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Taylor Swift, a year of elections and the battle for the American Dream

The latest subscriber-only columns from David McWilliams, Fintan O’Toole, Roe McDermott and more

Hollywood - California, Hill, Los Angeles County, Mountain, California

In his first column of the year, David McWilliams examines the onging economic battle taking place in Los Angeles. Photograph: iStock

Sun Jan 7 2024 - 09:00

Welcome to this week’s IT Sunday, a selection of the best Irish Times journalism for our subscribers.

David McWilliams this weekend has his eyes on the United States, from where he is writing his first weekend column of 2024. Specifically, he’s examining Los Angeles - the place where the American Dream has been invented and reinvented, and where he says an economic battle for survival generates both a harshness and excitement. “Whether you are an actor, director, singer, producer or writer, the gales of creative destruction howl constantly, pushing people to greater achievements. Those streets paved with gold are also the famous boulevards of broken dreams.”

Staying on the States; 2024 is an election year and Michael McDowell has surveyed the state of play. As it stands, the Democrats look set to nominate Joe Biden, while the Republicans are on course to pick former president Donald Trump to run. “Can Biden devise a strategy to pull ahead of Trump?” asks McDowell. “If he thinks that abortion rights are going to swing many undecided voters in his favour he may be right, but that by itself is not going to win him enough votes to secure the presidency.”

Meanwhile, after recently beginning his post as The Irish Times’ Washington Correspondent, Keith Duggan takes a look at where the country stands at the beginning of an election year and finds that there is a lot of anxiety across all sections of the population.

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Elsewhere in the varied realm of public discourse in the US, Taylor Swift’s relationship with NFL tight end Travis Kelce is the current obsession of one shouty corner of American sports TV. Such is Dave Hannigan’s take in this piece, where he explores the delight taken by some in the media in blaming the pop superstar for Kelce’s dip in form. Hannigan says that attempting to connect his performances with this relationship “appears the ploy of the truly desperate and the downright misogynistic. Former players and pundits have been queuing up to point out the real reasons for Kelce’s reduced impact on the field are far more prosaic than his romance with a woman who just earned her first billion and could sell out any NFL stadium umpteen nights in a row.”

Closer to home, Fintan O’Toole has written about the Ireland of 40 years ago; a place that was “all talk”, and where chatter was constant - but so was silence: “The place was wary. Most gay men and lesbians did not talk even to their close friends and family members about their love lives or their sexual identities. Almost no one ‘knew’ anyone who had gone to England for an abortion even though the women who had done just that were their sisters, mothers, friends, neighbours, workmates. And even something as mundane as where you got married could be a taboo subject.”

O’Toole explores Ireland’s history of keeping secrets by way of his own experience of being married in a registry office in 1983, and having to keep it to himself out of fear for his wife’s job as a teacher: For over 30 years there was one column I was never able to write, but now it would be utterly unremarkable.

Elsewhere this week, Corinna Hardgrave was on the restaurant beat. Her latest review arises from a trip to Cellar 22 at Stephen’s Green in Dublin, where the verdict is a positive four stars - it’s the perfect casual dining spot, says Hardgrave: “If you’re having a Christmas meet-up in January, and would prefer to avoid the tyranny of a three-course menu (life being too short and all that), you may find that Cellar 22 is exactly the place you’ve been looking for.”

In his Smart Money column, Cliff Taylor is looking to the year ahead. While Taylor points out that financial predictions have been next to useless over the last few years, he presents some tips that could help readers navigate their personal finances in 2024. Number one? Realise that the markets are not always right. Also in Your Money, Conor Pope looks at at what might happen with interest rates for borrowers and savers in the year to come, and whether or not other bills will rise again: Ten ways your wallet will be affected in 2024, from mortgages to car insurance.

Roe McDermott uses her latest advice column to respond to a man in his late 30s who is beginning to notice more frequent jokes by his friends - who are married and/or having babies - about the fact he has never had what they regard as a “serious” relationship: “I don’t mind the jokes, I’ll joke back about them about never having a lie-in again, but I suppose I’m feeling there’s a perception that I’m immature or selfish because I haven’t had more serious relationships. I don’t want to settle, but I’m wondering if I’m missing out. Any advice?”

In the latest instalment of Tell Me About It, Trish Murphy hears from a man in his 50s who has moved to Ireland from Brazil and is finding it difficult to meet new people: “Perhaps you will find my question too simple or awkward, but I would like to know where and how a man in his 50s could meet new and interesting people, even if only to start a conversation, here in Ireland.”

As always, there is much more on irishtimes.com, including rundowns of all the latest movies in our film reviews, tips for the best restaurants in our food section and all the latest in sport. There are plenty more articles exclusively available for Irish Times subscribers here.

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