So says Fáilte Ireland Chairman, Redmond O’Donoghue, in his end of year review this week.

The word ‘complacency’ clunked immediately in my brain. I had just returned from visiting the Rock of Cashel – the No.1 heritage site in Ireland, the website says.

The Rock of Cashel - the Queen did actually visit....

From the closed off entrance steps and locked door (with A4 sheet saying use the side gate instead) to the tiny wooden hut to pay in, it was all a little underwhelming. Of course, the Rock itself is the complete opposite of that, so the insalubrious start is soon forgotten. Imposing, magnificent, beyond awe-inspiring, it does not disappoint. But I quickly find myself asking – where is the Queen?!

Elizabeth R visited in May 2011, one of only three sites outside Dublin she travelled to. Nothing about entering picturesque Cashel or the Rock itself, would tell you about this most historic event. Where was the fanfare, the billboards – and where was the visitor book she and Prince Philip signed?

‘Oh, that won’t be ready to display for at least 6 months’ I was told upon enquiring. Six months?! How long does it take to acquire a display case? I’m obviously missing something.

In one corner of St Cormac’s Chapel, a hoarding (covering some ongoing restoration works) displayed some discreet photos of the Queen’s historic visit there. But that was it. Now I know an ancient, protected site isn’t going to be bedecked in paraphernalia any day soon. And maybe the Queen is choosy about when/where her image may be used. But might I even suggest the following -

• Add some video of the Queen’s Rock visit, to the end of the short film that already plays on a loop there for visitors. In fact, use the delightful one used on cashel.ie currently.
• Fly some commemorative flags on the approach roads to the town and the Rock. Or dare I say it – Union Jack Flags?! (a suggestion already mooted as a nationwide tourist drive). Moneygall village displayed end to end Stars n’ Stripes flags before, during and after long-lost son Barack Obama’s visit. How about it, Cashel? Or have we still not moved on….
• And …at very least… Get the visitor book out! It’s already been over six months, surely it can’t take six more. The phrase ‘strike while the iron is hot’ barely applies anymore, but then, as Mr. O’Donoghue says, we wouldn’t like ‘complacency’ to set in.

On the drive down to Cashel, I was telling my children to look out for all the Queen ‘info’ we might see. On the way back to the car park, I found myself half tempted to write ‘Liz was here’ on the back of the public toilet door.

I read on Cashel’s website that a major review strategy for the town is underway, so I won’t lose hope. But in the meantime…..

The Queen – caught between a Rock and a Display Case. If you will.

One example – apologising where it is unnecessary .

We say ‘sorry, excuse me, can I just get past there’ when Excuse Me is just fine.

We say ‘I’m sorry, but do you know if that seat is taken’ when others would just plain sit down.

And we are famous for telling the waiter everything is ‘lovely, fine’ before going on to complain bitterly to our dining partner or family at home about the food, service, price etc.

Why can’t we be more assertive?

I was at a meeting a while ago. Cite centre location, evening time, in a hotel. A crowded room full of strangers. When the meeting ended, as everyone was shuffling to get their bags and belongings together, one woman stands up and cries out, to everyone and no-one;

‘I NEED A LIFT! WHO WILL TAKE ME HOME?!’

There was a visible scattering back of the crowd, with some people looking shocked and offended. Others were standing agog at the sheer assertiveness of it all. A lift! It’s not like she asked for the price of a taxi or a lend of a car. I wasn’t driving on this occasion, but didn’t see anyone else approach her before I left.

Now apart from her heavily accented English, it goes without saying that this woman was not Irish. Could you ever imagine an Irish person asking for a lift in this way?

For starters, an Irish person wouldn’t ask at all unless they had a broken leg/more than ten miles to walk/there was a blizzard chucking it down/all of the above.

Then even if we did ask, it would be in our sidling, whispering, apologetic manner, ‘ I’m really sorry to ask, but is there any chance, if you don’t mind…’ etc etc.

Most probably in this woman’s native culture/society, this is just how you ask for something. Why does assertiveness offend us in this way? Why do we take umbrage – just because it’s not ‘our’ way of doing things?

We have a long way to go before we can call ourselves a multicultural society. Councillor Darren Scully and the brigade of disturbing online support he received – ably, sadly demonstrate this.

This was his 15^th Grade One win, rising 12 years of age, which deems him a veteran – an unkind and scarcely believable term judging by yesterdays performance. Because it was the manner of the win and not just the result that was the real story yesterday.

Trainer Paul Nicholls had earlier indicated his charge’s preparedness on C4’s Morning Line. Outings like this one were previously a stepping stone to Kempton and the Gold Cup. But this is a horse with nothing left to prove. A horse who if he never ran another inch, would owe no one nothing. So Nicholls trained him with this race and nothing else in mind. As only he can.

A more enthusiastic and exuberant round of steeple-chasing you will rarely see. Jumping off prominently, Ruby Walsh seemingly deciding to put it up to his opponents from the start. He threw in superbly athletic leaps at every fence. The further they went the better he got. Kauto out jumped his main rivals to the extent that he wrong footed Diamond Harry and Gold Cup winner Long Run several times. They just could not live with him. Although visibly tiring approaching the last fence, he still mustered another massive effort, and won going away from young gun opposition, Long Run.

The reception they received was truly worthy of this equine hero. To say nothing of his masterful jockey, who almost seems to blend with this horse, such is their unity of movement and action. But it was Paul Nicholls reaction I found most telling. Not his buck-jumping on the finish line turf, though that was great too. On the walk back in, after shaking Ruby’s hand, he simply could not take his eyes off this horse. He had one hand on the bridle and two eyes on Kauto. He looked over his eyes, his head, his legs and went on staring as he walked. He barely glanced away to accept the many glad hands of congratuation. The man positively adores this creature. And not because he pays the most bills. I think even his trainer, who knows every inch of him and his ways, is in awe of Kauto’s superstar ability. And rightly so.

This performance is also the perfect antidote the ‘horses don’t like racing’ argument. As Paul Nicholls pointed out in that Nick Luck interview, Kauto Star adores his racing, and all the training and routine that this entails. His gut-busting display of attitude and enthusiasm yesterday shows this. He also referred to Marcus Armytage trying to take See More Business out hunting after he retired from racing, and what a failed enterprise it was. (Would love to hear that full story).

Racehorses are made and trained to run and are well able to demonstrate their loss of interest in same. That Kauto Star retains his so gloriously is to the betterment of racing and a joy to all its fans.

The will be more big days out and renewed rivalries for Long Run and Kauto Star. What a prospect. What a Star.

Why is Sean Gallagher leading the race to the Aras? It’s a question that’s certainly perplexing Twitter and many a conversation…

Why are voters seemingly happy to disregard his Fianna Fail past, questions about his business record, his (quite startling) assertion that ‘nothing springs to mind’ when asked about the most important legislation to have come before the Oireachtas in the recent past….

The role of Irish President has very limited powers. The election is more of a popularity or personality contest. Image is therefore very important.

Could it then be down to some or all of these three areas – his Spouse, his Age and his Demeanour? Or SAD for short.

SPOUSE. If ‘appearances-with-partner’ formed part of the race, Sean Gallagher would win hands down. His wife Trish O’Connor is always by his side, always supporting him. They present a public image of a smiling and united couple. They also look stylish and immaculately turned out on every occasion. People subconsciously warm to all of this. Think Barack & Michelle on the campaign trail. More importantly, think Martin supporting Mary McAleese over the last 14 years, as was well commented on during the recent ’Constant President’ documentary.

But how have the other candidates fared in this regard? 5 out of 6 are also married;

Gay Mitchell, Michael D, Mary Davis;  - limited appearances with their spouses.

Dana; sparse – apart from his ‘heroic driver who saved us from being murdered’ role.

Martin McGuinness; – his wife is rarely if ever seen in public, a hangover from NI security situation (similar to Gerry Adams wife).

David Norris doesn’t have a partner currently, as far as I know.

AGE – Gallagher (49) is the only candidate yet to celebrate his 60th birthday. It makes him the youngest candidate by some distance. If youthful vim and vigour tick boxes for voters, than Gallagher steps closest to that mark. Age should not be a factor, but for anyone who does declare Higgins too old, Sean Gallagher represents the most youthful alternative.

DEMEANOUR – his manner throughout the campaign has remained positive. He consistently presents a genial front, and has resisted the urge to snipe, backbite and even backstab, as evidenced in some of the TV debates. Other candidates did themselves no favours in this regard, particularly Mitchell and McGuinness, who though they have dropped it since, have done themselves damage. Had there been TV debates in the McAleese era, one simply couldn’t imagine Mary engaging in anything like this type of negative behaviour. By rising above it and maintaining an air of serenity, Sean Gallagher has come across as, well, more ‘presidential’.

Sean Gallagher has, I feel, studied the Presidential optics carefully, knows what his trump cards are, and is playing them cleverly.

S.A.D. But true.

Hang on a minute. Boring?? So I expect a terrorist mass-murder documentary to entertain me? Time to check-in with my rational brain…

It being the 10 year anniversary of 9/11, there was an overload of tv and media devoted to the subject. While I’d normally take a passing interest in the odd programmme, this year I found myself going into complete overdrive. I’d watch one programme while recording another and missing a third, such was the volume being aired. I watched The Fireman’s Story, the Irish and 9/11, Survivors of 9/11, the Twins of the Towers, the Children of 9/11, amongst many others.

I read articles about the ‘jumpers’ from the towers, interviews with survivors and found myself revisiting my bookshelves for 9/11 publications I’d purchased over the years. I even took a day trip to see the ‘360 degrees’ 9/11 photography exhibition in Dublin. The more you see the more the voyeur in you is fed.

Sooner or later, you hit misery-search rock bottom – the internet. In no amount of Googling at all, I found ;

A picture of a severed hand amongst the rubble of the towers

An audio of a trapped man still talking to Emergency Services as the towers fell

The Falling Man

Edna Cintron, the waving woman

Enhanced images, trying to identify people falling from the towers

As well as any amount of video of the planes hitting, the buildings falling (unseen angles! new footage! they promised). They are shown so often now it’s as if we have mentally reduced the whole hellish spectacle to some giant Lego pyrtotechnics display.

They are of course, the last moments on earth of many thousands of innocent people, who left about their business as normal that morning. Never to return home to their families, who instead got to see their horrific deaths played out on live TV.

Imagine a loved one dying in a car crash, that happens to be captured on a traffic camera. Imagine it going viral on the internet, with images of it constantly reshown on TV and newspapers, for years and years. Abhorrent isn’t it?

That’s how I felt after my glut of 9/11 gawping this year.

Well no more. Just like the poor souls themselves, it’s time to lay their images to rest.

　Go dtuga Dia suaimhneas síoraí dóibh go léir. Amen.

 Launch – July 1991 IR £1.60 (€2.03)     

Peak –  March 2007                   €22.80

Today – Sept 2011                     €00.03

And there, in a nutshell, lies my sorry investment story .

  I worked for Irish Life for 17 years. When the company was first floated, staff got some free shares. There was also an option to buy more at a discounted price. Everyone eagerly ticked the boxes.

  Over the years, share opportunities came thick and fast. Career progression equalled share accumulation and I had my hand out. Salary sacrifice scheme? Yes please. Dividends paid as shares instead of cash? Where do I sign. Performance bonus paid in shares? I’ll have some of that, thanks very much.

  And on and on it went. I – and many colleagues – amassed shares like Smarties. Some people cashed in when looking for a deposit to buy a house. Others used some when getting married. I’m sure more also splashed them on a new car, major holiday or whatever.

  I never cashed any. Not a single one. I had no concrete plan for them, other than a far off rainy day/retirement type notion. By the time I left I in 2003 I had nearly 3,000 shares.

  The funny thing is I’d never considered myself a ‘shares person’ or risk taker with money (a previous blogpost attests to this). I think I saw them as ‘employee benefits’ which somehow made them different. As if…

  When I left the company in March 2003 the share price was €8.95. Four years later they were stretching towards €23.00. I thought I was on the pig’s back. Instead – as we know now – they had hit a lifetime peak, and the only way was down…

  They only time I actively considered selling was after watching a particular Ivan Yates interview. It was August 2008 – share price now €6 – and he was painting a ‘we’re all doomed’ quite scary scenario. I gathered up as many share certs as I could find and looked up the Golden Pages. I headed off to my nearest stockbrokers.

 The thoroughly nice chap I met told me it was my decision – no surprises there – but that he wouldn’t dream of selling such a blue chip share at that price. He said it would possibly get worse before better, but he would hang on in there. I left. Shares still under my arm.

 And so here I am in 2011. Shares still under my arm. I can only describe my attitude to them in the last 3 years as being like a rabbit caught in the headlights. As they continued their inexorable slide, I continued my inexorable inability to move.

 Losing money on shares is nothing new. My experience has been replicated 1000s of times over in recent times. I gambled, I lost. Looking back on it now I wonder was I ever actually going to feel ready/able to sell. Like I said maybe I’m just not a shares person. Or maybe I was just too greedy.

  Do I regret buying them? No.

Do I regret not selling them? No need to answer that.

 But, in truth, my biggest regret is actually not selling ANY. Not one single element of return, big or small, prudent or otherwise.

 It’s like the time I was on Who Wants to be a Millionaire (another blogpost perhaps?). Of course winning a pile of dough would have been great, but my major feeling afterwards was huge regret at having got SO close and not made it (past Fastest Finger First). So close I could smell Gaybo’s aftershave, could see the colours on his cravat. But no cigar…

 Of course one has to see the silver lining in every cloud;

 - I got some tax breaks (which I probably didn’t notice/appreciate at the time )

 - I can sit through the News now without grimacing every time the ISEQ is mentioned.

 - I wont be paying any Capital Gains Tax

 - I remain a shareholder! I can still daydream about what to buy with €90. Any ideas? Answers on a share certificate please…

(Wikipedia)

I always reckoned my grandmother had this in mind any time she eyed the 6 year old me. Suspiciously, across her kitchen table. I’d be eating soup. Or buttering bread.

‘Would you not make her use her other hand?’ was her constant question to her daughter, my mother.

This is my earliest memory of being left handed, or knowing what that actually meant. I also recall teachers trying to get me not to twist my hand around so much when writing (we push the pen across the page, right handers pull it). I stopped twisting, to get them to stop asking. And turned the page around instead. A win of sorts. I used to write almost vertically, up the page. They stopped asking.

These days of course, being left handed is not viewed in any sinister way, but is positively embraced. We are creative. We are 10% of the population. We have implements fashioned just for us. My own 6yr old leftie came home from school recently proud as punch. Himself and two others in his class were given ‘the special scissors’ for Crafts. Hurrah!

I am not a total leftie. I knit right handed apparently. And kick a ball right-footed.

But a major hindrance I do suffer is the following barely believable fact. I frequently cannot tell left from right. There is only a choice of two. I have had forty years of practice. It is down to how our brains are wired up, apparently.

My adult life (or that of my family and friends) is blighted in the following ways by being left handed;

• Hearing the instruction to ‘raise my right hand’ does not produce an instinctive reaction. I actually have to think – momentarily- about it first.
• I have mental blocks about setting the table. I cannot always figure the knife/fork arrangement. Or am sometimes 100% convinced I have it correct. Until someone else sits down…
• My husband grimaces every time he sees me trying to cut a loaf of bread. In fairness I’d said the bread would grimace too if it could, subjected as it is to the rough, uneven hacking, into skinny-becomes-doorstep slices.
• I immediately feel sorry for anyone I see coming towards me to ask for directions. Despite my very best concentration, with strong hand gestures, and knowing exactly how to get to their destination, there is a very reasonable chance I will have thrown in at least one left instead of right, or vice versa. Inexplicable. Yet unavoidable.
• The most difficult part of learning to horse ride was not the falling off, the chafing or the sitting trot. It was having to take instruction to follow the left or right rein, at the lead of a group, without looking like a complete numpty.

I know many lefties endure similar challenges in their lives. But it didn’t stop Joan of Arc, Michelangelo or Pelé. It gladdens my heart to see Barack Obama (and Bill Clinton previously ) signing documents in all his majestic leftie twistedness. (Seeing Bertie Ahern? – perhaps less so).

So, to commemorate today, (13^th August, Left Handers Day) a little quote;

“The right half of the brain controls the left half of the body. This means that only left handed people are in their right mind.”
Anonymous

Right on!

Amid all the talk of women in political life, you’d occasionally hear a suggestion that the country’s purse strings be handed to housewives. Specifically, to that generation of women who gave up work when they married (because they had to) and generally had more children and less income than their modern day counterparts.

Well, if they’re looking for nominations, I’d be very quick to put my own mother’s name on the ballot sheet.

As children growing up my mother would sell us a stamp, lend us a pound. Not because she is not generous – she is, to a fault – but because she wanted to teach us to value and respect money. A bigger loan amount could also be generously given, but possibly attracting a higher interest rate or maybe a shorter repayment term than available in your unfriendly neighbourhood bank.

Mam would think nothing of phoning up the supermarket to query an ‘after the decimal point’ error on the till receipt. In fact she could be best seen in action in said supermarket. Sometimes a ” pound of mince ” was a much more precise request than was appreciated. I was the red faced child beside the trolley, as the butcher was admonished to adjust, and maybe adjust again, to suit. She was way ahead of their ’rounding up’ sales drive.

I say none of this to be derogatory or in any way scathing. My mother is a complete monetary whizz and my financial heroine. My father, himself good with money, regularly takes his hat off to her. The mantra she has always lived by is ‘ look after the pennies and the pounds will look after themselves’. As her child you would never bring home less than every single penny of the change from the shops. People who won’t bend down in a queue to pick up a copper coin make her mad. I don’t think I’ll tell her about my friend who sweeps them into the bin rather than stoop to pick them up…

My parents live their lives in the black. In so far as I know, anything needed is either paid for upfront or saved for. Bar a mortgage and perhaps a car loan, I don’t think my parents ever borrowed money. As teenagers, my siblings and I were all encouraged to get weekend jobs and start paying for certain things for ourselves. It gave us financial independence but also a respect for money. And I think we have all turned out, to a greater or lesser degree perhaps, to be ‘good with money’.

I have never had an overdraft or a personal loan. I’m good at saving and cutting my cloth. This is not a boast, by the way. If you aspire to the ‘you must speculate to accumulate’ theory, you’re probably laughing by now. But it is how I was brought up. And in the current times, I’m so very glad of it.

Thanks, Mam.

I enjoy the chance to be off with mine – I work part time but not during school holidays. When it comes to keeping them entertained, they are not swathed in papier mache crafting and home baking from morning to night. But neither are they are parked in front of the telly/computer/Playstation all day. I think, like a lot of parents, I muddle along somewhere in the middle. Some home-based activities from Mammy Leisure Limited, a steady stream of friends booked in, and some outings – mainly free stuff. Also plenty of down time – self catering is important too!

There was plenty of choice too amongst the half tonne of summer camp leaflets brought home in the school bags; Pony camp, cooking camp, dance camp, sailing camp, fishing camp, even a grandparent and grandchild camp. Doubtless they are a God-send for working parents, but otherwise can be an expensive entertainment route were you to be badgered into two, three or all 10 probably.

But there was one activity request that really set me back;

‘Mammy can we do the pencil box thing again?! That was the best time ever.’ (If you have under -10s in your house, you have colouring books. And pencils, crayons, markers and so on. Ours live in a giant plastic box, that gets happily ferried around rooms, tables and floors on a daily basis.)

It's not Disneyland, but...

I don’t recall exactly how that came about, but we found ourselves sitting on the stairs one morning, in our jammies, sharpening all the pencils. Not in any orchestrated Kermit’s-nephew-half-way-up-the-stairs kinda way. It just happened. We were there for about an hour and a half. One person on sorting, one person on discarding and one on sharpening. Everyone on talking…

Of course I know why they remember it so fondly. It was pure unadulterated Mammy time. No stopping to make the dinner, answer the phone, read a text, load/unload the dishwasher/washing machine, juggle homework; all the multi-tasking minutiae of everyday life. Because even when you do sit down at home and do stuff with your kids, these interruptions are all around. It can be pretty hard not to get dragged away sometimes.

That’s not to say I didn’t feel a massive pang of guilt about them choosing the pencil box as ‘the best thing ever’…! Does it say something about the quality of my quality time? Yes it possibly does.

But what it really says is that children don’t want summer camps, sun holidays, Disneyland. OK…well, yes of course they do. But most especially this summer, they just want pure, uninterrupted, unadulterated YOU.

Enjoy it. And them.