Blog Of Good Cheer » People

Bonding with Des Bishop in Mullingar

felix — Sun, 07 Nov 2010 15:19:06 +0000

How well do you get to know a performer? What are the real chances of heading home after a show feeling that you understand what motivates an artist? How many times do you feel that you’ve gotten an insight into what makes an entertainer tick?

Last Saturday night in Mullingar Des Bishop gave a very personal performance in which he allowed the audience a rare chance of learning the truth about his rebellious teenage years, his power struggles with his parents, his gradual maturity and his taking responsibility and ultimately giving thanks to his parents for their love.

While he was revealing the inner workings of his Irish Catholic family growing up in New York he held the Mullingar Arts Centre audience in the palm of his hand. We laughed as he talked about his father just failing to land the role of James Bond, we laughed as he described how he and his brothers tortured his father with reminders of his perceived failings as an actor and we laughed as Des Bishop told us about his father, Mike Bishop, being diagnosed with terminal stage-four lung cancer.

On paper it shouldn’t work. It shouldn’t be possible to talk about one of the great taboo subjects in such a personal way and still turn it into something funny. Surely it was just an exercise in milking sympathy. It wasn’t. Des Bishop in a most brutally honest way ensures his audience are entertained by tragedy without resorting to cheap laughs. And on the night he did it with professional ease.

From the moment he came on stage everyone in the audience was interested in what he had to say. After a quick warm-up he entered the business end of the show and introduced us to his father, his father’s many sacrifices for his family, his father’s less savoury side, his own particular form of dysfunction and how, after many years, he finally feels he understands what motivated his parents.

I don’t think I stopped laughing throughout the show and when I think back on the seriousness of the subject matter and the utter raw nature of the family story he laid bare, I don’t understand how Des Bishop did it. But make us laugh he did and I went away after more than 90 minutes thinking a mixture of many surprising thoughts.

In no particular order they were:

I’m glad my Mam and I find reasons to laugh
I think Des Bishop is comic genius
Where was Kojak’s lollypop?
I’m glad I had a good relationship with my Dad
I feel honoured to have been invited into the life of the Bishops
James Bond will never be the same again
Diana Rigg was a great Bond-girl
I want to tell everybody what a great show this is

Des Bishop treats us to the life of a hero, his father, by telling us some of the ordinary and, on some occasions, extraordinary events in his life. He makes it clear that in his eyes his father is far more deserving of the title “hero” than the one-dimensional, non-credible, fantasy figure that his father regretted not playing for much of Des’s life.

If you get a chance go see Des Bishop’s My Dad Was Nearly James Bond you should grab it. It’s playing around Ireland over the next few months and as far as I’m concerned it is one of the best night’s entertainment I’ve ever experienced.

This article in the Irish Times will give you more information on the show and you can check out venues and tour dates on Des Bishop’s official website.

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Bonding with Des Bishop in Mullingar

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They’re Running! They’re Running! They’re Running! – The Dublin City Marathon 2010

felix — Thu, 28 Oct 2010 16:41:20 +0000

This was my first Dublin City Marathon. No I didn’t take part in it. It was the first time I made a point of going into town and cheering on some of the 13,000 plus contestants.

I suppose I was being a tourist in my own city. I took advantage of a free event for spectators and arrived at Merrion Square North in time to see Kenya’s Moses Kangogo Kibet set a new record time of 2:08.56.

Every time a runner passed along Clare St onto Merrion Square North the crowd’s excitement grew and noise of cheering amplified.

Standing near the finish line I saw

Moses Kangogo Kibet win the men’s event with Fikadu Kedir coming second
Mourice Mutinda Musyoki overtake Chesoo Jonathan Kipchirchir just on Merrion Square to take 3^rd place.
Tatiana Aryasova win the Ladies Marathon in a time of 02:26:13
Paul Hannan win the Wheelchair event in 02:20:36 Ireland’s John Fulham take 2^nd place in 02:33:33.

All of these great performances were special. But equally special were the performances by the non-elites, those that wanted to finish in 4 hours, or perhaps finish in 5 hours, or just damn well wanted to finish.

The atmosphere near Merrion Square was wonderful. Every participant that passed was cheered on by a large contingent of well-wishing strangers.

After a while we moved on to Grand Canal St, just beside the bridge. We got there as those hoping to finish around the 3¾ to 4 hour mark were passing by. Some were still looking strong while for others, the hard pace they set themselves was taking its toll.

There was nothing for it except some seriously loud cheering. I admit I was slow to get into it. But P showed me the way and pretty soon I’d started spotting people’s names on their shirts and calling out to them wishing them well and hoping to lift any flagging spirits.

I know two people, M and A, who ran in the race last Monday. I think both were hoping to do times around the 4½ to 5 hour mark (I could be wrong there). At the end of the 26 miles and 385 yards they did it in 04:26:25 and 04:42:22. I think that’s fantastic. It’s averaging slightly more than 10 minutes a mile. I once walked 26 miles along the Royal Canal and it not only took me a lot longer than that, but I was wrecked at the end of it. I managed to see both of them pass at Upper Grand Canal Street (near Maquay Bridge) and as they ran by they looked surprisingly fresh, well on the way to doing great times. Later I heard that M had said she enjoyed every mile and A, who saw and heard my wife cheer her on, said it was the right encouragement at the right time. Well done to both of you!

Although it was great to see some of the elite runners cross the line I think standing on the route approximately a mile from home and cheering on the non-elites can help with their last push to the finish. I think the spot along Upper Grand Canal Street leading to the canal bridge is hugely important as it is the last significant uphill section and the pain can be showing.

After I left for home I realised that I had clapped and cheered “for Ireland”. I knew this because my hands were tingling as I picked up and tried to hold a cup of coffee later that evening. All I did was clap and cheer and my hands were suffering the effects – what must the runners be feeling!

On Sunday 7^th November there’s another contestant I know running a marathon. F is taking part in the New York City Marathon and when I last spoke to him about times he said he’d just like to finish. Maybe he has a time in mind (I’d be surprised if he didn’t) but the important thing is finishing. He’s been training for quite a while now and recognising the effort required he made a point of heading into the Dublin City Marathon to cheer on his fellow members of that very special club. To give F and G (his wife) credit they’ve been cheering for the Dublin City Marathon contestants each year for quite a few years now.

As he’s running in New York he won’t hear me cheering from Dublin but I’ll be cheering all the same.

Go on, you’re nearly there, just one more mile, downhill all the way!

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They’re Running! They’re Running! They’re Running! – The Dublin City Marathon 2010

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The Great Lunchtime Debate

felix — Wed, 08 Jul 2009 18:28:10 +0000

I like a good argument! I don’t like falling-out with people, upsetting people and/or being mean to people. But I do like a good argument. Does that make sense?

I think it does. There are several definitions of the word “argument” but I like “discourse intended to persuade” from the Merriam-Webster dictionary the best.

The word “argument”, I believe, is too often used to describe an event that results in people having a noisy, heated and perhaps angry dispute. I prefer to consider it to be a true debate, an exchange of alternative ideas, a desire to persuade.

I work with two colleagues that in truth are very good friends. If we can, we try to get out of the office for a stroll each lunchtime. The stroll inevitably leads to conversation, the conversation to debate and if we’re lucky all three of us take different positions in the resulting argument. It’s fantastic. This is when I love our walks most. The prospect of changing the opinions of my friends, the chance that I may hear a more compelling case for an alternative viewpoint to mine, the idea that I might know and understand more than I did before we set-off; now that’s exciting.

I feel lucky that I can rarely predict the position that my opponents will take. In any walk I might guess right for one of them, but I’m hardly ever right for them both. And that’s also great. We have to be at our best to persuade and you know you have argued well if you succeed.

We go at it, with energy and enthusiasm, conceding ground only if there is really no chance of a counter strike. An observer would probably question if we have any common ground at all. But we do, and when we’re done the winning or losing is not as important as the fact that we don’t disrespect or cause offence.

And in reality it’s a win-win situation. I don’t believe you can really lose, the worst that happens is you recognise that your opponent has a better understanding of the issue, and in recognising that, so do you.

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The Great Lunchtime Debate

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Disaster Recovery

felix — Mon, 22 Jun 2009 20:03:59 +0000

I bought a new laptop and it arrived last Wednesday. I got it from Dell. It arrived in a week, and it looked and seemed to be “the business”. It isn’t the fastest machine by a long way, but it suits my needs, and it is far better than the seven year old model it was replacing.

When you buy something new you expect it to work perfectly on arrival. My laptop didn’t. It wouldn’t play music CDs and the buttons on the multimedia panel (play, pause, stop, fast forward etc.) didn’t work. I wasn’t overly upset by this as I know my way around PCs and I thought I could fix it – probably just a driver issue. It wasn’t!

At about 19:50 I decided to call Dell. I got through, and successfully transferred to Tech Support queue within 5 minutes. I was on hold for approximately 10 minutes before I got talking to a Tech Support Representative – not bad.

I wish I remembered the rep’s name as he was fantastic. Despite the fact that Dell has me recorded a business customer and as such my daily phone support ends at 18:00 (2 hours earlier), despite the fact that it was now 20:10 and Dell’s home support ends at 20:00, this Tech Support Representative talked me though fixing the problem over the next half-hour. Not only did he resolve the problem, but he did so in a most professional manner, clarifying instructions as necessary and staying on the line to run diagnostics to ensure the problem was well and truly resolved.

For any techie readers out there, the solution was to roll-back my laptop’s Bios version to a previous release. Not your typical solution, but it worked.

Now I know that the laptop should have arrived fully functioning, and it didn’t. Not the best of starts by Dell. However, I still consider the whole experience to be a positive one. The actions of this Dell representative will mean that I’ll recommend buying Dell to anyone who asks. Yes, this is just my experience, and maybe I was lucky, but it is my very positive experience and that counts more to me than any negative reviews I might read.

The experience reminded me that going the extra mile to assist people can make the difference between them wanting to work with you again, and them choosing another. This idea isn’t new at all. There is a school of thought that if you resolve problems for people in business, then they are more likely to work with you in the future than if everything went perfectly. But I think the approach can be applied outside of business. It makes a good philosophy in personal relationships also.

This story isn’t about anything earth-shattering, but I’m hoping writing about it in this post will help me remember it in my day-to-day dealings with people.

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Disaster Recovery

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People are great – honestly!

felix — Tue, 16 Jun 2009 07:23:19 +0000

This week was great for many reasons, but perhaps the reason that touched me most was examples of people’s basic honesty. If you were to allow your view of the human race to be based on mainstream media I think you’d overall have a poor picture of the human race. This is because happy stories do not sell. Our television news broadcasts and our newspaper reports tend to focus on what is wrong in the world.

But this weekend the media in Irelan carried a story about an honest shop assistent who ensured that a forgetful Lotto winner received his just reward. The story of Tom Heavy and Dermot Finglas is covered in many articles including here on the Irish Independent website. http://www.independent.ie/national-news/honest-shopkeeper-seeks-owner-of-8364350000-ticket-1772633.html The honesty of the shop keeeper should be saluted. I loved the quote from the article “It wasn’t mine. I could have taken it… but it was someone else’s ticket and someone else’s luck”

On Thursday last another there was another example of people’s honesty. This one was closer to home. While our car was parked another motorist tipped it and scraped its side. These small incedents (nobody was hurt) can turn a good day sour. Especially if you discover the damage when the driver is long gone. But that is what happened, however the driver left their contact details in a note on the windscreen. Everyone who heard the story thought that this was really unusual in modern times. I hope it isn’t and it is just another example of people’s basic honesty.

My final example, was an unfortunate traffic in which a friend of mine knocked a cyclisdt off their bike. Perhaps not the best story to tell in National Bike Week. http://www.bikeweek.ie/ But once again it is an example of people not looking for the fast buck and doing the right thing. The details of the accident aren’t as imoprtant as the outcome. The cyclist recognised that s/he had made a dodgy manoeuver and was at fault, and showed nothing but concern for the driver and the car. Apart from cuts, grazes and immediate shock nobody was really hurt. Each party was only concerned with the well-being of the other.

These are just three examples of our basic honesty that touched me this week and I feel that they all deserve recognition. Not because the examples are unusual, but because it is important to reciognise good things when they happen.

Last week was great for many reasons. I started this blog, I exercised a bit more than I’d been doing recently, and I spent as much time as possible outdoors. But I think what impressed me most this week was the basic honesty of people.

Last weekend the media in Ireland carried a story about a shopkeeper who ensured that a forgetful lotto winner received his just reward. The story of Tom Heavey, the shopkeeper, and the man who left the shop without his lotto ticket, is covered in many articles including here on the Irish Independent website. The actions of the shopkeeper should be saluted. I loved Tom’s quote “It wasn’t mine. I could have taken it… but it was someone else’s ticket and someone else’s luck”. And that sums it up really.

On Thursday last my wife experienced another example of people’s honesty. This one was closer to home. While her car was parked, another motorist tipped it and scraped its side. These scrapes can turn any day sour, especially if you discover the damage when the guilty party is long gone. But in this case the driver left his contact details on a note on the windscreen. We thought this was fantastic. Our dismay due to the damage to our car was wiped clean away by the honesty of the driver. The feeling of many people who heard the story was that this was not normal behaviour. People don’t usually own-up like that. I have no statistics I can use to prove otherwise other than this specific example. And it sems to me that many people do take responsibility for their actions.

Over the weekend a friend of mine knocked a cyclist off his bike. Perhaps not the best story to write about during National Bike Week, but once again it is an example of people doing the right thing. The details of the accident aren’t as important as the outcome. The cyclist recognised that he had made a dodgy manoeuvre and was at fault, and showed nothing but concern for the driver and the car. The driver was equally concerned about the cyclist. This was a very unfortunate incident that could have been nasty, but wasn’t. It could easily have gone down a legal route if it weren’t for the two people being genuinely concerned about each other’s well-being and realising that no real harm was done.

These are three examples of basic honesty that I encountered this week, and I feel that they all deserve to be noted. Not because they’re unusual, but because they might be more common than we are sometimes willing to recognise.

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People are great – honestly!

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