The Last Straw: The widespread coverage given to Tuesday's "healthy eating challenge" for TDs demonstrates the genuine commitment of the media in helping to tackle the serious problems caused by quiet news days (and by overeating), writes Frank McNally.
But in case you missed the reports, the annual challenge - part of the anti-obesity campaign by the Department of Health and Children - required each of the participating TDs to feed a family of four for one day on less than €16, choosing only fresh, wholesome products. The keynote of this year's event was "healthy portions".
Diet is a very important issue. I must write about it sometime. But I mention it here only because, during a quiet moment following the politicians around the supermarket, it struck me that the Department of Communications should hold a similar event involving TDs: in this case to promote the use of clear, concise language in public life.
As anyone who has to listen to listen to political speeches for a living knows, the problem of portion size is not confined to food. There are few politicians who, having made their point, will not offer the consumer 25 per cent extra free if they can get away with it. But the quality of speeches is also an issue, especially with more and more politicians resorting to the opaque terminology of modern management-speak, instead of English. Many top politicians now have major opacity issues because of this. Indeed, without wishing to sound alarmist, opacity has reached epidemic proportions in public life, and we need to act quickly to save our children.
So the way I see it, the annual healthy speaking challenge would require TDs to express an opinion about something (for example the difficulty of feeding a family of four on €16 a day) in less than 300 words, using only fresh and, where possible, locally produced ideas. Marks would be deducted for fat content, artificial colouring, and unnecessary additives such as "in respect of", "in relation to" and "at this juncture". TDs caught using the phrase "I want to say this, and I want to say it very clearly" would be disqualified.
If the chosen subject was Northern Ireland, some ambiguity might be allowed. We all know it would be disastrous for peace if - God forbid - the Northern parties all had the same understanding of what was going on; so for the foreseeable future, ministers for foreign affairs will get away with talking about the need for "effective multilateralism", whatever that is. Even so, any participating TD attempting to suggest that we have arrived at a moment when "hope and history rhyme" would be publicly horse-whipped, or sent to jail long enough to memorise the collected works of Shakespeare.
We mustn't be too hard on politicians, I know. If you're in any way vulnerable to making speeches - and the condition is often hereditary - politics is a very unhealthy lifestyle. Between major speaking engagements, there are all those pub openings and school visits - a few words here, a few words there - not to mention the insatiable demands of the broadcast media, with their tempting sound-bite opportunities: the finger-food of modern communications. The more you speak, the more your appetite for speaking expands. And yet, if you're hoping to get on in politics, it's vital that you say as little as possible during these speeches, because meaningful comment will only get you in trouble. So before you know it, you're part of the opacity epidemic.
But I see that the author of a new book on the subject - Gobbledegook: How Cliches, Sludge, and Management-speak are Strangling our Public Language - blames journalists for not taking offenders up on the guff they use. Although Don Watson claims the problem is not as great here as in his native Australia, he laments what he sees as a soft line on language-abusing politicians: "The media never seem to say, hold on, what did you just mean?" If only it were that simple. Covering Question Time in the Dáil, you often find yourself wanting to say to the Taoiseach or one of his ministers: "Hold on, what did you just mean?" But then you realise that you nodded off for a moment during his contribution, so maybe you missed the relevant bit. The soporific quality of many Dáil speeches cannot be exaggerated. Most ministers have standard replies that could tranquilise an elephant: the civil servants have probably designed them with that general intention. And yet, when you wake up - perhaps startled by the sound of a comatose colleague keeling over beside you - you always feel it's your own fault for not being able to concentrate. Besides, even if you did summon the courage to ask: "Hold on, minister, what did you just say?", the ushers would throw you out.