General Nonsense
What If?
01/01/09 22:36
Every now and
then, whenever a prominent businessman like Michael
O’Leary or Bill Cullen is interviewed on one of the
drivetime news shows, texts flood in with comments
like “Now that’s the man that should be running the
country” or “Michael O’Leary for Taoiseach” and so on
and so forth.
So, let’s imagine that one or other of them did become Taoiseach. How would they run the country?
Micko first:
-
Enforce a ban on all public sector unions.
- Change the tricolour to blue, white and yellow.
- Introduce a national ID card scheme, funded by a scratch-panel on each card, which would cost €1.
- Relaunch the Seanad as an independent body in competition with the Dáil.
- Reduce income tax to zero, but charge for every public service availed of.
- Close all Irish embassies in capital cities, and move them to small towns 50km away.
- By 2030, Micko’s policies should see the size of the Irish economy overtake that of the UK’s.
- Once that happens, launch a takeover bid for the UK.
Bill:
- Cabinet posts to be filled by applicants to a reality TV show to be called “The Government”
- Tasks to include selling fleet deals on Renaults to fellow EU governments. Bonus points if you can sell one to the French.
- Under-performing ministers would be voted off by text vote (€1 per text, proceeds to fund the health service).
OK, I’m struggling now. Any more ideas?
So, let’s imagine that one or other of them did become Taoiseach. How would they run the country?
Micko first:
- Change the tricolour to blue, white and yellow.
- Introduce a national ID card scheme, funded by a scratch-panel on each card, which would cost €1.
- Relaunch the Seanad as an independent body in competition with the Dáil.
- Reduce income tax to zero, but charge for every public service availed of.
- Close all Irish embassies in capital cities, and move them to small towns 50km away.
- By 2030, Micko’s policies should see the size of the Irish economy overtake that of the UK’s.
- Once that happens, launch a takeover bid for the UK.
Bill:
- Cabinet posts to be filled by applicants to a reality TV show to be called “The Government”
- Tasks to include selling fleet deals on Renaults to fellow EU governments. Bonus points if you can sell one to the French.
- Under-performing ministers would be voted off by text vote (€1 per text, proceeds to fund the health service).
OK, I’m struggling now. Any more ideas?
|
Signing Off For The Christmas
24/12/08 15:55
A very Merry
Christmas to one and all! I hope that Santa brings
everything you wished for.
We’re spending the day at home, and head off to Cork on Stephens’s Day (There’s a thing: why do we say The Christmas, and Stephens’s Day? We don’t say The Easter or Patricks’s Day.) Back sometime before New Years Eve.
But before I go, a letter in the Irish Times today asked: “One wonders what the collective noun for a group of bankers is. A shower, perhaps?”
Nope. It’s a wunch.
We’re spending the day at home, and head off to Cork on Stephens’s Day (There’s a thing: why do we say The Christmas, and Stephens’s Day? We don’t say The Easter or Patricks’s Day.) Back sometime before New Years Eve.
But before I go, a letter in the Irish Times today asked: “One wonders what the collective noun for a group of bankers is. A shower, perhaps?”
Nope. It’s a wunch.
Strictly Season Over
21/12/08 21:29
Caption Required
20/12/08 23:16
A rather odd
photo of Richard Corrigan on the front cover of this
month’s Food & Wine Magazine:
It sort of begs a caption competition, doesn’t it?
Wait! There's More…
It sort of begs a caption competition, doesn’t it?
Wait! There's More…
Monday Miscellany
15/12/08 21:55
One thing I
hate is when the RSS feed of a blog or other site is
timestamped ahead by several hours, so that it always
appears at the top of a page of feed results.
Here’s one:
1: The time I took the screenshot
2: Feed from Gadgetrepublic.com, timestamped to 6.00 a.m. tomorrow morning
3: Feed from TUAW, showing the correct time
I was going to do a post about the horrendous new X-Factor version of Hallelujah, but Bock pretty much nails it.
Speaking of Bock, he’s not impressed with Munster’s performance last Saturday.
Joy to the world, Sweary is back! Hopefully this time, someone in one of the papers will snap her up. Talent like hers deserves a bigger audience.
Here’s one:
1: The time I took the screenshot
2: Feed from Gadgetrepublic.com, timestamped to 6.00 a.m. tomorrow morning
3: Feed from TUAW, showing the correct time
I was going to do a post about the horrendous new X-Factor version of Hallelujah, but Bock pretty much nails it.
Speaking of Bock, he’s not impressed with Munster’s performance last Saturday.
Joy to the world, Sweary is back! Hopefully this time, someone in one of the papers will snap her up. Talent like hers deserves a bigger audience.
New M8
10/12/08 21:56
The new
section of the M8 from Cullahill in Co Laois to
Cashel in Co Tipperary opened on Monday, and I had my first
spin on it today.
It links up with the Cashel bypass, and in all it forms part of a 100km or so stretch from south Laois to north Cork. Bypassing Johnstown, Urlingford, Turnpike, Littleton and Horse &
Jockey,
it reportedly shaves twenty minutes off the journey
from Dublin to Cork. From our point of view, we
should be able to do the journey from Portarlington
to my wife’s parents’ place in Cork in under two
hours.
When I first started going to Cork regularly over ten years ago, it used to take the best part of four hours from our flat in Dublin 8. On Friday night, you would be guaranteed a traffic jam in Kildare and Monasterevin, and often in Abbeyleix as well. We used to turn off down the M9 and go through Athy, Castlecomer and Ballyragget, rejoining the N8 at either Durrow or Urlingford. Further on, Cashel could be a bit sticky every now and then, and we often crawled through Mitchelstown and Fermoy.
Now, almost all of that is gone. The only blackspot left is Abbeyleix, and we can get around that. Two parts of the jigsaw remain to be put into place - the Portlaoise to Cullahill stretch and the 16km between Mitchelstown and Fermoy. Once these are in place sometime around 2010, it will be non-stop motorway or dual carriageway all the way from Newlands Cross in Dublin to the Dunkettle Interchange in Cork.
Maintaining a steady average speed of 100-120km/h all the way would mean that Newlands-Dunkettle could be done in a little over two hours.
It links up with the Cashel bypass, and in all it forms part of a 100km or so stretch from south Laois to north Cork. Bypassing Johnstown, Urlingford, Turnpike, Littleton and Horse &
When I first started going to Cork regularly over ten years ago, it used to take the best part of four hours from our flat in Dublin 8. On Friday night, you would be guaranteed a traffic jam in Kildare and Monasterevin, and often in Abbeyleix as well. We used to turn off down the M9 and go through Athy, Castlecomer and Ballyragget, rejoining the N8 at either Durrow or Urlingford. Further on, Cashel could be a bit sticky every now and then, and we often crawled through Mitchelstown and Fermoy.
Now, almost all of that is gone. The only blackspot left is Abbeyleix, and we can get around that. Two parts of the jigsaw remain to be put into place - the Portlaoise to Cullahill stretch and the 16km between Mitchelstown and Fermoy. Once these are in place sometime around 2010, it will be non-stop motorway or dual carriageway all the way from Newlands Cross in Dublin to the Dunkettle Interchange in Cork.
Maintaining a steady average speed of 100-120km/h all the way would mean that Newlands-Dunkettle could be done in a little over two hours.
Pig Out
07/12/08 22:00
The pork
scandal that broke last night here in Ireland looks
like a complete over-reaction. (What word will be
used as a prefix to “-gate” to describe this, I
wonder? Will it be known as “Porkergate” or
“Sausagegate”?)
From the Food Safety Authority of Ireland website:
So if there is an extremely low risk to consumer health, why risk destroying an entire industry upon which thousands of jobs depend, not to mention millions of euros in exports?
We have several pork products in our freezer. We’re not throwing a single one of them out.
From the Food Safety Authority of Ireland website:
Even though it is illegal for dioxins to be present in foodstuffs, any possible risk to consumer health is extremely low and consumers should not be concerned.
So if there is an extremely low risk to consumer health, why risk destroying an entire industry upon which thousands of jobs depend, not to mention millions of euros in exports?
We have several pork products in our freezer. We’re not throwing a single one of them out.
) .
01/12/08 22:30
The moon and
Venus, this evening:
I didn’t get home in time to get a good photo myself and found the above one on boards.ie
I didn’t get home in time to get a good photo myself and found the above one on boards.ie
So Close, Yet So Far Away
27/11/08 21:24
A couple of
years ago, I wrote a piece
about the generally crappy state of roadsigns in
Ireland. Yesterday, I spotted
a gem.
Travelling towards Galway on the N6, a sign just at the junction with the N65 states that Galway is 39km away.
Travelling towards Galway on the N6, a sign just at the junction with the N65 states that Galway is 39km away.
But then a few km further
on, at the beginning of the Loughrea bypass, another
sign advises that Galway is in fact 41km away.
These guys again,
obviously:
The Death of Irish Retail
24/11/08 23:13
Graphic created
using Google Sketchup
It’s bad enough having the country
in a recession. But what’s worse is that we have a
government which appears to want to stop us spending
money within our economy altogether.
Ask Irish retailers what business is like and nearly
every one will say that they are well down on last
year. Those that are within an hour’s drive to the
border will tell you that trade this year is a
disaster. Go to Newry and look at the car park at
Sainsbury’s - it will be full of southern reg cars.
Now you can easily point the finger at the retailers
themselves and say “Good enough for them. They have
been ripping us off for years.” While this may be
true to an extent, it is by no means the full story.
The cost of doing business in the Republic is much
higher than in Northern Ireland. Staff costs,
logistics, utilities, local authority charges, etc.
are a much bigger share of a southern retail
business’s cost base compared to a northern one.
Now that the downturn is upon us, the focus for
shoppers is to spend less. With bargains to be had in
Northern Ireland (and a Euro that is 27% stronger
against Sterling than it was eighteen months ago)
it’s no wonder shoppers are flocking over the border
in their thousands. Any sensible government would by
now have put in place measures to keep these
shoppers’ euros on our side of the border, but what
has happened is that they have done the opposite.
In October’s Budget, Brian Lenihan raised VAT to
21.5%, applicable from 1 December. So rather than
encouraging shoppers to spend in this economy, he is
actually enticing them to look elsewhere - i.e. in
the North. And then today, Alistair Darling, UK
Chancellor of the Exchequer has brought UK VAT down
to 15%, making Northern Ireland even more attractive
for southern shoppers.
The other factor that is slowly strangling retail in
the Republic is the banking crisis. Banks have
stopped lending to small businesses, which has
completely messed up the cash flow of thousands of
retailers. At this time of year, cash flow management
is crucial, and if the banks turn off the tap and
cancel the overdrafts, then there will be a huge
number of retailers in big trouble in the coming
weeks. There is potential for a vast number of
perfectly viable businesses going to the wall, with
thousands of jobs lost. Meanwhile, the government
dithers about what to do to stabilise the banks.
Answer: look at what others have done, and do
something similar.
Brians Cowen and Lenihan have made an almighty hames
of this recession so far. They can’t seem to make any
timely decisions, and when they do, invariably make
the wrong one. But we’re stuck with them for another
four years, unless the Greens decide enough is enough
and walk out.
Complete, utter, epic FAIL.
November Lights
10/11/08 22:22
My first ever blog
post, way back in November 2004, was a rant about the
misuse of headlights and foglights in winter. Just
looking back over the archives, I realise that I
revisit this subject quite frequently, usually around
this time of year.
In summary, my main bugbears are as follows:
- Use of fog lights (front or rear) when there is no fog.
- Driving on full beams on a motorway. This is especially a problem on the new M8, which has a concrete central barrier. Some drivers seem to think that this shields oncoming traffic from their full beams. It does not, nor does it prevent the drivers of cars in front from being dazzled by the full beams in their rear-view mirror.
- Not dipping headlights until the very last moment.
- Faulty brakelights, or no brakelights at all.
One more, which seems to be more prevalent this winter is the incidence of faulty headlights. It’s a fact of lights that bulbs blow, otherwise bulb manufacturers wouldn’t be able to make a living and their children would starve. When this happens, the ideal course of action is to replace the blown bulb as quickly as possible. But what a lot of drivers do is drive with their front fogs on instead. So you have one dipped headlight, the other one with a faint glimmer, and fogs on full blast. The worst, though, is when one headlight is completely dead. Driving against this is very dangerous, as you don’t know what’s coming at you, a motorbike or a four wheeled vehicle with a dodgy headlight.
I’ll have to think of another one for next year’s rant.
In summary, my main bugbears are as follows:
- Use of fog lights (front or rear) when there is no fog.
- Driving on full beams on a motorway. This is especially a problem on the new M8, which has a concrete central barrier. Some drivers seem to think that this shields oncoming traffic from their full beams. It does not, nor does it prevent the drivers of cars in front from being dazzled by the full beams in their rear-view mirror.
- Not dipping headlights until the very last moment.
- Faulty brakelights, or no brakelights at all.
One more, which seems to be more prevalent this winter is the incidence of faulty headlights. It’s a fact of lights that bulbs blow, otherwise bulb manufacturers wouldn’t be able to make a living and their children would starve. When this happens, the ideal course of action is to replace the blown bulb as quickly as possible. But what a lot of drivers do is drive with their front fogs on instead. So you have one dipped headlight, the other one with a faint glimmer, and fogs on full blast. The worst, though, is when one headlight is completely dead. Driving against this is very dangerous, as you don’t know what’s coming at you, a motorbike or a four wheeled vehicle with a dodgy headlight.
I’ll have to think of another one for next year’s rant.
If The Economic Downturn Means…
04/11/08 22:31
Some Hallowe'en Fun
31/10/08 22:11
Nice bit of viral
marketing by The Cliff House Hotel
in Ardmore, Co
Waterford. Take out your frustrations on the
Budget, the recession and the “We told you so”
economists, in an interactive zombie-shooting
game.
Enter your top score to win an overnight stay at
The Cliff House. Competition closes on 9 November.
(Disclaimer: The company I work for is a supplier to The Cliff House Hotel, and I am the salesman who looks after their account. That fact notwithstanding, it really is a great place to spend a night or two.)
(Disclaimer: The company I work for is a supplier to The Cliff House Hotel, and I am the salesman who looks after their account. That fact notwithstanding, it really is a great place to spend a night or two.)
How Wingnuts Interpret Polls
27/10/08 22:03
Take
this poll: Gallup Poll
Daily tracking from Friday
through Sunday finds Barack Obama with a five
percentage point lead over John McCain, 50% to
45%, in the presidential preferences of likely
voters using Gallup's traditional model.
Look further down, and you’ll find that the margin of error is +/- 2%. So that means that in reality, Obama is no more than 1% ahead of McCain, which is in itself within the margin of error. And that’s before the Bradley Effect is taken into account. Go McCain!!
Believe it or not, Matt Drudge of The Drudge Report makes a living peddling this sort of crap.
Look further down, and you’ll find that the margin of error is +/- 2%. So that means that in reality, Obama is no more than 1% ahead of McCain, which is in itself within the margin of error. And that’s before the Bradley Effect is taken into account. Go McCain!!
Believe it or not, Matt Drudge of The Drudge Report makes a living peddling this sort of crap.
Abbeyleix Again
24/10/08 22:34
A while back I
published a guide to the Unofficial Abbeyleix
Bypass.
This being Jazz Weekend, I feel I should draw your
attention to it again in case you missed it first
time round.
What I didn’t do back in July was detail the northbound route. I have now rectified this.
I travelled the N8 to Cork on Wednesday last and there were roadworks north of Abbeyleix and also in Durrow. I hope to Jaysus that these have been suspended. We’re off to Cork in the morning.
If you haven’t travelled the route for a while, be aware that the M8 from Cashel to Mitchelstown is now open, and it is the biz. We can now do Portarlington to Cork in two hours fifteen minutes without breaking sweat.
Have a great Bank Holiday Weekend.
What I didn’t do back in July was detail the northbound route. I have now rectified this.
I travelled the N8 to Cork on Wednesday last and there were roadworks north of Abbeyleix and also in Durrow. I hope to Jaysus that these have been suspended. We’re off to Cork in the morning.
If you haven’t travelled the route for a while, be aware that the M8 from Cashel to Mitchelstown is now open, and it is the biz. We can now do Portarlington to Cork in two hours fifteen minutes without breaking sweat.
Have a great Bank Holiday Weekend.
Just Asking, Like…
21/10/08 21:25
Lookalike
27/09/08 23:21
172 Is Your Friend
05/09/08 22:24
As a salesman, I depend on my mobile as an essential
tool for business. Naturally, I try to answer every
incoming call, but sometimes it just isn’t possible.
If I get a missed call, and whoever it was that
called didn’t leave a message, my first reaction is
to dial my own number from a landline and make sure
that my divert to voicemail is working OK.
But it still amazes me how many people in business haven’t grasped the concept of voicemail. When you call someone on their mobile, you might be a bit annoyed if your call is diverted to voicemail, but it’s understandable. The person at the other end could be in a meeting, or having lunch, or in the jacks, or in a hotel room with someone who is not their spouse, or whatever. No matter what the reason is for your call not being answered, you should have the opportunity to leave a message.
I phoned a customer the other day on his mobile. He’s the MD of a fairly big company, and a guy who would be in demand from customers and suppliers alike. Instead of a voicemail message, I got “The customer you are calling is out of reach at present. Please try again later.”
That, to me, is the pits. If you’re out of reach, your phone should divert to voicemail.
Another customer I phoned this week had obviously left his phone on the kitchen table that morning before he left for work. It rang out without going to voicemail. As bad as the above.
Somewhat better, but still not good enough is when you phone someone and you get the default service provider voicemail message. “You have reached the Vodafone voicemail box of… Oh. Eight. Seven. Two. [pause] Three. Two. Nine. Five. Four. Oh. Please leave a message for the person you are calling, after the tone. [beep].” Whenever I get this, I often think that I have dialled a wrong number, as I expect the person I have called to be savvy enough to have actually recorded their own voicemail message. So I go “Shit! Shit! Shit!” and redial the number.
But there is a crucial coda to this rant. You can set you voicemail up perfectly and make sure it diverts as intended. You can even do what one guy I worked with some years ago does and record a new message each day - “Hello this is John Smith on Friday, 5 September, etc.” But of you don’t respond to the messages on your voicemail, you’re as bad as the person who doesn’t bother to set up their voicemail in the first place.
Next rant: Out of Office Assistants.
But it still amazes me how many people in business haven’t grasped the concept of voicemail. When you call someone on their mobile, you might be a bit annoyed if your call is diverted to voicemail, but it’s understandable. The person at the other end could be in a meeting, or having lunch, or in the jacks, or in a hotel room with someone who is not their spouse, or whatever. No matter what the reason is for your call not being answered, you should have the opportunity to leave a message.
I phoned a customer the other day on his mobile. He’s the MD of a fairly big company, and a guy who would be in demand from customers and suppliers alike. Instead of a voicemail message, I got “The customer you are calling is out of reach at present. Please try again later.”
That, to me, is the pits. If you’re out of reach, your phone should divert to voicemail.
Another customer I phoned this week had obviously left his phone on the kitchen table that morning before he left for work. It rang out without going to voicemail. As bad as the above.
Somewhat better, but still not good enough is when you phone someone and you get the default service provider voicemail message. “You have reached the Vodafone voicemail box of… Oh. Eight. Seven. Two. [pause] Three. Two. Nine. Five. Four. Oh. Please leave a message for the person you are calling, after the tone. [beep].” Whenever I get this, I often think that I have dialled a wrong number, as I expect the person I have called to be savvy enough to have actually recorded their own voicemail message. So I go “Shit! Shit! Shit!” and redial the number.
But there is a crucial coda to this rant. You can set you voicemail up perfectly and make sure it diverts as intended. You can even do what one guy I worked with some years ago does and record a new message each day - “Hello this is John Smith on Friday, 5 September, etc.” But of you don’t respond to the messages on your voicemail, you’re as bad as the person who doesn’t bother to set up their voicemail in the first place.
Next rant: Out of Office Assistants.
Random Stuff
04/09/08 22:31
I had a quick look at my
Technorati reactions
page this evening, and it was showing a new referral:
14126 days ago? Using the method I discovered a while back, I calculate 14126 days ago to be 1 January 1970. Good Lord, have I been blogging for 38 years?
You may have seen this already, but if not, enjoy.
Guy “Mr Madonna” Ritchie has a new movie out soon, which by all accounts is the same as his last two. This classic Fast Show sketch sums it up.
Was in Lidl the other day, and they had a display on the wall by the checkouts of their own brand logos. They seem to be following a pattern for quite a few of them. Goes like this:
Draw an oval, and fill it red. Choose a three-syllable name, preferably ending in a vowel. Type that name in white text into your red oval. Use a font like Optima and italicise it. Hey, presto! Your own low-cost, discount supermarket brand.
Apply to packs of pasta, boxes of washing powder, tins of sauerkraut or packs of incontinence pads. Hordes of recession-maddened punters will queue up to buy them.
14126 days ago? Using the method I discovered a while back, I calculate 14126 days ago to be 1 January 1970. Good Lord, have I been blogging for 38 years?
You may have seen this already, but if not, enjoy.
Guy “Mr Madonna” Ritchie has a new movie out soon, which by all accounts is the same as his last two. This classic Fast Show sketch sums it up.
Was in Lidl the other day, and they had a display on the wall by the checkouts of their own brand logos. They seem to be following a pattern for quite a few of them. Goes like this:
Draw an oval, and fill it red. Choose a three-syllable name, preferably ending in a vowel. Type that name in white text into your red oval. Use a font like Optima and italicise it. Hey, presto! Your own low-cost, discount supermarket brand.
Apply to packs of pasta, boxes of washing powder, tins of sauerkraut or packs of incontinence pads. Hordes of recession-maddened punters will queue up to buy them.
Mo Léathanta Saoire
03/09/08 23:43
Long, long ago, back in the 1970s, when recession was
the default economic condition in Ireland, I was in
national school. When we came back to school after
the summer holidays in September, we were almost
always tasked with writing an essay (or “composition”
as it was known) in Irish, entitled “Cad a rinne mé í
rith mo léathanta saoire.” It being 25 years since I
last studied Irish, my recollection of the exact
title might be suspect, but the gist of it was “What
I did during my summer holidays.”
This being 2008, and with digital photography, Web 2.0 and all that, here’s my “composition” for this year.
This being 2008, and with digital photography, Web 2.0 and all that, here’s my “composition” for this year.
Rip Off!
31/08/08 23:32
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
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
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
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
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
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.
But Before I Go…
31/07/08 23:52
Giles Coren, restaurant
critic of The Sunday Times really needs to lighten
up. A sub-editor at the paper had the temerity to
remove an ‘a’ from one of his reviews, prompting The
Great Man to fire off an email
to all of the subs.
The subs reply.
Choice quotes below the fold.
Wait! There's More…
The subs reply.
Choice quotes below the fold.
Wait! There's More…
Holliers
31/07/08 23:18
Off on me holliers
tomorrow (Friday). We’re stuffing everything into the
car and going to Brittany for two weeks, renting a
gite. First proper holiday in three years, and the
first ever with Aoife.
I’m going to turn comment moderation on, just in case any ne’er-do-wells stop by and decide to treat the comment facility as a toilet wall.
Many thanks to Brittany expert Treasa for her advice on where to stay and what to see.
Unlike my good friend Willie Joe, I will not be sending bloggy postcards while I’m away.
And for good measure, ‘tis my birthday tomorrow too.
See yiz in a fortnight.
I’m going to turn comment moderation on, just in case any ne’er-do-wells stop by and decide to treat the comment facility as a toilet wall.
Many thanks to Brittany expert Treasa for her advice on where to stay and what to see.
Unlike my good friend Willie Joe, I will not be sending bloggy postcards while I’m away.
And for good measure, ‘tis my birthday tomorrow too.
See yiz in a fortnight.
Abbeyleix
31/07/08 22:53
Tomorrow is Bank
Holiday Friday in Ireland, which means that most of
the population of the country will be on the move. As
more and more of these new motorways open up (two
alone in the last fortnight - the N6 from Kilbeggan
to Athlone and the N8/M8 from Cashel to
Mitchelstown), the familiar old bottlenecks are being
bypassed.
Some remain, and the longer they remain un-bypassed, the more their notoriety grows. As time passes, the big bottleneck on the road from Dublin to Cork has moved through Kildare and now lives here in lovely Laois. Abbeyleix is a nightmare on a Friday and Sunday, as the traffic moves at snail’s pace through its long main street. On bank holiday weekends, it’s a disaster.
If you drive from Dublin to Cork on a Friday evening and are approaching Abbeyleix, you may notice a number of cars turning right about a kilometre before the town. These aren’t local cars, and few of them sport LS reg plates. No, these drivers have discovered the Unofficial Abbeyleix Bypass, and I’m going to tell you where it is.
Directions (going south):
About 1km before Abbeyleix, the road sweeps round to the left, and a ghost island allows a turn to the right. Go right here. Go over a bridge and take the first left. Follow this road until you reach a staggered crossroads, where you go straight through. Follow this road to the end and then turn left. After 300 metres or so, you will see the gates of a Georgian house on your right. Take the right just after these (warning: it’s a really shitty little road). Follow to the end and turn right, back onto the N8 south of Abbeyleix.
You might be asking yourself why I’m publishing this and letting people in on the secret. To be honest, the 50 or so readers I get here each day are hardly going to cause a tailback even if they all decided to use the route at the same time. It might be a different story if someone like Damien Mulley published it.
Adds 24 October: Northbound directions:
As you approach Abbeyleix from Durrow, you will see a place that sells garden ornaments and sheds and such like on your left. Take the next left turn after this (it’s signposted.) Follow that road to the end and turn left. After about 300 metres, you will come to junction with two roads leading off to the right in quick succession. Take the second one. Follow all the way to the end, when you will come to a staggered crossroads. Go through this and follow the road to the end. Turn right, follow the road to the end and turn left to rejoin the N8.
Some remain, and the longer they remain un-bypassed, the more their notoriety grows. As time passes, the big bottleneck on the road from Dublin to Cork has moved through Kildare and now lives here in lovely Laois. Abbeyleix is a nightmare on a Friday and Sunday, as the traffic moves at snail’s pace through its long main street. On bank holiday weekends, it’s a disaster.
If you drive from Dublin to Cork on a Friday evening and are approaching Abbeyleix, you may notice a number of cars turning right about a kilometre before the town. These aren’t local cars, and few of them sport LS reg plates. No, these drivers have discovered the Unofficial Abbeyleix Bypass, and I’m going to tell you where it is.
Directions (going south):
About 1km before Abbeyleix, the road sweeps round to the left, and a ghost island allows a turn to the right. Go right here. Go over a bridge and take the first left. Follow this road until you reach a staggered crossroads, where you go straight through. Follow this road to the end and then turn left. After 300 metres or so, you will see the gates of a Georgian house on your right. Take the right just after these (warning: it’s a really shitty little road). Follow to the end and turn right, back onto the N8 south of Abbeyleix.
You might be asking yourself why I’m publishing this and letting people in on the secret. To be honest, the 50 or so readers I get here each day are hardly going to cause a tailback even if they all decided to use the route at the same time. It might be a different story if someone like Damien Mulley published it.
Adds 24 October: Northbound directions:
As you approach Abbeyleix from Durrow, you will see a place that sells garden ornaments and sheds and such like on your left. Take the next left turn after this (it’s signposted.) Follow that road to the end and turn left. After about 300 metres, you will come to junction with two roads leading off to the right in quick succession. Take the second one. Follow all the way to the end, when you will come to a staggered crossroads. Go through this and follow the road to the end. Turn right, follow the road to the end and turn left to rejoin the N8.
The Shame Of the Name
25/07/08 21:50
I was sent a link
to this bizarre story
on the BBC the other
day. A nine-year-old girl was made ward of court
in the town of New Plymouth, New Zealand so that
she could have her name changed. What was the name
her parents gave her?
Talula Does The Hula From Hawaii.
I honestly can’t understand why any parent would burden their child with such a ridiculous name. It’s natural that parents might have nicknames for a small child, and I am one of the worst offenders in that regard. There must be a couple of dozen nicknames that I have used for my daughter since she was born, but none of them appear on her birth certificate.
This isn’t a new phenomenon, as we are well used to celebs giving their kids daft names. Frank Zappa famously called his son Dweezil and his daughter Moon Unit. Nicole Kidman has called her new baby Sunday Roast or something like that. There used to be joke about the late Paula Yates, whose three daughters all sport very silly names. The drugs squad call to her house and when she asks them what they want, they say they are looking for magic mushrooms. Paula replies that she’s not home from school yet.
Another one I don’t understand is when parents with the surname O’Brien call their newborn son Brian. Or Cormac McCormack. Or Patrick FitzPatrick. There must be a good reason for that, and as yet, I haven’t heard it.
Another joke regarding names
Johnny Cash performing A Boy Named Sue:
Talula Does The Hula From Hawaii.
I honestly can’t understand why any parent would burden their child with such a ridiculous name. It’s natural that parents might have nicknames for a small child, and I am one of the worst offenders in that regard. There must be a couple of dozen nicknames that I have used for my daughter since she was born, but none of them appear on her birth certificate.
This isn’t a new phenomenon, as we are well used to celebs giving their kids daft names. Frank Zappa famously called his son Dweezil and his daughter Moon Unit. Nicole Kidman has called her new baby Sunday Roast or something like that. There used to be joke about the late Paula Yates, whose three daughters all sport very silly names. The drugs squad call to her house and when she asks them what they want, they say they are looking for magic mushrooms. Paula replies that she’s not home from school yet.
Another one I don’t understand is when parents with the surname O’Brien call their newborn son Brian. Or Cormac McCormack. Or Patrick FitzPatrick. There must be a good reason for that, and as yet, I haven’t heard it.
Another joke regarding names
Johnny Cash performing A Boy Named Sue:
The Low Fares Airline?
21/07/08 22:32
This popped up as I
booked a Ryanair flight for the family this evening:
None of