Next generation will have less prejudices

CONCHITA WURST certainly livened up Saturday night in our house. The young lad was understandably curious at what was on the TV screen before him and asked why the woman representing Austria in the Eurovision Song Contest was wearing a dress, yet had a beard.

I explained to him that he is a man that likes to dress in women's clothing and that it was fine, if that's what he wants to do.

I also told him that we are lucky to be able to live our lives and be exactly who we want to be in this part of the world because in some countries people don't have that luxury.

He thought about it for a minute and said that he didn't want to wear girl's clothes; I told him that I didn't want to either. But the guy singing on the telly did, and we agreed that he had a fine pair of lungs.

After that we sat back and watched the remainder of what was a very entertaining show.

The young lad was cheering for the Ukraine, who were first up on the night with the song, Tick Tock. He added that while he thought Austria's James Bond theme-like song was good, he felt the Ukraine's was better.

This year's show contained some well crafted numbers and the three that took the gold (Austria), silver (The Netherlands) and bronze (Sweden) positions deserved to be there.

The young lad was tired by the end of it all and when I had tucked him in and turned off the light, I heard him singing ‘Rise Like A Phoenix' as he drifted off to sleep.

Later, I received a late-night text from my sister in Dublin saying that her kids had been cheering Conchita on too.

And I thought to myself how the next generation of Irish kids will hopefully be a far less prejudicial one. SUPERGRASS

We have a new system in place in our estate where we take turns cutting the grass on a communal green area.

It was my turn last week and halfway through the chore I was brought a drink of water by a kindly neighbour who commented that she had never seen grass cut the way I cut it before, and that it was an interesting approach.

Afterwards I was telling the good woman about the lady's comment and she asked me to describe how I cut grass.

‘I start on the outside and go round and round, creating spirals, until eventually it all disappears. The end result looks like the rings that appear on the inside of a chopped down tree,' I explained.

She almost fell over, in howls of laughter.

‘I have never heard of anyone cutting grass like that,' she chuckled, ‘at least it would make a nice design for someone looking out the win- dow of an airplane. That is so weird.' The next day I asked two work colleagues, independently, how they would go about cutting the same patch of grass. Both said they would start by doing two circuits on the outside before changing direction and going up and down and up and down in rows until the job was done. They too thought my way was weird.

Concerned I had been completely going against the grain since I first began mowing the lawn as a lad (there’s something very fulfilling about a freshly cut bed of grass), I googled to see if other people do it my way. And there it was, the great debate between rows or spirals, and which is better for your grass. I printed off the evidence and left it on the good woman's pillow for her to read.

Then I rested much easier that night.