THIS is the Silly Season with a Vengeance, by God. When the study by the Conference of, Heads of Irish Universities (CHIU) on the Leaving Cert makes the lead story, as it did, on Wednesday, one knows this, is indeed the SSWaV.
August need not always be like this. There was August 1914, when the Conference of Heads of Irish Universities could have behaved like Vikings, setting fire to the Book of Kells and making off with the entire congregation of Poor Clares slung over their shoulders, and we might have found space for the story in sports, somewhere between ladies billiards and croquet.
In 1939, the Conference of Heads of Irish Universities might have publicly barbecued John Charles McQuaid and declared its apostasy to the Church of Ireland - on a quiet day the story might just make it into Presbyterian Church Notes as a little filler. On an average busy August 1939 day, it would have headed inwards faster than you could say Adolf.
Wicked Month
But normally Augusts are a month when nothing goes right for news editors. On a day like August 13th, 1996, what news editors want is a jet plane carrying Ireland's most beautiful young actress crashing into a motorway outside London, killing her and a few score other people instantly, followed by days and days of stories about what a sparkling young talent Ireland has lost, such beauty, such charisma, such charm, so much promise - A Nation Mourns.
Today's Sensation
For such a story, your average news editor would willingly feed his children into a combine harvester, on any day of the year, never mind a mid August day when he is gazing at the draft report of the Conference of Heads of Irish Universities and realising, This is It. This is my lead story. I could have been a lighthouse man on Rockall and known the real meaning of excitement; instead I am a news editor who is contemplating making the Conference of Heads of Irish Universities my public gripping news sensation of the day. What would I give for a decent plane crash?
Only what happens in August 1996 is that Lisa Hogan not merely doesn't get killed in her plane crash, she doesn't even get hurt. Not properly, anyway. Now I happen to have met Lisa Hogan, and I like her, and I wish her no harm. But the least she could have done for the news editors of her native land, even if she wasn't going to die for them, was to have a jet crash in which a few score orphans die, and she is gravely injured and lingers at death's door for weeks on end, while news editors howlin gleeful gratitude and send backs to interview her first head teacher, her first boyfriend, her first priest, and possibly even the Conference of Heads of Irish Universities on their opinions about whether or not she's going to make it.
Dammit, she didn't even have the grace to take a single black baby with her as she and her jet plane bounced over half the motorways of southern England, smashing trailers, container lorries, milkfloats and school buses into smithereens. Any self respecting actress with half an eye for the headlines would have at least got her pilot to head for the nearest kindergarten or first communion class.
Magnificent Crash
Not Lisa. Though her plane was reduced to small pieces like an Airfix model, and she managed to destroy an entire truck, nobody was even mildly hurt. Even the lorry driver was found to be intact and scratchless after he had been cut from a cab which resembled a flattened beancan. No doubt Lisa was badly shaken, and I'm sorry about that, old fruit; but Lisa, you do know what happens to other people when their jet plane crashes into a truck? Rescue workers sleuth for bits for weeks and coffins tend to be on the light side, while news editors light their cigars, rub their hands, and cry, Shag The Conference of Heads of Irish Universities, a wonderful, magnificent plane crash has saved our bacon - 50 dead, including the party of blind Tibetan refugees, with powerlines down and the south east of England paralysed by an electricity blackout.
Chortling with glee, the news editor contemplates the outcome of an average Lisa Hoganless plane crash. Latest news is that a van which crashed into the back of the Tibetans' bus for the blind contained vials of deadly pneumonic plague, which is now rampaging through Bournemouth. Mad dogs escaped from an RSPCA vehicle which collided with the plague van, and are now at large in Portsmouth, having savaged and sunk HMS, Ark Royal.
Dogs of Plague
Meanwhile, London's hospitals are in crisis because of the electricity failure. Little Kerry Inglebottom, the three year old tiny tot who has been waiting for a heart lung kidney liver transplant from a specially bred kangaroo, Wayne, has been put on a hand pumped life support system - Sir Archibald Stitchwright, the surgeon rushing to perform the vital operation, was injured when his limousine was hit by a piece of flying debris in the plane crash.
Sir Archibald is in a critical condition in a Bournemouth hospital, where the staff have plague or have been eaten by dogs. He needs a transfusion, but his blood is an unusual type, most commonly found amongst Tibetans. Britain this evening lost its entire supply of Tibetans, and his life hangs in the balance. Reports are just coming through that the kangaroo Wayne has a compatible blood group, and he is prepared to make a life saving donation to Sir Archibald, provided the operation to give his heart lungs liver kidney to tiny tot Kerry Inglebottom is cancelled.
Average Outcome
Thus the average outcome to an average Lisa Hoganless plane crash; and news editors weeping with gratitude. Herewith a request. Sorry if this queers your plans, Lisa. But no more plane crashes, please. You don't seem to have got the hang of them yet. Meanwhile, shag it, we'll run with the CHIU Leaving Cert story. A Nation Snores. Thank you, Lisa. Thank you very bloody much.