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Irish Times
3 days ago
- General
- Irish Times
Hugh Linehan: My right eye is now failing too. The world is slipping away, just a little, just enough to notice
As a child, I used to sneak into my father's study to leaf through his books on cinema. Fellini. Bergman. Kubrick. Hitchcock. It felt like trespassing into a world of illicit imagery and adult mystery. These volumes weren't all dry theoretical texts. They were illustrated, full of blurry black and white stills, images from strange films I'd never have been allowed to watch at the time. Some of them I didn't even know by name, but the images etched themselves into my memory with the precision of dreams. Again and again they returned to one motif: the eye. There was the infamous blade slicing open an eyeball in Un Chien Andalou (1929), a scene that retains the power to provoke a full-body flinch nearly a century after it was first projected. Marion Crane's wide, disbelieving stare as her lifeblood swirled down the shower drain in Psycho (1960). Alex in A Clockwork Orange (1971), lids pinned back as he was subjected to his regime of aversion therapy. It was the eye as portal, as vulnerability, as violence, as punishment. None of these images are comforting. And in retrospect, I wonder if my uneasy fascination with them, and the squeamishness I have always had about anything getting too close to my own eyes, has something to do with the fact that I've never had two working ones. Like Sauron, albeit with somewhat less malice or magical powers, I have always depended on just the one. My hopelessly shortsighted left eye is amblyopic, or what people used to call lazy, to the point of uselessness. But now my right eye is failing too. READ MORE Not entirely. But enough that I can no longer read printed books, documents or newspapers. Enough that I find it difficult to recognise faces, even those I know well. Enough that the world has become, gradually but inexorably, something I have to navigate more slowly and more carefully. The terrain has changed, and I am having to learn how to move through it all over again. There are good reasons, of course, why evolution equipped most of us with a spare eye, not least when it comes to judging depth and distance. My personal experience is that these reasons include having the ability to play tennis without embarrassment or eat soup without incident. But for the most part, one (mildly shortsighted) good eye has served me well enough over the years. But it did leave me without a safety net. Despite a lifelong fascination with image-making that has included stints as an illustrator, film worker and movie and TV critic, I never really paid enough attention to how vision actually works. The lens at the front of the eye focuses light on to the retina at the back. There, a thin layer of photosensitive cells converts the light into neural impulses that the optic nerve transmits to the brain. The brain, performing its usual miracles, assembles those signals into a coherent picture. And we call that picture 'reality'. At the very centre of the retina is a five-millimetre-wide area called the macula. It's packed with light-sensitive cells and is responsible for our central vision. It allows us to read, to recognise faces, to distinguish colour and detail. It's also where my trouble lies. On the ophthalmologist's screen, blown up to an uncomfortably large scale, my macula looks like a faraway planet: a red disc with pale, mottled areas near the centre. These blotches are now my terra incognita, where the layers of cells are breaking down and not being replaced. A kind of biological erosion is at work, like a carpet being worn down to the threads. Hugh Linehan: 'These days I smile vaguely at anyone who passes me in the office. They could be a close colleague or a complete stranger, but it seems safer to be friendly than risk giving someone the cold shoulder.' Photograph: Bryan O'Brien The name for this irreversible process is macular degeneration, and it's one of the most common causes of sight loss in the developed world. The age-related form is relatively well known, especially among older people. But it can also be genetic or associated with other conditions such as diabetes. In my case, it turns out to be inherited. I'm 62, the sort of age that looks young from the vantage point of 85 and ancient from the perspective of 25. Still, it's on the early side for age-related macular degeneration. So the doctors dug a little deeper. A DNA swab was sent to Finland, revealing a mutation in a gene called PRPH2, which produces proteins in the retinal cells. Apparently, this gene doesn't always do what it's supposed to do. None of this is entirely comforting, especially since no one in my family, as far as I know, has had these symptoms. (My siblings and children are now welcome to be tested if they so choose.) But it does provide a kind of explanation. More importantly, it adds a little more information to the worldwide project of genetic puzzle-solving that will hopefully lead to new treatments and therapies. And, more practically, it allows me to start making adjustments. These days I smile vaguely at anyone who passes me in the office. They could be a close colleague or a complete stranger, but it seems safer to be friendly than risk giving someone the cold shoulder. I no longer exercise my sacred birthright as a Dubliner to jaywalk, as the gaps in my field of vision mean I could easily miss an approaching vehicle. Instead, I wait stoically at intersections, relying on the green man and increasingly on the electronic beep. I carry a nifty little device that combines a torch and a magnifying glass, which allows me to read printed material such as price tags and receipts. Mr Magoo, the once-beloved cartoon character, has long since been consigned to pop culture's naughty step, alongside all the other ableists, racists and sexists. But I now better understand his predicament. There is a particular kind of comedy that emerges from misperception, though in real life it can be less amusing. I have said hello to empty chairs. Attempted to pour coffee into upside-down cups. I misread expressions. I fail to notice cues. These new, surprising social awkwardnesses pile up on top of all the old familiar ones. There are other losses, large and small. I can no longer follow the action in a football match or pluck a book from the shelf to check a reference. I deeply miss appreciating a film or a painting in the way its maker intended. Professionally, I feel the diminishment too. I once prided myself on having a 'good eye' for a photograph, a composition, a page layout. It was an important part of what I brought to the job. These days, not so much. And yet, something unexpected remains. One of the things that sight is supposed to give us – perhaps the most important – is human connection. A century of research tells us that eye contact, facial expressions and micro-gestures, play a crucial role in how we communicate. The shift to digital and remote communication has stripped away much of this subtlety, to our collective detriment. Or so the theory goes. Hugh Linehan whose left eye is amblyopic. He is now experiencing macular degeneration in his right eye, what he once called his 'good eye'. Photograph: Bryan O'Brien But my experience doesn't entirely bear that out. There are lapses in understanding, of course. I sat recently across from a podcast guest, someone for whom emotional intelligence is part of their personal brand. I could sense that they were giving me 'a look', but I had no idea what it meant. I was going through my new routine of taking my glasses off and putting them on again, which probably looked like an affectation. The usual feedback loop was broken. But we still had a conversation. Maybe I was just overthinking it. If, like me, you've ever been advised that for your own psychological wellbeing you need to spend less time trapped in your own head and more time engaging with the actual world, then the prospect of losing one of your senses presents a particular kind of challenge. The world is slipping away, just a little, just enough to notice. [ Genetic cures on demand: 'Within four weeks, the vision in his eyes had doubled' Opens in new window ] And yet, I'm not going blind. Macular degeneration affects central vision, not peripheral. A helpful information sheet advises me, rather grimly, I feel, that I 'will always be able to see sufficiently to walk around your house and your garden'. Another one says more encouragingly that most people 'can also make their way to town and do the shopping and other tasks with ease'. It's not the reassurance I might have wished for in my youth, but at this stage, I'll take it. The greatest moment of relief comes in mid-May when Emma Duignan, one of my two excellent and empathetic ophthalmologists (the other is Max Treacy), says the words I most need to hear: 'You'll always be able to read.' Not on paper, and the screens may need adjusting. The text might even grow to monstrous sizes. But the act itself – the miracle of text becoming meaning – will remain within reach. Jorge Luis Borges , whose vision was poor from childhood, lost his sight completely at the age of 58, having just been appointed director of the National Library of Argentina. He was surrounded by millions of books he could no longer read. In his essay, Blindness, he explored his condition not as a tragedy, but as a kind of destiny. Borges is the melancholic, ironic laureate of vision loss. I find his writing on the subject comforting and intimidating in equal measure. He described his world not as darkness, but as a 'greenish, cloudy mist', a perceptual veil rather than a void. For 25 years, he lived within that mist and continued to write with astonishing clarity. I cannot claim anything so profound. But I take some solace in the fact that unlike Borges, who died in 1986, I live in a time when sight loss is not what it once was. Surgical advances have transformed the lives of millions. Cataracts can be removed in half an hour. Laser treatment has liberated people from Coke-bottle lenses. Genetic research is moving with startling speed, hinting at future therapies that once seemed like science fiction. [ Blind no longer: 'For the first time in over a decade, I can see the world around me' Opens in new window ] And then there is digital technology. Audiobooks, screen readers, text-to-voice applications – anything can now be turned into robotic but perfectly intelligible audio within seconds. Admittedly, the experience of 'reading' in this way is different. It's slower, less immersive and rather less satisfying. But it's still reading, of a kind. And it remains a bridge to the world of ideas when my poor declining eye can't take the strain of a screen any more. A recent article in the New Yorker explored the new generation of assistive spectacles for deaf people that can turn conversations into real-time subtitles that unspool across the lenses. Would such a thing be possible for sight loss? It seems plausible. For the moment, though, I am just learning to see in a new way. Still in the world. Still fumbling and stumbling. Not able to see where I'm going, but still pressing on.
Vogue
6 days ago
- Entertainment
- Vogue
Haute Priests—Dolce & Gabbana Present Their Alta Sartoria at Rome's Castel Sant'Angelo
How do you follow a women's show of Fellini-esque proportions at the Roman Forum? If you're Dolce & Gabbana, with a men's show at the Ponte di Castel Sant'Angelo. The circa 134 AD bridge was built by Emperor Hadrian to connect Rome's city center to his future mausoleum. Over the centuries, the ancient builing was transformed into a medeival fortress, a papal residence, and the backdrop for a scene in Roman Holiday. Tonight the castle was lit up like a movie set with klieg lights and scores of Cinecittà extras vamping as cardinals. Conclave II might be a good name for the would-be film. Domenico Dolce and Stefano Gabbana took priestly garb as their subject, and they left no hem unturned in their study, which ranged from the ascetic to the ornate, emphasis on the ornate: There were starched linen tunics that looked like fashionable updates to the traditional surplice, double-breasted suits dressed up with bejeweled crosses, and dramatic papal robes lavished with crystal embroideries.
The Guardian
28-05-2025
- Business
- The Guardian
Dior show packs drama and intrigue for Maria Grazia Chiuri's love letter to Rome
Dior's first catwalk show in Rome was a night of high drama on and off the catwalk that left the fashion industry with a cliffhanger ending. Borrowing the original working title of Federico Fellini's film 8 ½, Maria Grazia Chiuri, designer of Dior since 2016, called it 'The Beautiful Confusion.' She was talking about Rome, with its heady jumble of art, culture, faith and mopeds, and about a collection in which haute couture pieces were mixed with theatrical costumes. But there was also an inescapable allusion to the question of her own future of Dior. Even before the show opened, operatically coded with models in Venetian masks and knots of Eyes Wide Shut lace pageanting at nightfall through the central parterre of a villa packed with Roman antiquities, the evening was ablaze with intrigue. Chiuri was born and began her career in Rome, and the deeply personal nature of the show, which was a passionate love letter to her home city, fuelled longstanding rumours that this was orchestrated as a swansong. Chiuri has tripled sales at Dior during her nine-year tenure, but the Northern Irish designer Jonathan Anderson, recently appointed to lead menswear design at the house, is seen as waiting in the wings to assume complete creative control of the house. The plot thickened when it emerged that this cruise collection would also include looks from the autumn haute couture collection, which would normally be under wraps until July, putting a question mark over Dior's plans for the next Paris season. Like a Fellini film, there was no neat ending. The evening finished without official news, and with Dior's next chapter unwritten. But if it was a farewell, it was a fond and fabulous one for a designer whose progressive vision of fashion's power to platform feminism, female artists and the under-celebrated history of female creativity has been a gamechanger for her industry. Guests had been issued with a dress code – white for women, black for men – taken from a white ball thrown in 1930 by the Roman patron Mimì Pecci-Blunt – 'an extraordinary woman who loved the arts', Chiuri said before the show. The effect was to synthesise the front row with a collection that was 90% white, drawing the audience into the story. Each outfit brought the drama: a tailcoat suit with tiny ivory silk buttons; silvered latticework fit for a Renaissance princess, translucent classical gowns that looked like marble goddesses come to life; liturgical pomp in capes and collars tipping a hat to the Vatican in its jubilee year. The 450-strong guest list was heavily tilted toward Chiuri's friends and family, and luminaries of the Roman fashion and art world. Sign up to Fashion Statement Style, with substance: what's really trending this week, a roundup of the best fashion journalism and your wardrobe dilemmas solved after newsletter promotion 'My last show in Rome was for another brand, and it was over 10 years ago, so this is a big emotional moment for me,' Chiuri said before the show. The storytelling on the catwalk had close links to a personal project that Chiuri and her daughter Rachele Regini have masterminded and financed independent of Dior. The pair have renovated Teatro della Cometa, a 233-seat experimental theatre that was founded by Mimì Pecci-Blunt and became a cultural hotspot in the city when it opened in 1958, but closed just eleven years later after a fire. Drama aside, however, there are more prosaic possible explanations for Dior staging a show in Rome. Christian Dior himself loved the country, declaring in a letter home from holiday in Capri in 1957 that 'this is paradise!' More pragmatically, Italy has been the chosen destination for several luxury houses this year, with Gucci and Chanel staging shows in Lake Como and Florence respectively. In a challenging economic environment, the timeless elegance of Italy is seen as a reliably desirable backdrop for fashion.
Irish Examiner
26-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Irish Examiner
Colin Sheridan: Gaelic football is off life support but its rehabilitation should continue
Gaelic Football is so hot right now. If it were an actor, it would've gone to Cannes this week and received an 18 minute standing ovation, so attractive it has become. Which is quite something, because the sport was on life support two years ago - riddled with a plague of lateral passing and stacked defences. It reached rock bottom when some lad from Westmeath finished his thesis while playing midfield during a Tailteann Cup match. Solo, solo, hop, solo. Run sideways and backways. Order some takeout while you wait for your keeper to come up to take a free. It was bad, very bad, but the good news is the sport went to a life coach and started listening to the High Performance Podcast. Little bit of Botox by way of the Football Review Committee. A tummy tuck and a Hyrox subscription and before you know it, the Ulster Football Championship makes Munster hurling look like a Fellini movie where everything looks beautiful, but nothing really happens. As makeovers go, this is Bradley Cooper levels of transformation. This is exclusive subscriber content. Already a subscriber? Sign in Subscribe to access all of the Irish Examiner. Annual €120€60 Best value Monthly €10€4 / month Unlimited access. Subscriber content. Daily ePaper. Additional benefits.
Telegraph
15-04-2025
- Entertainment
- Telegraph
On board Europe's most luxurious new train, with tickets from £2,600
Is there a station exit in the world that can match the coup de théâtre of leaving Venice Santa Luca, with the Grand Canal and the Pantheon-modelled San Simeone Piccolo laid out before you? ' Venice never loses that magic of appearing as if for the first time,' as Freya Stark observed. We had arrived from Rome on La Dolce Vita Orient Express, Italy's first luxury train, intended to create the glamour and care-free spirit of the 1960s, as portrayed in Fellini's film, with its unforgettable images of Anita Ekberg cavorting in the Trevi Fountain and Marcello Mastroianni driving round the city in a Triumph TR3. Under a full moon we boarded deeply varnished launches to breeze down the Grand Canal to Palazzo Nani Bernardo, one of the few palaces still owned by the family who built it, in this case in the 1550s. A dark candlelit corridor from the landing stage led to glasses of champagne and a courtyard garden with Venice's tallest palm tree. Upstairs, dinner was served at a long table festooned with white flowers, while a harpist played in the window overlooking the canal. The itineraries on La Dolce Vita Orient Express combine the pleasures of scenic routes with quintessentially Italian off-train experiences that would be hard or impossible for a tourist to arrange. The train has been created by Italian luxury brand Arsenale in partnership with Orient Express, and the pampering begins before departure from Rome Ostiense station in the palatial reception area Arsenale has fashioned out of unused spaces. There's a modern twist to the Art Deco feel of the lounge areas and bar, and showers are provided for anyone coming straight from a plane or train via the complimentary transfer service. We all thought the train looked new, but it isn't. Instead, 1970s carriages have been completely rebuilt to the designs of a Milan studio to create 31 cabins, lounge and dining cars, and accommodation for the train's 35 staff. Cabins are masterpieces of compression, but sumo wrestlers wouldn't do well in the space between shower, washbasin and lavatory. Cleverly contrived storage has been created behind one of the opposing mirrored walls, giving an illusion of greater space. Deluxe cabins have a single chair and a sofa which converts into a small double bed but suites, larger by 60 per cent, have a fixed bed, sofa and two chairs. An ambitious programme of eight one- and two-night itineraries covering 14 Italian regions has been devised, most starting and ending in Rome and the most elaborate entailing a transfer of the train across the Straits of Messina on a privately chartered vessel to Sicily for visits to Taormina and Palermo. Some thought two nights was the right duration, others wanted longer, but all agreed that more time at our destinations would have been welcomed, and that will be reflected in tweaks to tours. As invariably happens on hotel trains, guests from half a dozen countries soon bonded in the lounge car, where the bar and piano were placed between an area of sinuous banquettes and seats arranged in twos and fours. The youngest in the surprisingly wide age range were a couple from South Korea, evidently on their honeymoon. Other passengers included an investor who had been successful enough to retire early and become a professional bridge player, and a couple from Delhi in the legal profession. Most of us matched the glad rags of the pianist, saxophonist and singer entertaining us after dinner. The near extinction of proper dining cars on so many national railways has increased the pleasure of eating in one, and we began lunch to views over a glittering bay to the island of Napoleon's first incarceration, Elba. Our creative and high-quality six-course tasting menu with paired wines was created by Heinz Beck, who runs Rome's only three-Michelin-star restaurant, and produced by one of his protégées, Walter Canzio. The train stops for four or five hours every night, and over breakfast it was evident that the world divides into those who can sleep on moving trains, and those who can't – however comfortable the bed. Italy had the wit to retain many of its cross-country railway lines, which often venture into its equivalent of la France profonde, so it was a pleasure to reach Siena by the single-line route from Montepescali through remote countryside. Between woods, an avenue of slender cypresses led to a characteristic Tuscan farmhouse with arcaded veranda on the upper level, surrounded by fields of artichokes, vines and apple orchards. On distant hilltops, a jumble of pale brown houses rising above wooded slopes recalled a turbulent past, when villages were safer on high ground. Another form of endemic rivalry was the subject of our visit by minibus to meet the winning jockey of last year's Palio at his stables and training fields just outside Siena. Remarkably self-effacing for the man who had become the city's hero until the next Palio, Carlo Sanna took us through the Byzantine rules that govern the world's oldest horse race and the highlight of the Siena calendar since 1283. So fierce is the rivalry between the contrada, neighbourhoods traceable back to medieval guilds, that he has to be protected against malfeasance by four bodyguards from the moment he is selected until he enters the bare-back race around the Campo. The three circuits took him just 75 seconds. Before lunch in the kind of unpretentious restaurant that Italy does so well, we had time to admire the jewel in the city's glorious Gothic cathedral, the Carrara marble pulpit sculpted in the 1260s by Giovanni Pisano, with its seven narrative panels of Christ's life and a cast of almost 400 figures. He also sculpted the statues encrusting the lavish façade, which still looks astonishingly crisp and unweathered. Because the train has to dovetail with passenger and freight trains or replenish water tanks, there are occasional longueurs in stations, but that is all part of slow travel. The train never exceeds 75mph, and – unlike on high-speed services – this lack of velocity makes it possible to actually admire the landscapes. As we headed back to Rome, morning mist was rising over the broad plain flanking the Tavere river. A long double avenue of umbrella pines shading a farm track spoke of the forethought of past generations. We skirted the lagoons enclosed by the peninsula of Monte Argentario, where the rackety life of Caravaggio came to an end in 1610, and as we approached Ostiense station, a large section of the Roman walls still stands beside the line. All this luxury and exclusive access comes with a steep price tag, of course: a single-night itinerary costs from £2,662 per person. But strong forward bookings suggest there is healthy demand for this sort of five-star experience, and I was told some celebrities have booked the whole train. Arsenale certainly expects it to continue – a second train will be finished later this year, intended for a Rome to Istanbul journey, among others, and it is building a train for Saudi Arabia with plans for others in Egypt, UAE and Uzbekistan. The sweet life is going global, for those who can afford it. Anthony Lambert was travelling as a guest of La Dolce Vita Orient Express on its Venice and Tuscany tour, which costs from £6,447pp. One-night itineraries start at £2,662pp, departing Rome Ostiense station on multiple dates. Prices includes private transfers from other stations, an airport or a hotel, all tours, meals and drinks.
