I saw this on the RTE news tonight on the segment about Jihad Jane:
The gardai are parked on the footpath outside the barracks!
It reminded me of the concerned person in galway who has video taped some awful parking in Galway, set to eerie music: Read more…
Michael O’Leary describes his plans for long haul flights at a press conference in Germany:
I think he is hanging out with the porn model from his calendar. Read more…
IDA Ireland has enlisted the support of Bono, the U2 singer, and the artist Louis le Brocquy in a 4 million drive to market Ireland as a prime business location for US multinationals.
In language far removed from IDA Ireland’s typical investment parlance, the body said “le Brocquy aimed to make a recognisable image of Bono’s outward appearance while attempting to portray what he conceives to be the wavelengths of his inner dynamism”.
The text of the advert itself is in a similar mode, stating that the flexible attitude of the Irish pervades the ecosystem. “The Irish mind. An abundant supply of that rare commodity you’ll need to bring your business to peak performance,” it says.
“The Irish. Creative. Imaginative. And flexible. Agile minds with a unique capacity to initiate, and innovate, without being directed. Always thinking on their feet. Adapting and improving. Generating new knowledge and new ideas. Working together to find new ways of getting things done. Better and faster.”
This contrasts nicely with the children who have thrown their toys out of the pram: Read more…
Too long a sacrifice can make a stone of the heart. O when may it suffice?
Yeats in Easter 1916.
Brian Cowen wants economic sacrifice and needs the place looking great as if 2016 is some sort of tidy towns parade:
TAOISEACH BRIAN Cowen last night invoked the centenary of the Easter Rising in five years’ time as he made a “rallying cry” urging people to make short-term sacrifices to allow a return to prosperity by 2016.
“Yes, we were a generation that lived at a time and place of prosperity, but when challenged we looked to the future and looked beyond our own self-interest and said that, yes, this is a country that is worth working for and building.
“Yes, we can say in 2016 when we get to O’Connell Street and look up at those men and women of idealism that gave us the chance to be the country we are that: ‘Yes, we did not fail our children, but we did not fail our country either,’” he said.
The original proclamation of 1916 was very idealistic in its goals. It can have my allegiance once it comes up with its side of the bargain. Read more…
And a redneck garda driving a pikeys horse and trap: Read more…
I was waiting for the luas and a skanger asked me for a cigarette. I was getting a ticket and said “yeah, wait a minute”. He spend the time between asking and receiving thanking me in advance. He was looking for his lighter from his mate but I let him use mine too. They were joined by two girls and a pram. It appears they wanted the cigarette to roll a joint in the 5 minutes before the train came. One of the girls was on the phone and had the speaker activated. The taller of the two dudes was shouting about “yer man on the phone” and his ethnic origin was described as something to do with smelling of curry. I walked a bit away but could still hear her on the phone and it occured to me that she was the perfect cross between a d4 and a skanger.
The stuff she was saying was purely functional unlike the crap I heard while getting my hair cut somewhere in dublin 4 yesterday. One girl there was telling the down to earth hairdresser all about what she had planned for the rest of the day and the rest of the year. She had gotten tickets for the rugby from a goy she knows who is a barrister. That was all that was said and you could tell she was a bit taken aback that nobody there was impressed enough to tell her what a great human she was. The time was nearly 2pm and with kickoff in thirty minutes and five miles away she would be asking people to move aside by the time she got there.
I watched with amazement at tonight’s primetime program talking about the legal highs available in headshops in Ireland. They first mentioned mushrooms and then interviewed drug addicts on the street who prefer Mephedrone to Cocaine.
According to skanger Jim:
“they say they are bath salts and you put them into water but after taking it you are on a mad one “
I investigated the claim that Mephedrone is illegal in the UK. As of the guardian on dec 5th it is not:
Martin Barnes, chief executive of Drugscope, the national drugs information charity, says “we should avoid panicky, knee-jerk responses. To respond that the law should ban [mephedrone] is a blunt instrument. The important issue is education; people need to have access to reliable information. At the moment, it is all word-of-mouth and what people read on internet chat rooms.”
As for the suppliers, the feeling appears to be that a ban is inevitable. “I think mephedrone will be made illegal within a year
The government were there too and I could’nt help but get the feeling they wheeled out this non issue at the time when lots of really bad things are happening.
I would love to see how long this would last in other places.
The IAA said the union was demanding a 6% pay hike which the industry could not afford and said air traffic controllers were already well paid, with a salary of around €115,000.
Liam Kavanagh, IAA Director of Human Resources, said: “These controllers have stopped doing work on a number of ongoing projects – work they have already been doing for the last two years.
“We cannot function effectively if controllers refuse to carry out ongoing work.”
According to the lonely planet
The chat, the craic and the porter black remain Ireland’s best lures to draw tourists to our shores and not our new-fangled chai lattes, spas and Pilates classes, the new edition of ‘Lonely Planet Ireland’ claims.
…
Ironically, for a country associated with 40 shades of one colour, we are not as ‘green’ as we should be, mostly because “it’s hard to tell a nation that got wealthy a wet week ago after pissing potless for centuries that they shouldn’t buy an SUV or go on four holidays a year”.
Also in the independent:
Last November, Lonely Planet editors chose Cork as one of the top 10 cities in the world to visit this year. To the resounding cry of Cork natives saying: “I told you so,” the ‘Real Capital’ was celebrated by ‘Best in Travel 2010′, which praised it as a “beguiling city” with a admirable sense of its own self-worth.
In January 2008, the LP criticised us as a nation of dirty binge drinkers with little regard for caring for our environment.
“By 3am the only culture on display is in the pools of vomit and urine that give the whole area the aroma of a sewer,” one writer complained.
Ugh. Read more…
