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Irish Times
04-05-2025
- Health
- Irish Times
I feel sorry for the huffing hordes who believe painful exertion is necessary for health
It was during speculation around the recent illness of Pope Francis earlier this year that the penny dropped. Some had already buried the poor man before he recovered and had even elected a successor to occupy the sede vacante ('the seat being vacant'), a term used by the Vatican to describe that period between popes. 'Bless my sweet soul,' says I to myself, 'but surely that's the root of one of my favourite words – sedentary?' And, I was right. It's remarkable that it took me years to cop that. Little gives me greater pleasure of an evening than to sit out, beverage in hand, as the world runs by, puffing and sweating in miserable pursuit of the body-perfect, some carrying as much body fat as the Famine statues on Custom House Quay in Dublin. 'This is the life,' I tell myself, raising a glass in salute to the huffing hordes hurtling past. But it's hard to admire the vanity. The ones I do feel for are those who believe such painful exertion is necessary for health reasons. It is not, as Dr Muiris Houston made clear in this newspaper recently. READ MORE Addressing those who celebrate 'the sedentary', he asks a most seductive question: 'What's the least amount of exercise you can get away with?' He continues: 'From a starting point of virtually zero exercise, an hour or two a week of leisurely cycling or moderately paced walking might be all you need to reduce your risk of death from cardiovascular disease by as much as 20 per cent.' Sweetest of all, he adds: 'The benefits appear to max out after four to six hours exercise a week – with no additional gains beyond this point for most people.' He also noted how academics in Sydney had found that risk of premature death was reduced by at least 10 per cent if, on a daily basis, people slept a minimum of 15 minutes more, added an extra 1.6 minutes of moderate-to-vigorous physical exercise and ate another half a serving of vegetables. No bother. There's a similar benefit to doing all the week's exercises over a weekend. And spending just 15 minutes a day outside in nature is enough to boost your mood, concentration and physical health. Sláinte! Sedentary, from Latin sedere 'to sit, occupy an official seat'. inaword@
Irish Times
04-05-2025
- Business
- Irish Times
Will CAO points drop due to efforts to tackle grade inflation this year?
My Leaving Cert daughter is upset. Due to measures to tackle grade inflation this year, she feels she will be unfairly competing against candidates with bumper grades from previous years for CAO places. The courses she wants to study were on about 550 points last year . How much will her grades be 'deflated' by? What impact will this have on CAO points this year? There are several factors – apart from inflated grades – which can influence the entry cut-off point for the CAO's round one offers in late August. One is the number of places offered to round one candidates on each course. The Government has been funding additional places in some high-demand courses in recent times, such as medical and therapeutic courses. READ MORE Where additional places are provided, CAO points often drop. This is because the last person through the door of the lecture theatre, so to speak, will typically have a lower points score than would be the case if the additional places had not been provided. New courses can also affect the supply and demand of courses. For example, additional pharmacy and veterinary courses are due to come on stream next year (not, unfortunately, in time for September of this year). If and when they do, the points for the existing courses should drop. Change in demand for places on courses is another factor. The number of applicants, overall, has increased significantly in 2025. Demand among students across individual courses changes from year to year. Greater demand usually leads to points going up. Finally, there's grade inflation. As your daughter is aware, grades jumped in 2020 and again in 2021 with the introduction of teacher-predicted grades. The results have since been artificially inflated at this level (about 7 per cent, on aggregate, above normal times) by a 'postmarking intervention', so as not to disadvantage students competing against students with results from previous years. This year, however, the postmarking intervention will reduce to 5.5 per cent in advance of normal results. What does this mean for a student this year? A candidate who secured 512 CAO points in 2019 would have received, roughly, about 550 points on foot of inflated grades over recent years. The same student could expect to receive, roughly, 538 points in 2025. Consequently, your daughter might expect CAO points for her desired courses to drop due to so many getting lower points. But about one-in-four round one applicants (about 15,000) will be Leaving Certs from previous years; many will be on bumper grades. Their higher CAO points will give them an advantage over any equivalent 2025 Leaving Cert student. I am sure it feels very unfair for your daughter. If there is any consolation, she is in the same boat as the rest of the class of 2025. At this stage, her best bet is to try to ignore issues outside her control and simply focus on doing the best she can in the exams. Do you have a career or education query? Email askbrian@
Irish Times
27-04-2025
- Entertainment
- Irish Times
In a Word...Anticipation
Surely one of the great and underappreciated pleasures in life is anticipation. That glorious expectation of something good about to happen. It is how I feel towards the end of April every year. Just ahead lie my two favourite months, May and June, when this country can be at its freshest and most spectacular, temperatures rise, the hawthorn comes into full, sweet bloom, and the evenings continue to lengthen. Sometimes I think I prefer these end-of-April days, looking forward to all of that, than actually experiencing May and June. Because, when living through those two months, there is an accompanying sadness in knowing that they are also slipping away. It is when I can sympathise with that line from Patrick Pearse's The Wayfarer, that 'the beauty of the world hath made me sad, this beauty that will pass.' READ MORE It is why, as a child, my favourite day of the year over time became Christmas Eve, not Christmas Day. There was the excitement of all that fuss, preparation and expectation rather than having it all laid before you, as on Christmas Day, only to realise as the afternoon wore on that it would be an eternity of 364 days before you could experience any of it again. It is why, generally, I prefer and enjoy the journey rather than the destination itself. The adventure is in getting there, wherever or whatever that might be. Like life itself, the living of which is always better than its end. You might remember that Guinness advertisement from the 1990s where actor Joe McKinney dances around impatiently to the quirky tune Guaglione as he waits for his pint to settle, culminating in the blissful moment when he brings that perfect creation to his lips, leaving us to imagine the joy of the rest. It set off a dance craze, the tune knocked Riverdance off the number one spot in Ireland and reached number two in the UK, Guinness sales soared, Joe McKinney had to go to the US as, so typecast had he become as 'the Dancing Man', he could not get any other acting work in Ireland, and the ad itself (created in Dublin by the Arks agency) won a succession of awards. It was titled 'Anticipation'. Anticipation , from Latin anticipationem , for 'foreshadowing', 'looking forward to'. inaword@
