You’re not bothered about Sports Personalities of the Year or the RTE Squirming Newscaster of 2014 (one contender, one winner: our Sharon, squirming-in-her-seat queen of all she surveys), because you know what matters.
There’s only one annual award ceremony you need concern yourselves with. Oh lucky you - it’s the one you’re attending right now.
So let’s get on with the show, and the winner of year’s first coveted DV goes to Garth Brooks, who wins the Bertie Ahern DV for A Name We Need Never Hear Again.
Garth Brooks. Garth Brooks. Garth Brooks. For days, weeks, months, aeons it felt as if every news bulletin, every conversation, every tweet was about Garth Brooks.
I could see why so many in Ireland became so het up about it, but sadly they couldn't see how pathetically tiny the debacle was in the order of things. Syria was burning. Patients lay on trolleys in Irish hospitals. Yet for an age the only story in town was Garth Brooks. It was nothing but a classic Old School screw-up of planning and paper, pockets and puppets.
Then I heard a politician asking on the news:
“What will the world think?”
I squirmed in my seat with an arse-ripple that put Sharon ni to shame. Sometimes I feel slightly and uncomfortably embarrassed for Ireland, just as you do when someone you love doesn't know they have a piece of spinach on their teeth
What will the world think?
Frankly, dear Ireland, the world doesn't give a damn.
Moving swiftly on into the realm of dark despicable beasts, himself the Castlebar Cowboy Enda Kenny is this year’s clear winner of the Paddy Through The Looking Glass DV for Creative Political Thinking.
At one point during the McNulty appointment farce, the country was being led by a Fine Gael Taoiseach whose final vestiges of credibility lay in the hope that the vote going through the Dáil would be won by Fianna Fáil.
Fair play to you, Enda. That takes some doing.
It also takes creative thinking to name the same person winner and runner-up in the same DV category, but hey, there’s a reason why it’s called 'Through The Looking Glass.'
Winner of simultaneous Gold and Silver DVs for Creative Political Thinking, an Taoiseach Blond Bombshell Enda Kenny’s promotion of a non-Irish-speaking TD to the role of Minister for the Gaeltacht was gold dust. Lucky Joe McHugh asked the people of Ireland to go with him “...on a journey...” as he attempted to learn the Irish language.
Good luck with your cupla, Minister. You’ll need it.
The Mary Robinson DV for Most Consistently Pleasing Thing goes to stepping outside of my house. Front door or back, I breathe deep of the clean sweet air and relax, as if my strings have been cut. Surrounded by constant corruption and gombeen antics, I find it vital to remind myself why the west of Ireland is so wonderful.
It only takes me a few minutes to feel infinitely better, calmer, happier. I watch the clouds, the way the wind is blowing. I listen to our neighbourly pheasant having a croak, watch a far-off fox, hear the waves on the lake in the distance and give thanks to the universe for allowing me to live in such a splendid place.
There’s only one Mary Robinson, but there are runners-up for her DV. Coming in second for Most Consistently Pleasing Thing, the stuff of life in the shape bread, specifically Griffins Bakery’s brown pan.
Loaves come and go, and there’s more types of bread available in Galway now than ever before, but you can keep your seaweed and pummelled fig loaf, your knickerbocker seed and sparrow spit dough. Wondrous in its simplicity, Griffins brown bread does the business every time.
Mind you, I have to deduct points from Griffins Bakery, as they have been co-guilty of winning this year’s DV for Bad Language, by adopting the word ‘Artisan.’
The catering industry is guilty of being fickle with words. We had years of ‘Gourmet’, then everything was ‘Craft’ this and ‘Craft’ that. Now you can’t buy a parsnip that hasn’t been grown, picked and dribbled upon by an ‘Artisan.’
Indeed, 2014 was a bad year for words. Thanks to modern life’s craving for hyperbole, the majesty of the word ‘Icon’ is long gone, while ‘Genius’ has now become an adjective, as in 'a genius film.'
Meanwhile, ‘Legend’ loses its power and substance. Recently I heard a film reviewer on NewsTalk describe Bill Murray as a legend. He is indeed a great comic actor, but was it necessary to use the glorious word seven times in one brief radio item?
The Michael Noonan Will Meet You With A Red Carpet And A Bunch Of Tap Dancing Leprechauns DV for Dire Customer Service goes to Bank of Ireland's local branch. The BOI employee explained that they could only deal with cash in the bank on Tuesdays between 12-2 and on Fridays. Apparently the policy was designed to “make it easier for customers.”
Coming after that minor business of we the people saving their banking backsides, words like ‘Disingenuous’ and ‘Chutzpah’ would be too kind.
It was like being told I’d see better if he cut off my head.
The Charlie McCreevy Did You Say That Or Was I Hypnotised By Your Teeth? DV for Ineffectual Journalism goes to an RTE radio anchor reporting on Irish Water, who assured us on November 3rd that the government would deliver “clarity next week.”
Finally, tragically, my much-missed friends Marky Logan and Tim Lacey win the DV for Died Way Too Early.
Life’s short, people. There’s a new year a-comin’, so let’s go out and live it!
Have a Happy 2015 and thanks for your continued colyoomistic support!
©Charlie Adley
16.12.01.
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