Warning! Being true to yourself causes harm

@wwaycorrigan

[Listen to an audio version of this blog entry here.]

'If you ever meet a woman ... Just be yourself, Dougal. Be yourself, make them feel at ease and, the golden rule, always let them have their way. It's easiest in the long run.'

That was the advice proffered by Father Ted in an episode of the eponymous Irish-made, British-produced 1990s sitcom to his dimwit understudy Father Dougal.

Father Ted (c) & Father Dougal with the radical feminist Niamh Connolly (image from YouTube).

Self-harm
Acting on that advice later when left on his own in their parochial house, Dougal hands over the residence free of charge to a radical feminist singer — a character unquestionably based on Sinead O'Connor.

When Ted returns he is, unsurprisingly, aghast at what's happened. How could it have transpired?

Dougal tells him that he was just following his advice to 'be yourself'. Ted clarifies: 'Be yourself is just something people say. Never be yourself with women. Never, never, never!'

As for the golden rule mentioned previously, Ted downgrades that to the silver rule. The golden rule is, he says, 'if anyone is ever talking to you again, think about what you're saying and then don't say it. And then just run away somewhere.'

Comedy gold and, if I do say so myself, it has aged like a fine wine.

Of course, the idea of finding and being yourself, your true self, is one that has been parroted by the finest of philosophers and self-help gurus through the ages.

'In today's cancel-culture world dominated by those who perniciously call themselves liberals, many influential individuals appear more prepared to toe the line than to raise what should be considered as reasonable objections.'

Like many philosophical mantras, it sounds quite wonderful in theory yet its practical application can be rather troublesome — vide Father Dougal.

Public puppets
In the powerful, interconnected spheres of media and politics, where it could be said that being true to oneself would be beneficial not just personally but for society at large, we generally get anything but that.

It's more a case of, 'What can I do and say that matches the dominant narrative, that will keep me onside with those who shout the loudest?' This is what tends to drive public discourse and action, not any real conviction.

In my topsy-turvy, on-off 15-year media career, I've lost count of the times when I've spoken to interviewees or fellow colleagues off the record about certain topics only for them to say at the end, 'but we can't say that on-air.' There's a certain image that has to be maintained. In other words, 'I can't really be true to myself because I fear some people won't like it.'

The argument can be made that shooting from the hip — or from the fingertips, à la a certain Donald Trump — isn't very becoming of those in positions of power, that it often causes more harm than good. That's not the point. 

One can still display decorum yet speak one's mind. (I'm not, to refer to another comedy classic, calling for a be-like-the-boy approach from The Simpsons episode Bart's Inner Child, which resulted in a descent into chaos. I'm on about mature discussion.)

Yet, in today's cancel-culture world dominated by those who perniciously call themselves liberals, many influential individuals appear more prepared to toe the line than to raise what should be considered as reasonable objections.

Wisdom paradox
From gender issues and white privilege to climate change and coronavirus-containment measures, there is much we still don't know. Thus, those who aggressively proclaim, like religious zealots, that their path is the right one should not be given a free pass.

Going against our true selves out of fear or for career prospects or such like will only lead to frustration and even misery. 

Yes, there's every chance one may be wrong or burning bridges in pursuing a certain course but if one fundamentally believes in it, then it's best to stick with it.

This isn't to say that a person's opinions can't change when and if the circumstances dictate or irrefutable data suggest otherwise. 

Again, the idea of being true to yourself isn't about being right or wrong in the exact moment, it's more about congruence with the fundamentals of your character. In other words, don't try to be somebody else.

Many, however, for the mistaken belief that it will lead to a less stressful, easier life, often follow Father Ted's revised golden rule. They don't say anything. They let others do their thinking for them.

Indeed, the Catholic Church built its vast power on such indoctrination. That institution's force has been on the wane for decades. 

Yet, there are many, arguably more insidious types, stepping into the breach. Beware of those radicals, Dougal.
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A series of unfortunate events: When Bogotá bites back

@wwaycorrigan

[Listen to an audio version of this blog entry here.]

On last week's Bogotá Nights, we discussed insecurity in Colombia's capital city and the country in general.

One regular viewer, an Englishman who has been based in this country for nine years, told us how he was the victim of only one crime-related episode during that time.

The indestructible colectivo buses, scene of a few thefts.

Considering Colombia has been my home for a similar period — it'll be ten years this November — the Englishman's revelation shocked me somewhat. I've averaged over one incident a year. 

So have I been lacking in street smarts or just been particularly unlucky? Or have I taken too many risks?

It's really a mixture of all three, as my recounting here of some of these, to borrow from Lemony Snicket, 'unfortunate events' should demonstrate.

I'll start with the rookie errors, where I was just too relaxed, where I let the guard down, as I put it years ago. Then I'll detail the incidents that were more foolhardy in nature, buoyed up by Dutch courage at times — when one remembers that is.

Out of sight, out of mind
On those rare summer nights in Ireland when the temperature is in the comfortable zone, one faces that critical choice of whether or not to take a jacket when heading out. I recall a friend's take on it: 'Better looking at it than looking for it.'

That sound advice also applies to one's personal belongings when in public spaces in Bogotá, with one important addition: Not only must one's items be in sight but they must also be difficult to be got at by others.

In terms of monetary value, the theft of my Asus laptop in 2018 was the biggest hit I suffered on this front. I generally don't like to go socialising when I have my laptop with me but passing by a friend's place on my way home from a class, he suggested we go for a few drinks.

The smart move would have been to leave my bag with the laptop inside at his house. Wise after the event, hey? 

The fact we were in a middle-class part of the city meant I was, subconsciously perhaps, less concerned about something untoward happening.

'Causing a bit of commotion, I grabbed the guy who I thought was the culprit and insisted he got off the bus with me. He did.'

Sat at a table, I had my bag under my chair. A drink or two in, a couple of people walked by us, one of them hitting my shoulder, prompting me to look in that direction. 

A few moments later I reached down to where my bag was. Gone in about six seconds. And so were the couple who took it. A hit-and-run attack of sorts.

A similar bag-grab incident happened a few years earlier whilst drinking coffee with a friend in a fancy Oma café in the city centre. On that occasion, fortunately, there was little of value in the bag.

Equally as frustrating as the above was having my Samsung smartphone swiped from my pocket on a packed city bus.  

Again, I have to accept my own stupidity in the incident — 'dando papaya' as the Colombians say, ire-inducing for the victim to hear as it is.

Writing on my phone throughout the commute — trying to be constructive with my time — when it came to my stop, I put the phone in the chest pocket of the shirt I was wearing and reached for the bell. Returning my hand to the chest pocket, the phone was gone. That's all it took, those few seconds.

Considering the closeness of people to me, I was convinced I knew the culprit. Causing a bit of commotion, I grabbed him and insisted he got off the bus with me. He did.

He pleaded with me saying it wasn't him but I was having none of it. I was sure he had some part in it. 

We went to the nearest minutos street vendor — basically mobile phones for hire per minute — and called my number. A woman answered. I told her I just wanted my phone back, no more. We agreed on a meeting place. Not thinking straight, I let the guy I'd taken from the bus go and made my way to the rendezvous point.

Papaya, the low-hanging fruit. You've to pay for the ones pictured here, though!

Once there, I called my phone again. And again, the woman answered. She said she was on her way. I waited. Then after about ten minutes, I called once more. This time, it went straight to voicemail.

It was only then it dawned on me that the guy who I'd plucked from the bus had obviously caught up with his accomplice and told her that the 'idiot gringo' let him go. They were in the clear.

Whilst angry about losing the phone, I was just as furious about actually capturing one of the thieves and then letting him off the hook.

Out of sight, out of mind indeed. The lesson? On packed buses or the Transmilenio — I also had a smartphone taken from my pocket when squeezing onto a Transmilenio — have your valuables well locked up, either in a bag that you have a tight grip on or tucked into your crotch area.

Wild rover
Sometimes showing no fear can work to one's advantage. And consuming alcohol often imbues one with inflated confidence.

I've undertaken long walks home along dimly lit, eerie streets that in sobriety I'd most likely avoid. Remembering the exact details of these wild rovings is often a bonus. Nonetheless, most of the time, nothing happens. Most of the time, that is.

Two incidents, in particular, stand out owing to their that-could-have-been-much-worse nature.

'The next thing I remember is waking up on a footpath miles south of where I lived with two guys emptying my pockets.'

In 2012, my first full year here, I had the pleasure of being wined and dined at a Christmas party for the English language institute for which I freelanced at the time. The do was in the greater Zona T area, a relatively fancy part of the city.

When home-time came, I opted to take a bus back to my residence in the centre rather than fork out for a taxi on my own — taxis have always been a last resort for me.

Rather tipsy, I was happy to find a vacant seat on the bus. The next thing I remember is waking up on a footpath miles south of where I lived with two guys emptying my pockets — I had something like 60,000 pesos in cash and a very basic phone, worth about 30,000 pesos.

The assailants, rather kindly, did leave me with 500 pesos, about a third of the value of the standard bus fare back then.

Slowly gathering my bearings but not at all too sure as to where exactly I was, I had a bit of a wait for another bus to come by — it was the early hours of the morning after all.

Eventually, one that passed through the centre came along. Thankfully the bus driver accepted my incomplete fare as I tried to explain in my quite poor Spanish what had happened.

Disorientated and drained, I took a seat and — wait for it — fell asleep again. I woke up to the bus driver telling me we'd reached the end of the route — at a small terminal in Fontibon to be precise, on the city's western limits.

I told him that I needed to go to the centre. Although he initially seemed keen to get me off, in the end, he left me where I was while he went for something to eat. About 30 minutes later he came back and set off on the return journey. I didn't miss my stop this time.

Six years later, in November 2018, I was socialising in my "beloved" La Perseverancia barrio. It was the birthday of one of my costeño (somebody originally from the coast, that is) acquaintances, so, as is the costeños wont, the beer and, more damagingly, whiskey were in full flow.


As I recall, we went on a bit of a tienda crawl. The whiskey soon began to take its toll. The next memory I have is of my coming round on a footpath, with a bloodied face, black eye and two police officers standing over me. I had nothing but the keys to my apartment on me.

Foolishly, I'd gone out that night with a wallet containing my Colombian bank card, my ID and my Irish driver's license. I also had a bag with me. Everything was taken.

At least the police officers did drive me to my residence.

The next day I returned to La Perseverancia in a bid to get some idea as to what had transpired. I thought somebody might know something.

Of those I trust the most there, they knew as much as me, i.e. next to nothing. What exactly happened that night remains — and no doubt will remain — a mystery.

There have been some other similar opaque occurrences but the above gives enough of an idea of the idiocy involved.

Ending on a more positive outlook, outside of the Cuban phone crisis that I wrote about at the beginning of this year and at the risk of jinxing myself, I've had nothing stolen since 2018.

I think I've had my fair share all the same.
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Listen to Wrong Way's Colombia Cast podcast here.

Facebook: Wrong Way Corrigan — The Blog & IQuiz "The Bogotá Pub Quiz".

Bogotá's perpetual Corner Bar barrio

@wwaycorrigan

[Listen to an audio version of this blog entry here.]

At the zenith of Ireland's Celtic Tiger period in the early noughties, a time when most of the populace had, quite literally, more money than sense, there was a public house in my local town that nicely symbolised the then zeitgeist. Or perhaps not-so-nicely for the few ascetics around.

A day in the life: There's a "nice" familiarity to many aspects of Bogotá's Santandercito barrio.

No quiet corner
The Corner Bar, Ballaghaderreen, located next to what was a busy bottleneck junction on the main Dublin-Westport road before the town was bypassed, was in many ways a representation of the Wild West for the early 21st century.

Word had it that this pub sold the most 500-ml cans of Bulmers cider, aka looney juice, in Ireland. That may have been an urban legend but my own blurry memories of the place back it up. For the record, Bulmers wasn't my tipple of choice — I was a little classier, of course.

While it attracted all-comers, it was a particular favourite with construction workers. The Celtic Tiger's flimsy foundations were laid down by boisterous builders after all, heavily reinforced by cheap money from Europe and sod-turning, market-is-king politicians at home. Thus, Ireland and her mother were involved in construction in some form or another. In a town such as Ballaghaderreen and its hinterland, this was very apparent.

The Corner Bar was the go-to place to let off some steam, shoot some pool and throw some drunken shapes after a tough four-and-a-half-day week on-site — Mondays were generally optional, particularly in the summer months.

'Alcohol-induced rows are fairly commonplace and at least one working Monday a month is spent on the cure from the previous days' excesses.'

That this establishment is no longer a going concern today is in many ways fitting. It could be said that Ireland Inc., the West especially, is still suffering a hangover from those heady, hedonistic times.

Bygone days for a now bypassed, barely beating Ballaghaderreen.

However, that spirit of The Corner Bar, a far less expensive version that is, is to be found, for better or for worse — health-wise it's normally the latter — in my current stomping ground of Santandercito in the far north of Bogotá. It's not one particular place but the barrio as a whole really.

Familiar feeling
For starters, most of the people I socialise with there are construction workers who certainly know how to play and party hard. Alcohol-induced rows are fairly commonplace and at least one working Monday a month is spent on the cure from the previous days' excesses.

In place of pool tables and dartboards, there's bolirana, a game where you accumulate points by throwing six small metal balls into holes of varying value on a gently slanting rectangular surface a few metres away — the first to reach an agreed-upon number of points wins.

The overall ambience, the good-natured banter that can turn ugly at the drop of a bottle, it's all familiar, even comforting to me. We're not quite talking about dens of debauchery or iniquity, but there's a certain roughness to proceedings.

One might ask have I not grown tired of the scene by now? For sure, on the odd manic Monday one may question what's it all about. But by the time the weekend rolls around again, one is drawn back in.

That I'm single and childless plays a part in my regular revelling — although at a far lower intensity compared to the real hedonists in Santandercito I hasten to add. In fact, the number of partying parents in these parts leads one to surmise that having offspring doesn't necessarily result in a tamer social life.

Having not left the greater environs of Bogotá for the last 18 months and without full-time employment, The Corner Bar lifestyle has been a relatively cheap escape from the current mundaneness. Of course, it in itself has become a routine — and not a terribly wholesome one — but it nearly always throws up a memorable, if hazy, moment or two.

While the Celtic Tiger and The Corner Bar have disappeared, with both now remembered with an amount of shame, Santandercito's star doesn't look like waning any time soon.

Of course, today's characters won't be around forever, yet the cheap and mostly vivacious vibe appears perpetual in nature. Let's raise a litre of Poker beer to that.
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Listen to Wrong Way's Colombia Cast podcast here.

Facebook: Wrong Way Corrigan — The Blog & IQuiz "The Bogotá Pub Quiz".

 

My "unopened" open letter to Ireland: Immune to natural immunity

@wwaycorrigan

You can blame — or thank, as the case may be — the Irish Independent for the following.

As a recipient of that paper's twice-daily newsletter, this helps me keep abreast of what's making the headlines back home. The Indo, as the cool people call it, appears to be firmly following the line of official Ireland when it comes to the covid-19 pandemic.

In fairness, pretty much every other media group in Ireland seems to be doing likewise. Dissenting voices are disregarded as cranks and/or conspiracy theorists.

So it came as no surprise that the letter I sent to the Independent and other newspapers on this very topic wasn't published. (It may yet appear this weekend, but that's unlikely.)

For the record — and for a small bit of peace of mind — below is a copy of exactly what I wrote, minus the salutations and with a couple of hyperlinks for additional reading:

People wait for a covid-19 vaccine in Bogotá, Colombia. But what about natural immunity?

'While the evidence suggests that covid-19 vaccines have helped those most vulnerable to the disease avoid severe illness and even death, the lack of attention paid to natural immunity is not only baffling but worrying.

'Many of those displaying a moral superiority for having been jabbed would do better to focus on living a healthier lifestyle rather than pontificating to the rest of us.'

Observing from a safe distance afar, the majority of Irish media seems to be in the vaccine-or-nothing brigade. That nothing amounts to being denied access to anything close to resembling a normal life. Alas, there's a glaring lack of critical thinking from Ireland's feeble Fourth Estate.

Thankfully, amidst all the hysteria, there are respected experts in the field — Jay Bhattacharya, Sunetra Gupta and Martin Kulldorff to name but three — who continue to highlight the role acquired/natural immunity plays in many individuals in keeping this virus at bay.

These defences can be present without actually having had covid-19, so the proof-of-recovery option in order to enter venues, etc. doesn't work in this case.

We've known from very early on in this pandemic that covid-19 is a deadly infection for only a very small percentage of the population. Its death rate is far from that of an indiscriminate killer such as yellow fever, for which proof of inoculation is required in some regions of the world. This is often used as an example by those in  favour of covid-19 vaccine passports. Anyone who thinks it's a like-for-like comparison is clearly suffering from coronavirus monomania.

The idea that one is being altruistic in getting jabbed also doesn't stand up to scrutiny. For one, we've seen plenty of fully vaccinated people get infected.

Secondly, it's not certain that inoculated individuals who come into contact with coronavirus carry less of a viral load than those with naturally acquired immunity.

Our immune systems have been battling coronaviruses for millennia. Many of those displaying a moral superiority for having been jabbed would do better to focus on living a healthier lifestyle rather than pontificating to the rest of us.'

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Wrong Way Corrigan radio interview on pandemic life in Bogotá

@wwaycorrigan

Shannonside Northern Sound's Joe Finnegan Show spoke to me as part of their series on Irish people living abroad during the coronavirus pandemic.

The evergreen Anne Norris — my news editor for the majority of the time I was working at the station — was deputising for JF.

Click on the following link to listen to the interview: https://www.northernsound.ie/podcasts/the-joe-finnegan-show/podcast-irish-abroad-brendan-corrigan-in-colombia-179546.

I must say, it's always nice to return to the Shannonside Northern Sound airwaves, the radio station where I cut my teeth (badly!) as a broadcaster!

One of Ireland's top regional radio stations (Image from Wikipedia.)

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