Bloody Sunday, in numbers
They say that numbers give a more distant perspective on things.
13 – the number of people who died on January 30, 1972 when they were shot British Army forces attempting to contain a Republican civil rights march in Derry.
14 – the number of people who ultimately died as a result of the Army shootings: John Johnston (59), an innocent passer-by, died in mid-June from injuries sustained after he was shot in the leg and left shoulder.
10 - the number of printed volumes of the findings of Saville's inquiry.
79 - the number of days between the shootings and the publication of the Widgery Tribunal findings.
90 – the number of witnesses whose testimony was heard by Widgery.
21,053 – the number of words in Widgery’s publication, including appendices.
9,417 – the number of days between the publication of the Widgery findings and Tony Blair’s announcement of a new enquiry, to be headed by Lord Mark Saville.
4,519 – the number of days between Blair’s announcement and the publication of Lord Saville’s report.
435 – the number of days of ‘Main Hearings’ held by the Saville Inquiry, which also held two days of preliminary hearings, two days of anonymous hearings, and five days of interlocutory hearings.
2,500 – the approximate number of statements received by Saville’s inquiry.
922 – the number of witnesses whose testimony was heard by Saville – over ten times the number called by Widgery.
30 million – the approximate number of words of testimony given to the Saville inquiry.
1,965 - the time, in days, taken by Saville and his team to prepare their full written report after the last day of hearings.
5,000+ – the number of pages in the printed edition of Lord Saville’s findings, split across ten volumes.
£190.3m - the costs incurred by the Saville Inquiry up to February 2010, including £15m in temporarily relocating to London to hear evidence from former soldiers who couldn’t travel to Derry over security concerns.
14,016 – the number of days between Bloody Sunday and the publication of the Saville Inquiry’s findings.
3,507 – the number of other people killed during The Troubles between 1969 and 2001.
On art
In the last week I’ve happened to find myself in two different museums – the Irish Museum of Modern Art in Kilmainham, Dublin, and the rather excellent Ulster Museum at the Botanic Gardens in Belfast (the latter comes particularly recommended – it’s basically a Best Of museum with brilliant stuff across all disciplines).
Two thoughts struck me as I wandered around both:
- Isn’t there something sad about the fact that, although having a famous artist’s collections distributed around the world means more people have greater access to them, you can’t go to any one place to see an entire artist’s collection? I was meant to be in Amsterdam earlier this week (cheers, Eyjafjallajokull). It would make sense that I would be able to take in the entire collection of Piet Mondrian – an artist whose works have always been particularly striking to me – while in his hometown, or at least his home country. Yet, I saw some of his stuff in MoMA, New York, and more of it in IMMA last week.
Isn’t it sad that there aren’t individual go-to places for this kind of stuff? To me it’s a shame that there’s nowhere where you can see every non-privately owned Warhol / da Vinci / Monet/ Mondrian / whoever.
- Being a geek, and as something of a corollary to the first thought, it strucke me as a shame that that whatever about the merits of having all an artist’s work in one place (because, fair enough, people are allowed to have private collections in one place or another) – why isn’t more of an effort made to harness the internet in allowing people enjoy art from a distance? Why should I have to go to IMMA or the Ulster Museum or MoMA to enjoy a piece of art on tour? Why can’t the Roy Lichtenstein Foundation reproduce graphics of every piece of work the guy painted?
And, more pressingly, why don’t more people create more art for the internet? It seems to me that nobody creates artistic exhibitions made directly for the screen (other than in video form, but I mean in the more traditional sense of exhibition – static artwork and words, etc).
Here’s an idea: make an exhibition that instead of being limited to one place at any one time, exists everywhere for everyone to see. Set up a website, ask people to hit F11 and click the ‘Enter’ link, and use the screen to create and showcase art.
It’s something I’ve been pondering, and something I might revisit. Watch this space.
(And yes, I haven’t blogged in ages. Suffice it to say I’ve been sleeping up.)
Things I’m Going To Do Now That I’m Finished At The University Observer
- Catch up on sleep.
- No, really, catch up on sleep. A LOT of sleep. Most production weekends sleep is a sincere luxury.
- Corollary to this, I’m going to try and address the bags under my eyes. You could fit a small independent republic in them right now. I’ve always had some bags, but not on this scale. Cucumbers and wet tea bags ahoy.
- Exercise more. Production weekend diets are delicious, but fail.
- Try to figure out what to do with every second weekend of my life.
- Observe a graaaaaaaaaaand stretch in the evenings.
- Try to get a job. Interested?
- Write a manual on the nuances of the Observer website and how the whole thing is synced with our Twitter and Facebook, as well as how the whole podcast (and iTunes integration) thing works. It’ll be far too mind-boggling for anyone to try and fly blind in so some kind of crossover document is very much called for.
- Get back blogging on a regular basis. (No, really!)
- Bid a fond farewell to a university that has given me a hell of a lot in the last six years. I’ve gotten far more than a degree out of UCD: I got a sense of what I want to do with my life, I’ve gotten to present radio shows and edit newspapers, be the secretary of an association with 23,000 members, and – far most importantly – make a fortunate series of very, very good friends, too plentiful to name, who I’ll try not to leave behind me as I go on to whatever comes next.
- Oh, and I’m not going to go about setting up a new country again. Well, not for a while… *wink*
- Go to Amsterdam for a few days in May with the other half. Can’t wait.
- Master the Italian language. I started learning it last summer using a Pimsleur guide and love it. (Note to self: also rescue your once-formidable, now-negligable command of German.)
- Reintroduce myself to the friends I’ve become sadly all too distant from as a result of working 60-hour weeks.
- Thank the people who convinced me to go for the Observer job in the first place. You know who you are – I owe you for pushing me over the edge.
- Really miss the fun, political incorrectness, late nights, early mornings, sport-watching and everything else that I shared with the rest of the team. To Sean, Conor, Grace, Sweetman, Matt, Peter, James, Farouq, Scally, Killian, Bridget and to Catriona: thank you for making my year such a blast. There was never a day where I didn’t want to go into work – the Observer has been far more than a mere job. You’ve been my second family and I’ll remember it for a long long time to come.
- Finally, I’m going to make sure my long-suffering girlfriend Ciara gets to see a little more of my face, and that she’s full aware of how much I’ve needed and cherished her patience with me when I’ve had other things on my mind over the last eight months. The Observer is an all-consuming black hole of time and I’d fully understand if I’d been told to pack my bags for the short attention she’s gotten this year – but I haven’t. She’s been a rock all year and I’ll owe her forever.
So. What’s next?
Journalism’s not dead – just newspapers
I’ve got some time off this week while UCD’s on a mid-term break so in my lazy bedridden mornings, I’ve been catching up on reading, watching, and generally consuming things that I’ve had on the long finger for a bit.
One of the big things on the list – well, not that I considered it a major point, but ‘big’ in the sense that it was 90 minutes long and substantially larger than I’d anticipated – was Steve Jobs’ iPad keynote address.
This brought me nicely to a post on MediaGuardian’s PDA blog featuring five videos on how different magazine or newspaper publishers might use the touch-screen platform that the iPad will offer.
There’s a few varying approaches but these two are my favourites, showing exactly how phenomenal the power of a versatile large, touch-screen interface when combined with the fluidity of omnipresent online connectivity.
The Young Men Dying To Stay Thin
Following on from my last post, an article I wrote for the day job earlier this month on the topic of male body image and eating disorders. I was disappointed that in the end I only got to speak to one authoritative voice – a lot of other interviews fell through at the last minute – but I did my best nonetheless.