A Load of Old Rubbish

Model of #Success

It’s a wet Saturday; I’ve just bought the Irish Independent having scanned it in the Spar to make sure my piece is in it, otherwise, I’m afraid it’s online for me. I’m still pinching myself that my opinion is getting into print. No point in wondering if I went public on the D v Ireland case eleven years ago how my *career* might have shaped. Would my yearning to be a writer have been fulfilled sooner? I wouldn’t have done all the other stuff like a Masters in Building Conservation to block  the memory of the D Case and because the college was in walking distance.

The Cost Centres were eleven and thirteen when I started that course, I was sure it would slot nicely into our lives. One should always remember that taking exams and writing a thesis in a subject one loves is guaranteed to put you right off. It does, until it suddenly helps you find work, work that you enjoy and that pays. I'm even going back to college again in a few weeks, or rather I will be if I can pay my fees in kind. More anon.

Since the Big R the old building conservation work dwindled to nothing, so in 2011 I decided to write a novel based on my thesis; the Cost Centres were going to be away for the whole summer on their J1s, absolutely no excuse to put it off any longer. I had it finished in six months. Finished as in 70,000 words with a beginning, middle and end. Basing it on the thesis didn't work (as in boring) so I set half in New York and half in a rural Irish backwater. I'm not trying to sell it here BTW.... Plenty of time for that.

This week I did the thirteenth re-write, cut from 140,000 words to 98,000, having been two books in one, with a screenplay rearing up every now and then.

Discipline, I realise now, is everything in writing, I just filled pages to get wordcounts up, which is a good ploy, very motivating. But then you've got to get the scalpel at it quickly.  It has been read in many versions by dear friends and one professional editor. The editor had me dismantle my ‘experimental’ structure; every alternate chapter was set in 1850 and 2011. After meeting an agent three weeks ago who encouraged me to shorten it and change the title, I had a new version on Tuesday to be read by a literary queen. It just had to be printed and bound, I was relieved to email it to the printers with instructions for two copies.

Little Cost Centre graduated in Economics and Philosophy this week, he wasn’t even bothered about his graduation, but a lot of work went into those exams so I encouraged him, planned a lunch with his girlfriend, brother and a dear family friend and prevailed on jewellery star, Clarice, to find a worthy memento for the day, the *boy* version of the ‘success amulet’. I sat beside his girlfriend in UCD while the ceremony proceeded, naughtily tweeting and checking emails on my phone while other people’s children were being conferred.

I had an email from info@panda.ie ‘this appears to have been sent to us in error’.

My manuscript. My two and a half year slog. The meaning of my future career/life. 

I’d sent it to the binmen.

The cost centres have told me not to over-react.

People in Glass Houses shouldn't Blow Loans

Dead in the water

Dublinlandlady, since becoming an accidental activist, made her first foray into Dublin demi-beau-monde on Friday. What with a gathering at CHQ to exhibit our three pieces from the 2012 Venice Biennale and Sotheby’s Irish art preview, two birds were flown with one kite. 

Brevity prevails and I won’t attempt to review, as you’ll find a plethora of words somewhere online. Though, I was particularly struck by Grafton Architects, silver lion winner, with contextualised images of Sceilig Michael and models expressing the development of their design for the University of Lima.  I know those 598 steps intimately; I had to descend each one by the seat of my pants.

Friday was my first time crossing the wondrous, sinuous harp bridge in a taxi (Samuel Beckett doesn’t really describe it), allowing me the pleasure of 360 degree observation. A strange, intense sunburst pierced the surface of the Liffey and animated the relentless rectilinear quayside corporate edifices, injecting an energy they normally lack in our predominantly grey climate.

There are glaring mistakes in the planning, or lack of, along that riverside, not least its complete inertia. Along the entire length of these quays there is nothing going on at ground level except a security man in a lobby. Though the DDDA Board travelled far and wide to look at best practice examples, in St Petersburg, New York at a very minimum, they only needed to go as far as Lisbon to observe a hugely successful marriage of working docklands, restaurants, office and residential, where even John Malkevich owns a restaurant. When design giant, Terence Conran came to look at CHQ to open a restaurant, he went back to the UK uninspired by the area and, no doubt, the rent.

What DDDA produced for Dublin is testimony to a cosy, unchecked, uncreative, coterie, a cabal of stagnant, sterile thinking, predicated on quick returns and self-promotion, culminating in the mind-blowing bid for the Irish Glass Bottle site. You would think somebody put an actual gun to the syndicate heads to arrive at the figure they spent on a plot of land that could never in any economic pipedream, yield a return in residential, retail and office sales, in a country with a population of 4 million, where the only growth is in Laois, made up of immigrants.

What is even more breathtaking is that DDDA board members have ended up as advisers to NAMA and An Bord Pleanala and one obvious one is awaiting trial on his banks wrong doings.

Ironically, it is the much pilloried Johnny Ronan who persevered with planning objections for his convention centre that has produced the most arresting architecture on the quays; architect Kevin Roche's tilted can breaks the vertical repetition and plays with monumental form.

My interest is in the former Stack A, now CHQ, well known as a tobacco warehouse and venue for the banquet to honour soldiers returned from the Crimean War, and latterly, well known as a very expensive white elephant and now up for a Jumbo sale.

There’s a chance to do something wonderful there, jettison (and recycle) the expensive but boring mall fit-out so lazily designed to accommodate high street retail in a place where nobody shops; and create a real, living market place for Ireland’s talented and inventive food and craft artisans, a sustainable showcase for international buyers and a living, breathing hub for city dwellers.

Back over the river, Sotheby’s has a brace of wonderful Orpens and O’Conors on view and no doubt, they’ll have a successful Irish sale. There is always money about, even in a recession, just badly distributed. Parting with the family heirlooms was traditionally about diluting assets to pay for a leaking roof or death taxes. But as the Irish art market got more fuelled on tribunal and developer money, killings were made in the Tiger era and those prices won’t be seen again. The upside is that great works of art come into the public demesne, providing more appreciation, research, scholarship and publications.

I was grateful to the many elderly people who approached me on Friday evening and spoke with incredible sympathy about the D v Ireland case. Art, architecture and attitude, we must remain hopeful.