Monthly Archives: December 2012

The Blissful Trough of Decrepitude

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Today at Mass, yes indeed Mass, the priest told a salutary tale about respect for our elders, of valuing their contribution, on remembering that if God spares us, we too will one day be old and decrepit. We would wish to be well treated in our aged infirmity would we not? Therefore his tale cautioned, do not make old people eat from a trough and be treated like livestock, a burden on us all lest the same fate befall us when our time comes. Deo Volente. Treat others as you would be treated yourselves. Ponder that.

 

I have always looked forward to the certainty of decrepitude. Being institutionalised in some sort of Fold or old people’s home. I was brought up near one, I found their slow ambling and rambling fascinating these geriatric folks, slowly drifting hither and thither. Sometimes one would escape and there would be a full scale search.

 

There in my Fold, or home, I will get an old man’s pardon for being disruptive, degenerate and dysfunctional. At the minute people just tolerate it, but when I am old (I am already grey) I am looking forward to a bye ball on my many indiscretions.

 

Some things I will not welcome open armed. Incontinence would be a drag, sitting there in the damp stinking waiting for some hag to come and sort me out. ‘That’s the tenth pair of underpants this week’ she would gulder at me. One of my beautiful daughters would of course visit with fresh supplies as a mark of thanks for all I did for them when they were wee. I live in hope I should add.

 

I’m not looking forward to the watery gruel that will pass for food, over-cooked steak and oily spuds. Custard with skin tight as a drum. These are not for me. In my infirmity I want the girls to bring me hampers from the deli on the Prom. Salamis, cheeses, and fig and almond loaf. Perhaps a flagon of fine red wine too to wash along the memories, the sadness and the regret. And also to liberate the sheer happiness I would feel to be there, in the home. Maybe even with a sea view I could never afford when undecrepit.

 

The matron-hag would tear into them for bringing me contraband. ‘It aggravates his condition’ she would roar, my daughters no slouches themselves in the verbal stakes would stick up for me. None of the King Lear nonsense here I tell you, all of them would defend their dad to the death.

 

There is a terrible sadness in the eyes of old people in a home. Blue gleam faded as if left too long in the sun. Bags below filled with tears ready to overflow down wrinkled meandering cheeks, by jowls, to see slowly the future slipping away.

 

I’ll have wrinkly saggy arms, and hands. Chipped nails and stand out veins. My nose will drip, drip, drip and my teeth ache from too much eating. My belly will be flaccid then like an empty pillow case. Ass-saggy and sore-legged I will not speak of any other anatomical details suffice it to say the Gout will be a terrible affliction for a man of my age.

 

And I’ll sit, bent on destruction watching the waves coming in, going out, coming in, going out, the way they always do and always will. Waiting and waiting and just waiting for my turn.

Speechwriting – The Heightening Alleghenies

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Of all the pieces of work I am given and of all the assignments I take on, speechwriting is one job that I always enjoy. It is challenging and rewarding.

 

Very many people are uncomfortable with the very thought of speaking in public and if that isn’t terrifying enough, the additional weight of having to say something coherent in a public arena can turn the most confident person into a nervous wreck.

 

I have written speeches for all sorts of events, prize giving ceremonies, graduations, honorary graduation citations, product launches, fundraisers, charity events, awards ceremonies, weddings, you name it. I cannot disclose the names of any clients for whom I write speeches, the fact that someone may have a person like myself to write their remarks can be a matter they don’t like to discuss publicly. To me it is logical, if I can help them express their view in a better way then why have them subject themselves to the trauma. It is a service I provide, I enjoy and I am happy to do.

 

During my time at the University I was involved in graduation speeches at a secondary level. My then boss drafted and crafted the main speech by the Chancellor or Vice Chancellor depending on who was the presiding officer. The one amusing part of this task was his penchant for obscure erudite quotes. He would have to explain to the particular Orator, for example who Primo Levi was in case the attributed quotation used might provoke a question or two. So, the use of quotes has to be managed carefully and pitched to the occasion, the audience and the speaker.

 

In my role at the University I introduced the concept of the student speaker replying formally at graduation on behalf of the student body. I was also responsible for drafting the speech the student speakers delivered. Surprisingly most student valedictorians (as they are known as in the States and elsewhere) did not take up the opportunity to write their own address. A few did but in the main they ran with what we provided. I remember one ceremony where between myself and my boss we had written the entire content of the speeches, the main address, the provost’s remarks, the honorary graduate’s citations, and the valedictorian’s address. The exception was the honorary graduate, and I had spoken to him to give him a steer on what to say. So we even had an input on this. The general public was none the wiser. But that’s the way things were done. And the message was consistent.

 

During my time there and since, I have written numerous addresses. In preparation I will typically find out a bit about the audience, the venue, the time of the speech (after dinner etc), the preferred duration. I will also try to gauge the way in which the person speaks and have in the past listened to a recording of a speaker to understand the way they actually talk before I put pen to paper. I will also have various ideas rattling around in my head, these I write down in a notebook, type into iPhone notes or dictate to myself.

 

When it comes to writing the speech, having let the whole thing ferment and stew for a while, I will sit down and write it in one go, before leaving it overnight to set. The second edit normally involves a fair bit of copy removal, proving Dr Johnson’s maxim:

 

‘Read over your compositions, and where ever you meet with a passage which you think is particularly fine, strike it out.’

 

Again in the case of a recent submission, I was required to write to specific time duration and I listened to several recordings of the likely speaker, working out the average number of words he spoke in a minute to establish the word count for the time required.

 

In business, a formal speech may be a central part of the proceedings, whether to raise funds, launch a product or a campaign/initiative. I have written material where the theme is consistent for the entire event so the people involved receive the same message. That backfired at a fundraising function once when one of the organisation’s officials took my carefully drafted words somewhat grudgingly and opened his remarks by saying ‘They told me to read this out’. Which of course he duly did.

 

In terms of famous speeches Dr Martin Luther King’s ‘I Have a Dream’ address delivered at Washington has many lessons for speechwriter and speaker alike. The use of repetition of phrases at the start of sentences and again at the end powerfully reinforces the themes he touches upon. Also the alliteration used for effect. The biblical references and inflection. The use of the Negro spiritual lyric. The combination of sermon and civil rights themes. It is a heady, infectious and overwhelmingly engaging mixture that rewards listening for the full seventeen minutes.

 

That Dr King went off script at the end of the speech was no hardship to him as an experienced and inspirational preacher, but it demonstrates the value of injecting personal passion and experience into an otherwise brilliantly crafted piece of rhetoric.

 

The effects are most noticeable in the rising cadence and repetition as the address reaches its climax:

So let freedom ring from the prodigious hilltops of New Hampshire.

Let freedom ring from the mighty mountains of New York.

Let freedom ring from the heightening Alleghenies of Pennsylvania!

Let freedom ring from the snowcapped Rockies of Colorado!

Let freedom ring from the curvaceous slopes of California!

But not only that; let freedom ring from Stone Mountain of Georgia!

Let freedom ring from Lookout Mountain of Tennessee!

Let freedom ring from every hill and molehill of Mississippi. From every mountainside, let freedom ring.

And when this happens, when we allow freedom to ring, when we let it ring from every village and every hamlet, from every state and every city, we will be able to speed up that day when all of God’s children, black men and white men, Jews and Gentiles, Protestants and Catholics, will be able to join hands and sing in the words of the old Negro spiritual, “Free at last! free at last! thank God Almighty, we are free at last!”

It is a supremely inspiring piece and one to which any would be public speaker should listen as an example of the art of Rhetoric. We may not be able to speak like that or indeed write like that, but we can learn from it.

In the teaching of Rhetoric there are five Canons: Invention; Arrangement; Style; Memory; and Delivery.

From my perspective as a writer, I generally have control over the first three of these as often for obvious reasons I won’t even be present when the piece is delivered.

 

For those curious as to the meaning of the five Canons, I will return to this topic if and when the spirits move me.

 

But for now, the end is near, and the fog is rising. Let us go in.

 

Diary Note 17 March: So Said The Gladiator

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What we do in life echoes in eternity. So said the gladiator. He’s right.

John Lundy pointed out to me in passing the other day that teaching is in the genes in my family. His remark was apropos something else entirely but it struck a chord. How many influenced and better people thanks to Angie, my mum, my dad, Patsy? And the rest.

Around the same time a work contact told me he had been talking to an old friend of my dad’s. My father certainly influenced many, most for the better, few for the worst. I have even come to terms with reading the words of a former pupil who slated him online. For him I am saving a special revenge but that’s for again.

Reflecting on all of this, it occurs to me that number one we don’t tell people what we think of them when we have the opportunity because, well, it discomfits them; two it embarrasses us and three we think perhaps we can put it off until another time. By then it can be too late.

In writing this I am thinking of a small number of people that have given me much more than I have ever given them.

It is time to do that, and perhaps it would be a better reason for a day off work than the faux Oirish celebration of the day that’s in it.

No Animals Were Harmed in The Writing of This Tale

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I may have dreamt this, all of it. Or maybe not. Anyhow I lived to tell the tale, and learned how not to treat people.

When you start working up there you won’t be starting on the starting line, you will be starting well behind it. Such was the ringing endorsement my first boss gave me when I resigned and told him I was leaving my job.

He was referring to the University of Ulster at Coleraine where I had just been appointed Editor. In truth he was happy to see me go.

A year or so before a book I had worked on with him and a rather pompous academic of Yorkshire stock went into print with a word missing as a result of a layout mistake. He went ballistic and verbally abused me in front of the whole office telling me the sooner I left the better. It was a sentiment I agreed with but he would have to wait another while and so would I.

As an example of how not to treat people I found my time in that Place of Employment illuminating. Public dressings down, bollocking and downright dogs abuse were common enough from a man who used an honorific title, not having achieved a doctorate. There was no doubt he was a very accomplished historian, and though charming to strangers, Americans and those for whom he did research, he was pig ignorant to his staff.

And he was also wrong about the University.

Diary Note July 24

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Today it rained, rained and rained. The roof’s leaking somewhere gonna have to get that checked out. It shouldn’t be but that’s another story. The living room needs painted and the leylandii need cut. The trampoline’s FUBAR thanks to Peter. My mothers car clutch has gone again. Amidst all that disintegration and disrepair life goes on.

At least Soda’s back in decent shape. Happy chasing the cat arthritis permitting. If I can do the same at her age I’ll be happy enough.

Is Jim McGuinness Donegal Football’s Special One

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Piece Written for An Fear Rua, 16 May 2011.

Puke football or defence turned into a fine art? That is the question we should be asking after Donegal’s latest exhibition of the black art of blanket defence. Rather than condemn it, is it not possible to admire such a terrible and gruesome tactical creation as a work of genius.

The end justifies the means in championship football, and with a first win in Ulster since 2007, Jim McGuinness and Rory Gallagher won’t have been dripping tears into their cornflakes this morning.

The wet day, greasy pitch and their players’ mastery of the tactical plan they set out to execute would have made for breakfast smiles all round. The players talked afterwards about knowing exactly what they had to do. That’s the sign of good management.

During the week Baker Bradley tried to get a rise out of Donegal by suggesting their brand of play was Puke Football. Yawn yawn. For Baker to borrow the language of depression from Pat Spillane is bad enough. But his own Antrim team are hardly a swashbuckling outfit. Baker’s known to pull a man or two back. And let’s be honest. He has to.

Donegal always had an intriguing combination of ball players, the likes of Hegarty, Toye and co, aligned with raw-boned big hoors from the hills in the style of Anthony Molloy. A succession of managers seemed to struggle to get the best out of them.

The slightest hint of success seems to send them reaching for a pint glass. Failure likewise, and thereafter the men scatter to the four corners of the county tails between their legs. McGuinness played an artful role earlier in the season constantly pleading injuries and missing players, deflecting attention on to himself as his team progressed. He’s no slouch.

Earlier, during the league I ventured along to Celtic Park to watch Donegal and Derry in the league. It was a dank oul Saturday night and I was quietly intrigued by what I saw. Donegal had already beaten Tyrone by swamping their half forward line. Tyrone had enjoyed ten minutes of dominance, racing away with a few scores. And then they were just stopped. Dead. The Donegal Swamp opened up and sucked them in.

At Celtic Park it became obvious that this was no accident. We’re used to seeing a sweeper pitch up in defence these days. Donegal had two. Sean Leo McGoldrick was Derry’s centre forward and the Eoghan Rua man simply couldn’t get the room to play his normal game.

To get any meaningful ball he would have had to play fifteen metres deeper. And that would have nullified his influence even more. When he did get the ball he was shackled by Karl Lacey. If he escaped him there were two further ‘defenders’ stationed between the half forward line and the full forward line. When Donegal got the ball back, as they frequently did they rushed forward attacking at pace.

To be fair Derry did trouble them by booming in high balls early days, one of which led directly to a goal. But otherwise Donegal smothered them.

The winning of that game wasn’t this two man sweeper system. The moment that broke the game open was when Donegal’s own highball in was fielded by Micheal Murphy who really is a force of nature. He scorched Kevin McCloy and Barry McGoldrick before hitting an explosive shot into the top corner. Twas as good a goal as I have seen. It rebounded off the stanchion out the field faster than it went in.

Myself and a few of the lads left Celtic Park ruminating on this new Donegal Catenaccio.

It made me think of soccer where the fashion these days is for the holding midfielder or two. Two banks of four as they say. Or in Mourinho’s case with Inter last year, banks of four, five and one. That was effective. Against Barcelona and a man down, it was still effective. That’s good coaching.

On Sunday as Antrim attacked late in the game, Donegal went man to man in the half forward line and had two or three boys lined up in front of the full back line and three more man to man in the full back line. Familiar?

There were three in midfield, often including full forward Micheal Murphy who was able to win ball and dictate things at his own speed. When they attacked they went forward at pace. They had the new lad McBrearty holding a very wide position attacking from there, and the likes of Ryan Bradley and Mc Hugh breaking from deep carrying the ball in.

Jose Mourinho talks about the moments in the game when the opposition lose balance and that is when his players must recover the ball. In gaelic football there is no rule that says scoring must be sustained evenly over the seventy minutes. Is it possible to pick your moment?

If you can absorb the punches, tire the opposition and attack in short bursts and score in clusters, is that such a bad thing? If planned it is quite clever. Audacious even. But in every game the opposition has periods of dominance especially in the possession-fixated sport of modern gaelic football. Let them have the ball, if they’re going to and fro across the pitch, they’re winding down the clock as well as the energy reserves.

It is the scores on the board at the end of seventy plus minutes that counts. Not their frequency during the game. Yet pundits are obsessed with boring oul mantras like ‘Donegal went twenty five minutes without scoring.’ If they did and during that time Antrim punched themselves to a standstill, then all the better.

Gaelic football may not be getting better. Every year the pundits brand Ulster football as terrible to watch. But for the likes of myself, it has an absorbing fascination.

I’ll hazard the guess there’s nothing in Jim McGuinness’s arrangement with the Donegal county board that says he has to entertain. Or please O’Rourke and Spillane. Or you and I for that matter. For years Donegal played nice football. And won nothing. As Brad Gilbert the author of the famous tome Winning Ugly said: “always remember, it’s better to win ugly than to lose pretty.’

Gilbert’s philosophy was simple. He broke winning ugly down into three simple steps:

1 Recognize your opportunity
2 Analyze your options and
3 Capitalize on the opportunity using the best option.

I don’t know if Jose Mourinho or Jim McGuinness have ever met Brad Gilbert. But they have at least one thing in common, and it’s not just having the same initials.

Is McGuinness the Donegal Special One? We’ll see this summer.