Flights of Fancy in Praise of Cabin Crew

My ideas come easier if I watch football or something equally bizarre, it's not so much the skill and pace, it's the commentary; sports commentary, especially on radio is a sublime skill. I absolutely loathe golf, but I could listen to the commentators on the Ryder Cup when it was in the K Club as if they were performing a cantata.  I just saw the equaliser in the Barcelona v Paris St Germain match, how very exciting, maybe that's inspiring me to keep this post somewhat international and about teamwork.

Cost Centre # 2 Flying by the Cliffs of Moher with
Baron Von Richter Scale

I'm  part of a crew on a racing boat, I take orders, and get wet and very cold and it's all over in two hours, then we have a pint after dusting ourselves down. If anything goes wrong we blame the equipment or the course. Luckily, I've even got to do some short cruises at the invitation of friends, in warm waters. There is something about being cut off from land that removes life's complications and scrunches them up for a few hours, I think that's why yacht racing is so popular.

I've always thought flying for a living would be a totally glamorous job, despite the fact that the crew have a slew of people in various stages of inebriation and panic attacks to deal with. But you know, on those long hauls, they get to cocktail and shop in New York, Boston, Chicago maybe even Singapore, Shanghai, Sligo-Knock. Or just to pop over to Paris for a night at the opera, London for dinner and back.

I never knew an actual stewardess personally, my ex-husband's ex-wife was one, but I never really knew her and he'd used up all his wanderlust by the time I'd met him, story of my life. Became a stay at home slippers type of man by the time we'd had our boys. Now, I have a real live senior cabin crew girlfriend, it sounds like the next best thing to being in school, with actual exotic destinations and getting paid to boot. I love the idea of Galley FM where all the gossip we don't get down on terrestrial gets scooped in the cloud. That's the real cloud not the i-Cloud.

Racquel doesn't think I write enough bad stuff about myself in this, so here is a confession, I've just cycled to her house to collect duty free cigarettes, have a chat, drink and cycle back uphill in a bit of a wobble. I'm not sure if any of that's illegal, but it felt bad. I think it's ok once it's still bright outside.

Having had years of working for myself, either in track suit at home or Armani suits in a board room, I quite fancy a uniform again, with a badge, I could be designated work hours, somebody else would even check all that for me, meaning the rest of the time was actually free, like not to having to worry about work, whether I'd got my report written and will the client pay, ever.

While it might be too late for me, I think I'll be recommending it to one of my cost centres, there's great fun and serious leadership skills required up there, not to mention diplomacy, patience, humour and all important, manners. Way more serious than you realise as you hide behind your Cara magazine and order that third quarter bottle of merlot. It's more like IMF meets Croke Park and we know what a mess they've made of that on Terrestrial. They could do with some cabin crew skills down here. And by the way, gentlemen, don't tap the stewardess's bottom with your finger when you want more coffee.

Paddy's Weak

Bank Holiday’s are great if you’ve a job, you really appreciate the time off, for me it’s a time to catch up on filing, fiddling with bills, wondering why the phone isn’t working, did I forget to pay? While the rest of the country is still recovering from its immersion in green pints, it’s just another day for taking stock. Paddy’s Day has been Paddy’s Week for a long time. And quite frankly, I’ve discovered Paddy’s very WEAK too.

Great Cheerleader just to grab your attention!

My neighbour Lara, whose husband is in Sydney for over a year due to their being no work here for him, invites me to join her and her children for lamb roast and I am mighty appreciative. While she is studying computer science in the hope of getting an IT job and is often distraught with its incomprehensibility, she thinks my taking in lodgers would be harder to cope with. I’m getting used to it I tell her, with endless time spent on job applications and re-writing my book, I’m lucky to have good men in the house. When her children have left the table, we wonder where our lives went; her husband and I were both in businesses related to the construction industry. Our work went into a NAMA graveyard and the only jobs on offer were to the ex-bankers and estate agents who lent money and estimated ridiculous values to create the bubble.

I am especially relieved with my current lodgers, after the Latvian experience, better to stick with what you know if you have to share your house. Here’s a thing, when Kovac left here he put a sheaf of papers into the wrong bin, while transferring them to the green bin I noticed they were applications for Child Benefit. That’s strange I thought, he’s only in the country three weeks and he’s applying to have 200 euro per month sent to his child in Latvia. It seems he was put right on to it before he arrived.

On Tuesday a brown envelope with a harp arrives and, unusually, I open it, as it could be a VAT refund from last year for 20 euro or something. A booklet falls out, LPT. Oh, no, I put it right back and when cost centre #1 joins me for breakfast I ask him to read it and figure out what it will cost.

‘It doesn’t give you a figure,’ he says, ‘you have to go on the website and work it out yourself.’

‘Please do it for me,’ I ask, not wanting to waste any writing time on Property Tax investigation.

There’s quite a disparity in sale prices around here, from 500k to 72k we discover, down from 1million at the height of the boom. I can’t believe the 72k, must have been one of those bank auctions. How unfair on the owner to endure that slap. Anyway, we reckon the tax could be as much as 700 euro per year.

‘Well if I have to find 700 euro to pay that, I’d have to earn at least 1,000 euro,’ I say to the finance student.

‘Then by the time Revenue gets it, they will use up 350 on Admin, PR, Booklet design and print, Ads, Marketing Agencies, Pension, oh, overtime, days off, you know – at least 350 euro.’

As the inheritors of all the Anglo and sundry developer debt write-off, my two student sons need to take heed of what they’ll be stuck with.

As CC#1 butters his toast and reverts to texting all and sundry, I do a quick calculation, ‘That means it will take the property tax of six houses in this cul-de-sac to meet the annual child benefit to one 5-year old in Latvia, where they will be getting their own benefit anyway, and that's just one child living abroad. Worst of all, none of the money will be spent on Irish milk, bread, school uniforms, shoes, or even a night out with the missus. And Kovac won’t be paying property tax, car tax, VAT, water charges, bin charges, or….

Oh Dear, Why are the Paddy’s in Leinster House so weak? Do they not see what they are doing to Irish families, breaking them up and burdening them with untenable taxes, turning people out of their homes, while not providing any chance of employment?

It’s all very well having a matey pint with Christine Lagarde in Doheny’s, but Joan Burton and Michael Noonan need to take a look at what the IMF and ECB are really doing to this country; getting gold stars for your homework isn’t filtering down to the hardworking, educated masses, it’s breaking up families and breaking down people.