GLASTONBURY, England (AFP) – Veteran rockers U2 will face a protest during their long-awaited Glastonbury gig on Friday from campaigners angry at alleged tax dodging by the group.
Direct action group Art Uncut is planning to unfurl a giant inflatable before the cameras as anti-poverty lobbyist Bono and his band take to the Pyramid Stage.
Art Uncut member Anna Walker, 32, said: “Everyone there will see it.
Placards will also be held up declaring “Bono tax dodger” and “Bono pay up”.
Fellow campaigner Charlie Dewar said: “U2′s multimillion-euro tax dodge is depriving the Irish people at a time when they desperately need income to offset the Irish government’s savage austerity programme.
“Tax nestling in the band’s bank account should be helping to keep open the hospitals, schools and libraries that are closing all over Ireland.”

ap

why its just like the hills

I had a strange night in the suburbs at stepaside. I made the mistake of believing my old colleagues who said it was near the luas. I got directions over the phone from somebody from a romania who punctuated every sentence with the word “right”. I naturally got lost a few times. The place was dull and seemed to be populated by young families and dudes in pimped out bmws.

After an hour of Jay Z on MTV I knew this night had gone down the shitter, it was only a matter of how far down we would be at the end. I was glad I had only brought two beers. I even considered pouring half of my second one down the sink and going somewhere else. We watched some youtube and ate some pizza and decided to call it quits and to try to find the luas again.

At night the place looked much different. The apartment blocks that I saw being assembled from the back of a truck a few years ago actually looked nice a few hours later. In the daytime you notice an open face mine and some tv aerials in the background. You can also see how the exposed timber that is not yet 5 years old is starting to rot.

They way home was even less fun. The wait between trains was 17 minutes. We spotted some young guys on the platform and Nick said “they will be providing tonight’s entertainment”, and how right he was. The alpha knacker in the soiled tracksuit looked like he had sat on mud. He threw a bottle onto the street but it failed to break and just bounced along, he was probably disappointed by that showing. He was on the train and his antics just grew. He tried to take his friends jacket off and throw it out the door at the next stop. After that I heard him say “my brother was too afraid to smoke on the luas”. He put a rolled cigarette up to his lips and said “but I am not my brother” and he lit it. When nobody reacted in any way to what he had done he got up and opened the window. When we stopped at the next station he was looking around to make sure he was not going to be caught. He had his back to us and I started saying “they are here, they are here”.

I wished out loud that the security would get on the train and catch him. Once this round had ended without him showing something good he decided to up the ante and whip out his (presumably small) penis and urninate on the wall of the train. I said “I am calling the cops, get off the train”. He legged it to the front of the train and one of his mates too. His other friend stayed and said “he is only drunk”. I said “get off the train” and he left too. Then we stopped at dundrum and the security stepped on the train and I pointed at the piss and told them to look for a guy in a tracksuit at the end of the train. As they walked along the carriages he walked out the door. As he was going by us I said “that’s right you little fucking asshole” and he scurried up the stairs with his tail between his legs.

The security did not want to let the train move because it had been soiled. I was going to be to blame and I said to the people around me “sorry, I cant let that happen in front of me”. I asked the security if the train could move and he said “yes if you are ok with the smell”. I said “he hadn’t done much” to the sound of some laughter from others. I said “if this was london or new york someone would take a shit on the train and it would keep going”.

Some guys from the country behind us started telling a story about a friend of theirs who once took a shit on a bus.

The train pulled out of the station minus one pissy pantsy knacker. My twi slight regrets are that I didn’t call him ‘bitch’ like Jessie Pinkman. The other was that I didn’t push him in the back as he was pissing. This would have given him something extra to remember the night by. In all honesty though, I would be too worried in case even a drop got anywhere near me.

“The public is being urged to buy Irish in the wake of a deadly outbreak of E coli bacteria poisoning in Europe, which has claimed 10 lives and left hundreds seriously ill”.

Such vile callousness for the people who have died in a lame way. Why not ‘”to be safe don’t eat cucumbers”? We should be sending vegetables from Ireland to thank the Germans for the money they stupidly lent us, twice now and probably a third or fourth or fifth time (like washing and feeding a heroin junkie in rehab who sneaks out every night for another hit’).

I thought it was such a terrible way to go. Terrible until I found out someone in Hong Kong had previously tried to commit suicide by sticking one up his arse:

A MAN taken to hospital to have a cucumber removed from his bottom told doctors he inserted it in a SUICIDE attempt.
Chin Wei, 62, claimed the method was a variation of ritual suicide hara-kiri – usually carried out with a SWORD plunged into the belly.
He was found in a pool of blood by his daughter in Hong Kong.
Medics said a severe tear to the man’s rear was not life-threatening.

sun

The title of the post is from Pineapple express:

Red: Why don’t you follow his lead and just chill out, man?
Dale Denton: I’m chill. I’m chill as a cucumber, man.
Red: You don’t seem chill.
Dale Denton: I’m more chill than you.
Red: You’re more chill than me?
Dale Denton: Yeah.
Red: Look what I’m wearing. Kimono, dog. What’re you wearing?
Dale Denton: A suit.
(sadly this bit is missing from the video I found)
Red: Yeah, exactly. I don’t know what’s up with you, but I don’t know if I like you.
Dale Denton: Well, I don’t know if I like you either

IMF Chopra can see the funny side to this.

After reading Morgan Kellys article in the Irish Times yesterday I cried from embarassment:

the sole purpose of the Irish bailout was to frighten the Spanish into line with a vivid demonstration that EU rescues are not for the faint-hearted. And the ECB plan, so far anyway, has worked. Given a choice between being strung up like Ireland – an object of international ridicule, paying exorbitant rates on bailout funds, its government ministers answerable to a Hungarian university lecturer – or mending their ways, the Spanish have understandably chosen the latter.

It reminded me of some sort of bizarre reverse mugging, similar to:

Typically, when a person gets mugged, the perp demands money from the victim, but when was the last time you heard that a mugger put a knife to someone’s throat, took $100 out of his own pocket, and told the victim “you better take this money?”

Imagine Ireland is the panhandler on the ground in the picture above. The IMF walk by and offer him some money. All he wants is the price of a cup of tea but they insist he takes 15000 euros instead. He says he doesn’t need it but they stand on his arm and he relents. The panhandler agrees to take the money. He is initially relieved and he thinks he can get himself back on his feet. He pays some of his debts and the money gradually disappears. Some of his other debtors hear he is back in the cash and come looking but he is broke again. He claims the Jackals made him take the loan but he didn’t want it all. – The Sindo write a sympathy piece about how the money lenders are jacking up the juice. They pay him 100 quid but he has even less dignity due to the publicity. The money lenders are angry that he went to the papers. They come to take his fingers. If they take too many he wont be able to beg. If the dont take enough it sends out the wrong message.

That may be a complicated analogy of the sequence of events but I think it fits. The keystone cops make Ireland looks like a pathetic little bitch. We were strong-armed into taking the cash and now we have the cheek to complain. The half percent tax on pensions is probably the equivalent of half a finger.

Elsewhere Kelly’s evokes images of Tim Nice but Dim:

Back when the euro was being planned in the mid-1990s, it never occurred to anyone that cautious, stodgy banks like AIB and Bank of Ireland, run by faintly dim former rugby players, could ever borrow tens of billions overseas, and lose
it all on dodgy property loans.

Strangely enough I could find some video about Tim Being mugged:

A commenter on thepropertypin says:

Do we expect to flaunt the family jewels, get mangled, act recklessly and expect others to clean up after us? Germany and France will guard its own interests we should make sure to more careful with ours – responsibility comes with power we treat money like we treat alcohol and then blame the pubs that served us….

I remember we found a man lying in a ditch one Sunday morning on the way to mass. We knew who he was and he had made it roughly half way home from the pub to his house. It was a short walk but was so drunk he fell and could not get up. My father helped him out of the ditch and he said “what pub is this?” – we have come full circle. Again, how embarassing.

even funnier

Princess Grace

The title of this post, it is a line from the Seinfeld episode The Chaperone. Elaine is discussing the idea of having grace in reference to Jackie Onassis:

Elaine at her job interview at Doubleday with Mrs. Landis.

LANDIS: Of course, Jackie O. was a great lady. Those are going to be some tough shoes to fill. Everyone loved her. She had such…grace.

ELAINE (gushing): Yes! Grace!

LANDIS: Not many people have grace.

ELAINE: Well, you know, grace is a tough one. I like to think I have a little grace…not as much as Jackie -

LANDIS: You can’t have “a little grace.” You either have grace, or you…don’t.

ELAINE: O.K., fine, I have…no grace.

LANDIS: And you can’t acquire grace.

ELAINE: Well, I have no intention of “getting” grace.

LANDIS: Grace isn’t something you can pick up at the market.

ELAINE (fed up): Alright, alright, look – I don’t have grace, I don’t want grace…I don’t even say grace, O.K.?

People with grace are few and far between in the office park where I work. There was one absolutely stunning lady in the dingy coffee shop where I go this morning. She was dressed all in white and had a gucci bag. She was with a man who wore a suit. They clearly did not belong here – they spoke German and my feeling was that they were Swiss.

She stood there (with incredible grace) and with her mouth slightly open stared at the prices on the wall. Things are not cheap in the near-monopoly-coffee-shop and some sandwiches can cost €6.50 – I was able to understand what she said when she told the guy what absolute shit the place was and wondered how can they charge so much. When someone noticed her unease they asked her if she was being served she said “yes” followed a few seconds later by “just admiring the lovely place” – The vile bitch who owns the shop shot her a look as if this solitary mistaken visit by that lady counted more than the opinions of people who spend thousands of euros there.

As she left the girl behind the counter saw me laughing to myself. I don’t know what she thought I was laughing at. Afterwards I felt this one episode has some subtle parallels with the Royals visits to Ireland this year. The people who are here day in and out have to wallow in crap and get fleeced. The opinion of the visitors is all we care about but will never know what they really think. In this instance I know what this one Royal visitor thought.

http://vimeo.com/21952231

Excerpt from recording by confiscated video camera in a Garda vehicle on March 31st, 2011, after the arrest of two women at Aughoose for public order-related offences relating to the Corrib gas project.

“Crusty camp” is a reference to the Rossport Solidarity Camp where the two women had been staying.

Garda A: “Who is them two lassies, do you know the two of them?

Garda B: “I don’t know the second one, the first one is with blonde hair.”

Unidentified garda: “She was up on the tractor earlier on.”

Garda A: “It’d do no harm to get the second one’s name again?

Garda B: “She’s some Yank. I don’t know who the f**k she is.”

Unidentified garda: “ Is she a Yank?

Garda B: “It sounds like it, it sounds like it, the accent anyway

Unidentified garda: “Sounds like a Yank or Canadian.”

Garda B: “Well whoever, we’ll get Immigration f**king on her.”

Garda A: “She refused to give her name and address and told she would be arrested.”

Garda B : “…….and deported”

Garda A: “And raped.”

Garda B: “I wouldn’t go that far yet….. She was living down at that crusty camp, f**k sake, you never know what you might get.”

Garda A: “Give me your name and address or I’ll rape you.”

Unidentified Garda: “Hold it there, give me your name and address there, I’ll rape you.”

Garda A : “Or I’ll definitely rape you.”

Unidentified garda: “Will you be me friend on Facebook?”

irishtimes.com

I tried to watch the webcast of Paddy Honohan from the central bank today. When the broadcast started they were still setting up the room and it seemed that they were unaware that people were watching on the internet. The camera was at the back of the room, in the middle behind a few rows of seats. It was 4.30 pm exactly and it was due to start. The mic was on too too and I heard the organisers discussing whether they could get people go down on their honkers. Then they tried to get foreign journalists to move and they were asking “why” and ended up just staying there. Then a woman came in and said they had more people downstairs who wanted to come in.

The video stopped and started a few times and eventually the broadcast started. They had brought the camera into the aisle and it zoomed diagonally close up on face of the leprechaun who runs the central bank.

The news came out that AIB needs another 1,300,000,000 euros. Ah sure no problem.

I was reading commentary on the internet at the same time: I was so embarassed when someone I follow on twitter said:

Someone posted a link to the pdf on the website of the Irish financial regulator. It crashed immediately and I saw this:

This is what the world saw of my country today. The broadcast itself was like some sort of novena or a funeral and was terrible to watch. I think I even saw a plate of hang sandwiches (no crusts) and a pot of tea on the table. They had a bag of sugar and a few cartons of milk too. It looked more like a builders tea break.

In other news, Inda replied to report he was cock of the walk at the EU summit:

no! there was no pick

http://www.facebook.com/michaellowrytd

I found out there are thousands of others who also think the same on totallylookslike.com.

I cannot decide who I hate more between those two. It is probably Bono because I hear his shit on the radio and it is a bit more difficult to innocently stumble across Mrs Doubtfire or Good Morning Vietnam or Good Will Hunting in the car on the way to work.

I have still not recovered from hearing U2′s Christmas song in December (or for that matter that other song ‘you’ve got to get yourself together’ in 2000). Anyway I heard ‘Vertigo’ a few days ago and I remembered seeing an advertising hoarding for the album ‘How to dismantle an atomic bomb’ in 2004. I was shocked at how completely shit an idea it seemed. It is also a complete lie because it does not contain any instructions for disarming an atomic bomb anywhere in the sleeve. Similarly the lyrics are a disappointment for would be bomb defusers but you will find such gems as:

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah

To compound it all I saw this today:

The details made me vomit violently in disgust. Luckily I found a Louis Vuitton bag close by to contain the waste.

dailymail.co.uk:

they are wearing Hewson’s own organic and ethical label Edun, which she created in 2005 and aims to encourage trade in Africa.
…
Each bag boasts a hand crafted charm created in Kenya for fairtrade jewellery label MADE, as well as a plaque with the inscription ‘Every journey began in Africa.’

They could have saved the cost of the trip by just going to Connemara as it looks the same. They could have donated the money to charity but who really thinks they care about that.