Take a deep breath, tuck in your tummy and prepare yourself. Unique and exclusive, daringly incomplete and utterly subjective, it’s time for the one and only awards show worth the paper it’s printed on.
Dwarlinks, luvees, welcome to the 2015 DV Awards!
Let’s get this party started with the Leo Varadker DV for Being Proud to Show Pride in Ireland which this year goes to … you! My heart filled with pride for Ireland back in May (which is odd because I’m English) when the people of this country became the world’s first to grant equal marriage rights to all.
First a senior Cabinet Minister came out to the nation and then a plebiscite proved Ireland has moved into the modern world.
The devil lurks in the details though. A transgender friend of mine often complains about being included in the LGBT acronym, as she’s neither bisexual nor homosexual. A woman born into a man’s body, she wants to sleep with men, as any straight women might.
On the international front we had hypocrisy, hubris and a heck of a hullabaloo as democracy was killed in its birthplace. The Greeks voted in vast numbers for Syriza to govern them, but the Germans told the EU (created to make sure neither Germany nor anyone else got out of hand and tried to rule Europe) that they didn’t care how the Greeks voted. The Greeks would do as they were bloody told.
In an unfriendly match played regularly over the last 100 years, the final score was Germany 1 Democracy 0.
That situation’s far too serious to win a precious DV, so instead it goes to plucky idealistic cheeky buggers Syriza, who take home the Michael Lowry DV for Brazen Shamelessness for claiming the moral high ground by simultaneously looking for financial reparations for Nazi war crimes committed in Greece while reneging on debt payments to Germany.
Back home the Electronic Voting Machines DV for Excessive Waste of Public Funds goes to Eircode, those letters and numbers that each house now has, yet nobody uses because they are, frankly, useless.
Apart from helping Irish Water to send you a bill, they fail almost entirely as a form of postcode. My ears were soiled by the sound of Alan Kelly on the radio claiming the system was ambulance-ready, followed by the Head of the Ambulance Service saying it was not in any way ready.
The There is No Famous Person To Name This DV After, for Eating Humble Pie DV goes to me, because for years this colyoom has been down on the Arts Festival, yet this year there was no denying the buzz on the streets of Galway.
I’m delighted to win this DV, because it means the connection between the people of Galway and the Galway Arts Festival is back, thumping, bumping, dancing and singing, flying through the streets and yahoo! I love being wrong!
The Dana DV for Unfortunate Magical Transformations goes to the Wild Atlantic Way. There we were for years, ignorantly believing that ‘The West Coast of Ireland’ described the west coast of Ireland quite succinctly, but my, how wrong we were. Add a million signs with squiggly lines, a few metallic eyesores to spoil a view here and there, and you’ve got a phenomenal marketing success on your hands.
Amazing then it was to discover while chatting with some American tourists in the Crane, that they had no idea what the little squiggly lines meant on the signposts. Somehow though, they managed to love the west coast without understanding how Discover Ireland wanted them to enjoy it.
Off now to the world of the media, where we’ve a dangerously incestuous arrangement, because this year’s winner of the Myles na gCopaleen DV for Succulent Truth goes to Dara Bradley, of this noble rag. Thanks to Bradley’s Bytes, the high-ups of Galway once again have to pick satire from between their teeth each week, for which we are extremely grateful.
Indeed, so successful is Bradley’s column that it generated its own DV award. Winner of the inaugural Paraic Breathneach DV for Tact and Diplomacy is none other than Paraic Breathneach, a man who, alongside the inestimable Ollie Jennings, has done so much to turn Galway into the arts magnet it is today.
Chatting outside Neactains, Paraic was reminiscing about a satirical magazine he used to produce. When I mentioned Bradley’s Bytes, he turned to me with a straight face and declared:
“It’s the only thing in that paper worth bloody reading!”
For once I remained silent, admiring his ability to insult by suggestion.
Staying with the world of newspapers, the Oh No Bono DV for Nonsense goes to that bastion of truth, compassion and love: the Daily Mail.
Making it a habit to buy several different newspapers each week, so as to better appreciate all the differing propaganda, I ended up with a copy of the Daily Mail on April 1st.
After scanning through the paper’s pages many times, I couldn’t work out which was the April Fool’s story.
Finishing off this year’s DV awards, as it sort of says in the bible, the winners of the first shall be the winners of the last, and so it shall be herein.
You’ve been hit up for extra taxes, shoved on trolleys in A&E and told there is no money to spend, while millions of taxpayers’ euro are wasted on enquiries that are meant to find out why millions of taxpayers’ euro were wasted, that then try to wriggle out of printing any findings, and tribunals that run so long that the judge dies.
All this you’ve accepted almost silently (save for Wallace, Daly and Murphy) so the Ostrich Head in the Sand DV for Choosing to Avoid Dark Truths goes to the Irish Public, for making little noise while repeatedly being taken for a ride.
Thanks for reading Double Vision, brave colyoomistas. Happy New Year - see you in 2016.
© Charlie Adley
17.12.15.
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