Brianna Parkins

Brianna Parkins

Contributor

Brianna Parkins is an Irish Times columnist.

Brianna Parkins: We need to end the trend of matching Christmas pyjamas. It’s wrong

I bombard my friends with lengthy WhatsApp sermons on the latest ills befalling humankind. Now it’s your turn. Please be seated

‘You need to pull it down, your whole bottom is on show,’ the woman said. ‘It’s a disgrace’

The transference of shame, particularly in Ireland, seems to flow from woman to woman

The Liberties is the last bastion of real Dublin. We should never let it be gentrified

Neighbourhoods now considered ‘cool’ because they have been washed of their working-class heritage

Good chat? Only when you leave Ireland, you realise it isn’t universal

Dublin is the old friend you fell out with but find yourself forgetting why after a few drinks in each other’s company

If I was hiring people, I would send candidates to the airport

Individualism thrives in airports. Every man is out for himself. Only the strong survive – or the very daft who have no self awareness

If I were an agony aunt, my advice would always be ‘leave them’

My dream in life is to be an agony aunt, but my advice would always be ‘leave them’. No considered empathy from me

Deliver me from the banal evil of ‘hot desking’. I dream of a desk with carpeted walls

They’ve taken our walls, they’ve taken our permanent desks. Where does it end?

There is no winning in the engagement ring Olympics

From ‘very sparkly’ to ‘too tacky’, what do those engagement ring comments really mean?

My grandad’s hobbies are listening to the Dubliners and complaining about still being alive

Grandad would tell me to come home soon because he didn’t ‘have long left’. It worked. I went home to Sydney every year

I’ve promised to give a speech, but am freaking out. You see, I’m a big thick

This was supposed to be the year I would slow down, say no to things

I miss Ireland for many reasons, but one is the lack of pressure to ‘get fit’

Sydney is and has always been a vain city, and the heat for nine months of the year means there is nowhere to hide

Do I look like a soft target? Do I give off the sad vibes of a person who can be inconvenienced?

A friend told me I had spent too long in Ireland and was ‘afraid of not being seen as sound’

Nothing really terrible can happen to you while having a little sit-down. With a biscuit

Work, especially if you love what you do, will be stressful. It will challenge your abilities daily. At least let me do it in a chair with a good back

Brianna Parkins: People who get up early in the morning for no reason are a menace to society

Getting up and journaling at 6am is seen as self-discipline, but writing things in a diary at 2am is a cry for help

Apartments with fewer windows sound okay, until you live in one

We might accept new apartment standards if the minister or developers traded in their homes to rent one

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