentary she recalls this time and reflects on how she could have missed the fact that the boy Ross was, in fact, Father Cleary's son. Denying paternity to the end, Fr. Cleary's star was dulled in the early nineteen nineties.

Millar's film is fascinating on a number of levels. Firstly, its depiction of the esteem in which Fr. Cleary was held in Ireland is absolutely
authentic. This was a giant of a man, who was revered by old and young alike, who travelled across the country giving forthright talks, whose evening radio programme was a source of great interest to many. He was a celebrity in his own right but one who inevitably became the conscience of the nation. Secondly, the depiction of the Cleary family life is so intimate, so easy, that it begs the question how could people not have known the truth? A striking presence in the earlier and later footage is his older sister. To coin a Dublin phrase, this lady, and indeed none of the relations depicted, could be accused of coming down the Liffey in a bubble. Was it the case that most people in close proximity to Fr. Cleary had a a very clear idea of the truth but felt unable or unwilling to say anything?

In the hands of an older person the camera in Millar's documentary would have painted a far more provocative picture. In her early footage, she is both childlike in her treatment of the subject and in her role as the storyteller. She is pupil, beneficiary, empty vessel to Fr. Cleary. She shows what she sees but her own overt involvement in the filming process precludes any objective analysis. Contrast Millar's film with the footage of Father Cleary shot nearly fifteen years earlier in the film the Rocky Road to Dublin and one is immediately struck by how much the deft cinematographer can say with very little. Raul Coutard's camera almost caresses its subjects. The closeness is not matched by engagement between film-maker and subject. The camera is all-seeing and says all. The viewer is unsettled by the shots of Father Cleary. Not surprisingly, the film was banned in Ireland.

However, Alison Millar's footage retains its power precisely because it is a void rather than an accurate presentation. That the film-maker has no clue of this makes the footage almost endearing.

The return of Millar and Ross to Father Cleary's old place of residence reveals many good feelings and memories from his former congregation. His son is articulate and forgiving. The Dublin of the early nineteen nineties might well have been on a different planet. Ironically, we have Father Cleary in part to thank for that.

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-->Michael Wood's excellent BBC documentary The Story of India whets the appetite for further information on a rich and fascinating country. For someone coming to Indian history for the first time, I would recomend A Traveller's History of India by Sinharaaja Tammita-Delgoda. Despite being aimed at a prospective visitor to India, it is more detailed history than travelogue. Also, although the British colonial period is covered, it represents just a chapter in the book which starts the historical journey at 1500 BC and ends with a discussion of the present unrest in both India and Pakistan.

Though outbreaks of strife and power struggles punctuate India's past, the country went through long periods of stability and blossoming creativity. One character who paid a part in this was the enigmatic Mughal leader Akbar (1542–1605). Although he never learned to read or write, his son Jahangir (who unfortunately turned against him in later years) reports:

Although he was illiterate, so much became clear to him through constant intercourse with the learned and the wise in his conversations. He counted his wakefulness at night as so much added to his life.

Akbar's greatest achievement was in creating an inclusive empire, one in which all religions were tolerated and encouraged. Many places of worship had both Muslim and Hindu elements. Akbar also loved the arts and the Hindi epic Ramcharitmanas was written dring his reign.

Unfortunately, after Akbar's death, many of the interwining strands started to unravel. It is hard to imagine his cultural vision of society being achieved today.

I came across this video in the course of work. Just goes to show
that school discipline problems weren't so different in the 1940's. I
particularly like the uber cautionary tone adopted by the narrator.

A diverting but useful addition to coverage of the US election is Politifact.com. The site has the stated aim of separating fact from fiction in comment by and about the candidates and parties. I particularly like the pants on fire tag, awarded for outlandish statements.

With all the talk of American primaries and the continuing unrest in Pakistan and Kenya, Iraq has slipped from the news radar slightly in recent days. The Boys from Baghdad High screened last night by BBC2 brought the reality of living in war-torn Baghdad to life in a far more vivid manner than any news item could do.

The Boys from Baghdad High involved giving video cameras to four boys from the final year class in Baghdad High. With the cameras, they recorded their day to day life over the academic year. They were all of different religion and of very different temperament; English is seen as a ticket to university for one, as a way of becoming a singer songwriter for another. A third boy has no interest in studying whatsoever and is on course for failure across the board in his final exams.

Danger and death is part and parcel of the lives of these seventeen year olds. Even the simple omission of forgetting to send a text message sends one of them into a day-long worry for the safety of his girlfriend. Yet, through it all, what emerges from the Boys of Baghdad High is the resilience of the teenagers featured. Who can forget the excitement of coming up to one's final exams in secondary school. The sense of tangible freedom and possibility. The intensity of relationships with friends and others. Above all, the sense of fun imbued in the teenage spirit. This is not lacking in the four boys of Baghdad High. They are funny, disarming and terrifyingly well-adjusted considering the menace surrounding them. That they should be beaten down on their journey to adulthood is yet another travesty of this war.

The open road, the freedom afforded by a life of wandering, is much celebrated in every art form. Literature is full of tales of the lure of wandering, either in non-fiction form or in the creations of Swift, Shakespeare, Twain or Jack London In music, the Bruce Springsteen song Further On (Up the Road) perfectly evokes both the uncertainty and the excitement afforded to the traveller.

I have recently finished the book Into the Wild by John Krakaur, the film version of which is playing in cinemas at present (and is certainly worth seeing). Into the Wild tells the story of Chris McCandless

I have to say I was more confused at the end of David McWilliams's Generation Game on RTE last night than at the beginning of it. McWilliams is an Irish economist who amongst other things was the first to predict the advent of the Celtic Tiger and is now heralding its demise.

The crux of his argument was that the Irish diaspora are key to turning the situation in Ireland around. A second generation Irish American family in New York is shown as an example of Irish culture flourishing far away from home. Direct descendants of 1890s emigrants to Argentina speak of their affinity to Ireland and their desire to return to the homeland.

Key to the Argentinians' situation is the fact that they have been denied Irish passports and are thus unable to spend long in Ireland. Conversely, it is shown that other nationalities with less of a traditional affinity with Ireland, such as the Lithuanians, have been not only allowed to live in Ireland permanently but are also careful to maintain their own individual culture within Ireland. McWilliams is not averse to this; indeed he uses the Lithuanian example as an example of how the Irish fared and prospered when they initially left for places like New York or Liverpool. Wayne Rooney's grandmother is also featured, explaining the strong links today between Liverpool and Ireland.

So, Irishness and an increased sense of what is means to be Irish has been beneficial and will be beneficial in the future. This mentality has served us well in the past. Indeed, the continued success of such Irish exports as Riverdance proves the marketability of the Irish product. Another Irish product such as Guinness is making huge inroads into heretofore unlikely target markets such as Nigeria.

Product is the key to the resurgence of the Irish marketplace and McWilliams suggests that the most successful business ideas going forward will be products built on concepts; virtual rather than real.

The issue becomes clouded when the question of who ultimately buys and sells this product is raised. Argentina, The US and Britain hold so many millions of the Irish diaspora and can be relied on to be supportive of their roots. However, the one country with no historic links to Ireland, no emotional interest in the success or failure of the Irish economy is also mentioned as key, China. Irish companies are increasingly seeing the benefit of hiring young Chinese migrants who have beome knowledgeable about Irish culture and taste and are keen to forge business links between Ireland and China.

Young professionals in China may have a strong affinity with Ireland. However, they may simply be trying to make the best sale. Does this not suggest that, increasingly, profit could be predicated more on innovation than culture? Equally, should the culture of a host country assume a huge importance to newcomers whose main concern is building a better financial future for themselves? If they do not wish to embrace the culture of the host country instead of their own, surely they are still contributing to the growth of the country in their own way. In short, is culture all that important when it comes to creating and selling ideas in the information age?

Perhaps the Argentinians should be given passports regardless.

I have just finished the incredible In the Wake by Per Petterson. Petterson won this year's IMPAC Dublin Literary Award for Out Stealing Horses. In the Wake is at least semi-autobiographical in that it describes the Scandanavian Star disaster of 1990, the disaster in which a number of Petterson's own family died. The book is a meditation on loss but is not without moments of comedy. We meet the main character lapsing into an all to common breakdown on the streets of his home town. Such is his despair at not possessing enough money to buy a fizzy drink in his local shop that the shop assistant simply gives it to him without question.

Grief on the loss of his much loved family members has rendered life unbearably heavy; even the weight of his own body seems too much. Six years on from the tragedy, his life is still a waking nightmare; dreams and vsions intersperse the book. The book reminds me of some of Thomas Hardy's most poignant poems on grief; the mist of Hardy here being replaced by vast snowscapes. There is no one moment of recovery, simply a series of false starts which somehow propel the narrator back to some kind of normality. The incongruousness of some of these false starts is not lost on him, whether in a moment of sheer panic while in flagrante or while being told to keep driving during a snow storm.

In the Wake may not have got any major awards but in the tradition of all great books, it lingers and changes in the mind long after a first reading.