Classic gambits

In bed with the flu (or an unidentified viral agent) a few days ago, I tuned into a radio interview with Maire Geoghegan Quinn. And it might have been my condition, but when asked how politicians felt about all the ongoing tribunals and inquiries, I'm sure I heard her say they had experienced "the whole gambit of emotions".

Like most guys, I've used the emotional gambit from time to time, but I still thought this was unduly cynical. For one thing, emotion is a last resort for many politicians, whereas a gambit is by definition an opening move. But more to the point, I was reminded of being in Australia some years ago when the then prime minister Bob Hawke wept on television as he spoke of marital infidelities.

This could have been a classic gambit, involving as it did an initial sacrifice (the risk of being seen as a Sheila) in the interests of longer-term gain (a jump in the approval ratings). And indeed, his ratings duly improved, as sure as knight follows an attack on rook or bishop. Yet nobody who saw it could have doubted his emotion was sincere.

I don't really think Maire Geoghegan Quinn meant to say "gambit", though. I believe she had two other words in mind, "ambit" and "gamut", and with the efficiency for which she was legendary as a minister, merged them with a 40 per cent saving in labour costs. It's easy to do this on radio, but there's no excuse in print. I should know because, once, writing about a well-known media personality, I was groping for a sympathetic word that combined his qualities of being "irrepressible" and a "rascal"; and I ended up calling him "irascible", a word I'd met a few times on social occasions but never really got to know. Nobody spotted the error and the guy himself never complained. Perhaps he secretly had a bad temper and thought it was fair comment.

Anyway, I was thinking about words as I lay in bed with what may or may not have been influenza (Italian for "influence", from the once-prevalent belief that the condition was affected by the position of planets - as good as any explanation as I've heard from any doctor) and how seductive they can be. Certain words force their way into your mind by the power of their personalities and, if they're good enough for long enough, become cliches. But some of the most innocuous and talentless words - I'm thinking of certain adverbs here - can invade your person like fleas. It can be hard to get rid of them.

It's amazing the number of people (Tony Blair, for one) who can't get through a sentence without the word "actually", although this rarely adds anything to their meaning.

I'll leave adjectives to another day, except to note how one - "surreal" - seems to prey on young male sports writers in particular. Often it's used to mean simply "quirky", as in this example, taken - almost literally - from a newspaper report: "United pressed for an equaliser and got it when, in a surreal touch, a shot that was going harmlessly wide went in off the head of the referee, who had tripped after his shorts fell down." Whereas the correct use of this word is illustrated by the following example: "United pressed forward for an equaliser and succeeded when, in a surreal touch, a shot that was going harmlessly wide went in off the head of Salvador Dali, who had fallen off his ladder while painting the goalkeeper."

IT'S been a pretty grim new year so far. And while I don't want to beat on about the issue, events have supported the view - held by me and the Cuban government, among others - that the real mi*****ium doesn't happen until next December 31st. Consider Ireland alone: half the country under water, thousands down with flu, tourism officials complaining about the smell of taxi drivers - and you realise that, far from any new beginning, there's an unmistakable fin de siecle feeling around.

Then there are all the conspiracy theories, like the one about the ESB keeping Shannon levels high (a twist on the plot of Chinatown). Indeed, I rumbled my own conspiracy recently while queueing in the chemists' for a flu remedy. Stuff was flying off the shelves with the result that many products were sold out and people were getting desperate ("What have you got left? Hairspray? I'll take that.").

You couldn't help thinking what good news the epidemic was for some. Then I read in the paper that while there was no evidence of flu, there were a number of "viral agents" in circulation. This gave me an idea for a detective thriller, in which a tough, no-nonsense cop hunts down these agents, and beats the crap out of them until they admit which of the international pharmaceutical companies is paying. (People finding themselves in bed, not with the familiar old flu as they thought, but with unknown viral agents, would have added spice to the story).

The plot needed a bit of refining, obviously. But then I saw an ad for an existing best-seller on the flu pandemic of 1918, a book described by critics as "a remarkable scientific detective story" and a "real-life thriller". Which is just typical. No matter how good your idea, there's always somebody who got there before you. That's been my experience of the 20th century, and the sooner it's over, the better.

fmcnally@irish-times.ie