Unless you’ve been living in a cave (Howdy Osama!) for the last while, you’ll know that St Patrick’s Day came and, thanks be to goodness, went this week. I have complicated reactions to the tsunami of shamrockery that greets Ireland’s patron saint on this side of the pond. On the one hand, I can’t help applauding and envying the wholehearted and innocent way people throw themselves into it, not giving a rat’s ass if they look like putzes all decked out in green. On the other hand, I hate the whole thing with a deep and abiding hate. Bock had a lovely Paddy’s Day rant over on his site, which says it all, and in language I dare not use on this occasionally family-friendly site. Interesting sidebar on the New York Patrick’s Day parade. I’ve never been able to trace the quote, but I remember hearing St Patrick’s Day described as the day on which the nabobs of New York stood on Fifth Avenue to watch their servants march by. (Thank you, Conortje for reminding me of that lovely song for Ireland.) The Corrs also have a version of it, but I prefer Luke Kelly’s.
Compare and Contrast
Mid-week, I was researching attitudes to disability in the Chinese culture for a speech I was drafting, when I came across this blog post, about a young Chinese woman who has refused a government disability pension, despite having been born with her feet facing backwards.
“I can run faster than most of my friends and have a regular job as a waitress in the family restaurant,” she says. “There is no reason to class me as disabled. I’m like everyone else – except of course that I put my shoes on backwards.”
It’s an interesting find, in itself, but even more so in a week when I also had this emailed to me by Google Alerts. (I get Google Alerts on all the topics likely to be of use to me in speeches.)
Emma, said: “I’m a student and don’t have time to exercise” she said “We all want to lose weight to stop the abuse we get in the street, but we don’t know how.”
Serendipity
When the following quote, from Andre Maurois, popped up in my email—yes, I get a quotation by email every day, too! Tools of the trade, okay?—it seemed fortuitous, especially in light of my preceding post:
Often we allow ourselves to be upset by small things we should despise and forget. We lose many irreplaceable hours brooding over grievances that, in a year’s time, will be forgotten by us and by everybody. No, let us devote our life to worthwhile actions and feelings, to great thoughts, real affections and enduring undertakings.
Also this week …
My desk became famous on two continents. I don’t actually do all that much blogging there, as that is primarily my work desk. I prefer to blog in the sunroom, aka the Foredeck, and I am helped in doing so by a wonderful little app called Dropbox. Although I can sync my Macbook Air (on which I blog) with my PowerBook (on which I work), I find it so much easier to just drop any items that catch my fancy into Dropbox and then open them up when I am blogging. Btw, the gasometer in the picture on my wall, has become this:
The First Husband snapped it, while he was exploring Dublin on his own last year (I was hanging out with My Skinny Cow Sister and having a grand old time!) We have a shared history with Dublin Gas, so he knew I would be pleased to see that the gasometer lives on, if in very different guise. Ain’t progress grand.
The desk looks like it belongs to a really hard worker who never twitters. I admire your multi-tasking abilities. Great photo by TFH. Progress, Hmmmm? I don’t know.
That gasometer used to go up and down. I hope it doesn’t return to form now that it’s inhabited by humans.
I’m going to have to stop coming here. You are the marrow of brilliance and I feel at least 20 IQ points lower each time I read one of your posts.
Ugh….where’s my dictionary??
Good stuff. I read Bock’s rant and loved it. Am visiting here from Smart Mouth Broad. Love your blog.
Ah, but we DO know how to lose weight – we just don’t want to have to work at it. Am I guilty of that? Oh, you bet!
It never occurred to me to wonder what the Irish think of our St. Paddy Day’s excesses over here in the States (typical American, I know). Bock’s post was quite illuminating, and I LMAO at the thought of the Prime Minister of Jamaica bringing a “big bowl of sensemilla on Haile Selassie Mad Bastard Day” to the President.
As a newer reader I have questions. So, you are a speech writer? Must go back and check the links…
Mary Black does a powerful on this one too Tessa which always makes my c-r-y.
It was written by a sassenach I think. Not bad. ;^)
I must take a pic of my office when I get back to NL.
XO
WWW
You mean St Patrick’s Day is over already?
Darn, I must have been watching television that night!