The Devil Wears a Onesie

Look at that face. Just look at it. Little would you know that for nine weeks he was the devil incarnate. The worst. And I called him so…to his chubby little face. And then I threatened to leave him in the shed. Alone. To scream. To give us a break. To think about his attitude. To give us a chance to be nostalgic for the time when he wasn’t around. A chance to figure out who’s smart idea it was to create another screaming creature.

The movies and social media would have you believe that when your child is born you will feel an indescribable love never felt before. I - the one riding shotgun in the pregnancy journey - have found this to be fanciful nonsense. A sense of overwhelming responsibility? Definitely. Similar to the feeling you have when you get a new iPhone or when you have to carry a large tray of drinks. There’s a strong urge to protect, but love? Sure I’ve only just met the guy!

So here I am writing about how completely and utterly bleak being a new Dad can be. Because for me it was. Twice. Nobody warned me and I don’t know why. It would have been comforting to know that the thoughts I had weren’t unusual and that they didn’t (necessarily) mean I was unfit to be a parent.

The new guy is our second boy; our spare. Our first was no better. Initially he slept for two weeks and then became a fleshy misery machine until he got to 12 weeks old. Sure, he had wind, and was “just a baby” but give me strength, I’m just a man, and we’re notoriously useless too.

We thought we were “unlucky” with Number 1. Wind. Colic. Reflux. These words were bandied about so that we wouldn’t blame the child for his lack of civility. GPs, midwives, influencers, they’re all in on it. All trying to sell us potions and creams for an undiagnosable ailment that has a single symptom; being a bollox. When we bought Gripe Water I knew for sure we were being hoodwinked. Of course we tried it anyway, just in case. I even splashed it on his face chanting “the power of Christ compels you”.

Anyway, at week 12, Boy 1 cracked a smile and all was forgiven. He’s now great fun and I no longer feel the need to remind him of his demented past. He is not a danger to society, his record has been expunged. We talk whimsically of how we made it through that time, as parents, together, with our sanity hanging by a thread and our dignity around our ankles. We survived.

So Boy 2. Could we be as unlucky? The answer is of course yes. And this is where bad luck turned into a trend. How’s it going? Oh it’s the most wonderful thing, I’ve never loved anything like I love this podgy crying blob of milk and tears. Lies. Survival via delusion masking insanity. Everyone trying to convince themselves and everybody else that they are “coping”. When you think about it “coping” is a pretty low bar. It turns out that these monsters all come out a little underdone. We call ourselves the most dominant species on the planet however a giraffe calf falls 6 feet to the ground when it is born and then immediately stands up and walks. Should we not think about copying the noble giraffe? 15 month pregnancies? Anyone??

At 3 weeks old Boy 2, similar to Boy 1, became “unreasonable”. We tried reasoning with him with gentle questioning;

FOR THE LOVE OF GOD WHAT DO YOU WANT!?!?

His response is to look at us with those unfeasibly big blue eyes and maintain a jet-engine wail that had the neighbours wondering how much they’d get for their house in an oncoming recession. Why does being awake make you so angry? This whole section of life makes me question Darwin because this step of evolution MAKES NO SENSE!

I get the cute thing. He is cute…when he’s asleep. Which is pretty insulting; “he’s a nice guy when he’s unconscious”. At the beginning he sleeps a lot therefore he’s cute and therefore pays for his food and lodging. This is evolution at work. Cute = shelter. The next stage, however, is a test to Darwin’s theory. Screaming at parents = left in a basket outside a fire-station. I don’t see how that’s good for the survival of the human race. (I have discovered that increased cctv has made it harder than ever to anonymously “donate” your offspring to an institution, even churches have upped their game - progress isn’t always for the better).

Luckily for the Spare my wife, during pregnancy, was systematically brainwashed. Throughout the 9 months the prisoner bent the will of the captor through controlling behaviour such as restricting her caffeine intake and changing her wardrobe. I like to have a bit of back and forth in my relationships so to me he was just an odd little angry man my wife brought back from the baby shop. He hadn’t kicked me in the bladder, forbade me from sleeping on my back, or banned me from wine, goats-cheese and prawn paella. My wife already had this wonderfully complicated relationship with him as he’d been slowly drip-punishing her over months. She’d become compliant to his irrational demands. I had no build-up to his bullshit. And then POW! Clean my bum and rock me to sleep while I tell you how much I hate my life and wish I had never been born! (To be fair we never asked him if he’d like to be born which in 2023 seems a little disrespectful to his personal agency).

What also isn’t talked about is that this is a time of grieving. The life you had is gone, in an instant, and you’re not prepared. Many of my friends, like myself, are having their children in their late 30s and early 40s. Which is wonderful. However, the freedom of being childless in your late 30s is blissful. You have disposable income. You have time. You can do something different every evening. You can drink cocktails while at a spin class while having brunch. You have choices and none of them have to be responsible ones. Parental instinct only extends to that of your over-ripening avocado. Then that life is gone without a chance of a good sendoff because your partner is 9 months pregnant and can’t tie her shoelaces or get up from the sofa. Your previous life dies and there’s no funeral. In fact everybody shakes your hand and congratulates you. Which is a bit disrespectful really.

This is my note to the Dads out there who in the depths of despair. The ones who believe that they must be bad Dads because they yelled at their newborn, or called them unholy things, or googled “how to eBay a baby?”. You are not a bad Dad. You have been dropped behind enemy lines with no training and no equipment. Your primary job is to support, console, defuse tension, hold the baby, hold the baby, hold the baby, get this baby out of my face. You are the last line of defence; your job is to not cry when everybody else is crying (FYI the best place to cry is on your own in the car on the M50). There can also be the added toll that you have to abandon your post to go to work. So add a dollop of guilt to this ungodly recipe of inadequacy. It’s bury the pain, smile and carry on time. A survival technique that is music to a therapist’s mortgage repayments. They (the advice-givers) will tell you to enjoy this time as it’s precious, that they grow up so fast; I can’t imagine this is the time they are referring to…unless or course they happen to be sadists.

Spare is now 4 months old. Almost overnight he changed his ways. He now smiles like an idiot and coos like a Disney pigeon. He’s (relatively) easy to put to sleep and rarely cries. It’s a miracle. It’s so miraculous that it’s easy to forget what wretchedness we had to wade through to get here. I think that’s part of the problem; it is trauma that our brains are actively trying to bury to protect us.

This is my way of not forgetting.

If you dislike your newborn you are not alone. They really don’t do much to like. In fact they get in the way of all the things you do like…such as being asleep and being awake. Thankfully it gets better and you forgive them. Eventually you might even get close to forgiving yourself for threatening the defenceless, even if they did deserve it.

So go easy on yourself new Dads. Its shit when you’re in the shit while covered in shit. But it’s worth it. Buy a pair of noise cancelling headphones, stretch out that soon-to-be buggered lower back, and hold the fucking baby. This is your Shawshank moment. You can’t get to Zihuatanejo without crawling through five hundred yards of shit smelling foulness, but it’s certainly worth it.

My Boy the Athlete

I’ve been developing a documentary series for some time about whether it is still possible to raise a successful athlete while behaving like a good parent. Because I’m not sure you can.

My son is 20 months old and he is as athletic as a bag of new potatoes. He has two good feet (when he was born the doctor told me so) and yet he’s only used them for toddling, freestyle puddling, and occasionally chewing. He has kicked a football - with both feet I’ll have you know - but then goes full Neymar rolling around on the grass only stopping to pull the heads of daisies. His throwing is no better. I know you can be a lefty or a righty, but what if they are useless at both? So far his arm talent extends to putting his hands on his head and declaring “oh no” after the ball he was throwing disappears into the hood of his jumper and can’t be found until he is put to bed.

It’s early, he’ll find his way.

But what if he doesn’t? I’m almost 40, I work in TV, my pension is laughable. Who’s going to pay for my retirement?

As I’ve already decided he lacks the talent for the him to find a sport so I’m going to have to pick one for him, and then push him so hard in that direction that we fall out in his teens but he forgives me by his autobiography. It worked for Richard Williams, it worked for Anthony Hamilton, it worked for Emmanuel Agassi, and it worked for Earl Woods. Sort of.

Now which sport?

Swimming is out. I’m not doing the 5am starts and I think it’s harder to love a child that smells of chlorine. It won’t be basketball or rowing due to his father’s sub-par vertical genes. Actually, when it comes to genetics we could probably rule out any sport that require sprints (his father is 99% slow-twitch muscle) or sports that take place anywhere near the equator (his mother’s Irish skin would cause issues).

We can rule out hockey, rugby, GAA and gymnastics. They all sound “fun” but nobody will be laughing when I’m still working at 80 cutting sport montages to music I’ve never heard of.

Horsing requires horses. Sailing require sails (and boats). Snowboarding requires snow and a good doctor. Motor racing requires karts and a very rich father, and as of yet we haven’t found one to adopt him. These are Grade A nepotism sports and although I have met a few movers and shakers in the sporting world I’m not sure McLaren would offer my boy work experience driving an F1 car - even if it was just for the Chinese Grand Prix.

Tennis. Now you’re talking. This is THE sport for the cheapskate pushy parent. And the earlier you start the bigger the head-start. Rackets are relatively cheap. There’s some grass out the back and some road out the front - that’s Wimbledon and the Australian Open covered. Until he’s about 9 he won’t need to play against anyone except his Dad who will stand at one end of the court whacking balls at him. Coach? Who needs a coach? It’s hitting a ball, LOTS of balls. After a win at a junior tournament we may even upgrade to a machine that fires the balls at him at 100mph while I conserve my energy sipping Gatorade and planning my next outburst. He’ll call me Coach. I’ll call him a disappointment (withholding love is a very strong motivator you see). We’ll all move to Florida (not his mother, because of the skin) and I’ll get fat. He’ll win a Grand Slam and I could tell him I’m proud, but no - it’s a short career you see - I’ll wait till after his 3rd or 4th knee operation when it’s clear he’s done, and then I’ll look him in the eyes, one hand on his shoulder, and say “that’ll do pig”. Oh how we will laugh. The stuff of dreams.

But it could all be over by 25. And then what? That’s a lot of physical and mental therapy to pay for over the next 70 years.

Golf?

This is a bigger investment but oh the rewards! Longer career. Delightful clubhouses. Worldwide travel. And you get paid to play with Bill Murray and Brian O’Driscoll on your down time. You don’t even have to win anything to be successful and rich. Now I realise that I’ll have to stump up some course fees but I reckon if we work on some trick shots early on we could create a buzz on social media. People would pay good money to see a 3 year old driving golf balls off a tee held in the mouth of a desperate father. That should get us TikTok famous and therefore sponsorship with Red Bull, or at worst Monster.

This is all moot because his mother would prefer that he went to college and study something, as opposed to my plan where he goes to an American college and studies nothing. This presents a bit of a problem.

I have two options:

• Invest in Child A to become a sport prodigy who then can pay for Child B (there is no Child B) to go to college.

• Send Child A to college (local, nothing fancy) and use him to toughen up Child B (there is no child B) so he becomes aggressively competitive; think Serena, Yaya Toure, Andy Murray.

Maybe what is required is a brood. Using the law of averages we could strike genetic gold while simultaneously creating an environment where you either fight or you go hungry. Again, it would be a risky financial strategy, but as long as you keep costs low by depriving them of space, privacy, attention and material objects it could just work. How many times have we heard an athlete say; “I wanted to succeed because when we were young we didn’t have anything, I’m so glad I can now buy my mother a house in Beverly Hills”...jokes on you, Dad lives with Mum.

There is a lot to think about, and so much to plan with so little time (did I mention he’s already 20 months old).

I could just lock him outside with a football till it gets dark. Worked for Pele.

Sportswashing Inc.

The first principle is that you must not fool yourself, and you are the easiest person to fool. - RICHARD P. FEYNMAN, Nobel Prize winning physicist

I’m a freelancer and I work primarily in sport. I’ve been supporting dodgy regimes for as long as I can remember. And I’ve always known it. How could I not?

And now, with the world falling apart, I’m having to ask myself what part have I played in all this...

Very little would be the sensible answer to this narcissistic question. My four weeks making promos for the 2018 World Cup in Russia hardly instigated a military incursion on a sovereign state.

Of course we did make a lot of promos highlighting the delights of Russia both new and old. And “promos” is short for “promotion”, and we were promoting how delightful Russia was...during a time when we knew that the population was under strict instructions to behave OR ELSE!

We were promoting an idealised version of a country...

Propaganda: dissemination of information - facts, arguments, rumours, half-truths, or lies - to influence public opinion. - BRITANNICA.COM

Well shit.

Ok. Maybe I’m going a bit over the top here, but let’s expand the thought.

What I and my colleagues did was a job. An opportunity came up and we took it. It was a paid job. And when there’s a chance to work on a World Cup, or an Olympics, or you’ve been offered a chunk of work following Formula 1 cars around the world then congratulations, you can now pay your rent and pay for childcare. It’s not like WE decided that the World Cup would be in Russia. And WE didn’t decide the next one would be in Qatar. WE didn’t decide that half the Formula One races would be contested in places with human rights violations. WE don’t decide where boxing matches are fought, or who owns the football clubs who are playing in the games we are covering. WE don’t get to decide if NFL teams are being too lenient when their players beat up their wives, or kids, or their girlfriends. We just want to work on sport, and if possible, not feel so dirty about it when we get home.

I know I’m not the only one who has had thoughts about this. It comes up often, in particular when referencing the World Cup in Qatar; “Do you feel comfortable working out there?” No judgement either way. We all have our reasons. And if Covid taught us anything it is that every job could be our last.

Sport has such an interesting role in regime building (just to be clear I mean bad regimes). It’s easy to host tournaments and big sporting events when you’re a cold hearted bollox, because what comes from being said bollox is that there is no second thought applied when picking the pocket of your population. So cash isn’t a problem. Neither is labour, because of the cash thing, and also the inherent predilection for extreme coercive behaviour. It can be no surprise that the most enticing party is the one where the host has the most money and the greatest number of people serving food and refilling drinks. How can your head not be turned when somebody offers to pay for EVERYTHING. But, is this not sportswashing?

Sportswashing. Spare me any counter-argument.

For those that don’t know this is the term used to define the practice of using sport to improve a nations somewhat dubious reputation. Saudi Arabia are the most aggressive scrubbers currently in operation. Even right now they are interested in doubling their Premier League presence (influence) with a bid for Chelsea.

In 2019 I was in Riyadh working on the Formula E and it was the same weekend Anthony Joshua fought Andy Ruiz Jr. Sportswashing was talked about constantly in the press and although it was widely agreed upon that a great big spin-cycle was taking place the justification was this; by being here we shine a light on the human rights issues. This is horseshit. After the Berlin Olympics in 1936 Hitler was not shamed into changing his ways. Putin has invaded another country after playing host to the 2014 Sochi Olympics, an F1 Grand Prix for the last 7 years, and the football World Cup in 2018. These events don’t humble a regime it emboldens it. You let me do this, let’s see what else you’ll let me do.

We used to call it “boycotting” but this time round we’ve gone all in. Almost every sporting organisation has denounced Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. We’ve got so proficient at cancel culture that we’ve upped the ante and canceled an entire culture. A global renouncement of the ridiculous statement that sport and politics should not mix (a phrase only used by those who want their sport simple and their athletes dumb; question the motives of anyone who uses it!). And now we must ask ourselves whether we, the public, mix with sports and politics. Is it time that we take some ownership for our politics; they are ours after all? Is it time we were less loyal to our sport, to our clubs, to the people we work for, when they become involved with those who have ambitions that we know to be counter to our values?

Golf is currently fighting for its soul. A Saudi backed golf league is being set up to rival the PGA tour. Most golfers have dismissed the competition, thankfully. And bar some baffling support (Mickelson I’m looking at you) there has been a glorious public condemnation of the competition. However - and this is where I go full circle - they are freelancers, beholden to no one, and fantastically wealthy. They have the ability to boycott, abstain and complain with few consequences. Not so for those in a team sport; they play for a club that plays in a league that is represented in a federation, all of which are indebted to stakeholders and sponsors. Conscientious objection has repercussions; just ask Colin Keapernick.

And so what can I do? More than most because I am freelance, and I can choose. I can choose to be more selective as to where I work, and for who I work for. I can choose to earn less money and feel good about it. My work in Russia for FIFA and F1 will now forever be tarnished. I was part of the machine and I knew better. We legitimised a man we knew to be dangerous. And now here we are; outraged and unsurprised, telling tales of how “we saw this coming”.

What saddens me most is that I’ve lost the naivety I had when I started in this business. My ignorance was such a warm cosy blanket. To me it was about performance on the field. It was about bravery and brilliance. Oh to be that guy again! And now everywhere I look I see the strings, and I see how collectively we all pretend we don’t know they exist.

To be clear I don’t chastise anybody who works in these countries or for organisations that have questionable motives. We all must work. My issue is that it has become increasingly hard to navigate a career in sport with a clear conscience while earning clean money.

To conclude; I’m going to try and be better. What more can anyone do? It’s often thought that saying “Yes” is the most important word in a freelancers vocabulary - to please is to work - but after all we’ve seen in the last couple of weeks I think the least we can do is pause before we answer. It will cost us. Of course it will. However, no matter the cost, we must look at the what the Ukrainians are currently paying.

The Blog

It’s been a while since I last wrote an entry here.  And a lot has happened in that time.  The pandemic has continued to be an utter bollox, we’ve had a pandemic child - a pandemic boy to be more precise - we got married, we moved back home to Dublin.  It’s been some ride, I think, it’s hard to know what the hell is going on at any given time let alone remember it.  And that’s what has brought me back to this, the blog, and the act of documentation.

We’ve moved in with my father while we wait for the bin-fire that is the Irish property market to have a word with itself.  I have now reached half my father’s age, which means that I wasn’t around for the other half.  So I’m asking him about it.  How he and my mother survived with three kids and no money in 1960’s Dublin? What was it like to manage book shops in Northern Ireland that were frequently firebombed? What was he thinking having two more kids in his 40s?  Why did his father think the Beatles were never going to make it?  And as you would expect from a life full of life some details have slipped through the cracks of time.

I’ve been wondering about what our child will ask us about what we’re living through now?  I’d maybe like to give him a more succinct answer than “it was a turd of a time my dear boy, now eat your re-hydrated fake ham sandwich and stay out of the solar flares”.

Speaking of the Beatles.

I’ve been watching The Beatles: Get Back, the Peter Jackson documentary that is streaming on Disney+.  It’s a confusing piece of entertainment.  The cameras roll and roll on four men sitting, talking, humming, arriving late, bickering, and occasionally singing the same song over and over.  It’s compelling and ridiculous.  It’s history that lives and is allowed to breath.  And Peter Jackson, who seems to have willingly lost the ability to edit, knows this.  He allows you to hang out in another time in rarified air with rarified talent.  George Harrison yawning and all.  You can smell the damp studio and the cigar smoke.  It’s a social media tonic…if you have the time.

And so the blog.  A document that has the potential to be as interesting as a man yawning.  But isn’t that the job I’m in?! Point the camera, press record, and hope that whatever happens is interesting to somebody, somewhere, at some point in time.

Downer Time

How’s work?

Not great. Sport doesn’t exist anymore so…..

Will you get any help from the government?

Erm, no. Fell through the cracks there - not being either a financial genius or a pandemic Nostradamus and all.

So what now?

Write a blog? They were big in the 90s, due a comeback I’d say, once we’ve listened to all the podcasts.

- My Zoom chat with everybody.

Quickly, and for the record, the above picture was not my attempt to convey my inner “state of the world” turmoil. It was in fact a shot I took while testing out a new portrait setup and I only had myself on hand to “portrait”. I hate photos of myself so that’s what this photo is; Man hating his picture taken. But if the shoe fits……

I’ve never written a blog before. For much the same reason that I post so infrequently on social media. It’s the “seriously, who gives a shit?” reasoning. However we now live in strange times. So if it's terrible I can resort to the “well I was locked up for a few months and lost my mind” defence.

In this post I’m not going to complain about how the industry has collapsed or the fact that I have no work or any money coming in. Or the fact that I’ve still got tax bills to pay (and you thought I didn’t pay tax didn’t you!). No. No complaints here. I’ve got an exasperated pregnant girlfriend for that - our unborn child has been heard to sigh from within the womb, sarcastically sighing. Little (perceptive) shit.

I believe the standard approach when blogging is to provide knowledge and insight that is of value. Let it be known now that I will not being that. I am not a career advisor or a mental health expert. My professional life is about asking questions, not giving answers. So, just so you know, you won’t find any answers here.

So my first post is about a quarantine quandary; time management.

A hyphenate. This (pretentious) term is used to describe somebody who can do many things. This is me. A bit of this and bit of that. I enjoy them all and I want to do them all and why won’t you let me do them all!!. This is immensely frustrating during a time of enforced downtime. What to be getting on with, and for how long, and to what end?!

What and when. What will the industry look like when this is done? And when will that be?

Most of the work I do is very goal orientated. We’re on air in ten seconds, you have three hours to turn around this shoot, we have six minutes with Lewis Hamilton….including setup. It’s amazing how creative you can be when your nuts are in a vice. There are those who need space and time - I need deadlines and a caffeine fuelled heart rate of 160bpm. To finish anything I need a deadline. It’s done because the time is done. Right now? No deadline.

What are you up to? Working on my showreel. Can I see it? Maybe next week, working on my Photoshop skills right now. What have you learnt? Well I’ll get to that after I try these new timelapse techniques. Great, any good ones? I think so but I’m a bit busy with a new factual entertainment idea I have. Can I hear it? No, but I may mention it in my blog…..

I miss the deadlines. I miss the pressure of time. Squeezing it for all it’s worth. I miss done being better than perfect. Because when you’re at home working on a project you’re always working towards perfect and you’re never done.

But this is done and it’s far from perfect. So that’s a start.