That autumnal feeling
Well, did you enjoy the warmer rain of an Irish summer with no hint of an 'Indian summer'? Only if you were in Ireland or course. Summer is the time I vainly hope that I'll get lots of 'work' 'sorted' to get on top of things, and also the time I know, in my heart of hearts, that it's about as unlikely as Irish wells running dry and the sun shining non-stop from July to September. A bit of DIY or decorating at home, a bit of family holidaying, a little bit in the garden, and ZING, autumn is here again. Just goes to prove how flexible time is. The summer is summary in character. And while global warming is set to raise temperatures in parts of Europe by 4'C or more, a map I saw of likely outcomes shows Ireland, presumably because of it's Atlantean nature, avoiding temperature increases; so we'll get the rain and the storms of global warming and not the warming itself. Maybe in the future Bord Failte will be advertising to mainland Europeans - 'Come to Ireland where it's cool'.

But I hope you did get out and about, hail, rain or shine, and you're fit to face the even greyer days of winter. But it's a change of routine at least, and, in the immortal words of Christy Moore's Lisdoonvarna (he wrote the words himself as well as singing them);

Everybody needs a break, climb a mountain, jump in a lake

Some head off to exotic places, others go to the Galway races

Mattie goes to the South of France, Jim to the dogs, Peter to the dance

A cousin of mine goes potholing, a cousin of hers is into Joe Dolan

As the summer comes around each year, we go there and they come here

Some jet off to Frijiliana, but I always head for Lisdoonvarna

It's the "we go there and they come over here" bit that I particularly like as it sums up our human desire for something different, for novelty, and our mundane is someone else's novelty (hopefully!) and vice versa.

Meanwhile a Swiss visitor sent me a photo taken in a children's playground in Newcastle, Co Down. It shows a boy playing in a metal 'tank' - complete with gun turret - in a playground, I think on the sea front there. What on earth were the parks department there thinking about??? It looks like war is a playground activity for them. It should be removed immediately.

Which reminds me, did I tell you about the one I saw on a padlock attached to a local park gate. Written onto the lock with marker was "So is my ma!". Humourous if untrue, sad if true.

In the near future, though, humanity will have to deal with the effects of air travel on the earth's environment and global warming, particularly as plane emissions degrade much more slowly at altitude and given the astronomical (get it?) increase in the numbers flying. How do we sort that one out justly? I would suggest a 'flying quota' for individuals; leisure use would be standardised but there could be variations for those who need to fly for work. But the implications of this are that we will also need to curtail our desire to roam by plane (to Rome by plane?) and increase our usage of boat and rail, and not wandering so far so frequently (for those in the rich West/North). Eco-taxes might help to make this economic as well as ecologically sound. It's not a big political issue yet but it needs to be one. Lord make me chased (around the world) but not just yet.

Bill Posters will be persecuted
Interesting what happens when you take direct action on advertising. The British Army put up a load of recruiting posters for school leavers this summer in my neck of the Nor Iron woods, with the slogan about turning your mates green (they mean with envy, but perhaps with horror and disgust?). Anyway, a simple 'B' in front of 'ARMY' changed some posters completely. And one that I did this to had a couple of subsequent additions; 'Be a killer' put on by one person, and a Hitler moustache put on by someone else. All these additions sat there over the summer as a magnificent advertisement for not joining the British army. If I hadn't put that initial one letter addition, I wonder if the others would have taken the chance? Of course there are debates to be had on these issues but posters are for simple, direct messages and on this I think 'we' - whoever 'we' are - succeeded.

Overheads
If you think of 'overheads' do you think a) of the fixed costs to be met by your enterprise before meeting variable costs? or b) the projection of boring information on a transparency sheet onto a screen or wall as used in education, training and business? What 'overheads' means to you may give some indication of whether you're business or facilitation/education/training oriented. Anyhow, after a visit to Galway in the summer I'll never look at an overhead projector the same way again. Honest.

I went to a session in the Galway Arts Festival with an English group The Indefinite Article (should that not be 'An indefinite Article'?) with their show 'Sand'. It involved some clever linking of Homer's Odyssey with the life of the principal actor, and some stunning coordination by the 3 actors, two of whom were primarily overhead projectionist, and the two people on sound and lights. The basic technique had sand rolled out flat on the glass top of the overhead projector using a wine bottle, and then a design was drawn in the sand and projected. It may sound a bit off the wall and also boring but the speed and skill involved was very considerable, and they also built in movement and even colour (red for blood as Penelope's suitors are slain, this time projected onto a moving, falling, wall of sand). PS We were wondering why Galway's Black Box theatre was so called until we went inside. Then we didn't wonder any more.

A poor do
Surprise, surprise, figures which came out in July show that proportionately more people live in poverty in Ireland than in any other industrialised country apart from the USA (United Nations Development Fund report). What an indictment of our system! These figures are for the Republic but I suspect the North is not far behind. Ireland's position is partly explained by high functional illiteracy - up to 23%. The fact that Ireland is nevertheless 18th out of 162 countries surveyed in quality of life indices (Human development Index) should not deflect us from such drastic poverty and the implications for people's lives and well being. Almost 1 in 4 people functionally illiterate! Meaning unable to read a bus timetable for example. That is appalling. One recent example I came across was the young male assistant in a paint shop in Belfast having to ask the customer how to spell 'orange' to input the right instructions to the paint mixing machine. Illiteracy in any society is disempowering; in our society, so dependent on the written word despite the video age (how do you read television programme times even?) it is criminal.

British veering away from western colony
A Guardian/ICM poll in August showed that 41% of Britons believed that Northern Ireland should be joined with the Republic and only 26% favoured it continuing as part of the UK. No British government is going to hand over something just like that, especially when the majority in Norn Iron favours the link with Britain (though this may be different in a generation). And the financial cost for subvention to the North, as currently stands, would be ruinous if the Republic took it on (GDP per head may be higher in the Republic than in Britain but it's a much smaller country, maybe under 6% of the population of Britain). So don't bet on a united Ireland just yet. Interestingly, Britons blamed both sides pretty evenly for the mess with problems in the peace process.

But it does raise questions. Who or what are unionists loyal to given that this loyalty is not reciprocated? In the longer term, does this mean Britain can push unionists more easily (with threats of pushing them right out)? Did the Provos do their sums carefully before ditching the armalite and discovering the ballot box? This would not be so much in relation to Britain as in an increasing proportion of young Catholics in Northern Ireland. An equivalent survey in the Republic could test how much citizens wanted the North in relation to cost; most people undoubtedly would like to see a united Ireland (a 1999 survey quoted found 86% wanted unity) but how much would they pay? Which brings to mind a British cartoon in the Thatcher era showing the pulling of the island of Ireland off into the Atlantic away from Britain....

Well, there we go again, have ye got your heating and your cycling gloves on yet, not too far away and all them meetings to be going to as autumn schedules kick into top gear. Good luck with it all, until I see you again, yours truly, Billy.