Truth getting hazy in the dawn of 2017
I certainly hope none of your mouths feel now as though they were used during the night by a small creature as a latrine, and then as its mausoleum, to quote Kingsley Amis on hangovers.
Even if you are suffering, I feel I should warn you that the coming year will see the notion of a post-truth age absorb the sporting scene in much the same way it has absorbed the political world. The post-truth age - or falsehood, to be boringly technical about it - is the result of absorption in the ghastly solipsism of social media, the associated rise of the likes of Nigel Farage and Donald Trump, and the blasé dismissal of notions of truth and honesty in the general will to plunder.
We have been here before, of course. If you can recall your Lewis Carroll, you may remember the words of one of his central characters: “When I use a word,” Humpty Dumpty said, in rather a scornful tone, “it means just what I choose it to mean — neither more nor less.”
Enough, I hear you cry weakly from behind your intravenous Lucozades, your glistening rasher mountains. I came here for some smart alec comments about the O’Donovan brothers on Graham Norton or something.
Why are you getting all philosophical on me at my moment of weakness?
It’s for your own good, and to put you on notice. In keeping with the modern age where being precise and accurate is for, well, losers, I intend to make up my own sports news to suit myself, to get rid of all that tiresome mainstream-media insistence on facts.
Thus it suits me to announce here that Joe Schmidt will not in fact see out his contract with the IRFU but is instead to become one third of a teen idol tribute act/wholesale meat vendors, Justin Beef Or, along with Brendan Ogle and Mattress Mick.
If you seek to disagree with me then I intend to adopt the strategy favoured by Donald Trump and advise you all to get on with your lives.
Adopting a post-truth approach is also helpful to me retrospectively, by the way. I need only contradict what appear to you to be incontrovertible facts such as the results of last year’s All-Ireland finals by simply quoting the great orange himself: “The whole age of the computer has made it where nobody knows what’s going on.”
(This has disturbing echoes for me of a time long past in Seanad Éireann, when a member of the Upper House blamed the detachment of the financial institutions from the common people on ‘smart boys from the university’ who were used to ‘the big computer’. The same man helped to make laws we all abide by in this country for many years.)
On a serious note, establishing what is true and what is not is as tricky as it ever was, but it is not trickier.
It’s necessary to be healthily sceptical about where you get your facts, but online aggregators and laddish crudity-generators don’t blur the truth. They hide it. Those are the virtual representations of the pub stool. If you are unclear about what’s at stake, go back to your Lewis Carroll.
“The question is,” said Alice, “whether you can make words mean so many different things.”
“The question is,” said Humpty Dumpty, “which is to be master — that’s all.”
Not as sexy as retweeting a video or calling someone a legend online. True, though.
The secret of longevity at the sporting summit...
Terence Newman plays cornerback for the Minnesota Vikings in the NFL. I wasn’t aware of him until I came across a piece in the New York Times about the fact that he’s 38 but still playing in a demanding, high-speed position.
As ever, the granular detail was fascinating. Newman drinks one cup of black tea per day, his only caffeine, and over the years he’s picked up on nuances in his opponents’ body language. If a receiver keeps his hands on his knees then Newman realises the other side are going to run the ball. Certain routes don’t need to be covered if the receiver opposite him takes a position with his outside foot up rather than his inside foot.
Newman enjoys his Thursday night dinner, which is a teriyaki chicken bowl (sauce on the side), with shrimp tempura and avocado topped with yellowfin tuna and sauce. And a glass of red wine.
What caught my eye, though, was “. . . those who know Newman well credit his longevity in part to his having never been married.”
A lot of intercounty GAA players are NFL fans. Just saying.
Cork clash backs cause worthy of your support
You’re probably keen to see a game after the Christmas. Am I right?
Why don’t you go to the Mardyke this Friday night, then? Cork take on UCC for the Canon O’Brien Cup, and you’ll see plenty of quality on offer.
There’s also a chance to make a difference.
There’s no charge into the game, but you can make a donation to a charity at the gate. This year it’s the Cara Junior School for children with autism in Mayfield. Its playground was vandalised last summer, you may remember, and the school authorities are trying to raise funds to replace the facilities which were destroyed.
Throw-in this Friday is at 6pm.
Bring your wallet. You know the cause is a good one.
You got to have faith
Extraordinary how potent cheap music is — Noel Coward told us that decades ago, and it’s still true.
Among the great names we lost in music last year, David Bowie’s great albums were too early for your columnist, and Prince’s single ‘Little Red Corvette’ was a distant rumour pre-MTV, but George Michael was always a star.
I remember BP Fallon and somebody else saying on radio when ‘Careless Whisper’ was released that Michael could become the Matt Monroe of his generation. He did, and more.
Since he passed away extraordinary stories of Michael’s generosity have been told — to ordinary people, to the striking miners of the 80s, to the nurses who looked after his mother.
You can’t make your heart feel something it won’t, indeed. Rest easy.
