Incredible events even during what media folk always called the Silly Season in years gone by. I’m agog and a google and bamboozled entirely by the news that Bill Clinton’s fictional book "The President Is Missing" is already a million seller.
I’m even more bamboozled by the announcement that former Sinn Féin leader Gerry Adams is to be launching a cookbook well before Christmas. Both releases are authentic news, by all accounts, but it has to be stated that it is surreally apt that the yarns are hitting the headlines during the ritual Silly Season on both sides of the Atlantic.
Read more: Sinn Fein’s Gerry Adams planning on launching a cookbook in time for Christmas
Ye can imagine the nature of many of the quips circulating already over here about the upcoming Adams cookbook! Suffice it to say that many of the bloggers on the various sites are expecting a good recipe for culinary items such as sherry trifles (!) and ORANGE squash.
We will all know the answers to these quips very shortly indeed. The impending cookbook is certain to be as big a seller over here, at least pro rata as the Clinton epic.
There is no evidence that Adams, who has several previous books to his credit, including a memoir, was assisted in the latest work by any ghostwriter, though Clinton enlisted the skillful aid of bestselling author James Patterson in his handiwork about a president going missing. I have to say it again that the mind boggles.
But sure in the high midsummer it all amounts to a blast of good old Irish craic to divert our thoughts as far away as possible from the many dreadfully cruel realities all around the globe.
There are earthquakes and famines and droughts in the natural world, and these are combining with bloody civil wars about everywhere across Africa and the Orient and South America to name just a few hot spots.
Even Mother England is currently in the throes of a civil war at the top of the sundered Tory Party, deeply divided over elements of their Brexit decision and also over the statements of former Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson who, again surreally, with his mop of blonde hair, uncannily frequently resembles a certain powerful president I do not have to name at all. Have a scan of the photos yourselves and immediately see what I mean.
Read more: Boris Johnson advocates for Irish sea bridge between Ireland and Scotland
On a slightly more reflective note, after many years working in the media I long ago formed the opinion that the reality of being in the world limelight for any period of time can prove to be dramatically addictive in some fashion for those who have either been powerful leaders of their communities or, the other side of the spinning coin of life, for the victims of tragic events, or dramatic events indeed during their lives.
I think, for example, it will take a long time for those little soccer players and their coach so heroically rescued in Thailand recently from the depths of a flooded cave there, to adjust to their aftermaths back home in their villages long after the cameras have stopped clicking.
I do not know the trigger behind the Clinton bestseller but, knowing the Irish psyche quite well, I would not be at all surprised to discover in times ahead that the Adams cookbook was, in fact, some kind of human enough response to the reality the cameras and brighter floodlights are following his successor Mary Lou McDonald and leaving him somewhat in the shadows.
That kind of thing happens far more often than one would expect. The limelight truly does have both a hypnotic and addictive element integrated into its bright bulbs.
Breaking news towards the end of this Silly Season floating strongly across the Irish Sea about the intriguingly complex Brexit issue which is agitating John Bull so much and which has many troublesome facets about it for Ireland as well.
Apparently there is ever more strongly emerging evidence based on reliable polls indicating that the majority of English citizens now would prefer to renegotiate the decision to leave the EU, and probably remain in the EU, rather than being cast adrift from European institutions in a rapidly upcoming and strengthening fear of no deal being reached at all in the end. It is the Silly Season over there for sure.
I wonder how many of these troubled Brits will buy Adams’ cookbook this Christmas as a stocking filler? We’ll leave it there for the moment.
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