Jim Cusack Sunday Independent - World's Worst "Journalist"

From the Balcony, A Publisher's Blog: Can reporting can get any worse than this?
It's worth reading Máirtín Ó Muilleoir's blog re Jim Cusack of the west-brit "newspaper", The Sunday Independent

Oxford Dictionary - new word!

It's usually heard on the Northside of Dublin. ( well, in Bar 52 anyway) Phonetically it's -
" hee a ah.."
Possibly it means...Hello... excuse me... can I have a drink please...?
Answers on a postcard please

And Talking About Coffee...

On Tuesday of last week I bought 2 Espresso coffees in Porto, Portugal and they cost me €1.20 (60 cent each).
Today I bought 2 Espresso coffees in the Coachman's Inn near Dublin airport and they cost me €5.50 (€2.75 each).

And the coffee in Porto tasted ten times better!

Go to the back of the geography class Mr Starbucks

My friend Katarzyna spotted this strange notice in Starbucks Cafe on College Green recently.

I must say that Starbucks have THE best coffee in town, their Cafe's have a great atmosphere and friendly staff ...
But 10 years in the UK?
Er.. we are not in the UK Mr Starbuck!

Oh well, I suppose it's hard to be good at everything!

The Blizzards' Niall Breslin talking a lot of sense...

I read an interview with The Blizzards frontman, Niall Breslin in a recent Hot Press magazine. Must say this man talks a lot of sense! Here is an extract from the interview.

" Staying on the theme of alcohol, what does Breslin make of the government's recent decision to curtail off license hours to 10pm?"
"That's one thing that pisses me off", he fumes. "I was listening to Newstalk recently and this guy was going that alcohol is so cheap ... have you been to southern Spain? You can get a bottle of wine for a euro and you don't see locals walking around puking. This country is being run by old men. Old, boring farts who need to cop the fuck on and stop closing off licences at 10pm and closing nightclubs early. The whole thing stinks. It's turning us into Communists. They're not even giving us a fucking choice about this - that's the worst part about it. Don't bloody lecture us on being bloody democratic and shit like this when you don't give us any choice in it. And if we do protest, we get our arse kicked and thrown in jail. I don't give a fuck about Fianna Fáil or Fine Gael or any of them - they're all the same essentially - and, at the end of the day, they only give a shit about being in power. What they're doing now is trying to take away any bit of fun we're having.
I do understand that there's a huge problem with alcohol in Ireland, but I don't think that's the fucking way to go about fixing it."

Niall Breslin for President?
p.s. Check out the Blizzards latest chart hit, the infectious "Trust Me I'm a Doctor"

Oh to be not racist

O2 , be not racist!
It appears that mobile phone giant O2 are not too fond of Polish people. A friend of mine who is from Polska and lives in Dublin changed from a prepaid to a monthly bill contract with the company. When you do this you must sign up to a minimum period and there are various incentives like x amount of free minutes and texts per month, etc.
But then she discovered something VERY strange - she is not permitted to make calls to Poland on her mobile for the first three months of the contract!
Why?
Are O2 suggesting that Polish people are dishonest? That they won't pay their bill? Are they saying that all Polish people must be punished if they had some problem in the past with a Polish person? Have they never had a problem with Irish customers - or English or Spanish for that matter?

I just looked up the word "racism" in the dictionary and it is explained as "discrimination against or hostility towards people of other races". Perhaps O2 can explain why they have this rule and why it applies only to Polish people?

No Sex In This City

I heard Joe Costello, TD being interviewed on the radio over the weekend about a statement that he issued condemning the sex shops operating in Phibsboro. Apparently you can open a grocery shop and change it overnight to a sex shop because of some loophole in the planning laws. Which is what they did.
Well Joe was getting mighty upset - getting his knickers in a twist even. The sex shops were in full view of the church scolded our Joe and it would upset people going to mass. Joseph went on to actually name one of the sex shops on air - lots of free publicity for the owner, but under questioning admitted that one of the shops had since closed down! Bit of a storm in a teacup really then Joe.
I know Mr Costello is doing a good job and should be commended for trying to rid our streets of these filthy, disgraceful, pornographic outlets. Furthermore, we should all go to mass every Sunday, eat only fish on Friday and yes - sex should be banned altogether as it's an immoral, disgusting habit. Right Joe?

I know there is no such thing as bad publicity but I think our Joe is scraping the bottom of the barrel. We have gang violence out of control, joyriders, burglaries, drink-fueled violence on our streets, not to mention an inept government in charge of a faltering economy and Joe Costello is worried about sex shops.
Get a life Joe!
p.s. I hope the punters going into the sex shop don't get upset and start complaining about being in full view of church-goers.

Ryanair - Another Happy Customer (desperation setting in!

And so - back to my favourite theme - Ryanair.
A friend has just called me, and she's in tears. She just booked flights on Ryanair and for some reason while trying to negotiate the minefield that is their website she booked the same name twice for two separate flights instead of two different names (OK,well she IS blond actually). She immediately rang her Credit Card company and tried to cancel one flight but they told her the payment had already gone through and advised her to contact Ryanair. The Telephonist actually mentioned to her that it was however next to impossible to contact Ryanair.
My friend asked me what can she do? I said they do have a facility on their website to change the name on a booking, so she clicked on "Manage my Booking", fed in her Confirmation Number, etc., clicked on "Name Change" and discovered that they charge - wait for it.... 100 Euro.
JUST TO CHANGE A NAME!
Thieves and Robbers.

Máirtín on Ryanair

From the Balcony, A Publisher's Blog: No frills no more and more masterplans: "Tuesday, July 29, 2008
No frills no more and more masterplans
You heard it here first: the reason Ryanair lost money isn't just down to the oil crisis. It's also because the no-frills airlines are no longer no-frills.

What they take off the ticket, they bang back on in insurance, baggage charges, seating charges and 'preferential' boarding. It's a joke and it ain't cheap so until they get back to the original model, cheap flights, expect no turnaround."

Ryanair.con

Being in a particularly grumpy mood today (yes, it's probably the weather) I decided to look for a refund from Ryanair for the taxes they charged me for 2 flights I did not use.
Should be simple enough - I bought the flights on line using my credit card, so I'll go on to their website, log in the flight details and they will refund my card for the taxes that they did not have to pay because I didn't travel!
30 minutes later and I can not find any information about how to get my money back - although I can book a car, a hotel, buy vouchers and of course cheap(???) flights. Their website is still working at a snails pace and now keeps changing into different languages sometimes when I press the "back" button.
So, I decide to ring Ryanair instead. The problem is there is nobody home! At least nobody to answer the phone, I waited on the line from 15.15 until 15.38 - 23 minutes, listening to a message once a minute telling me "Thank you for calling Ryanair. Your call is in a queueing system, please hold for an operator".
Ryanair don't have an email address, they don't answer the phone, so how am I going to get my money back?
OK, it's not the AMOUNT of money that's worrying me, it's the principle, it's the fact that it's MY money and not theirs, and they are not entitled to pocket it, and they are making it almost impossible for me their customer to get a refund.
Is this called "robbery"? Is there no law against this practice?

No, I am not making this up...

Saudi religious police ban pet cats and dogs

And talking about cars ...

Brazil defends biofuel's merits

Will anyone pay for these wicked and illegal acts?

This article by Vincent Browne in the Sunday Business Post is well worth reading

Sráid Capel

Sráid Capel is one of my favourite streets in Dublin and I was more than a little annoyed when DCC made a dog's dinner of the middle part of it last year (see Blog 9/17/07). So it was with some trepidation that I watched the roadworks in progress there for the last few months! Was Mr Green Party/ Bicycle loving/Car Hating/"town planner" at it again? Was he going to finish off Capel Street for cars?

I am a firm believer that streets should be vibrant places.... a melting pot, a living, breathing space - full of life, commerce, homes, shops, people, noise, "Bananas - 5 for one Euro",- EVEN traffic (and car horns sometimes)..

Mr DCC, I suspect, likes most of the above, except cars..

So, it was a great relief to walk home via Capel Street tonight and to discover that the roadworks only involve upgrading the pavements. And, I have to say they look very well!

Mr DCC must be on holidays. Shhhh...

An Droichead nua (the new bridge)

On Macken St Bridge - Modern.... but nice

Iran executes 29 in jail hangings

BBC NEWS | World | Middle East | Iran executes 29 in jail hangings

Sráid Henry - and that horrible Spire

The Spire - probably the most uninspiring piece of street architecture in any Capital city in Europe! It cost millions, it wasn't even designed by an Irish person, it has no charm, no class and no street presence. It is just a big piece of metal stuck in the middle of the city's main thoroughfare. An ugly, expensive mistake!

Our Useless Politician's

I left Dublin City Centre by car at 17.25 to drive to the Airport to pick up a friend who was flying from London. Her flight departed Stansted 10 minutes earlier at 17.15.
The rush-hour traffic through Dorset Street, Drumcondra and Whitehall was unbelievably bad, at times I would only move 20 metres at a change of traffic lights, and would then be at a complete standstill for 3 or 4 minutes.
As I passed the infamous St. Luke's in Drumcondra - Bertie Ahern's centre of corruption, I could not help but feel angry at the sheer mess Ahern and his useless Government colleagues had made of the Celtic Tiger years. They squandered away our wealth and left us with these disastrous traffic chaos, causing misery to thousands of people every day.
My friend texted me when I was in Whitehall - she had already arrived in Dublin Airport from London. I eventually got on to the M1 a few minutes later and managed to reach the airport within 10 minutes.
So - it took the same amount of time to fly from London to Dublin Airport as to drive from Dublin City Centre to the Airport!
BLOODY GREAT COUNTRY WE LIVE IN!

Ryanair - Michael O'Leary. Yet Another Rip-off

When it comes to ripping-off customers they are in a league of their own! Yes, they do have some cheap flights but they make their millions by stealth, scams, rip-offs and hidden charges. They treat their customers with contempt and yet to listen to O'Leary on the radio you would think they were a model company who loved and respected their customers!

A friend pointed out this latest scam from Ryanair - the low standards company.
He booked a one week, return flight to Poland and the tickets were €125 each way (of course they were a hell of a lot more by the time he had paid all the stealth taxes and charges).
Then he discovered that he needed to come back in 5 days instead of 7. You can change your flights on the Ryanair website so he decided to do this. First he looked for flight availability for his new return date and he discovered that the price had actually dropped from €125 to €85. Great, so he logged in his details to change the date - only to discover that sneaky Ryanair would still charge him €125, not the €85 they were now advertising the ticket for. AND - they charged a whopping €35 just to change the ticket.
I can just imagine Michael O'Leary lying in bed at night dreaming up new charges!

Ryanair - Michael O'Leary Hates Babies

I noticed that Euro MPs have been making noises today about airlines misleading the public when they offer cheap fares but don't show hidden charges! Are we going to see some action at last? I won't hold my breath, especially as far as Ryanair are concerned.

I recently booked flights on Ryanair for friends who are going from Dublin to London ( Stansted).
The flights were actually advertised as FREE for 2 adults and 2 children, but mysteriously a 3 month old baby was being charged 20 Euro. I checked different times and dates but the poor little baby was always charged 20 Euro while everybody else went "free". Anyway, when taxes were factored in ( €39.98 each way) the total price, including beautiful little baby, a not unreasonable - €119.96.

You can now check-in Online of course and avoid the queueing and hassle at the airport AND having to pay for checking-in - good idea this if you can travel with a small amount of luggage that you can bring aboard the plane. So I try to check-in my friends Online.
Problemo! Ryanair will not let you check-in Online - IF you have an infant (under 2 years) I kid you not! (pun intended) . So, we try again and must check the family in at the airport. But now Mr O'Leary charges the 2 adults and 2 children €10 each for Airport Check-in, an extra €40. Total price now - €159.96.
Ryanair now charge you for your luggage of course, but if you tick the box for "No luggage & airport check-in" you are still charged the €10, even though you have NO luggage. Our family now decide that if they are being made to go through the checking-in procedure anyway and are being charged they might as well bring 2 bags, so we tick the boxes. The price jumps another €40. New price - €199.96.
We continue with the booking, making sure to UN TICK boxes that charge you for Travel Insurance (€18 extra per person) - and best of all, "Priority Boarding" and a fee for the dubious benefit of being first to board the plane (€10 per person).
We proceed to purchase the tickets, the Ryanair website is working at a snails pace and eventually crashes, so we have to start all over again inputting all the information from start to finish. We get to the "Purchase" button - and the site crashes again! So we go for a coffee and come back to Ryanair in 1 hour. That's more than the flight time Dublin to London, but the problem still persists, so, frustrated, we decide to leave it for 24 hours.
Next day, thankfully the prices have not gone up and eventually we get our "Confirmation Number" - and a sting in the tail! What HAS gone up is the price we are charged - an extra €40 Euro, they called it a "Handling Fee"- €10 per person, seemingly it's for the luxury of using a credit card for booking the flights, total charge -€239.92. FREE FLIGHTS, HA HA HA..

Willie O'Dea(d) bodies will soon...

.. be coming back in Bodybags!
At the moment Irish soldiers are in Chad, a hot dusty country in Central Africa, ostensibly to protect refugee's from the humanitarian crisis in neighboring Sudan.
Ireland is, sorry - WAS a neutral country, so what are we doing propping up a Dictator (Deby) in a former French colony, where France still pulls the strings?
Answers on a postcard to Monsieur William O'Dea, Luimneach

Ar leanúint... (to be continued)

Lisboa

Worth checking out Máirtín O Muilleoir's Blog re the Lisbon Treaty - From The Balcony,a Publisher's Blog (Friday,July 4)

What Part Of "No" Do They Not Understand?

I happened to be driving to the Medieval City last Friday listening to the car radio as the story of the Lisbon referendum unfolded. As it became clear that the "No" vote was doing well, the massed ranks of politicians on the "Yes" side who had been ably supported by a compliant Irish media started to go into denial mode. As the day wore on and a "No" victory became ever more apparent the spineless politicians who had tried to bluff us and had tried to sell our sovereignty became more and more hysterical. We were doomed, we would be punished, we were an ungrateful lot after all Europe had done for us, we would be kicked out of the EU.....
Probably the funniest thing I ever heard on radio was Fine Gael's rising "star" Lucinda Creighton,T.D. throwing an almighty tantrum and launching a hysterical attack on Sinn Féin for having the audacity to call for a "No" vote. Poor little Lucinda with her posh South Dublin accent was about to head off (to cry into her Martini I presume), but before she left Newstalk's studio she launched a tirade of abuse against Sinn Féin, blaming them for this disaster. (With "talent" like this at it's disposal the Blueshirts can expect to spend many more years warming the opposition benches).
Not one of the politicians interviewed had the guts to put their hands up and admit they were wrong.
Before the final results were even announced on Friday evening Senor Barroso let us know exactly what he thinks of democracy! He vowed to plough on with or without us.
Since last Friday I have heard "respect the Irish vote" being used a lot - in the same sentence as - "another referendum".
There used to be a joke about the Nazi SS soldier telling a prisoner, "VE HAF VAYS OF MAKIN YOU TALK!". The new joke coming from Europe is - "VE HAF VAYS OF MAKING YOU SAY YES TO LISBON"

Níl, No, Non, Nie to Lisbon Treaty

In tomorrows referendum I will be voting "Níl".

Over the last few weeks there has been threats and bully-boy tactics from the "Yes" camp in an effort to scare us into voting for a bad treaty! Bad for Ireland and bad for freedom and democracy in all EU countries. This Treaty is an attempt by the larger members to take over the Euro project and to fashion Europe on the United States, to make Europe a world military power, so that Europe can go around the globe in the same way as the USA and fight dubious wars in the name of "democracy". We all know of course that Bush's "democracy" is all about power and influence over smaller, weaker nations and more importantly about oil and the USA's insatiable demand for it.
So what Germany failed to achieve in two world wars they are now trying to achieve by stealth, aided an abetted by France, Italy, Spain and other large member states - that is conquer Europe!
They are being helped in this attempted power grab by naive Irish politicians and by the Church and the Irish Establishment and media.
The new Europe as envisaged by the Lisbon Treaty is a Europe where power will be concentrated in a small elite, where ordinary citizens will be powerless, where workers rights will be eroded, where refugees and migrants will not be welcome, where taxes will be increased, where military spending will be VASTLY increased to keep pace with USA, where war and destruction will be visited upon weaker, emerging and third world countries so that Europe can plunder their oil and natural resources.
Some Irish people will be rewarded of course! The politicians and others who are now "onside" will be looked after by being offered cushy jobs, with huge salaries and massive expense accounts, paid for of course by taxes - yours and mine!

One hundred years ago Europe was such a place. Ireland was such a place. Power was concentrated in an elite of church and state. Hundreds of thousands of Europe's youth were sacrificed in a pointless war. European nations plundered the wealth of Africa. Here in Ireland people lived as slaves, our wealth exported to England, our people exported to far flung corners of the world. The power of the church was supreme!
It took brave men and women on Easter Monday 1916 to declare on the steps of the GPO that we had had enough.
Let not their sacrifice be in vain. Keep our freedom and our sovereignty and say no to this bad, bad treaty.
And - if this treaty is so good for Europe as it's advocates claim, isn't it very strange that Ireland is the only country allowed to have a referendum on it? What does that tell you about democracy and freedom in their "new" Europe?

Confusing

As I drove through Contae Thir Eoghain (County Tyrone) in the north of Ireland recently I got a very strange text message on my mobile phone. It was from Meteor, whose network I am on, and it said "Welcome to UK". Which I thought was strange as the UK was very, very far away across the Irish Sea. The text also informed me " Per min rates 59c to call Ireland & EU".
The text from Meteor did not allow for a reply to be sent. Which is a good job as the answer would be along the lines ...
"F*** O** u shower of W*****s, I am not in the UK, I am in my own country!"
Should we be doing business with these people?

No Comment Necessary

The lorry deposited a large number of stones and pebbles beside the waste ground and then two women were led to the spot wearing white and with sacks over their heads... (They) were enveloped in a shower of stones and transformed into two red sacks... The wounded women fell to the ground and Revolutionary Guards smashed their heads in with a shovel to make sure they were dead.
Eleven people, nine of them women, are currently under sentence of death in Iran for the 'crime' of adultery. Stonings can take up to 20 minutes before the victims are killed and if members of the public rounded up for the purpose refuse to participate in throwing stones, public sector employees are taken from their workplaces and ordered to take part.

From a recently published Amnesty International (www.amnesty.org) report on the continuing practice of stoning women to death in Iran.(read in An Phoblacht - www.anphoblacht.com)

How To Win Friends

Observed about 20 cars parked outside Cineworld cinema on Parnell Street being booked by 3 Gardai. Their owners are obviously in the cinema enjoying a night out. The cars are not causing any obstruction and it is not clear if they shouldn't be parked there, as there are no yellow lines.
So why are they being targeted? At the risk of repeating myself let me suggest that it because:
(a) It is a revenue collecting exercise
(b) They are an easy target - much easier for the Gardai that say tackling drug dealing, "joyriding", vandalism, etc. Those crimes and more are being committed at that very moment probably very nearby - but hey don't ask our esteemed police force to actually WORK for their huge salary.
And so the local Superintendent can claim that his force have issued a record number of traffic tickets. And so the Minister can pat the Commissioner on the back and thank him for the increase in revenue. And the hardworking taxpayers who went to the movies can pay up.
What a rotten little "banana republic" we live in.