Influence and Influenza

Landlady Dispensary

I'm making a big effort with this post, as I sit in bed shivering with flu, and apologise for the temporary lack of paragraphs, it's a pesky iPad thing. I rarely get sick, I can't afford to, no sick pay, no staff. Although Tristan Davenport, gentleman lodger #2 gamely brought up breakfast yesterday morning, indeed he rustled up a cracking Silver Hill Duckling the night before.

The word influenza comes from the Italian to influence, heavenly bodies were once thought to affect our own. According to my Twitter class on Monday at Athena Media, twitter can be a very powerful influencer. You twitterati probably know that already. But do you know why there are only 140 characters permitted - it's a bonus really, can you imagine the diatribes? It is because there was only capacity for 140 characters on the first SMS, which was a Nokia invention that was suggested would never take off - 'people prefer to talk' they said to the inventor. So Twitter now lets you broadcast your text to all and sundry rather than simply text your friends, for free, this might be obvious, but I know plenty of technophobes who just don't get it.

There are others who just can't stop tweeting - I recognised a tall, bespectacled senator in a renowned club garden on Saturday night and went over and said 'you were tweeting the whole time through the Health Committee Hearings'.

I blame the influenza, memory does not serve me well enough to quote the exchange; I had to explain why I was there listening for 3 days. In fairness, when I walked away, he followed me and was extremely good natured and insisted I contact him. Another on my list of influencers to influence. On a slightly higher note, I was introduced to a gemmologist, a young man from Mayo, who looked more like someone in a band, but who deals in diamonds, so my good recession story is that there is a market for gems. And I saw his card, so it wasn't a line..

As the urgency of the current debate increases, I went to a briefing in Leinster House yesterday, under serious medication and all of a quiver. But it was Cost Centre #1's graduation in Christchurch cathedral afterwards so there was an absolute necessity to get out of bed.

The group that gave the briefing are called Doctors for Choice and comprised a GP, a lawyer, a psychiatrist and a woman from the National Women's Council of Ireland. It's hard to believe that GPs are sidelined in this Bill, they are unquestionably the first port of call when you find you are pregnant, or at least back in the 1990's when I was, it was the way to get it confirmed and referred to an obstetrician. Dr Mark Murphy from Sligo, a young man of 32 has a wise old head on his shoulders, it was a pity there were not more TD's and senators in the room. Dr Peadar O'Grady rightly requested the removal of the 14 year sentence - a longer term than rapists are given, so a girl who is raped and has a termination can be sent to prison for 14 years. Please?

I now have to learn what lobbying is all about.

So that's what happens when I leave landlady house, I get a good dose of influence.