COLM TOBIN: I’ve got to hand it to the French, because I’m really not a great ‘multi-way’ kisser

WE'VE all been there.  You are at a work event – a conference or a dinner – that blurs the lines between business and leisure. You meet someone you have worked with online, or who you know a little, and the dance begins.

Things tend to be straightforward if you are a man and you are meeting another man. You offer your hand, the other lad takes it and you do the traditional handshake. The ferocity of the handshake can vary depending on the participants – some people will nearly yank the arm off you – but you usually come out unscathed, emotionally at least.

Of course, there was a time post-pandemic when the idea of volunteering your paw to a stranger felt like the last thing in the world we would ever do again. But we’ve somehow slipped back into it as the least-worst option. To me, it’s the only game in town.

When it comes to interactions with the opposite sex things can get decidedly less straightforward. A case in point. A photo from an EU summit last week showed Croatia’s foreign minister Gordan Grlić-Radman shaking hands and attempting to kiss Annalena Baerbock, his German counterpart.

She has moved away during the interaction and is leaning awkwardly to the side as the Croatian plants a most inelegant kiss on her cheek. It’s as mortifying an image as I have seen. Why the ground didn’t just open up and swallow him, I’ll never know.

And I am mortified because, probably like you, I’ve been involved in such disastrous greetings myself in the past. It’s a minefield, the world of professional interaction in the post-Covid age! Every meeting is fraught. You try to assess the situation by body language. Will a handshake be weirdly formal? If I lean in for a formal kiss, will it be entirely inappropriate? The worst thing is when things get strange mid-interaction. You second-guess yourself and abort a hug only to inadvertently headbutt the other person with your awkwardness.

When you add cultural differences to the pot, then things get even more fraught.

I work in France a bit, and the French generally will not even give you the time of day without a forty-six-kiss combination move. This is utterly terrifying for an Irish man who is afraid of causing an international incident. If I don’t try the double-cheek kiss thing, they’ll think I’m not respecting their traditions or, even worse, that I’m English. So I usually do my best.

The Brits themselves are in some weird halfway house. In the UK media industry where I also do a lot of work, air kisses are de rigeur, a mortifying prospect for a West Cork native who grew up affectionately thumping people on the shoulder by way of greeting. All kisses were reserved for Mammy or other female members of the family, or maybe the family dog. The prospect of kissing a total stranger in the course of a work setting was not something we were used to.

Unfortunately, I’ve noticed this sort of nonsense creeping into the workplace in Ireland too. Whoever started this nonsense has a lot to answer for and I think it’s time to outlaw it entirely. I get the feeling that 99.9% of women will agree with me on this.

To me, it’s the uncertainty at the heart of every interaction that’s terrifying. Will a handshake seem formal and withdrawn? If I risk leaning in to kiss the cheek will I end up like the Croatian fella, and likely get cancelled in the process?

I even had the opposite happen, when I went in to shake the hand of a female executive and she accused me of having a really weak handshake, mortifying me in front of a room of people. You can’t win!

I clearly should have gone in with a firm handshake worthy of a professional West Cork funeral-attender but the moment had passed. So I say let’s just agree on the handshake as an internationally understood greeting between people who sort of know each other at work, and now have to pretend to like each other for the duration of an event. And let’s reserve the hugs and kisses for the ones we love.

Scourge of wokery

DAVID Cameron made a surprise return to the UK cabinet during the week, returning as foreign secretary in Sunak’s reshuffle in what is surely the political equivalent of Steve Staunton coming back to manage Ireland.

There was a touch of desperation to this move by Sunak – almost like he consulted Andrew Lloyd Webber before his reshuffle. It certainly caught the public imagination for a few days.

Whether it’s wise to bring back the eejit who triggered the Brexit vote is another question entirely. Cameron wasn’t the only one making a comeback.

The Conservative account on social media site X also announced that Esther McVey has returned as a ‘cabinet minister’ without specifying her job. It was reported that she would be acting as a ‘common sense tsar’ tasked with tackling ‘the scourge of wokery’. Presumably, she will just sit in meetings rolling her eyes and saying things like ‘It’s political correctness gone mad, innit?’.

This was all in the wake of the sacking of Suella Braverman whose comments comparing pro-Palestine protests in London to sectarian marches in Northern Ireland had the amazing result of uniting Unionists and Nationalists in anger and disbelief.

Quite an achievement. Maybe they should make her secretary of state for Northern Ireland and she could insult the DUP back into Stormont?

Happy 109th birthday!

HAPPY birthday to Kitty Jeffery from Midleton who turned the grand age of 109-yearsold recently at her home in Knockasturkeen. A fine age and she holds the honour of being Ireland’s oldest person. In her youth, Kitty remembers the ‘dreadful times’ of the Civil War, even hearing of Michael Collins’ shooting at the time. What amazing changes she has seen in her lifetime. Here’s to 110, Kitty!