The Irish Statute Books published by the Attorney General contain regulations about how to run a restaurant (S.I. No. 147/1988 – Special Restaurant Licence (Standards) Regulations, 1988).

If you want to run a restaurant you need to be qualified, experienced, and capable. Your cook needs to hold a recognised qualification, and you can only employ properly skilled staff. That’s the law and you were probably aware of it.

1) The restaurant shall be managed by, and under the continuous supervision of, a competent person who has adequate catering experience and training and is fully capable of operating the restaurant to the standards set out in these Regulations.

(2) The person in charge of the preparation of meals shall be a person who holds a recognised qualification in catering or has practical experience in the preparation of meals of a high standard, and shall have a thorough knowledge of the supervision of a restaurant kitchen.

(3) Properly skilled staff shall be employed in all departments of the restaurant and provide a satisfactory standard of service during the hours in which meals are served.

There are regulations about toilets in the restaurant, e.g. that you need toilets for males and females (they need to update that legislation:) and that toilets shall contain water closets (who would have thought!). That’s the law and you were probably aware of it.

9. (1) A restaurant shall have cloakroom facilities and toilets.

(2) Toilets shall be provided separately for male and female customers and be easily accessible from all public areas of the restaurant.

(3) Such toilets shall contain:

( a ) water closets (hereinafter referred to as WC) in separate compartments;

( b ) fixed wash-hand basins equipped with plumbing for the continuous supply of hot and cold water and the disposal of waste.

(4) The minimum number and type of sanitary fittings installed in such toilets shall be calculated in relation to the number of diners to be accommodated in the premises at any one time as set out in the Table to this Regulation.

When I filled in the online form of the HSE’s public consultation process on home care, I read the following:

There is currently no statutory regulation of home care services. A recent national opinion poll commissioned by the Health Information and Quality Authority6 (HIQA) found that 76% of people that responded mistakenly thought that home care services are independently regulated or monitored.

Please, take a minute and read the above again.

You read correctly: no regulations. Nil. Nothing. Nada.

There are legal regulations about toilets in restaurants – but none about home care. A care agency could sent an unqualified, unexperienced taxi driver to look after Pádraig. They could not comply with their contractual obligations. And there are no statutory obligations that would legally prevent them from doing this. If we let them.

Can you believe it?

A day so packed I don’t remember the details. I’ll go to bed now, sleep, and hope it’ll come back to me tomorrow.

You can do it with your head movements and your eyes using a smart phone connected to a headset. And off you go! You can explore the world from above flying a drone carrying your ‘eyes’ in the form of a super small camera. – That’s what Pádraig did today assisted by a flight supervisor in the Wicklow mountains for a camera crew preparing a TV programme for RTE. The drone and related technology was supplied by the SMARTLab at UCD, who collaborate with An Saol researching several exciting technologies allowing sABI survivors to connect with to he world.

It was a long, tiring and difficult day out. But it was all worth it. By Christmas, Pádraig should be able to fly his own drone!

A few days ago, Pádraig got this new switch that sits between his thumb and index finger. It’s just another sign of the huge progress he is making that he is now able to consistently use his thumb to press that switch. It’s so much lighter, so much less in-the-way than the yellow one he is using at the moment with his foot. It doesn’t beep, it doesn’t give auditory feedback, but it’s connected to the Tobii computer (and its Communicator 5 software).

For the first time, I managed today to add a ‘page set’ (that box with all the pictures in it) and edit an existing one. I’m so proud of myself:)

Tomorrow morning, really early, before the rain and the wind, Pádraig, a HEP and myself be driving up to Wicklow to meet some new Dreamboaters, absolutely mad people: film makers, drone pilots, a professor, and an incredibly nice lady giving us access to her gorgeous house.

I’m not sure what’s going to happen there, but I’m curious and can’t wait to find out.

A friend in Germany told me recently he preferred to read newspaper “Die Zeit” rather than the news journal “Der Spiegel” because “Die Zeit” was “unaufgeregt”. I’ve no idea how to translate this word. To be honest, I didn’t even know that it existed in German. Maybe he just made it up himself?

It means something like “not panicky”, “not headline grabbing”, “un-agitated”, “not excited”. So here was someone who liked his news and his news analysis in a not-excited-way. When I listen to the news these days, and think of my friend, I wonder whether he is listening to the news at all. Or whether he has decided that this is all getting too much.

Pádraig was ‘unaufgeregt’ getting towards the end of his studies, ‘unaufgeregt’ in a good way. Of course, he could get excited and he knew what he wanted. But he had reached that point where he managed to take other people’s bad humour, their temper, their lack of being reasonable, with a smile, maybe just shaking his head in disbelieve.

Now I’m so much older and haven’t managed to reach that state of mind. So I asked someone who knows Pádraig quite well how Pádraig managed to get there. The answer  I got was: Pádraig was happy.

It was that happiness that allowed him to take on life (and people) with a wink in his eyes. To be cool about all the annoying things in life. To be completely and utterly ‘unaufgeregt’, in the best possible sense of the word.

The question is not really if. The question is when.

I’m banging my head against the wall that needs to be knocked. I’m telling anybody and everybody who I can make listen that what is going on is not just unjust but also completely senseless. I make my private life public. I really annoy people who think I should be grateful for what Pádraig is getting rather than highlighting deficiencies. I make a little bit of progress, but really just a little bit. I risk my health and that of those around me because I’m not really paying sufficient attention to the warning signs.

It’s not a question if. It’s when.

Pádraig continues to make progress. Over the weekend, he had his first steak: not minced but cut into (thin) slices. The way I’d like it. And you should have seen how he enjoyed it. In the afternoon, he has a slice of toast (no crusts, those are for me:) with butter which he really enjoys. He smiles when people make (good) jokes. He is able to hold his head when we stand together, even if only for a second – those will become more.

It’s clearly not if. It’s just when.

That wall will come down and if it takes my bloody head that keeps knocking against it. The idea that young people with their lives ahead of them can just be abandoned in nursing homes to rot away or in their homes with just the basic, functional healthcare with no rehab being provided will soon become unacceptable in Ireland. People will not have to give up their own lives completely as a subsequence of a severe acquired brain injury, they will get the support they need to continue and adapt their lives. A fair system will offer help where it is needed.

All this will happen – we just don’t know when.

I’d say: the sooner the better, if we want to avoid even more casualties in these appalling situations.

From the current edition of the German journal “Not”.

22_Kurs_neues_Leben all

When the iconic Village Voice published, after a 62-year long proud record as the “cultural touchstone for the progressive thought”, according to The Guardian, their last print edition last Thursday, they picked a picture of Bob Dylan in Christopher Park near the old Voice offices off Sheridan Square, January 22, 1965, as their cover photo.

They also included images of the “infamous denizens of the downtown realm”, William Burroughs (with sword), the Beastie Boys, Madonna, and Jack Kerouac.

An institution died and disappeared from the streets (and its famous red distribution boxes) passing on into the digital world where it will continue its life.

I’ve often thought that this will, ultimately, be our fate as well: we’ll disappear from the streets and continue life in a digital world where our physical bodies will become superfluous and, eventually, an obstacle in our quest for adventure, excitement, and life style, the good things in life – who would look for the ‘bad’ things?

But here is the problem: life isn’t always good. And it’s being able to deal with the difficult aspects of life that allows us to grow. (Although there is a thin line between ‘growing’ because of a challenge and complete system failure leading to disaster.)

For the first time in months, we had a carer coming in on a Saturday. Although it was only for an hour, it was great and allowed Pádraig to have a shower and spend a bit of time in his standing bed. It allowed one of us to do some work that had to be done today somewhere else.

And last but not least: for the first time since his accident, Pádraig had a bit of steak, cut in fine slices, but not minced!

 

i’d never thought I’d see the day that a group of people sat outside under a marquee in Dublin’s city centre – knitting socks. That’s a German thing. Not an Irish thing. Definitely not.Has Germany arrived in Ireland? I heard on the radio today that Angela Merkel has replaced the man across the big pond as leader of the free world. Is Germany now funding cultural initiatives around the world to subvert local cultures and replace them by German customs? Starting on Culture Night? Was Culture Night, in fact, initiated by the Germans?

It’s not just Culture Night, its also the autumn equinox. From now on, nights will be longer than days. But just for a while. All part of the ups and downs, the cycle of life. It’s good to know that the longer days will come back. So while it might be a difficult time, it’ll get better. – Even though, tonight, I feel lost.

 

“Kindness is the language which the deaf can hear and the blind can see.”

This is just one famous quote by the author of the book of which Hemingway once said: “All modern American literature comes from one book by Mark Twain called Huckleberry Finn.”

Samuel Langhorne Clemens, better known by his pen name Mark Twain, also said: “Whenever you find yourself on the side of the majority, it is time to pause and reflect.”

Mark Twain must have been asked for his signature so often in his life that he must have become bored by those repeated requests. Who knows whether he enjoyed all the attention he got when he became famous, or whether it bothered him.

I still can’t quite believe it, but today Pádraig was asked for his signature.

We had asked for some information from a hospital. When I got the call from a nice person working in that hospital telling me that the information was ready to be sent out and had been signed off by the consultant – but that the consultant had asked for Pádraig to sign the request – I didn’t know what to say for a few seconds. I was, as the Germans would say, “sprachlos”, speechless. Had we exaggerated in some way Pádraig’s level of recovery? The consultant surely knew and remembered Pádraig?

But then on second thoughts….

I thought what a brilliant idea that was. Not only did we use the opportunity, again, to speak about this to Pádraig, but it was him who took the decision. And we supported him taking it. If that wasn’t an act of empowerment and inclusion.

Tonight, I’m wondering why I had not thought about this myself?