All in the national interest? Oh, Frances!
SETS THE CAT AMONG THE PIGEONS
IT’S over. Frances resigned. And so am I. Resigned, that is. I don’t think Frances and Leo played it very well at all, at all.
They are not amateurs and when a bit of evidence shows up that could blow you out of the water, even if some official in the Civil Service committed the error, there’s a stain on your office. Your job is to throw yourself overboard for the good of the party, on a micro scale, and for your country, on a macro scale.
In Frances’s personal speech on Tuesday, she reiterated her commitment to the flag.
‘Throughout my career,’ she said, ‘I have always sought to act with integrity and responsibility and that is why on this occasion I have decided to put the national interest ahead of my personal reputation.’
Ahem, Tánaiste Frances, are you hinting that there have been other occasions when you put your personal reputation ahead of the national interest? Or am I over-parsing the contents of your statement?
It was important that we knew everything that Frances got up to. She could have been a contender for Taoiseach, and still could if Leo doesn’t try to beat Enda Kenny’s long-service record.
Leo was extremely gallant throughout, an admirable quality and much to be admired, but shag all use in a brawl.
Breaking a promise to oneself, at my age, is a reckless manoeuvre. I swore that I wouldn’t consciously watch I’m A Celebrity... Get Me Out of Here! any more and this past week fulfilled my promise to myself to avoid, eschew and duck the tripe that is presents.
The banal show is a travesty for worms, rats and spiders, all of whom are given a bad name in the hope that they’ll freak the bejaysus out of the Z List celebrities.
Where did it all begin and where is it all going to end? Big Brother was the first entertainment programme to engage in the mass exploitations of ‘cylebrities’ (cybercelebrities). It opened up a new avenue of stargazing for the excitable ingenues.
Dozens of reality shows later, Get Me Out is continuing to run with no attempt by the producers to introduce even a modicum of wit or sophistication to the show. I mean, how can you be arsed one way or another on a programme that still depends on contestants biting the heads off fat maggots and sucking the innards out of newly beheaded worms? As for the creepy spiders, what would it take to entice you? Would you do it for money, and, if so, for how much?
The only thing that I know with certainty is that everybody wants to be on television. Yet I have never managed to figure out what makes being on television so attractive to people. From the beginning, even in the pre-video age, people clamoured for attention wherever a camera might appear. These curious people would run the gamut of occupations from bus drivers to irate farmers, hovering in the background, for example, when some intense interview with a Minister was going on.
Kids are a terrible curse when you’re trying to film. Be it an interview or a scenario, they jump up and down, they leer into camera and they give the old one-digit salute. Enda Cahill memorably dubbed them ‘lens lice’.
Then there was the well-known politician who figured out where the ‘head shot’ of Charlie Haughey would be positioned during the broadcast of the Fianna Fáil Ard Fheis. The senator in question carefully calculated the seat and plonked himself down to squat and wait for a number of hours. And, sure enough, when Charlie’s speech was broadcast, there was our man in shot, firmly behind his leader.
I wonder did he do it in the national interest or was it purely for his personal reputation?