One of the more bizarre aspects of Irish writing in the 1980s was a tendency by journalists to write long, detailed and very, very boring accounts of their holiday experiences. At the time I wondered why this was so and came to three conclusions.
Nothing much else happening in the country/world.
Lazy and/or incompetent journalism.
A misguided sense of journalistic self importance stemming from the bizarre notion that readers might actually be interested in the equivalent of being forced to look at hundreds of aunt Martha’s holiday snaps.
The first conclusion is, of course, never true but unfortunately the last two always are and while the practice seemed to have abated during the boom years it is now back with a (depressing) bang.
Recently, Sunday Independent columnist Jody Corcoran, ‘treated’ readers to a long drawn out account of a sleazy holiday he took with a pal in Marbella.
Corcoran wanted to impress his readers by his heroism in taking a holiday when he wasn’t feeling the best, wanted to impress them with his machismo in dealing with prostitutes, wanted to impress them by casually mentioning that he partied with millionaire and former Formula I boss Eddie Jordan on his yacht anchored off Marbella port.
Corcoran tells us about the prostitutes on the yacht (I wonder how Jordan feels about that) and how their ‘Madam’ pulled up alongside the yacht in her flash car for a few words with her ‘staff’. Regretfully, Corcoran failed to provide readers with the technical details of a car that can drive out to a yacht at anchor.
But perhaps it’s not a return to 1980s style writing, maybe it’s just Corcoran, maybe he’s feeling down because he has nothing else to write about since his great hero the chancer Bertie Ahern was forced off the political stage – yes, I think that’s the answer.