EU. The same indifference can be seen in France.
A poll over the holiday in France found out who were the top 50 personalities in France. The new French president, the invisible man, M.Hollande, didn't even appear! To make matters worse, 62 per cent of French people feel decidedly nostalgic for the franc, which disappeared in favour of the euro 11 years ago.
As for Ireland and the "disparitions" of Christmas and the New Year. The passing of a bard in Ireland is always the occasion of the greatest grief and quite rightly so. Dennis O'Driscoll was a noted poet, a gentle and unassuming person with the highest literary attributes, who died on Christmas Eve, aged 58.
For all his working life,since he was 16, he had been working in the offices of the Revenue Commissioners, the Irish tax office, and only retired from there recently. He found nothing incongruous in having a day job like this (shades of T.S.Eliot) but it didn't stop him writing some amazingly down to earth, uncompromising, honest, almost brutal, poetry. Last summer, he
brought out his latest book of poetry and strangely a reviewer found that it contained much about dying young. The reviewer hoped fervently that what O'Driscoll wrote wouldn't come true, but
sadly, it did.
If you have a look at his website, www.dennisodriscoll.com, you'll see what I mean about his poetry. He also wrote extensively about the art of poetry, including many collaborations with Seamus Heaney. His passing has left a huge void, the death of one of the best contemporary poets anywhere in
Europe.
His death came shortly after a government minister took his own life by hanging, just a few days before Christmas. The budget that was brought in in early December had many measures that heaped misery on people with few resources, including families with sick children, and pensioners, yet was an
almost total breeze for anyone fortunate to be well-off. The rich scarcely noticed the December budget; the sick and the poor certainly did. As a result, government ministers endured an
unprecedented outpouring of truly vile comments from the public, using social media websites. The ferocity of attack on politicians by the public was unprecented. No-one had ever done this to long-suffering politicians before, using Twitter and Facebook. The sheer torrent of abuse from the public
aimed at politicians was said to have been the main reason for the minister's suicide.
Then on the Thursday after Christmas, the 16 year old son of two of the best-known people in Ireland's restaurant industry, was working on a car at home when it collapsed on top of him. The Clarkes, husband and wife, run L'Ecrivain restaurant in Dublin, often feted by Michelin for its
culinary excellence. The death of their teenage son, a motor enthusiast, in an accident at home, has been the occasion of much outpouring of grief.
This theme has continued into the New Year. One of Ireland's best known mountaineers, Ian McKeever, was leading an expedition up Mount Kilimanjaro in Tanzania when the day after New Year's Day, an electric storm burst around them and the leader was killed by lightning.
With all these awful events, it's hard for anyone to feel inspired about the New Year, but at least, in France, there are some pieces of good news.
One of the few good things that Sarkozy decided to do when he was president was sanction a new, ultra contemporary concert hall for the Philharmonie of Paris. The futuristic design was to go ahead in the Parc de Villette in north-east Paris. The hall was designed by Jean Nouvel, who also designed the Institut de Monde Arabe in Paris and the Quai Branly ethnographic museum, also in Paris. The new concert hall is a really daring design, but its'running two years late and probably won't open until 2015. It's also costing twice as much as originally planned, now €400 million, but the current
government has decided that as so much has already been built, they may as well continue on to completion. It's a great French tradition-French presidents always want to leave outstanding works behind them. Mitterand was the greatest in this respect, including the new national library in Paris, all
glass, even if they forget to include proper shades onthe windows to protect the books!
The French love grands projets. Another that's coming to fruition is the Berges de Seine project to liven up the long neglected banks for the River Seine in Paris. The idea is to create parkways, walkways and cycle paths beside the river as well as five floating gardens with restaurants and
cafés. With all this new flora and fauna, the first results should become evident in 2013, including the stretch from the Orsay museum to the Pont d'Alma.
At least we have one thing to look forward to, spring in Paris. Just ignore all the junk that floats down the Seine, including shoals of dead fish, and look out for the new riverside attractions!