How little of permanent happiness could belong to a couple who were only brought together because their passions were stronger than their virtue.

Jane Austen, Pride and Prejudice, 1811
English novelist (1775 - 1817)

Your Soul Is Connected to the Fall

You are a somewhat sensitive soul with a tough exterior. You are street smart and wise about the world. You have the heart of a poet, but you're not too eager to let anyone else see it. You are very creative and deeply talented. You are still looking for the perfect outlet for your expression. You embrace change and think the cycles of life are beautiful. You don't shrink away from the darker elements of life.

Quisling – noun

A traitor collaborating with an occupying enemy force.

- ORIGIN from Major Vidkun Quisling, who ruled Norway during the Second World War on behalf of the German occupying forces.

You must have a room, or a certain hour or so a day, where you don't know what was in the newspapers that morning... a place where you can simply experience and bring forth what you are and what you might be.

Joseph Campbell
US folklorist & expert on mythology (1904 - 1987)

I went to Electric Picnic (EP) this year for the first time and it was the bee’s knees and the cat’s pajamas. I took the reasonably comfortable approach and stayed in a podpad which was the cutest thing! The podpads are very colourful and look a bit like oversized kennels.

There was loads to see and do at EP, in fact it was impossible trying to fit it all in. I couldn’t get over the number of different areas that there were and how much non-music stuff there was to do. It was also great being able to enjoy lots of different types of yummy food too. The Body and Soul area had some fantastic stuff set up and was a great place to chill out. I also enjoyed the Mindfield area which had a mix of poetry, science, Irish language, debate and Theatre.

Below is a little list of some of the good and bad things about EP from my perspective:

GOOD

Slobbing out in wellies and over the knee socks
Dancing to Chic
Posh Wash – the first shower was heaven on earth
Florence and the Machine
The demented woolly hat that I bought in the Friday night (which kept me warm all weekend)
BellX1 on Sunday night
Mochas & carrot cake combo
The beanbags in the Spoken Word tent
The Flaming Lips – madness in a tent
Mao Café duck dinner
Imelda May and her band
Curled up and cosy in a sleeping bag in the pod listening to the rain outside on Sunday morning
Dancing to Amadou & Mariam outside the Crawdaddy tent
The little bookshop in the Mindfield area
Salty Dog Saloon
[Stopping for food in Abbeyleix on the way and on the way down, an experience not to be missed and one that was part of the overall Electric Picnic experience]

BAD

Queuing for toilets
Portaloos in general
Having to put on wellies to go to the toilet in the middle of the night
Never venturing out with toilet and baby wipes
The Tulla Ceili Band playing until 4am (a non-toilet related ‘bad’ item!!!)
Gourmet burgers
Not having enough time for everything e.g. the cinema and the silent disco

You Are Vanilla Iced Coffee

You are subtle and modest. You tend to hang back in a crowd and watch what's going on. You actually have a lot to offer, but you make sure not to boast about it. You are sweet, loyal, and accepting. You are a true friend to everyone in your life. You bring out the best in people. You are secure enough to let others shine.

Happiness depends upon ourselves.

Aristotle
Greek critic, philosopher, physicist, & zoologist (384 BC - 322 BC)

Ratiocination – noun (formal)

The formation of judgements by logic; reasoning.

- DERIVATIVES ratiocinate verb ratiocinactive adjective
- ORIGIN Latin ratiocinari ‘deliberate, calculate’.

As long as you derive inner help and comfort from anything, keep it.

Mahatma Gandhi
Indian political and spiritual leader (1869 - 1948)

Last year I read ‘The Undercover Economist’ and ‘The Logic of Life’ which were both written by Tim Harford. Tim is an economist and he also writes for the Financial Times (FT). He has two weekly columns for the FT magazine which are “The Undercover Economist” and “Dear Economist”. He also writes editorials for the FT and presents a Radio 4 programme called ‘More or Less’. I really enjoyed both of his books because he writes about the economics of everyday things. I did a little bit of economics years ago as part of my degree and I found it extremely boring. One lecturer spent his whole time drawing incomprehensible graphs and I think his vocabulary only consisted of four words… supply, demand, elastic and inelastic! I’ve recently started to read Tim’s weekly columns for the FT and I really enjoy them. I’ve nabbed one of his “Dear Economist” columns from the FT website to give you a flavour of what they are like but you can go to the Financial Times website for more or check out his own website timharford.com .

Dear Economist: What’s a girl to focus on – looks or brains?

My 15-year-old is disinclined to work for her GCSEs, saying her time is better spent preening herself in preparation for assignations with her delightful, diligent, privately educated, moneyed boyfriend. She insists the money spent on nail-painting, hair-colouring and the like is an investment and will be more than repaid when he marries her. Is she deluding herself?

A curious mother

Dear Curious Mother,

Surprising as this may seem in the 21st century, your daughter’s strategy is not unusual. Evidence on speed-dating gathered by the economists Michèle Belot and Marco Francesconi shows that women are attracted by rich men, while men focus more on a woman’s physical appearance. Lena Edlund, another economist, has found that in the areas of her native Sweden where the wealthiest men live, women of prime marriageable age are over-represented.

However, your daughter is only 15; for Edlund, “prime marriageable age” is 25-44. Your daughter is either going to have to get her hooks into this chap unusually early, or she is going to have to keep him on the boil for another decade – a lot of nail-painting.
Not only is she concentrating her investments into a single asset by abandoning her education, but she may even be making her main goal harder to achieve. Belot and Francesconi discovered that a strong social trend towards “assortative mating” means that although educated, high-achieving men are not interested in marrying a rich woman, they do like educated high-achieving women, rather than shallow girls with shiny nails.
Your daughter should learn to work hard and look good at the same time. Not only will it advance her immediate goals, it will also – sadly – stand her in good stead for the rest of her life.