Good Mickey D, bad JT

Michael D. Higgins has just been elected as the new President of Ireland. This leaves me with a couple of thoughts.

The first is that I would love to have a middle initial as part of my name. That would be unreal. I could apply for things as 'John T. McLean' ('T' for Thomas), and the fact that people would call me 'Jaunty McLean' would just be funny. Alas, there's also be the risk that some eejit would start calling me 'JT' evoking the ever-dislikeable, English-in-bad-way, John Terry.

Look at him. Doesn't he just annoy you with his face? He diddled his teammate's girlfriend (while married), is (pending an investigation) racist, which could undo his being reinstated by Fabio Capello as England Chief Twat a while back.

My second thought is how quickly opinions can change. My thoughts on Michael D. Higgins demonstrate just how untrue it is that first impressions are always incredibly important. When I first saw him on the television last week I thought he was a joke. He was a little elfish guy with an elfish way about him. He seemed like the sort mad old guy who would put tea on his Weetabix. But after hearing the man speak, post-election he has impressed me no-end. A poet, a left-wing politician and an intellectual; he seems a man in tune with what it means to be Irish. And I mean Irish-in-a-good-way.

Just the other night he spoke on the news about re-examining the idea of 'inclusiveness' in Irish society and finding how that idea can once again become central to what it means to be Irish. All through the Celtic Tiger and its collapse, the people of Ireland have lamented the chronic under-investment in the lives of the ordinary and the hoarding of wealth by the rich. This is a man who can articulate just how sad it was to break from that tradition of the open-door cottage to replace it with the high-walled mansion. What a waste of prosperity. An alternative philosophy must now take centre-stage in Ireland and it seems this man could be a leader in articulating a new way forward. My opinion has changed on this man no faster than the opinion of the masses switched from his opponent Sean Gallagher. Christ, the man merely mentions the word 'envelope' and suddenly he's curruption personified. Good thing he lost though - the fact he was a wealthy businessman only adds to the symbolism. Michael D. Higgins still looks mental in photographs all the same. Fella needs a haircut big-time.

Our new mystical elf-goblin president. Like many of his kind he speaks in riddles and has a frankly lax attitude to the upkeep of his appearance, but unlike most prominent elf-goblins he is against the hoarding of gold.