Ireland – Miscellaneous Details

Royale with cheese

I’m not a fan of soap operas and schmaltzy dramas, but it’s been hard to escape reaction to The Crown’s latest spin-off.

‘I didn’t want to be alive anymore’: Meghan Markle-Prince Harry’s revelations during Oprah interview leave internet shocked – The Indian Express
Post the broadcast of the interview, social media is abuzz with netizens reacting to the various revelations made during the interview. The hashtag #OprahMeghanHarry soon began trending on Twitter with many drawing parallels between the situation and what Princess Diana went through during her time.

This write-up from across the Irish Sea really nailed it though.

Harry and Meghan: The union of two great houses, the Windsors and the Celebrities, is complete – Irish Times
Having a monarchy next door is a little like having a neighbour who’s really into clowns and has daubed their house with clown murals, displays clown dolls in each window and has an insatiable desire to hear about and discuss clown-related news stories. More specifically, for the Irish, it’s like having a neighbour who’s really into clowns and, also, your grandfather was murdered by a clown.

Shouldn’t really be too flippant about all this, institutional bigotry is no laughing matter, but this image of the Queen caught my eye shortly after reading that.

Artist brings everyday objects to life with smartphone and no editing – Design You Trust
“I think it’s a fun way to make an ordinary situation extraordinary, to make magic by combining two different things into a whole new story. A smartphone is something we all carry all day and it allows me to take this kind of photo spontaneously on the spot whenever an idea comes. I always carry two phones to do this.”

Quite a few are from the movies …

… including Pulp Fiction …

… which brings us back to where we started — Americans and royalty.

Royale with Cheese (dialogue) – Genius
As Jules Winfield (Samuel L. Jackson) and Vincent Vega (John Travolta) drive along they discuss trivial matters regarding the little differences between Europe and America.

What a mess

No, I’m not talking about Westminster this time.

Lisa Li: Angry landlord exposes online star’s ‘double life’
A social media influencer in China has been exposed for living a “double life”, after her landlord revealed her filthy living conditions, which contrasted with the glamorous image she presented online. Footage went viral showing the apartment of Lisa Li – a blogger with 1.1 million followers – littered with rubbish, mouldy food, and dog excrement.

She went on to apologise to her landlord and clean the mess up. I don’t imagine anyone thought of preserving it for posterity. That does happen though…

Francis Bacon’s preserved art studio
After his death, the Hugh Lane Gallery in Dublin, Ireland, was able to obtain the entire contents of his artists’ studio at 7 Reece Mews, South Kensington, London, in 1998. The entire space was broken down into its parts. Over 7,000 articles were collected and cataloged, including everything from paintbrushes to art supplies, and even the dust! The ceiling, the walls, and the narrow staircase that led up to the studio were even taken. The massive collection was then reassembled in great detail and precision using architectural maps and photographs.

History of studio relocation
The Francis Bacon Studio Database is the first computerised archive of the entire contents of a world ranking artist’s studio. Every item in the studio has a database entry. Each entry consists of an image and a factual account of an object. The database has entries on approximately 570 books and catalogues, 1,500 photographs, 100 slashed canvases, 1,300 leaves torn from books, 2,000 artist’s materials and 70 drawings. Other categories include the artist’s correspondence, magazines, newspapers and vinyl records.

Being there — or not

They say there’s nothing quite like being there in person, whether there is on top of a mountain or in front of a painting. I’m not so sure, though.

Louvre is ‘suffocating’ with high volume of visitors, striking workers say – The Art Newspaper
Union officials say that Louvre management is failing to address the issue of overcrowding, and that they are “dismayed” by “the shameful image we give of our establishment”. Staff must deal with “angry visitors” unhappy with conditions while emergency evacuation procedures are inadequate, they say.

Why I won’t be joining the queue at the top of Everest – The Guardian
Everest has become largely detached from the rest of climbing and mountaineering. It has become a trophy experience, drawing too many otherwise without much interest in the sport, validated by media coverage that sees Everest as being endlessly “conquered” rather than passé.

Game of Thrones is ‘game changer’ for NI tourism – BBC
“I’m all for tourism in Northern Ireland but this sort of tourism – herding people in and out – they come to see one thing and that’s it,” she said. “For local residents it is frustrating – the constant buses never stop.” … There are also issues at the Dark Hedges outside Armoy, County Antrim. Just 10 seconds on Game of Thrones was enough to make it a tourist attraction. Congestion and damage to the trees led to traffic being banned but that is not always obeyed.

Google’s GDPR probe

A year on from GDPR Day, and Irish eyes are staring in Google’s direction.

Irish regulator opens first privacy probe into Google
Google’s lead regulator in the European Union, Ireland’s Data Protection Commissioner, opened its first investigation into the U.S. internet giant on Wednesday over how it handles personal data for the purpose of advertising.

The probe was the result of a number of submissions against the company, the Irish Data Protection Commissioner said, including from privacy-focused web browser Brave which complained last year that Google and other digital advertising firms were playing fast and loose with people’s data.
Ireland’s Data Protection Commissioner launches investigation into Google’s advertising and compliance with GDPR
Dr Ryan [Chief Policy Officer at Brave] said his evidence to the DPC “revealed a massive and ongoing data breach” in which Google’s DoubleClick/Authorized Buyers “leaks intimate data about the people visiting these websites to thousands of companies every day”.

I noted The Register’s footnote on this story, about that “privacy-focused web browser Brave”.

Irish data cops are shoving a probe right into Google’s ads
There is some irony in Brave being built on Chromium, the browser engine built and maintained by – who else? – Google. Ryan told us that Brave had “certainly not” seen any pushback from Googlers involved in the Chromium project.

It could be an extremely expensive problem for Google though, as all the reports are keen to point out, although I can’t imagine it would come to that.

Google is facing its first GDPR probe from Irish privacy regulators
If found guilty, the potential penalties for Google would be enormous. The GDPR authorizes fines as high as four percent of global annual revenue, which would total $5.4 billion in Google’s case. Even more damaging, the company would have to fundamentally reshape its ad system in order to avoid future fines.

There’s quite a lot of attention on Ireland’s Data Protection Commission already.

Ireland sits idly by as GDPR goes unenforced
Politico shares an investigation into why the GDPR’s lead regulator Ireland has failed to bring a single enforcement action against the big tech companies it is supposed to watchdog.

These are hugely complex cases, that will be setting precedents that may redefine how these companies operate.

Irish data official defends tech investigation record: ‘They’re not overnight’
Helen Dixon said the reality is it will take time to produce results from the 18 major technology investigations her office is pursuing — 11 of which involve Facebook or its platforms WhatsApp and Instagram.

“These aren’t matters where we can take in a complaint today and tomorrow make a conclusion on it,” Dixon, Ireland’s data protection commissioner, said during an interview at POLITICO’s Washington-area headquarters. “They’re not overnight, and anyone who understands anything about the process understands it takes time.”

Others agree.

Is Ireland too soft with GDPR enforcement, or just being prudent?
Jules Polonetsky, CEO of the Future of Privacy Forum (FPF), comes down on the side of patience. In fact, he argues that while fines tend to get most of the headlines, they aren’t as important as the major precedents that regulators will be setting – precedents that will “redefine business models.” That, he said, takes time to be done right. […]

Danny O’Brien, international director of the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF), an aggressive privacy advocacy group, also isn’t troubled – at least not yet – about GDPR enforcement taking some time to get in gear. “There’s a lot about how the whole system was going to be organized that was left unsaid in the GDPR, so I think it’s fair to say that no-one was expecting anything to happen very quickly,” he said. “It’s not necessarily the Irish DPC’s fault.”

Let’s wait and see, then.

The vital, busy, invisible border

A neat summary and infographic from the Economist on the issues surrounding the Irish border in relation to Brexit.

What does the Irish border have to do with Brexit?
The invisible frontier has become the most complicated feature of Britain’s negotiations with the European Union. […]

For the past 20 years Britain’s political class has all but ignored Northern Ireland. Yet two decades after the end of the Troubles, the Irish question is back–and it is more likely than any other matter to derail Brexit.

Nothing positive about Brexit

The further we go with this, the more intractable and stupid it all seems.

The hole where the Brexit deal should be
The great sticking point—around the Irish border—has always been there. Since the Brexit negotiations began, in the summer of 2017, they have been vexed by the logical need to create a border between Ireland (a member of the E.U.) and Northern Ireland (part of the United Kingdom), and the political need not to have a border, in order to protect the island’s peace process. Squaring this circle would be hard enough under any circumstances, but, to pass legislation, May’s government relies on the ten members of Parliament who belong to the hard-line, pro-union Democratic Unionist Party. Any solution to “the Irish backstop,” as it is known, is likely to involve Northern Ireland staying more or less within the E.U.’s structures, while the rest of the U.K. takes a step away. This is a no-go for the D.U.P.

Brexit: a cry from the Irish border
‘Jacob Rees-Mogg you’re right. You don’t need to visit the border… you need to have lived here.’ Belfast-born actor Stephen Rea explores the real impact of Brexit and the uncertainty of the future of the Irish border in a short film written by Clare Dwyer Hogg.

John Major: I have made no false promises on Brexit – I’m free to tell you the truth
I understand the motives of those who voted to leave the European Union: it can – as I well know – be very frustrating. Nonetheless, after weighing its frustrations and opportunities, there is no doubt in my own mind that our decision is a colossal misjudgment that will diminish both the UK and the EU. It will damage our national and personal wealth, and may seriously hamper our future security. It may even, over time, break up our United Kingdom. It will most definitely limit the prospects of our young.

And – once this becomes clear – I believe those who promised what will never be delivered will have much to answer for. They persuaded a deceived population to vote to be weaker and poorer. That will never be forgotten – nor forgiven. […]

None of the mainstream political parties is in a healthy condition. Both the Conservatives and Labour face pressure from fringe opinion within their own membership. My fear is that the extremes of right and left will widen divisions and refuse to compromise, whereas more moderate opinion will often seek common ground. The risk of intransigence – “my way or no way” – is that the mainstream parties will be dragged further right and further left.

Our nation should not tolerate the unreasoning antipathy of the extremes – to the EU, to foreigners or to minority groups. Such antipathy is repellent, and diminishes us as a nation. Softer, more reasonable voices should not be drowned out by the raucous din of the loudest.

Like many others, I’m sure, I raced through The Third Policeman in the sixth form. I’ve read it a few times since, and recently found the nerve to tackle At Swim-Two-Birds, fearful of its reputation. I shouldn’t have waited so long. Very funny-haha as well as very funny-peculiar, though I’ll have to re-read it again before I could tell you what it was all about.

I know very little about Flann O’Brien, though. Maybe that’s for the best. According to this collection of his letters and correspondence, drink turned him into quite an unpleasant and angry man in his later years.

Yours severely: the collected letters of Flann O’Brien
In a book full of crackpottery, one of the strangest moments comes in 1965, when O’Brien suggests that the French edition of At Swim-Two-Birds be translated back into English by a serving French Foreign Legionnaire and used to replace O’Brien’s original text, which he had come to detest. In its daft way, the suggestion is a perfect example of O’Brien’s estranged relationship with language – language in general but also the language of his artistic prime, as surveyed from the wreckage of his final years …

Might a non-drinking O’Brien have been a happier and more savoury human being? Almost certainly. Might a happier and better-adjusted O’Brien have ever written anything? Impossible to say. As it is, our reaction to the unhappy soul captured in these letters will probably be, in the words of a 1965 letter, ‘halfway between a guffaw and a puke’.

By the way, At Swim-Two-Birds was very nearly a film, if you can imagine that.

Brendan Gleeson secures funds for Flann O’Brien film
Actor Brendan Gleeson has secured funding to make a film of Irish writer Flann O’Brien’s masterpiece At Swim Two Birds. Gabriel Byrne, Colin Farrell and Cillian Murphy have all been linked to the new film.

Though that now seems doubtful.

Gleeson’s doubts over Two Birds
Domhnall Gleeson has revealed his doubts over the At Swim Two Birds film. His father Brendan Gleeson is planning to make his directorial debut with the big-screen adaptation of Flann O’Brien’s novel, which Colin Farrell, Gabriel Byrne and Cillian Murphy have been attached to. It was originally set for release in 2010, with 14 drafts of the script already written by the actor, but has yet to start shooting.

I think I will re-read the book, though, just in case.