EP or Croker? A few minor differences...
(Relax: I used the term ‘the Electric Picnic music and arts festival in Laois’ deliberately, in order to convey my lack of cool. Not that anyone ever thought, etc). Your correspondent has been in the press room in Croke Park and heard people lament the fact that the two events are on at the same time, but such keening doesn’t take their fundamental differences into account.
If you find yourself at either of these events and are unsure — for whatever chemico-pharmaceutical reasons — which one it is, here’s a handy guide to distinguish between them.
Ger Loughnane and Cyril Farrell don’t go to Electric Picnic, for instance, to the best of my knowledge. It’s possible the two lads warm up for 3.30 on Sunday by heading to see Oh Boland and Diosco na mBo in Stradbally the evening before, of course. Possible.
That’s access. Anybody can get a ticket for Electric Picnic, for instance. All you need, really, is a functioning credit card.
You have to know someone to get into the match. Nobody just gets a ticket. There are contacts and relations, elaborate pick-ups and envelopes behind bar counters. Some say the keenest contests on the first Sunday in September are those focused on getting the cardboard rather than
anything going on between the white lines in Croke Park.
Also, middle-aged overweight men can don the most unflattering, clinging, man-made fabric — sportswear — at the match without censure. The minimal fashion requirement is an Isaac Butt-level beard to get into Electric Picnic.
Nobody refers to the match as the AIHP. Everyone refers to the festival as EP.
The only pretentiousness in Croke Park will centre on snobs tsking about someone’s first touch or shaking their heads silently at Tadhg de Burca’s location.
At Electric Picnic, by contrast, “Transmission will create the euphoria and wonder of the ancient shamanic journey”: a quote from the event website I present without further elaboration.
Nobody minds what you eat at the All-Ireland final, really, so long as it doesn’t spill on the person next to you, which is often a greater challenge than it sounds. Nobody minds what you eat at Electric Picnic either, really, so long as it’s
organic granola. Cold milled, obviously.
Even if your team is hammered in the final you’re not stuck in a muddy field for three days. If your band is hammered on the Trailer Park: Jimmie Lee’s Juke Joint stage, then a warmish tent is your best-case scenario.
Nobody in Croke Park has to pretend they’ve heard of
Jafaris or Fangclub for the sake of their own credibility, while in Stradbally you’ll have people who’ll pretend they’re from Tourin and
Ahascragh for the sake of their own credibility.
There’s a Peace Pagoda at Electric Picnic. The only Peace Pagoda in Croke Park is in the gent’s toilet. Sorry,
misread that one.
Electric Picnic says kids can “be free in a world without schedules or routines” in one part of the festival. In Croker that’s the Garda Control Van.
Before one of these events there’s a lot of pious blowing about taking drugs responsibly. Because everybody knows those drugs are going to be taken. Before the other event there’s a lot of unholy blowing about Copper Face Jack’s and acting irresponsibly. Because everybody knows that irresponsibility is going to happen.
You only need worry if you find yourself in the Upper Hogan searching for a tutored noodle workshop with Takashi Miyazaki. Or if you find yourself shouting at Stevie G in the Casa Bacardi for the Cork minors’ line-up.
Hope the weekend went well otherwise.
Some wristy hurling from classy Barry
A lot of love being expressed this week for Dan Barry’s terrific piece on the McGregor-Mayweather fight: you can get an idea of the tone from the headline, Fleece Of The Century.
The New York Times writer — who was kindness personified when I imposed shamelessly on him in May 2016 in the paper’s office — first floated across my radar with another piece, a report on an Micheal Breathnach-Kinvara junior challenge which also appeared in the US paper of record.
Like all the best people, Barry recognises the supremacy of hurling.
Sexism still not far from the surface
Not sure if you remember tennis player Andy Murray’s casual slapdown of a reporter’s sexism this past summer in Wimbledon; the reporter said American Sam Querrey would be the first US player to make it to a semi-final since 2009 but Murray corrected him — “Male player, right?” — as the Williams sisters have made it to the semi-finals of major tournaments, and beyond, many times.
During the week I stumbled across the comments of Elle magazine’s Lizzy Goodman about Murray’s nonchalant anti-sexism.
“It’s in the language of his... the way he speaks about everything else is how he speaks about this, and I think that’s what’s lent power to his advocacy in this space because on some level, he’s, ‘I’d really rather not talk about this, but, like, you’ve got to be kidding me.’
“And I think that’s . . . the female players that I spoke to for the piece, that echoed, that rings really true with them because it’s like, it’s not something you want to talk about. It’s eye-roll inducing, and yet it’s so prevalent.”
An interesting perspective, given another news item that bobbed to the surface during the week — when New Zealand won the Women’s Rugby World Cup last weekend, beating England, NZRU chief executive Steve Tew wasn’t long pouring cold water over the party: “A fully contracted 15s programme at this stage is difficult to see simply because there isn’t a 15s programme in the world that would sustain that, but we’re evolving the women’s game quickly.”
The move from 15 to seven-a-side in the women’s game is a different conversation, one we’ll return to, but Tew’s later comments — “Once we get the core group back we’ll sit down and work out how we best commemorate this outstanding victory” — sounded a bit like trying to rescue the situation.
Spufford plays holding role on my bookshelf
I picked up Francis Spufford’s Golden Hill, set in 18th-century Manhattan.
Normally resistant to this kind of recreation of Fielding (“I may be equally a gilded sprig of the bon ton, or a flash cully working the inkhorn lay,”), I enjoyed this one.
Spufford’s book is playing a holding role, however, as I await a shipment which is likely to fill this corner of the column from now until Christmas.
