Feet of clay exposed on our ‘great and good’
THE grey light of dawn was seeping onto the streets of Clifden as my friend George staggered over the finish line after the gruelling annual 100-mile race around the beautiful valleys of Connemara.
I checked my watch – 5.15am, August 9, – over 23 hours plodding the roads. He collapsed and tossed away his gnarled runners. Writhing in pain, he exposed his blistered feet. The organiser approached us and after a brisk elbow greeting presented George with his finisher’s medal.
‘Sorry guys,’ he explained, ‘there will be no gathering or presentation of medals in the Station House today because of Covid restrictions.’
So we would be denied the chance to meet up with our fellow athletes afterwards and regale each other with epic stories of our 100-mile journey.
Ironically, less than two weeks later, the same venue was mired in scandal over the Golfgate controversy. It’s refreshing that this hypocrisy and pompous arrogance is being exposed where some politicians see themselves as above the law.
While the athletes shuffled home that morning blistered and sore and were denied any back slapping, and crepes and champagne gala dinner, at least their honour was still intact and it’s the politicians that are feeling sore now, and they can loaf around all they like because their designer shoes merely house feet of clay embedded in their self-inflicted bunker. CORMAC TROY, Birr, Co. Offaly.
Barnacle Phil
NATURE, can provide us with so much wonder, and some truly spectacular achievements. Take the barnacle, for example. It permanently attaches itself to a surface, such as a keel on a boat. No matter how strong the tides are, or the raging waves that constantly lash into them, with unbelievable strength, they maintain their position, with great tenacity and endeavour.
They are a crustacean, and have only a hard shell for protection. Their purpose in life is to feed on lesser organisms, and therefore help to purify the waters.
As staggering as they are, to be able to cling on to such an extent, it pales into insignificance compared to the European Commissioner Phil Hogan. He too, has a hard shell, and displays a dogged sense of his own importance, as he attaches himself to his position on the good ship Brussels.
Despite howls of derision, and the constant wave of disgust from all that view decency and moral fibre as an essential attribute, he tightens his grip further.
Unlike the barnacle, which purifies water, Phil Hogan displays no discernible talent, other than to feed off, in his view, lesser organisms. Devoid of humility, concern, sincerity, feeling, thought, or conscience, he would therefore be below the barnacle, in the social order.
PAUL McCORMACK, Cappoquin, Co. Waterford
Who is governing us?
SUDDENLY, in the run-up to children going back to school, we learn from the HSE that there were 100 kids testing positive for Covid-19 over a two-week period.
Add to this the news that there is a dramatic alleged rise in the general population testing positive since patients stopped dying from it, and wonder at the compiling methods of figures regarding Covid, and how it is possible that negative trends are not proving fatal on a daily basis.
How certain can we be of the accuracy of the official figures given to us? When we come to learn older people were sent from hospitals back to their care homes while suffering from the disease, we may also be aware that information from the HSE might not be always entirely believable.
There is now possibly the situation that if we’re given enough troublesome information we may continue to live as if our lives are in danger every day, when clearly this is not the case.We are increasingly unsure as to who is governing us when words of national instruction comes from those we have not voted into office.
All hail the Chief
DONALD Trump will go down in history as the best president since Abraham Lincoln – he is such a patriot that he gifted his $400,000 salary to the American taxpayer.
We never saw Bush, Clinton or Obama doing this.
The Irish media should hang their heads in shame for berating such a great man – they are not fit to tie his shoelaces.
It’s only a pity we don’t have a man of his calibre in Ireland instead of the spineless PC treehuggers running this republic. Here’s to another four years. Hail the Donald, PADRAIG PEARSE DOHERTY,
Citywest, Dublin 24.
A dream presidency
THE cast from the West Wing TV show are reuniting to put on a staged reading of one episode to raise money for Michelle Obama’s When We All Vote organisation.
Oh for the days when the presidency and the White House were working to do the best they could for all Americans. It’s a pity that was a fictional paradise when the reality is … (insert your own choice of profanity).