Rip Off!
31/08/08 23:32 Filed in: General
Nonsense | Blogging
We’re all used to the phenomenon of lazy
journalists copying and pasting content from blogs
and then passing it off as their own, but this is
taking it to another level.
Thieveing feckers at The Herald (Pricewatch - Conor Pope at The Irish Times.)
Thieveing feckers at The Herald (Pricewatch - Conor Pope at The Irish Times.)
|
Ryanair - Liars Or Incompetents?
31/08/08 22:30 Filed in: General
Nonsense
OK, OK, this will be my last Ryanair post for a
while. Folks might think I’m getting obsessed with
them, but this is just too good to pass up.
Last week, Ryanair announced that they planned to cut two of their seven routes out of Cork airport, claiming that the Airport Authority had unilaterally imposed increased charges on them. All the main talk shows on national radio had this on Wednesday, and a Ryanair spokesman was on hand to peddle the company line - greedy airport authority trying to profiteer, Ryanair valiantly doing their bit to keep fares low, as this is what the public want, etc. etc.
It would appear that the reality is a bit different. Last Friday’s Times had a story on the front page of its business section, which implied that Ryanair not only knew about these charges for almost a year, and had actually signed a contract agreeing to them. Initially, Ryanair’s deputy chief executive, Michael Cawley denied that Ryanair had signed anything of the sort with Cork Airport Authority.
The document seen by The Irish Times , however, clearly states that a sliding scale of supports would apply over the five years under the Cork Airport European Route Support Scheme 2007.
"After the five-year period, all airport charges will be charged at the standard rates applicable at the time of operation, as published by Cork Airport," it adds.
Ryanair's application summarises its plan to operate daily services on both routes with aircraft carrying up to 189 passengers.
When contacted by The Irish Times about the application form, Mr Cawley said: "This is an interesting breach of confidence. I'm not going to indulge in this."
If Cork Airport unilaterally leaked details about a contract between itself and Ryanair, without Ryanair’s prior knowledge or consent, then it might be, as Mr Cawley calls it “an interesting breach of confidence.” However in this case, all the CAA have done is to present their copy of a signed contract between themselves and Ryanair as evidence to prove that that they have not been acting in bad faith, and to correct the misleading picture being painted of them by Ryanair. And anyway, if as My Cawley claims, Ryanair signed no such contract with the CAA, how are they breaching confidence?
This throws up a couple of scenarios. Either (a) Ryanair are trying to throw their weight around and bully the CAA into rolling over on an agreement made between the two parties, or (b) Ryanair’s senior management are unaware of the contracts they have themselves signed.
My guess is (a).
In an interesting side note, Cawley was on The Last Word on Thursday (audio link here, interview starts about four minutes in) trying to justify his company’s position in the matter. He compared Cork Airport to the other regional airports Ryanair fly to around Europe, and suggested that the new terminal building at Cork had cost ten times the market value. Well I suppose, when it’s compared to a strip of tarmac and a shed or a tent, then it might look a bit extravagant, but then Cork is the second most important urban centre in the State and its airport is the gateway to the whole south and south west, the most important tourist destination in Ireland after Dublin.
Last week, Ryanair announced that they planned to cut two of their seven routes out of Cork airport, claiming that the Airport Authority had unilaterally imposed increased charges on them. All the main talk shows on national radio had this on Wednesday, and a Ryanair spokesman was on hand to peddle the company line - greedy airport authority trying to profiteer, Ryanair valiantly doing their bit to keep fares low, as this is what the public want, etc. etc.
It would appear that the reality is a bit different. Last Friday’s Times had a story on the front page of its business section, which implied that Ryanair not only knew about these charges for almost a year, and had actually signed a contract agreeing to them. Initially, Ryanair’s deputy chief executive, Michael Cawley denied that Ryanair had signed anything of the sort with Cork Airport Authority.
The document seen by The Irish Times , however, clearly states that a sliding scale of supports would apply over the five years under the Cork Airport European Route Support Scheme 2007.
"After the five-year period, all airport charges will be charged at the standard rates applicable at the time of operation, as published by Cork Airport," it adds.
Ryanair's application summarises its plan to operate daily services on both routes with aircraft carrying up to 189 passengers.
When contacted by The Irish Times about the application form, Mr Cawley said: "This is an interesting breach of confidence. I'm not going to indulge in this."
If Cork Airport unilaterally leaked details about a contract between itself and Ryanair, without Ryanair’s prior knowledge or consent, then it might be, as Mr Cawley calls it “an interesting breach of confidence.” However in this case, all the CAA have done is to present their copy of a signed contract between themselves and Ryanair as evidence to prove that that they have not been acting in bad faith, and to correct the misleading picture being painted of them by Ryanair. And anyway, if as My Cawley claims, Ryanair signed no such contract with the CAA, how are they breaching confidence?
This throws up a couple of scenarios. Either (a) Ryanair are trying to throw their weight around and bully the CAA into rolling over on an agreement made between the two parties, or (b) Ryanair’s senior management are unaware of the contracts they have themselves signed.
My guess is (a).
In an interesting side note, Cawley was on The Last Word on Thursday (audio link here, interview starts about four minutes in) trying to justify his company’s position in the matter. He compared Cork Airport to the other regional airports Ryanair fly to around Europe, and suggested that the new terminal building at Cork had cost ten times the market value. Well I suppose, when it’s compared to a strip of tarmac and a shed or a tent, then it might look a bit extravagant, but then Cork is the second most important urban centre in the State and its airport is the gateway to the whole south and south west, the most important tourist destination in Ireland after Dublin.
The Bus With Wings
28/08/08 22:29 Filed in: General
Nonsense
Like many Irish people, I have mixed feelings about
Ryanair. On the one hand, I am glad to see an Irish
company being the leading player in its sector
across Europe. On the other hand, having flown with
them on numerous occasions and experienced their
version of customer service up close many times, I
am not their biggest fan.
Another Irishman, Paul Kilduff, has written a book about his own relationship with Ryanair, or Ruinair as he calls it (and with the low-cost airline sector in general), which I read recently. The idea for the book came about after Kilduff was stranded for ten hours in Malaga, waiting for a Ryanair flight that had been delayed by technical problems. While he seethed and fumed at the lack of information or assistance, he hatched a cunning plan - he would fly to every country in the then 15-state EU with Ryanair and record his experiences.
What came out of this idea is partly a critique of Ryanair’s business model and approach to customer service, and partly a jaundiced travel guide to the various destinations to which Ryanair and other low-cost carriers fly. Sadly, it’s something of a dog’s dinner of a book, as I got the impression that Kilduff couldn’t quite make up his mind what exactly he was trying to achieve with it. He is critical - sometimes savagely - of the way the airline treats its customers and staff, but he obviously admires it enough to buy shares in the company. He states towards the end of the book that the stake he purchased has roughly doubled in value since he bought it. I only hope that he sold at the crest of the market, because Ryanair’s shares haven’t been doing so well of late.
There are some genuinely laugh out loud moments in the book, especially when he discusses the theory and practice of selecting a seat and discouraging fellow passengers from sitting in the next seat. (The best technique I reckon is the one he describes whereby he catches the eye of whoever is heading for the seat - man or woman, it doesn’t matter - winks at them and pats the vacant seat.) Overall, though the book suffers from a smug, smart-arse writing style that got on my nerves after a while. Why did he have to refer to Euros as “yo-yos” all the way through the book?
But back to my own love-hate relationship with the alternative national carrier. Working in the wine business, I have to fly to various locations around Europe to visit suppliers, and as it happens Ryanair’s policy of flying to former military airbases in the middle of nowhere can actually be quite handy sometimes. If I need to go to Verona, I can fly into Brescia (via Stansted). If my visit is to the Languedoc, I can fly directly to Carcassonne from Dublin. Karlsruhe/Baden is a short skip across the Rhine into the heart of my beloved Alsace.
What I hate most about Ryanair is the deception. Ryanair calls itself “The Low Fares Airline”. In the strictest sense, that is true, but it depends on how you define what exactly the “fare” is. To me the fare is the total cost of the journey, i.e. what Ryanair charge my credit card at the end of the transaction. They say that the “fare” is the headline price they quote before any taxes and charges, but you have to remember that Ryanair (and every other airline that operates a similar price structure) makes a profit on those taxes and charges. You can be damned sure that Ryanair do not pay Servisair (or whoever it is that does their baggage handling) €20 to get your bag from the check-in desk to the plane. Nor do they pay the airport €10 per passenger for the use of their check-in area. Nor do they pay €5 per passenger per flight to their credit card services provider.
Imagine for a moment walking into a wine shop and seeing a stack of wines on offer for 1c per 75cl (with small print advising “Plus taxes and charges”.) You grab a dozen and head for the till. The assistant rings it up, and charges you €2 for each bottle in which to transport your 75cl of wine, €10 for the box, €40 for excise duty (even though it should be no more than €24.57) and a fiver for paying by card (they don’t take any other method of payment.) You can take it to your car straight away for another tenner, or else wait until all the “priority” customers have loaded theirs. Suddenly, it doesn’t seem like such good value, does it? Yet this is exactly what Ryainair (and others) are doing in their approach to fare structure.
By peddling the bullshit line that the “fare” element of the total cost of the flight is low, they try to endear themselves to the travelling public. You hear it time and time again on the radio, either O’Leary or one of his goons spouting some nonsense like “The people of Ireland are demanding lower fares and this is what Ryanair are giving them.” If this bullshit is repeated often enough it will eventually auto-install itself on the consciousness. Like the irritating jingle played over and over again as the “self-loading cargo” boards Ryanair’s planes, selling us scratchcards, hangover cures and some weird concoction called “Whiskeycognac.”
Another Irishman, Paul Kilduff, has written a book about his own relationship with Ryanair, or Ruinair as he calls it (and with the low-cost airline sector in general), which I read recently. The idea for the book came about after Kilduff was stranded for ten hours in Malaga, waiting for a Ryanair flight that had been delayed by technical problems. While he seethed and fumed at the lack of information or assistance, he hatched a cunning plan - he would fly to every country in the then 15-state EU with Ryanair and record his experiences.
What came out of this idea is partly a critique of Ryanair’s business model and approach to customer service, and partly a jaundiced travel guide to the various destinations to which Ryanair and other low-cost carriers fly. Sadly, it’s something of a dog’s dinner of a book, as I got the impression that Kilduff couldn’t quite make up his mind what exactly he was trying to achieve with it. He is critical - sometimes savagely - of the way the airline treats its customers and staff, but he obviously admires it enough to buy shares in the company. He states towards the end of the book that the stake he purchased has roughly doubled in value since he bought it. I only hope that he sold at the crest of the market, because Ryanair’s shares haven’t been doing so well of late.
There are some genuinely laugh out loud moments in the book, especially when he discusses the theory and practice of selecting a seat and discouraging fellow passengers from sitting in the next seat. (The best technique I reckon is the one he describes whereby he catches the eye of whoever is heading for the seat - man or woman, it doesn’t matter - winks at them and pats the vacant seat.) Overall, though the book suffers from a smug, smart-arse writing style that got on my nerves after a while. Why did he have to refer to Euros as “yo-yos” all the way through the book?
But back to my own love-hate relationship with the alternative national carrier. Working in the wine business, I have to fly to various locations around Europe to visit suppliers, and as it happens Ryanair’s policy of flying to former military airbases in the middle of nowhere can actually be quite handy sometimes. If I need to go to Verona, I can fly into Brescia (via Stansted). If my visit is to the Languedoc, I can fly directly to Carcassonne from Dublin. Karlsruhe/Baden is a short skip across the Rhine into the heart of my beloved Alsace.
What I hate most about Ryanair is the deception. Ryanair calls itself “The Low Fares Airline”. In the strictest sense, that is true, but it depends on how you define what exactly the “fare” is. To me the fare is the total cost of the journey, i.e. what Ryanair charge my credit card at the end of the transaction. They say that the “fare” is the headline price they quote before any taxes and charges, but you have to remember that Ryanair (and every other airline that operates a similar price structure) makes a profit on those taxes and charges. You can be damned sure that Ryanair do not pay Servisair (or whoever it is that does their baggage handling) €20 to get your bag from the check-in desk to the plane. Nor do they pay the airport €10 per passenger for the use of their check-in area. Nor do they pay €5 per passenger per flight to their credit card services provider.
Imagine for a moment walking into a wine shop and seeing a stack of wines on offer for 1c per 75cl (with small print advising “Plus taxes and charges”.) You grab a dozen and head for the till. The assistant rings it up, and charges you €2 for each bottle in which to transport your 75cl of wine, €10 for the box, €40 for excise duty (even though it should be no more than €24.57) and a fiver for paying by card (they don’t take any other method of payment.) You can take it to your car straight away for another tenner, or else wait until all the “priority” customers have loaded theirs. Suddenly, it doesn’t seem like such good value, does it? Yet this is exactly what Ryainair (and others) are doing in their approach to fare structure.
By peddling the bullshit line that the “fare” element of the total cost of the flight is low, they try to endear themselves to the travelling public. You hear it time and time again on the radio, either O’Leary or one of his goons spouting some nonsense like “The people of Ireland are demanding lower fares and this is what Ryanair are giving them.” If this bullshit is repeated often enough it will eventually auto-install itself on the consciousness. Like the irritating jingle played over and over again as the “self-loading cargo” boards Ryanair’s planes, selling us scratchcards, hangover cures and some weird concoction called “Whiskeycognac.”
New Ideas For RTE Programmes
25/08/08 22:31 Filed in: General
Nonsense
Autumn is almost upon us, so that means that RTÉ
will soon start airing their new schedule of
original programming. I use the word “original”
hesitantly, as it really is a long time since the
national broadcaster ever came up with anything
remotely innovative.
There seems to be a trend in Montrose to do an Irish version of successful UK series. So we have makeover programmes for both houses and women; turgid hospital drama crops up every now and then; and there are various food-themed shows, all pretty much cloned from originals from across the water.
But there’s one particular rut that RTÉ seems to be stuck in - celebrity reality TV. Fáilte Towers was on while I was away on holiday, but in truth, I doubt if I would have been able to sit through more than five minutes of it anyway. The problem with these programmes is that we don’t have a deep enough pool of willing or desperate celebrities to feature in these shows, and before long you can hear the distinct tone of a barrel being scraped. Whatever about the celebs, it’s the ideas that seem to be getting more desperate.
So here are a couple that might be of interest:
Celebrity Confessor - the public are invited to phone in (on a premium rate line, natch) in order to unburden themselves on a celebrity who will listen to their trials and tribulations with a sympathetic ear. But going “Yeh! Yeh! That’s desperate, altogether!” won’t be good enough. The celeb will have to get as much salacious background info as possible, the quality of which will be analysed and rated by an expert panel to include Joe Duffy, Brenda Power and Fr Brian D’Arcy.
Prison Food - Just as Jamie Oliver revolutionised school dinners in the UK, one of Ireland’s celebrity chefs would be invited to come into Mountjoy prison and bring the menu there up to the 21st century. Out would go the grey slop and in would come the rocket salads and crushed potatoes, and what have you. The cells would be miked up, so that the chef gets to hear the reaction from the inmates. It could also test the supervisory skills of a team of celebrity prison officers, as one prisoner would be involved in the kitchen and would have access to a supply of mobile phones, weapons and drugs, which he has to try to conceal in the food for passing on to his fellow prisoners. The public could place bets as to how long it would take till a riot starts, with all the proceeds going to charity.
They could be runners, I reckon.
There seems to be a trend in Montrose to do an Irish version of successful UK series. So we have makeover programmes for both houses and women; turgid hospital drama crops up every now and then; and there are various food-themed shows, all pretty much cloned from originals from across the water.
But there’s one particular rut that RTÉ seems to be stuck in - celebrity reality TV. Fáilte Towers was on while I was away on holiday, but in truth, I doubt if I would have been able to sit through more than five minutes of it anyway. The problem with these programmes is that we don’t have a deep enough pool of willing or desperate celebrities to feature in these shows, and before long you can hear the distinct tone of a barrel being scraped. Whatever about the celebs, it’s the ideas that seem to be getting more desperate.
So here are a couple that might be of interest:
Celebrity Confessor - the public are invited to phone in (on a premium rate line, natch) in order to unburden themselves on a celebrity who will listen to their trials and tribulations with a sympathetic ear. But going “Yeh! Yeh! That’s desperate, altogether!” won’t be good enough. The celeb will have to get as much salacious background info as possible, the quality of which will be analysed and rated by an expert panel to include Joe Duffy, Brenda Power and Fr Brian D’Arcy.
Prison Food - Just as Jamie Oliver revolutionised school dinners in the UK, one of Ireland’s celebrity chefs would be invited to come into Mountjoy prison and bring the menu there up to the 21st century. Out would go the grey slop and in would come the rocket salads and crushed potatoes, and what have you. The cells would be miked up, so that the chef gets to hear the reaction from the inmates. It could also test the supervisory skills of a team of celebrity prison officers, as one prisoner would be involved in the kitchen and would have access to a supply of mobile phones, weapons and drugs, which he has to try to conceal in the food for passing on to his fellow prisoners. The public could place bets as to how long it would take till a riot starts, with all the proceeds going to charity.
They could be runners, I reckon.
Brian McFadden: Misunderstood Artist?
21/08/08 23:22 Filed in: General
Nonsense
Former Westlife member Brian McFadden has been in
the wars recently, with his homophobic remarks in a
radio interview in New Zealand. The Sun reported on
the controversy (no, I don’t have the Currant Bun
in my RSS reader, I just followed
a link
posted by
Damien Mulley),
and it turned up a gem of a quote (my emphasis
added):
The last four words of Damien’s piece sums up where he’s at.
Meanwhile Brian revealed the moment he wanted to quit his former boyband was when they were asked to record a cover of Barry Manilow's Mandy.
The Irish singer announced his departure just months later and started making plans for a solo career.
He said: "We never got any respect as artists because we didn't write all the songs and we weren't a self-producing product. We were being controlled more like puppets than anything else."
The last four words of Damien’s piece sums up where he’s at.
So We're Back
19/08/08 20:47 Filed in: General
Nonsense | Personal
Got back on Saturday, having enjoyed a
séjour
very
agréable
in
Bretagne.
I’ll probably do a few in-depth posts about “Mo Léathanta Saoire” when I get time (500-odd photos to arrange, tag and back up first), but the highlights were as follows:
The beaches, especially Carantec. Even though we had pretty awful weather for a lot of the time, we were still able to spend several hours paddling and building sandcastles when the rain stayed away.
Locronan. A beautiful, almost perfectly preserved medieval village.
Our gite. Spacious, comfortable, well-equipped and very quiet. It was located in a sleepy little village and owned by a lovely elderly couple.
The ferry. Lots to do to pass the fourteen hours of a crossing. Surprisingly good food, too. And the passage from Ringaskiddy out through Cork harbour to Roches Point is magnificent. Sod flying, this is the way to do it.
The parish closes. Extraordinarily complex church architecture and decor in a cluster of small villages near Morlaix.
Cidre de Bretagne. Yum!
The coastline. Cliffs, inlets, lighthouses, islands… you name it, it’s there.
I’ll probably do a few in-depth posts about “Mo Léathanta Saoire” when I get time (500-odd photos to arrange, tag and back up first), but the highlights were as follows:
The beaches, especially Carantec. Even though we had pretty awful weather for a lot of the time, we were still able to spend several hours paddling and building sandcastles when the rain stayed away.
Locronan. A beautiful, almost perfectly preserved medieval village.
Our gite. Spacious, comfortable, well-equipped and very quiet. It was located in a sleepy little village and owned by a lovely elderly couple.
The ferry. Lots to do to pass the fourteen hours of a crossing. Surprisingly good food, too. And the passage from Ringaskiddy out through Cork harbour to Roches Point is magnificent. Sod flying, this is the way to do it.
The parish closes. Extraordinarily complex church architecture and decor in a cluster of small villages near Morlaix.
Cidre de Bretagne. Yum!
The coastline. Cliffs, inlets, lighthouses, islands… you name it, it’s there.