Cáit wrote this for a school assignment. It is very good so I am posting it here for her.

I am a pound coin. I was made in the Royal Mint in London in 2005. I don’t like the picture on my front. It’s of some woman, I think her name’s Elizabeth. On my back, I’ve got a picture of London Bridge. When I grow up, I want to be a euro, because they’ve got two colours, and they’re so much cooler than us one-tone pounds. Here’s a story of how I’m on my way to becoming a euro.

Today Aoife’s ma gave me to Aoife to pay for her trip to Belfast.

“Aoife, make sure you give this to Miss Mullan, OK? It’s an envelope in the front pocket of your bag!” she dropped me, Newbie Niall and Ancient Anna into the envelope. We slid around, testing for holes, but the envelope stood firm. Then it went dark. We felt the plod, plod, plod, plod motion of our Person walking. On the journey, we exchanged gossip.

“Psst, Penny. Did you hear about the notes?” Niall whispered, ignoring the disapproving glances Anna sent his way.

“Oh yeah. The two-pound note thing. That’s ancient, Niall, almost as old as Anna!” I said, rolling around, trying to scratch that itchy spot on my side.

“No, not that! The Mint are thinking about replacing us with Notes!” Niall hissed as the flap opened.

“Yes. One, two, three. It’s all there. Bye Aoife.” Miss Mullan tipped us into a big, deep blue box, on top of at least a dozen other coins. She slammed it shut and left us in the dark for at least half an hour.

“Yes Miss Mullan. How was your weekend? Yes, ours was lovely, although you know that incident at the Doherty Cup didn’t help.  Yes, yes, mm-hmm, no. Bye, talk to you later!” I’m slid into the elegant black leather bag of a woman. The scent of Chanel is overpowering. All the company I’ve got are wads of crisp twenty-pound notes that look down their corners at me, and clusters of one-and-two pees that huddle in a corner and giggle. The lady opens her purse and takes me back out.

“Here you go. Thank you. “ She nods, and smiles, and presses out past the crowd. I was dropped into a plastic bucket and left there.

“On hundred and fifty three, one hundred and fifty four, one hundred a- grrr! Oh no, not again.” The man who’s counting us has knocked the neat stacks of coins over. I decide to make a roll for it, because I’m getting crushed by at least six other coins every time he stacks us. I spin on the ground for what feels like an age, until I find a hiding place. Under the table, no, beside the socket, no, under the dog basket, no, wait, under the dog basket? Perfect. I quietly glide over, and am instantly hidden from view. I lie there; using the time to relax, and make sure I’m as shiny as ever. After about an hour a boy who’s got gap teeth and shaved hair finds me.

“Heads-or-tails, Dara? DARA! Heads-or-tails?” he lisps, just before he flicks me up, up, up, high into the air. I float there, feeling the cold air cool my warmed skin. Then I fall. I land hard on the pavement with a smack then roll along the ground. Presently I find a rusty grate. It soothes my itchy side, and scores the image of the doll on my front. I fall through the slats and drop until I splash into the murky depths. I sink, down until I’m resting on a shelf. Maybe now I can get some peace. Peace to think about my change. Peace to transform, into a brand new sparkling euro.

The Vet. The Dog, TV Licence and the Electricity Meter.

1

Having taken my dog to have her put to sleep, I wasn’t in the form to pay the euthanising fee there and then. I drive past the Vet’s regularly to-ing and fro-ing from Coleraine. The day Leo was born in the car, he actually made his first appearance in the well of the passenger seat as we turned the corner at the Cheese factory. In fact, the common joke at the time was that we would call him cheddar or some other cheese related name to reflect his place of birth. Sadly now rounding the same corner I cannot pass the Vet’s without remembering the three dogs we have had put to sleep there, Sam, Peig and lately Hub. There will be others. The Vet very kindly sent me a sympathy card about ten days after the lethal injection. It was another lethal injection. And not really of sympathy. I viewed it as a sugar coated reminder to pay the reckoning. Of course a couple of days later the real bill arrived, itemised. Clinical. Straight to the point. I caught a breath. Not a breath like Hub did. I wrote the cheque and posted it back and thanked them for their kindness. That’s the way with dogs. And Vets.

2

The Council sent me a final demand to pay the dog licence. It warned me wanly that further action could be taken if I failed to pay. And what I thought? For a handful of dust. I phoned the woman. Environmental Health she answered helpfully. My Dog’s dead and you sent me a licence reminder. I was tempted to replay the ‘trauma’ but she was efficient. The records would be amended accordingly she said. She didn’t even say sorry about your dog. Bitch.

3

My brother phoned up PowerNI. Very honest he was. He told them how long he’d had the house, he read out the meter reading and he set up a direct debit. All that honesty seems to have fucked them up altogether. Now the electric firm, they’ve gone all bipolar. The positive addresses him by name and offers a statement of account. The negative calls him The Occupier, not The Owner mind you, but The Occupier. It tells him that the account he so diligently sorted out to their benefit has been disconnected. I’m glad my call may have been recorded for training purposes. I imagine a few have been over the years and have indeed been used for training classes. ‘Wait til you hear this grumpy hoor’ I hope they say. She said she would ring me back; my bipolar brother seems to have short-circuited the whole process.

4

TV Licence demands. If they tell me one more time they have opened a case. A case of what? They must spend many’s a TV licence writing to those that don’t have one. I remember the cat and mouse as a student. The idiot licence collector coming to the door trying to establish if you had a TV or not. A football match on live TV, the sound booming out on a Wednesday afternoon. It sounds like you have a TV sir can I come in and check? No they are listening to the radio. I will come back with the RUC he says the fuckin moron. Get out, and move your foot I said his toes jammed Jehovas Witness style between door and frame. Grudgingly I paid when I bought my house. The point of principle made. But they wear you out. Opening cases. Calling you The Occupier.

So there you have it. The Vet. The Dog, TV Licence and the Electricity Meter. How not to do Direct Mail.

Spancelled: “To those who thole a life spancelled with cows.”

‘Spancel, An animal fetter, esp one used to hobble a cow during milking.’ OED.

It may seem an unusual thing to do, commissioning a life-sized sculpture of a man and cow to stand at the gateway to a modern Dairy.

But when you think about it, for a man whose life has been devoted to working with cows as a farmer, and later as a Dairy owner and businessman, Eamon Cunningham’s idea for a sculpture of a man and cow entitled ‘Spancelled’ at the entrance to the family dairy makes perfect sense.

For Eamon, it is the most natural thing in the world, to mark and to celebrate in a unique way, what he considers to be one of the most important symbiotic relationships in Irish life.

The Cunningham family have been involved in dairy farming in Omagh for around 160 years. And, as a market town with a rural hinterland, Omagh has itself had an integral relationship with livestock, dairy and beef farming, the animal feed industry, tanning and the country markets.

Eamon’s father and grandfather were integral to that, involved in everything from tanning animal hides to supplying milk. Eamon himself ran the family dairy for years, and spent his time as Patrick Kavanagh memorably described it ‘outside in the cow house. . . made the music of milking’.

Eamon says: ‘I have been lucky to earn a living from farming and from the Dairy. The dairy farming has been taken over by [my son] Cormac.’

He laughingly admits he didn’t necessarily take to dairy farming naturally saying:

“If I had a fractious enough relationship with cows, Cormac is a natural with the animals. Looking after them, giving them fodder, calving, milking. You should watch him. Marvellous.”

It reminded me of Ted Hughes description of cows ‘Cantankerous at the hay’. In almost a single breath Eamon moves from his own experiences, to what he describes as the symbiotic link between man and cow. It is that instinctive expression and appreciation of knowing that man and cow have always co–existed side by side that led him to commission a sculpture by the well-known artist John Behan.

It is easy to infer that the man in the sculpture is Eamon, but it isn’t – it represents every farmer that ever worked with cows. It is says Eamon a celebration of that and something that he hopes may make people stop for a moment and think.

Eamon followed in the footsteps of his brother Pauric in re establishing the Strathroy Dairy in 1972 in part to provide employment at a time when it was needed in Omagh and in part because it was the natural and obvious thing to do for a dairy farmer whose family had an established name in the Dairy industry in Omagh and West Tyrone.

It is now one of the best-known dairy businesses in the Island of Ireland.

And the alpha and omega of that industry, of dairy life and of the farm in Strathroy is man and cow, cow and man. Spancelled.

Footnote:

The dedication: ‘To those who thole a life spancelled with cows.’

http://youtu.be/X8QGWBLTGrk

http://youtu.be/X8QGWBLTGrk
A while back I extended the wireless network in the house/office so that we could get access anywhere. I also hoped that by boosting the wireless coverage my mother might be able to piggyback from her house a few doors up. To achieve that I think I’d need a industrial strength transmitter.

One of the advantages of this new network coverage is that I can hook up Airplay devices through the house, pumping music from room to room. I also now can sit out in the back garden on one of the many balmy summer’s days we have and do some work.

And so today that was possible. I read a bit. Wrote a couple of draft pieces for a client. Had a telephone call to make. Twas hard to beat really. A cup of coffee, sitting back in the sun. Until. . .

On Friday last Angela brought home from school a couple of pet rabbits called Beano and Dandy. Beano so called because he’s an albino, a furry wee white critter. Dandy named presumably because you can’t have a comic without a straight man, and in the case of these two comedians Dandy is the joker. He certainly made a fool out of me. The children love them of course and its hard not to be enchanted when they bunny hop hither and thither about their wee stockade. Until. . .

So there I am working the outdoor life when I catch a glimpse of the corner of my eye of the lad Dandy merrily skipping rabbitly across the garden. Born free, Maze escaper, Houdini fan, whatever. Off he went hoppity hop, stopping here and there for a quick much of grass, a taste of dandelion, a soupcon of daisy. . . The wee bollix I thought.

We’ve two guinea pigs that routinely make a run for it when they get the chance outside but we’re wise to them. Dandy to be fair saw his chance and legged it.

I passed the next 45 minutes trying to lure the pesky varmint back into custody with a carrot (what else, c’mon we’ve all seen Bugs Bunny). Dandy looked at me munching a carrot: ‘What’s Up Doc?’ he said before skipping back under the hedge eluding my grasp once again. Then, off he went and hid under the garden shed, appearing round one side as I looked under the other.

By this stage the humour was off me. To lose one rabbit would be unfortunate, unforgiveable. How would I explain myself. So, I brought over the chair, and the iPad and settled down in front of the shed for the long haul. Either he surrendered or hopefully the kids would come back.

Within a short while Sorcha arrived skippily around the side of the house. Our own Dr Doolittle. I swear she can talk to the animals. Within three minutes with the help of Peter they had Dandy back behind bars.

I can see where Warner Brothers got the inspiration. Not for the faint hearted this working outdoors. It’s a jungle out there in business these days, and you never know what you might come up against.

That’s all folks.

Just now I was sitting working when a mobile butcher’s shop pulled up outside my house. The driver sauntered over to the house and hit me with his rehearsed speech.

He travels round neighbourhoods from as far away as Ballymena and Ballycastle selling fresh meat. He used to have a butcher’s shop in Ballymoney until his father died. Ever since the family business has switched to the van.

On invitation I wandered over to the van and had a look inside. It was like a very small village butchers with cuts of meat set out in a small counter, much like you would see at one of the country markets that appear in our high streets. This guy was showing his meat to the people.

He had a food standard rating of 4 out of a possible 5 he told me up front. I admired his resourcefulness and his honesty. And his enterprising nature. I was surprised when he told me he had no high street or even village street presence. This was it, one man and his meat. In a van.

I admit I wasn’t blown away by his set up, but it was impressive. It reminded me of the old grocery vans that used to deliver back in Omagh in my distant childhood. There was something homely about them and the combination of smells that assailed my childish nostrils when I ventured in there.

In the butcher’s van the smell of flesh was heavy, oppressive and slightly overwhelming. He had a fridge on board, the place looked clean and tidy. And crucially for me there were no flies, always a good sign. I told him I would keep an eye for him on his return. I think it is the second such van doing the rounds of late – I may have imagined it but I thought I saw a fresh fish van drive up our way last week. If it appears again I will stop it and board it for inspection.

The point of this story is this. A while ago I wrote a piece for the Marketing Institute of Ireland on the use of social media in marketing. It referenced the way a crêpe seller in San Francisco with a handcart promoted his wares using Twitter. It was brilliant.

It got me thinking today, as you do. What if our mobile meat man had a Twitter account. What if he could tell his followers of his whereabouts each day?

What special offers he had, what special cuts and what this week’s sausages were. How do his customers know where to find him? Could the one man van and his meat have a Facebook page? And why not?

Without this insight he is like a modern day Telemachus travelling aimlessly in a meat Odyssey hoping to meet Ulysses. Along the way he may run into sirens posing as desperate housewives and the odd oxen of the sun. Whatever, the opportunity is there. Likewise the opportunity is also there to all those doing the country market circuit.

I let him go without offering any insight. Maybe next time. First I’d need to be sure I would buy his meat myself. After all, it’s all about the product.

Sorcha, with Hub never too far away.

This day last week I took our dog to the vet and had her put to sleep. I stayed with her and held her as the vet administered the lethal dose. Hub gradually relaxed and slipped away from me, her beautiful black coat still shining. Her gleaming eyes dulled as her spirit left her.

She had arrived about nine years ago as a six week old bundle of fun and mischief. At the time my son Leo was toddling about and he used to kick her vigorously as she stole his football and snapped at his feet. They both thought it was great fun.

She tortured our then other dog, a placid golden Labrador we called Peig, who was like the conscience of the house. Any raised voices she headed for cover. Not so Hub. She was a fairly indisciplined critter, at first when you took her for a walk she wouldn’t come back and she used to drive me into paroxysms of frustration as she ran round the car refusing to get in, bucking and lepping.

Once we left her with the friend I got her from when we went on holiday. She ate the bottom of his creosoted gate over the course of our break.

Even up to her final few days with us she enjoyed the odd glorious rampage, sprinting hither and thither with abandon.

As the children grew up, Hub was part of the family. She always showed up in portraits of the family drawn in primary school, this four legged black shape in the foreground. That’s Hub, the various children would declare matter of factly explaining their latest piece.

She was so much part of the family, the furniture and the fun round these parts that we took her for granted. Not so the postman, or coal and oil delivery men. She would rip the post from the post box and in the process destroyed a few cheques I received from clients and at least one DVD.

She would station herself in the car if a door were left open and developed a penchant for chewing seatbelts. An expensive taste, I spent several hundreds replacing them. Any coat left in the car was liable to have a bite taken out of it. She had a go at my training cones too when she got the chance.

The children loved Hub. Every morning Sorcha’s first point of call was a visit to the living room for a hug.

Last week I took her to the vet to have what I thought would be a diagosis of some sort of infection. Instead she had developed dog diabetes and we took the difficult decision to have her put to sleep. In this home we shared, the strict regime required to treat a diabetic dog with absolute rigour would not be practical. I was heartsore as I took her for a final walk down to the beach.

But it is what you sign up to with a dog. The agreement was there from the moment I lifted her in her cardboard. By taking on the responsibility of this black Labrador pup we also committed to being there with her to reassure her and comfort her when the vet puts her to sleep. You can do no less.

This day last week I took our dog to the vet and had her put to sleep. I stayed with her and held her as the vet administered the lethal dose. Hub gradually relaxed and slipped away from me, her beautiful black coat still shining. Her gleaming eyes dulled as her spirit left her. It broke my heart.

Putting the tin on.

A while back my wood supplier sold me a shipment of wood. He told me it had been seasoned. It wasn’t. It hisses and spits like a mean ole cat and the stove in the kitchen smokes like a train. In fact I was taking calls from the Vatican looking to borrow it for the recent election. Instead I referred them to my wood guy. Hopefully next time it will be better.

Leo decided he was doing goals for the u14 hurlers. Either that or he was picked. It required a trip to Scullion Hurls in Loughgiel to have a keeper’s hurl cut. Hurley maker Mick Scullion started the process while we waited, cutting the outline of the junior keeper’s hurl from a shaped plank of raw ash. His dad, Joe, the founder of the business then took over shaping the hurl down closer to its finished shape before Mick again stepped forward to sand it down to the required weight and finish. Joe advised getting the bas covered in muck to seal it before we might bring it back to get tinned.

Two generations of craftsmen a pleasure to watch, seeing the hurley in the ash, they set it free.

There’s something about Loughgiel. It’s not just a place. It’s a state of mind. I had cause to speak to Liam ‘Winker’ Watson about a game their underage players play. I had texted him asking the rules, his reply wasn’t precise enough so he called me to explain the rules in detail. Benches wouldn’t do Winker said, it had to be tables, the sort you might see in a canteen because the wee men might raise the ball he said. Instructions complete he gave a fleeting insight to their current state of readiness for the Antrim League and then was off. Sound fella Winker, in a league of his own. He came over to Owenbeg last year with the trophy and spent time with the youngsters. We all marvelled at the weight of his hurl, one of a fresh batch fashioned for each match by Mick Scullion. Whatever about the weight he knows how to wave it. Winkers Wand we named it last year. It carries a heavy responsibility.

The problem with hurling these days is the cold. Camoging too. I was only coaching on Sunday and my hands were freezing. Gráinne was fit to tell me the finger she had busted last summer ached in the cold. At the u14 match last week two boys had to be subbed it was that cold. Another cried when he got home he was that foundhered. Leo was OK in goals, we invested in a pair of expensive Skins leggings and he wore four layers on top. The keeper’s hurl did the job too.

I went back over last Saturday to Loughgiel to pick up a few Clones Mick had agreed to make for me. Again he had the rough shape done before finishing out the final sticks – one a 30, the other a 26, effortlessly mimicking Leo’s existing 28. Another Scullion original lifted off the shelf completed the deal. £70. For the four and three grips.

The other main point of note is the new workshop and showroom. Scullion Hurls have become part of the Économusée network a series of working craft museums across the north coast area. The new centre is superbly finished telling the story of the hurley makers, their craft and the games they serve. The attention to detail brilliant and the finished product excellent. There were three happy hurlers in our house for sure.

Next time I’m over I’ll be buying a few bags of seasoned offcuts of ash for the fire. It’ll burn better than the wet stuff. Should have done that in the first place. Maybe.

A poster at the Boss’s bus stop should do the trick.

You know the saying. If a bough breaks in the forest and no-one hears it, does it make a sound? Well. Marketing can be a bit like that. There’s being heard and there’s being heard. And then there’s people listening to you.

Once when I worked in the University of Ulster, we were charged annually with the job of marketing the institution’s nursing programmes to the local profession. The course offered included undergraduate programmes, postgraduate courses and programmes that were specialist in nature.

The latter were aimed at nurses already qualified who may wish to add further specialisms to their skills portfolio. It was all dressed up in very serious and sententious descriptions like those I have just used.

Each year we would churn out what was called the nursing prospectus, basically a fairly drab printed volume in which was abstracted the various nursing programmes. I remember once a colleague – actually I wouldn’t call him that, another employee in the University we’ll call him – picked holes in the project because he said it hadn’t been validated. Validated was a laborious process whereby the validation wonks read the material to make sure it complied with various strictures imposed by University statute.

I was more interested in the effectiveness of the marketing and the way in which we spent the budget. We developed advertising that presented the nursing career in its true light. Caring, professional, well trained dedicated. A true vocation.

As part of the marketing mix we arranged for flyer insertions in the professional nursing publications. The Nursing Times etc. The lady I worked with was a very petite professor of nursing. She was waspish is you didn’t know here, capable of the most scathing comment and caustic to those who crossed her. She and I got on very well.

With our plentiful marcomms mix we had the media booked, the material printed. We were all set. The on uncontrollable in this process is that inevitably someone somewhere screws up and the likes of myself were left to pick up whatever pieces there were.

This lady, we’ll call her Liz, was looking forward greatly to her copy of Nursing Standard or whatever her professional publication was. I had assured her that we she opened the cellophane the University’s Nursing flyer would very obtrusively fall into her lap.

Relaxing at home on the evening of D Day, the day we had planned when the campaign would break and nurses everywhere would be assailed with a barrage of UU themed nursing material, I was unprepared for the call I received.

The envelope stuffers of the publication in question had neglected to place the promotional material in the one envelope that politically I need to be bursting to the seams with University positivity.

A barbed and caustic phonecall from my hitherto nursing colleague, previously collegiate in the extreme, informed me the material wasn’t in her envelope and queried further how did I know it was anyone else’s package? The answer was of course, I didn’t but I had been reassured by the publication and the fulfilment house. The goodwill and positivity that had been built up evaporated in an instant.

Of course we tracked the problem down, one or two technical hitches had deprived Liz of her material and holed our marketing cred just above the waterline. Enough to destabilize but not sink us.

The lesson in all of this, is to ensure that irrespective of target audiences and demographics, make sure that the person writing the cheque and paying the bill has clear evidence that your marketing is happening.

It is a simple truism, but if they can’t see it, it isn’t happening. Even if it is the most hi vis campaign ever and you feel you have the world covered, make sure the man or woman with the money sees it in the real world. They may not be in the target audience but by hook or by crook, if the boss is driving home, make sure you have one of your 48 sheets at the side of the road so he can see it. Otherwise, it just ain’t happening.