Connect: Beside a picture of actress Cameron Diaz, Thursday's edition of this newspaper exhorted readers to "Try this one at home". Fair enough . . . but how do you get her to visit and for what does she submit to trial: cooking, gardening, other duties? Who sets the terms? Is there a charge? Although she never has in the past, perhaps Diaz will call to offer her services and explain all, writes Eddie Holt
Codology aside, some Leaving Cert higher level students of English have already written to Cameron Diaz. They were asked to "write a letter to one of the following indicating what appeals and/or does not appeal to you about the work which that person does". The "following" were Roy Keane; Cameron Diaz; Lord of the Rings director, Peter Jackson; a lion tamer; a farmer; a company executive.
The six choices to receive unsolicited mail ranged from specific people to others ambiguously classed by occupation. The final two possibilities - farmer or company executive - required inventive letters. Should "farmer" be a person with a few acres or one who owns half a county? Does "company executive" mean an ordinary diligent person, a tribunal chancer or a rogue banker? It's understandable that young people might write to Roy Keane, Cameron Diaz or Peter Jackson. A lion tamer too has an undeniable occupational cachet. After all, such people are few in number and you don't see too many job adverts - either big display ones offering "generous remuneration packages" or classifieds under Help Wanted - for lion tamers.
But farmers and company executives are rather different. Presumably such generic types were included in order that every student - even those poor sods who studied so hard they never heard of Keane, Diaz or Jackson - could attempt the question. It would be interesting to know what percentage of students chose to write letters to imaginary farmers or executives.
We never will, of course. That's a pity, because the Leaving Cert English "language" paper can act as a snapshot of the communal 18-year-old Irish mind. Certainly, there are staple subjects - self, success, sex, for instance - which occupy the minds of 18-year-olds in every generation. But there are also generational fashions which a representative sample of such exam papers would reveal.
We can take it that this year's Leaving Cert students are neither more intelligent nor more stupid than those of earlier decades. They are probably more worldly, often misconstrued as meaning they are more "sophisticated", than students of 20 or 30 years ago. Media, in particular, will have exposed them to behaviour and mores previously reserved for older people.
It's the shadow side of increased affluence and permissiveness. Children, never mind young adults, are treated as consumers to be targeted for profits. By the time the average teenager reaches Leaving Cert age, he or she will have been sold notions of "sophistication" which are quite grubby and perverse. It's little wonder so many of them go wild on drink.
Ironically, the Leaving Cert ordinary level English paper offered students a much more sophisticated option than writing letters to Keane, Diaz, Jackson, a lion tamer, a farmer or a company executive. It gave the quote, ". . . to dream better dreams . . .", asking students to "write a speech to give to a group of young people encouraging them to follow their dreams". That's more like it. It certainly allows for a more expansive response than a letter to a company executive outlining what appeals to you or does not appeal to you about his or her job. The context framed by excessively commercial media and their relentless selling of grubbiness as "sophistication" is ultimately as limiting as the "good job in the civil service" was to earlier Leaving Cert generations.
Still, the dominant theme of the ordinary level paper was reportedly "money". Despite the dream of better dreams, loot is clearly colonising Leaving Cert exam papers. In the process, it is limiting the better dreams and framing a world in which money is not just important (which it is) but determining, which it isn't.
Few, if any, of the males can have realistic prospects of becoming the next Roy Keane; few, if any, of the females can hope to become the new Cameron Diaz. That's life, but 18-year-olds must have dreams and if those dreams include becoming even wealthier and more famous than either Roy Keane or Cameron Diaz, that's fine. Those who are 18 going on 45 are seldom ideal.
Anyway, the exhortation to try Diaz at home reminded me of a 16-year-old male who once told me he had the idea to write to Jim'll Fix It. He wanted Jim to fix something or other which involved him, soft furniture and some Hollywood starlets. To the lasting disillusionment of the writer, Jimmy Savile never replied.
The adult world can be so irresponsible and ruthless. It turns an exam in English into a paean to money after it has refused to fix a little fun for you. Welcome to the world, class of 2004. You'll need all the dreams you can muster.