The Lesbian Queen, the Artificially Inseminated Heir and the Swivel Eyed Loons.

     You are standing at the top of the Shard gazing out over the late evening vista of London. Feeling quite content with life, you sigh a sigh of happiness and feel your lovers arms wrap around you from behind. They untangle themselves from you and you turn around to see what made them break the embrace. You look down. They are balancing on one knee, with a lovestruck look on their face. And your eye is caught by a small black box with a glittering centre.Visions of a future together flash before your eyes, as you imagine yourself walking down the aisle on the arm of your dad, seeing your family and friends gathered around you grinning and taking pictures like papparazzi, buying your first house together, strolling hand in hand on a beach on a romantic holiday, watching your child takes its first steps, seeing them start university, enjoying your retirement, looking after your grand-kids.
     But you know that you cannot walk down the aisle. You know that everybody won't be delighted for you and wish you well. You know that there will be abuse hurled at you at some stage of your couple-dom and married life, with the potential for violence against you never too far away. This isn't sub-Saharan Africa under Sharia Law in the Middle Ages. This is Western Europe in the 21st century, where your same sex union won't be recognised as legal or as marriage.
     Imagine, despite the happiness you feel through finding that special someone, falling in love with them and all that entails, wanting to spend the rest of your life in domestic bliss with that person, you are told that a big, fat no. You are told that your love does not get the same recognition that a straight couples love will get, your love isn't enough to warrant a marriage. By all means, you can enter into a civil partnership, but for me that sounds more like a business contract than a coming together of two people who love each other, like two men from the 1950's sitting on a bench with canes smoking cigars and talking about the stock exchange and how to maximise their potential through a civil partnership. Jolly good etc etc
     I cannot understand, in this day and age, why two people who want to come together in view of their families and friends and vow to love, honour and obey each other, would be denied the blessing of a marriage? Personally, my views on marriage and weddings are mixed, and it's not something I see in my future, but that would never mean I would want to deny anybody else the same choice to wed or not to wed. Being gay in a predominantly heterosexual world is hard enough, why continue to single-out people of a different orientation in such a manner. A human is a human, and humans are capable of profound love (profound hate too, but that's not the point) should it matter if the love is between two people of the same gender? Cousins can marry, they can fall in love, come together in matrimony and have their union classed as a wedding. Yes, cousins. First cousins. Your parents niece or nephew can be married to you. There is overwhelming scientific proof that cousins marrying can lead to physical and mental disabilities if they have children, which many opt to do. They share genetic makeup, and yet it is still called a marriage. As far as I was aware, that was incest... Two people from the same gender however, are restricted from having a traditional marriage.
     What would the world will be like if segregation was still in play, and black people and white people couldn't have their wedding recognised as a marriage? There would be uproar.So why segregate the genders in this way? But fear not! The Gay Marriage Bill was passed last night by the House of Commons, and is currently winging its way to the House of Lords for the final hurdle in getting it passed. You know, the House of Commons, that young, radical, forward thinking, gender equal institution that embraces the future with open arms and leads the race in progressive measures to ensure every single person in the UK is treated equally? No, me neither. Yet these are the people that stand between a civil partnership for same sex couples, and a legal marriage for them. And while it cannot legally stop a bill from being passed, it does have the power to use delaying tactics to "persuade" the House of Commons to reconsider and make changes to proposed bills. The people who sit in the House of Lords form part of the UK government, yet the majority have not been voted in by the people for the people. Say what you want about the current coalition government in Britain, but at least Cameron and Clegg were voted in by the citizens of this country. The House of Lords? Well, look to the internet for answers to your questions. But they do have space for twelve Church of England Bishops to sit in the House. Religion has no place in politics, and neither do out of touch elderly statesmen who are seated in the House due to inheritance of their place.
     Marriage does not exclusively belong to religion either, no religion cannot lay claim over the institute of marriage, not Catholicism, Protestantism, Islam, Judaism, Hinduism, Buddhism or Paganism. It belongs to people in love. Who are we, and in fact who is anyone to decide who gets married? This will be a huge step forward for human progression and equal rights for all if it goes through. The era of homophobia should be well and truly behind us, and the more we normalise sexual orientation, the less stigma will be attached to people who are gay, and will hopefully and eventually lead to a world where everyone be open about who or what they are. Hardline opponents to the Gay Marriage Bill believe that the sanctity of marriage will be compromised by allowing gay people to marry. No other universe around could possibly think that having more people in love be allowed to legally enjoy a marriage is a bad thing. Its time for people to grow up and stop being prejudiced. Being human is hard enough!

George Carlin, you're my hero

"How come when it's us, it's abortion, but when it's a chicken, it's an omelette"

There's a new clinic in Ireland.
Well actually it's in Belfast.
And actually you can only avail of this up to the nine week stage.
Oh and actually you must be able to provide proof that to continue on with this pregnancy, that your mental or physical health is in danger.
And before I forget, if you live in the Republic of Ireland, you actually still technically have to travel to a different country to avail of the service.

     I could go on with the terms and conditions, but I won't. Abortion involves many different procedures from simply taking a pill to make the lining of your womb inhospitable to the egg, to surgical dilation and removal up to twenty-four weeks of pregnancy. It's not pleasant for anyone involved, and I cannot imagine what someone must be feeling when they make the decision to do this. Any female with a working uterus and fully functioning fallopian tubes can fall pregnant, not just people who are careless, people who go out solely looking for a shag, people who practise safe sex and those who don't, people who are doing it for the very first time on their fifteenth birthday or the fortieth time on their anniversary holiday, it can and does happen. There are of course ways and means to prevent an unwanted pregnancy, the pill, condoms, the coil, the implant, abstaining etc known preventatives  but still sometimes, every so often, the strongest swimmer will earn his stripes and get to the egg before his buddies do and boom: Preggersville: Population 2. Because at the end of the day, that's what pregnancy is, it's a woman and her body carrying a child.

     I cannot tell you what I would do in the situation where I found myself pregnant, because it has never happened to me. But as a woman, there has been a scare or two along the road, happening at different stages of my life and both having different reactions to the same situation. It happened first when I was nineteen and I was late. Not a couple of weeks late, but enough days had passed for me to begin to panic. We've all been there! For me, a termination was the only option. There wasn't a hope in hell I could ever have brought a child into this world. Having to tell my parents, having to let the extended family know, having to tell people at work, having to carry on with a pregnancy that I didn't want to have a child that I couldn't cope with, would have been too much for my nineteen year old self to deal with. I had already started making plans in my head to call my sister, tell her what happened, somehow raise the money to get rid of it and then carry on as is possible normal. The other scenario happened a while back, and this time instead of panicking, I actually coped OK with the thought of me, Laura Child Allergic, having a kid. I thought, yeah, I could do this, I've not got much money but if there were a child on the way I could start saving. I have a good job with a maternity leave clause, I'm old enough to kind of settle down and be a bit more responsible, I could actually maybe do it? I could have a baby? Lucky for me, nature stepped in and I wasn't pregnant. But despite all the precautions I had taken, it could have happened. And it does. And who knows, if I had been actually pregnant at nineteen and decided not to terminate it, but to have it, where I would be now or how my life would have ended up. But surely it's my choice right? It angers me that the country I am from, women still have to travel to the UK for this choice.

     So, really shouldn't there be that option for people like nineteen year old Laura who find themselves pregnant against (or precaution-less) the odds? Shouldn't there also be an option for the seventeen year old who was raped to be able to terminate the foetus that grew out of a frenzied sex attack? Shouldn't there be the option for any woman of any age who knows better than anyone else that her bringing this child into the world would be a bad mistake and wants to get rid of it? I'm not lobbying for abortion clinics to appear on every street corner, and I am disgusted with the people who use this service as a means of contraception. I'm looking for The Option. The Choice. A Woman's Right to Choose. Her right to make a decision for her body. Not a politician in a suit making it for her. Not someone who has never been in the throes of misery that an unwanted pregnancy can bring. Something this personal to a female should never be decided by someone else. Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg has said it better than I ever could. "The decision whether or not to bear a child is central to a woman's life, to her well being and dignity. When the government controls that decision for her, she is being treated as less than a full adult human responsible for her own choices". I agree wholeheartedly with her. It's not that I am pro-killing, I find it hard to kill a fly or a wasp, preferring to shoo them out of the house with a newspaper and an open window. You can choose to work or not to work. You can choose to go to college and university or not. You can choose which car you buy, which supermarket you shop in, or which airline you fly. So why, when the situation is a serious as whether or not you feel it's right to bring another person into this world, why does it create such a fuss. I choose Pro-Choice.

Coming out of the cleaning closet

I was watching television last night, thinking about how annoying adverts can be, when it struck me. There are ads featuring mums cleaning the house with help from the mysterious stranger who randomly pops up to give them handy tips for getting stains out of things. There's ads for sons and dads mucking about in the park or driving around in a swish BMW. There are ads for the whole family, seeing them out and about in their now unstained clothes getting out of their pristine new BMW while walking a dog. There are ads for couples looking for the best hotel room for that night. Where are the ads depicting gay families? It's not like there is a shortage of them is there? It's not like families with two mothers or two fathers don't also like getting stains out of clothes or driving around in new cars, so why are they not portrayed? 

     The ad that struck me as something that could really have broken a barrier, is the new Lynx ad, which shows men and women from around the world being suddenly drawn inexplicably to each other due to the (ahem) intoxicating smell of Lynx (now available in some putrid smell for women) ignoring the planet crashing down around them. How ground breaking would it have been, just in the midst of all this, without making a big deal, having the women drawn to each other every so often, or two of the men being attracted to each other. You know, just slip it in there, no fuss, no mess, just show it like it is?

     But they haven't. It seems to be that ad agencies pretty much around the world, are ignoring the huge amount of gay and lesbian couples and families that happen to live in the same world as the rest of us do, breathe the same air, eat the same food as us, and are exactly the same as us, they just happen to be attracted to the same sex. Why are they being cast aside? Surely Tom coming home from a hard days work and greeting Daniel who's cleaning the kitchen with this new fandango cleaning product with a kiss on the cheek, is just as accessible to people as seeing Tom coming home from a hard days work and greeting Susan who's cleaning the kitchen with this new fandango cleaning product with a kiss on the cheek? Do ad agencies and indeed the companies for whose products they ask these agencies to come up with marketing strategies for, not think that Tom and Daniel's home is just as important as Tom and Susan's? Do Claire and Rebecca's white shirts not need the same cleaning power of Vanish Oxi-Action as Rebecca and Stephen's shirts do? Do Karl and Stefan not want to invest in a new swish BMW with snazzy sound track and drive around a freakily deserted city? Or is that just for Stefan and Germaine to enjoy? Do Anna and Eva and their two children not deserve to be a bit too happy about the cleanliness and freshness of their toilet? Or is it strictly Anna, her husband Frank and their two children that should enjoy a gleaming loo?

     Of course not. Why should gay people enjoy these luxuries and delights? It's wrong! They're dirty! They're going against God! Against nature! And against cleaning product and new car laws. It's just plain wrong.

     Except it's not. Tom and Daniel, and Claire and Rebecca, and Karl and Stefan, and Anna and Eva are people. Just like me and you. With hair, teeth, eyebrows, eyes, mouth, chests, ribs, arms, legs, feet, bums, toes and fingers. They grow up, just like you and I did. They go to school, just like you and me. They go out, get drunk, vomit, eat a kebab, go to college, meet someone special, fall in love, want to get married, buy cleaning products, new cars, have children, get a dog, argue over the remote, the dishes, the hoovering etc. So why, when most of the human race is slowly coming around to the idea that just because you are gay, doesn't make you any different to any one else, why are these companies who's cleaning products, clothes, drinks, cars, shampoos are sold to gays, lesbians, straight people, transsexuals, cross-dressers, bi, old, young, little, large etc so slow to recognise that the families and relationships of this world are changing? That family no longer implies mum, dad and children. It implies, single mothers, single dads, grandparents in charge of children, step brothers and sisters, half brothers and sisters, two fathers, two mothers whatever! They need to recognise that the face of family can no longer by typified by what I outlined above, that it is changing rapidly, and they are falling behind for not keeping up. If I saw Tom and Daniel marvel at how clean Daniel got their floor due to some product, I wouldn't give a toss that it's Tom and Daniel, I would be more interested in my new fandango mop that does such a great job. 

     Which is why it has angered me that there is still such a debate as to having same sex marriages. Why oh why in this age of Aquarius and enlightenment,  is this a big deal? Two people fall in love, want to make the ultimate commitment to each other, get married and maybe have a family. I think that's lovely, really lovely and I say good luck to them. Isn't that really what most people want? Just to find someone to do this with, even if they don't bother getting married? Who are we to stand in the way of someone's happiness by condemning them for being dirty and it for being wrong? We are just people! Just like Anna and Eva are people! And why are One Million Mums lobbying NBC about a new show called The New Normal, in which a gay couple hire a surrogate to help them start a family? Apparently it's because it is desensitising their children. Which, when it comes to desensitising people of all ages to race, gender, sexuality, is surely a good thing?? I don't think children should be watching gratuitous sex and murder films, TV shows or computer games, but "subjecting" them to see people as people, and not type them in terms of gender etc is the way forward. 

Trooping around on the internet, I came across this video in support of same sex marriages. And that's all I have to say about that. Because the ad says it all really.

Adults of the revolution

     Try for a moment, to imagine yourself as a seventy-year old person. How do you envisage spending your retirement? In your own house, surrounded by your family and trinkets from your life that you know and love? In your villa in Spain with your partner or on your own? Or stuck in the alleyway of the Last Chance Saloon; the nursing home. With that in mind, imagine you have been diagnosed as suffering from dementia. Memories from your former life wiped away to the point where you find yourself forgetting why you are sitting in a certain chair, what you came into a room for, or who the person beside you is even though you have been speaking to them for an hour. Would you again, like to be in your own house, surrounded by your family and trinkets from your life that you know and love? Of course you would. Me too. But for many people suffering from dementia, even with the best intentions they end up in dull and clinical nursing homes, being prescribed a cocktail of medicine and drugs to keep them from "being difficult", having their daily life routine turned on its head to meet guidelines set in place by nursing home management. I know that these places would not be where I would want my parents to end up if we were not able to take care of them, and for myself personally, I would rather rot in my own house than enter into a soulless place like so many of these care homes are.

     However, there is an alternative, currently in practice in Holland, with a new one being rolled out in Switzerland and one on the books for opening in Germany. It really is a revolutionary place, currently being dubbed The Truman Show for dementia patients, and I for one, have been astounded by the amount of care, foresight, and thoughtfulness that has gone into turning one former care home of doom, into a model of how we would all like to end up when the time comes. To the naked eye, Hogewey  looks like a village you will find anywhere across Europe, with little grocery stores, cafés, restaurants, hairdressers and a cinema all located within easy reach of the apartment building where the residents of Hogewey live. But upon closer inspection, you will find that the check out person in the shop is actually specially trained to deal with dementia sufferers, the managers of the restaurants have degrees in mental health nursing, and so on. The residents, from all walks of life, are asked to fill in a survey to find out their likes and dislikes, their backgrounds, working lives, family lives, location of where they once lived, musical interests and are grouped into seven different categories judging by their answers. From there, instead of one central unit being the main living room for numerous residents of a home to congregate, the buildings have been divided up to share houses, accommodating an average of eight people, from generally the same backgrounds or religious beliefs. There are working class accommodation where by the staff are almost part of the family and can be found standing in the living room ironing the residents clothes while watching television with them. The upper class homes have servants, along the lines of Downton Abbey, whereby the staff are never seen, the silverware is always polished and the napkins neatly folded. They cater for people who have lived in the countryside all their lives, ditto people who are used to living in towns and cities. There is a pub, cookery clubs, wine tasting clubs, reading clubs, a local library, where perhaps if you were a bar man once upon a time, you can actually work behind the bar serving the other residents. It serves the purpose of people being looked after by health care professionals, yet are still able to keep hold of their former lives whereby they felt wanted and needed. 

     Why hasn't this been done before, is one of the many questions rolling around my head as I read more and more about Hogewey? Granted, you can expect to pay €5000 per month for this, but for the safety of knowing you or your family will be looked after without being smothered or left to rot in a magnolia painted room and staring at the walls. They have freedom to basically do what they want, but under the watch of people trained to look after them. In short, it seems an ideal solution for not only dementia sufferers, but for anyone reaching the care home age. Of course, with the UK and Ireland a Health and Safety regulated mess, could this ever work off the continent? I hope so. Hogewey's motto is Different til you Die, whereby they treat the individual rather than blanket treatment for anyone suffering from the debilitating disease of dementia. It's a place where they find out who the resident really is, and act accordingly to their needs. If I had my choice by the time that period rolls around for me, then Hogewey is where I would like to go, not some hospital-like home where you go by the homes routine, and not your own, eat food that you cook yourself, not something that magically arrives on your table as if from nowhere, where the stay chameleonise themselves to suit your needs and your lifestyle. 

     It's about time the elderly were treated with the respect they deserve, and with the dignity they should have. Think of any elderly person you know, be it your grandparents if you are lucky enough to have them, or a neighbour or a friend, and think about any of the stories they told you about their lives. Chances are, they had it tough for a long time, surviving wars and rations and poverty and high mortality rates, working hard for little money, striving to keep a family afloat. If any of us endured the hardships that most people over the age of seventy have gone through, you would want to see out your life in the way you are accustomed to. How thrilling does the prospect of a place like Hogewey seem, where you can live in a houseshare of like minded people, ones who enjoy a drink and a life, ones where people are quiet and keep to themselves, but still enjoy the company of others, or any other kind of lifestyle you can imagine. If, of course I am in no position but to go to a place like this, having no family around to look after me or being corpus mentos enough to take care of myself, then I will be booking myself a one way ticket to Hogewey. Different Til I Die: not just for the young uns. 

If I were a boy

Don't worry! There's no deep rooted feelings of transgenderism swirling about my brain, it's just a general musing. How much easier life would be to be a man sometimes. Think about it. I mean, everything from barely having to brush a finger through you hair in the morning, to not really giving a fudge about maternity leave, being on the other side of the gender tree seems a lot more appealing.
     Imagine getting up in the morning: shower, brush teeth, tighten up your tie, find matching (ish) socks, leave the house. How lovely would that be? If I were a boy\man, I would spring out of bed each day knowing that I only had to do the bare minimum of vanity maintenance before I left for work in the morning. You don't have to worry what your suit says about you, or do up a new tie each day (if you wear a suit and tie to work) or style and blow dry your hair each morning. You can not shave and still look perfectly presentable. You don't have to worry about your bag matching your coat, and your coat matching your shoes, and your shoes going with your bra (or something like that, I don't really know, I don't go in for all that in the morning) but you see what I am getting at yes? Try, as a woman, to get your head around a world that you didn't have to shave/wax your legs, underarms, bikini line, get your eyebrows under control, learn how to apply make up, know how you style your hair properly, have loads of make up/fake tan accoutrements, have shoes to match most occasions, buy a new outfit for every wedding you invited to, like children, suffer from period pains and periods in general, carry a baby, worry about being pregnant, get picked on for having small boobs, worry about the size of your arse, be afraid to walk home on your own after dark, getting a name for yourself if you sleep around, read chick lit, endure gossip magazines, worry about abortions, have cellulite, learn to walk normally in or even enjoy high heels. The list is endless!
     I wonder what I would look like as a boy/man? Would I be tall? Have the same kinky demented hair that I have? Still have brown eyes? Be hairy? Have permanent stubble? Big shoulders? Muscular arms? Good aim? Would I look like my brother? Drink beer? Be a skinny jeaned Kermit legged boy? Or a baggy trousered slightly shaggy kempt one? Would I be even lower maintenance than I already am? Or would I be back combed to buggery and guylinered from here to next Tuesday? Would I be funny, or boring, or intelligent? Would I shave my head just because I could? Would I grow a beard just for shits and giggles? Who knows!
     I like to think that I would live in jeans and t-shirts, would have medium length hair that required a bare minimum of grooming. My bathroom cabinet would not be chock full of things I don't really need, it would have aftershave, razor, tub of gel, some kind of moisturiser (man moisturiser of course) and condoms. My wardrobe would be as minimal as my bathroom toiletries, t-shirts, jeans, casual and smart, few shoes both casual and smart, few hats, few belts, few jackets. There, simple! As it is, and I don't really class myself as that much of an actual woman, I have an entire back door covered in hats and scarves, the bottom of the wardrobe is no longer visible due to some shoe population control issues, most of which I don't even wear or like. There is no more room for the twenty seven work and casual shirts I have hanging up, ditto for my belts, and the coat side of the wardrobe is at full capacity: no more room at the inn! The same with my chest of drawers, bursting to the seams with stuff! So much stuff that it nearly fell on top of me the other day when I was rooting through to find a pair of trousers, so heavy was one of the drawers with clothes. I don't need all this stuff, but would I really be any different if I were a guy? 
    That's just appearance, there are so many more things to wonder about if I suddenly woke up and were a guy. I would be able to switch my brain off whenever I was relaxing. Women's mental function always stays at five percent, even when we are sprawled on the couch doing nothing, there is always something tick tocking away in the backs of our minds.It could be anything from a wayward eyebrow hair that is annoying you (this happens me a lot) to a list of all you have to get through at work tomorrow, from thinking about where your white bra is to wear under your white top, to why that person on telly looks better than you do even though you look after yourself just as much as she does. This is just a generalisation, but we've all thought about it. Whereas as the lovely boys actually have the function to switch off completely and just enjoy the sprawl. Which is why we do (again, another generalisation) ask that question, what are you thinking about? Its not that we really want to hear what's going on inside your head, sometimes, it's that it never fails to amaze us that you actually could be thinking of nothing. Zilch.Nada. Emptiness! In our world, that doesn't happen. Even during sex, our minds aren't cleared to just fully enjoy the moment. There is always, perhaps deeply buried but ever present, or a lot closer to the surface, a thought of how unattractive your sex face is, or how your stomach isn't as flat as it could be and does your guy/girl notice it. Whereas ask a man what's going through his head when he is getting down and dirty, and they're just in the moment. Kind of infuriating isn't it?
     Can you try, as a female, to adopt the male approach to life? I'm not too sure, I think we are wired differently, no matter how much of a tomboy I think I am, there's still the weird woman gnawing away inside me dealing with shaving legs and matching clothes and having presentable hair and worrying about the fact that maybe I should start wearing make up and worrying about how others perceive me all the time. It's tough there, there are certain ways that a lady is expected to act, and that has been ingrained into my psyche for twenty-seven years, so to change the habit of a life time is quite a thing to attempt to do. But menfolk, go easy on us, I'm not saying it's not hard being a man either, but all it takes to ruin our day can be one misguided comment about our appearance or our reaction to something, and the good work unravels before our eyes. As a not so wise woman quoted in a script once: "every woman, whether shes 16 or 60, still has that awkward, insecure, self-conscious teenage girl inside of her"

Top o' the mornin' to ye

     It cannot be defined by my drinking capacity or my never ending thirst for divilment in all shapes and forms. It's not the way I speak or the way I take life a little less serious than some people. It's not even in my hatred of the rain or my suspicion of good sunny weather. It just is what it is, and I am what I am,  and what I am is Irish. It's a daily occurrence, being Irish, I wake up in the morning and hey presto, I'm Irish. I open my mouth, and my Irish accent and my Irish slang come toppling out. My outlook on life is Irish. I carry it around with me everywhere I go, it's on my passport, it's not an annual one day event, its a 24/7 365 days a year job. Which is why, I find that sometimes, St Patrick's Day, can grate on me just a tiny little bit.

     It feels so forced by times, it feels like we have to be in the best mood ever, drink ourselves into a stupor, be loud and obnoxious, curse and swear and generally make a nuisance of ourselves. Don't get me wrong, we're not all like this. But the same small group of people that have made sure all English football fans who go to away matches abroad are seen as football hooligans, seem to have their Irish counterparts that come crawling out of the woodwork for this the most holy of holy days.
     For me, there is nothing worse than a donkey attituded drunken Irish person wrecking heads left, right and centre. When it's someone of a different nationality, you smile indulgently and shake your head and feel happy that at least s/he is from a different country and won't shame your nation. But when you see what kind of annoyance they are being and when you hear the accent, the Leinster nasal twang, the Munster overpronunciation of R, or the West's insistence of adding a H sound to anything containing the letter S, you cringe, hiding behind your drink or lowering the tone of your voice so people don't associate you with The Donkey. Well at least I do. See, I don't have any donkey friends, I know plenty of them, but try to avoid them at all costs because my life is just too short. You know The Donkey: the one that has to be louder than everyone else, the one that has to be "funnier" than his friends, the one who has to make lewd and crude remarks about all members of the female race as they scurry by for fear of being trapped with The Donkey, the one who drinks far too much because as we all know, the drunker you are, the more "craic" you are.
     I digress however, bringing The Donkey to your attention is not what I came here for. I came to write about how instead of those types of people being a representation of our lovely country, how about we look back at the past and see what has made us, Us. Irish. Like all countries, we have a history, a bloody history, but still a history to be proud of. We have survived slavery, genocide, famines big and small, emigration in droves, our language and religion taken away, invasions from all corners of Europe and beyond, and for a small country such as Ireland, that is a lot to take. Another nation might have fallen to the outsiders and might have had their spirits broken by the invaders. But that, that right there, is what makes me exceedingly proud to be Irish. Despite the hammerings from other nations to our country and our being, we never lost our culture, we never lost our love of our traditional arts like music and story telling, we still have a respect of the countryside and of nature which harks back to our Pagan ancestors, we still have round towers that protected the communities from invasions, we still have the Hill of Tara stretching back to the High Kings of Ireland time, we still have the undefeated spirit that stood up and did it's very best to keep our country intact, and like it or not, these things have in fact shaped who we are today. We all have a twinkle in our eyes, we all have a lilting accent that makes men and women around the world get slightly flustered by the sound of our voices, we have a wit that is uniquely our own, we have a charm and we have a way of fitting in to situations where others might falter. Despite it all, we still have it. 
     There is still a sense of community at home, and it is something I do miss in London. Most of my friends here are Irish. We haven't actively sought each other out, it honestly has just kind of happened, so in a way, the community spirit we have all brought with us has continued. At home, neighbours, particularly in towns and the countryside, all know each other, and have possibly grown up with each other, they still help each other out, we say hello to people on the street even when we don't know them. Despite the fact that the country was torn apart by greed and the implosion of the Celtic Tiger, we are still a nation that helps others, even when we need the help ourselves. The Trócaire boxes are still full and sent to Africa every year, even in times when people didn't and still don't have much money. When you come into an Irish person's house, you will not leave until at least a tea, a coffee, a ham sandwich, a bun, a shot of whiskey, and another sandwich have been thrust upon you and consumed. There might be nothing in the fridge, but when a visitor comes, people make something out of nothing.
     Dev once said "there is a small nation that stood alone not for one year or two, but for several hundred years against aggression; that endured spoliation's, famines, massacres in endless succession; that was clubbed many times into insensibility, but that each time on returning consciousness took up the fight anew; a small nation that could never be got to accept defeat and has never surrendered her soul" That is how I would like us to be represented around the world. And for every Donkey that goes to a different country and shames Mammy, I think there are ten more who has the words and summing up of our identity that Dev so eloquently said, behind them, and shows the world our true colours. That is what we should be proud of, and what we should celebrate, the warrior spirit that never really went away, the soul of Ireland that is still to be found in the people at home and the diaspora, but maybe just got a little muddied along the way. The recession, though hideous in its affect on Ireland, could well be the thing we needed to bring us back to where we came from and how we should be. We got carried away in the now notorious Good Times and I think we sometimes forgot what we were. Clichéd as it sounds, we might be poor in money, but we are rich beyond our wildest dreams in so many other ways.
     

Just a coffee please

     As soon as the phrase leaves your mouth, you can see the barrista's mental tin opener begin to fire up and soon the can of worms are writhing around on the counter. Have any other four words ever opened a more drawn out conversation like these have? Gone are the days (some lament, others embrace) where this question would be answered with a simple 'Sure, milk and sugar?' and off they pop to make you your coffee. Now its Gestapo style questioning before they will even fully acknowledge your order.

'For here or takeaway' 
'Erm...takeaway please'
'Short, tall or grande?'
'Erm...medium?'
'Tall. Mocha, au lait, espresso, latte, cappuccino, macchiato, flat white, Americano? '
'Normal filter coffee thanks'
'Americano. Would you like to make it bigger for 50p?'
'If I wanted it bigger surely I would have picked big eh?'
'What'?
'No thanks.'
'Would you like something to accompany your coffee today'
'No thanks, it's 8.30 in the morning, I could do with eating breakfast before I start on almond biscotti and a giant pound coin of chocolate thanks'
'Sorry?'
'No thank you'

     Cold hard cash is exchanged and something unintelligible is roared at the person standing flustered beside what looks like a time machine while I am not so politely told to move to the other counter to wait and before I can even say thank you, they are off shining a torture light into some other poor souls eyes. Is this what coffee shops are like up and down the country and at home? Why do we pay people to ask us ridiculous questions and basically treat us like something scraped off the bottom of a shoe, it's akin to paying a dominatrix to come and stomp all over our backs with stilettos. The questions that require silly answers with words we would never use anywhere else such as short flat white extra frothy grande skinny soy frappuccino, the up-selling of confectionery that makes me think I don't know my own mind, it's all beginning to grate on me a wee bit.
     I don't use coffee shops/houses/dens/planets as I find them all just a teeny bit pretentious and I have no time for pretension. If I wanted to be asked a series of questions in a rude and shouty manner, I would go royally piss off someone like my mum, or my boss, except I would have had to have killed someone or have stolen something huge for either of them to react in such a manner towards me.
     The noise! Oh god the NOISE of coffee shops! The person shouting to the barista, the barista doing some Saw IV style nastiness to milk, the piped music, the nervous chatter of the people in the queue, the over analysis of everything of the people who have gotten their fix and are sitting down, does it not get to you? If I were a caffeine addict the way that most frequenters of coffee houses seem to be, this kind of atmosphere would not be conducive to calming my caffeine starved morning addled brain. In fact, it might just make the anger and jitters rise to the surface and have me scream obscenities at all and sundry in the shop, only for it to be drowned out by the sound of the milk torture device. How there are not more massacres and sniper killings in coffee shops, I'll never know. Think schools are a hot bed of repression and angst? Try Starbucks on a Thursday morning.
     I am a tea drinker, nay, a tea addict, and have in fact being given a look of scorn by not only the person behind the counter when I went to order one, but also a tut of disapproval by some guy with a briefcase and a suit and a harassed face. I was not pleased, and normally, would have happily said something to Tutting man with briefcase, but this was early morning, so I'm sure coffee withdrawal was at an all time high with him, and the air was thick with coffee nerves that I didn't dare open my mouth. Glancing back at the line behind me, no one spoke, no one made eye contact, everyone was humming with a nervous energy and an almost shameful look on their faces that I was reminded of the dole queue when I was unemployed. Is this really normal?
     Recently, loveable old Uncle Starbucks have started a campaign whereby they ask your name to write it on the cup, rather than screeching out your order when the beverage is ready. The Pretentious Bells started ringing when I saw this ad, and it kind of made me gag just a little bit. 'Haven't you noticed how everything is a little, impersonal these days' the kindly voiced man on the ad tells me. Yes, yes I have as a matter of fact. It comes from the staff not making eye contact with me when I order. It comes from being made to feel idiotic when I don't want to use silly names for my coffee such as a grande skinny latte. It is in the impersonal feel of most franchised coffee houses that are really just about the dollar dollar bills y'all and nothing to do with wanting to maybe have a quick chat with you, even ask the 'how are you' question, even in a perfunctory manner. If I go into one of these places, I am perfectly OK with them yelling out my order rather than my name, it's the nature of the business and the mark of the beast, it is what it is. Don't try to lure me in on the promise that the staff will care or remember me in a giant coffee shop!
     There is one coffee shop that I do like, and when the mood strikes me, that's where I go. Why? Because even at it's busiest, and it does get extremely busy, the staff are polite and welcoming and willing to have a quick chat, it's because they don't use silly lingo to make you your tea or coffee and ask you to fill out a questionnaire when you want to order, it's from the waitress actually remembering me and giving me that packet of popcorn I loved so much the last time on the house. That's personal, that type of interaction with people and building a fleeting and mostly superficial relationship with the customer I want, and that cannot be faked, even with a slick marketing campaign.
     When will the coffee house mania end?
     How did it even start?
     Is the next step self service coffee houses along the lines of Tesco and Sainsburys? Now if that was the case, I think I might start using them. I will happily buy my tea, pick a seat and watch as the bedlam unfolds I might even buy some of that biscotti they were on about, I like a good munch when I am settling in to watch some chaos ensue. I'm off to make tea, anyone want one?