Derry's got the XFactor Fifteen

 If there was a prize for a place that makes the most of the sunshine then the good old North West would win it sun burnt hands down.
Any hint of a blue sky and we’ve the shades on and  the shorts out and sure why not for as everyone knows the blistering seventeen degrees heat wave won’t last forever.
  Out we go with our maxi dresses, flip flops and three quarter lengths while tourists from sunnier climes look on bemused beneath their scarves and body warmers for they have experienced real sunshine and this isn’t it.
   Talk of good weather got me thinking back to summers of old and the traditional Derry practice of going a ‘run’. Not to be confused with donning Lycra and pounding the pavements, the Derry run involves an entire family, perhaps a few straggling friends from the street and a dog all packed into a car.
  On a run to the beach  buckets and spades, beach towels, a hastily packed picnic and an umbrella- just incase the weather turned-were all jammed into the boot.
The journey there was sound tracked with ‘Are we there yets’ and the parental placating of warring siblings. ‘Why did you hit him?  Because he looked at me!’
   While kids these days play their DS’s or watch DVD’s on screens attached to the seats in front, we entertained ourselves simply by kicking the seats in front then blaming the person next to us.
Or came up with ways to make ‘the bad traveller’ not be sick, sit on a newspaper/stick your head out the window/suck a boiled sweet/sit on your hands/hold your nose.
   While parents are now encouraged to play educational songs for the kids to sing along to like some sort of Fisher Price advertisement we had to listen to the parental music choice de jour.
One year on a trip to Mosney we had to endure a double cassette of Charlie Landsborough.
Nice man and all but when you are nine and told that the song ‘What colour is the wind?’ is about child blindness its pretty traumatizing.
   Rather than make me feel grateful for the gift of sight and sit quietly in the back seat thankful too that my brothers could also see, it sent me into hysteria and I bawled at the plight of the poor wee blind girl from the Letterkenny road until we rolled into the chalet site five hours later.
   Back to the ‘run’ and upon arrival at the beach we chowed down warm  coke and  ham and cheese sandwiches which after three minutes among the dunes were usually embalmed  in a gritty sand coating.
Then there was the dash to the water and the lightening fast exit from the water after a jellyfish spotting or the sudden realisation that although the sun was out the water remained -10 degrees. 
  There was the game of headers for the boys and the sheer devastation when the football smashed into the sandcastle the youngest member of the family had literally spent minutes perfecting.
The journey home always seemed quicker, perhaps we were exhausted from the days events or delirious with the sugar rush from the football special and the ’99. Ah the good old days!

War of the Worlds

The capture of the man branded the ‘Butcher of Bosnia’ dominated our TV screens for most of last week. After sixteen years on the run Ratko Mladic was finally arrested and is set to face a war crimes tribunal for his role in the siege of Sarajevo .

As pictures of the 69 year old were beamed across the world it brought back memories for those who had watched the horrifc scenes on TV almost two decades ago . For one Derry man it broke back memories of not just watching it,  for he was there, in Sarajevo, filming it.

I had the pleasure this week of interviewing award winning cameraman and Derry native Mark Mc Cauley.

During our interview the former St Columbs college pupil talked me through some of what he witnessed during his time there in 1992. He recalled scenes so harrowing and heartbeaking it's hard to believe they took place just twenty years ago.

Some, if not many, would question why journalists and camera crews put themselves right at the epicentre of wars. It's not uncommon to see reporters in bulletproof vests giving a report while gunfire is heard in the distance.

Why some would ask would anyone put themselves in such danger just to get a story?

But as Mark told me although difficult, at times frustrating and often very disturbing it is important to be there to tell the story of the people from among the people. But in doing so he said, those who filmed wth civilians were treated just as they were and so were equally at risk of being shot.

He gave me a case in point where one day he was filming a German charity transporting a bus load of orphans out of the city but in the 'no mans land area' snipers opened fire on the bus killing two of the children onboard.

A few days later it emerged that one of the children killed hadn't been an orphan and her mother had been located.

Mark and his team went to the child's funeral inside Sarajevo and during the burial came under fire, many of the mourners including the child's grandmother were injured.

He said it was events such as that which evoked a sense of futility and frustration that this was happening and nothing was being done to stop it.

But, almost twenty years later Radovan Karadzic the leader if the Bosnian serbs is facing a war crimes tribunal in the hague and Mark's footage is part of the evidence being used against him.

As our interview drew to a close I asked Mark whether the capture of Mladic would bring a sense of closure to the memories he had of Sarajevo and he said while glad that he had been caught for the many thousands who had lost loved ones at that time, it was too little too late. 

Bag Lady

 A microphone, a digital voice recorder, a camera, a USB drive, no it’s not the prizes on offer on this weeks Gadget show but just some  of the contents of my long suffering handbag.

I’ve had sore-ish shoulder these last few days and while I’d like to think it was a sports based injury incurred during my weekend rock climbing adventure, #as if, or from my early morning surf lesson, #I wish, alas it turns out it's been 'old faithful' that has been causing my now no longer inexplicable ache.

To the untrained eye the handbag in question looks pretty unassuming but, it has the storage powers that the folks at IKEA would be proud of and, is just about as rocking as Mary Poppins bottomless carpet bag.

While I can’t exactly pull a lampshade from mine it sure does play host to all kinds of everything, yep even Dana’s inside.

 Yet despite it's capacity for content I fear my handbag has grown tired of being stabbed with pens, bruised with fruit, had its full of cereal bar crumbs and has just about had it with receipts it now fancies itself as a magicians prop, like the cupboard a glamorous assistant goes into before disappearing only to reappear at the other end of the room, it would certainly explain why I 'lose' my keys at least three times a day.

But I shouldn't complain, I can only imagine what it was like in the days before slim line, souped up, multi apped phones. I would've had to carry around an adress book, appointment diary, portable cd player, with such a bulky entourage I'd have the right shoulder of a shot putter.

Science boffins claim women's handbags are 57 per cent lighter than they were two years ago, but even at that most handbags still come in at a whopping five pounds, so I’m not alone.

Style bloggers also say the fashion for big bags has been and gone. The idea was that the bigger the bag, the smaller you looked. So, naturally, every women had a huge bag which also came in handy for battering through the weekend crowds at shopping centres whilst en route to purchase a new handbag.

During her recent visit the Queen appeared at each historic landmark with a trusty hand bag nestled in the crook of her arm, wonder what was inside, One’s lipgloss? One’s iphone?

And it seems more men are getting in on the handbag action. At a recent menswear day at London fashion week a beauty blogger asked chaps for a rundown of essential items they packed in their shiny leather satchels and found everything from Prada fragrance to, er, climbing rope.

Based on this knowlegde I may now have to invest in a man bag for my other shoulder as I once found a tape measure and two forty watt light bulbs among the contents of my bag, well you just never know when they'll come in handy. 

Published in The Derry News 23/05/11

Sugar? No Thanks

The new series of the Apprentice starts tomorrow and like every other year and unlike seven million other people I won't be watching.

Reality TV in general is a personal gripe of mine, except Masterchef which is glorious, but the 12 week job interview is a major turn off for a number of reasons.

Job interviews (in my experience) are a sweaty palmed indurance test where you brag about being a team player yet able to work confidently on your own. Where you call to mind a particular scenario you handled with aplomb and display qualities of self promotion that could rival those of a certain Hilton offspring.

Some handle interviews with confidence and ease, me not so much.
This may seem odd given that my line of work revolves around interviewing people on a daily basis. In that scenario I love interviews. It's interesting, fascinating and can be very humbling when someone invites you into their homes, moreover their lives, and tells you their story.

 An interview where the end goal is employment is a whole different kettle of fish.
It's an embarrassing, heart thumping, amnesia inducing, speech impeding, half an hour cringe worthy spoof-a-thon.

The mere thought of that interview then being broadcast on television to millions of people, who can sky plus it and watch you flap and jibber over and over again makes my heart beat faster than you can say 'You're hired'.

Not only that, but to then willingly take part in various challenges that magnify yor shortcomings before being summoned into a boardroom and told your not getting the job in front of a stoney faced panel and, er, millions of other people is in my mind madness!

Throw in a bucket of snakes and being stuck in a lift with the 'Only way is Essex' cast, sorry, real people, and it's pretty much my worst nightmare.

The show thrives on each of the contestants having a cut throat attitude, willing to stab someone in the back to get where they need to be and a dozen other clichés about determination, having the eye of the tiger and being the best that one can be.

But arguably it's much more an entertainment show than anything else. The 'characters' are dramatic exaggerations of real people, I hope. The dirty looks and  boardroom bitching are souped up to captivate the viewers at home and arguments are cleverly edited, as is the case on all reality tv shows, to ensure the programme is talked about at water coolers in workplaces across the nation.

It can also be argued that those who aspire to be on the programme are more interested in the celebrity, all be it fleeting, status they acquire when showcasing their wares before Lord Sugar and co.

I think the key problem I have with the show is, aswell as promoting the latest in unfashionable office wear, it promotes the message that nastiness sells.

Those who would sell their own mothers are those that do well and nice guys finish last.

On TV it seems the bigger the diva you are, the more success you'll have. But that doesn't resonate to real life...or does it...Oi work experience chap, coffee, no sugar and I want it yesterday!!!

To Tweet or not to Tweet?

There are many benefits to social networking, up to the minute information, an insight into the day to day activities of people of interest and breaking news. Which is all well and good when the information is accurate but, what happens when the 'news' is based on hearsay and compounded with a healthy helping of Chinese whispers? Que a whole lot of inaccuracy and just a pinch of panic.

There was a prime example of how instant social networking can  go wrong just last week.

A tweet reporting ‘a bomb and reports of casualities’ was posted on Tuesday night. It was swiftly followed by ‘a very loud bomb has gone off around the Bogside and the Creggan areas with reports of gunfire’.

As the evening progressed the severity of the ‘bomb’ and ‘the number of casualities’ increased dramatically. From a tweet that a device had exploded at the Model primary school, to a tweet confirming the loud noise had infact been a shooting in Glenowen, to the absolute one hundred percent affirmation that the noise was indeed the sound of ‘a hijacked police helicopter crashing in Ballymagroarty’.

Journo Eamon Mallie defused the situation by tweeting the police were unaware of any explosion and the bang heard was being linked to fireworks.

The matter was soon laid to rest, but not before Tweeters? Twitterers? remarked that rumours were the downside of social media driven news.

A sentiment I tend to agree with. While for celebrity musings, twitpics of what you are about to eat - if your’re into that kind of thing- taking pictures of food that is *shes adds quickly to quell any twitter based rumours that Quigley is opposed to consuming food*- then Twitter and Tweet away.

But when it comes to serious matters, like security alerts especially at a time when the dissident threat is high and people are are fearful, inaccuracy can be dangerous.

But the Derry rumour mill has been spinning out yarns and highly exaggerated versions of the truth long before Mark Zuckerberg and co could pick up a computer mouse. And it's no bad thing, we all just love a good gossip.

The fact that the story has filtered through so and so’s mother's, friend's husband's work mate, well, that just means it's true.

 Not even death escapes the rumour mill. A few months back I got a call to the newsdesk informing me that a well known publican in the city had died in suspicious circumstances, this was varified by another source. I then called a man who knew the dearly departed Derry man only to be told 'well dotter (daughter) I’m pretty sure he hasn’t kicked the bucket for he  was two rows in front of me in mass this morning alive and well!

Published in the Derry News 02/05/11

Camp Rock

The North West was given a boost last week when it was announced as the location for the 2013 WOMAD festival.

For the factfinders among us 'World Of Music Arts and Dance' has been going since 1982 with singer Peter Gabriel among the founding members.  It's also in the Guinness book of records for the biggest international festival. How about that. 

As the buzz of WOMAD taking place here broke it ignited memories of the very first festival I took in.I haven't done too badly on the festival scene having been at Reading and Leeds and the holy grail that is Glastonbury, but it was Oxygen several years ago where I had a baptism of fire into the good the bad and the ugly of music festivals.

 It's almost a right of passage for young people here to 'do' Oxygen at least once.

My first experience of the Punchestown shindig was amazing and traumatising in equal measure. The bus journey down was filled with fresh faced anticipation, demands for the bus to be stopped every fifteen minutes from those who had got on the beerwagon a tad early, and three hours in, a panic attack by a fellow festival go'er  who thought he'd lost his ticket.

The sight of his fisherman hatted, welliebooted self frantically emptying the -largely liquid- contents of his rucksack, was the tiniest bit hilarious. The atmosphere at Oxygen was amazing, the Foo Fighters, Snoop Dog, The Killers, the legend that was James Brown and, er, Keane were among the line up.

The sun was spliting the sky and it was glorious to be soaking up the rays in a country where summer usually just involves warmer rain.

But no mention of a music festival would be complete without a word about the 'Facilities'. They were, in a word, horrific. I remember walking, nae, running past the portaloo area and witnessing a cubicle being unceremoniously tipped upside down. It was only when the door flung open and a girl crawled out that I realised what had happened, and the critter was laughing. Laughing! Maybe she had a bit too much 'sun' and was so deliraous with dehydration that she hadn't realised, for surely if ever there was an unfunny moment this was it. 

In recent years, I'm told, the portaloo situation has improved. I have yet to experience it as the next year I trotted along to the festival it was with a VIP pass and the many flushable benefits that come with it.  Indeed so VIP was my ticket that Sinead O Connor was singing in the toliets. As it happens she just happened to be warming up before going on stage but, for the benefit of this column and the hundred times I've recounted the story since, Sinead O Connor was employed to provide entertainment in the unbeliveably posh little girl’s room.

 The journey home is never pleasant. Tired, sunburnt and hungover, the motley crew of festival revellers pack up their troubles and their old kit bags and head homewardbound. That first year it took our bus ten hours to get home. Ten full hours. Three alone spent trying to get out of the carpark. So slow moving was the traffic people actually got off and walked alongside, some even lapped us!

Dehydrated and sweltered they dandered the country roads in the hope of finding a nearby shop only to come across a little old lady who allowed people to have some water…in exchange for cigarettes, I kid you not, she got enough to last her until the following year.

 With the drama that took place it's a wonder I ever went to another festival but the atmosphere and the fantastic line up more than make up for the less than luxury surroundings, for many that’s half the fun.

I’ll definitely be taking in the WOMAD festival when it rolls into town, safe in the knowledge that I’ll be in my own bed by the end of the night, roll on 2013.

Published in Derry News 26/04/11