Losing The Cynicism Of Shallowness

By Charley Brady

Sometimes there are times when a person can become so cynical that they can forget the really great people there are on this world.

The sheer relentlessness of the shallow celebrity culture that worships mediocrity for the sake of selling a few extra newspapers or cinema tickets wears one down and blinds that person to the fact that there are other people out there.

And thankfully now and again something happens that makes you take off the cynic-goggles and look again.

And, looking, come away from an attitude that had seemed so entrenched that it couldn't be changed.

The Galway Races are on at the moment and here you will live through a week of shallow nonsense that seems unparalleled.

But really that's just me being grouchy simply because the sound of hired helicopters flying overhead seems to have transformed my nice little village into the set of "Apocalypse Now".

So I forget that for the majority of folk it's a really pleasant week's diversion.

Likewise my absolute loathing of anything religious has too often blinded me to the decent people who genuinely believe in and work hard at making this mud- spattered globe on the edge of nothing a better place to live in.

People like my Patrician Brother friend, Brother Fidelus who, now in his seventies, can look back on a life that was giving, thoughtful and loving. That's something I'll never be able to say, more's the pity, but that same gentle man would probably look at you in absolute unfeigned amazement if you were to tell him of what an inspiration he has been to people like myself who instinctively recoil at the idea of ever crossing a church gate.

All that and he has a great singing voice into the bargain! Some people have all the luck.

What about the spiritualism to be found in Beethoven's Seventh or Ninth Symphonies? Or films like "The Ballad of Cable Hogue"? Works of the purest art.

Before certain associates of mine make me yawn my head off while sticking red-hot needles into places unmentionable and then putting a gun to my head while forcing me to read the collected works of Norman Mailer - all at the same time, mind you - before they do this and drive me into a coma let's leave out the over-rated and much-discussed Stanley Kubrick. *

Instead I'll mention a beautiful and talented lady by the name of Lesley-Anne Henry who returned back from reporting in Afghanistan last night.

Although she is from Northern Ireland and didn't have the decency to be born in a civilized country like Scotland or the Irish Republic she's one of the best people I've ever had the pleasure of meeting.

Quiet until you draw her out, I honestly don't think she knows how smashing and courageous she is.

She reminds me of why, before we became a nation that lets it's politicians claim amnesia every time they're asked a hard question, why I love journalism.

I know she'll be as embarrassed as Bejesus when she reads this but if you want read her wonderful reporting from Afghanistan you can check it out on www.belfasttelegraph.co.uk.

No, I'm not on commission. But please send any donations to my personal address. You know what editors are like. They'd only keep them.

* Weird paradox. Apart from directing one of the films I have detested most in life, "A Clockwork Orange", he also directed my all-time favourite, "Barry Lyndon". Nowt as queer as folk, is there?