Scroll less, stroll more

Ding. The weekly notification popped up on my phone. “Your social media usage this week was more than last week.”

To which my default response would have typically been along the lines of “would you ever feck off with yourself” until the other day when I noticed that my usage had spiralled by a whopping 60%!

What the actual … ?

“How can that be?” I moaned. Until I remembered a ‘throuple’ of marathon WhatsApp sessions the week before.

“Oops. Not good.”

One thing I have noticed, is that when I am down in West Cork, to which I am a frequent flyer (well, trainer and busser), my social media usage plummets. Why? Probably because I spend so much of my time there immersed in nature. Rain, hail or shine, I’m out there, hiking up cliffs, toiling up vertiginous pathways (Tanyard Hill anyone?), making notes about seasonal plant growth (plans for a book), strolling on the beach and generally admiring the Galley Head lighthouse from every possible angle.

And, when not communing with Ma Nature, I can usually be found communing with the multi-coloured members of my family – every shade of personality from coimhthíoch to chiúin to craic (bordering on bonkers). 

So, as being present in the moment in West Cork is not an everyday option, I decided to make several changes to my online behaviours in a bid to address the sixty per cent increase in my social media usage, the first being switching my phone to Flight Mode when out walking. Yes, this comes at a price – no access to BBC R3 or non-downloaded music on Spotify. Conversely though, this small change has achieved the added bonus of my actually being able to spend some time outside of my own head, quietening my mind (a bit) and enjoying the sights and sounds through which I pass, be they in the nearby park, by the river or simply on the pathways of my local area.

Next move? To silence the endless ping-a-ling of incoming messages, of which a large portion typically contain stupid cat videos along with a litany of those ironically named ‘funnies’. The type of trite juvenile humour we used to find uproariously funny as goofy school-kids. Ahem, yes you, guilty as charged; you know who you are.

Needing to emerge from the time devouring black hole that social media has a habit of becoming when we allow ourselves to fall victim to its algorithmic charms, I decided to act on the advice of a younger, much more social media savvy mate.

Opting out of the ‘Last Seen Online’ setting on WhatsApp is one of the best things I could have done. This deliberate removal of the “Open for Business” sign has resulted in a serious dip in traffic to my feed. Before, my contacts could see when I was online, and this typically resulted in rushed “while you’re there” texts which more often than not descended into a frenzy of ““did you hear”, “did you know”, “did I tell you” messaging mania” involving multiple ????s and !!!!s as well as a wide variety of 🤣🤪😉 and 🙏🏻. To complement that move, I’ve also silenced notifications to my phone.

Five days in and the silence is very golden.

Even better, I’ve noticed that I’ve stopped looking at my home screen every other ten minutes to check for incoming messages, mail or whatever. I’ve learnt to put the phone down and ignore it for long periods of time.

As for the platform fka Twitter, I’ve unticked all notifications bar the bare essentials. I’ve started ignoring all notifications on Insta bar those which are DMs from people I know and unsubscribed my gmail account from a string of ‘sales mail’ that’s been blocking up my inbox like lard in an artery.

While all of the above changes have worked a treat, I can say without any hesitation that the best move I ever made in terms of changing how I interact with social media was to delete my Facebook account, which I did around this time last year. 

Too noisy, too cluttered with rubbish ads, to showy-offy, too many photos of friends of friends of friends in whom I had zero interest – as the Americans say, enough already. 

For some reason, I always found FB rather competitive, almost as if all these people who were friends-not-friends, most of whom had never even met each other, were in a constant battle with one another to see who could garner the most likes, live their ‘best lives’ whilst deploying an endless barrage of ‘surgically enhanced’ photos of their seemingly non-stop social butterfly lifestyles.

Fun fact: some ten years or so ago, I attended a blogger conference during which one of the guest speakers, supposedly a hugely popular Insta Influencer, stepped up on stage and opened with the line – “It’s all about the likes, folks. All about getting the likes”. Which is why Insta and its sister platform FB are such very toxic environments for impressionable tweens, teens and young adults. They must get the likes, have an ever-growing list of friends, post over-the-top super filtered, mega photo-shopped pics and pout til they drop, or until they develop RSI leaving their mouths like a frozen trout in perpetuity.

Without doubt, social media is an addictive, mind bending, often life-altering quagmire, where reality becomes muddied by mis and disinformation. The average Joe spends 150 minutes a day on social media – two and a half hours during which attitudes and views can be changed, friendships can be made and broken, and intelligent, respectable people can be eviscerated by armies of extremist looney tunes for stating a fact-based opinion.

While by its omnipresence in the modern world social media is an inescapable necessity, we can make small changes to how and when we use these tools and platforms to ensure that we optimise the benefits and minimise the negative impacts including stress, paranoia and mistruths.

To leverage modern parlance, the key is to ‘own’ your usage; to control what you actually view as opposed to letting the algorithms make the decisions for you. We need to remember that devices are technological tools designed to help make our everyday life easier. They are not comfort blankets, neither are social media platforms our new BFFs.

At the end of the day, the real tops the virtual. In the words of Shakespeare, “seeming is not reality”. Often what we see, read or hear on social media platforms is a distorted or misrepresented version of the truth. Now, with the advancement of AI, that distorted reality is about to become a whole lot shadier.

To stop social media apps from manipulating us, we need to take back control of our time, our tech and our ability to live in the real world. There’s a time for stupid cat videos. There’s a time for feverish exchanges of the latest goss on WhatsApp. But that time should be minimal. Instead, our time should be focussed on meeting with, and talking to our real friends, colleagues and acquaintances. On being in nature and enjoying its benefits. On being comfortable with our own company, without the need for constant social media ‘reinforcement’.

Conversation flows more freely when we are looking someone in the eye, can see their facial expressions, can read their body language.

Life is more enjoyable when people can chat, smile and laugh together, rather than relying on  emojis to convey how their company makes them feel.

What can top the dopamine hit of a good side splitting laugh or the warmth of a tight hug?

So, while I won’t be deleting the few social media apps I still use any time soon, I have seriously curtailed how and when I use them. Instead, I have followed my instincts to scroll less, stroll more. I have upped my social ante, going out more, gigging, returning to the book club, organising coffee dates and walks and generally living life the good old fashioned way, because in the words of that ever eloquent purveyor of flannel, Mark Renton, I’ve decided to #chooselife

Looking cross-eyed at today

In the Catholic calendar, the 6th of January marks the Feast of the Epiphany. In the West, it heralds the arrival of the Magi to honour the Christ child, while in the Eastern tradition, where it is known as Theophany, it commemorates the baptism of Jesus in the River Jordan.

In the not-so-holy Ireland of 2024, the 6th also marks Nollaig na mBan or Women’s Christmas, a day on which domestic roles were traditionally reversed.

Where am I going with this, you might ask? Apart from giving you some possible answers to religious-themed Trivial Pursuits questions?

Well, it was during a sermon given by Fr. Vincent, Prior at St. Teresa’s Church, Clarendon St., on that very same feast day that I had a bit of an epiphany of my own. Speaking about our fixation with both past and future to the detriment of the present, he asked why we insist on spending so much time dwelling on the past; looking back on mistakes, misdemeanours and mistreatment.

Or, when we’re not being weighed down by the anchor of the past, we turn, volte face, to the future. Like Eve craving knowledge of the unknown from the Tree of Life, we kick anticipation into touch to conjure up myriad scenarios of what, who, when and how, to sate our unbridled curiosity.

We spend so much time looking either forwards or backwards that that we leave little or no time for the now, he surmised.

“With one eye on the past and the other on the future, we end up looking cross-eyed at today,” he said.

“Looking cross-eyed at today.”

What a phrase.

Later that evening when walking down Grafton St. (the very same one I Usain Bolt-ed down on Christmas Eve), I decided to uncross my outlook on life. 

Those who know me well will understand what I mean when I say that I spent far too much of the last three or four years locked into the past. For reasons best left back in Pandora’s box, I walked with one eye on the past, weighed down as Fr. Vincent said, by a series of life-changing events.

A history that could not be changed. A past about which I could do nothing. But yet, I persisted in dwelling on what was no longer whilst forgoing not just the present, but also the future.

As far as I was concerned, le futur n’existait pas.

Sometimes someone can do or say something, quite unwittingly, that can unlock the chains that have kept us tied to a rock of negativity for so long that we have forgotten how to be positive. We are not happy because in disallowing ourselves from being happy we have forgotten how to be so.

Then one day, apropos of nothing, an off-the-cuff comment, inane remark, idiotic smile or random joke can change everything. Its simplicity is its effectiveness. By not trying, it can succeed where many other more deliberate attempts have failed.

Oftentimes, all it takes is one random act of kindness, albeit often unwitting, to change a person’s outlook, if not life.

In my case, it was an inane remark in the middle of a business call. To this day, I have no idea whether the person was being serious or pulling my leg, but what they said stayed with me long after the call had ended, prompting a loud belly laugh during another conversation later that day.

That person will never know that in the split second, they changed my outlook on life. For the first time, in a very long time I laughed out loud, naturally and without affectation.

I texted my best friend. “I’m back,” I told her. “About bloody time” was her reply.

Unshackled from the past, I was now hell bent on unravelling the future before I’d even acclimatised to the present to which I’d just returned. I must have, do, say, go, see, try … I must, I shall, I will. I was tripping over my present self to get ahead. Charging forward to make up for so much lost time.

I’d recently revisited a BBC R3 Private Passions interview with the late Dame Clare Marx, a remarkable woman and trailblazing surgeon, during which she extolled the benefits of eschewing dwelling on the past … “You only look back to learn, you must look forward for the future,” she exclaimed.

I was all for it. Future facing. The only way is forward. Let’s go.

And now here I was, walking down a brightly lit and busy Grafton St. (thank God), trying to look straight into the eyes of the present.

Notwithstanding the incessant social media speak about mindfulness and being in the moment, we continue to look beyond what we have today, choosing instead to drag the past forward and yank the future backwards, thereby nullifying the present.

But if there is one thing I have learned from several years of nullifying that very present and numbing myself to everything it had to offer, both good and bad, is that by placing ourselves in another time is to ignore the unimaginably beautiful gifts today often has to offer.

A song, a small bird, the tip of a newly formed bud, a chance encounter with a stranger, a random smile, a good cup of coffee, a long walk by a calm lagoon, the smell of a new book, the joy of brilliant sunshine or a flake of snow landing on the tip of your nose. It might sound trite, but when you envelope yourself in the past, or immerse yourself headlong in the ‘maybe-might be’s’ of the future, you shut yourself off from the possibilities of today.

During a 2022 interview with BBC R3 to discuss her composition, ‘Meditations on Joy’, the composer Helen Grime discussed committing to living in the moment, the joy manifesto and giving oneself up to joy.

“Don’t question joyfulness,” she said. “Connect with nature, universe, flow and you’ll find it,” before adding, “Just for the joy of it sing the song for the moment my love”.”

While I’m not a mindfulness evangelist, I do respect the powers it can have to calm, heal and restore. Jesus knows my good friend (and kinesiologist) Suzi has tried her damnedest to slow down the wheels of my mind by encouraging me to meditate. Alas, I am one of those who when the slow breeze of meditative calm settles itself over me, my standby generator kicks into action, and like most women, the urge to start compiling mental to-do, shopping and clothes for the trip lists becomes all too hard to resist.

So, while mindful meditation might work for some – actually, it works for the many – for me, reflections on the now and actually taking the time to see, hear and experience what is around me have become fundamental to a newly restored happiness.

While I will never be able to turn the clock back, to erase the pain or change the sequence of events of my past, I can, no, I have learnt to value the present, to look it straight in the eye and see what is staring right back at me. And as for tomorrow, well, tomorrow is already today somewhere else. It’ll be my today when I’ve finished making the most of this one.

And to the person who made that inane remark so many months ago … Míle Buíochas duit.

Like a soft balm, music has a way of calming the soul. Here’s some romantic musical balm to calm and comfort fraught minds and cross-eyed ‘souls’. If you’re short on time, at a little over 14 minutes the third movement of Rachmaninov’s 2nd Symphony is particularly easy on the ear and gentle on the mind.

The Mozart was sublime, but next year I’ll be going agnostic

’Twas the night before Christmas, when all through the house.

Not a creature was stirring, not even a mouse.

Shame the same couldn’t be said for Dublin City centre.

’Tis the night before Christmas. 7pm to be exact. Standing at the bus stop. It’s cold, dark, wet and the air reeks of Wintry damp and stale fat from the nearby Guest House. Bus comes. I go upstairs. Apart from a worse-for-wear looking Worzel Gummidge impresario it’s empty. I sit at the front. Quick as a flash, our anti-hero stumbles up the bus, landing with a thud on the seat behind me. I know what’s coming. Jesus, even the fly on the window knows what’s coming.

An arm lands beside my right shoulder as a hail of spittle flies past my ear and onto the glass pane in front of me. 

There’s a litany of incoherent rambling followed by some shouting … because in his booze-soaked brain, shouting is the only way he can get through to me. 

I have no idea what he is saying. Something about St. Jude and b**tards and a lot of question marks left hanging in the air.

I can see his face in the window, getting redder with each passing moment. His spit rate is now approaching peak velocity. 

The bus stops. Starts up again. A young couple come upstairs. S. American. She’s laughing. He’s talking like Speedy Gonzales on Helium spiked with Acid.

Worzel turns his attention to them.

He wheels around and starts gesticulating wildly before getting up and unsteadily returning to his original seat.

Phew.

Earbuds in. EBTG. Eden. Nice and mellow. Relax.

Bus pulls up at my stop. I disembark. Christ town is empty. 7.30pm Christmas Eve. It’s like the deserted village. I walk towards Clarendon St..

Crossing Dame St. at City Hall, I suddenly notice a ‘hoodie’ walking towards me apropos of no reason other than a bad one. A Brazilian Deliveroo guy cuts him up. Hoodie shouts a string of expletives as Mr. BD circles around me and asks me if I’m ok. “Grand, thanks.”, I stutter. WTF just happened? Hoodie skulks off towards the Olympia. BD bids me Happy Christmas and I, ever so slightly shaken, go on my way.

I notice the Christmas lights in Dublin Castle. How pretty. A courting couple are walking slowly ahead of me. Holding hands. Looking starry eyed at each other. Bless. I finally feel safe again. Walking on, I soak up the warmth of the fairy lights and sound of music on the breeze. Singing, shouting, jostling. A group of merrymakers pushes past, laughing and bantering. I cross up to Exchequer St.. A smattering of pedestrians pass me by, carrying their last minute purchases and bunches of flowers from the Duke St. stalls.

I arrive at St. Teresa’s at 7.45pm. The once a year interlopers are here in their dozens. Here for the carol service and nothing more. They might be seen again at Easter. Lucky us. I take a seat at the edge of an empty pew. A few minutes in, a group of what looks like foreign students pitches up behind me. No room at the inn for Johnny late-to-the-parade so he takes a seat at the far end of my pew. Then, with literally minutes to go, a tall and saintly looking St. Joseph lookalike decides he wants to sit between us. Pushing his way past me, he walks his dirty wet shoes all over the kneeler without so much as an excuse me before plonking himself down with a satisfied “agh”.

Omni padre. It’s Christmas. We forgive those who trespass against us. So far so Christian. That is until the Carol Service kicks off and straight outta the blocks Holy Joe syncs in with the choir … “Angels we have heard on high ..” except they aren’t. On high that is. They are dragging their heels in a sub-baritone zone of key of X flat in what can only be termed ‘tone neutral’.

And this goes on, and on. I put my index finger into my right ear to block out the misfiring drone. To no avail. He is still drowning out the choir.

So.

There is nothing for it only to up and shanks pony to the shrine of the Sacred Heart and sit side-face to the altar for the duration. On the plus side, great view of the choir, albeit with a crick in my neck.

Order is restored and a sense of calm descends with Jean Joubert’s ‘Torches’.

Zen. Until Granny in the big Black Hat mic drops down beside me onto the little bench with a thud redolent of a bag of sand being dropped from a great height. Obviously one of those people attracted to the body heat of others, she sidles up beside me crabwise until our hips are practically co-joined. I move. She moves. I’m good at this game. Became an expert during Covid.

I swing my hips around 45 degrees and bring myself to a sharp stop with my back square to her  left side. 

“Check”, I say silently.

She tuts.

“Mate,” think I.

Game over.

The Coral Service is done and so is Granny.

Silent Night.

If only.

Kyrie & Gloria, Missa Brevis in G (KV 49 – exquisite).

Alleluia. Alleluia. Alleluia.

All rise.

Is that a whistle?

‘Phwwwwwhht’

WTAF?

Wumpf.

A body hits the bench and it shudders with the weight.

‘Twishwishwishwish’

It’s the whistle a man uses to rein in a dog or when he’s taken on more than he can chew with an IKEA “sure it’ll be no bother” flatpack.

I look around to find Samuel Pickwick, all largesse and curly hair. “IsthisakindofaMidnightMassthing”, he slurs. 

Giving him my best Darth Vader death stare, I reply in my best ice-box voice, “Yes. Now can you please be quiet?”. 

“Wha?”, he shouts.

“Be quiet,” I say doing my best Jean Brodie.

“Oh, quiet yeah,” he roars.

As I turn to face the altar he shushes the loudest “shhhh” I’ve ever heard.

He starts muttering to himself.

Within a few minutes the squeak, squeak of rubber-soled shoes begins to make its way across the marbled floors and over to the shrine to St. Theresa of Avila. What she ever did to him is beyond me but off he goes, having the chats, as you drunkenly do?

Exhale.

Where are we now?

The message of Christmas

Cantique de Jean Racine.

Faure.

Sanctus. Mozart.

Agnus Dei.

Holy Communion.

Cello. Sublime. Mc Donagh. Cuireadh oileanach do Mhuire.

For unto us a child is born.

The cool air hitting my face is most welcome.

Homeless guy is sitting on the ground. Sober. I hand him a note, not for feel good, for respect. I read once that they say the worst is people not looking them in the eye. So I look into his face. He looks lost. And sad.

I walk on.

Wicklow St.

“Didn’t I fookin’ tell ya, ya eejah.”

Three drunks thumping a shop window.

I look over my shoulder.

“Whatdafukeutinkyerluckingatyasnottycow?”, one of them bellows at me.

“It’s f**king Pocahontas,” she screams laughing presumably at my fringed cape. But the laughter is short-lived as a shower of plastic bottles of water rain past me.

As I try to dodge incoming missiles a druggie wanders towards me. His look is mean and menacing. I can feel every muscle in my body tightening. I veer away from him and he hisses. I’m not wearing a bag. There’s nothing to rob. My pace quickens as I turn onto a bleak and desolate Grafton St.. I check the Dublin Bus app. Bus in 8 minutes. Walk, walk, walk.

In this moment, the streets are owned by the homeless. By the drug addled.

These are not the streets I remember as a young woman.

The safe streets of Dublin. The happy, carefree streets of back then. 

Gone. Long gone.

I arrive at the bus stop. Christ, if I thought Grafton St. was bleak, this is beyond gloomy. There is no-one around. One or two cars pass by. One group of tired-eyed revellers. 8 minutes. 10 minutes. No bus. No bus at all. Nothing on the roads. They are empty.

12 minutes waiting for the bus due in 8 mins.

Penny drops.

There are no buses. It’s Christmas Eve. The buses stop early.

“Gotcha” said Dublin Bus. “Ours is a trick information board. We give you what you want but as Shakespeare said, “seeming isn’t reality”.” It certainly isn’t with these clowns.

I am standing on a dark and lonely Clare St. and there is no-one. No-one anywhere.

There’s just me.

“The next bus is due at 22.25,” offers the information board.

Fool me once.

Now more Carabosse than Lilac Fairy, I cross the road and turn past Kennedy’s onto WestlandRow. There’s a lone man walking towards me. We are the only two people on the street. My heart is pounding. He approaches. “Hullo” he says. There’s sweat on my brow. My hands are trembling. 

As I’m walking past a doorway I suddenly notice two crouched figures. One is holding a hypodermic needle while the other is rolling up the sleeve of their jacket. I feel sick. They both look up at me, scowling. I’m trespassing. Invading their space. Night-time Dublin is owned by the homeless and drug addicted. I am not wanted here. A memory of a previous life now lost to them.

I quicken my pace.

I turn onto Pearse St and see a handful of people standing at a bus stop. They’re all foreign. I should stop and say “no bus” but I am terrified and stressed and all I want is to get home. 

I walk past more drug addicts sitting on front doorsteps. Two smoking crack pipes. I remember years ago sitting outside the Duke on a sunny Summer’s evening smoking a joint with a group of friends. Is that how we looked to passers by? Their faces are ravaged by a life less ordinary. I keep walking. My pulse is racing. My breathing hurts. I am in full flight mode.

I arrive onto Westmoreland St. and exhale thanks. Life. Some people. Homeless. Arguing. Jesus. I practically run past them. There are tears in my eyes now. What the hell has happened to this city? Every part of me is shaking. I charge down the quays. Focussing straight ahead. I do no look sideways. I do not meet these people’s eyes. I act as if they are not there.

I get to the Clarence Hotel. There’s another small group of people standing at the bus stop. Again foreigners. They’re clueless. There are no buses you fools. I turn and see a taxi pull out from the kerb a few hundred yards down the street. I stick out my arm. He indicates. Pulls in. They move towards it. Not a hope folks. This one’s mine. I grab the handle and jump in. My heart is pounding. He asks where to. I start to cry.

He pulls over. Asking if I’m ok. I give him a snapshot of my story. He tells me Dublin is no longer safe at night. Especially not for women. Especially not on nights like this. The buses stopped at 9pm he informs me. Someone should have informed the Dublin Bus App and info boards.

He again asks if I’m ok. I’ve calmed down. “I’m ok,” I reply, thanking him for his kindness. He’s Pakistani. Muslim. They don’t celebrate Christmas he tells me, but they do have a big family meal and enjoy the day together.

“I’ll have to do the 100m sprint when we get to my house,” I tell him. “I didn’t bring any money with me.”

“That’s ok,” he says. “Don’t worry.”

He doesn’t charge me double. He just charges me the same fare Irish drivers charge me to Heuston Station. I get his money and give him extra out of gratitude for his kindness.

That’s twice tonight I’ve been shown the kindness of strangers, both foreign nationals.

Only the Irish intimidated.

It was the so-called migrants that showed me compassion.

There’s a moral there, if anyone is interested.

I close the door behind me. Slam it in fact. Double lock, the works. Then burst into tears. What the hell happened tonight? It was surreal, dystopian. This is not the Dublin I know (can’t say I love, but that’s another story). This is a Dublin owned by people of the twilight. People with no future, whose present is the next fix or can, for whom the message of Christmas has long since become the ghost of a life past. 

As for me, well, while the Mozart was sublime and O, Holy Night exceptional, I’m afraid that come Christmas 2024, I’ll be going agnostic. There will be no evening vigil, no midnight mass, no trip to town of a Christmas Eve. Those days are gone my friend, long gone.

“But only dust silence sounds 

The ashes float away 

As the twilight ends and the night descends 

’til the dawning of the day”.

It’s been a long time since I put a piece of music at the end of a blog, but hey, it’s Christmas, and just to show that I still have some good will towards the bulk of my fellow man, here’s some happy Haydn doing the wild thing in Paris to jolly us all along.

Peace.

The Chance

The first bottle missed the television screen by inches. It smashed into the apricot flower patterned wallpaper leaving ice cold streamlets of milk racing down through its satin-effect grooves. 

As milk dripped onto the brown and gold carpet, another bottle came hurtling through the air. It sailed with easy grace through roast beef-scented air before crashing into the corner of the living room, where it detonated like a glass bomb.

Ahh’ Bisto

He held her right arm with his much stronger left before punching fist forward into her left breast. Stomach. Kidneys. 

She crumpled.

You can’t kid a Bisto kid

“You’re useless now. Fucking useless. Dried up. No-one would want you now.”

On the Sunday he had driven her to the maternity hospital, he’d pulled the car up outside the main door. The nearby shop had been closed. She’d asked him to drive on til they found one open so she could by a newspaper.

Staring straight ahead he’d ordered her to get out of the car.

“Help you mother with her things,” he’d spat, the words still ricocheted off her memory. Pale, wan face. “It’s ok, you stay there and go with your father.” Her voice desperately trying to hold the note of strength but breaking into the flat staccato tone of the long-suffering … 

He was drunk then. He was drunk now.

“Get someone to rape you.”

They flew threw the air, bitter barbs dipped in caustic, hitting, cutting, slicing into her dignity.

“You’re useless.”

Beaten but now cowed. No fear there. Only regret. A lifetime of …

My father was right. Oh Christ why didn’t I listen to him?

“You were the same with Alice,” she screamed. you beat her until you broke her. No wonder she died.”

Indignation helped her hold back the tears.

He swung back through the open hall door, charging into the kitchen, his fists up like a bare knuckle fighter ready to take on the latest challenger. He punched her directly into the abdomen.

The Bisto Kids

The remnants of the broken plate lay scattered on the floor like pieces of a ceramic jigsaw. Bits of Sunday dinner popped up through the shards like tufts of vegetation poking out through waste ground.

She picked up the knife.

The. Sharp. Knife.

She swung wildly at his stomach, her hand driving the tip into the purple thread that decorated his pristine white shirt.

He looked at her. Incredulous.

She looked down at her hand, at the knife. Numb.

Bisto for all meat dishes.

The top half of the rust-worn knife had snapped off on impact.

It tinkled as it hit the kitchen floor.

His fist made a thud as it hit the left hand side of her jaw and her body jolted as it smacked against the kitchen cupboards.

A wife must stay with her husband no matter what. No matter what. She must stay with her husband. It is her duty. A mother must stay with her children. She must look after her husband. She must look after her family. It is her duty. It is her God given duty.

The knife dropped from her fingers as the front door slammed shut.

She clutched her breast with one hand and cradled it before wrapping the other arm around her waist, holding herself like a mother holds a crying child.

She saw her future before her. 

Christ had died for her. And Christ had saved her again. Saved her for more. And more.

His cross had become her Calvary.

Her God given duty.

If it is possible, let this cup pass from me.

She looked up and opened her eyes. The future was hers to take. The knife had broken. That was her chance. It was hers to take.

The Big Red Button

The care staff carefully turned her onto her right hand side. Slowly and with great care, they hoisted her upwards, propping her upright against the giant stack of pillows that dwarfed her already shrunken size, making her look like a small mouse peeping out from a white fleecy cocoon.

The smaller of the two, the one with the pretty smile and West of Ireland accent, put the big red button into the palm of her hand, and closing over her fist smiled and said, “Now if anything happens Mary, just press that button.” 

“Cad é sin?”

The young girl laughed. “Press the bell if you need anything Mary!”

She sighed, rolled her eyes to heaven and laughed, “Sure wasn’t I looking after myself long before you were born girleen.” And with that, the two carers dimmed the lights and walked out of the room, quietly closing the big grey, solid wood door behind them.

All alone.

“I’m always on my own,” she cried in a hoarse and broken voice. A once commanding now dried out and dispirited voice, uttered through cracked, split lips. “No-one ever talks to me,” she whispered, “I’m always on my own.”

Her eyes.

Those large, grey eyes, once so positive and jovial, now filled with endless sadness and disappointment.

“I love you.”

“Ok.”

A look of love once mirrored had been met with a blank and apathetic gaze.

She turned the big red button over and back, over and back. A big red button in a big black plastic circle. Over and back, over and back. “I wonder what that’s for now?”, she sighed.

Then she put it down on the blue ribbed bedspread. A blanket they called it. “Sure God love them,” she sighed, “they haven’t a clue.”

She looked at the window. It was dark now. No curtains but still she couldn’t see out. As dim as the light was, it was reflecting back on the glass, preventing her from seeing the trees outside swaying in the warm June night breeze.

All alone.

“Sit down there and talk to me.”

“I can’t, I have to do this.”

“Sit down there and rest yourself. Suigh síos agus lig do scíth. You know what that means don’t you?”

Mrs. Morrissey. 

“Trasna na dtonnta, dul siar, dul siar, … “

Mary Caoimh.

Miss O’Keeffe.

All alone.

She felt tired. 

Táim an-tuirseach.

Eyes heavy.

Her father stood at the end of the bed. Sleeves rolled up, he looked at her in silence.

There was a silent recognition. They both knew. Nothing needed to be said.

“I love you.”

“Ok.”

She had been gasping for breath. 

The nurses had put a long tube down her throat. It had hurt.

Oh the pain.

And she couldn’t breathe.

She was suffocating.

Air.

Tired.

Tuirseach.

The light was fading. It was getting dark. Dark with light around the edges.

There was pain but it was muffled pain. Confused pain. She couldn’t quite make it out.

“I’ve loved you since you were a little small thing, jumping around with your curls bouncing up and down.”

She wasn’t there. She was never there. Not any more. All alone. Not like before.

“Hail Mary”

Child of Mary.

Legion of Mary.

Mother of God.

I miss my mother.

All alone.

She was crying. She didn’t know why.

She cried out. But no-one came.

Was she afraid or was she confused or was it the pain?

She didn’t know.

She felt a jolt like a bolt of lightening rushing through her and then everything jammed.

Like a machine cranking to a halt.

Silence.

“Oh Sacred Heart of Jesus I place all my trust in Thee.”

The ceiling was covered in dark shadows.

The darkness moved closer.

The light around its edges got wider, spreading outwards.

All alone.

“Alone all alone by the wave-washed strand.”

Water.

River.

“My own lovely Lee.”

“I want to go home.”

The night nurse walked quietly into the room. She looked at Mary’s distorted face and then down at the call bell by her hand.

“Why didn’t she press the bell?”, she sighed before turning to page the doctor on call.

Once again … all alone.

Everything happens for a reason

Recently, I found myself walking within a continuous loop of serendipity.

It all started with an innocuous email I sent to someone recommending they read Paul Lynch’s Booker winning ‘Prophet Song’. This someone, we’ll call him Gaustine, is a person I have never met.

In fact, I’ve never even seen him. I have just heard and listened to his growling baritone voice as we discussed endless rounds of technical scenarios followed by brief exchanges on Shakespeare. Not natural bedfellows but life often throws up unexpected surprises, random curveballs we don’t see coming but which nonetheless put a smile on our lips.

“Strongly recommend you read this. It’s not Shakespeare, but it’s incredibly well written,” said I. 

Gaustine’s response set in train a series of events that have enveloped me over the last few days.

Having thanked me for recommending the Lynch book he instructed me to “go to the International section of the 2023 Booker prize, you will see Georgi Gospodinov, the author of ‘Time Shelter’, a book I could not possibly like.”

I went, as directed, to that particular section of the Booker site and could find nothing to indicate why this culture-loving acquaintance could not possibly like this book. What I did discover however, was that Time Shelter is a book written about memory loss. 

Those who know anything about me will immediately understanding my compulsion to read it.

I sent a note to this unwitting motivator, he who inadvertently prompted me to explore this beautifully crafted homage to landscapes locked within: “Everything happens for a reason Gaustine,” I told him, “it was as if I was meant to read it.”

Serendipity knocked and I answered. And while it would appear that Gaustine had no truck with either author or book, he had involuntarily played the role of catalyst in what became a short series of serendipitous events.

I read Time Shelter, and to say that it touched nerves which are still very raw would be an understatement. A book which mines the shafts of lives lived, it brings to life the vivid memories of those who have long since forgotten the present in which they exist, their moth-eaten minds instead choosing to position them in those situations and scenes from their past with which they felt most affinity.

“(Mr. N) has lost his memory and must gather up the pieces of himself before he passes away … Some of the stories mean nothing (to him), as if they are not about him at all. Others open long-forgotten doors in his memory”. The story of Mr. N, so carefully recounted finds him standing amidst a jumble of jigsaw pieces, some of which are missing, which he relies on a former adversary to help put together to form a coherent picture of his past. Only then can he stream the footage of this splintered sequence of events floating across the landscape of his memory. 

Time Shelter leads us slowly, step by step, into the confused and confusing other world of dementia. It is a grey, faded world which so many of us know only from the outside, but which Gospodinov turns inside out to help us visualise the increasingly paralysed views of those trapped by the incoming tide of memory loss.

It plunges the depths of memory loss, shattering niceties along the way and delivering the harsh realities of living with dementia with innovatively delivered candour.

On Saturday night, as the light of my own very real world slipped into dark, I turned on the TV, landing on C4 and the opening credits of a film entitled ‘The Father’. To be honest, the only reason I put down the remote was the cast – Anthony Hopkins and Olivia Colman.

I looked it up. “The Father presents a devastatingly empathetic portrayal of dementia.”

Serendipity, #2.

I watched in silent if uncomfortable admiration as both lead actors slowly and with pin-point accuracy danced a well choreographed duet as the walls of their lives as they had known them came tumbling down around them. The Father is a filmic walk through the chaos and despair of the demented mind. It makes for uncomfortable and discombobulating viewing. Three scenes in my mind was reeling, I had to press re-wind I don’t know how many times to fact check. Had I missed something? Did I get that wrong? Who’s he?

In an interview after the film was released, Hopkins told the interviewer “I feel that melancholy. I can understand it.” He conveyed the deep melancholia of that lost soul spiralling into the fog-filled vortex that is ‘confusia dementia’ with such understanding and tenderness, it made for deeply disturbing viewing. 

But that is the reality of dementia. Deeply uncomfortable viewing.

“What about me. Who, exactly am I?

Do you know my mother? She has such big eyes. I can see her face now. She was, I hope she will come and see me soon sometime. Do you think, Mummy? My Mummy. I want my mummy, I want my mummy, I want to get out of here. Have someone come and fetch me … I want to go home.

I feel as if I’m losing all my leaves. The branches, the wind and the rain. I don’t know what’s happening anymore.” – Anthony, The Father.

In the last few months of her time at home (before she was hospitalised and subsequently died) I experienced similar situations with my mother. “My father was standing at the end of the bed earlier,” she’d say with total conviction, “he was standing there with his shirt sleeves rolled up the way he always did.” 

“Did he say anything?,” I’d ask. “No, he just stood there smiling at me.”

I’d want to cry but I couldn’t. In those moments she was truly happy. Her father had come to visit her. He hadn’t forgotten her. There was nothing to be afraid of. There was only love.

Then came Serendipity, #3.

On Sunday morning an article appeared online; “My mum passed away this year and I can’t get past the grief.” All I wanted to do was take this person’s hand and reassure them that it was ok to feel like this. Baubles and tinsel aside, Christmas can a tough time of the year for many for different reasons. You can’t just park grief because it’s merry ho, ho. But you can learn to adjust. 

Grief is a journey without destination. 

For some, that journey is a long, arduous and seemingly never-ending one.

For others, it is a series of stop-starts before arriving at journey’s end. The final station at which they disembark and move on with their life, not in the own old way, but in a new way. A way learned along a journey only they can take. 

An emotional road to nowhere that does ultimately get us to where we need to be to lift anchor and face forward.

In the world of the truly inspirational late Dr. Clare Marx, “we only look back to learn, we look forward to live”. 

It has been an interesting if often disconcerting week. One that came full circle with the Claire Byrne segment on grief at Christmas on RTE 1 radio. During this piece, two experts discussed how in some instances, family relatives encourage the bereaved to clear out the wardrobe, bedroom, house; the “you’ll feel better” “he/she wouldn’t want you moping around” brigade.

My response to that? Each to their own. Do what you feel is right for you, when you feel the time is right for you. And no-one else. Your grief is your own. Only you know how to deal with it.

And as for Time Shelter? I posted it to Gaustine. With a letter, explaining why I think he should give it a try.

I have no idea whether he will read it. I hope he does. 

Everyone should read it, as everyone should watch The Father. The more we come to understand the effects of dementia the better we will be able to live with and care for those we love who have succumbed to this most callous of diseases.

“What thievery life (and time) is, eh? What a bandit … Worse than the worst of highwaymen who ambush a peaceful caravan. Those bandits are interested only in your purse and in hidden gold. If you are docile and hand these over without a struggle, they leave you the other stuff – your life, your memory, your heart, your pecker. But this robber, life or time, comes and takes everything – your memory, your heart, your hearing, your pecker. It doesn’t even choose, just grabs whatever it can.” – Time Shelter, Georgi Gospodinov

Shutting the Door on Death

Death … this great known unknown … is immeasurable in its infiniteness.

Unquantifiable, it is elusive in its unpredictability.

The only thing we can be certain of is of death itself.

It is an experience that none of us can eschew.

Try as we might, we have neither the wit nor the power to outsmart an unstoppable event which has captured both the fears and imaginations of every generation of man since time began, whenever that was.

There is nothing to fear but fear itself, and yet fear is possibly one of our greatest emotions when we have to face death.

The individual fears of all the many unknowns converge to form this swell of panic-fuelled trepidation and nervous anxiety which overwhelm every microdot of our being.

Fears borne out of ignorance.

We stare at a clock … not knowing when.

We ask endless questions … not understanding how.

We pray to our preferred higher being … not having an explanation as to why.

And then what?

What happens then, is the human equivalent of wave overtopping.

We are consumed, submerged, bandied about in a wave of emotional trauma, violent in its force.

It is like being locked inside a vacuum whilst having a gale trapped inside us.

No-one can prepare you for the violent pain of death.

The anguish.

The confusion.

The desperation.

That sense of being cut off from the rest of humanity whilst the world in all its ‘business as usual’ mundanity continues to turn on its axis.

There are many reasons people cannot let go of death.

For some of us, it is a rawness akin to a thousand paper cuts. Too painful to touch.

Many of us carry death and its aftermath around behind us like a ton weight anchoring us in the past.

For many it can take years to shed the several skins that death layers over our lives and selves.

For the more stoic, it can simply be a matter of getting on with things.

Not all of us are built that way, and what I have learned in the three plus years it has been since death first overcame me, is that we do not have to be.

Each to their own.

It has taken me 44 months to have the strength to look forward without having one eye constantly fixed on the past.

The time does come but only when it is right and the person ready.

My time came on 24th October, 2023, the day after my late mother’s inquest.

It is done.

It is over.

The door shut on the final chapter, the anchor lifted. I have finally found the exit door to the future.

Death is still a great unknown … and will remain so until it touches me on the shoulder.

Until then, it will have no further grip on my life. 

It has lost its power over me and a power it will not regain until the day I have to submit to its inexorable will.

I have shut the door on death, but the reality is, that the door has not in fact been closed, but rather closed over and left ajar.

Thoughts on St Brigid’s Day

Something’s got to give. It might just be me!

Tonight, having reached the end of an ever-fraying rope, my soul and self fell into some kind of liminal space. A shadowy crevice in which I am now caught, trapped by anger and a deep sense of frustration. I, me, myself, the sum of all my parts – body, soul, persona – have been fossilised like amber for nigh on three years.

Three years. Has it really been that long? In many ways it feels like only a few months ago since I noticed my mother was showing signs of confusion and memory loss. In others, it feels like forever. A continuum of the longest day. Groundhog Day at the Madhatter’s tea party.

I can take the big world things in my stride but the small things, innocuous things, they flip me out. Having to juggle a project on deadline with multiple medical appointments whilst organising a holiday and trying to retain a semblance of sanity? No bother. But, walking out into the extension to find puddles of cat puke or diarrhoea, or worse both, lights my fire.

Worse again, walking into the bathroom only to see that one’s bath brush has been used to unblock the toilet, and all the unclogged, shit-stained paper has been dumped in the bath, well, that’s my switch tripped. Current status.

It’s hard caring for a very elderly parent. Full stop. Their increasing dependency, along with growing fragility and vulnerability eats away at any semblance of personal life. Add dementia to the mix and quality of life flies out the door. Throw an errant and highly erratic and stubborn father with mobility and memory difficulties into the pot and well, what can I say? The door of life slammed shut a long time ago.

I no longer look in the mirror except to comb my hair. On the few occasions I apply make up, it takes less time than it does to mop the cat spew up from the concrete floor. These days my choice in clothes is practical and comfortable; gone the snappy outfits and pastel colours. A manicure, what’s that for God’s sake? I barely have time to file my nails and usually only do so when one snags or breaks.

I spend both days and nights ‘on loop’, repeating the same sentences, forming the same words with a mouth that’s growing more lined by the week. My once clear brow is now furrowed, ploughed by the sorrow of life. My shoulders stoop, my gait sags, my once laughing mouth remains closed and pursed. Laughing … I can’t remember the last time I laughed a deep, unbridled, side-aching belly laugh.

I don’t laugh, I don’t sing. I no longer listen to the music that used to bring me so much joy. These days I find solace in the classical delights of BBC Radio 3 and company in the dramas of R4. The radio is my BFF, my forever friend to whom I can turn when the repetitive chatter, and silence of isolation become too much.

I had no objective at the start of writing this piece. I still don’t. I just needed to write. I needed to say what was churning around. To unfurl the feeling.

Tonight I spent two hours on my feet, emptying bins, stripping beds, putting in and out washing, mopping up and slopping out. It’s Saturday night. I’m a relatively young woman but I’ve turned into a scullery maid.

Don’t get me wrong. I love my mother. But, I also loved my life. The life I no longer have, and will never have again. When these duties are done, I will be a different person, facing into a very different and altogether more solitary future. Maybe these days of continuous isolation will prepare me well for what lies ahead. Who knows?

For now, my life will remain as is. Endless rounds of repetition, talking baby talk to an adult once revered for her acerbic wit and razor-sharp brain. Making soothing noises to assuage, wrapping calming arms around shaking shoulders to ward off nightmares and hallucinations. Waking every other nocturnal hour and listening out to make sure my mother returns to bed after yet another round of the late night walkies.

I am tired. I am lacklustre. I am frustrated. I am isolated. I am alone.

Me, and countless others like me. Alone.

Silently screaming, crying tears of frustration, despondent, beaten, exhausted, confined.

There is no help. There are no magic pills. There is no support for people like me. Only endless rounds of phone calls and home visits that eat into precious time. Lots and lots of promises and platitudes and free toilet seats. But no help. Nothing.

And so it will go on. Each day the same. Buying papers I rarely read and listening to shouts of ‘it’s Christmas in two weeks and I’ve nothing done’ at the end of January. Sweeping floors and shaking out throws strewn with crisp crumbs. Scraping uneaten dinners off plates whilst being berated for serving up the same meals again and again (I don’t). Wiping away tears and cleaning sticky marmalade fingers.

And in the midst of all that, trying to fit in moments of ‘life’ between work commitments, housework, and caring. Trying to grab moments alone only to be continuously interrupted (during the time it has taken to write this, I have been interrupted six times by mum, each with the same inquiry as to when her stripped bed is going to be remade). Even getting five minutes in the loo is an effort.

Life … I once had one of those.

Something’s got to give. It might just be me. But not for now. Not today, St Brigid’s Day, the first day of Spring. Time to look forward. Time to renew, recalibrate, recharge. I’ll try. It’ll be hard, but then, when hasn’t life been?

Bombay Bicycle Club – Pedalling the Same Synth-Pop Delights

Credit: Josh Shinner

London four-piece make convincing return with single ‘Eat, Sleep, Wake (Nothing But You)’.

It’s been five years since Bombay Bicycle Club released the Mercury Prize nominated number 1 album ‘So Long, See You Tomorrow’, ten since their jangle-rock debut ‘I Had The Blues But I Shook Them Loose’. So when the four Londoners teased their return earlier this year after a long hiatus, the music world sat up and took notice.

Expectations were high, the bar had been set by the glorious synth-extravaganza that was ‘So Long’.

“Our new single, Eat, Sleep, Wake (Nothing But You), is now out. We’re so excited to be sharing new music after five years away. Recording it earlier this year reminded us all of the joy of working together on something we love.” 

Produced by John Congleton, ‘Eat, Sleep, Wake (Nothing But You) is a star spangled joy-ride across buoyant waves of pop and through shallows of pulsating thrum. A compelling piece of indie pop fusion it lures the listener in with its rizzled guitar lines, minimalist sticks, and nuanced vocals, all held in check by some well scored lines of low-lying bass.

Commenting on their impending fifth album the band said “We’re going away next week to finish the rest of our record, so it’ll be out next year” 

Bombay Bicycle Club returned to the live music scene earlier this Summer playing several shows across Europe including one at the Cork Opera House at the beginning of August. The British quartet are set to play a series of sold out dates including London’s renowned Brixton Academy on 8th November. No ticket? Bring a stool.

‘Eat, Sleep, Wake (Nothing But You)’ is available to stream and download now, and you can watch the official video for the track below,

*If a little of what you fancy appeals, and you’d like to have my #dailyinspo365 posts appearing in your inbox, I’d love to have you along for the joy, the bumps, and more importantly, the company. You can follow along by clicking the ‘Follow DervSwerve’ link on the right!

Exposure Won’t Pay The Bills #dailyinspo365

Come write for our blog; you’ll get great exposure and a myriad fridge magnets!

It’s a mug’s game that writing for blogs malarkey.

Oh, you’ll get all the free mugs in the world, but you’ll never get the price of the coffee to put in them. You will probably get a nice coaster though, and possibly a fridge magnet with a snappy one liner to which you can turn for comfort each time you open your bare fridge to look for milk to put in the coffee you’ve had to pay for with cold hard cash down at the local cheapomarket. Won’t that be nice?

Yes, your name will be added to plenty of guest lists; mainly those for bands whose gigs are free entry anyway. But hey, you’ve been given a guester … get you!

“You’ll get great exposure!”

As for reputation. It’s going to magnify a zillion times through all that exposure!

Ooh, think of that HUGE industry-wEYEd rep you’re gonna have from writing all those reviews n news features about countless next best things. Golly, you must be salivating at the thoughts of Laura Snapes positively tripping over herself to snap you up before the guys over at Best Fit bag you for themselves!

Or Jessica Hopper right? I mean, the blog does get worldwide exposure doesn’t it? There is a chance she just might like you know, check out random articles just for a nose. To see what the competition is doing, yeah? Cor! You can just picture it can’t you? Little ole you flying high around the globe, interviewing Jack White over breakfast in Berlin, or cosying up with Lizzo on the Iberian leg of her album tour! Living the dream right?

Wrong! So, so wrong. In every aspect and respect.

Asking people, especially young ‘uns, to write for free either for a blog or in any other situation, is just plain wrong. Oh, they might tell you that they’ve no money, that it’s a big co-operative thing and everyone does it for the lurve of music. But at the end of the day, the people that get the big interviews, the good guesters, and the masses of free shit, are the self-appointed editorial team, ie the person who started the blog and their commissioning editor sidekick.

When the free trips to EP or Latitude are being handed out, you’ll never be at the top of the queue. Oh, you might bag that away day-trip to the back end of Mayo to capture all the zazz on that up coming New Age Sustainable Folk Festival that no-one is talking about, but only ‘cos Mary of the green geansai is currently laid up with that dose she picked up skinny dipping with hippies in Cape Clear last weekend.

And you’ll get plenty of experience alright, but nothing you can’t pick up yourself, or by doing a one month internship with a reputable publication. Anyone can set up a blog. Anyone with a bit of a savvy, a nose for good music, and a friendly personality and inquiring mind can write reviews, interview artists, and latch onto the latest trends and techniques.

If you want to be a music journalist, do a course in journalism, get yourself some ‘work experience’ and get out there networking and doing the rounds. Go to gigs, talk to up and coming bands, get to know who’s who in your local scene and then take it wider. Start up your own blog focussing on the genres of music that appeal to you. Study how the others do it then replicate the style that best fits your own, until eventually you find your own ‘written voice’.

PRs love bloggers because let’s face it, we provide free advertising for the artists on their roster. With the basics covered, they only have to focus on skinning the bigger, more elusive cats like radio producers and TV researchers. Once you get on their mailing lists, you’ll have access to pretty much most of the releases and news from their stable. Forget trying to bag that elusive Radiohead interview. Thom’s days of cosying up over an herbal tea in the student canteen are long gone. Big names play with big players. The likes of Foo Fighters and Radiohead are great aspirations for your blogging bucket list. Most likely they’ll remain unticked!

That’s not to dampen your spirits. You can reach for the middle ground. If you spot an artist that you know is going to make it – and gut will tell you more than any amount of hearsay (worked like magic for me with Sam Fender) – go to their gigs, hang back, get talking to them, ask for a quick interview with the offer of a free pint, and get it out there on your blog. If they crack the scene, you’ll be on their radar and more likely to bag another interview or guester now they’re swimming mainstream.

Plus, it’ll be a wow reference when you go for any paid writing gigs in the future.

The Don’ts

First and foremost, don’t write if you can’t write. If you don’t have a natural talent for wordsmithing, forget it. Writing isn’t something you can learn like basic secretarial or how to mow a lawn. It’s like music, you either have it or you don’t. Simple.

Don’t write about music you don’t like – your enthusiasm won’t shine through but the stiltedness of your words will. If it’s a labour, move on. Same with any other subject. If your thing is GAA don’t write about Soccer. The text won’t sparkle.

Do write about music you love – whether or not its popular. Your love and passion will draw readers to your site. No-one wants to read mechanical fodder – and trust me, there’s already plenty of it out there. Don’t write positive reviews for the sake of keeping in with either artist or PR. If you genuinely don’t like something you’ve two choices – you can say it – politely – or say nothing at all. The choice is yours.

And never, ever let yourself be leaned on by anyone from a PR agency. It’s their job to get the info out there and stir up some fizz about their artists. It is not their job to hound people into reluctantly writing good reviews when they have neither the time nor inclination.

Whatever you do, be true to you and the rest as they say, will be history, of some ilk or other.

Ditto, don’t sell yourself cheap or your words for free. Builders don’t lay bricks for free, carpenters don’t saw wood for free, and PRs don’t rep their roster for free, so why should you provide free copy/content for A.N.Other, especially any site making money or turning over a rake of freebies/promos/festival passes that will never see the light of anyone’s day other than the editorial team.

Trust me. Been there, done that, wrote the reviews, and never got offered even as much as a beer mat.

You want to write for free? Write for yourself. Anything else is a waste of time, and will certainly do nothing for your global reputation.

*If a little of what you fancy appeals, and you’d like to have my #dailyinspo365 posts appearing in your inbox, I’d love to have you along for the joy, the bumps, and more importantly, the company. You can follow along by clicking the ‘Follow DervSwerve’ link on the right!