What If?
01/01/09 22:36 Filed in: General
Nonsense
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 Filed in: General
Nonsense
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 Filed in: General
Nonsense
Caption Required
20/12/08 23:16 Filed in: General
Nonsense |
Food
& Drink
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…
Buying Wine For Christmas
20/12/08 22:12 Filed in: Food &
Drink
During the boom
years, the wine business made serious hay in the month
of December. One company I worked for did anything up
to 40% of its annual turnover in the last six weeks of
the year. This year is different. Everyone is saying
how quiet it is. Surely we haven’t given up on wine
drinking?
Like everything else, purchasing patterns have changed dramatically for wine. Wines that sold happily at €20 a pop are now gathering dust on wine-shop shelves. It’s all about value these days.
But what exactly constitutes good value? You might see two wines side by side on a shelf, from the same region and made with the same grape varieties, yet one is €10 cheaper than the other. Surely the cheaper one is better value? It might well be, but it might also be very ordinary, whereas the more expensive one might cause you to throw open your window, thrust out your chest and sing an aria in its honour.
Any bottle of wine on any shelf in any wine shop will have fixed costs. Even if you are given a bottle of wine free from a shop, it will have cost someone a minimum of €2.99 to get it into your hand. That’s if it came free from the producer and cost nothing to transport. €2.99 is the minimum amount of tax payable on a bottle of wine, consisting of €2.46 excise duty and 53c VAT.
If you decide to spend less on a bottle of wine that you normally would, you are paying proportionally more in tax the lower you go.
Here’s a quick ready reckoner:
Spending a couple of euros more on a bottle means that you will be paying proportionally more for the wine in the bottle and less for the tax due on it.
A few more dos and don’ts:
- Don’t just buy your wines from the supermarket with your weekly shopping. You will get little or no advice on what to buy, and so you will probably find yourself buying on price alone. There are dozens of very good independent wine shops and off-licences all over the country, most of which are owned and run by dedicated enthusiasts. (See this excellent collaborative map of wine shops in Ireland.) They will be able to point you in the direction of the really interesting, good-value wines. They will also be much more amenable to doing a deal on volume, but don’t expect them to give you a discount for two or three bottles. Your opening gambit should be a case of 12.
- Do look beyond the obvious and be prepared to step out of your comfort zone. Again, look for advice from a good wine retailer. Let them know what you like and they will help you broaden your horizons.
- Avoid wines you see advertised in newspapers and magazines and on the radio. Wine production is a notoriously low-profit business. If a producer is spending money on advertising rather than leaving it up to the retailer to promote their wines, that’s money that they should be putting into their winemaking.
- Good glassware makes a difference. Spending a few bob on nice glasses will enhance your enjoyment of your wines. Look for brands like Riedel, Schott and Speigelau.
- If you know someone in the trade, pick their brains on what is good and what isn’t.
- Decant a big full-bodied red (especially one from a recent year) to open up the flavours. You don’t even need a decanter to do this. Just slosh it into a jug and pour it back into the bottle.
Sláinte!
Like everything else, purchasing patterns have changed dramatically for wine. Wines that sold happily at €20 a pop are now gathering dust on wine-shop shelves. It’s all about value these days.
But what exactly constitutes good value? You might see two wines side by side on a shelf, from the same region and made with the same grape varieties, yet one is €10 cheaper than the other. Surely the cheaper one is better value? It might well be, but it might also be very ordinary, whereas the more expensive one might cause you to throw open your window, thrust out your chest and sing an aria in its honour.
Any bottle of wine on any shelf in any wine shop will have fixed costs. Even if you are given a bottle of wine free from a shop, it will have cost someone a minimum of €2.99 to get it into your hand. That’s if it came free from the producer and cost nothing to transport. €2.99 is the minimum amount of tax payable on a bottle of wine, consisting of €2.46 excise duty and 53c VAT.
If you decide to spend less on a bottle of wine that you normally would, you are paying proportionally more in tax the lower you go.
Here’s a quick ready reckoner:
Spending a couple of euros more on a bottle means that you will be paying proportionally more for the wine in the bottle and less for the tax due on it.
A few more dos and don’ts:
- Don’t just buy your wines from the supermarket with your weekly shopping. You will get little or no advice on what to buy, and so you will probably find yourself buying on price alone. There are dozens of very good independent wine shops and off-licences all over the country, most of which are owned and run by dedicated enthusiasts. (See this excellent collaborative map of wine shops in Ireland.) They will be able to point you in the direction of the really interesting, good-value wines. They will also be much more amenable to doing a deal on volume, but don’t expect them to give you a discount for two or three bottles. Your opening gambit should be a case of 12.
- Do look beyond the obvious and be prepared to step out of your comfort zone. Again, look for advice from a good wine retailer. Let them know what you like and they will help you broaden your horizons.
- Avoid wines you see advertised in newspapers and magazines and on the radio. Wine production is a notoriously low-profit business. If a producer is spending money on advertising rather than leaving it up to the retailer to promote their wines, that’s money that they should be putting into their winemaking.
- Good glassware makes a difference. Spending a few bob on nice glasses will enhance your enjoyment of your wines. Look for brands like Riedel, Schott and Speigelau.
- If you know someone in the trade, pick their brains on what is good and what isn’t.
- Decant a big full-bodied red (especially one from a recent year) to open up the flavours. You don’t even need a decanter to do this. Just slosh it into a jug and pour it back into the bottle.
Sláinte!
Monday Miscellany
15/12/08 21:55 Filed in: General
Nonsense
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.
More Munster Escapology
14/12/08 22:27 Filed in: Sport
I reckon the
cardiac unit at Limerick Regional was working to
absolute capacity yesterday evening. Why do Munster do
this to us? They take us to the edge of the cliff,
dangle us over it and then just when we think we’re
about to plummet into the abyss, haul us back to
safety.
I wasn’t at the match yesterday. Mr & Mrs Munstermad had tickets and they dropped off their little ‘un to us en route to Limerick. Watching a high-stakes rugby match while looking after a toddler is often a recipe for disaster, but when we had the two of them yesterday, by full-time the house looked like it had been burgled. Mr & Mrs M stayed with us last night, so this is the first opportunity I have had to write about the match.
One thing is for sure, Clermont came to Limerick with a completely different mindset from the last time they were here. Having beaten Munster in France last week, they were looking for the double on the champions. And there were long periods throughout the match yesterday when they looked like they were going to do just that.
The turning point was when Jamie Cudmore was sent off
half way
through the first half for repeatedly punching Paul
O’Connell. O’Connell himself got a yellow for his
troubles. You might expect Munster to run riot from
that point on, having numerical advantage, but Clermont
dug their heels in and refused to lie down. David
Wallace got in for a late try just before half-time,
but when the teams re-emerged, it was all Clermont.
The French side held Munster scoreless for almost the entire second half, but the introduction of veteran scrum-half Peter Stringer seven minutes from the end completely turned the tables on the visitors. At that point 14-man Clermont were leading Munster 13-11, and the men in red were facing the real prospect of not only their second ever home defeat in the Heineken Cup, but also the possibility of having the destiny of their qualification from Pool One taken from their hands. With Stringer on the field, straight away Munster’s ruck ball was fast and the passing was crisp. Having been pinned in their own half of the field for so long, suddenly they were in Clermont’s 22. A delicious flip pass from Lifeimi Mafi to Marcus Horan saw the fleet-footed prop barge over in the corner. ROG missed the conversion, and Munster led 16-13. (All afternoon, Sky’s stats-obsessed commentators kept going on about O’Gara’s imminent passing of the 1000 points mark in Heineken Cup games. It seemed like it was a monkey on his back, as his place-kicking game yesterday was poor.) Had it stayed like this, Clermont would have claimed a losing bonus point, and the two sides would have been even-stevens over their two matches.
But this is Munster. The next time they secured possession, flanker Niall Ronan chipped ahead and ran onto the ball to score. That put Munster eight points ahead, keeping Clemont out of range for a losing bonus point. ROG nailed the conversion this time, taking his personal tally of Heineken Cup points to 1001.
Further good news came Munster’s way later yesterday evening, when Sale went down to defeat away to Montauban. If Munster can win their remaining two matches (home to Sale and away to Montauban) they are through to the quarter-finals.
No doubt Munster will provide some more nail-biting moments before the pool stages are over, but hopefully we won’t have to sweat like we did yesterday.
I wasn’t at the match yesterday. Mr & Mrs Munstermad had tickets and they dropped off their little ‘un to us en route to Limerick. Watching a high-stakes rugby match while looking after a toddler is often a recipe for disaster, but when we had the two of them yesterday, by full-time the house looked like it had been burgled. Mr & Mrs M stayed with us last night, so this is the first opportunity I have had to write about the match.
One thing is for sure, Clermont came to Limerick with a completely different mindset from the last time they were here. Having beaten Munster in France last week, they were looking for the double on the champions. And there were long periods throughout the match yesterday when they looked like they were going to do just that.
The turning point was when Jamie Cudmore was sent off
The French side held Munster scoreless for almost the entire second half, but the introduction of veteran scrum-half Peter Stringer seven minutes from the end completely turned the tables on the visitors. At that point 14-man Clermont were leading Munster 13-11, and the men in red were facing the real prospect of not only their second ever home defeat in the Heineken Cup, but also the possibility of having the destiny of their qualification from Pool One taken from their hands. With Stringer on the field, straight away Munster’s ruck ball was fast and the passing was crisp. Having been pinned in their own half of the field for so long, suddenly they were in Clermont’s 22. A delicious flip pass from Lifeimi Mafi to Marcus Horan saw the fleet-footed prop barge over in the corner. ROG missed the conversion, and Munster led 16-13. (All afternoon, Sky’s stats-obsessed commentators kept going on about O’Gara’s imminent passing of the 1000 points mark in Heineken Cup games. It seemed like it was a monkey on his back, as his place-kicking game yesterday was poor.) Had it stayed like this, Clermont would have claimed a losing bonus point, and the two sides would have been even-stevens over their two matches.
But this is Munster. The next time they secured possession, flanker Niall Ronan chipped ahead and ran onto the ball to score. That put Munster eight points ahead, keeping Clemont out of range for a losing bonus point. ROG nailed the conversion this time, taking his personal tally of Heineken Cup points to 1001.
Further good news came Munster’s way later yesterday evening, when Sale went down to defeat away to Montauban. If Munster can win their remaining two matches (home to Sale and away to Montauban) they are through to the quarter-finals.
No doubt Munster will provide some more nail-biting moments before the pool stages are over, but hopefully we won’t have to sweat like we did yesterday.
The UnLaoised Oldfartometer, End Of Year Special
12/12/08 22:18 Filed in: Music
I haven’t done
an Oldfartometer
for ages,
but Jim has posted his
Top 20 albums of the
year, so here goes:
(1) No Age “Nouns” (Sub Pop)
(2) Vampire Weekend “Vampire Weekend” (XL)
(3) Lykke Li “Youth Novels” (LL)
(4) TV On The Radio “Dear Science” (4AD)
(5) Bon Iver “For Emma Forever Ago” (4AD)
(6) Lisa Hannigan “Sea Sew” (Self-release)
(7) Fleet Foxes “Fleet Foxes” (Bella Union)
(8) RSAG “Organic Sampler” (Psychonavigation)
(9) The Gaslight Anthem “The ‘59 Sound” (Side One Dummy)
(10) Hercules & Love Affair “Hercules & Love Affair” (DFA)
(11) Santogold “Santogold” (Atlantic) (Diplo and Santogold’s “Top Ranking” mix also deserves a mention here)
(12) Lil Wayne “The Carter III” (Cash Money)
(13) David Holmes “The Holy Pictures” (Canderblinks)
(14) Our Brother The Native “Make Amends For We Are Merely Vessels” (Fat Cat)
(15) Spook of the Thirteenth Lock “Spook of the Thirteenth Lock” (Transduction)
(16) Kanye West “808s & Heartbreaks” (Roc-A-Fella)
(17) Katie Kim “Twelve” (Granny It’s OK Recordings)
(18) White Denim “Workout Holiday” (Full Time Hobby)
(19) She & Him “Volume One” (Domino)
(20) Chequerboard “Penny Black” (Lazybird)
I have heard of Lisa Hannigan, Fleet Foxes and Kayne West, but I wouldn’t recognise anything of theirs if it jumped up and smacked me in the mouth, so that’s one point each.
Err… that’s it. 3 points.
Hugh’s just done his list too. Applying Oldfartometer criteria to that one, I score 13. (I have heard of Kayne West, Ani DiFranco and Fleet Foxes, and I’m sure I have an album or two by Randy Newman stashed away somewhere.)
(1) No Age “Nouns” (Sub Pop)
(2) Vampire Weekend “Vampire Weekend” (XL)
(3) Lykke Li “Youth Novels” (LL)
(4) TV On The Radio “Dear Science” (4AD)
(5) Bon Iver “For Emma Forever Ago” (4AD)
(6) Lisa Hannigan “Sea Sew” (Self-release)
(7) Fleet Foxes “Fleet Foxes” (Bella Union)
(8) RSAG “Organic Sampler” (Psychonavigation)
(9) The Gaslight Anthem “The ‘59 Sound” (Side One Dummy)
(10) Hercules & Love Affair “Hercules & Love Affair” (DFA)
(11) Santogold “Santogold” (Atlantic) (Diplo and Santogold’s “Top Ranking” mix also deserves a mention here)
(12) Lil Wayne “The Carter III” (Cash Money)
(13) David Holmes “The Holy Pictures” (Canderblinks)
(14) Our Brother The Native “Make Amends For We Are Merely Vessels” (Fat Cat)
(15) Spook of the Thirteenth Lock “Spook of the Thirteenth Lock” (Transduction)
(16) Kanye West “808s & Heartbreaks” (Roc-A-Fella)
(17) Katie Kim “Twelve” (Granny It’s OK Recordings)
(18) White Denim “Workout Holiday” (Full Time Hobby)
(19) She & Him “Volume One” (Domino)
(20) Chequerboard “Penny Black” (Lazybird)
I have heard of Lisa Hannigan, Fleet Foxes and Kayne West, but I wouldn’t recognise anything of theirs if it jumped up and smacked me in the mouth, so that’s one point each.
Err… that’s it. 3 points.
Hugh’s just done his list too. Applying Oldfartometer criteria to that one, I score 13. (I have heard of Kayne West, Ani DiFranco and Fleet Foxes, and I’m sure I have an album or two by Randy Newman stashed away somewhere.)
Contradictions
10/12/08 22:33 Filed in: Politics
| Lisbon
Treaty
There’s lots of
talk these days about a second referendum on the Lisbon
Treaty. The No side is none too pleased, and wants the
result of last June’s vote cast in stone.
Listening to some of the debate over the last few weeks, several contradictions have arisen. Declan Ganely of Libertas wants to halt the march towards a federal Europe and have the Lisbon Treaty replaced by a more concise 15-20 page document, more like the US constitution. However the US constitution is concise precisely because it is for a single, federal, sovereign country. The EU is a collection of sovereign states, which has evolved over the last fifty years or thereabouts.
The No side bemoan the “unelected beureaucrats” of the European Commission, yet are appalled at the idea of “losing our commissioner.” Lisbon proposed maintaining a 15-member commission, with each state appointing a commissioner for two five-year terms out of every three. If we keep the “one member state, one commissioner” model, we will have twenty-seven commissioners. Doing what exactly? The extra twelve commissioners will have to have offices and staff, thus increasing the number of unelected bureaucrats in Brussels poking their noses into our business.
The No side say that a new referendum would fly in the face of democratic principles. “What part of No do you not understand?” being their stunningly unoriginal mantra. Does democracy mean that you can never change your mind? We have precedents for this. The Nice Treaty had two goes before it made it through. Believe it or not, I voted No to Nice first time around. I can’t even remember why I did, but by the time the second referendum came around, I realised that I had made a mistake and I was glad to get the opportunity to put it right. We have had three referenda on abortion, and two on divorce in the last twenty-five years. Bear in mind also that a good chunk of the No vote last June was in protest at the overall policies of the government, which had been elected into office in May 2007. Many of these voters would have voted for Fianna Fáil in May 2007, and were using their ballots as a way of expressing their change of mind.
Listening to some of the debate over the last few weeks, several contradictions have arisen. Declan Ganely of Libertas wants to halt the march towards a federal Europe and have the Lisbon Treaty replaced by a more concise 15-20 page document, more like the US constitution. However the US constitution is concise precisely because it is for a single, federal, sovereign country. The EU is a collection of sovereign states, which has evolved over the last fifty years or thereabouts.
The No side bemoan the “unelected beureaucrats” of the European Commission, yet are appalled at the idea of “losing our commissioner.” Lisbon proposed maintaining a 15-member commission, with each state appointing a commissioner for two five-year terms out of every three. If we keep the “one member state, one commissioner” model, we will have twenty-seven commissioners. Doing what exactly? The extra twelve commissioners will have to have offices and staff, thus increasing the number of unelected bureaucrats in Brussels poking their noses into our business.
The No side say that a new referendum would fly in the face of democratic principles. “What part of No do you not understand?” being their stunningly unoriginal mantra. Does democracy mean that you can never change your mind? We have precedents for this. The Nice Treaty had two goes before it made it through. Believe it or not, I voted No to Nice first time around. I can’t even remember why I did, but by the time the second referendum came around, I realised that I had made a mistake and I was glad to get the opportunity to put it right. We have had three referenda on abortion, and two on divorce in the last twenty-five years. Bear in mind also that a good chunk of the No vote last June was in protest at the overall policies of the government, which had been elected into office in May 2007. Many of these voters would have voted for Fianna Fáil in May 2007, and were using their ballots as a way of expressing their change of mind.
New M8
10/12/08 21:56 Filed in: General
Nonsense
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.