I was walking down the street in London Wednesday just gone when I was accosted by a particularly dirty and shabby-looking homeless woman who asked me for a couple of pounds for some food. I got out my purse and took a ten pound note out and asked, 'If I give you this money, will you buy wine with it instead of food?' 'No, I had to stop drinking years ago', the homeless woman told me.'Will you use it to go shopping instead of buying food?' I asked. 'No, I don't waste time shopping,' the homeless woman said. 'I need to spend all my time trying to stay alive.'
'Will you spend this in a beauty salon instead of food?' I asked. 'Are you NUTS !' replied the homeless woman. ' I haven't had my hair done in 20 years!'
'Well,' I said, 'I'm not going to give you the money. Instead, I'm going to take you out for dinner with my husband and me tonight.' The homeless woman was shocked. 'Won't your husband be furious with you for doing that? I know I'm dirty, and I probably smell pretty disgusting.' I said, 'That's okay. It's important for him to see what a woman looks like after she has given up shopping, hair appointments, and wine.'
Good story. Funny and to the point.
Take another which appeared in Harpers last week. The headline ran 'Priests are Drink Drive Risk'. Fair enough. Has someone uncovered stats relating to Priests' driving habits (sic)?; the state of their cars? drinking on the job?. Well, I should go further and quote the opening line. It went as follows, 'Priests in Ireland have voiced their concern at a proposed cut in the drink driving limit.' It goes on to have a belly laugh at the expense of priests, the Eucharist and drink driving laws.....not anywhere mind but specifically in Ireland. Harpers quotes Reuters.
The Reuters column was based on a piece on RTE where Fr Brian d'Arcy agreed that due to the lack of priests in rural Ireland it was common for a priest to say a few masses and drive to each of them every Sunday morning. He equally agreed that 'you could be over the limit'.
Currently Harpers is running a series of articles that come under the title, 'The Alcohol Debate'. This is dead serious and asks questions of the drinks industry as well as other interested parties. How can we stop irresponsible drinking behaviour?
Well maybe it would help if Harpers began by choosing how it 'bounces' stories along from the likes of Reuters! Harpers finished off with the line , 'Anything you'd like to confess Father?'
There is no drink driving culture among priests in Ireland. They are breathalysed as often as anyone else on the roads. No priest is claiming that it should be otherwise; indeed insurance companies would notice if 'priests in Ireland' as a category were causing accidents.
RTE and Reuters are news agencies and are not members of the drinks trade. Harpers is a member of both. As such it cannot afford to use news in a loose manner. If it does it becomes part of the problem where the alcohol debate does not include the drinks trade media.
'Priests are Drink Drive Risk' would not be allowed as a road side advert. It is simply not true. Yet Harpers is comfortable to use it as a banner headline.
The story I opened with is funny. It's a joke. Would it be so funny in a Salvation Army magazine or a Simon Community bulletin?
