Debauchery Down the Country

A DISPARATE group of topics today, a wide ranging approach to the various fields of endeavour, a broad spread of intellectual considerations on the noble mosaic of human endurance and survival, all of them examined closely under this morning's completely translucent sky, through which, as usual, nothing of importance shows.

You have a few halfbaked notions and little else.

That is rather a cruel interpretation. It is true, however, that I was stuck for a while. The muse was away and the news coming back was not good.

On a batter again? Thai woman has her poor family driven demented and one of them trying to study for her Senior Cert in June. All I can says is that the husband is a saint - a saint. Did she come to herself before too much damage was done?

She did.

You could always sack her.

I could, but it is a question of the devil you know, and I am fond of her despite her weakness. She is basically a decent sort and I would be lost without her.

Anyway. There was a letter in the paper the other day from a lady complaining about journalists using superficial psychobabble. She is right. There is no point in using the superficial stuff when the real thing is freely available and in large quantities. (Another writer took similar exception to a journalist using the term "stage culchie", when presumably "culchie" would have done the job fine).

It is a bit like stripping the false tinsel from Hollywood to find the real tinsel underneath.

But the "psychobabble" letter writer was rightly pouring scorn on the popular notion, peddled by certain journalists, that people from a so called "modest rural background" are peculiarly susceptible toe the attractions of power and a glamorous moneyed lifestyle.

This piece of nonsense stems from the outdated idea that young country folk live lives of blinding purity until going, mad (altogether) on exposure to ardent city ways (lure of the fallen seraphim).

This may have been accurate enough some decades ago, but these days even small towns and mere parishes offer excellent facilities for all kinds of debauchery, and are happy to do so. Most young rural folk these days are therefore quite as corrupt as their urban cousins and that is the way it should be. This is what equal, opportunity is all about.

Moral degradation - the descent, usually spiral for some reason, into the slime of debased living is as easy in Cloonfad or Clonakilty today as it is in Dublin and we should stop pretending otherwise. I am glad to see, this asserted in a reader's letter, and not before time.

Talking of reputations and journalism, there was a big row the other day about a Press Association obituary of Lord Jay. One of his daughters took objection to the emphasis on the da's notoriously shabby clothes (at one overseas gathering he was mistaken for a tramp) and allegedly poor oratorical skills.

She felt so angry that she rang the PA writer responsible, Chris Moncrieff, and gave out stink him. The Press Association then circulated a PS with the obituary, noting the family's outrage.

Is there any way in which the media can avoid such embarrassment? There is. Last week there was an obituary on Cardinal John Krol in the London Independent. The piece was notable for its vigour and liveliness, and was far from uncritical. According to the writer, the career of "Krol the Pole", the former Archbishop of Philadelphia, was "built on shrewdness and being in the right place at the right time."

So what? Well, the obituary was" signed by Peter Hebblethwaite, and at the foot of the piece, readers were informed that Hebblethwaite himself died in December 1994.

The thought of working after death (or even before it) will unnerve many journalists, but the advantages of dead writers are fairly obvious. Phenomenal savings will be possible and there will be an end to readers aggrieved phone calls, for a start.