Niamh Walsh’s Manifesto
Jury’s still out on my mum’s mail etiquette!
IT’S fair to say that in my house the postman never has to ring twice. My mother always gets there on the first ring. Even though I’ve not lived at home for many years, I still have post addressed to my parents and I have all of my packages dropped there also.
But my mother is somewhat ‘curiosity challenged’, in that her curiosity always gets the better of her and an unopened letter is her kryptonite. She has a tendency to just see the surname on any post and deal with the fallout of opening all letters after her nosiness has got the better of her.
She has run the gamut of excuses to explain her reasons for opening mail – the postman, the dogs, bad weather leads to soggy letters, the faulty windows simply fell out of the envelopes rendering the letter readable, the Amazon packaging known for its general robustness mysteriously falls apart at the seams. I don’t know how many times she has mislaid her specs and misread the first name and thought she was the intended recipient.
Her most recent opening has been a cause of rancour – and humour. So, when a ‘suspicious’ letter dropped into the postbox this week, her curiosity again won the war.
‘Your dad got called for jury duty,’ she told me. ‘Oh, okay, that will be interesting,’ I replied. ‘Hmmm, you know your father,’ she said ominously. ‘So, what does he think?’ I asked her. ‘About what?’ ‘Jury duty.’ ‘Well, I don’t know, I haven’t told him yet,’ she continued, genuinely shocked that I’d even think he would be the first to know he’d been called for jury service.
I suppose it’s quite lucky that it was dad that was called – and not my mother.
Because the verdict – which court rules dictate is to be written on a piece of paper and handed, sealed, to the judge to read aloud – would likely be intercepted by my mother for a quick peruse, before any defendant should learn of their fate.
‘Society’ not to blame for joyriders
THE joyriding scenes of youths ramming a Garda car in Cherry Orchard/Ballyfermot provoked (somehow) divisive debate.
Blame was bizarrely apportioned almost equally to the joyriders and the guards – who some claimed had, if not this, then something or other coming, for allowing the west Dublin suburb to descend into such levels of degeneracy.
The root causes of such behavior are manyfold and far too tangled to be unteased after one incident – or a week of Joe Duffy debate.
But what appeared to be the prevailing crowd-sourced justification was society being to blame for driving these youths to a life of crime.
That is objectionably untrue. Ballyfermot is a poorer area of the city, but is rich in resources. It has an equestrian centre, the country’s best library, countless sporting clubs and a raft of other social outlets.
Cynical attempts to position this week’s scenes as a symptom of class disparity is a gross disservice to the majority of decent people in the area. One deluded defender even advocated that the guards, not the guttersnipes, should be doing some community service.
In in all seriousness he suggested days out racing around the track in Mondello, courtesy of the taxpayer and chaperoned by the cops, would be a commendable act to build rapport with the teens and satisfy their need for speed.
‘Who knows, we might even find the next Ayrton Senna at Mondello,’ said the Liveline caller.
Possibly, but more likely it’s the next generation’s Kray twins that will emerge should such mollycoddling be condoned.
If the little joyriding darlings do fancy a day at the track, then they can get a part-time job to fund their fun.
Yes some of these kids don’t have great, good or even any parents or role models in their lives. But that’s not true of the majority. In fact, most of the kids who were causing ructions have adults in their lives who should bear the brunt of their childrens’ criminal acts.
This behaviour is largely generational and the kids robbing cars are, by and large, products of their home environments.
Such is their family’s ingrained anti-authority nature, the grownups defend their little delinquents. Change can only come with consequences. And that should start with the adults. US laws where parents can be held criminally responsible for the crime of their children
would be a far greater deterrent.
Iranian women show true bravery
THE cohort of women who with regularity trot out the ‘real women lift each other up’ mantra to suit their own narrative would benefit by casting their eyes to Iran.
The women of Iran are in the midst of a rebellion over the death of 22-year-old Mahsa Amini, who died last week shortly after she was arrested by morality police. Mahsa was simply going for a walk with her brother and was arrested by the morality squad who accused her of breaking the law requiring women to cover their hair with a hijab, or headscarf, and their arms and legs with loose clothing.
In the wake of Mahsa’s death, Iranian women – and, it must be said, many men – have taken to the streets in cities and towns around the country.
Were our pseudo-sisters-insolidarity to look to Iran, they would learn that real bravery and support is more than a meaningless hashtag or a pretty picture. They’d see what women lifting each other up really looks like, #nofilters.
Larry is pawfectly self ie-aware
I’VE always maintained that animals have far superior intellect and instincts than humans. And Larry the Downing Street cat is a testament to this theory. Larry anthropomorphized many emotions when he had a near close encounter with An Taoiseach Micheál Martin at the door of Number 10 – the cunning moggie recoiled and legged it as fast as his furry paws could carry him.
Martin ambled out after a meeting with British PM Liz Truss to the glare of the world’s media (all in town for Queen Lizzie’s funeral [RIP]). Spotting Larry, happily sat on a mat, Martin started to sidle up for a shameless selfie and a quick rub of Larry’s head. But Larry is nobody’s mug, and his senses were pawfectly attuned, leaving An Taoiseach flat footed and outwitted by the puss.