Normal Service Has Been Resumed
Well, I’m hoping that at least somebody out there missed me. I haven’t been on either of these two blogs— www.charleybrady.com or its companion www.cbsays.com for quite some time.
The Horrible Political Side
I don’t know how other bloggers manage it when they are also working a day job, but because of that, plus ‘personal problems’ (or more than the normal, that is) I just couldn’t be bothered. And the truth is that as regards the political site the whole spectrum of politics has begun to nauseate me to such a degree that I figured I would have an ulcer if I kept banging away at it. Now it seems that I’ll have an even bigger ulcer if I don’t get my utter loathing for the whole process out and down on paper. Or the electronic equivalent; you know what I mean.
Anyway, the elections, such as they were, are done and dusted. The promises, such as they are, have started in earnest now from the likes of the loathsome Labour Party, who got a right old kicking; although in truth none of them got the absolute hiding that I was hoping they would get. At least Tiny Gilmore is out on his arse. It’s a pity that we can’t strip the little toe-rag of his pension or his wife of her ill-gotten gains whilst we’re at it, but there you go: you can’t have everything. In fact, in Ireland if you are one of those on the cusp of seeing your entire life vanishing from under you, you can’t have anything at all. Not from our politicians, that’s for sure. And certainly not a medical card. You can whistle for that one.
And remember that what Fat Pat Rabbitte of Labour said about it being perfectly OK to lie to the electorate applies to all of them. If you find yourself accidently putting trust somewhere then take your pulse, quick! You’re most likely coming down with something.
As to those of you who swore never again to give a cent to charity in the wake of the Angela Kerins/Rehab/ charity CEOs debacle, you weren’t even left with that choice, were you?
Having been given his €70,000 kiss-off for being incompetent and useless at his job Alan Shatter decided to embarrass Enda by handing it over to the Jack & Jill Foundation. Of course everyone knows that they do great work but don’t pat him on the back for that, you eejits. It was your money as a taxpayer that he was giving away; you should have had at least a say in where it went. But this is Ireland, where you are charged for everything on top of what taxes you are already paying. You don’t count.
We live in a world where Mary Hannifin is returned to power and I’m thinking of writing a political column again? There is obviously a touch of the masochist in me as I intend to do—circumstances permitting—around one a week.
The Pleasant Entertainment Side: True Detective and the Philosophy Club
At least writing the entertainment blog shouldn’t cause me to have a massive brain embolism, as the other one just might. I’ll be writing about things I like instead of political gougers and thugs and that’s not so bad.
Despite (or because of) the river of excrement that I’ve been paddling through of late, I managed to finish A Storm of Swords: Volume Three of A Song of Ice and Fire. As I said in a previous article, I flew through them too fast the first time around, but this time I’m really getting into the whole world of Westeros.
And my love affair with Isabel Dalhousie continues. She is the Scottish lady from Alexander McCall Smith’s The Sunday Philosophy Club and I’ve been continuing her tale with Friends, Lovers, Chocolates and now The Right Attitude to Rain. The good folks from Ireland’s friendliest, not to mention loveliest, library here in Oranmore probably think that I’ve turned into a big girl’s blouse, but no matter: Isabel fascinates me. Everything in life is a moral problem for her. I’ll tell you though, with that last one I’m beginning to think that what she sees as reality isn’t quite what the reader is seeing. In fact she may even be off her head. Here she is worrying about making eye contact with a poor devil that is on the other side of a shop window, selling rugs:
“By looking into the eyes of another, one established a form of connection that had moral implications. To look at another thus was to acknowledge one’s shared humanity with him, and that meant one owed him something, no matter how small that thing might be… salesmen knew full well that once you engaged your customer in that personal bond, then the chances of their feeling obliged to buy were all the greater.”
Uh…right. Keep taking the medication. Still, as a cat lover I can forgive her for this wonderful description of one of our feline cousins:
“Many people in pursuit of the cool, thought Isabel, would give anything to appear as indifferent, as insouciant, as this indolent cat, but they would never make it. Wrong species: we are too engaged, too susceptible to emotion, too far from the consummate psychopathy of cats.”
‘The consummate psychopathy of cats’. Bloody brilliant, that is.
And if you haven’t seen Season One of the HBO show True Detective, what are you waiting for? It’s weird, it’s wonderful and it has Matthew McConaughey as Rust Cohle and Woody Harrelson as Martin Hart, two cops who in the words of Oliver Stone’s Talk Radio make me glad that they’re out there and I’m in here. But, like Isabel, I can forgive Rust Cohle as long as he keeps coming out with gems like this:
“I contemplate the moment in the Garden: the idea of allowing your own crucifixion…
“I consider myself a realist, but in philosophical terms I’m what’s called a pessimist. It means I’m bad at parties. I think human consciousness was a tragic mis-step in evolution. We became too self-aware. Nature created an aspect of Nature separate from itself.
“We are creatures that should not exist by Natural Law. We are things that labour under the illusion of having a Self—an accretion of sensory expression and feeling; programmed with the full assurance that we are each somebody when in fact everybody’s nobody.
“I think the honorable thing for our species to do is deny our programming and walk hand in hand into extinction.”
That’s my Rust. He never fails to cheer me up. In fact if he was a politician I’d vote for him. At least he’s honest. Depressing as fuck, but honest.
And there you have it. I hope that you’ll tune in to see what’s turning me on and what’s making me throw a hissy fit this week.
See y’all down the trail!
