I’m trying to keep up... in velcro, and in my new flat!

IT’S been coming for a long time. Okay I’ve kept a wary eye on it, but it looms larger with every passing and all I can do is to write an apologia which allows me to skirt around the problem by giving it an identity that is known only to me and my tailor.

So what is it that can reduce me to a sartorial shadow of my former self, strip me of my ability to think of plausible alternatives, engulf me in a tsunami of slagging and all done without the advice of a doctor?

I’ll tell you what it is. It is the arrival of velcro into my personal wardrobe.

In case you don’t know what velcro is, it’s that sticky-back material with a thousand eyes that sticks to other surfaces that also have the little hooks.

Dancers are the primary users of velcro.

Invariably there is a sharp intake of breath and a roar of approval to accompany a dramatic costume change for the audience and for the dancers, it is a chance to change their stripes, without having to leave the stage.

I’ve taken the long way round to the possibility of having to wear the velcro trousers shirts and jackets.

I started with elasticated trousers and for the few days, the trousers performed very well.

But after such a splendid, hopeful start, I found myself in the middle of the road in Sandymount Village with my elasticated pants down around my ankles.

A quick look around revealed nobody really focused on me, but l reserve my judgment on being caught out like that again.

In the meantime, the debate on whether we should go high-rise is currently putting the city planners and the developers all on notice that they are under close scrutiny when it comes to the burning question of whether we should or shouldn’t go high-rise and start building up.

It doesn’t happen here, but in places like New York you own the airspace over your building on the ground,

Maybe it would promulgate some incentive to change our living habits.

I have just started living in an apartment for the first time since 1973.

I have swapped four flights of stairs for a ground floor apartment.

I never imagined that the change would be so profound. Everything is up for grabs. Your emotional relationship with your new living space is reflected in how you deal with your reaction to sharing space with people that you don’t know.

The way in which you conduct your private life is in slightly more hushed tones than you might otherwise employ.

It must be strange for the first tenants of a new skyscraper.

Yours is going to be the first judgment of the viability of enjoying a new way of living.

Back in the Fifties they started moving people from the tenements out into the suburbs of Crumlin and Ballyfermot.

Now we are trying to get them back in again, but an inadequate number of affordable houses are being built to solve the chronic problem.

Will the new proposed skyscraper prove to be a successful transition to the high-rise model that is used in European cities?

At least we should ensure the new building be velcro-free?

THE Millennial generation won’t let their pants fall down in the capital’s streets. Or in the mezzanines of skyscrapers all over town.

Is belt and braces out the window as a political concept, or can we rely on the government, the builders and the speculators sufficiently to meet the demands of high-rise living?

I heard a lady on the television, whose block of flats were renovated, granting her the gift of a garden, which she had never enjoyed previously.

She expressed herself happy with the garden, but at the end of the day, she “missed” the chat on the balcony.

If they get to build this 22-storey high-rise, will they make sure that balconies aren’t in short supply?

Onwards and upwards!