How To Get Ahead in Writing (I Think)

Despite the fact that there are probably more reasons for writing a work of fiction as there are actual works of fiction it seems to be the case that there is one thing they all must possess to be successful in any meaningful sense: an audience. This isn't to say that fiction becomes better or somehow more fictional as more people read it, rather it's simply to state the commonplace that a writer is always writing in the belief that someone else will be reading what he's written. Even in cases where the writer aims to create the most obscure work imaginable he or she is still conscious of the fact that they are responsible for what someone else will encounter on the page or screen. This is as true of Ulysees as it is of The Twits.

How then are writers of “literary” fiction to balance this obligation to make some kind of sense (or non-sense) to their audience against the imperative to preserve their artistic integrity? Having recently read Kevin Barry's There are Little Kingdoms and Paul Murray's Skippy Dies (and knowing that both have amassed relatively large audiences for their work) I thought it might be interesting to compare the two in terms of their likely appeal to their respective audiences.

The first thing that strikes you is that both writers are preoccupied by youth. In comparison with works by the likes of Sebastian Barry or Colm Tobin you'll not find any elderly women here. The closest you'll get to old age is one cruelly vital old priest and drunken Freddie Bliss, fondly recalling better days while his daughter tears apart his home. After that the oldest people we encounter are middle aged types refusing to recognise that they're rapidly approaching the point when youth culture will be completely alien to them. Youth, in all its conceited self obsession, reigns supreme and this illuminates part of the appeal of Barry and Murray: readers of “literary” fiction tend to be slightly more sceptical of youth culture than other consumers.

Another point of kinship between the two is their tentative embrace of post modernism. One never gets the sense that the narrative is unreliable beyond there being a strong sense that most of the characters (especially in Barry's work, a short story collection) are only interested in perpetuating some kind of self-deluding fantasy. This is most obvious in Barry's short story To The Hills, a tale of three single fortysomethings on a hiking trip:

Teresa decided that she was having a terrific time. This intimacy, she felt, was powerful stuff. Yes, she was greatly enjoying the whole experience but she would enjoy it al the more when she was at home on her couch, alone except for the cat, with the lights dimmed and a glass full to the brim and the late programme on Lyric playing low on the radio. Then she would savour it all truly.

Indeed, this fate of being dominated by the useless tendency to self-mythologise has already marked the cool-as-fuck Galwegian students in Party at Helen's, the doomed teenage hero of the “breeze-block” arcade in Atlantic City, and the randy farmer unable to help himself in Animal Needs. In recounting it all Barry adopts the tone of a sardonic pulp fiction narrator, despairing over the stupidity of his fictional charges but never doubting the ultimate worth of the story being told. Indeed, one of Barry's major assets as a storyteller is to ensure that the coolness of his stories is never in doubt; we're confident we can sneer smugly at his characters because they wouldn't understand the interest of their predicament if they encountered somebody else enduring it.

If it can be fairly said that Barry's aversion to post modernism arises from his contempt for his characters Murray's reticence concerning the unreliable narrator trope seems to come from a desire to be sincere. Like There Are Little Kingdoms, Skippy Dies features a doomed teenager (named Skippy, unsurprisingly). Unlike Kingdoms however, Murray's work explores in detail (it is not a concise work) the reasons for this death. In doing so, Skippy Dies makes clear what Kingdoms only implies: that meaningful communication between generations is impossible when youthfulness becomes a sovereign ideal. Murray explores this theme fully and the effect is that the teenagers resemble the kids in South Park: they're the only vaguely reasonable characters on display. Thus, we have the Howard “the coward” Fallon, a teacher working at his old secondary school who effectively endures a never ending adolescence because of a grisly teenage accident, the childishly ambitious school principal nicknamed “The Automator”, and Coach Roche, a former captain of the school rugby trading on his aura of faded glory. While not actively conniving in the propagation of teenage misery, the other adult characters seem completely ignorant of the mental and material well-being of their charges.

It's in this void of mutual comprehension where Murray differs most strongly from Barry: he seems to have a faint hope that literature might have some relevant role in the lives of these characters. And so Fallon goes on a voyage of discovery concerning the lives and works of Robert Graves and Rudyard Kipling, a journey which concludes with him echoing Alyosha Karamazov in trying to explain to his pupils why people suffer. This is probably the loveliest section of the whole book and shows that at least some of Barry's characters are trying to understand their predicament. Alas though, the hope that literature mattes was faint indeed and Murray ultimately achieves the rare distinction of being bleaker than Dostoevsky by implicating Fallon in the grotesque cover up surrounding poor Skippy's death. Despite the abundance of teenage humour in Skippy Dies it's really about as grim a read as you would expect from a book dealing with teenage suicide.

It's not hard to understand the appeal of Barry and Murray for their audiences: both deal with a theme that is a natural fit for literary fiction, namely the unhealthy and unhelpful appeal of youth culture. By their lights it purveys, at best, self-deluding fantasies while at worst it can bring about a lethal sense of alienation in those who place too much faith in its promises and suggestions. In assuming fairly conventional narrative voices they manage to tell new stories through old forms, and broaden their appeal even further

The Wire and philosophy

Having wrecked many, many people's heads by lavishly praising The Wire I recently decided to actually try and write down the reasons why it appealed to me so much. A problem immediately presented itself though: I didn't know why I liked it. To be sure, its uniquely satisfying blend of long character arcs, labyrinthine complexity, brilliant acting, and outstanding writing all contributed to its appeal. Beyond this, I struggled to account for my proselytising zeal (I reckon I've now watched it six times). Its obvious pre-occupations with corruption being the root of all evil and men having to do what men have to do both struck me as being, well, kind of lame. I wondered if the show's mechanics of plot, character and style (dialogue, cinematography, etc.) were really the main reasons why I loved it so much, while simultaneously recognising that excellence in these areas are seen frequently enough in TV nowadays.

It was at this time that a strange irony struck me: despite the narrative conservatism of The Wire (unlike The Sopranos it has no surrealist reveries, unlike Mad Men it has no explanatory childhood flashbacks, and unlike Breaking Bad it has no madcap Top Gear-esque adventures), it seems to me to be the most philosophically literate of all these brilliantly made programmes. Without ever mentioning any thinker by name or explicitly expounding an argument it explores many issues that are familiar to any philosophy student: problems raised by thinkers like Marx, Weber, Nietzsche and Freud.

One of the most obvious thematic concerns of The Wire is its pre-occupation with surveillance. The title alone, in its allusion to wire tapping, makes this clear. Beyond this, nearly every episode features a scene in which someone is either being recorded or filmed for a purpose prejudicial to their own interests. Elsewhere, senior cops compile incriminating files on their subordinates to better manipulate them while one section of the FBI secretly keeps track of another section's investigation in order to undermine it. Reminiscent of the Danish court's obsession with monitoring Hamlet, something is clearly rotten in the state of Maryland.

Despite the prevalence of surveillance-based imagery the connection between the brutal and widespread violence on display and these monitoring techniques is never really made clear until season 4 when we encounter poor Namond Bryce, a teenager terrified by the environment in which he's forced to live. And this is the point at which The Wire and Freud intersect with the show's writers making it clear that a consequence of surveillance is that it ensures that those monitored are denied the chance to change as individuals. Where the motivation to monitor is due to atavistic impulses and drives in Freud  The Wire shows that this impulse to observe is tied to the far more prosaic need of ensuring that those watched don't change, lest they should no longer fulfil their assigned role in the system in which they've been reared to serve. Indeed, just to highlight their debt of gratitude to Freud, the show's writers show Namond being terrified of his “dragon lady” mother (who, in fairness to the lad, resembles Livia Soprano in her desire to seemingly want her son killed) before being able to flourish by identifying with the father figure of Bunny Colvin. The Freudian loop is even nicely closed off by the revelation that Namond's actual father is instrumental in creating the chaos on the streets that so terrifies him: his mother may be the proximate cause of his deep distress but his father is the ultimate cause. Namond's familial predicament is the same as society's predicament, whose members are constantly monitored by a brutally degrading system that ensures they can't exit.

Talk of degrading systems brings us nicely to Marx. With characters frequently echoing the line “business, just business” (usually just before perpetrating some betrayal or horrific act of violence) it's clear that the creators of The Wire are very unhappy about capitalism indeed. Where it actually succeeds in providing insight into the nature of capitalism though is in its relentless depiction of money's awesome, protean force. In The Wire (as in The Communist Manifesto) money talks, incessantly and seductively. Thus, we have the despairing cycle of one generation following their antecedents into more or less identical roles (peaceful Dookie becomes Bubbles with his need to get money but not hurt anyone, Michael becomes Omar taxing the supra normal profits of the drug dealers, Carver becomes the responsible yet compromised middle manager like Daniels, while Sydnor follows McNulty's lead by giving valuable gossip to a judge) as the system determines which economic roles they'll fulfil. Similarly, we have the transition of authority from one drug running operation to another where, despite the violence involved in the handover of power, its clear that the only thing that is certain is that one group will ultimately end up victorious: markets, like drug addicts, abhor vacuums in supply.

Cyclical views of history and a keen appreciation for the potency of money aside, one element of The Wire that would surely have won the admiration of Marx is the former's treatment of “public opinion”. Here, the basic message is that “news” addresses only the concerns of the more prosperous elements of society while those in the socio-economic doldrums are rarely discussed. This is seen most clearly in those scenes where Tommy Carcetti is informed that his priorities as mayor are to get notional increases in certain key statistics and also ensure that he manges to organise construction of a landmark building. Discussions of the actual issues plaguing the city never really seem to take place and when these problems actually do break onto the news agenda there's only ever a battle to influence perception of how these issues are portrayed rather than actually addressed. The effect of all this is that participants within the brutalising system are completely disaffected from the media, correctly recognising that the media's interest really lies elsewhere regardless of whatever conceits it may have about its own crusading role in righting social wrongs. The author of The 18^th Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte would undoubtedly have understood this point.

Max Weber too. His analysis of rationalisation and disenchantment with the bureaucratic world-view is closely linked to Marx's treatment of alienation. The Wire honours this intellectual affinity by highlighting how the obsession with reducing costs (“more, with less”) is now a major a feature in institutions that in the past weren't seen as needing to be profitable: the police and school boards juke the stats while the local paper self destructively seeks to replace valuable older reporters with younger, inexperienced newcomers. Similarly, the police headquarters is indistinguishable from any contemporary corporate office block. The result of this drive to homogenise all social institutions by denying their unique functions is that fantastical and illusory pre-occupations replace the real, more lethal concerns that ought to be addressed in public discourse (and which would be far more obvious if these institutions were honourably run). Public opinion thus shows itself to be outraged when drugs are tacitly legalised and also when an imaginary serial killer stalks the land, doing work more accurately attributable to combatants in a gang war. The fact that both of these phenomena were accomplished facts (drugs were freely available before the decriminalisation zones and murder was already a terrifyingly widespread instrument of conflict resolution before the advent of the fictional serial killer) didn't matter: public opinion had seen something it didn't like and was determined to console itself with futile displays of outrage that did nothing to address the underlying problems.

These two plot threads bring us nicely to Nietzsche and his notion of transvaluation: that the professed morality of a given society can be so corrupt that only its opposite values can possibly redeem it. In this light Bunny Colvin's decriminalisation of drugs (an object of fetishistic and irrational hatred rather than a catch-all term for substances that include alcohol) and McNulty's invention of a serial killer make more sense when its born in mind that the professed morality is what's being targeted. While the basic intent of having a police force is benign the ways in which this motivation manifests itself in Baltimore are deeply damaging and wasteful, being more closely related to the conceits of the more prosperous classes than to any realistic assessment of the needs of society as a whole. This, the gulf in understanding between those fully engaged with the murderous trauma of inner city life and those in the comfortable suburbs, leads to an alienation and despair so deep that it can only be manifested by audacious stunts that attempt to spotlight the grotesque ugliness of society's self-image. The conceits of society's more prosperous citizens were as morally repugnant for Nietzsche as they are for The Wire's creators.

So, Baltimore seems to be a society where an abyss of communication (and, consequently, despair) exists between people who live and work only miles away from each other. Having drawn heavily on German philosophers to indict the place it thus seems strangely appropriate that the only vaguely positive philosophical insight (as opposed to bitter insights concerning the ultimate cruelty of the universe) offered is a quote attributed to “Fonzie” Kafka: “You can hold back from the suffering of the world, you have free permission to do so and it is in accordance with your nature. But perhaps this very holding back is the one suffering you could have avoided.” To people trapped in a nearly inescapable cycle of grinding degradation this may be about the only consolation that can be offered: that despite the entirely understandable urge to retreat into defensive individualism this may yet intensify the pain you feel by further isolating and alienating you from others.

In a world that daily becomes more and more obsessed with surveillance, nebulous notions of economic growth, the commodification of personal identity and with placating the wealthy The Wire seems to have an almost Cassandra-like relevance. It may not be perfect (season 2 has its longueurs, the villains in the newsroom are denied the sort of nuanced treatment the drug dealers are afforded, and it strikes me that there's something unsatisfactory about its treatment of women in general) but through its exploration of the above themes it is far superior to the glibly episodic “quality” TV shows it's frequently compared with.

The Wire is brilliantly made, relevant in a way fiction or drama normally doesn't seem able to achieve anymore, and humane. From the outset it's just not that obvious that a cop show could be all these things. 

Alone Again (Technologically)

Although it may be about as insightful as Homer Simpson's surprised remark that “they have the internet on computers now”, I still feel that it's sometimes worth pointing out that the world has become a bewilderingly abstract place. A moment's reflection on the significance of your mobile phone should suffice to illustrate the truth of this: in many regards it's a more effective representation of you than your own body is.

Hearteningly however (or traumatically, depending on your perspective), those instances where it's been unable to completely replace your flesh and bone you do still seem to be the most important: that varied grouping of experiences euphemistically referred to as intimacy. Despite the best efforts of robotics engineers, computer programmers and pornographers alike attempts at producing a computerised boy-, girl- or non-gender alignedfriend don't seem to have gained traction with the general public, yet.

On the other hand though, the algorithm producing sectors have seemingly enjoyed great success with the next best thing to intimacy: the practice formerly known as courtship. Indeed, it may simply be another sign of my advancing years but from discussions with friends and through the media in general it does seem as if internet dating is now a stronger presence in people's lives than it has ever been in the past. Certainly, dating or matchmaking services as institutions have a long history behind them but they've never before been advertised as heavily as they are now, which is just another way of saying that it's undoubtedly big business these days.

Having been single for a while some of the ad campaigns and my discussions with friends impressed me. I wondered if maybe Janis Iain was wrong and love wasn't just meant for beauty queens and high school girls with clear skin smiles.

Reader, I set up a profile. For one as verbose as I am I found this part oddly challenging. Unlike in person, you're obviously never quite sure just who you're addressing on the internet: a miserable situation (and the basic condition of all mass participation online) only made worse by the sense of vulnerability most people inevitably feel when hoping for intimacy. I must have been more lonely that I initially thought though as I persevered, eventually settling on a nice line in ironically self-aware nerdiness to describe myself. Let the truth set you free!

I waited for a while, unsure of the etiquette, before plunging in. Having overcome the trauma of making my own profile and trying to second guess my unknown, prospective companion this part was only slightly less strange. I filtered through the female profiles, aware of the fact that these avatars may have been only tangenitally related to the truth and that women viewing my own profile must have felt something similar. It's a weird and giddy feeling, knowing that people may fully doubt the truth of your existence when you're being sincere.

Banishing this feeling, I ploughed ahead. One girl, about whom I'd had a pretty good feeling based on our complimentary music tastes, replied showing some interest in meeting up. After some mildly flirtatious e-mail exchanges we agreed on a date. My fear that this might all have been some elaborate set up and that the ghost of Jeremy Beadle might appear as one of my dates had calmed during the e-mail exchanges but came back strongly in the days and hours before our agreed meet up in a city centre bar one evening.

She showed up.

I relaxed, seeing that she was as described, and I expect she felt the same. Aside from a brief awkward moment at the start when I dithered over whether to offer to get her a drink and a few brief lulls in the conversation I enjoyed the evening. Truth be told, I would have liked to have seen her again but it never happened: my hopes of a second meeting died in a flurry of apologetic text messages.

For a while afterwards I once again found myself feeling confused. Mulling over my sorry predicament I wondered if I was upset with the girl for not being interested or with myself for bothering with the enterprise in the first place. Or, indeed, was I annoyed at the dating service itself? Something about the notion of meeting someone and finding them to be “as described” rankled with me, as if we were both some kind of commodity with the potential to provide spiritual fulfilment. The fact that our introduction was mediated through a numerical code rather than a human (as an old dating service would have worked) also irritated me.Surely, it would make just as much sense to go to a nightclub and flip a coin and allow that to decide whether or not I approached a seemingly unattached girl?

Such frustrated musings borne of confusion are undignified (as well as being unappealing to prospective partners. Ladies, I am still single you know) though so I'll leave it there.

The world is indeed a bewilderingly abstract place.

Soccernomics: a dull book that's not really worth reading

Ah football, that relentless generator of guff. As I get older I'm struck by the growth in the number of journalists willing to pretend that there's something high minded about it all though. Perhaps this dawning awareness of tasteful anorakdom is all a part of the ageing process, like experiencing awful hangovers and feeling profoundly alienated by ads for certain mobile phone networks. Or perhaps its one of those singular facts of the Age, a consequence of the potential extension of adolescence until one is well into one's thirties (at least). Did our fathers really spend hours analysing the merits of pundits? Did their fathers spend significant chunks of their weekly income on replica jerseys?

Regardless, the reach of the football “experience” extends ever more deeply into pockets of our lives that had previously been untroubled by its clammy grasp. One of the undoubted high priests of its hermeneutics is Simon Kuper, football correspondant for the FT and the co-author (alongside economist Stefan Szymanski) of the book under review today: Soccernomics. Channelling the spirit of a zany management consultant watching Sky Sports News they've set out to uncover the key determining statistics and economic trends that lie at the heart of the modern game.

The first thing to note about this irritatingly absorbing collection of expanded newspaper articles (sample chapter title: “Why Poor Countries are Poor at Sport”) is that the authors themselves seem deeply confused about the merits of their approach: “Football is neither big business nor good business. It arguably isn't even business at all.” Economics, however, is primarily concerned with the most efficient means by which goods and services are delivered to the public. But if football clubs don't really make sense as a business then they are presumably not run with the intent of maximising the return on investment for their owners. As a result, all attempts to analyse how they can be best run from an economic perspective will collapse into a confused pile of sentimental opinions. To put it another way, one could well imagine a scenario where K & S present their findings to an assembly of chairmen, and the chairmen simply reply: “Well, d'uh!”

Unfortunately, this section appearing near the start is probably the most interesting in the book. Having apparently not noticed that they've seriously damaged the underlying premise of the whole enterprise they blithely carry on with rapidly diminishing returns. Their answers to questions like “are black managers discriminated against?” (yes, managers have so little influence that the market can't punish discriminatory hiring behaviour) and “what countries in the west care most about football?” (Norway ad Iceland, who knew?) are interesting enough but the exhaustive description of the statistical analyses involved are eye wateringly tedious.

Beyond the “football isn't really business” point highlights are hard to identify. The discussion of re-location consultants and the refusal by clubs to appoint them is instructive though as it actually shows the authors getting excited about something. Regardless of the frequently obscene sums of money involved in player transfers many of these deals fail because the purchasing club refuses to spend a franction more in attempting to reduce the unease inevitably felt by what are usually heavily sheltered young men in alien environments. Yet Kuper & Szymanski's estimable anger at clubs refusing to pay a relatively small amount of good money after wasting huge amounts of bad money is all too rare.

The absence of this vaguely ethical sense is also evident in their discussion of the shrewdest operators in the transfer market as great play is made of the “regression to the mean”. Despite the authors' insistance on how significant this tool is much of the insights advanced are most vividly explained through references to Peter Taylor's memoir of his time with Brian Clough. As other names like Wenger, Ferguson and Moyes frequently appear with disconcerting regularity the feeling that this whole section would work better simply as a description of their transfer policies only grows. Contrary to their assertion that managers don't really matter it would appear that they actually do have a fair amount of influence. Indeed, any self respecting economist would point out that it could hardly be otherwise in any well developed capitalist economy, obsessed as they are with marginal returns. Personality, or the ethical business of getting the most out of people, is all important when other resources are more or less equal.

Ultimately this obsession with the median seems to be a failing common to many of these “stats will change your life” books (and one hardly discernible at all in Kuper's “Football Men”). Rather than focusing on those who do well and considering the reasons for their success they emphasise life's dutiful trudgers. The effect of this is that they create a sort of mystery gap between the good and the middling and the only way to bridge this gap is to BUY THIS BOOK AND YOU WILL UNDERSTAND! In truth though the basic point seems to be that there's little to understand, generally the fields of endeavour in question aren't profoundly difficult and those under observation simply need to pay more attention to what their betters are already doing.

So, to recap before I sign off: the joy of stats - a fairly thin conceit for an entire book.

The Loneliness of The Middle Distance door to door Salesman

Oh Jessie J, how wrong you are! It's the final day of my week and I'm sat here in my car waiting for the rain to stop so that I can begin my canvass of this estate in a northwest Dublin suburb. I'm a door to door salesman who's three shy of his weekly target and your warbling from the radio about how it's not “about the money” is doing nothing for my mood. For me, today most assuredly is all about the money.

The key to understanding this job is to appreciate the cruel arithmetic of sales garnered divided by households canvassed. For example, last week it seemed as if I could expect one sale from at least every twenty doors knocked upon. The result was that the bonus for that week was particularly lucrative.

I began this week with similar hopes as I started canvassing in the next estate over from the one where I'd finished the week before. By Wednesday such dreams had died on the hard and unforgiving suburban pavement, my meagre figures for the first days bearing little resemblance to the fulsome numbers that had preceded them the week before. Today my only realistic strategy is one of damage limitation as I seek to get the lowest bonus attainable so that the pay packet for my 20 hour week is greater than what I would ordinarily get had I just signed on instead. Never before have I felt more keenly the absurdity of the phrase “running to stand still”.

The rain stops and I can begin. In truth, the actual work itself isn't that bad. People are generally patient and willing to listen to the opening gambit at least: “Hi I'm just doing a canvass on behalf of Mr X to see if you're interested in Y”. And then they smile in response to my slightly manic grin and say “sorry, not interested”.

In terms of interacting with the customers the most demoralising times are when you knock at a row of houses where nobody comes to the door. Some of these are vacant properties but others actually have occupants who see me coming with my clipboard and simply decide to play a game of reverse knick knacks at my expense by not answering the door. On one or two occassions some inhabitants have even made ostentatious displays of not budging at all in spite of the fact that I've just rung their doorbell and it's obvious that we're both looking at each other.

It's hard to resent such attitudes for long though. As a salesman hoping to capitalise on his cheerful disposition it's important not to obsess over these things by remembering that these are in fact unsolicited house calls that I'm making. On a row of empty houses this can sometimes be difficult however. More typically I find myself cultivating an appreciation for the aesthetic qualities of doorbells (there are some truly wretched doorbells out there) or simply being thankful that the weather's fine rather than obsessing over such perceived petty slights.

The day drags on and the monotony of garden-doorstep-garden establishes itself; the suburban sameness of it all only broken by the slight variations in the design of each row of houses and by their proximity to the estate's communal green area.

After an hour I come onto a road of houses that ends in a cul de sac and my heart leaps. For the service I'm selling young families, three or four kids to working parents under the age of thirty, are undoubtedly the most lucrative market and houses situated on closes are generally the preferred dwellings for such families. I put my shiniest smile on and begin. On the sixth house I get a sale. Things are looking up. The smile now beams of its own volition. On the second last house I've left on the road the customer replies “Yeah, I suppose I am interested.” Not expecting another sale in such quick succession I almost say “Ah well, thanks for your time” and walk off but catch myself in time. I make the sale. All I need is one more before I can happily call it quits for the day, content in the knowledge that there is actually some tangible reason (a reward greater than what I could hope to get on the dole) as to why I'm doing this.

Things don't go well for the next two hours though. Fewer people answer their door and the smiles become rarer and rarer when they do. Another aspect of the cruelty of the sums is that of previous form and expectation management and how this, more than any unpleasant customer behaviour, can seriously serve to undermine one's cheerful disposition.

Today's experience is a nice case study in how this happens. I begin the day with vague hopes of hitting my target but, after an hour, I become resigned to the possibility that perhaps this wouldn't occur. Then I get two sales and the hopes revived stronger than ever before. The mind races; between two and a half and three hours to get one sale? Easy. I'd never gotten zero sales from any previous canvasses (four hour periods) so with three hours left I'm more or less guaranteed one sale at least, I believe. Armed with this inspiring but deeply suspicious mathematical proof that my success is inevitable I set off with a new urgency in my stride. The sooner I got this sale, the sooner I got to go home.

Abstract reasoning is a bugger to dislodge from one's thinking though, regardless of whether it's right or wrong. “I'm certain to get one” becomes my mantra and with every failed housecall I repeat it more vociferously to myself. The fact that I'm now talking to myself should be a warning sign on its own but the frustration continues to build as I focus on my mantra to the exclusion of all the other signs indicating that perhaps I probably won't get that last one.

With thirty minutes left I come onto a familiar looking road facing the communal green area. This is the one I passed on the way in and avoided until the end. For reasons of safety young families generally tend to avoid living on the first road into an estate due to traffic volumes. There aren't many cars in driveways and most have their blinds drawn. I've no more houses left after this row. I begin.

40 minutes later I'm sat in the car again listening to the radio. I'm in a Eurospar car park eating the roll I've just bought and reading the newspaper. The article's interesting, the song playing is one I like, the sun is shining and the drive home will be a pleasant one. I didn't get the sale. Maybe Jessie J was right.

fucksticks

Okay, it would appear that that Maguire piece was neither saved nor published. Boy is my face red? I'll endeavour to have it tomorrow anyway.

Toodles,
Alan

groping towards a mission statement...

In my days at The Dubliner magazine it was my lot to do up a rough, first draft of what would later become the listings pages for that week's edition. As part of this role I encountered the work of painter Brian Maguire and was sufficiently intrigued by what I saw to make a resolution to visit his exhibition at the Kerlin gallery at some point in the future. So, rather belatedly, I got around to doing this yesterday. Happily, I can report that it's well worth a visit but, less happily, the window of opportunity for doing so will slam shut on Saturday when the exhibition ends.

hardest working blogger in showbiz

Eh, not quite. No, I've done a bit of work today but nothing to be too proud of. A new page has gone up about that Mindfield Politics and Media thing I attended recently. As usual, I think it's excellent and I hope you do too. All the best, Alan

there's a doins a transpiring!

Just posted that Re:public 2011 thing up on a separate page so I hope you enjoy. I'm going to do an account of two of the mindfield events soon but I'm a little bit hungover today so I may give it a miss for a day or two. Hope you're all well!

comings and goings

I attended the Re:public thing there on Wednesday night in the button factory; Vincent Browne, David McWilliams, Peter Matthews and Mick Wallace speaking amongst others. It was really interesting but my pen wouldn't write half the stuff I wanted it to (gonna use a pencil in future I think) so I wasn't able to give as full an account as I'd like to have done due to my imperfect notes. Also, I did a review of the Star Wars: Emerald Garrison exhibition thing earlier in the week . Naturally, I regard both pieces as being highly insightful contributions on their respective subjects but you may beg to differ. Hope you enjoy both anyway!

at least we'll always have Paris

Things have been a bit quiet on here recently so to remedy that situation I posted a guide to the Irish pubs of Paris on a seperate page here last night. Yes, that's right, your humble correspondent has once again braved a shadowy demi-monde of faded hopes and dreams to bring you another steaming hot scoop. Enjoy!

a birrah jim corr to get you going

Just posted my review/thoughts on Jim Corr's speech at the Ashling Hotel on another page. Owing to my new work committments (I have a job!!) I've been unable to get to another left wing discussion dealing with the recession. Anyway, here's some more Jim for you http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ing8xH3Qj-k&feature=player_embedded#! . Kindly supplied by En Avant En Hausse.

Cheers!

Review of "Toys4BigBoys"

As a concept a programme like "Goals on Sunday" should be a winner. The bovine simplicity of  its mixture of goals from the previous day's football, gentle banter between besweatered former pros, and its well appointed set imitating someone's living room should work effectively as easygoing fodder for hangover sufferers. And yet for some reason it doesn't. The goals are never that good as most of the big matches are now played on Sunday, the imitated living room isn't one where I'd feel comfortable and, crucially, the pros are usually just that little bit too eager to be chummy, seemingly in the belief that hearty friendliness is what the viewing public craves.

The Toys4Big Boys exhibition at the RDS (opened yesterday) suffers from a similar gap between expectation and reality. Now in its ninth year, it bills itself as a broad based entertainment event primarily aimed at men seeking a good day out. As it happens this translates, predictably enough, into a curious mixture of gadgets, girls, motors, nostalgia and noise as the assembled exhibitors try and develop some hook with which to lure individuals from amongst the milling herds. Massage chairs, bean bags, yachts, helicopter rides, motor cycle apparel and accessories, paint treatments for cars, back treatments for backs, psychics, and genuine little kids' toys all vie for your attention. Sad to relate though: all these products were rather non-descript. I couldn't tell you what differentiated those on display from others available elsewhere and their pitches didn't particularly make me want to find ou

That's not to say that there weren't noteworthy displays though. The yachts for sale and helicopters and luxury cars on show were undoubtedly impressive, the Vader Maul stand selling Star Wars memorabilia had me coming over all Seymour Skinner on Diorama day  and the Greenaer.ie exhibit selling motorised pushbikes was interesting and unusually straightforward in comparison to many others. Another personal highlight was the magnetic jewelry stand whose promotional flyer unconvincingly explains: "your blood is magnetic, as 4% of it is iron...When you apply a magnet, it produces a whirlpool effect in your blood. This improves the circulation of highly oxygenated blood and helps dislodge toxins and clear out your arteries" and the exhibitor who cheerfully replied "knackers and gurriers" when asked who his target market was.

This points out the problem of the exhibition in general: these merchants all offered something slightly different from the competition regardless of whether it was a big shiny machine, some vague hint of the esoteric or just good old fashioned candor. Like those areas where "Goals on Sunday" fails the uninteresting exhibitors here all adhered to a rigid formula centred on the notion of the ideal male lifestyle: whereas the former revolves around well appointed, clean furnishings, goals and "banter" the latter were preoccupied by the familiar formula of gadgets, girls, motors, nostalgia and noise.This would be fine for someone with a particular interest in these things and who recognised Toys4BigBoys as the trade fair that it is rather than the broad based entertainment event it is advertised as being.

In short, if you've a bit of money to spend and are interested in lifestyle purchases then this is the hot ticket for you. Alas, as is the case with "Goals on Sunday", this isn't the demographic I fall into.

there's a doins a-transpirin!

Afternoon folks!

Just to let you know what I've been up to: was at the Toys4Big|Boys exhibition yesterday and then was off channeling my inner John Ronson at the Jim Corr chat at the Ashling Hotel on the financial crisis. Will post a review of the Toys4BigBoys exhibition soon but I'm seeking another left wing public meeting addressing the financial crisis before I begin writing on that one. If you've any suggestions then don't hesitate to let me know.

Much obliged,
Alan

simple pleasures and small mercies

So I arrived back in Dublin on Wednesday night. The weather was atrocious. The wind seemed to be in some sort of competition with the rain to determine who could make a greater contribution to the sum of human misery that was being shared amongst those of us waiting for lifts at the departures set down area of Dublin airport. By my reckoning it was a draw. Anyway, the lift came. I was tired and grouchy and wet and minus my wallet (a pickpocket artiste had worked his magic just as I had gotten off the RER arriving at Paris airport) so I wasn't much cheer for my obliging chauffeur/brother. A cup of tea and a perfunctory hello to my family was all I managed before I went to bed. I wanted to be up the next morning so as to beat the queues at the dole office.

Waking early, and still feeling fairly guilty about my air of wet dejection in the face of my family's warm greeting the night before, I busied myself with the task of going to Tallaght's social welfare office. After waiting in line for five minutes I presented myself at reception, took a number, and waited again amidst a sea of bored and confused faces. A few moments before my number was called a late middle aged woman with thin hair and poorly fitting clothes who had previously been milling around the queue for reception collapsed two metres in front of one of the interview booths and began fitting. Immediatley two members of staff came out to help her but there was little reaction from the banks of plastic seated postulants. My number flashed on the little digital monitor and I got up from my chair. As I did so a well spoken, well dressed woman droned into her phone about what had just happened and how disgraceful it was that none of us had budged. I had to fight the temptation to delicately point out to her that she too had done absolutely nothing to help. I went to the booth and the advisor listened patiently to my story: there was an illness in the family and I wanted to return home from France to help out, I thought I had a job but this had fallen through, I just wanted to get the application papers in case, as I expected, I couldn't get a job. She explained I should speak with someone to explain this in more detail and gave me an appointment for a few weeks hence. I thanked her and left as the woman on the floor, now attended by two ambulance personnel, continued to writhe involuntarily.

I returned home and watched TV for a bit, studiously avoiding the news and talk of four year plans and swingeing cuts, before meeting my father for lunch at the local pub. We sat in the nearly empty lounge and ate sandwhiches as some old man drinking Beamish alone at the bar intermittently interrupted our conversation to make a mess of cracking a joke (Him: How many legs are on a pool table? Me: Why would a pool table have legs on it? Him: None! Sure aren't the legs under the pool table! Ahahahahahah [wheezes] hahahaha!). Every now and again though as he trailed off laughing he would go off into a solitary spoken revery following one of his jokes. On one of these occassions though I'm fairly sure I heard him grumble to himself repeatedly "Die young... die young... It's better to die young, it is alright... die young... Cabra... seagulls... die young... die young... Mick![the barman]" I looked across the table at my father as he raised his eyebrows and noted sagely that the local wasn't the sort of spot you'd bring your girlfriend if you wanted to impress her.

So my father and I went our seperate ways and I returned home slightly overwhelmed by the day so far; my own mood, the poor woman, and the gnostic alcoholic at the bar. I struggled to make sense of it as my mother pottered about the house and the wind and the rain continued their work, discouraging me from taking the dog for a walk as I had planned. With nothing doing on the making sense of things front though I eventually buckled and grabbed my mp3 player and the dog's lead. Outside in the dark she strained against the lead and I followed. Walking into the wind and the rain underneath the orange street lights I switched on my mp3 and put it into shuffle mode. This came on. Suddenly life didn't seem so bad even if the wind did seem to be trying to saw me in two. I rounded the top of my estate and gave myself up to the music and its invocation of love and the natural order and all that is good in the world. As the song came to an end I waited for the next tune and wondered if this was going to be one of those moments when fate smiles radiantly upon me. This came on. Yes it was. Walking the dog home I smiled to myself as the title for this post swirled in my head, dancing with the music. Reaching my house I put the key in the door and the dog went in in front of me. My mother was cooking something and its sweet smell assailed me from the porch door. The fire in the sitting room was lit and a few logs and briquettes burned, distributing their largesse of light and heat to all corners of the room. I unhooked the dog from her lead, hung my coat up and sat down on the couch near the fire. I smiled again to myself and thought. I may be unemployed and know rhat suffering and misery aren't just confined to bad weather but I am capable of enjoying the simple things and appreciating the small gestures of kindness other people make for me. Understanding this may be but a small consolation. For me though, I feel that this is one realisation that will make all the difference over the coming months.

So it goes. The months drift by and the blog lies dormant, becoming more and more settled in its virtual oubliette. The absentee proprietor occassionaly spares a thought for it as he goes about his daily routine but he goes no further than this; entertaining idle speculation about giving the blog a firm identity is the limit of his ambition. The more distant ambition of establishing a career in journalism hinges upon his endeavours with the blog and since nothing happens there... well, that career will always linger on the horizon. Until... one day an e-mail arrives in his inbox that wrecks all his most poorly laid plans and tenuous hopes.

A delicate family situation has arisen in Dublin. He feels uneasy about being away from home so our hero plots his return. Favours are sought in the pursuit of employment and, as the situation is understood, apparently granted. Tickets home are purchased and notice is given to current employers and landlords. An e-mail seeking clarification about the job is sent and... the reply given sends our hero scurrying back to his forgotten blog.

So it went. We come full circle and now I, your non-descript hero, sit in front of my laptop searching furiously through my inbox for a link to my blog. This is done in the hope that a new posting will represent some kind of statement of intent regarding a future that, up until this morning, had seemed fairly well defined despite the fact that it was never really seriously considered. Work, earn wages, save significant proportion of same, repeat formula five or six times, travel, then repeat process again in another country. Such was my future up until this morning when I was fairly sure that the whole "work, earn money, save" part of the equation was a comforting, known invariable. Algebra never was my strong point however.

This afternoon that has all changed. I'm stil rubbish at algebra but I'm going to make a serious effort with this blog and the journalism. As such, before I leave Paris you can look forward to at least one review of an exhibtion that has recently opened. Currently I'm leaning towards posting on the new "Lenin, Stalin, & Music" exposition at the Cite de la Musique although the Basquiat exhibition is something of a dark horse in this regard.

Anyway, thanks for your indulgence,
Alan

"So what do you hope to do? Are you just going to work here for a while?"
"I don't know; I've applied for teaching training in England for September but eh... I don't know about that."
"Hmm, working conditions for teachers are appaling these days so I wouldn't recommend it. What are you passionate about?"
"I loved philosophy when I did it in university but there's no jobs there."
"Yeah, you're right... What can you typically use philosophy for though?"
"Eh... not much. Maybe journalism. But there's no jobs in that one either"
"I don't know now, if you're good at it you can do well. You just have to be aggresive...committed about it."
I leaned against the barfront with both hands and thought about this for a moment.

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
This was a fragment from the conversation I had with a customer last night at the Irish bar where I work in Paris. It's a dingy, dirty sort of spot mostly frequented by French office staff who work nearby so naturally enough, it being a quiet early Monday evening and all, it didn't take long for myself and the newly come fellow Irishman to begin speaking of Paris, the homeland and points in between. A lecturer in culinary arts for a regional I.T. in the west of Ireland, he had spent time in London and Paris working as a chef and spoke highly of his experiences there. It wasn't the usual middle class lament over how difficult it can sometimes be being middle class in Ireland however. In what he said he seemed too concerned with ideas like passion and ambition and education to be bothered by Ireland's climate, poor public transport network, or even it's lack of true high-end contemporary art galleries and clothing stores. He seemed to be neither overly ashamed nor proud of Ireland's up-until-recent-times sustained history of poverty but did seem like he'd travelled enough to know the difference between the good and bad parts of what could be described as the Irish psyche. In short, he struck me as being a warm hearted, well travelled, discerning individual.

As you will no doubt have picked up from all this he was, to my eyes at least, a most sympathetic character and for some reason I don't fully understand my conversation with him has made me think more seriously than ever before about becoming a journalist/professional writer. In a way I suppose meeting him and hearing him freely throwing bold abstract nouns like passion, commitment and ambition about has somehow awakened my own previosily dormant ambitions. With that inspiration in mind and in that spirit I thus begin this blog/public diary; a repository for updates on what I've been up to, philosophical musings and pretty much anything in between.

Let me know what you think either about the writing (could it be clearer? did you understand it all? did you enjoy it or was it hopelessly self-indulgent? etc?) or about my career options as a writer hoping to earn some money. In fact, even if you just want to say hello in the comments section for the pleasure of seeing your name in digitally encoded type then, by all means, go nuts.

Thanks for your time,
FAO