Sandra Harris Writes

  WHEN CELEBRITIES GO TO HEAVEN… BY SANDRA HARRIS. © It’s always sad when anyone we know dies, but when celebrities die, even if we’ve never met them in the flesh, it gives us a special kind of shock. It’s usually because they’ve played such a big part in our lives, maybe even in those all-important formative years. We’ve bought their records and listened to their music and pondered over their lyrics during hard times and difficult years. We’ve been to see their movies in the cinema, then watched them again on television and later bought the DVD, which we then watched until it fell apart. When someone mentions a specific year, we’ll often be immediately transported back to that magical period in time when we listened to So-and-So’s album to death, or went to see So-and-So’s movie on that fabulous summer’s night when we lost our virginity down by the lake to the girl with the strawberry blonde hair and the braces on her teeth. I remember being devastated when Christopher L...

NO SEX PLEASE, WE’RE… TRAUMATISED…? BY SANDRA HARRIS. © Last year, Ann Summers Ireland Ltd. reduced the number of shops it operates in Ireland from three to two. Also last year, sales from the Irish arm of this UK company’s adult sex toys and lingerie retailers nose-dived by a whopping forty-five percent, from 3.34 million euros to 1.82 million. So, what gives? Are the Irish having less sex and, if so, why? Well, there might be a couple of theories to explain this extraordinary state of affairs. For one, it might have had its roots in the COVID-19 pandemic, which was well underway by this time five years ago. Can you even believe it’s been five years? It’s mad how fast time flies. During this pandemic, if you were lucky enough to live with your spouse or significant other, you could have as much sex as you liked, because you weren’t required to socially distance or isolate yourself from people you lived with, unless you or they actually contracted the virus. In fact, people pro...