I Have Moved

Talking Straight can now be found at www.andrewlawlor.wordpress.com

Ireland 2007. Fáilte.

This, you could say, has not been a great week for the HSE. It is not turning out to be much of a week for Bertie Ahearn and Mary Harney either. The scandal of the misdiagnosed breast cancers in Port Laoise is, I suspect, weighing heavily on everyone concerned but, worry not, there is still almost five years to the next election so I'm sure they can all recover in time.

All of us outraged citizens who this week and next will make irate phone calls to Joe Duffy or write strongly worded letters to the Irish Tmes should ask themselves one very important question.

Is this what we really deserve?

We should also cast our minds back to May of this year and remember who we voted for in the election. While we are at it we should think back five more years and remember who we voted for in 2002 and five years earlier in 1997.

We have now had ten years of this FF/PD alliance and another five more to come and this writer would not be staking the Lawlor homestead on them not making it 20 years of FF led government in 2012.

In 1997 the FG led rainbow coalition went to the country as one of the most popular governments of modern times, sailing on the crest of the emerging Celtic tiger wave with falling unemployment, rising tax revenue and economic predictions of good times ahead. Nobody was betting against the government in '97 and yet along came Bertie, all smiles and anoraks, and told us that, if elected, FF would cut taxes, putting more money into the pockets of Joe and Josephine public - election over.

Move forward five years and replay the tape. FG say FF are mismanaging the economy, FF say that they will cut taxes again - FG are routed at the polls.

I could outline '07, but why bother.

At each of these elections the electorate were told by politicians and media commentators that it was not possible to provide a high level of public service on a low tax base. Naturally the electorate worried about this. No doubt we who voted FF again and again spent many sleepless nights tossing and turning. I'm sure the plight of our public health service, our public transport service and our schools were fighting tooth and nail with the desire to have more money in our pockets as we agonised over which way to cast our vote. And then we realised that the extra FF money would pay for VHI and a nice comfortable BMW to cruise to work in and hell you're nobody if your kids aren't in private education.

So we voted with our collective pockets instead of our consience, not once, not twice but three times. We, as a nation, voted for 00 reg cars (remember that rush?), we voted for 27 inch wide screen TVs, we voted for skiing, we voted for paid for child care and then we voted for overseas property, (taxi drivers, electricians, civil servants with holiday villas and apartments in the sun!!), we voted for 42 inch plasma screens, newer, bigger cars, three holidays a year, endless weekend city breaks to Prague and Budapest and private schooling with grinds for the kids and ponies and piano lessons.............

......and then we got sick.

So what. Now we've got VHI or Bupa and the doors of private clinics swing open to us and if the private ward is full well then someone just moves over in the public system and we get world class health care.

We don't care about the Laois cancer women. We don't care about people like Susie Long or the lost generations of Moyross. Taxes are not going up and that is what we voted for.

Belgium has a pretty good public health service. In fact, many people travel from France and Germany and Holland to avail of Belgian public health, such is the over capacity in the system.

How can the Belgians do it?

They pay 12% employees social insurance while empoloyers pay 30%. Can you see FF running that one by the electorate in 2012?

If we want european levels of public service we cannot do it without european levels of taxation.

So, before you crank up the laptop to fire off a stern letter to Madam in Tara St. Before cracking the knuckles on that dialling finger, remember, this is the Ireland we voted for. This is Ireland 2007. We don't give a shit if people without private health insurance die unnecessarily of cancer or whatever.

Do I care?

I've got Bupa. A nice house, nice car, two wide screen TVs.

I'm doin' okay.

Are you?

Are we?

If you skid in space nobody can hear you screech.

Just came in from the back garden.

I live out in the country where there is no light pollution so on a night like this it is hard not to look up at the stars. Get out in the country, you city slickers, the view is fantastic on a clear night.

As I was star gazing a jet flew overhead. One flashing red light on the underside, one static light on the starboard wing-tip and a flashing light on the port wing-tip.

It then occurred to me that this sight has often been mistaken for a UFO by some drunken oaf stumbling home along the roads of rural Ireland or Alabama or wherever.

Now, think about all of the vehicles we here on Earth have sent into space. Were any of them equipped with flashing anti collision lights? Did the Apollo rockets have flashing lights to avoid colliding with a stray Sputnik? Does the Space Shuttle crew worry about rear ending the international space station?

Space is huge. The hugeness of space cannot be comprehended by humans - never mind adequately explained using oranges and basketballs at the opposite end of the room from each other.

Why would an alien civilisation, vastly more intelligent than us, who have developed technology that enables them to travel light-years across the universe, worry about crashing into something?

So, then, why is it that the vast majority of UFO sightings are of extra terrestrial vehicles with lots of flashing lights?

Wild tigers and good wine

Ok, major gripe here. ( Or maybe a major grape!)

Lidl are pretty good. My good lady and I shop there about twice a month. Aldi I know nothing about as I've never been there but Lidl offers some exceptional value on the basics like cleaning products, rice, cooking oils, really good biscuits among others.

Lidl also do a good range of wines. Whether they do a range of good wines is debatable. I tried their wine a couple of times last year and was very unimpressed.

A couple of months ago my brother in law and his family borrowed my wife's car to travel to France and as a thank you brought us back a few bottles of wine among which was a bottle of TARRAGONA BATURRICA RESERVA 2000 from Spain.

It was very nice.

Last week the good lady and I went to Lidl in Mullingar and there it was, TARRAGONA BATURRICA RESERVA, only this time a 2001 vintage priced at €6.99.

As I was savouring the last of my glass this evening I did a google search on it which led me to a Belgian wine site which had reviewed the Tarragona, pronounced it pretty good. They quoted a price as of Nov 1 2007 of €2.39 in Lidl!

That's almost three times more expensive from the same retailer here in Ireland. Even allowing for the governments €2.00 per bottle tax it is still €2.60 more expensive here.

Isn't it a great little country.

Having said all that I must confess my rampant capitalist belief that the price (as opposed to the value) of any good is what someone is willing to pay for it. The Tarragona is good value at €6.99.


Another gripe.

Last Sunday four of us, (wife, me and two kids aged four and eight) stayed for one night at the Hotel Kilkenny in (you guessed it) Kilkenny.

After checking in at about 3.30pm we decided to take the kids down to the pool for a while. Before leaving the room I rang reception to book a table for dinner at 8.00pm.

'How many people, sir?'
'Four.'
'All adults?'
'No, two adults and two children.'
'I'm sorry, sir, but we do not allow children in the restaurant after 8.00pm.'

After which followed a conversation during which I was told that we could eat in the bar, with our children up to 9.30pm, that she (the lady at reception) did not make the rules and that a kids club was provided where we could deposit our kids while we had dinner without them.

Any time I have taken my kids to a restaurant in Spain or France the welcome afforded them has been superb. A team of waiters descended on us in Fuertaventura a couple of years back and folded the buggy, produced lollipops and, without being asked, appeared with a baby chair which was clamped to the table so that my son (then just 10 months old) could sit at the table with us.

The Hotel Kilkenny reacted as if we wanted to bring a couple of untamed tigers into their eatery.

We did eat in the restaurant. We were accompanied by our kids who were impeccably behaved and we did enjoy a rather fine meal (final bill €137.00). As I checked out next morning I told the manager that I would not be returning.

I can only wonder what European tourists must think of the anti-family ideals at our four star**** hotels!

Are you an alcoholic? Then maybe the priesthood is not for you.

So, Fr trendy himself is worried about getting nicked for drinking and driving.

In yesterday's Irish Times Fr. Brian Darcy was expressing his concern about Catholic priests over indulging in wine during the eucharist, therefore putting themselves over the blood alcohol limit before getting into their cars and driving on to the next parish to continue God's work.

Only here in Ireland and only with the Roman Catholic Church could such a story arise.

First, a couple of facts.

Fr. Darcy is a pioneer. For those of you not completely au fait with mid to late twentieth century Irish history, this does not mean that he headed west in a covered wagon, running the gauntlet of marauding bands of savage natives to establish a civilised society west of the river Shannon. No, it simply means that he is a member of the Pioneer Total Abstinance Society. In short - he does not take alcohol. In fact he has taken a solemn vow to abstain from alcohol for life.

In the real world this would mean that Fr. Brian Darcy does not drink.

Howwever, Darcy does not live in the real world. He lives in an alternate reality created by the Catholic Church where not everything is as it seems. In Darcy's world he can swig away on all the wine he likes, and as long as he prays over it and says that it is the blood of a prophet who died two thousand years ago he is not actually drinking alcohol.
Scientific measurements taken at the roadside here in the real world might show that Darcy or any other Catholic priest is over the limit for driving. However, Darcy can then, in all seriousness, claim that he has not been drinking.

This is a man who claims that he does not drink alcohol and yet as part of his job he is required to drink wine every day.

How would this play out in court, I wonder. I would love to see the first test case.

Something which had escaped my attention until yesterday is the fact that Catholic priests are forbidden from using non-alcoholic wine to celebrate the eucharist. Even a priest who might be an alcoholic is told that if he wants to continue to be a priest he must continue to drink alcohol every time he celebrates a mass. This, as Fr. Darcy pointed out, could be as much as three or four times a day.

Is that just mad or what?

Is there, however, something more sinister buried in this story? Is Fr. Darcy dropping a large hint to the Gardai that maybe they should turn a blind eye when a priest is found to be drunk behind the wheel? After all he is only doing God's work and the rules do not allow him to do that work without taking alcohol. The more of God's work he does the more pissed he may be behind the wheel. So let him on his way and if he mows down a small child or two on his way, well maybe that's all part of God's great plan.

He does work in mysterious ways, you know.

WORLD CLASS - NOT

Can you hear that whirring sound?
Listen very carefully. That is the sound of spinning. On RTE Radio 1 – Drivetime Sport this evening John Delany was in grave danger of doing himself an injury such was the amount of spinning going on. Four times he passed up on opportunities to give Staunton his full backing.
‘Stephen Staunton is manager of the Irish team today’, was about as fulsome as it got.
Stan must be sleeping really well tonight.
Staunton is gone. Not today, and probably not tomorrow but sometime in the next week or so he’s gone.
Also, Delany laughable claimed that the FAI was unlucky to lose Bobby Robson to ill health. I mean who would have seen that one coming. They appoint a man to a senior management position a month before his 73rd birthday and then call it unlucky when the same man, who has been diagnosed four times with cancer in fifteen years, has to step down due to ill health!
The words boggle and mind I think.
Where now the forlorn promise to scour the globe for the world class manager that Irish soccer deserved?
Who are we kidding?
We are not a powerhouse of international football.
We are not and never have been world class.
In four appearances at major championship finals tournaments Rep of Ireland has played 16 matches, winning only three, with four defeats and nine draws. The Irish have amassed just nine goals in all 16 games. A Rep of Ireland team has only once scored more than one goal in a major finals match (the 3-0 win against the mighty Saudis) and achieved the remarkable feat of reaching the 1990 World Cup quarter finals without winning a match and scoring only two goals along the way.
At the 1994 World Cup in USA we managed only one goal in four games.
We are not a powerhouse of international football.
We are not and never have been world class.
We are a nation of just over 4 million people.
Try this.
If greater Manchester (pop. Approx. 4 million) was to secede from the UK and become a sovereign nation, would we expect them to repeatedly qualify for major finals? Would we expect them to take on nations like Netherlands, Germany, England, Spain or Italy and win more often than not? Unlikely.
The simple fact is that in the late ‘80s and early ‘90s we happened, against all the odds, to cobble together two teams that were capable of performing almost credibly on the world and European stage. This was done mainly by taking advantage of FIFA’s grandparent rule to offer the chance of international football to English players who were unlikely to ever get a call up from the FA. The teams we sent to Germany in ’88 and Italy in ’90 contained very few Irish born players or even players who had ever played football in this country.
At the 2002 World Cup finals we were a statistical oddity. Of 32 competing teams only Rep of Ireland sent a squad which did not contain even one player who played in his domestic league. This might seem odd until you consider that the Prime Minister of this country has two Eircom league teams based within a couple of miles of both his home and his office and yet he makes a virtue of supporting a team in the English Premiership, frequently travelling across the Irish Sea to attend Old Trafford, while Irish domestic soccer is dying a death on his doorstep.
EURO ‘88
• 1-0 v England
• 1-1 v Russia
• 0-1 v Netherlands
ITALIA ‘90
• 1-1 v England
• 1-1 v Netherlands
• 0-0 v Egypt
• 0-0 v Romania
• 0-1 v Italy

USA ‘94
• 1-0 v Italy
• 0-1 v Mexico
• 0-0 v Norway
• 0-2 v Netherlands

JAPAN / KOREA ‘02

• 1-1 v Cameroon
• 3-0 v Saudi Arabia
• 1-1 v Germany
• 1-1 v Spain

When the deluded and superstitious collide.

This evening’s interview of Catholic Primate of all Ireland, Archbishop Sean Brady on five seven live was quite a hoot.

Mr. Brady was expanding on comments he made during novena week in Knock, Co. Mayo concerning clairvoyants, astrologers, palm readers and the like. (One could probably throw in homeopaths, faith healers, colour therapists, aroma therapists and a few more for good measure!)

These people, Mr. Brady tells us attempt to divine the future in a false way.

So far so good.

What they do has no basis in truth or fact or science। No argument from me there either.

‘The future belongs to God,’ he told us.

This is where our respective viewpoints diverge, I’m afraid.

What does Mr. Brady, oh, all right then, Archbishop Brady propose as an alternative to this belief in airy fairy, manipulative mumbo jumbo?

Try this.

About two thousand years ago a guy called Jesus takes unto himself the task of dying to save humanity. This guy, Jesus, is captured by the Romans, beaten, whipped, tortured and nailed up on a piece of wood, or crucified as the parlance would have it. Then just for good measure a vindictive so and so Roman shoves a rather long and pointy spear into his side. Several hours later, unsurprisingly, Jesus succumbs to this vicious, unwarranted assault and dies. Along come some members of his cult who take him down from the cross, see that he is indeed dead and inter him in a tomb, across the entrance of which they place a massive boulder which just happened to be lying about the place (handy, like), and off home with them.

This is where things get really good.

Jesus lays in the tomb for three days.....dead.

Then, on Sunday, he decides it’s time to reveal that he is risen and so he does indeed rise from the dead and heads off to see his followers, some of whom are, naturally, more gobsmacked than others. Thomas, in fact, finds it all a bit difficult to take in and looks for a bit of proof, as you would, (Did anyone believe David Ike?) and he has been derided for the past two millennia! (Thomas, I mean, not Mr. Ike.)

Then, a couple of Thursdays later he takes some of his pals out for the day and they watch as he ascends skyward to take his place at the right hand of God.

Fantastic.

Another time we will discuss whether God actually has a right hand or not.

So, for the last two thousand years or so Jesus has been interpreting our prayers and passing on the requests to his father. He has also secured a bit of work for his mother, Mary, possibly his father St. Joseph and literally thousands of saints in the business of intercession on behalf of us mere mortals.

For two thousand years Jesus, Mary and holy St। Joseph and all the angels and saints have been passing on our requests to God who will then decide if we are worthy of having them granted or maybe if the requests themselves are worthy. I mean, asking for a bit of inside knowledge on the 2.30 at Haydock Park might be a bit silly.

So, if you are worthy, he will grant your request and if you are not, he might just let your teenage daughter die a horrific death on some lonely boreen at 2.30am of a dark December Sunday. Or perhaps he will allow millions to starve, thousands to die in warfare or terror and good decent people to live lives of abject misery. All of this, remember, in world which was created in its entirety by God himself.

But hey, that’s ok.

It is all God’s will.

And he has a plan for each and every one of us.

Now, just as an afterthought I have been musing on the successors to Jesus of Nazareth. Who in today’s world is carrying on, or claiming to carry on, the work of Christ as God’s representative here on Earth? Who is leading us in our quest for truth, the one true truth? Who among our community and political and spiritual leaders is doing work appointed them by God himself?

George W Bush always claims to have God on his side. Ditto Tony Blair, although I’m not yet sure of Gordon Brown’s relationship with the handless, armless, footless boss. The leaders of such paragons of democracy, decency and human rights such as Saudi Arabia, Iran, the UAE and Taliban led Afghanistan all derived their power from an Islamic Abrahamic God. Their sworn enemies in the Israeli Knesset put their faith in the same Abrahamic God, only this time he’s Jewish. Our own democratically elected parliament in Kildare St. begins each session of governance with a prayer to a Christian God.

From the top of my head as I type I can think of only two world leaders of note who do not claim to be driven by a religious righteousness.
Vladimir Putin and Fidel Castro.

Go Figure.

And remember.

Roses are redish,
Violets are blueish,
If it wasn't for Jesus,
We'd all be Jewish.

In the blue corner Einstein, Newton and me. Over there, God.

Albert Einstein published his general theory of relativity in 1905. As I write this, 102 years later, Einstein’s theory is still just that, a theory.

On July 5th 1687 Sir Isaac Newton published Philosophiae Naturalis Principia Mathematica, part of which outlined the law of universal gravity.

Why is Newton's idea a law when Einstein's is just a theory?

Quite simply, because science has proved Newton's idea to be correct. They are, however, still working on relativity. Indeed I read recently that it is only now, over one hundred years after Einstein published his idea, that serious work is being done to test his great theory. Until now we did not possess computers capable of carrying out the incredibly complex calculations required - calculations which Einstein performed using only a pen and paper and the most remarkable mind!

So, what can relativity do for you?

Well to be honest, not much for you or I personally. By the time mankind gets around to understanding relativity and all that will come from it, such as an understanding of quantum theory and many more ideas as yet undreamed of, (undreamable, even.) both you and will long have passed from this world. Oh, and I nearly forgot. It will also lead us to an understanding of where the universe came from, how it came to be, probably why it came to be and possibly where it's all going.

The most important words in that last sentence are 'why' and 'how'.

For several millennia we have been asking ourselves the same question. Why? Why are we here? Why is the sky blue? Why does it get dark at night?

The question we should be asking, the question science is continually asking is, how?
How are we here? How is the sky blue? How does it get dark at night?

Isaac Newton saw an apple fall from a tree and asked why the apple fell. However, he than asked a far more important question. How did the apple fall? Several questions later we had the law of gravity. Magic.

If Newton had followed the religious teaching of the time he would simply have accepted that the apple fell to the ground because that is the way God designed the world. Centuries earlier St Augustine implored scientists to simply accept the limit of human knowledge and to stop trying to discover things which we mere men were not supposed to know. If God wanted us to know where it all came from he would have given us that knowledge when he created us.

So where did the universe come from?

One answer is that it was created by God. The proof for this is to be found........ well, nowhere.

Another answer is that the universe was created in the big bang. The proof for this is to be found........ well, nowhere either.

That is why the big bang theory is still just a theory. We have not yet published definitive proof of its veracity but we have enough evidence for many people, me included, to accept that the big bang is most likely what happened at the birth of the universe.

In the census of the Irish population undertaken in 2006 over 3.9 million people clamed to belong to one religious faith or another. Only 175,252 people admitted to having no religious faith. So out of a total population of 4.1 million only 175,252 believe that the universe and everything in it was not created by God. 3.9 million Irish residents believe that God (any God) made the universe, presumably out of nothing at all. Some of them will believe absolutely the bible story of Genesis which tells us that Godmade the world in six days. The proof for this is not to be found anywhere except in the minds of believers and between the covers of their holy books. Church hierarchy tells us that it is so and we must simply believe. Religion offers no proof of anything, yet it asks us to believe the most fantastic things on faith alone. ('Duh, there's a reason it's called faith stupid.' I hear you, now shut up and put together an argument that takes more than one brain cell to formulate.)

Science also asks us to believe the most fantastic things. Science however offers up theories and laws to help us to accept what we are being told.

When scientists see something which they don't understand they go in search of an answer. When they think they have found it they offer up a theory, and then other scientists set out to prove them wrong. If they do prove them wrong the first to congratulate them will be those that have been proven to be wrong.

When religious see something which they don't understand they simply make something up. Magic!

BEING BERTIE

A question.

When is forty five grand not forty five grand?

When your Bertie Ahearn, of course. Bertie's life is an amazing stream of coincidence, good fortune and just downright bizzare happenstance. If Freddie Forsyth were to write Bertie into a novel the critics would say that he was stretching credulity much too far.

If you think I'm being hard on poor old Bertie (just an ordinary working class guy who can't beleive how lucky he is to find himself leader of this great nation), then let me make a list.

1. Bertie is an accountant, apparently. When the newspapers went digging a few years ago no trace of Bertie could be found at the London college he claims to have attended. Someone suggstd he had been to night school!

2. Bertie spent years signing blank cheques drawn on the Fianna Fáil leaders account when Charles Haughey was head of the party and the country. Surely as an accountant, with qualifications from a London college no less, Bertie would know that this practice was highly unorhodox and certainly ethically questionable in terms of accountancy practice. But Bertie saw nothing wrong with this. He just did as he was told by the then party leader.

3. During the late 1980s and early 1990s Bertie had no bank account! Are we expected to beleive this? He was a government minister. He was in one of the best paid jobs in the country, and we are asked to beleive that every payday he took a cheque down to his local pub, tossed it accross the bar and recieved cash for it. Pound notes!

4. During this time, he tells us, he had a large sum of cash in a safe in Drumcondra, something in the region of fifty grand. Let me put noughts on that - £50,000. That's almost twice the average earnings of a Garda in 1994 and we are asked to beleive that he 'saved' all of this in about 18 months.

5. In 1994 a Manchester based business man, Michael Wall, handed Bertie Stg£30,000 in cash at St. Luke's, Bertie's office in Drumcondra. This money was for renovations to a three year old house just up the road from St. Luke's which Mr. Wall was intending to buy. Bertie was, it seems, intending to rent this house from Mr. Wall after he had made good on his intention to buy the house and when all of these good intentions were done and dusted Mr. Wall was going to spend £50,000 doing the place up for Bertie to move into. Not only that but Bertie was going to spend £30,000 of his own money on more renovations to a house that he was only renting. All of these plans, it seems, were hatched before Michael Wall had even bought the house!

6. Bertie's then patrtner, Ms. Celia Larkin, took the Stg£30,000 to the AIB on O'Connell St. in Dublin and lodged it to a bank account in her name. Why not an account in Bertie's name? He says he had no bank account at the time but, if you are the minister for finance and you walk into a bank with vast sums of foreign currency in your hip pocket, well thet are hardly going to refuse to do business with you.

7. Why would a government minister who was dealing in unusually large amounts of cash not have a bank account?

8. Bertie was going through a seperation from his wife at this time.

9. The day that Celia Larkin alledgedly lodged Stg£30,000 to the account in O'Connell St. only £19,000 in foreign currency was received at that branch. However the £28,000 and change that she lodged to the bank on that day is equal to exactly $45,000. This ofcourse is just a coincidence as Bertie has assured us that he never, ever had any dealings in dollars. So that's ok then.

When you think about it, it does stretch credulity just a bit.

Bertie's (or Celia's) Money

So, Bertie has questions to answer.

Among the blizzard of questions about Bertie's finances this last week there was one startling omission.

Yes, we all want to know if the purchase of his house in Drumcondra was 'an arms length, bone fide transaction for full market value'.

Yes, we all want to know how he managed to 'save' £28,000 in just eight or nine months of 1994. A year during which his salary was about £52,000, out of which he had to pay income tax, a mortgage on a house in Malahide, maintenance to his wife, child support for his kids and he had to eat and provide a roof over his own head.

Yes, we all want to know, also, why he would keep £50,000 in a safe in his office. It certainly wasn't 'run away money' - I mean why would he run away after the separation. (I know, I know, we're not supposed to be getting into his private life!)

Yes, we all want an explanation for the startling coincidence of the lodgements to Celia's bank account which don't match up to Stg£30,000 but do make up exactly $45,000 at that day's exchange rate.

However, the question I would like an answer to is this.

In what sane, democratic, developed nation is it deemed ok for the serving minister for finance to be in the same room as a business man and a briefcase containing Stg£30,000 in cash? (I said sane, Mr. Mugabe.)

Here's another question.

In what sane, democratic, developed nation could said minister expect to be exonerated by simply claiming that the money wasn't for him. It was, apparently, for his girlfriend! So that's all right then.

I don't do business at the scale of thirty grand transactions, but this last week I have spoken to some people who do. Neither they nor I do business by carrying around briefcases stuffed with cash. Regular business transactions involve bank drafts, cheques, inter bank transfers and other normal, traceable methods of transferring money.

The essence of our democracy should be that those charged with dispensing the democratic will of the people should be like Caesars wife. That is they should not only be above suspicion but should be seen to be above suspicion. If a serving govrnment minister is hanging around with business men and large sums of cash, well let's just say that the optics are not great.

However, in a country where an admitted tax cheat can top the poll in a general election. Where a minister can waste €50,000,000 on electronic voting machines that will never be used, and still get reelected. Where a Prime Minister can openly live the life of a multi millionaire (private island, racehorses, huge mansion stuffed with art works etc.), all on a salary which wouldn't support even the house he lived in, without serious questions being asked, it is just possible that Bertie can flash that famous cheesy grin of his, revert back to the poor northside boy who done good persona, grumble about how it's really not fair and is distracting him from the running of the country, and he might just get away with it.

So if you're thinking of voting Fianna Fáil on May 24th let me ask you one more time.

Should a serving minister be hanging around business men with briefcases full of cash - even if the cash was for his girlfriend?

Ballymun, Gis a Job.

So, Ikea will soon be coming to Ballymun. All they have to do is get past an An Bord Pleanála hearing (they have obviously checked the neighbouring fields for the bovine world's answer to Sergei Bubka), and they're in.

Isn't it great news. They're going to provide 500 local jobs, you know.

I know this because those who support the Ikea idea keep saying so. They keep telling us that Ballymun is one of the most deprived areas in the country. They keep telling us that the unemployment rate in Ballymun is three times the national average. That means that about 12% of the available workforce in Ballymun isn't working.

Amazing.

The Celtic tiger has been roaring for about 15 years now. We have created about one million jobs in this country during that time.

About five or six years ago we started to run out of people!

Imagine that. A country that 150 years ago had a population of over 8 millon suddenly starts to run out of people!
So we started to import them - as you do. We looked everywhere. Behind the bicycle sheds. We found a couple of dozen dossers there and put them to work. Edenderry. A few more dozen there - all related. Put them to work too. Then we ran out. Not an able bodied worker left in the country and still 200,000 jobs to be filled.

So in came the Poles, the Latvians, the Lithuanians, the Nigerians, Corkonians.

All sorts.

And we put them to work too.

Now we have full employment, which for some reason means that 95.8% of the workforce has a job.

So how come 12% of Ballymun is unemployed.

Whisper it.

Maybe they dont want a feckin' job!

They've had fifteen years of the Celtic feckin' tiger and they couldn't find a job in all that time so what the hell makes these idiots think that they've just been waiting for the right Swedish-put-it-together-yourself furniture giant to come along and take them by the hand and bring them into the nice, shiny new shop and pat their hands reassuringly and say, 'now, you just sit there and everything will be all right - and we'll be paying you at the end of the week too.'

You know, sometimes I just want to give up. About three or four times most days. I probably listen to too much radio for my own good. Feckin' Joe Duffy.

It's a generalisation, but its true. In a full employment economy, if you don't have a job, then you probably don't want one.

Any questions?

Wicklow cows jump over the moon!! Not.

Reports of cows jumping over the moon in Co. Wicklow have been greatly exagerated, according to one local farmer. John Templton, who spoke on condition of anonymity, (you will notice that I have left an e out of his name) has said that he has never seen a cow jump anything higher than a five bar gate. However he did confirm that a neighbouring farmer was rumoured to be entering a five year old fresian for the Puissance competition at the Dublin Horse Show this coming August.

All of this cow jumping related news comes hot on the heels of a confirmed decision by An Bord Pleanála to refuse a Wicklow resident permission to retain three windows at his home on the basis that they posed a danger to cattle in an adjacent field. The bord upheld an objection on the grounds that if the cattle were to stampede there was a possibilty that they would jump through the windows, the lowest of which is 1.5 metres from the ground, causing themselves or the occupants of the house serious injury.

Get up the yard!

About five years ago I began writing what I imagined was the next great Irish crime novel. I got about 24,000 words down and then got busy at work, having babies, being married and lots of other stuff, and the world was left bereft of the next great Irish crime novel!
Today I am publishing the first 9,241 unedited words of that ‘great Irish crime novel’. I would love to know what you think.
Follow this link
http://adublinnovel.blogs.ie

America, you are not the world.

Morrissey once wrote a song called ’America, you are not the world.’ I never heard him sing it, but I did hear Christy Moore perform it a few times and I didn’t think much of it. The song opens with - "America your head is so big/America your belly is so big/I LOVE you/ But I wish you’d stay where you live."
This is a sentiment often expressed by people when they complain about America. America, they say, should just keep out of other peoples business. America should look after Americans in America and not be interfering in Israel/Palestine/Iraq/Iran/Vietnam/Korea. All of these places, and a few more besides, have seen American involvement - or interference, depending on which side of the fence you view it from.
Right now there are over 100,000 US soilders in Iraq. This evening I listened to Boston radio show host Michael Graham say on the Right Hook radio show, that these troops are in Iraq because America cares. America cares about the people of Iraq. America also, presumably, cared about the peoples of Vietnam and Korea. America, Graham would tell us, cares about the people of Palestine and Israel. Americans, it would seem, are just about the most caring people on the planet. Maybe they are. I’ve never been to America but the Americans I have met here in Ireland seemed, for the most part, to be pleasant enough. Admittedly they were often a little overbearing, sometimes very excited to be here in Ayerlaaand! Sometimes they were indisputeably naive or just plain stupid but they never quite struck me as uncaring.
The problem, however, is that these nice citizens are not running the United States of America. That would be the job of the American government, and a more uncaring bunch of people you could not hope to meet.
For political purposes the American government IS America, and I have to tell you that America does not care about anything except America.
Now, you’re probably thinking ‘this guy really doesn’t like America.’ You would be wrong. I hope very much to visit the US at some point when finances and work comittments allow. I very much admire many aspects of American culture - Jazz, Rock & Roll, Hollywood movies. Writers such as John Steinbeck, Tennesee Williams, Edgar Allen Poe and many many more have entertained the world. Steven Spielberg, John Ford, Martin Scorcese - say no more.
America is fine. The American government is fine - except for one thing. Honesty.
America (the government) cares about nothing but America and American interests. This is a stick often used to beat America, but why should America care about anything else. the US government is elected by the citizens of the the US to represent the interests of those very US citizens. They are not mandated to care about anyone else. They are not mandated to worry about the starving people of Africa. They are not mandated to be concerned for the downtrodden of Iraq.
So, why then are there currently over 100,000 US troops in Iraq?
These troops are protecting the interests of the American people.
American people have a great interest in oil. The US is addicted to the stuff. Without oil America grinds to a halt. The same is true of most western nations. My own country, Ireland, is over 90% dependant on oil for energy. We’re even more addicted to the stuff than the US. The difference, however, between them and us is that they have the power and the military might to do something about it. Ireland was never going to overthrow Saddam with 14,000 men and a few dozen lightly armoured personnel carriers! The US, however, has a standing army of over one million soldiers, and so it could and did invade Iraq, overthrow Saddam, and take over another soveriegn nation.
Why did the US do this?
Was it because the American government cares so much about the people of Iraq?
No. It was because the American government cares so much about the people of America.
As I stated earlier, the American government is elected to protect the interests of the American people. When they invaded and conquered Iraq they were doing just that. I often wonder if those who berate and belittle America for doing this expect that the American government should act contrary to the best interest of America and Americans.
America needs oil.
Saudi Arabia doesn’t need any more oil, they’ve got lots of that. Saudi, it would seem doesn’t need democracy either. Not as long as they have all the oil. But they don’t have all the oil - just an awful lot of it. Now Iraq has lots of oil and until 2003 they had a dictatorship that was almost as repressive as Saudi’s monarchy. The house of Saud has not been looking as healthy lately as it did in times past and so the guys in Washington get to thinking about what would happen if someone else took over the US oil reserves - sorry, the Saudi Oil reserves. What if that someone wasn’t of Washingtons choosing? What if that someone didn’t want to do business with the American infidels?
The solution is so simple as to be laughable. Washington simply moves America’s oil reserve from Saudi to Iraq. That would be in the best interest of the American people. It wouldn’t cost much. Just three or four or five thousand American boys and girls, several trillion dollars and all of the worldwide goodwill America has built up over the last 100 years. Oh, and I nearly forgot, sixty or seventy or eighty thousand Iraqis, but hey, the US government is not mandated to worry about them.
Anyway the American oil reserves in Iraq are secure, and happy days, things in Saudi are not looking too bad either so America now has two sets of oil reserves in the middle east. Now, I ask you, how could that not be in the best interest of the American people?
One thing still bugs me, though. Remember I spoke about honesty?
What was all that bullshit about weapons of mass destruction? 45 minute warnings to attack the UK? Links to Al Qaida?
Just be honest about these things, America. I still won’t agree with you but it would be nice.
That way the people of the UK could know exactly what Mr. Blair has dragged them into.
That way the people of Madrid and London could know for what their friends and neighbours died.
That way the people of Ireland could know exactly why our government is allowing Shannon airport to be used to transport prisoners who are beyond the protection of any court or government to torture centres in the middle east.
That way the people of America could know the calibre of their political leaders and could make an informed choice in 2008.
That would be nice.
Unlikely.
Probably impossible, but nice all the same.
America, you are not the world - but think you are.