In 2020, 26 December, Saint Stephen’s Day, fell on a Saturday. The daily papers in Ireland appeared as usual, but their thin fresh content heavily padded out with reflections on the year cooked long before Christmas. The Irish Times devoted a full page to something awkwardly titled: “The year in people” with the sub-heading: “Who had a good one? Who didn’t?”

I was surprised to see Mary Lou McDonald included among those alleged to have had a bad year.

The explanation reflected the keyboard begrudger mindset that there is always a greater moan to be extracted from the jaws of any cause for cheer. Another example related to the supply of COVID vaccinations that arrived in Ireland the same day. On social media, the good news that vaccine doses had arrived here far earlier than anyone might have predicted a few months ago was drowned out by the alleged scandal that vaccination itself would only begin a few days later. …

As you could certainly be forgiven for not remembering them, the key provisions of Level 1 of the Government’s Plan for Living with COVID-19 included the following:

- 10 visitors to your home from up to 3 different households;

- Gatherings outside of up to 50 people;

- 100 people at weddings and other indoor events;

- Cafes, restaurants and pubs open;

- No restrictions on domestic travel.

Not “normality” as we knew it pre-Covid, but light years more relaxed than the gloom in which we are shrouded today and for the next month at least.

According to Professor Gerry Killeen, chair of Applied Pathogen Ecology at UCC and Founding Member, Independent Scientific Advocacy Group on COVID-19 for the island of Ireland (ISAG), Level 1 is within a couple of months’ grasp. …

[I wish readers as serene a holiday as present circumstances allow. The next blog will appear on 6 January. 2021 can only be better, I hope!]

The Economist business columnist who writes under the pseudonym Bartleby made a confession in the edition of 28 November.

Normally Bartleby’s family waits until December before putting up the Christmas decorations. But this weekend, though it is only November, the festive lights will go up…

He noticed that others were also going full Christmas early:

Some celebrities have already decorated their Christmas trees; Joan Collins, an actress, was pictured next to hers on November 10th. …

The late David Halberstam was a serious investigative reporter who was also able to apply the wider lens of a chronicler and analyst of slower-burning events and trends in the United States through most of the twentieth century. I came across this snippet in his account of the 1950s which is, accurately if unimaginatively, titled The Fifties.

Dwight Eisenhower (popularly shorthanded to “Ike”) was elected to the US Presidency in November 1952.

Hearing that Eisenhower was thinking of choosing him [John Foster Dulles] as secretary of state, the British passed a number of private messages to the President-elect, asking him not to. Ike later said he answered those notes by saying. “No, look, I know something about this man and he’s a little abrupt and some people think he’s intellectually arrogant and that sort of thing. It’s not true. He’s a very modest man and very reasonable and he wants to use logic and reason and good sense and not force….” …

On Saturday, 5 December, Conor Lally reported in The Irish Times on the circumstances of Richard O’Halloran, a 45-year old businessman, father of four from Foxrock in Dublin, who has been prevented from leaving China since February 2019. He is the subject of an exit ban.

The report is based on a conversation with Mr. O’Halloran’s wife, Tara, who is seeking to raise public awareness of the situation because it has dragged on so long. I am relying on Mr. Lally’s report for this account.

Mr. O’Halloran was stopped from leaving China over an investigation into a Chinese businessman, Min Jiedong, jailed for illegally collecting money from Chinese investors in a crowd-funding scheme and using it to buy an aircraft currently leased to an airline in Europe. Mr. Min was the owner of Mr. …

It was an article in The Clare Champion that drew my attention to a new weekly podcast originating in its host’s desire to inject some brightness into the grey grimness of our current circumstances. To paraphrase Fergal O’Keeffe, host of Travel tales with Fergal, we may be obliged to stay put, but we remain free to talk about travelling.

Fergal is an Ennis native, now living in Clonmel and, in normal times, works mainly in the licensed trade. He caught the travel bug in his teens and, now aged 50, has visited 30 countries worldwide. Occasionally, the podcast swerves into other subjects — like the US election. But generally, it comprises a conversation with another seasoned traveller, including a fair sprinkling of well known Clare natives who are also veteran travellers, like Keith Wood and Mark O’Halloran. …

I have mentioned before that 25 years in aircraft financing taught me very little about the technical side of aviation. But one thing I learnt early in my career was that transitioning a leased aircraft smoothly from one operator to the next depends critically on the reliability of the records kept by the outgoing operator of maintenance and repairs it has overseen to the aircraft.

I learnt that lesson from an instance of an airline refusing to take delivery of an aircraft coming out of an operator that had gone bankrupt because, although the records paper trail seemed complete, its technical team suspected that much of the work recorded had not been done properly if it had been done at all. …

I am an “early to bed, early to rise” merchant, so was asleep not long after 10 p.m. (Irish time) on the night of 3 November. I saw no point in staying up for the US election count because there would only be idle chatter and speculation until real figures began to flow in the early hours of the morning.

I woke up at about 3 a.m. and checked the computer to learn that the President had won Florida and seemed sure of winning Texas. Iowa and Ohio were also looking good for him. …