jump to navigation

What you want to say – 22nd March 2023  March 22, 2023

Posted by guestposter in Uncategorized.
trackback

As always, following on Dr. X’s suggestion, it’s all yours, “announcements, general discussion, whatever you choose”, feel free.

Comments»

1. Tomboktu - March 23, 2023

Fraser Nelson just told Morning Ireland that Rishi Sunak “made his money fair and square”.

Sunak may have made his wealth rather than inherited it, but making the amounts of money Sunak did from investment banking and running a hedge fund is never fair and square.

Like

Reply
2. Tomboktu - March 23, 2023

Fraser Nelson just told Morning Ireland that Rishi Sunak “made his money fair and square”.

Sunak may have made his wealth rather than inherited it, but making the amounts of money Sunak did from investment banking and running a hedge fund is never fair and square

Liked by 1 person

Reply
3. NFB - March 24, 2023

Had a depressing experience in Dublin city centre yesterday, walking from Connolly to Cineworld to take in John Wick 4. I’ve been on Henry Street a bit over the last few months but in and out of shops and then straight home, this was my first time properly walking through the city centre in a while.

And it is bad. It’s more than just the number of rough sleepers, the strung-out walkers soliciting coins as if they can’t really see you, the occasional group of young lads who look like they are itching for a confrontation with the people walking by, or the two people I saw taking a saw to a car clamp on King’s Inn Street as I went home (a new Garda station on O’Connell Street might not be the saviour some people think it will be on that score). The place seems greyer than it used to be, if I can be dramatic: too many people looking like they are in a rush to get the hell away from that part of Dublin, too many empty shopfronts, too much rubbish, too many disappointed looking tourists (what was that statistic about Dublin’s lack of return visitors?), too many bland buildings. Throw in the foul smelling guy who sat next to me in the cinema which, contrary to form with Cineworld in fairness to it down the years, had sound mixing issues, and it was a pretty dreadful experience. I’m not going back to the city centre for anything in a hurry, and definitely not at night.

Liked by 1 person

Reply
WorldbyStorm - March 24, 2023

It’s very quiet isn’t it? Just not anywhere near what it was like three years back. May improve as weather gets better but everything is tatty. I do wonder in a way did the pandemic reinforce a dynamic where the city centre of Dublin is no longer the magnet it was and people go to Swords or Liffey Valley or wherever because those places are thronged. But still enough people live close in to the city you’d think it’d be a bit less iffy.

I had a not dissimilar experience a month ago. Couldn’t get a taxi so did a walk I’ve done hundreds, thousands of times before from Kildare Street across the river to North Strand. A lot of folk sleeping rough but streets empty yet those on them kind of belligerent. First time since I was a teenager that I actually thought yeah, this could be ugly. There’d been an anti-immigrant march earlier that evening along North Strand so don’t know if that added to the tension.

Like

Reply
NFB - March 24, 2023

Blanch too, for people out my way, I’d say is way more attractive for shopping/meals out/etc.

Taxis are becoming another huge problem, due to the lack of them.

Like

Reply
WorldbyStorm - March 24, 2023

It sort of makes sense too. They’ve everything they’re indoors, easier to get to, and of course the way the roads are being ripped up on the way into Dublin for cycle lanes etc doesn’t help.

Like

Reply
4. Tomboktu - March 24, 2023

Just typing an email about setting up a meeting with somebody called Seán and autocorrect decided I meant Sean.

Harbloodyumph!

Like

Reply
roddy - March 24, 2023

I’m old enough to remember anyone who registered a birth up here being “auto corrected” from Sean to John.We were still being given “slave names” in the 1960s.That’s why I still have a lot of time for those who campaign for languge rights even though my grasp of the language is minimal.

Like

Reply
banjoagbeanjoe - March 28, 2023

Just re Roddy and “slave names”. Same thing was happening in Conamara in the liberated south in the fifties. I’ve a friend from there whose name was registered in an English translation by the local powers-that-were. Same chap didn’t speak a word of English till he was thirteen. But his legal name is a translation into English of his actual name.

Like

Reply
Michael Carley - March 24, 2023

A few years ago I was going through the checkout in a big DIY store here in England. The woman on the cash desk had inserted a fada by hand on her name badge.

Liked by 2 people

Reply
Tomboktu - March 24, 2023

I was skimming a newly published paper yesterday on neolithic Europeans to see if studies on Irish populations were cited.

One author in the references was given as R. Ó’Maoldúin in one and as R.Ó. Maoldúin in another.

Liked by 1 person

Reply
5. Tomboktu - March 24, 2023

Second spring sowing done today: peas, tomato, sweet pepper, following some broad beans a few weeks ago that I’ve been gardening off.

I hope to get time over the weekend to sow some flower seeds.

Like

Reply
polly - March 25, 2023

Hurrah, me too, heading out a bit later to do poppies cornflowers sweet peas nicotiana, third round of peas and beans and a couple of experimental potatoes.

Liked by 1 person

Reply
Tomboktu - March 25, 2023

Apt typo. It should have been “hardening off”

Liked by 1 person

Reply
6. rockroots - March 24, 2023

Posters appearing in Finglas in recent weeks: https://rockroots.files.wordpress.com/2023/03/20230324_101028.jpg

Like

Reply
WorldbyStorm - March 24, 2023

Christ almighty, cosplaying Irishness

Like

Reply
7. Aonrud ⚘ - March 25, 2023

>The television appearance on Wednesday came one day before more than 1 million protesters – 3 million according to unions – demonstrated around France to oppose his government raising the retirement age from 62 to 64.

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/mar/24/emmanuel-macron-takes-off-luxury-watch-pensions-tv-interview

One million according to whom? An interesting framing to correct the union figure with the Guardian’s own un-cited authority.

Liked by 1 person

Reply
8. crocodileshoes - March 25, 2023

I’ve read several articles lately about how wfh means there’s hardly anyone in work on Fridays, leading pubs and restaurants to cut rosters. Thursday, apparently, is the new Friday.
You wouldn’t know it, though, from the Dublin Bus timetable. Still far more buses timetabled on a Friday than Saturday- for the last 2 Saturday mornings it’s been impossible to get a bus from my west Dublin stop. All packed, as the kids head for Liffey Valley and adults for matches, city shops etc.
if there is a shortage of staff and that’s why buses are stuffed, it’s time to have a look at ‘weekday’ and ‘Saturday’ timetables.

Liked by 1 person

Reply
WorldbyStorm - March 25, 2023

Yes, Thursday is Friday and then it bounces back on Saturday. Exactly what you say, they need to rethink this big time.

Like

Reply
rockroots - March 25, 2023

I’d add Sunday timetables to that grouch – it’s not the 1980s anymore and quite a few of us have to work on Sundays. We’ve one bus route operating from Finglas before 10am on Sundays (no other public transport options), so run and squeeze onto it (and yes, it is usually packed) or wait 30 minutes for the next one.

Liked by 1 person

Reply
WorldbyStorm - March 25, 2023

That’s absurd that they make no accommodation for that on what is a big shopping day after midday.

Like

Reply
9. tomasoflatharta - March 26, 2023
roddy - March 26, 2023

If this had occurred up here, the police involved would be getting extremely nervous as the ombudsman’s office has a much better record than anything operating in the South.

Liked by 2 people

Reply
10. sonofstan - March 28, 2023

Final round in the Starmer-ite putsch: Corbyn refused permission to stand in Islington North next time. In a way, you have to admire the complete lack of scruple here – it’s almost Stalinist. The Labour right is counting on battle fatigue and defeatism on the left, I reckon.

Liked by 1 person

Reply
WorldbyStorm - March 28, 2023

It’s utterly gratuitous isn’t it?

Like

Reply
sonofstan - March 28, 2023

Local elections here next month – I’m just waiting for the Labour candidate to come knocking….

Liked by 1 person

Reply
Tomboktu - March 28, 2023

The brother has been* a member of the Co-operative Party. I haven’t asked him if he’ll be canvassing in the next election (whichever one it is).

___
*I don’t know if he still is a member.

Liked by 1 person

Reply
sonofstan - March 31, 2023

And, on cue, nicely turned out young Labour guy shows up on the doorstep and gets both barrels from grizzly old socialist here. I was polite, mind: I know what canvassing is like. His main response was ‘we get that view a lot’ – perhaps the long road to wondering why might begin from here?

Liked by 2 people

Reply
WorldbyStorm - March 31, 2023

If they do get that a lot then why don’t they at least make some effort to integrate it into – well, I don’t know, policy, treatment of party members, etc? The thing I find mystifying is that the Tory attack ads agasitn Starmer write themselves. Working closely with Corbyn, continuing his policies, then jettisoning them and then despatching him. Starmer’s own narrative is dismal in terms of providing any means of pushing back against that, because that’s the reality, that’s what happened and he seems at a minimum duplicitous.

Like

sonofstan - March 31, 2023

He was more interested in who I was intending to vote for: Greens came second in a fair few Leeds wards last year.

Liked by 2 people

Paul - April 1, 2023

Strange if one of the main attack lines from the Tories is that Starmer can’t be trusted because he was too close or apologetic for Corbyn and now he has distanced himself from Corbynism (for want of a better term) he still can’t be trusted because he has flipped from some of the policies the Tories could never countenance.

Liked by 1 person

11. sonofstan - March 28, 2023

They’re not going to stop at Corbyn: they’ll come after McDonnell, Abbott, Burgon, Long-Bailey, Sultana…

Liked by 1 person

Reply
sonofstan - March 28, 2023
Wes Ferry - March 31, 2023

From last year. Starmer’s Labour tells the branch office in Scotland how to behave . . .

Liked by 1 person

Reply

Leave a Reply

Fill in your details below or click an icon to log in:

Gravatar
WordPress.com Logo

You are commenting using your WordPress.com account. ( Log Out /  Change )

Facebook photo

You are commenting using your Facebook account. ( Log Out /  Change )

Cancel

Connecting to %s

%d bloggers like this: