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Can’t I turn my back for one minute? Last week I went off to London to spend a few days with my mum. Sitting in her living room, pure terror ran through me, as Mum told me a tale of horror about her friends, who live around the corner in the road where I grew up.
Above the front door of Jewish homes there’s a tiny container holding a prayer, written on parchment: a mezuzah.
Vile scumbags had been going down this road, knocking on doors with a mezuzah and yelling
“Heil Hitler!”
at lone senior ladies opening their doors.
Immediately protective of my mum, I felt amazed yet again by the stoicism she displayed.
After a childhood lived as millions of bombs fell nightly from the sky, her Blitz Generation takes things in their stride.
Alongside the police, my family and friends feel protected by their local Jewish community. There exists a strong sense of belonging, of togetherness, supporting and being supported by each other.
Even though I’m an atheist, I feel culturally and in every other way Jewish. The Nazis didn’t care if Jews believed in God or not, but here in the west of Ireland there’s no similar community to lean on, reach out to, talk to.
In fact Irish opinions on Palestine and Israel are often as naive as many of the views I hear from the other end of the spectrum, back in London. I end up wary of speaking about or writing my views, as I love my friends and family, and if I did so it would upset both.
So often I feel pretty damn lonely in both places I call home.
Maybe this lack of community support was the reason I felt more scared than Mum did: if someone heil Hitlered me at my door, I’d be bloody terrified.
Ah, but wasn’t this why I fell in love with life here in the West of Ireland? Aren’t we compassionate here, preferring people to profit and a heart to heart more than a heil Hitler?
Shaken by mum’s news and rolling coverage of the London Bridge murders, I go online to comfort myself. What’s going on back in lovely gentle Galway?
Fascists are throwing rocks through the windows of the Ahmadiyya Mosque in Ballybane.
You’re kidding me.
The City Council is evicting ten young families, offering no plan for their future accommodation, beyond presenting themselves as homeless to the City Council.
“Ah!” you gasp. “He forgot to say they were Traveller families!”
No, I didn’t. My first job in Galway was working with young Traveller children in the Rahoon Flats, and years later I worked with teenage Traveller boys in Ballybane.
What were they like?
Well, there were a couple of no good violent types, quite a few half-decent boys, loads of good ‘uns and one or two pure salt of the earth diamonds.
If that breakdown sounds familiar it’s because it works for the entirety of the human race. We’re not all angels, but there’s a lot more good than bad.
Over the years I grew weary of debates about whether Travellers were an ethnic minority. The only truth seems to be that they are discriminated against like one.
You might have young family members living in your house or garden. Unable to afford housing, they need a mobile home while they save, or to live rent free while they balance caring for young kids with work.
How would you feel when you hear that the council has evicted them from their home, with no offer of alternative housing?
Wouldn’t happen, would it.
You’re not a Traveller.
None of the tired arguments about bringing it upon themselves will wash in this instance. Awarded by the Diocese, these homes have supported the growth of 10 young families over the past 25 years, and now the authorities wish to wash their hands of them.
There’s been no new Traveller accommodation in Galway for over 20 years, so this eviction is forcing people onto the roadside. Happily there was a wonderful turnout of demonstrators in support of these families, just as there was outside the Mosque.
I wish I could have been there too.
Broken windows make me think of Kristallnacht.
Those protesters belong to the loving and caring majority in that breakdown of human types.
However, some become blinkered by their rush for justice.
Mentally masturbated by Facebook feeds that mirror exactly what they want to believe, far too many people now see the world in black and white, when humanity is truly a thousand shades of grey.
In a mad rush to attach themselves to one extreme, in order to do battle with another, many lose sight of subtlety and moderation.
We are complex beings and better humans when our opinions reflect that.
I fear the speed with which people are making irrational connections. An ideology that wants me dead inspires an idiot terrorist who’d lived in Ireland to kill innocents in London, which leads to a bunch of dangerous fools attacking a mosque in Galway.
In their eagerness to make sense of this hate crime, some then create erroneous links to the Palestinian flag that flew over Galway City Hall, which leaves this Jew, who yearns for a safe Israel and a free Palestinian State, feeling mildly intimidated.
Ah poor diddums.
Galway is far from Gaza, but in a hurry to fortify their own truths, people are starting to think in two dimensions, so such statements can quickly lead to those neo-Nazi bastards threatening my mother’s friends on their doorsteps.
If you need to feel tribal, support Galway.©Charlie Adley
11.06.2017
“Howya Charlie!”
“Well hello Seamus!”
“You recognised my voice! Fair play to you!”
“Well, you have a very, erm, how can I say, individual voice mate. What can I do for you? How the hell are you? Haven’t spoken to you for ages!”
“I’m good, my friend. Good, yeh. All is good. Just wanted a bit of advice about the writing, Charlie. That’s all. Want to get back into the scribbling again, and not sure how to go about it.”
“Well that’s good mate. You know the story. Just get stuck in. You’re a heck of a poet and wordsmith, but as you know poetry isn’t my area of expertise.”
“I do, but you helped me before and I see you every week, month in month out, year in year out, turning out the work, and I want of bit of that self-discipline, to work every day like, y’know?”
“I do mate, but I’m sorry. Can’t help you with that. Self-discipline is a bit beyond my remit. Maybe you need a life coach or a personal trainer or something.”
Hysterical laughter at both ends of the phone.
“Sure, aren’t there thousands of personal trainers here in Tuam? Doesn’t every sham have his own personal feckin’ trainer up here!”
“What I mean is, I can’t help you do it. All you need is enough desire and you’ll find yourself working, and desire is something you’ve got in spades, Seamus. You’re a driven writer.”
“Well thanks for that, Charlie. Makes me feel better to hear that, just on its own like, but seriously like, for a moment now, how do you do it?”
“To be honest mate, you’re asking the wrong person. You should be calling someone like Dave O’Connell, the chief editor of the paper. He has to write a rake of news stories, edit a whole lot more, pass the final edition of the paper and write his own column every week. All I have to do is come up with 1,000 words a week. As far as gigs go, mine’s a gift. Open brief, write anything I want, ‘cept maybe make sure to mention Galway as often as possible. Also I suppose I have to take into account who’s reading it, but that’s not difficult, because the people who are buying this paper are probably around my own age, so I have some idea how they feel.”
“So how do you do it? Do you plan ahead, or just come up with something on the spot?”
“Both, neither, whatever works at the time. Sometimes I haven’t a single idea in my not-so pretty little head, and then a first sentence wanders in while I brush my teeth. Also it depends on where I’m at in my madness. After a long dark bluey, I can get such a buzz off’ve the manic upswing, my head will be jumping and pumping with ideas. That’s when I’ll be sitting at my computer for hours, writing up notes on maybe six or seven pieces at once, or a short story, or whatever I feel like writing.”
“Wow, that sounds fantastic.”
“Yeh, it’s pretty brilliant when that happens alright, which is why I won’t go for the anti-depressants. I’d hate to lose that wave of creative energy I feel after a heavy bout. Anyway, I haven’t had a really bad visit from my black dog for a long time, thank fuck. But I’m wondering, maybe that’s what you should do, Seamus. Just sit and write anything and everything you feel like. Just sit there and don’t think and let it come and know you can’t go wrong.”
“Hmm. That sounds good. Thing is, not sure at the moment what I want to write about.”
“Well don’t then. Sitting and scribbling is only part of the process. Go sit on a rock and watch the tide turn. Walk your legs off into Nowheresville, County Galway, talking out loud to yourself. Also, don’t listen to me, ‘cos right now I’m absolutely out of ideas. Gets like this sometimes. I’ve a few trips coming up, so I have to get ahead of the game by writing 8 colyooms in 4 weeks, and, well, I’ve been pretty reclusive recently, so apart from wittering about the swallows and dandelions, I’m up the Swanee.”
“Get yourself into town with a sandwich board and stand on Cross Street.”
“What d’ya mean? Like a board with ‘Inspire Me!’ painted on it?”
Much laughter.
“Yeh! ‘Inspire Me!’ That’s a good one. Or ‘Ideas Wanted! Offers Welcome! Best Prices paid!’ I bet you’d get loads stopping and talking to you.”
“Oh yeh, can you imagine. Or I could get a dog on a string and sit on Wolfe Tone Bridge under a blanket, with a sign saying: ‘Colyoomless. Please Help!’ I’d have every nutter in town preaching at me. It’d be like Joe Duffy but on my legs and face to face. Come moan at me, with your sad Irish voice in a minor key!”
“Jeeze, Charlie, that’s like poetry.”
“Yeh, ‘like’ being the operative word, mate. Don’t know if I can write something I don’t understand, and as I said, right now I’m not sure what the hell to write about anyway.”
“Couldn’t you take a break? Like, all these columnists, you see ‘So and So is away’, in the papers and mags.”
“Yeh, like yer man Jeffrey Bernard? No mate. Not my style. Even when my Dad died I filed a colyoom. Was cathartic to write about him, at the time. I’ll come up with something, as will you, because life is strange and terrible and wonderful. Sorry I couldn’t help, Seamus. Just pretty vacant, brain-wise.”
“Oh you did help me, Charlie. Just talking to you helps.”
“Same as that mate. So good to hear your wry smile down the phone line.”
“So what’ll it be this week, Charlie? Why not write about having nothing to write about?”
“Ah now, not sure about that. Wouldn’t that be seen as extracting the Michael?”
©Charlie Adley
10.05.2017
What a nasty election this has been. Maybe that’s because the entire process was born out of a massive conceit.
Setting out to appeal to bewildered Labour voters and UKIP orphans, Theresa May created a sub-Churchillian atmosphere of Us Against Them, claiming she could secure a better Brexit deal if she had a massive majority in government.
What a load of tosh. May knows well that when her team face up to negotiations with the EU, the size of her parliamentary majority will not make the slightest difference.
When Alexis Tsipras arrived in Brussels after Syriza’s massive landslide victory, Wolfgang Schäuble bluntly rebuffed his mandate thus:
“It’s yours against mine.”
There will be 27 other mandates on that table, and in the EU, an entity perfectly designed to give heretic governments the runaround; to obfuscate and confuse.
Rather than spoil her campaign with that inconvenient truth, May prefers to win over a certain Brit voter who doesn’t mind a bit of argy bargy with Johnny Foreigner.
That voter longs for England to control its borders. May looks the type who’ll close the doors, yet here lies more deceit.
It is an accepted truth that a thriving Western economy needs a broad base of migrant workers.
Those who constantly complain that immigrants steal English jobs will not be eagerly racing off their sofas to fill vacancies created by Europeans departing base and messy industries.
Work for those hours, at that rate of pay?
Are you kidding? Who do you think I am, mate?
Britain needs immigrants, and without free movement from the EU, the UK will have to open its doors to people from all over the world, doubtless with many more skin types than the EU offered.
Not sure those refugees from UKIP voting Tory this time round will like that so much.
You can’t blame May for calling the election. If I’d been elected leader of my party and in the process become Prime Minster, I’d be overjoyed to see my opposition in the throes of civil war.
Had May simply said that as her opposition was in tatters, she’d decided it’d be pretty silly not to go for a General Election, I would admire her.
Had she said:
“I is doin’ it now, ‘cos they over there is totes rubbish!” I might even have voted for her.
Unfortunately in this particular Game of Thrones there’s room only for conceit and deceit.
May’s mantra of ‘strong and stable government’ was a conceit. What is strong about a government that fails to balance its books for 15 years; that by 2020 will have borrowed more than all previous Labour governments combined?
What is strong about an economy that needs to cut the triple lock on pensions; that abolishes free school lunches; that sees wages shrinking against prices for the first time in decades?
The Tories have been in power for 7 years.
When will strong actually mean strong?
What is stable about saying you won’t call an election and then calling an election? What is stable about denying Scotland the right to another referendum, because that would destabilise the Brexit process, and then calling an election to stabilise the Brexit process?
Jeremy Corbyn is not free from deceit. As leader of the Labour Party he turned his back on his own beliefs and campaigned to Remain, when a man of true principle might have stepped down.
After backtracking on Trident, Corbyn started to look suspiciously like every other politician, until he redeemed himself, first by saying that this election was less about Brexit, and more about what kind of country UK voters prefer to live in, and then bravely declaring the War on Terror a failure.
He implied what others dare not say, even though we all know it to be true: if you bomb people in their homes, they will bomb you in yours.
Alone in suggesting policies that might alleviate this horrific revenge cycle of terrorism and war, Corbyn wants to review UK foreign policy, in order to make the streets of home safer places.
This of course left Corbyn open to a barrage of abuse from Boris Johnson and crew, rushing to misquote and malign the Labour leader, claiming he’d said those victims deserved to die.
A nasty little election it is, indeed.
Lurking behind the conceits and deceits of our electoral processes lies a new and dangerous subterfuge.
It was not a shock when news broke last week that the
Conservatives had been bombarding voters in marginal constituencies with ads and messages from fake Facebook accounts.
Through his business Renaissance Technologies, Right Wing billionaire Robert Mercer is able to sell power to the highest bidder.
Using Brexit as his petri dish, Mercer donated millions of pounds to the Leave campaign, combining vast data mining with harvesting Facebook profiles.
During the US election, his organisation sent individualised messages to targeted voters in vital swing States, while also creating tens of thousands of false Twitter accounts that split and grew exponentially.
They spread the Trump word, both because he’d paid the most to be heard, and because Mercer's Right Wing agenda would be well served.
Brexit was won or lost by a margin 52-48. Trump won solely by electoral college, after losing the popular vote. Mercer’s apparent ability to influence floating voters via social media is disturbingly significant.
Available only to the super rich, this dark bastardising of thought constitutes a new and real threat to our freedoms.
The conceit and deceit we are used to.
©Charlie Adley
28.05.2017
A few weeks ago I was sitting on the loo, perusing The Guardian’s G2 section. For years I’ve been amused by its Pass Notes column: a daily dialogue which asks cheeky questions of a topical subject, with responses in kind.
No. 3,851 was headed Galway, solely because of the presence of Ed Sheeran and the video he filmed in the city.
I didn’t make it past the first four questions, which went like this:
Location: The middle of the west coast of Ireland.
Age: About 900 years.
Appearance: Oh, you know, it’s a perfectly nice old Irish port city. Small. Don’t expect Venice or good weather.
Known For: Arts festivals, horse racing, Ed Sheeran.
Even though I knew I was being foolish, for some reason this innocuous whimsy managed to bug me for weeks.
Can’t I take a joke any more? After 25 years here, have I become parochial and petty?
Yes I can and no I’m not.
So why was I feeling so defensive about such throwaway comments?
Had the day had come when I felt more of a Galwegian than a Londoner?
Was that why my answers to their last two questions would be powered by so much emotion, you'd end up with more of a wrench in your heart than a wry smile on your lips.
Such is the nonsensical nature of comparatives, if you come from somewhere bigger, Galway might indeed seem small.
As someone who comes from a city which makes many others in Europe appear meagre, I feel one of Galway’s greatest qualities is that it’s a perfect size.
No seething metropolis, you need neither bus nor taxi to fully appreciate this city centre. You can walk from one end of it to another in 20 minutes, but it’ll take a lot longer than that, as you’ll be stopping to enjoy the music on the streets, or watch someone wearing burning underpants walk a tightrope at Johnny Massacre Corner.
If you’ve spent more than a day here you’ll be engaged by Howyas looking for inconsequential chit-chat, and even though you intended to head straight from Eyre Square to the river, you’ve ended up in Garavan’s for a whiskey, and then PJ McDonagh’s for sublime fish and chips.
When you’ve tired of sitting outside a pub or café, watching the gentle crowds pass along the ancient streets (why on earth did they call it the ‘Latin Quarter’? There’s nothing Latin about it. The ‘Medieval Quarter’ would be so much more apt!) you can walk across Wolfe Tone Bridge to the west of the city, looking left to see the River Corrib roar out into the Atlantic, across to the Kingdom of the Claddagh and over, beyond, to the purple-hued mountains of Clare.
On a blue sky Summer’s evening the low sunlight picks out green fields miles away across the bay, bringing vivid life to far-distant farmhouses.
Once west of the river you can browse the seemingly endless restaurants on Dominick Street, catch a gig at the Rosin Dubh or see an exhibition at the Arts Centre. Then enjoy a gig and the smell of woodsmoke in Monroe’s, or maybe a Trad session at the Crane Bar.
Whatever your tastes, you’ll find your own place.
Since my arrival here in 1992, Galway City has evolved from being a city that has tourists into a tourist city, but apart from the second week of the Arts Festival and Race Week, there’s never a time when the place feels full.
There used to be a couple of months each side of Christmas when the tourists disappeared, but they now come all year long,
marching the streets,
ear-plugged in,
side by side in columns of four,
just as they sat on their coach,
identical pac-a-macs at the ready.
They pass and calm returns.
No, Galway City is not Venice, and thank goodness for that. Venice is utterly wedged with tourists 52 weeks of the year.
Although Galway’s extensive network of waterways might not compare with its wondrous Venetian counterparts, of a Tuesday afternoon you can stare into the waters of one of Galway's canals, alone and in silence, while behind you, in the river, a wild salmon jumps for joy, simply because it can.
Well, more likely because it saw an insect to eat, but that you will not see in the diesel-ridden waters of Italy’s ancient city.
Yes, this city is famous for its festivals and horse racing, but that is like saying London is known for the Tate Gallery and Twickenham.
Galway is loved for its incredible people, revered for an atmosphere that grabs your dreams by the goolies while simultaneously whispering in your ear:
“This is the place you’ve been searching for all your life.”
Well, that’s what I heard in my head and I’ve never once regretted listening to that voice.
Finally, I realised why that little Guardian column had elicited such a strong reaction from me.
They described Galway as ‘perfectly nice.’
We all know it’s a heck of a long way from perfect, but to me our city is not nice: it is great, one of the wonders of our county, alongside the startling glories of Connemara, unique and unmatched by anything I’ve seen on three continents.
‘Nice’ is what you call a cup of tea. I love Galway with a passion, just as it has loved me back.
Ed Sheeran’s hit ‘Galway Girl’ charted at No. 2 in England and No.1 in Ireland, but I’ll always prefer Steve Earle's different song of the same name.
Much like Galway itself, Earle’s fine tune makes us smile, telling a tale of a place where nobody minds walking in the rain…
Ever since we moved into this house five years ago I’ve been waiting for today to come, yet now that it’s here I’m tense as hell - and that’s after the valium!
At some point between 9:30 and 5:30 today, the people from Eir or Eir-Ring or OpenEir or whatever they’re called will turn up to deliver unto us high speed fibre broadband.
Yay! Fantastic! You’re such a grumpy old man, Adley. What could possibly be annoying about that?
At this stage of my relationship with Eir, I wonder what might possibly go right.
When a service provider fails to deliver either the promised product or price, I take the struggle for justice to the outer limits of time and patience.
You happy breed out there with real lives, jobs to go to and kids to pick up from school cannot sit forever on a phone listening to Neil Diamond, while being repeatedly informed that your call really matters
I however can, and being a tenacious and dogged little bugger, I’ll stick in there until some kind of reasonable and just result has been achieved.
In the past I’ve had success with Sky, Hertz, Talk Talk, Argos and several others, but Eir have defeated me, over and over again.
Only 25 minutes drive from Quay Street, this house is 7km off the main road, so I had to set up TV, internet, landline and mobiles separately, which cost me and my small business a fortune.
At first I used a wireless internet operator with astonishingly good customer service, but they could do nothing about the leaves on the trees. All winter we had internet, but come Spring the signal disappeared.
Didn’t sound great to clients, when I called to explain that I couldn’t send my work right now, as the oaks across the way were in full bloom.
Since then I’ve been using Q-Sat which is reliable yet slow (latest news: now nonexistent!). Add that to the Sky TV and the Eir bundle with the landline and two mobiles and you’re looking at a major wad of outgoing green folding.
Even as I typed the words ‘Eir bundle’ I audibly growled. For years I have been trying to persuade Eir in its various forms to offer me a fair deal, because it was not our fault that they couldn’t supply us with broadband, making us ineligible for their best bundles.
After hours of communication with innumerable call centre supervisors and press offices, I managed to secure new package after new package, only to find each time the bill came that the bastards had charged me for stuff they’d said was free.
Despite clinging to my struggle like a drowning man to a lifebelt, nobody at Eir gave a flying lump of horse pooh about my woes, until one day I wandered into the Eir shop in Galway City, and dealt with physical human beings.
At last my problems were taken seriously. On production of recent bills they shook their heads and tutted. I felt alone no more. So whatever happens today, I’d like to say a massive thanks to the crew in that shop: you have been wonderful!
Despite their best efforts however, my bills were still showing the wrong numbers, and then a few weeks ago I noticed Eir lads working in the bohreen.
“Yes, we’re fitting the fibre broadband, so you can have a bundle with internet, digital TV and phones.”
“Fantastic, lads! That’ll save me over €100 a month! Should I go ahead and cancel the Sky and Q-Sat?”
“Er, no. Don’t cancel anything until it’s all up and running, okay!”
A few days later a very energised young rep arrived on my doorstep, unaware of my history with Eir. Each time he started to reel off the offers...
“All calls, all texts to all landlines and all mobiles -”
I swiftly raised my hand in the air, declaring, calmly yet emphatically:
“Stop.”
I hadn’t the energy to tell him of my years of Eir woe; how all these lists were now etched into my brain as pure lies; how I just wanted him to give me a quote for the broadband, TV, landline and mobiles bundle.
“Surely we’ll get one of those deals advertised everywhere, as we’re new broadband customers!”
“Er no, see, you’re existing customers, see, so here’s what it’ll cost you now!”
He showed me a figure that represented less than we already pay for our phones alone, so although I was excited, I didn’t trust it, explaining to the rep that I’d take it down to the Eir shop for their opinion.
“Sure, see if they offer you a better price than me! Bet they can’t!” he retorted chirpily, leaving me wondering why on earth the same company was bidding against itself for my custom.
In the shop I asked them to add the total of the 6 special offer months to the 12 full price months, and divide that by the 18 months of the contract, so I could see a realistic monthly price.
After signing up with them, I strolled down the road to sit outside The Quays with a cup of tea, and to my horror receive an email from Eir, thanking me for my new order, quoting a whole new price and completely different offer.
AAARGH!
Misled and mistreated for years, I don’t know what I’ll be paying, and have huge doubts about the quality of the products to come.
Although other options will be available, until the fibre is installed, this company that quoted me three different prices and sent two different order confirmations has a monopoly.
That’s why I’m tense as hell. This isn’t just about my leisure time: it’s my livelihood, and not one bit of me has confidence in Eir.
PS: waited in from 9:30 to 5:30 as ordered by Eir.
Nobody came.
No call, no text, no knock at the door…
©Charlie Adley
10.05.2017
