Declan Cashin

Writing: the art of applying the ass to the seat

First world problems: you mightn’t think you have them, but chances are you’re demonstrating symptoms every day without even being fully conscious of it.

In case clarification is required, a ‘first world problem’ (FWP) is a complaint or frustration afflicting (relatively) wealthy, industrialised countries like Ireland that people in poverty-stricken, third world nations would give anything to have to endure.

They can also be known as “middle class problems” or, my particular favourite, “white whines”.

With that in mind, here are 50 common FWPs that you’re likely to hear, encounter, or even catch yourself saying:

1) There’s no WiFi on this train!
2) The battery life on my MacBook/iPad/iPhone/Kindle is crap.
3) Grr, Autocorrect keeps misspelling my text messages/emails.
4) I hate being at home when my cleaner is there.
5) The Facebook App on my smartphone won’t let me ‘check in’ at this restaurant.
6) I can’t find a compact wallet that’s big enough to hold my credit cards and money.
7) I’m in agony after my last personal training session at the gym.
8 ) I don’t have enough ‘bombs’ on DrawSomething.
9) I have to have two separate parties for my 30^th.
10) These TripAdvisor reviews make it impossible to choose a hotel.
11) This crisp bag is only half-full.
12) I loved New York, but it’s impossible to find decent bread there.
13) I can’t believe this coffee shop only has white sugar and not Demerara brown sugar.
14) These [insert expensive designer label here] shoes are really uncomfortable on my feet.
15) It took three days to get my broadband connection fixed! I thought I’d die.
16) It’s appalling that nobody has replaced the water cooler yet.
17) There’s too much drink left over from my house party.
18) Going out four nights in a row is really tough.
19) I hate that I can’t re-seal my carton of coconut water.
20) My 42-inch TV screen is too big for the living room
21) Sorry, I don’t have anything smaller than a e50 note.
22) I can’t get this annoying song out of my head.
23) Oh god, I can’t believe this 3D blockbuster isn’t also available in 2D.
24) Ugh, I hate when they stamp your hand on the way into the VIP area.
25) Ow! That club-entry wristband is stuck in my arm hair.
26) You don’t have quilted toilet paper?
27) It’s ridiculous that I have to use three different remotes for my TV/DVD/BluRay.
28) I have too many dates this week.
29) I don’t have the right change to pay my part of the dinner bill.
30) I can’t believe my bank’s ATM machines have a daily e400 withdrawal limit.
31) Oh man, there’s no Wikipedia entry for that.
32) That movie trailer had too many spoilers.
33) You’re too noisy during sex.
34) This jet-lag is really killing me
35) Aw man, this programme isn’t in HD.
36) This butter is too hard to spread on my toast
37) You just can’t get a good cup of coffee around here.
38) How am I supposed to say all of this in just 140 characters?
39) This is full-fat Coke; I wanted Diet.
40) I accidentally closed all my tabs while booking multiple flights.
41) I’m annoyed that (s)he didn’t attribute that Tweet to me.
42) Ugh, I have to change my bed sheets.
43) There’s not enough room on this table for all these tapas.
44) I’m so tired because I was up until 2am watching TV box-sets.
45) I lost all my contacts when I upgraded iTunes.
46) These self-checkout tills are so annoying.
47) My moisturisor doesn’t have SPF.
48) People who stop at the top/bottom of escalators are just the worst.
49) I can hear that person’s music even though they have their earbuds in.
50) None of my beauty products are 100ml or smaller.

*Reel Life sat down with British director Nigel Cole last week to discuss his new film All In Good Time (out today), a comedy-drama about a young British-Indian newlywed couple who cannot seem to consummate their marriage.

Cole, director of such crowd-pleasers as Made in Dagenham and the immortal Calendar Girls was in fine form, regaling us with tales of working with some heavy-hitting Hollywood names throughout his varied career.

For instance, he cast Sharon Stone and Christopher Walken in the 2008 movie Five Dollars a Day. Isn’t Stone meant to be, erm, just the slightest bit bonkers?

“But she’s so bonkers that she was a laugh,” Cole replied. “I had no worries with her.”

He continued: “Christopher Walken was not a pleasant person, and I did not enjoy working with him. I found him very difficult and almost impossible to work with, mostly because – and I don’t mind saying this – he was horribly drunk.”

Ouch! Cole also spoke about his disappointment at not being consulted about the stage transfer for Calendar Girls and the current plans to transform Made in Dagenham into a West End musical.

“In both cases I’d have loved to be involved, but it wasn’t deemed appropriate,” he explained.

“Okay, I didn’t write either project, but there’s a lot of my ideas and writing even in the films. I have to accept that that’s the way the business works, but I’m going to keep a sharper eye on that in the future.”

Cole finished by hinting that we mightn’t have seen the final incarnation of Calendar Girls either.

“We made the movie for Disney, and part of the contract is that you give Disney the rights for the theme-park ride,” he explained, smiling. “I was always very disappointed that there was never a Calendar Girls theme park ride!”

*Avengers Assemble star Chris Hemsworth was also enthusing to Reel Life recently about his role as 70s racing driver James Hunt in the upcoming Rush.

“Hunt was the rock star playboy of that era,” Hemsworth gushed. “I really admired his passion and dedication, and the visceral approach he had to life on and off the track.

“He was such a contrast to Niki Lauda (played in the film by Daniel Bruhl), who was much more intellectual. James was more intuitive. It made for a great rivalry, and fact gave us a better story than we could have ever come up with in fiction.”

Hemsworth also joked about the demands that his physically gruelling roles have made on his body over the past few years.

“I was saying to my wife that I had all the symptoms of a pregnant woman over that period,” he said. “I was hungry all the time, I was really tired, and really moody. My hair was falling out. I just went from one extreme to another.”

*From Sunday until Thursday, the Lighthouse Cinema is hosting ‘Fight House’, a celebration of global action films selected by Gareth Evans, director of the highly-acclaimed The Raid, which opens everywhere next week.

In addition to a special preview of The Raid on Sunday, the week will see screenings of classics like Merantau Warrior, Hard Boiled, Akira, Shogun Assassin, Old Boy, The Wild Bunch, and a Jackie Chan double bill comprising Police Story and Project A, Pt 2. See www.lighthousecinema.ie

My Upfront column in ‘Day & Night’ in today’s Irish Independent

When I first announced to folk that I was upping sticks to move to London town two years ago, certain loved-ones expressed concerns – well, “opinions” – about what living in this quaint little city would entail.

“Oh, won’t be long ‘til you’re hooked on crystal meth,” intoned one worldly pal. “They’re all mad into that in London.”

Others predicted that I’d turn into a gym-obsessed, body-image-fixated narcissist. Still more predicted a transformation into a skanky man-floozy scoring with a different gentleman every night of the week (now, now, be nice).

“Christ, who’d have the time, let alone the energy for that?” I’d ask.

“That’s what the meth will be for,” came the apparently logical reply.

As much as I hate to disappoint people, I think I’ve managed to dodge just about all the fates that were predicted for me back then. All but one, that is.

Try as I might, I haven’t been able to successfully see off the all-pervasive encroachment of hipsterdom into my London life.

Alarming, I know. Believe me, it has been pretty hard for me to accept and admit to others.

It’s like that thunderbolt moment that we’ve all had – and if you haven’t yet, trust me, you will – when you find yourself saying/doing something exactly in the manner of your mother and/or father.

This, then, forces you to concede that, despite your best efforts to rebel, to break with the past, and to defy your genetic and genealogical destiny, you are turning into your parents after all.

Oh, how smug I once was prior to my hipster epiphany. I’d mock that social subset as desperate try-hards. I’d consistently point out what I believed to be the paradox of their “homogenous individuality”. I’d pity their staggeringly self-conscious attempts to be avant- garde and to exist outside the mainstream.

One London-Irish friend in particular bore the heavy brunt of my hipster slagging, and, to give him credit, he did so with grace.

Borrowing a concept from the comedy series New Girl, I’d even introduced an imaginary ‘douche-bag jar’ into which he had to pop a pound every time he said something pretentious or, to state it rather inelegantly, ‘wanky’.

All changed, changed utterly. My awareness started small. Gradually my jeans grew skinnier and skinnier, not to mention more colourful. “Hey, that’s just the fashion,” I reassured myself.

But then I noticed that the grubbier and older my clothes and shoes were, the better. I became more interested in second-hand gear.

I then formalised the metamorphosis by buying a new pair of glasses with the thickest, blackest frames imaginable. That’s essentially the main hipster badge of identity.

The other weekend I was out for brunch with friends in a [sound the hipster klaxon] East London restaurant when we spotted people walking through a giant Smeg fridge door.

The waitress informed us that it was the “secret” entrance to a speakeasy cocktail bar downstairs. “How cool,” I said aloud, and I swear, a clap of thunder struck ominously right at that moment.

I should probably point out that on that sunny, April day in question, I was also wearing my decidedly festive Christmas jumper because I thought it would be “quirky” and “cool”.

So yes, the situation is looking hopeless. I’m aware of it now, so am trying to curb the worst hipster influences.

For instance, I take some pride in the fact that I’ve resisted starting a Tumblr blog devoted to pictures of every meal I consume – one of the big hipster trends right now.

I’m also not wearing capes or carrying ornate walking sticks around with me – for now. I cling to such small victories.

But if by chance you do happen to see me dress, act, and live in exceedingly outré and “ironic” ways, please don’t call me a hipster. I don’t think I could bear it. Instead, just put it all down to the meth.

My Upfront column from ‘Day & Night’ in last Friday’s Irish Independent

If you’re married, partnered off, or – most lethal of all – just recently loved up, the likelihood is that at some point you’ll feel the need to distil your probably-hard-won experience into words of advice for your single friends still out there trading on the meat market.

You’ll mean well, but trust me, you won’t be thanked for it. Instead, there’s every chance that you’ll come across to the singletons in your life as smug, patronising, and hypocritical.

I’m single, and have been for a while, so I’ve gritted my teeth and nodded politely through more than my share of such pep talks from the less romantically-challenged.

And while I’m aware that this might make me sound like a shrill, nit-picking, over-sensitive prig, I’m here to alert the love gurus amongst you to the most egregious offences in the field of advising single people:

*“You’re too fussy”: This one is sure to get any single person’s back up. There are so many implications in that simple little statement, not the least of which concerns the person saying it. Is (s)he admitting that they are only partnered because they gave up and ‘settled’?

Plus, as any regular dater will tell you, people that you might have been out with a few times can often simply cease all contact for reasons you’ll never understand. Does that make one “too fussy”?

Those circumstances are completely outside of your control, short of doing a Kathy Bates-in-Misery by kidnapping and imprisoning your quarry in an attempt to make them love you. And that hasn’t worked for me. Yet.

*“Why are you still single?” Ah, now you’re getting all existential on us. There are a myriad of responses to this one – none of which are likely to be satisfactory for anyone – but you could do a lot worse than my friend Susan’s favourite rejoinder: “I’d rather be on the shelf than in the wrong cupboard”.

*“I have/know the perfect person for you”: This one often says more about the setter-up than the set-upee. How many of us have met someone on a supposedly trusted friend’s recommendation, only to end up at the end of the night thinking, ‘Not only does my friend not know me in the slightest, on the basis of this, (s)he might not even like me’?

That’s at the more extreme end of the scale, of course, but only just about. For gay guys this can be particularly hazardous. All too often, well-intentioned, if unimaginative friends, bless them, think the only thing two men need in common as the basis for a great romance is that they’re both gay.

Blind dates are like politics, in that it’s all about the vetting. If you can’t entirely, confidently vouch for a person, then don’t put them forward for your constituent’s endorsement.

*“Well, this is how I met my partner…”: Good for you! Now excuse me while I go out and recreate the exact same circumstances under which you found love. I hope you have a good memory for detail as we’re going to have to be absolutely precise for this very scientific experiment to work out. Yay, exciting!

*“Are you making enough of an effort?” I’m all for the idea of widening your social circle in order to enrich your life and/or meet new people and potential paramours.

But I won’t be lectured on joining that trampoline class or ‘Dance like Gaga’ workshop by someone who met his/her current partner the same way they met all their previous ones: while stocious drunk in a nightclub.

*“When you stop looking, then you’ll find someone”: You need to be careful wheeling this one out. After all, advocating that you basically make no effort subsequently renders all other advice to singletons null and void.

Which also brings to mind another sound bit of guidance to you love doctors: when you stop offering advice, that’s when we’ll come looking for it.

I was on Dave Fanning’s radio show last weekend talking about the things not to say to single people. You can find a link to listen to the item here.