Writing for life

What do most young people in Ireland want to be when they grow up?

The answer, according to a survey of 1,300 Irish teenagers aged between 13 and 19 for an RTÉ radio show last summer, revealed that a staggering 85% of boys and 80% of girls want to be… famous.

That’s right – famous!

The survey was carried out by researchers for the RTÉ radio show, Fame! It seems that while the government harps on about the knowledge economy, encouraging our bright young talent to pursue careers in science, engineering, technology and other fields, a worrying 56% of boys and 40% of girls surveyed said they would drop out of school for a shot at becoming a celebrity.

Instead of aspiring to become doctors, lawyers, scientists, technologists, engineers, mathematicians, teachers, researchers or a host of other careers, the youth of Ireland (and I suspect much of the developed world) want to become the next Britney Spears, Roy Keane, or even… wait for it… Podge and Rodge! Apparently 35% of Irish teenagers genuinely believe that they’ll be famous when they “grow up”.

While this was only a one off survey, and isn’t necessarily an accurate representation of what Ireland’s youth is really thinking, it nonetheless has disturbing connotations. Somehow the celebrity image peddled by magazines like “Hello”, “OK” and “VIP” has taken root in the collective psyche of today’s youth. It’s an image of glitz, glamour, and easy money – which, for the average teenager, is a heady and compelling mix.

According to the survey half of the teenagers questioned thought being famous would be “fun”, nearly a quarter of them “just wanted to be on television”, 40% saw attaining celebrity status as a way of “proving people wrong”, while 15% believed that becoming famous would make them “more attractive”!

Of course, what teenagers are really looking for is celebrity, not fame. Celebrity is all hype and spin… smoke and mirrors. There’s no real substance to it.

Fame on the other hand, is different. Though often confused with its younger sibling celebrity, fame is a very different animal. Fame is a by-product of remarkable achievement: exceptional acting, outstanding writing, incredible cinematography, moving artistic talent, sporting genius, scientific excellence, a world-changing invention… whatever. Fame is usually born of hard work, talent, dedication and commitment.

Truly famous people don’t tend to set out with a career goal of becoming famous… fame is just a by-product of excelling in their chosen field.

Celebrity, on the other hand, is born on a whim, and has no material substance at all. It has nothing at all to do with talent or accomplishment – it’s more about column inches and air-time. Celebrity is manufactured rather than earned: a recent phenomenon spawned by a media hungry to exploit a public’s insatiable appetite for other people’s lives. Celebrity is about image rather than achievement, perception rather than reality.

Let’s hope that most of our teenage wannabes come to their senses sooner rather than later, and go on to pursue worthwhile careers in the real world rather than chasing shadows. With a bit of luck this unhealthy obsession with celebrity will turn out to be just another teenage fad….

You can see the results of the survey online on the RTÉ website.

Technorati Tags: celebrity, careers, career moves, evening echo

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On a whim earlier this week I rang Vodafone and asked about Mobile Broadband coverage in my area (I’d already tried O2’s offering with no joy).

They informed me that Rosscarbery, just down the road in one direction, had full coverage, while Leap, just down the road in the opposite direction, didn’t. It was, they advised, worth a try. So off I went to Skibbereen to buy my Vodafone HSDPA mobile broadband modem on a 14-day no quibble money-back trial.

When I got home I found a very clear GPRS signal that gave me dialup-like speeds — which although better than the O2 experience, was pretty disappointing. I spent an hour or so wandering the premises, and found that occasionally the signal would change to 3G (weak, but there nonetheless) and speeds would climb slowly to peak at about 200kbit/sec. On a whim I went into the children’s playhouse in the back garden. It has an upstairs, and up there I watched in amazement as the signal changed to HSDPA and my connection speed soared to a very respectable 1Mbit/second. I downloaded the most recent version of OpenOffice.org in minutes — then went back to my home office (also in the back garden — some 15 metres or so from the playhouse) only to find I was back to dialup speeds again.

I went all over the house and garden — and the only place I could get a broadband signal was upstairs in the girls’ playhouse.

Talk about frustrating!

I rang Vodafone to see if there was any chance of things improving any time soon. They told me that there was absolutely no broadband coverage where I am, nor was there any planned for the near future. Apparently it was an absolute fluke that I got a HSDPA connection at all. So I tried it again, and sure enough, upstairs in the playhouse I get a 1Mbit/sec HSDPA connection most of the time. It’s bizarre!

Anyway, the modem’s going back next week — I can’t adjourn to the kids’ playhouse every time I want to access the internet.

So near… and yet so far….

Technorati Tags: mobile broadband, Vodafone, O2, coverage

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I’ve just discovered that my contact forms on the blog are not working. I’m trying to find out what’s gone awry, and have logged the problem with my web host — meanwhile, if you need to contact me please leave a comment or use the contact form on my main website.

NB. Anyone know if there’s a setting somewhere in WordPress that might be causing this?

Cheers,

Calvin!

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Apologies for sluggish posting. We’re on a family camping trip in France and Spain and during my sporadic bouts of online access I’m mainly researching and sending in my regular articles. Blog posts are slightly lower on the priority list but I’ll try to keep them coming a bit more regularly between now and when we get back.

All the best,

Calvin!

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Honey bee colonies around the world are suffering from huge mortalities — and it could have major implications for human food supplies, US Scientists warn.

Apparently about 1/3 of the human diet comes from insect pollinated plants, and honey bees pollinate approximately 80% of those. As honey bee populations dwindle we could be looking at massive crop failure. Animal fodder crops will also fail — hitting the human food chain with a double whammy.

According to a US congressional study honey bees add an estimated $15 billion a year to the country’s food supply chain.

This worrying phenomenon seems to be a global issue — and it’s happening here in Ireland too. I know several bee keepers locally who have inexplicably lost hives this season. The workers simply disappear, leaving a queen and young that quickly perish. There’s a growing sense of menace amongst local apiarists that things are only going to get worse.

I haven’t seen honey bees around the garden this year yet either — although there are several hives relatively nearby. It’s an ominous sign… and the scientists don’t know yet what the cause is.

We often don’t realise quite how dependent we are on insects. If ants were to die out, for example, entire ecosystems would crumble and life on earth would go into meltdown. The result would make the effects of global warming seem trivial.

It’s about time we started looking at the bigger picture. We depend on myriad subtle interactions between countless species to survive. For all our sakes, lets start taking care of the world around us not because of the impending threat of climate change — but because we appreciate that we need a healthy, diverse and balanced environment in order to thrive.

Technorati Tags: honey bees, Ireland, environment, wildlife

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You dig up some amazing nuggets when you’re researching articles.

For instance, who’d have thought that the Irish would be more interested in cosmetic surgery than the British and even the Americans?

Apparently it’s true — when cosmetic surgery site lipo.com analysed global Google search data in October 2006 they found that when adjusted for population size the top five countries were:

1. Ireland
2. United Kingdom
3. Australia
4. Philippines
5. New Zealand

America came in 7th — probably because as a nation they already know more about plastic surgery than practically everyone else.

You can read the whole article here.

Who’d have thought it?

Another article on the same site claims a fair proportion of the Irish population will be rushing to cash in our SSIA (a government savings incentive scheme set to mature this year) and fritter away the proceeds on having things made bigger, smaller, nipped, tucked and generally rearranged.

Are the Irish really so obsessed with their looks — or is it just that so many people in this country seem to have money to burn?

Technorati Tags: cosmetic surgery, Ireland, Irish life

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