If this joyous summer taught me anything, it’s to appreciate thrills of life in the slow lane
L IFE is tough. I’m back to college next week and it seems like only yesterday that I drilled a full stop into the last sentence on that final paper of first-year exams. Except it wasn’t. It was May 24. Since then I’ve been doing very little. Except a small bit of this (newspaper scribbling), grandparenting, painting (walls that is, not canvas) and some travelling.
Oh, and reading. History mostly and a few decent novels.
So yes. Tough. But someone has to do it.
We can’t all be buzzing around paying taxes, getting exploited by tyrant bosses, or standing soaked to the undies waiting for a 145 bus that will only sail past anyway.
Some of us have to sit back in the comfy chair and watch the world rush by, with the occasional interruption for weekends away.
Variety, after all, is the spice of life.
But I don’t mention all this to rub your noses in it, or to have a joke at your expense. The world needs workers and I salute you for all your efforts.
My point really is that I have appreciated every moment of this summer only because it is the first time since I was 18 that I have been footloose for more than a few weeks.
It took a bit of getting used to. But I’m ace at it now.
There was a time I used to be up at half-five for work. It’s been 10-ish lately, if I’m feeling evangelistic.
You know that song, ‘Enjoy Yourself (It’s Later Than You Think)’? Well, it is. And I’ve finally cottoned on.
Anyhow, back to Trinners now for my senior freshman year.
That’s bloody demanding, I’ll have you know. But still, that beats work too.
My DIY talents are in the gutter...
I’M not handy about the place. When things break down in the house (an old, cranky, hypochondriac pile of bricks and mortar), I am never asked for my opinion, let alone my, hmm, expertise. We just get ‘a man’ in. These men are generally expensive. If there was ever a tradesman who didn’t scratch his head and exclaim ‘this is a bigger job than I thought’, I haven’t met him. But needs must. At this very moment I am listening to a waterfall gushing down my back wall. The gutters, my unerring eye tells me, are bailing by the gallon. In June, I had them looked at by a reputable gutterologist (OK, what would you call him?) but despite promises, assurances and a solemn as-God-ismy-judge oath, he has never shown his face since. Busy man. Another guy hasn’t even returned my calls. Is this sign 287 of the rebirth of the Celtic Tiger? Are those post-boom days of ‘what can I do for you?’ grateful enthusiasm really a thing of the past? Are we at the mercy of those elusive men-in-overalls again?
If I had a ladder, the faintest clue, insurance, or a head for heights, I’d do the job myself.
But seeing as I don’t, I will just sit here and listen to the Niagara roar.
Apple gets to the core of the tricks of marketing
YOU’VE got to hand it to those smarties at Apple. They’ve done it again. This week the corporation of cool launched its shiny new iPhone X and, of course, the world was uncritically agog.
This new toy seems to come with some nice new affectations but really these amount to little more than go-faster stripes.
Never mind, fawning iSheep will fork out in excess of €1,000 for it anyway.
But the brilliant minds I refer to are not Apple’s creative dweeps, who feel grown-ups need animated emojis on their phones.
No, it’s a call out to its marketing gurus who have somehow managed to turn the launch of a so-so product into a major, headline, primetime, news story.
We don’t know how much Apple spends on advertising because it no longer releases figures.
But with this sort of sycophantic coverage, it need not be much.