Radio Nora in the North of Germany play my music. Listen. This morning they played “Forever Young” – not the Bob Dylan version, but the one from German group Alphaville – which I never stopped listening to for about two years when I was 23: Let’s dance in style, let’s dance for a while, heaven can wait we’re only watching the skies. Hoping for the best, but expecting the worst, are you gonna drop the bomb or not? (…) It’s so hard to get old without a cause, I don’t want to perish like a fading horse. Youth’s like diamonds in the sun, and diamonds are forever. So many adventures given up today, so many songs we forgot to play. So many dreams swinging out of the blue, oh let it come true.
One of my friends (yes, I have two!) says turning on German radio is like traveling back in time. – Nothing wrong with a bit of time travel, at times, say I.
I’ve been thinking about things that really annoy Pádraig. There are a few. Can you think of some? Should be easy! Come on! Note them down right now and post them in a comment! – And then I started to think about why these things are annoying him. Can you help me here too? If you had to explain what all these things that annoy him have in common, what they all boil down to, what would that be? Again, write it down or try to remember it and post it in a comment. – For me, what it all boils down to is that things, stuff for Pádraig is pretty obvious. What he has problems with, I think, is that other people just have these, to him, surprising and incredible problems to see things as clearly as he does. And if you want to do something, you just do it – getting t-shirts from China, building a dream boat, editing a book, organising a concert, whatever. And in debates? You might have some interesting points to make, and you should, of course, but really, he would be pretty clear about letting you know that he has the better arguments:)
Today, Sunday, is a quiet day in the hospital. No therapies, less hectic. Thinking about the Giro reaching Dublin today, he cycled his own distance on the MOTOMed-viva-2 with the window open and the playlist compiled by his friends.
Last weekend, his friends in Aer Lingus did fundraise for Caring For Pádraig during their annual Gala. Thank you all very much for having organised this and for having supported this fundraising effort!
The next events coming up for Caring For Pádraig supporters are the Flora Dublin Women’s Marathon on 02 June 2014 and the Mountain Flag Challenge on 07 June 2014. Thank you so much to all who are involved in the organisation, the participants, and their supporters!
Tonight, I got a text from my other good friend (remember, I have two!) who said that he’ll join me in the Dublin Marathon – we will ‘rise like a phoenix’ and will run as Phoenix 1 and Phoenix 2. – I think their might be a Phoenix 3… Any more?
Forever.
Today’s German Music Tip
SDP feat. Sido – Ne Leiche (2010). “SDP” is short for Stonedeafproduction, two musicians from Spandau, Berlin. Never heard of them before, but this song has almost 20m hits on youtube. They sing in German, and the information I found about them says that they deal in their songs with topics of daily life and world affairs, all at the same time – though often with ironic undertones and satire. This song is, superficially about the problem faced by the singer when he found a corpse in his house: how will he get rid of it? As it turns out, there’s loads of corpses around everywhere..
What’s hot
Youth and diamonds
What’s cold
Songs forgot to play
The German word/phrase/verse of the day
Muttertag (today, in Germany)
Hospi-Tales 
I remember having a conversation with Pádraig on a night out in which he kept giving out about people who used unnecessarily fancy/complicated words when speaking Irish instead of the normal ones that everyone used. His examples were ‘ag claochlú’ instead of ‘ag athrú’ (‘transforming’ rather than ‘changing’) and ‘ar thóir’ instead of ‘ag lorg’ (different ways of saying ‘searching for’). It’s not something that particularly bothers me, but he was pretty passionate about it! Which also reminds me of his speech at the college debating finals at the Oireachtas when he stood up, pretty much completely unprepared, and gave a hilarious speech about how the word ‘réabhlóid’ (revolution) is used too freely – again I believe his funniest example was that throwing an egg at someone (a politician?) did not constitute a revolution. I’m seeing a pattern…
Thank you, Róisín, for sharing this! I think I can see this pattern too:)!
He really really hates when people slag off the food someone’s eating while they’re eating it and say it looks manky. That reeeeally annoys him for some reason!
Thanks, Sophie:) That is a peculiar one – maybe it’s respect for other people’s personal ‘stuff’; not sure…?
When the SU shop were running a two for a euro deal on bottled water,there was a bit of hype nd I remember Pádraig saying how he could never ever understand why you’d bother buying water When you can just refill your bottle for free in one of the many water fountains-For him, something so glaringly obvious! Also, when the season of 21st bdays was well underway nd another 21st had come to be regarded as just another get together, it would really annoy Pádraig when noone had thought of a birthday card nd On a few occasions I recall him whipping one out from inside his dark green jacket!
The first one, Deirdre, fits in well with his sense of ‘what-do-we-buy-all-this-stuff-for?’, cheap phones (no smart phones), cheap cameras (why would you need 20m pixels? Why, in fact, do you take all these thousands of electronic pictures when you won’t have the time to look at them, ever, and a disposable camera would do?). The second one is probably not too far away from Sophie’s story about slagging off the food? Making a conscious effort to try and be considerate of others?
I think Pádraig always follows his instincts/understands his thoughts & what he really wants very clearly-for example: if one takes a notion to see the northern lights, one immediately goes about making that happen, if one wants to go to Mexico, one does just that, if one is studying a full-time course in Dublin but really wants to partake in a course in Galway that happens to take place mid-week, there are busses, etc! I think his consideration of others is an inherent part of his “but that’s just the most obvious thing to do” instinct-if someone in your company is eating food that you’re claiming is disgusting, SURELY that’s putting them off his/her food and that’s hardly sound. If you’re going to a birthday celebration, then you’re OBVIOUSLY going to bring a birthday card !
It’s like the song: I can see clearly now the rain is gone. It’s sooo obvious, sooo clear, soooo self-evident. No need to make things more complicated than they are. You captured it brilliantly, Deirdre!
There are a lot of small things that i can think of that would grind his gears in a quirky way.. but I think one of the things that i have always noticed him getting really annoyed with is actually not a small or quirky little pet peeve, but a much more serious frustration. He has always raged against peoples’ apathy or inability to stand up for something they know or at least think is right. This is largely a reflection of his own unflinching will to speak his mind and stick to his conscience.. it goes to the root of something that he has always spotted and really dislikes in others – silence. The silence of the crowd . The silence of the collective . The silence of thinking that someone else would speak or stick their neck out. Any time he has been disappointed or angry following a heated debate in the past .. he has been as equally annoyed by those who agreed with him but didn’t speak as he has been with those he has been arguing with. Its easy to sound trite or sentimental saying this.. but it is, frankly, the truth. He has always said what he believes. It infuriates him when others don’t.
I think, Andrew, (and I never looked at it in this way until I read your comment – maybe because we have loads of ‘arguments’:) that in a strange way he might be closer to people he has an argument with (because they, like himself, have an opinion – even though it might be the ‘wrong’ one – and speak out) than to those who never say a word when they should, and never stick out their neck for anything. At least, in a respectful, open, and frank discussion you can put the arguments on the table and see which make more sense. You can also clear the air, understand better what the other ‘side’ is on about and what their interests and motivations are, and – in an ideal scenario – you might even come to an agreement that works for all. Silence avoids conflict on the surface only. The other important point is, I think, the idea of having ‘something’ you believe in, a value system you use to guide your actions and to judge what is right and what is wrong – no matter what the view of the majority is: what is right remains right and what is wrong remains wrong.
When Padráigs familia came to visit us to Madrid we had a wonderful time in my husband family house in the countryside. It was very hot and we spent most of the time in and around the swimmingpool… Padráigs was small, and don¨t remember the age,.. his sister Maria was about 1 year and a half or two .. and guess what. Padráig didn´t stand at all that someone splashed wáter on him. Obviously things changed a lot after that!!!
After doing the Snámh, hearing about all the other events (including yourself and Cian’s marathon) and reading about Pádraig’s progress every day (which must be like a marathon to him!) I feel like it might be a bit of magic to get involved. I’m nervous saying this but I’ll post it so that I can’t back out later – I’m going join you in October!
Phoenix 4!!!!
Reblogged this on 'S mise Ciara, seo mo bhlag! and commented:
So, léigh mé an blagmhír seo ó Reinhard agus bheartaigh mé maratón a dhéanamh leis (agus le triúr eile) sa bhfómhar. Anois tá sé ráite agam agus beidh orm é a dhéanamh!