We are truly living in unbelievable times. In a world with two popes where foreign governments can plunder your life savings and where the Government can tell you to give up your job if they determine that it is not worth your bother, it is easy to get up and believe the first thing we are told each morning.
We turn on our wirelesses in the morning now, not to hear how Ireland’s national teams stumble from one fiasco to another but to hear the latest unbelievable scenario being presented to us by Government and the banks in order to make us realise that we lost the run of ourselves and went a bit mad during the good years.
It’s not bad enough that we see our wages decimated (those of us lucky enough to have wages ) or that our essential services are no longer deemed essential. Every week there is some message to remind us of our irresponsibility. And then when it is determined that the message is sinking in, we get the news that those we have bailed out have been bailing themselves out with massive salaries and pensions.
It truly is a scenario that the beatings will continue until morale starts to improve. And then if one even deems it fit to moan about any of this, we are reminded that things could be worse, that we could all be in Cyprus (where the sun shines 350 days a year ) and see our savings (those of us lucky enough to have savings ) taken away by the invisible hand controlled by the troika.
It really is a world where nothing is normal anymore, where while the birds are falling off the trees with the hunger, that our airwaves and pages are filled with angst over the possibility of teenage threesomes, in weather in which the only way to stay warm with the oil tanks empty is to engage in a threesome, foursome, fivesome, or whatever you’re having yourself.
It is with some relief that the irresponsible remarks by Government ministers about being forced to make a choice between work and staying at home if your job was unviable, have been clarified. Families are under enough pressure at the moment without having banks and politicians on a sabbatical from reality, telling them how to raise their families and live their lives.
Easter by its nature is a festival of great hope. Coming as it does with the official beginning of summertime, making it even an increased focal point around which we can begin to reinvent ourselves and to try to concentrate less on the malaise that surrounds us. It has been a tough start to the new year but everyone can get through all of this by realising that we are all in the same boat, that everyone is feeling the pinch, and that the only way out of it is to try to be creative and innovative when thinking about ways that we can make a living for ourselves and our families, and contribute to our communities.
On behalf of the management and staff of the Advertiser, I would like to wish you all a Happy Easter. PS, Don’t forget the clocks go forward by one hour this weekend when summertime officially begins.
