As Michael D. Higgins departed the Áras this week after 14 years, the public outpouring was palpable. Spontaneous applause at St Patrick’s Cathedral and a guard of honour by Sanctuary Runners with yellow roses: it was all fitting for a man who expanded the presidential role beyond recognition.
And of course, there was the tea cozy. The famous Michael Tea Higgins knitted creation sold out in four minutes when it went on sale in 2018. Now, as Catherine Connolly takes office, there are reports of a Catherine Connoll-TEA in the works. Ah, the lefties love woolly things.
While he spoke eloquently about human rights, President Higgins famously described Fidel Castro as ‘a giant among global leaders’ and, according to Tommy Tiernan, received an annual gift of Havana cigars from Castro and his brother Raul, a fact which didn’t go down so well in some quarters.
In many ways, the presidency has become poetry to the prose and complicated grunt work of everyday politics, where TDs have to construct real sentences and paragraphs to try and explain an ever-fractured world, while someone sits in the Áras firing out the haikus. Nice gig if you can get it.
All drama at the BBC
An average of 11.1 million people tuned in to watch the Celebrity Traitors final in the UK last week, the biggest live audience of the year. I won’t spoil the outcome in case you haven’t seen it, but a famous UK comedian emerged victorious after weeks of lying with what he described as ‘no poker face’, winning £87,500 for charity. The man giggled through every interrogation and somehow nobody suspected him. It was absolutely brilliant.
In an age of doom-scrolling isolation, here was a show bringing millions together for shared appointment viewing on public service telly. Pure backstabbing drama served up in a Scottish castle, with Claudia Winkleman dressed like a particularly elegant vampire.
Which makes the timing ironic, because while we watched staged treachery in the Highlands, the real-life version unfolded at the BBC itself.
BBC Director General Tim Davie and CEO of News Deborah Turness resigned last Sunday after a Panorama documentary misleadingly edited Donald Trump’s January 6th speech. The edit spliced together different bits, making it appear that Trump actively encouraged the Capitol riots. Now, Trump says plenty of terrible things without any help from the BBC’s editors, but this was a silly mistake which has had grave consequences. Trump has threatened to sue the organisation for $1 billion.
Insiders talk of a ‘coup’, with claims of a campaign by political enemies on both the left and the right. David Yelland, former Sun editor, said people ‘very close to the board’ had ‘systematically undermined’ Davie’s team. Others disagree; The Sun said Davie rightly took responsibility for an ‘organisation riddled with liberal bias.’ It goes to show how complex and fraught it is to run the gold standard of public service news broadcasting in an age of division, amplified by social media and a nefarious presence in the White House.
At least Claudia Winkleman kept her job.
Prepare, but live a little too
I’ve been following New Zealander Michael Houghton’s journey on his podcast over the years. He’s a Limerick-based financial enthusiast and a champion of the FIRE (Financial Independence, Retire Early) movement. He spent years saving aggressively while building a €700,000 portfolio to retire in his forties, echoing similar journeys by FIRE advocates around the world. And he’s done it, according to his new column in the Irish Independent. He hit his FIRE number late last year, the financial equivalent of Nirvana.
Fair play to him. Not many would have the discipline to follow through on such an audacious plan, this writer included. I note however that he is opting to continue working even though he’s hit the magical number, and it seems that even though he’s financially secure to live a certain lifestyle, there are other luxuries he can now afford after years of strict budgeting, and continuing to work will make those available. Money has a funny way of always demanding more of you, doesn’t it? There’s also the purpose and meaning that we derive from our work, which we all need. It makes me wonder if finding the right balance over the course of your career is a more sensible approach, rather than this fevered push to amass a fortune that the FIRE movement, some would say cult, advocates.
Each to their own though, and I have learned a lot from Houghton’s podcast over the years that I try to apply to my own life.
But I’ve come to the conclusion that deferring joy until some magical number in your forties or fifties is less important than finding balance now and living in the moment as much as possible, within reason of course. None of us knows what’s around the corner, do we? Another chocolate biscuit, anyone?
The Da Vinci (Pass) Code
Remember the thieves that stole €88 million in crown jewels from the Louvre in seven minutes? It turns out that the heist investigation has revealed the museum’s CCTV password was simply ‘LOUVRE’.
So, if you’re feeling bad about your own cybersecurity habits, and believe me I won’t throw stones from my own particular glasshouse, take comfort. You’re already doing better than the people guarding the Mona Lisa.
And if your email password is still ‘PASSWORD’, then today might be the day to do something about it.
