blankpaige

Pros & Cons

2007-08-13T15:06:00.000+01:00

It's a difficult call but seeing as "all the cool kids" are doing it and because I need constant change in my life, I'm moving to Wordpress. (Gosh, don't I sound all techno-knowledgeable!)

If you look at http://www.paigeharrison.wordpress.com/ you'll find even more blank pages there!

Please come along and update your blog roll.

Paige

Funny that ....

2007-08-10T15:51:00.000+01:00

My good blog buddy (Claire) set me straight on my last post about what all the cool people were doing. Frustrated as hell by my lack of lipstick, I signed up for a Wordpress blog. It was just as easy as signing up for Blogger.

And lo, no sooner had I done that when my abnormal Blogger functionality resolved itself.

Now I'm left with a dilemma..... Blogger or Wordpress?

Help!

Paige

Something Rotten in the State of Blogosphere

2007-08-07T09:13:00.000+01:00

Well, actually it seems to be that my blogger account has had a caniption. Despite for once in my life having six or seven really interesting things to blog about, I'm unable to post to my satisfaction.

For some reason the text editor function has completely disappeared! And along with it my spell checker and photo inserter thingy.

If you think I'm going to blog without these, you are very much mistaken. That would be like going to the shops without my lipstick on.

It's better to let people think you that you don't care than confirming it to them!

Paige

There's No Show like a Joe Show

2007-07-24T10:50:00.000+01:00

I'm told by a Garda friend that an Irish person kills a (once) loved one every day of the week. In most cases the snuffing out of an innocent life merits no more than 3-4 lines in the space fillers in our newspapers and at most a footnote at the end of the end of a news report. He calls it the "Troubles Syndrome" where loss of life, no matter how senseless, is so common place that everything that should be said has been said before. Media people aren't heartless just pragmatic.

Of course this doesn't stop the occasional juicy murder trial which, rightly or wrongly, captures the media and then through blanket coverage the public attention. Think Annabel's, Think little Robert..... I've forced myself to read almost every printed line about the Rachel O'Reilly murder and ask myself why this murder is so newsworthy. I've come to some conclusions but am frustrated that despite the acres of news print, many of the interesting points in this case have not been examined.

Why should our legal system be based on a presumption of innocence?
Can we not congratulate the Gardai for a job well done?

Should the Gardai be commenting on how pleased they are with the outcome?
Would they have said that they were disappointed had the verdict been 'not guilty'?

Is a jury of peers possible?
If so, why is it drawn from the Dail electoral register which excludes all non-nationals?
What would we have done had Joe O'Reilly had been from Romania?

Should we congratulate the Judge on a job well done?
Why in the prosecution of Joe O'Reilly, should Rachel O'Reilly's character have to be assailed?
How would a jury member have felt had they acquitted Joe O'Reilly and then read all the 'evidence' that as never put to them?

Is it always about opportunity, motive and method?
Can we stop referring to the 'perfect crime'?

Was the print media used by Gardai or was it a willing accomplice?
Is justice sweet?

Will Joe O'Reilly become a celebrated Irish blogger?
Will we ever know?

Is circumstantial evidence enough?
Should everyone be forced to sit through one day in the public gallery as part of their civic teaching?

Why do some murderers have to tease with their own capture?

What would the 40-50 journalist have done this week had Joe O'Reilly not murdered his wife?

Paige

Testing

2007-07-24T09:46:00.001+01:00

Doh!

2007-07-07T07:07:00.000+01:00

It is only now after I've had my large skinny latte with an extra shot that I realise why the RTE Radio 1 broadcaster** announced that it was exactly "seven minutes after seven o'clock". At the time I thought, that's just so typically of RTE, happy to be precisely wrong rather than be approximately right.

Now I know he was just pointing out that the time and date was the very symmetrical

07/07/07 07:07

Shame he didn't wait seven more seconds and he'd really have rocked my boat!
Sad but true,
Paige

(** Don't ask me his name, they all sound boringly alike - earnest young men with bad haircuts who'd much rather be running around the West Bank than having to debate drink driving attitudes with a pissed Tipperary vintner.)

She hasn't gone away, you know!

2007-06-23T10:22:00.000+01:00

Blankpaige is currently undergoing essential maintenance and regrets any inconvenience to the one casual reader and my omnipresent stalker.

(Note to cyberstalker, I've not done those sorts of things to a long standing boyfriend, so do you really think that I'd start with a unknown but obviously disturbed whack-job?)

Normal service will resume shortly .... well in a month or so.... or whenever.

Adios for now,
Paige

Credit Card

2007-06-20T07:56:00.000+01:00

My cousin Joe who lost his job last year as a result of cost-cutting and my Auntie Sarah who saw her local bank branch close down because of 'strategic realignment' would like to be one of the first to congratulate Bank of Ireland Chief Executive, Brian Goggin on his €4 million performance-related earnings for 2006.

Paige

P.S. I can't imaging how much he'd earn if he actually performed.

Lies, Damn Lies and StatCounter

2007-06-09T22:39:00.000+01:00

Blankpaige is long known for her breathless admiration of StatCounter - that super smooth, so-easy-even-a-girl-can-use-it technology that lets me stalk those who visit this site.

Now here is your chance to give something back to StatCounter creator, Aodhan by voting for him on the Business Week Young Entrepreneur 2007 Awards.

To vote : http://images.businessweek.com/ss/07/06/0601_europe_entp/source/18.htm

Vote early, vote often. Go ahead, sign the contract now and lets take the next step forwards together.

Paige

Brit Baiting for Beginners

2007-06-06T20:59:00.000+01:00

Some time ago, I spent a number of very enjoyable years living and working in both London and Birmingham. Those were in the dark deary days before being Irish had the sexy cache among the Brits that we currently enjoy. (Hang in there, my Muslim friends, the tide will change for you too. Soon enough they'll stop thinking that everyone of you wants to wreck mindless and violent carnage and might even have Muslim theme bars - okay well maybe not the last but you know what I mean.)

Being obvious outsiders, my band of anarchist Celtic cousins and I developed several amusing hobbies which could broadly be categorised as "Brit Baiting". The first involved deliberately steering conversations around to a mention of "Great Britain" or the "British Empire". This was the perfect cue for one of our troupe to remark innocently how much of a weight / embarrassment / obstacle must the whole colonial thing be. Even the most mild mannered (and it has to be said the majority were) Brit would reflect more positively on the benefits of the Empire and how Britain was admired the world over. This was the opening we'd hoped for. We'd immediately launch into a litany of 'countries what hate the Brits'. "We Irish hate you, The French detest you, The German's despise you, The Italians disdain you, The Australians loath you, The Americans think that you are pathetic, the entire Indian continent abhor you for considering their great land mass as a 'sub-continent', the South Africans will never forgive you,....... You get the message? Of course, pretty soon our unloved British pal did also.

A variant on this theme was to steer seemingly harmless conversations around to things of cultural significance. (One astute Englishman observed that conversations with Paddies were harmless in the same sense that TNT if handled with care was generally regarded as safe.) Ogh how we'd laugh at the game, "name one thing that is culturally synonymous with your native land". We'd trot out Guinness, James Joyce, U2, the potato famine and St Brigid's crosses. Our Scots friends would offer Malt Whisky, Rabbie Burns, Simple minds, Presbyterianism and the Glasgow kiss. The most English thing our hosts could offer was the smell of cut grass, warm beer and the sound of a firm ball on ash. We'd point out that every nation with grass land could claim the first, Scotland invented the second and the Paddies had a game called hurling infinitely more skillful than cricket. Someone once ironically suggested Vindaloo, Crowded House and motor racing before we all laughed uncontrollably.

Now all this is by way of long rambling introduction to the observation that two British Ministers are seeking to "build on the growing tide of nationalism" by advocating a national day of celebration for Britain and more considered granting of citizenship. Immigrants would have, they suggest, make every effort to integrate and on a credit-based system would gain or lose marks for learning to speak the language or committing a criminal offence which would impact on the granting of citizenship. The MP's and the Fabian Institute suggest that they should look inward to what was important to the nation rather than constantly make allowances for groups who wanted to live in Britain but not be British. (Of course one only has to go on holiday to Spain to see the reverse in action!).

Now I have to confess, I have some sympathy with their plight. It has to be said that there has never been a more generous, welcoming and decent bunch of individuals as one finds among our nearest neighbours. They have opened their country without much restriction and found that generosity thrown back in their faces. They've tolerated how we blame them for everything - the famine (our reliance on one crop and our failure to grasp the concept of crop rotation), the decline in the Irish language (blame Peig), the M50 and political corruption. It's all the Brits' fault.

But I kind of think that it is by taking an outward perspective which defines our particular cultural context. If you were to ask me, the very essence of Englishness is being polite, abiding by the rules, queuing unnecessarily and "being concerned about what everyone else thinks about us". The very British sense of fair play would quickly force that nation to conclude that it was just not cricket to be penalising an immigrant for not knowing who was third in line to the throne when the majority of the natives couldn't tell you who was their Prime Minister. Brits are understated, reserved and composed. They are not given to sporadic and spontaneous celebration just because a day is marked as the national holiday. For god sake, they don't even have a sense of what the nation is. Scotland and Wales are clearly foreign countries but what about all that land north of the Watford Gap? Is that part of England?

Like ourselves, their flag has been hijacked by a bunch of evil racists and instead of delivering the sense of unity and peace, it has come to symbolise naked sectarianism. But we can tolerate ambiguity so much better than the Brits. Both countries have ceded large chunks of national sovereignty to the EU in reward for access to European markets. The Brits need to believe that Sterling is still the standard and the Queen's head will always be on their stamps. We believe that as long as we can turn it into smokes, all cash is king and we will happily prostitute our stamps to promote any sporting franchise. The Brits wouldn't be comfortable celebrating St George's Day for so, so many reasons. It sends a particular religious message, no-one knows anything about St George, they aren't very good at celebrating, and anyway "surely there is someone else in the world who might also want to have their national day and we don't want to cause offence".

With Brit Baiting, as in all sports, is not the winning which is important, it's the taking part. We would do well to reflect on how this well meaning nation wrestles with problems of integration and changing national identity. It might inform us sooner rather than later of the road we need to travel.

"The meek shall inherit the earth (if that's okay with everyone)"
This is why I love our UK friends so much and wish I could help them through their current navel-gazing exercise. I also wish we could watch and learn instead of laughing at how so much smarter we are.

Paige

Things to Do in Cavan when you're Dead

2007-06-05T22:40:00.001+01:00

Seems like Dario needs some love too.

Ode to Dario
Spread the word,
Share the love,
Feel the pain,
Shovel the shit

and you'll be a man some day.

Paige

Blog Love

2007-06-05T22:13:00.000+01:00

In a manoeuvre known in the trade as 'doing a mulley*', I'd like to send out some blog love links to two new kids on my blog block.

Check out Michael Nugent's blog, "That's Ireland"and Una Mullally's blog "Una Rocks" for no other reason than because I asked you nicely.

God, but I wish linking to other blogs wasn't such a time consuming process, I'm all exhausted now and don't have any energy to blog. I feel like a very fastidious scholar who knows the importance of crossing "t's" and dotting "i's". I never get beyond the "An interesting thing happened to me this summer on my holidays at Courtown". Is there any other way than logging into my blog account, opening the template and adding a html code line, opening another window, navigating to the blog of interest, copying the address line, returning to my blog, rebooting the computer and starting the process over again? I did try blog roll once but it didn't seem to work.

And the most annoying thing is that I had a fantastic blog post written in my head about how blogging is better than sex, why there won't be a soft landing and how Damo is right, the 2012 London Olympic logo does look like Lisa Simpson giving number 2 some oral stimulation.
I'd also an insightful analysis of the Green/FF courtship, how the Leaving Cert is irrelevant and how to hedge the cost of future holidays what with the increasing monopolisation of the travel agent sector. All good stuff, believe it or not.

But I'm too tired for all that now.
Paige

* This reference complete my statutory obligation to name check Damien Mulley and/or StatCounter once every three posts. I know that such levels of hero worship can get a bit tedious after a while but what's a girl to do?!

Paige

The Importance of Blem

2007-05-30T23:59:00.000+01:00

Help required to re-trench the cool Dublin word 'Blem' in Urban Dictionary against a tide of Gravesend slang merchants.

Pass it on!
Paige

3. blem
Polite exhortation to someone to make a short, swift journey somewhere usually on an errand.

Will you blem down to the off-licence for me and get some kirsch for my kir
royale?
The run-flat on your BMW 6 series has been slashed by vandals? Don't worry, I'll
blem down to Insomnia and get you a double skinny latte!

tags pop out saunter dander dash run an errand

When I grow up, I want to be Claire Byrne

2007-05-29T17:25:00.000+01:00

Those that know these things say that women don’t as a rule respond well to hearing other women’s voices on the radio. It seems that there is some strange aural dissonance which causes one female’s voice to grate on another’s hearing. Apparently the female ear is less tolerant of high pitch sounds and likes to have her radio coming with a lot more baritone sounds. Male presenters, it seems, send a subconscious acoustic pheromone wafting through the ether to catch the attention of the female audience.

This, if true, goes a long way to explaining why I find Orla Barry so irritating on Newstalk 106FM and why Gerry Ryan can vulgar his way through his mid morning 2FM slot completely unchallenged.

Every now and again however, we discover the exceptions which prove the rule. Claire Byrne and Brenda Power are two cases in point. Yours truly finds that both have altogether more pleasing radio voices. Maybe it is their husky tones, maybe a cute sound engineer has the base cranked to ten, whatever the reason I can’t help enjoying their programmes.

Claire Byrne has become a particular favourite of mine and I’m beginning to understand why. In addition to the palatable acoustics, I love Claire’s sassy attitude. This girl has an opinion and isn’t afraid to let you have it between the ears. And she won’t let lack of knowledge get in the way of her opinion. I find that I like this in a woman although I detest this trait in men.

Paired with the excellent (in a sports geek sort of way) Ger Gilroy, this doe-eyed doyen of radio breakfast shows delivers the goods. They’ve developed a good rapport, some would even say on-air chemistry, and have brought a breath of fresh air to what was becoming a very tedious radio time. (Things took a turn for the worst for morning radio when Marty Whelan was replaced on 2FM by two juvenile delinquents with attention deficit hyper-activity disorder and an painful line in boring radio chatter.)

Ostensibly, the dynamic Newstalk duo present news stories and current affairs in a two hander mode not unlike Moaning Ireland (RTE Radio 1). The reality is quite different though. Claire can’t help offering her (usually strong) opinion on the news story which she is presenting. Some weeks ago, she covered a story about the HSE moving a MRI scanner to a private hospital. Ms Byrne quickly became irate as she told the story and presumed that (a) the HSE were wrong to redeploy capital equipment (b) they were up to no good by giving this resource away to the private sector (c) they were screwing over the poor people who had toiled hard to fund raise to purchase the machine in the first place. She proceeded to vent a host of other criticisms of the HSE although there was no evidence to support any of her claims. Some days later, describing the arrest in London of a Dublin criminal who’d served time for the murder of Veronica Guerin, she found herself embroidering the news story with hearsay, gossip and/or her own opinion. Her co-presenter Gilroy found himself adding the words “alleged” and “is reported to have” in a scrambled attempt to avoid a libel suit.

Claire Byrne has revitalised my radio listening and not just because of her dulcet tones. She adds an air of breathless excitement to the morning news which other stations would do well to emulate. I’ve noticed that she also has a column in one of the Sunday newspapers (think it might be the Sunday Times, but I could be confusing that with other female thought leader, Sarah Carey). All this, brains and good looks, let’s hope she doesn’t start blogging or else the rest of us “speak first, think second” girls are done for.

Paige

(My advisor has told me to note that all the above is my opinion and not necessarily based on any fact or actual events. Descriptions may be laced with snide comment or prone to hyperbole which arise due to my intense jealousy of successful career women. Blankpaige apologises for any hurt which these groundless allegations may have unintentionally caused.)

Coming Soon! When I grow up, I want to be Claire Byrne.

2007-05-28T19:13:00.000+01:00

In the meantime, check out between 6:30 - 9:00 am on Newstalk 106FM.

Paige

Normal Service resumes shortly (II)

2007-05-26T16:16:00.001+01:00

Phew! At last I can return to a normal existence. Having done my bit for the country (I'd a covert role of some political importance in Dublin South Central which I cannot disclose), I can revert to my normal diet of pointless self-examination. But some quick thoughts before I kick Election 2007 to the kerb.

It is quite humbling and very impressive to see so many people put themselves through the election process. Regardless of their political leanings, I have a new found respect for them all. Everyone seemed gracious in defeat or magnanimous in victory. Shame the same couldn't be said about their local party workers. Can we introduce a new rule that says when your candidate gets elected he (for it invariably is) should under no circumstances be hoisted aloft like some incongruous footballing hero. I didn't see one candidate look comfortable in his grey suit being held precariously by four equally grey, doddery old fools. Put the man down and let him at least pretend to be somewhat statesmanlike.

I thought that I'd be delighted to see Michael McDowell crushed again. But I was surprised at how sorry I felt for him and his family. It is hardly a surprise that he took the result so personally. This is the problem with conviction politicians. But Michael, I suppose Bill Clinton said it right. "You can't say you love your country and hate your government!". But my disappointment was tempered by the more outrageous de-seating of Joe Higgins. Some things are just not fair - like Cyprian Brady getting elected with less than 1,000 first preference votes when Mary Lou had a plunging neck line and a nice choker.

Reviewing how I wrestled with my decision, I'm not surprised atall by the election results. I could never find a good reason why change was going to be so good. The FG 'contract' was a stupid play that hamstrung Enda more than I think people will concede. He should also lay off the "I'm so confident that I'm the right man" routine which fools no-one. Instead, he should quietly accept that he has every right to being Taoiseach and then act like he is. Then no-one would need to be convinced, especially himself. Labour's 'we want a change in government' line was a none too subtle signalling that a FF/Lab government could be presented as a change in government. The number of women representatives in the next Dail will be even less that the pathetic percentage of the outgoing Oireachtas.

PR has an inherent fault in that it promotes division and coalitions become inevitable. As a country we were in danger of becoming like the Italian democracy. When the Labour party split again and possibly Fine Gael, our rainbow alternative could end up comprising 7 or 8 colours from a diverse gene pool. So it was important that the two main parties made gains or held their own to stop the increasing fragmentation. It would be best for the Labour party to pass on the option of becoming FF lapdog 'cos as the PD's can testify they'll end up being the losers in the next election. The landscape is right of a realignment of the 'left' or at least social democrats to provide a viable alternative to the market-forces politics of both main parties.

A real result would be if FF in the national interest reappointed Mary Harney as Minister for Health in a FF/PD/Green coalition. This would have the advantage of being a sufficient majority for some tough action to be taken against the vested interest that are Doctors and Nurses. Radical reform of the health service could be achieved. Of course that won't happen, because FF don't have the national interest at heart and our democracy wouldn't thank them even if they did.

It was particularly nice to see the Irish Times being found out for what it really is - the paper of the upper class minority record. Having had the information since last October, it ran a drip feed campaign designed to undermine FF's only real asset - Bertie. For 10 days, it ran the election agenda. Unfortunately, it mis-calculated several things. Irish people don't mind when someone is taken down a peg or two but it gets quite indignant when you continually kick a man when he's down. The smear campaign prevented any rigorous critique of FF policy and galvanised its supporters to get out and vote. The attention on Betie took the necessary spotlight of Enda Kenny until both he and Bertie debated together. Not surprisingly, Bertie has more experience in tv debates. Despite what the papers wrote, Enda got his ass kicked and it is a testament to his hard work and like-ability that he did so well electorally.

I'm pleased that so many people got engaged with the election - there are clearly lots of practical problems (Thursday vote, ropey register, constituency boundaries) - but it is healthy that so many people took the trouble to decide. For this reason alone, the country got the correct result and unlike what the Irish Times might say, getting the government you deserve is no bad thing for a democracy.

Enough already,
Paige

Liz is really letting herself go!

2007-05-16T17:34:00.000+01:00

This whole election lark has me miedered like a mad fishwife on a full moon. There was a time when blankpaige fretted about having exhausted the pool of things to write about. Do my blogs have any value? Not now. Thanks to Election 2007, I'm at least sure about one thing. Most of my recent posts have been 'political' and so they are definitely off no value to man or beast!

I've been seeing the same Progressive Democrats poster for quite sometime now and while I knew there was something seemingly incongruous, I could not put my finger on it. "Don't Throw It All Away", the poster exclaims with an unusal backward looking perspective. Most of the other parties at least suggest some forward momentum (Forward Together, Next Steps, A Contract for Change, etc).

But then it hit me, like a clout from a selfish racist bully, when they say 'don't throw it all away' the emphasis is on the word "all". This suggests that it is acceptable to throw some of it away. So then the only question is which bit. A quick check on the PD website for further clarification was interesting but not exactly informative.

You get lots of pictures of Liz O'Donnell trying to sex up a dossier that really needs some attention. That weapon of mass distruction, Michael McDowell is back up the lamp-posts with the new slogan "Left Wing Government?, No thanks". This is really quite amusing 'cos I'd bet that if you asked 100 Irish people where their politics are, 95 would say "Left of Centre", 4 would say "Far Left" and then there would be Enda Kenny who'd have to wait until Pat told him what he was.

The PD Site also proudly displays a picture of Michael perched behind the wheel of a large 4X4 with the words "Garda Ombudsman" on the side. This photo is wrong on so many levels. But try this one. The Garda Ombudsman is an administrative function with an office in Abbey Street. Now I know the Luas works have made shite of the tarmac around there but we really don't need a 4X4 to get into the one spot in Dublin that is served by the greatest number of public transport options.

Of course, maybe Michael is a big Olivia Newton-John fan and he just likes the lyrics

"So don't throw it all away

I don't wanna be the one who's gonna have to beg you stay

I don't wanna be the one to change your mind

One more time, Please stay

Don't throw it all away"

But then I can't recall him begging anyone to stay. Certainly not foreign nationals.

Sometimes I sits and thinks....

2007-05-10T21:10:00.000+01:00

I've been honoured by a nod from the highly cerebral That Girl and while you probably know that blankpaige doesn't do memes (remember?), I have to make an exception 'cos this one is done with such warmth. That Girl has nominated me for a Thinking Blogger Award

She kindly observes that blankpaige

is one of my daily reads. She combines wit and wisdom in really pithy posts and I wish she'd write more of them because each is a gem.

This is praise indeed from a brilliant blogger who, had anyone asked me before she, would be a definite nominee of mine. Fortunately, I've received this meme before the rest of Blog O'sphere, so I'm able to nominate the following equally fabulous five.

JL Pagano : The King of Irish Blog O'Sphere, his brilliant posts consistently force me to think about stuff that I wouldn't otherwise do. He is supportive and encouraging and ... well check him out for yourself.

Damien Mulley : Is the vitamin C in my blog diet. Everything that he blogs about is new to me, but he does so with patience, style and no little humour. His cyber hugs are a thing of beauty and he is so mind-expanding in a safe non-drug way.

Omani : Passionate, opinionated, persistent, questioning and brave. Every day Omani lights a
candle that illuminates my ignorance. He knows so much yet generously listens to uninformed opinion.

Sarah Carey : Sarah makes me think because I disagree with almost everything she writes, despite apparently holding very similar political perspectives. She infuriates and captivates in equal measure. If she were leader of Fine Gael, I'd vote her into Aras just to feel safe at night.

I like to have a mental picture of the blogger that I'm reading. It appeals to my sense of order. And because I haven't been able to do so in this case, the final blog which I nominate is Pretty Cunning/Susan Hated Literature. I don't really know what to think about this blogger but it is not for the want of thinking. Her posts and comments constantly surprise me and make me think that I must live in a strange antiparallel universe. But in a fun and interesting way!

So many other blogs deserve mention, but I want to keep them for myself!

Paige

The rules of this meme/award are simple.

1. If, and only if, you get tagged, write a post with links to 5 blogs that make you think
2. Link to this post so that people can easily find the exact origin of the meme
3. Optional: Proudly display the 'Thinking Blogger Award' with a link to the post that you wrote (There is an alternative silver version if gold doesn't fit your blog).

Who are you?

2007-05-09T09:13:00.000+01:00

Along with the BMW X5, another status symbol among my ogh so intellectual friends is to have a particular favourite piece by Seamus Heaney that really "says everything". Always the contrarian, while blankpaige doesn't want to dis the good Nobel Laureate, I'd respectfully like to draw your attention to another brilliant Derry-born poet : the lesser known Neil Hannon. Mr Hannon writes wonderful poetry which he delightfully supplies accompanied by the most melodic of tunes. What other artist could have a refrain (Neil does refrains not choruses) which include the "Ba Ba, Ba, Ba Ba Ba, Ba Ba, Ba" (Though there may be a la in their also).

Might I suggest you find a copy of Gin Soaked Boy and crank it up to ten on the stereo? Your day will never start better.

Gin Soaked Boy
(Copyright : Neil Hannon, I think but I'm going to have to go home, find my CD and confirm)

I'm the darkness in the light
I'm the leftness in the right
I'm the rightness in the wrong
I'm the shortness in the long
I'm the goodness in the bad
I'm the saneness in the mad
I'm the sadness in the joy
I'm the gin in the gin-soaked boy

I'm the ghost in the machine
I'm the genius in the gene
I'm the beauty in the beast
I'm the sunset in the east
I'm the ruby in the dust
I'm the trust in the mistrust
I'm the Trojan horse in Troy
I'm the gin in the gin-soaked boy

I'm the tiger's empty cage
I'm the mystery's final page
I'm the stranger's lonely glance
I'm the hero's only chance
I'm the undiscovered land
I'm the single grain of sand
I'm the Christmas morning toy
I'm the gin in the gin-soaked boy

I'm the world you'll never see
I'm the slave you'll never free
I'm the truth you'll never know
I'm the place you'll never go
I'm the sound you'll never hear
I'm the course you'll never steer
I'm the will you'll not destroy
I'm the gin in the gin-soaked boy

I'm the half-truth in the lie
I'm the why not in the why
I'm the last roll of the die
I'm the old school in the tie
I'm the spirit in the sky
I'm the catcher in the rye
I'm the twinkle in her eye
I'm the Jeff Goldblum in "The Fly"

Who am I?

I'm so definitely the "Why not in the Why". So which one are you?
Paige

One reason would suffice

2007-05-08T20:50:00.000+01:00

The three regular readers (Thanks Dad & Mam) of blankpaige will now that this girl has gone all angsty, wrestling with her (lack of) political convictions. I'm looking for a reason to vote. No, that's not entirely true. I'm looking for one reason to vote Fine Gael.

Disclosure : I'm a long time Progressive Democrats fan who has supported Mary Harney's brave politics from the sidelines. I cannot in conscience, support her successor as party leader who strikes me as at best selfish and egotistical and at worst an arrogant bully with no regard for the Irish people, our laws and constitution.

I'm probably what an MORI poll would call an undecided. But, believe me, I don't want to be. I thought I'd turn to my blog buddies for some guidance. So I was delighted to spot Sarah Carey's post entitled "10 Reasons to Vote Fine Gael". Sarah is a well know Sunday Times columnist and I believe comes from a strong FG tradition. She's not shy about giving her opinion, which is what attracts me most to her brilliant blog site, GUBU.

Given my current dilemma, I tore into her article with all the relish that I'd normally save for Tom Humphries' poetry on the back of the Sports section of Monday's Irish Times. (Although I know nothing about sport, I at least appreciate that it is a thing of great beauty and causes grown men to proclaim love in terms that they'd never think about doing to their women folk).

How disappointed I was when I realised that Sarah's sharp analysis didn't give me any reasons for voting FG but rather some justification for not voting FF. (That I didn't need)

To paraphrase cruelly, the list went something like:

Change is good
Too long in power is too bad
FF have wasted a lot of money
FF's tax individualisation is bad
FF could be more green
The Health Service problems could be sorted out with fresh new faces
Labour will ensure that FG will have to look after the poor
Our people > Their people
FG will make sure that there is free pre-School
Ogh fuck it, I said at the start of the post that there would be 10 reasons, I'd by God, I'll find 10 reasons!

Now here is my problem.

(1) Why is change good?

(2) Why should I trust someone with no experience over someone with lots of experience

(3) Civil servants waste the money and we don't get to vote them in or out

(4) I happen to think Tax individualisation is a reasonably good idea!

(5) I don't think any of the parties are particularly green even the Greens!

(6) The one thing that our health service needs is for the same determined kick-ass politician to be returned with a strong mandate. Enda says he'd do exactly the same but in a more "imaginative way".

(7) Why won't FG look after the poor?

(8) I remain to be convinced, see (6) above.

(9) As a young woman with, I hope, no need to avail of free pre-school education in the next five years, I don't know why my taxes should go to pay so that you can have a family and compete for the same jobs as me. Pick one job, and do it properly! (PS, I don't mean Sarah here - she is quite obviously doing both very well!) .

So you see I still don't have a reason and I am faced with a choice between the experienced hucksters and the would-be statesmen, I'm afraid there is no contest. I'm going to have to swallow my dislike of Mr McD and vote his party back in and hope that the party faithful launch a heave against him soon after the election.

Update : Omani is most correct (see comment)(Isn't he always!). Tis too early in the campaign to become so certain. I’ll strive to keep my mind open until closer to polling day. I must find another reason – and it doesn’t even have to be logical – to make my decision. Any of the candidates got a GSOH and want to pursue a friendship and maybe more?

Paige

You couldn't Make it up (No. 67a in a series of 134)

2007-05-05T10:47:00.000+01:00

Blankpaige is getting worried about the amount of political stuff has begun to appear on this blog. This is worrying for so many reasons. I find myself posting longer and longer comments on other people's blog sites. The following is an example posted at Damien Mulley's site which regular readers of the blankpaige know is the vitamin C in my blog diet.

Damo links the Youtube of Vincent Browne's schoolmaster to Bertie Ahern's errand schoolboy.

My comment on this (slightly modified to be more readable or at least less incomprehensible)....

This money wasn’t in Bertie’s account ‘cos he didn’t have a bank account. It was simply resting in his office safe. And he just happened to be sleeping in his office on a blowup bed next to the safe on account of his marriage breakup which was going through a messy divorce which was why he didn’t want to have a bank account which would have allowed Miriam’s lawyers to go after his money, which would have cleaned him out, which would have left him severely financially compromised on account of the fact that he had a high maintenance girlfriend to bankroll on account of her expensive taste in house renovations, which was why he got her to take the cash in the first place because he couldn’t be seen to take money 'cos he was Minister for Finance.

Here we had a Minister for Finance who took his custodianship of public funds so seriously that he slept on a blowup bed next to a safe containing public funds. Now you can’t get much more committed that that, can you?

Paige

You couldn't Make it up (No. 67 in a series of 134)

2007-05-03T00:11:00.000+01:00

Does anyone know the number of a good bus driver who'd lend a young wan and her boyfriend a few thousand euros to buy a house that I am going tp rent from a man who doesn't yet own it but is willing to will it to my boyfriend in the event of his death? The bus driver's death, not my boyfriend's, of course!

Ogh, did I mention that this 3 year old house is in urgent need of significant renovations. And if my benefactor could present the asking price to the vendor as a fictional price paid plus a clatter more for the pretend renovations, this will allow my boyfriend and I to evade stamp duty.

Paige
P.S. Did I mention that I don't have boyfriend?

Sieg Heil??

2007-04-30T23:58:00.000+01:00

It is at times like these that I wish I were a fabulous photojournoblogger like Red Mum or GingerPixel. (What is it with the red hair gene that makes them so darn good?)

Any hows, I was off visiting my friend Sandra in the deepest darkest Northside this evening when I notice election posters with Ivor Callely smiling sinisterly down from every lamp post. (Now don't get me wrong, the Richard Bruton ones were no less unsettling.)

No doubt Ivor's men were up at the crack of dawn on Saturday morning - after cooking Bertie the full Irish - lampostering all and sundry. (Is the verb Lampooning somehow related?) The climbing of thousands of poles before your average Northie has come home from his mott's house is obviously no mean feat. It seems that for convenience, all posters are pre-punched (can I volunteer to pre-punch the Pat Rabbitt ones?) to facilitate quick and easy assembly.

Unfortunately the good trenchmen of FF used black nylon plastic ties to secure the posters against the savage elements of Dublin Central which, given that the holes at the bottom of the poster aligned with good Mr Callely's mouth left an all to obvious Hitler look for the former junior minister for having your kitchen painted. If they are anything like me, I imagine the local graffiti artists are just itching to give him an appropriate fringe paintjob.

Made me wish I had a camera handy.

Paige

For Mash, Get Smash!

2007-04-27T23:00:00.001+01:00

I know from my Statcounter* statistics that many of you fine bloggers are late risers of a morning. So there is a chance that you may not have heard the "mash-up" of Snow Patrol's 'Chasing Cars' and The Police's 'Every Breathe You Take'. Courtesy of some musical deity called Stereogum you can find that mash here.

The ingenuity defies belief and is only marginally compromised by calling the product 'Snow Police' when the more obvious moniker would be 'Police Patrol'.

Enjoy,
Paige

*It is true, following an exclusive marketing deal, blankpaige is contractually obliged to name-check this fine organisation once every three posts.

Keeping Abreast

2007-04-27T22:16:00.000+01:00

Several years ago, a handsome young priest came to our parish to do one of those missions things so loved by my Granny and her generation. A Donegal man, as I recall, he was on his first tour of duty in Africa. He told many wonderful stories ; Each one highlighted the love and affection that he shared with that part of the world.

He talked about his first few days, getting to know the locals, hearing about development initiatives and the like. Every young woman had a babe in arms, often slung over their shoulders in a makeshift sling. He told how on his first Sunday sermon, he was highly disconcerted that all the nubile young women presented themselves at mass completely topless. He was honest enough to say that he had masculine urges and found it difficult to concentrate on Paul's 2nd Letter to the Corinthians. So he decided to get his family back in Ireland to collect and dispatch second hand and cast-off summer dresses. When the parcels arrived, he distributed the clothing explaining how in Ireland the locals dress up in their Sunday best for mass.

The following Sunday as he entered through the back of the church, he was pleased to see how many of the young ladies were indeed wearing their gifts from Ireland. However his relief was short lived when he turned on the alter to face the congregation. The ladies had each cut out a large panel from the front of their dresses to allow their breasts be completely exposed!

Speaking of breasts, John of Dublin has an excellent post which is well worth a wee trip. Go now!

Paige

Photo ref.: http://www.blacklooks.org/2006/10/photo_activism.html

It's good to talk

2007-04-25T08:56:00.000+01:00

The consistently excellent Sarah Carey (Gubu) has posted a reasoned post on the recent Wexford tragedy. Her well thought-out observations are, for the most part, spot on.

Her post has attracted many comments which, predictably, focus on pointing the finger. In my opinion, it is far too easy to blame the Gardai or HSE for failing to act to prevent the multiple killings. In fact, we are really much more comfortable blaming a face-less organisation (preferably with a three letter acronym) than we are at individuals.

The commentors seem to focus on timelines and order of events which is all pretty futile since these are after the event. It is well known that the best airlines in the world avoid accidents because the promote reporting of near misses and establish a culture that seeks to understand and eliminate rather than blame and castigate.

What seems particularly disturbing - apart from the killings of course - is how so bloody sure everyone is that it is someone else's fault. I would contend that we as a society must take responsibility. Calling for public inquiries might help salve our conscience - but we know from bitter experience that they don't stop such events happening. Can we have a rational, objective discussion that doesn't blame someone but rather focuses on understanding why this happened and what could we do to reduce the incidents from happening again?

As a starter for ten, I'd suggest we need to stop being seduced into voting for political parties because they offer tax cuts. Our politicians need to be guided into understanding that its okay to suggest increased taxing and spending if it provides decent and essential public services.

I'd suggest you pop across to Sarah's post and add your opinions. The first step in making a change is to have a meaningful debate. But if you find yourself compelled to liken all priests to Father Dougal or all Gardai to heartless yokels, then might I suggest that you've other issues that you might want to work out for yourself first.

Paige

Is there anyone out there?

2007-04-23T22:11:00.000+01:00

If it weren't for my trusty StatCounter, I'd be sending angry emails to blogger.com. For I feel sure that my recent witty posts deserved some sort of comment.

You know what will happen if folk insist on dropping silently by in great numbers without as much as a "LMAO" or a "LOL".

I'll be forced to indulge in even more shameless comment fishing posts. I might even give up this whole blogging lark - I mean after all its supposed to be a community!

You asked for it....!

Your impatiently,
Paige

You pays peanuts, you gets monkeys!

2007-04-18T21:38:00.000+01:00

Question of the Day : How many Mickey Mouse ties would one Medical Consultant's salary buy you?

It seems you can buy a really nice Mickey Mouse neck tie for Euro20.50. So by my calculation, you could buy 10,000 such ties from one consultant's annual salary (and another 2,000 out of the annual bonus).

12,000 Mickey Mouse ties could be given to the 2,000 proposed new consultants so that they'd each have 6 ties. One for every day of the week that they work and four for the weekends.

(Of course, I realise that we might get a discount for buying in bulk - the ties, I mean, not the consultants!).

Where do these consultant guys get off? They are perhaps the most odious profession known to man. They invented the highly offensive phrase "bed blockers" (patients deliberately not discharged on a Thursday so that the bed will be available for the consultant to admit another private patient on Monday when he is next in work). Now "Yellow pack Doctors".

600 points and no personality obviously counts for something, but could they not at least take a leaf from their nursing colleagues. You want more money for less working hours. So when you go on a PR exercise, talk about "pay anomalies", "career prospects", "patient advocacy". Anything but highlight how five times the average industrial wage is such a pittance!

Paige

(The astute blankpaige watchers will immediately realise that I still haven't gotten over that disastrous date with a doc!)

Why?

2007-04-16T23:28:00.000+01:00

Is it too insensitive to ask why as a nation of generally God-fearing, peace-loving, decent individuals, the USA can conceive the right to be able to bear arms so damn important?

As a nation, we've an unhealthy relationship with alcohol. But even we're not stupid enough to make it a constitutional right for any wack-job to get tanked up and sit in behind the wheel of a speeding motor vehicle.

Wait a minute, strike that last thought.

Here's a quick bit of free election advice. The first US Presidential Candidate to pledge to do something about gun control gets my sister's vote. The first Irish politician who pledges to do something about alcohol advertising, drink driving, or whatever, gets my vote.

Paige

In Search of Something New

2007-04-15T11:49:00.000+01:00

A wise man recently observed that Blankpaige's posts of late reveal a "a tendency to search for something "new" to say when" I blog?". This is observation is hardly surprising, coming as it does from a very perceptive individual. He proceeds to note that

If so, I understand better why you may be finding it difficult to decide
whether to write, or even what to write.

Now I find this observation quite intriguing. I'm pretty sure that I know that I want to write. How else does one explain the jumble of ideas that cascade from my increasingly addled mind whilst traversing Dublin on the No. 13 bus. I can't take a simple lift ride or stroll along the sea front without being grasped by an urge to put pen to paper about something. It is interesting that I use the phrase "pen to paper" in a purely metaphorical manner as I've no inclination to do so physically. (My loathing of the sight of my own handwriting - there is a whole story and psychoanalysis there waiting to happen - is in itself sufficient for me to want to burn every scrap of paper that has ever never refused my ink.) Perhaps this is why I love the electronic medium of blogosphere so much. Quite apart from the ability to write acres of stuff and then wipe it out with one click of the "delete" button, I can look as presentable as the next scribe - my dis-jointed joined-up writing can be as good as the next blogger's! (Incidentally, my self-consciousness about my accent, is the reason why I favour texting so much also!)

My sage offers a valuable insight into the search for the 'illusive "new"' and provides a very thought-provoking analysis that is far from his own description as amateurish. And he is indeed correct - none of us can help but write something that is new (given that we are all original voices) and none of us can ever write anything new (as everything we ever write has been written before).

In some respects I'm less interested or even impressed by the thought of my individual voice. It is no false modesty to realise that my observations are no more profound or no more brilliantly crafted than anyone elses. Although, I do appreciate the many kind words of encouragement. perhaps I've overdone the "I'm not worthy line". I clearly believe that I'm as worthy as the next otherwise I wouldn't be doing this blog stuff. Maybe I have been subconsciously fishing for compliments but I think probably it is complements that I seek.

I am fascintated by the concept of how it is impossible to blog without establishing a connection. The brilliance of blogging is not that it allows everyone to realise their ambition of being a writer but rather that it provides the most powerful medium for interaction behind a reassuring mask. (Althoug irony of ironies, even though e hide behind some bloger template mask, our every customisation reveals more about us than that mask hides.)

The act of blogging, hopefully eliciting comments and reacting to those comments is a joy to behold. It proves, if proof were needed, that the human condition is programmed for interaction - no blogger is an island. The medium is so, so powerful. It is to the internet, the hot medium that radio is to TV.

It is interesting - but not really surprising - to note the number of journalists who are turning to blogging or indeed the number of bloggers who are turning to more traditional channels of communication (radio, writing, etc). I can appreciate that apart from the occasional "letter to the editor" or involvement in a TV retrospective of the type "How to be a TV pundit without knowing anything" variety so favoured by Fiona Looney, there is precious little interaction within the tradition media. It must be so damn frustrating to be the brilliant Kevin Myers or think yourself the brilliant Fintan O'Toole but never really get to hear how their brilliantly observed, brilliantly crafted prose interacts with the reader. (If you'll excuse the excessive brilliance - what I need is a sub-editor!). This is the print media equivalent of the curse of Cassandra, I suppose. Having the power to touch but not knowing how that power is felt.

The migration of bloggers to the traditional media (Sinead, Twenty, Sarah, Damien, etc) is also no less surprising. Some individuals are so powerful at interacting that their gift demands to be brought to wider attention. God bless editors, publishers and radio producers for recognising talent even when it doesn't come with within RTE or IT-encrusted curricula vitarum.

Blessed are the commenters for they are blogoshere's value add. Omani has, again, done me a great service by providing another most welcome intellectual engagement. My sincere thanks to him. Now do yourself a favour - go read some brilliantly observed stuff on "From Bath to Cork with Baby Grace".

Paige

I'm Feeling Lucky

2007-04-12T21:08:00.000+01:00

I know that I vascilate between the increasingly irritating "I'm not worthy" blog and the "Isn't Damien Mulley just God" post. But even when I try to come up with something new, I am reminded that, well, Damien is in fact God!

Now despite having www.google.ie as my default home page on my web browser, I've never really taken much notice of the "I'm feeling lucky" button. I think when I first discovered google, I dismissed this as a stupid feature. (I'm very decisive and often wrong!)

Now because, I don't look at the screen and because I can't type, I discovered that if you type "Paige" and hit 'I'm feeling lucky, you get this page. Now I know why I realise that God has a name and it is Mulley!

You could kind of say that he has given this invisible person an invisible right!
Paige

P.S. be sure to select google.ie and not google.com otherwise you'll find a women who has better tits than I!

Harrison's 1st Law of Blogging

2007-04-11T22:07:00.000+01:00

All this talk about "Codes of Conduct" has me well infuriated and at the same time more than a little confused. Excuse my ignorance of physics fundamentals but I thought the universe tended towards chaos ; I thought that the e-environment accelerated trends which in the 'normal' world would be interminably slow. Surely then, blogosphere should exhibit a natural draw towards complete collapse.

The virgin scientist in this virgin blogger can see that the departure of Fiona De L, the probable loss of Sinead Gleeson, and Twenty Major's switch to the dark side are clear indications that everything tends towards the lowest state of enthropy. More importantly, bad blogging is driving out good blogging. The more blog luminaries we loose, the more Irish Times journalist throw contempt on our craft by demonstrating that it is possible to blog between corporate book launches. (This trend is clearly well established in the conventional media. We only need to look at the contrasting fates of John Kelly & Marty Whelan compared with Gerry Ryan and that purile pair from FM104 to know that in art as in life you sometimes get the fuzzy end of the lollypop. No publisher will give Anne Whelan a second glance but there is a veritable stampede of advances for Cecilia Ahern's laundry list. Ronan Keating's passport says "Musician" ; The Saw Doctors' says "bunch of unemployed plasterers").

But then I've noticed perhaps blogosphere is different. The more blogs that I read, the more I want to read and, apart from realising how brilliant some of my blog buddies are, the less I blog myself. Clearly a case in blogosphere that good blogs drive out bad.

I realise that there is some empirical formula at work here which, for convenience, I've called Harrison's 1st Law of Blogging. The amount of blogs posted is inversely proportional to the amount of time spent reading blogs.

The more algebraically minded will immediately cross multiply to conclude that for all postive values of X, where dX/dy is positive, the sum from n=1 to n=infinity of the product of blog reading times blog posting is a constant. This means that there is a finite volume of blog worth. Hence no matter how many bloggers, or how many blog posts are written, the value of theta for all values of X minus x square where theta is the proportion of blog worth in the n=theta eye blog (also known as the critical poisson inflection point) tends towards zero.

Notwithstanding the eigen value solutions for differential simultaneous equations, you kind of have to ask yourself what is the point. It's a bit like being a nurse who really cares about making a difference and having a caring profession but who has to work with a bucn of ungrateful lazy unqualified cows who only want to attend for work for 35 hours for an extra 10% on top of the 76% over five year pay rise. You kind of have to say, what's it all about?

Q.E.D.

Paige

I love you StatCounter but we've only got 3 hours to save the world - II

2007-03-29T20:49:00.000+01:00

Reposting this old blog post in honour of those great guys at Statcounter. I love everything about it and they've gone and given me another reason. I'm going to go all "Mulley" on you and send a love link to Statcounter.

Paige

Originally posted 26 April 2006

Veteran bloggers can probably recognise the stages but for us blog virgins (*) there is so much we have yet to learn. We don’t even know what we don’t know. And some of us don’t even know that!

The first flush of enthusiasm. Then the distraction of reading other people’s blogs. You get yourself some StatCounter stuff and spend the next month trying to build traffic. You try to master Blogrolls and construct lists of ‘bloggers what inspire me’.

Around month 4, serious writer’s block kicks in. You write about it. The block passes and you continue for a few weeks blogging but somehow there is a gnawing feeling. And then it hits you. You don’t blog. You don’t read.

You swear at your laptop and every internet café you have the misfortune to fall over. You start to panic as it dawns on you that (a) you’ll never be Róisín Ingle (b) you’ll never be a ‘writer’ (c) your life is so pedestrian that people will probably start busking around its edges (d) you’ve said everything that you want to say but haven’t really said anything.

At this point you realise that if you are going to suffer this crisis of confidence, then at least you should just do a PhD. Then at least after four years of it, your Granny could boast that there is a doctor in the family.

But of course by this stage you are clinically addicted to the ‘Sphere. StatCounter’s bar charts stimulate the release of endorphins in the brain in a process similar to cocaine addiction. You start to steel to feed your blog habit. You scour Blog O’Sphere looking for an angle. A cheap twist on someone else’s innovation. You begin posting inane comments in the hope that it will restore the ‘Counter’s bar charts.

You fall into a soporific humour. You want to blog but you are afraid that you can’t. Or at least you are afraid to find out. First your punctuation, then your grammar, then your spelling goes. Your self-esteem falls so low that you don’t even bother putting two spaces after a full stop. You begin to seize on anything that will fake a post. You cut n’ paste a joke from your work email and post it. You look at the StatCounter keywords and pretend to yourself that it might be poetry.

You acknowledge your weakness (but never your addiction) and promise to change. You write a million and one draft posts – okay so it is two – but they never see the light of day. Self-esteem is now non-existent. You furiously and compulsively check to see what other bloggers are posting on.

You’ve a million and one - okay, so it is only two – posts that you were about to write but have been beaten to the punch. You start posting comments that say LOL and LMAO but in truth there is never a chance of your cellulite ass ever being laughed off.

And that’s when it hits you. You just can’t help but be touched by the warm embrace of Blog O’Sphere and its older, wiser bloggers who seen it, blogged it and won an award for it. Brilliant bloggers who have so much to write about but still take the time to post a ‘welcome back’ or a ‘missed you’ comment. You realise that it is not about you. Or your non-existent audience. It’s because for the first time ever, you are part of a community that accepts you for not being Róisín, not being profound, innovative or funny.

Why wouldn’t a girl blog?
Paige

(*) In those early heady days of phase 1, I took JL Pagano literally and dropped my blog virgin subtitle. Gosh, who feels stupid now?

Don't sweat the small stuff

2007-03-27T21:11:00.000+01:00

I'm sure my reaction to yesterday's "historic" events in Northern Ireland was similar to that of many others - one of relief rather than celebration. Far too much time has been spent and far too many lives blighted by the bigotry and barbarism that has passed as a noble defence of the Union and/or pursuit of Irish unity.

It is truly remarkable that two groups who hitherto wouldn't allow themselves to be photographed together, let alone exchange a civil word, are now preparing to jointly govern the process. Much credit must go to the two Governments for orchestrating events such that Sinn Fein were the ones with the veto on "progress" (rather than the traditional Unionists) but were too afraid to use it. Neat political manoeuvring, one has to concede.

Clearly there is no division too great that cannot be bridged by dialogue and engagement.
But if you were an Al Qaeda 'freedom' fighter or an Israeli military strategist, you might take a different lesson. Perhaps the Al Qaeda terrorist might think that democratically elected Governments are not to be trusted. When they say "we don't talk with terrorists" they actually mean "we don't like being seen talking with terrorists, but we realise that if you are going to defuse/resolve the problem, you just have to". On the other hand, if you've a strong military position and are the political ascendancy, you can be guaranteed that whatever "assurances" you seek, you'll still be sold out by the Government which swears it will protect you.

Maybe that is as it should be. Perhaps you have to show yourself to be the bigger person by deciding not to throw your might around. The only thing you can do with extremists is try to make them look as moderate as possible. In the rush to proclaim the brave new order, it doesn't really matter that the moderates get trampled. Unless of course they become radicalised and become themselves terrorists. In which case you fight an uphill battle for years, allow thousands of lives to be destroyed before conceding that you need to talk with the men of violence.

Now don't get me wrong. I'm pleased that the DUP and Sinn Fein could be brought to the alter in an arranged marriage. And I'm willing to concede that until 'normal politics' breaks out in the North, you have to prop up the 'democratic process' in the most undemocratic of ways. It is such a shame that it took 400/25 years (take your pick) to come to the obvious conclusion that you couldn't force anyone out of the Union/into a United Ireland (take your pick).

On a brighter note, the lessons of the last few days are most persuasive. By adopting a contrarian view point to the accepted wisdom, it is possible to resolve so many apparently intractable problems.....

Roy should realise that he doesn't yet have the Ireland job and that maybe Steve Staunton is doing his best.
The various Tribunal judges might accept that some of our politicians are/have been crooked but probably no more/less than any other profession (Lawyers, Gardai, Teachers, Doctors, Clergy, Bank Officials)
Our criminal justice system might accept that we will always have criminals and you don't have to be fair to them just so long as you are not unfair to those who don't commit crime.
Our politician's might realise that if you have to lie and cheat to get re-elected, is re-election something worth destroying your integrity for?
Our doctors might consider why they chose to practice medicine in the first place.
M50 motorists might accept that they contribute to the traffic chaos.
George Lee might realise that all economies are cyclical so if he waits around long enough he'll get his much hoped-for recession.
Marty Morrissey and Glenda Gilson might realise that plucking out your eyebrows and re-drawing them in with a pencil is a pretty pointless and counter-productive fashion tip.
Cosmopolitian readers might realise that the achievement of fantastic sex cannot be summarised into 10 glib steps.
We all might realise that everyone is entitled to respect and civil liberties regardless of age, sexual orientation, religious or ethnic background. And this includes Marty and Glenda!
We all might realise that every life is a precious and fleeting treasure and that we should celebrate every day.
Given the importance of our lives, perhaps we shouldn't spend too long blogging.

Paige

Welcome to my world

2007-03-25T20:02:00.000+01:00

A quick welcome back to my time zone, the only PMT* that really matters. I'm so glad now that I resisted the exhortations of Omani and others to conform the the winter daylight saving lark. When you blog in the dark and are permanently bathed in a green glow, who needs to change their clocks. Lying in late every day is about as close to daylight saving as a young girl can get.

Being a lifelong 'contra', the blankpaige sees no reason to conform to this middle age convention. The next thing you know and we'll be expecting no-one to were sandals before 1st May!

A personal welcome back to Omani (hope you'd a good break) and reassurance to JL Pagano that we do not have ourselves an interregnum (or whatever it is called), just because a girl tidies her links don't take it so personally!

Paige

Wikinomics for beginners

2007-03-22T20:23:00.000Z

As I trudged home depressed from work last night, I was listening to a very interesting podcast on "Wikinomics" - this whole concept of how the 21st Century is rapidly becoming characterised by the economics of community-derived knowledge. The obvious example - and hence the name - was how Encyclopedia Britannica could be overtaken (x12) almost overnight by an army of authors to produce Wikipedia, an online, continuously updated reference library with the same level of authority/accuracy. They also gave the example of a mining company which published on the web its geological survey data (normally highly classified, business sensitive data) and offered a couple of million dollar reward for anyone who could "data mine" this better than their in house experts. The company generated several billion on the strength of this 'strategic investment' thanks to a bunch of curious web-friendly people who liked to solve problems. The techies among you can, not doubt, give many more eloquent examples - IBM/Linux, Boeing's superjumbo, etc.

This set me thinking. Several months ago, a quietly announced government decision has in one stroke undone twenty five years of previous government investment and good work by my peers and I in my particular field. The area doesn't matter, suffice to say when the shit eventually hits the fan in many years from now, we'll be decrying the short sighted political decision in the same manner as we decry the M50, bad planning and house price inflation, without connecting it to the very practical decisions of certain FF crooks/politicians. I am faced with the realisation that the last seven years of my own effort and that of about 25 colleagues has been wiped out, to secure a Government marginal set.

But enough about my problems (and soon to be our problem). My careful analysis of the situation is that the present Government, not surprisingly, want to be re-elected. Hence they'll do whatever is necessary to secure marginal seats - at whatever long term cost. Abolish rates, eliminate 3rd level fees, free medical cards .... It was ever thus. That's the nature of democracy. So, come the next election, what would the best result be for me - someone without political allegiance?

Throw out the present Government? I'm not naive enough to believe that the opposition won't pull similar strokes in advance of the subsequent election.

Hope for a landslide victory by one side for that the Government will be secure and might just do the right things for the right reasons? But that's unlikely to happen, because our PR system tends towards indecisive outcomes and coalition governments.

Keep returning alternate parties to power? Sure that will only make the problem worse!

Vote Green ? Sure that's a wasted vote.

Vote for the biggest party 'cos this has the best chance of returning a single party government?

Can you see my dilemma? I am angry and pissed off, I want to campaign for change so at least I can constructively vent my spleen and, if nothing else feel better. I just cannot motivate myself to go back to work on what was to me a most important social priority knowing that despite all my best efforts, some greasy politician will piss my efforts away for the instant gratification of re-election. What tactic should I employ that would best deliver a government with a tolerable political ethos and which would not pull strokes come the next election?

Without complicating matters with talk about nonsensical previous track records, supposed policies etc., can the Blogosphere community please advise this poor blogger on the best voting and electioneering strategies to deliver my objective of a strong benign government that does the right thing 'cos it is the right thing to do? (Armed revolution is not allowed as an option.)

Help,
Paige

Action Now!

2007-03-20T10:51:00.000Z

I know that many bloggers regularly use their sites to highlight matters of grave concern and in doing so shine the spotlight of public interest on these hitherto ignored problems. So today I speak to you about one such serious injustice.

Nutley Lane is a microcosm of all that is right and decent about southside Dublin in the 21st Century. This tree-line boulevard meanders gentle from right to left and then imperceptibly to the right again, as it gently inclines from the lower Merrion Road to original superhighway that is the Stillorgan Dual Carriageway. At one end, local residents are blessed with the fabulous Merrion Shopping Centre where no day is complete without a blow dry and a skinny latte. Adjacent stands the majestic St Vincent’s Hospital, a noble testament to modern healthcare and the very embodiment of the Public/Private co-location model currently espoused by the Minister for Health.

At the other end, stand two beacons to future and continued prosperity – the RTE Television mast and the UCD water tower. No son or daughter grows up on this mean street without believing a priori that an arts degree and an enjoyable student sojourn through Donnybrook public houses is adequate preparation for a life in broadcasting. The kids on this block know the value of hard work and hone their commercial savy picking up stray golf balls on the Elm Park Golf Course which bounds the road to the south.

Scattered liberally along its route, are examples of the finest technology know to man. I speak not of plasma screen TV’s recording in DVD format from the numerous web-cams perched aloft the blossom laden trees which sentinel the footpath. But rather pay homage to the ubiquitous SUV’s and the 4x4’s which glide majestically up and down this thoroughfare. In regulation black with matching leather trim, all luxuary marques are represented – Lexus, BMW, Audi, Mercedes and Range Rover. Long before McWilliams realised there was an easy living to be made by slagging Ireland’s noveau riche, the long established money had grasped the importance of a high driving position and bull bars.

But this idyllic way of life is coming under threat from two nefarious sources. Firstly the increasing prevalence of cyclists and Fiat Punto’s – not to mention those infuriating SmartCars – is causing the sunglasses-on-the-forehead John Rocha-wearing Mummies to turn down the Norah Jones CD and ask Tarquin to buckle up. It is bad enough having to negotiate those infernal speed bumps without having to dodge a sweaty Northsider on a Raleigh Pioneer. And do you know that two Fiat’s can squeeze into the respectable distance that one leaves between your X5 and Mrs Armitage’s XC 90. Dropping Alicia to the Gael Scoil is trying enough without having to risk your metallic paintwork on some rusty bike handlebar.

“I witnessed one woman cyclist today stick out her hand before making an exaggerated right turn, I can tell you I was glad that I went for the servo-assisted brakes option otherwise, I’d have to explain another ‘trolley damage’ incident to Marcus,” explained one exasperated Nutley Land resident.

And then there are all those commercial vehicles. What is the point of having a superior driving position if you are going to be eclipsed by the 2FM Roadcaster or the Number 18 bus. In fact, has anyone asked why public transport to Lucan and Ballymun needs to traverse this quiet avenue? And does anyone believe that there is such a place as Lark Hill? These vehicles are unnecessary, do untold damage to the road surface making it unsafe for local residents to navigate. There is one pothole halfway along the road which when it rains turns into a major obstacle for the Cherokee and the Pajero. These vehicles are not designed to be driven in such rough conditions and it makes the Lauren Hill jump.

After several round-table discussions at Elm Park, Concerned Residents Against Infuriating Cars (CRAIC) have compiled an action plan which it hopes local politicians will adopt.

- Ban on cars with engine capacity of less than 1800 cc
- Ban on estate cars, transit & hiace vans and other vehicles known to be driven by the Travelling Community
- Ban on all public transport vehicles
- Ban on commercial vehicles (other than IKEA delivery trucks)
- Opening of an Ambulance entry to the hospital from the Merrion Road
- Ban on drivers who wear tracksuits (Louis Vitton designed leisure wear excepted).

We do hope that Blogosphere will lend its support to this important campaign otherwise local residents will be forced to ignore the dangerous camber and mount the footpaths to avoid contact with some louse-infected Ford Focus.

Meeting the Day with a JD-soaked Smile!

2007-03-14T09:53:00.000Z

Note to iPOD generation. Amy Winehouse and Duke Special are history. Check out good ole Dean Martin and put a Jack Daniels soaked smile on your face today. You won't regret it!

"You're nobody 'til somebody loves you, so find somebody to love!"

Paige

Iarnrod Eireann would like to apologise for ...

2007-03-13T21:52:00.000Z

You only know how good your public transport is when things go wrong. For the past year, I've been a CIE junkie taking train and buses everywhere. My VW Golf and the attendant bank loan has been liquidised and is being carefully invested in BT2 and Monsoon. I'm doing my bit for the environment and my carbon footprint is now smaller than a highly anorexic stick insect on a bicycle. I have reach the zen point of acceptance that the train and bus timetables are not cosmically aligned for my personal convenience. I appreciate that our temperate climate will throw up a statistically significant number of inclement days and so a brolly is a useful investment. I've discovered podcasting and rediscovered the joy of reading.

I arrived at my train station this evening to be gruffly told that all north and southbound services were interrupted due to technical difficulties. "Iarnrod Eireann would like to apologise for the late running of this service which is due to technical difficulties." No prob, I thought, how bad can it be? The platform indicator counted down the next train from 23 minutes to 15 minutes. "Iarnrod Eireann would like to advise passengers that due to technical difficulties all services would be subject to interruption", the station announcer ominously advised. No worries, it will come when it comes. Then I notice that the 15 minutes has become 34 minutes. Still 34 minutes seems like a fairly certain number.

20 minutes and 4 garbled messages later, we were advised that the train now standing on platform 1 was the delayed 17:12 service to ..... Wait a minute, there is no train at platform 1 or indeed on the other platform for that matter. 10 minutes of repeatedly being assured about this phantom train, we were advised that the next southbound train would be leaving from platform 2. Out in the rain and over the tracks. Having just gotten to platform 2, the announcement subtly changed to Platform 1. Cue everyone rushing back through the rain to the original platform. Train in 8 minutes, the display said with much authority. "Passengers are advised that the 17:26 service will leave from platform 3". But there is only 2 platforms in this station! "Passengers are advised that due to delays, services are running up to 40 minutes late." Now we kind of figured out ourselves that trains were hardly running late because of the absence of delays.

In the space of four minutes, three trains proceeded to depart half-empty from the now dangerously crowded station for the station one stop beyond my destination. But as Northbound trains were running 55 minutes late, none of use were inclined to try the "go-beyond-and-come-back" routine. Only when the last of these three trains had disappeared down the tracks did the announcer advise that services had returned to normal. Then, without a hint of irony, announced that the delayed 17:48 service was leaving from the preceding station and would arrive shortly at platform 1. It was 19:13. Well, at least it would be here in 4 minutes (or 12 minutes, if the display was anything to go by). The train duly arrived. But it did so into platform 2 disguised as a Northbound service to Malahide. Probably for health and safety reasons, the platform announcer waited until it had left the station almost empty before he revealed the cunning nature of its deception. When the train did appear at the announced platform, correctly signed, with a corroborating display and a confirming CIE platform worker, some 22 minutes later, it was a free-for-all. I was swept into the carriage by the undertow of frustrated fellow commuters and pressed too close for comfort against a man with an unhealthy addiction to cheesy nachos and an aversion to deodorant.

Now don't get me wrong, I accept that trains can go technical, there can be a bridge strike at Connolly and there is little the poor station announcer can do about it. It is probably just a coincidence that important platform announcements appear scheduled to coincide with a train revving its engine and obliterating the message. I'm willing to accept that years of under-investment, Celtic Tiger growth and the tortuous planning process have all mitigated against optimal train services. But do you have to treat your customers with such contempt?

Is it just me or ....

2007-03-13T21:51:00.000Z

Has Gmail gotten really bad with spam?

Paige

Paige says Relax

2007-03-06T23:20:00.000Z

As they tend to do, the press has picked up on a story about VAT on condoms and has become indignant at the stupidity of taxing a public health initiative. You see the whole thing revolves around considering that for tax purposes, prophylatics are considered as a luxury item and are hence VAT rated at 21%. The argument is lazily put forward that sheaths are not luxury items they are an essential for safe sex.

Perhaps it is old age but I find myself becoming all Alice Glenn with rage. Of course condoms are luxury goods. Every day essentials are sanitary towels, hair-straighteners, fishnet stockings and good put-down lines. Medication for an asthmatic child is clearly a luxury item and so we should tax the hell out of those wheezers. Women who have drunken sex with their repulsive bosses at christmas parties need help not some stealth sheath tax.

But perhaps the thing that worried me most about the whole story was the troublesome observation that the Revenue Commissioners could not say how much tax was being gathered by way of VAT on condom sales. Like the size of the tax take had any relevance to the argument. Can someone not start a campaign to boycott BP or Shell for the environmental impact of selling petroleum refinery byproducts to a dodgy firm to mould into ultra-thin, ribbed for added sensitivity, rubber johnnies?

For the poor bastard who steps out of line in the Revenue commissioners and for their trouble is asked to quantify the tax take on condom VAT, perhaps I could give you a quick ready reckoner.

You multiple the annual sales in condoms by the average price and then calculate VAT @ 21%. In this instance the calculations are not complicated by a withholding tax.

Paige

(And if the damn fine chap from the Dept of Finance who regularly devastates me with his smile on the 8:05 to Blackrock wants, I'm willing to engage in some research in the field on this subject!)

And lo there was a god and his name was....

2007-03-06T23:15:00.000Z

Damien Mulley.

And he rocks at http://www.mulley.net/

We are his most humble servants and we bow before his greatness. Oh sure, Twenty Major is good but does he/she ever give generously to Blogosphere?

I confidently predict that the Sunday Times will shortly do another one of those page filling "50 top Irish people to watch" and Damo will take the top five slots.
Paige

Credit where it is due....

2007-02-25T21:33:00.001Z

Sometimes the GAA just don't get the credit they deserve. It was so nice of them to keep our rugby team out of Croker until such time as we'd a decent team.

Credit to Sean Boylan for teaching Shane Horgan how to field.

Credit to Ronan O'Gara for realising that a good GAA kick is never out of place at Jones road.

Credit to Brian O'Driscoll & Co. for realising that they weren't the most professional of sports men in the country and then for deciding to follow the lead of GAA county teams

Credit to Ulster football teams for inventing blanket defence and blistering attack.

Credit to the Stadium announcer for bringing a couple of 'fogra' to the occasion.

Can't wait to read Tom Humphries!

Paige

National Obsession

2007-02-24T16:45:00.000Z

I heard someone comment recently that 'our problem is that the country is so young'. At the time, I thought what a load of self-indulgent rubbish. However, as is often the case, I find myself coming around to agreeing once I've thought a little more about the point.

It seems to me that as a nation we spent the early part of our existence in a subservient need-to-please mode like some little child whose greatest fear is separation anxiety. Then we became the crass, unruly teenager who thumbed its nose at those around us who (little did we realise) knew much more than we did.

The GSTQ/Corker thing is interesting cause we are now trying to convince ourselves that we've moved on. We're bigger than the childish ways of previous generations. But secretly our biggest fear now is that some dipstick will make a show of us on the international arena. And we'll end up being morto!

Of course there will come a time when we learn to care about our behaviour because we think it important rather than because of how it might seem to the outside world. But I suppose we're such a young nation and have so much more to learn!

Paige

Really mustn't blog after a whole bottle of Chianti

2007-02-21T22:14:00.000Z

Maybe it is the impact of our post-San Marino, post Croker-disappointment-blues, maybe it is that we're all too busy salivating over which stamp duty reduction proposal suits our middle class wallets best? Either way, I've not seen too much in the way of blog commentary on the proposed constitutional amendment to enshrine children's rights in our constitution. Maybe we feel we've ventilated that old chestnut many months ago when we were frantically looking for a paedophile to lynch.

But I have no doubt that our attention will return to this subject. (I just hope we don't have a horrific child abuse case to decry.) So in the interests of better information makes for a better debate, I take the liberty of establishing a couple of matters of fact/opinion (The choice is yours).

Despite who else might have been so labelled by him, Michael McDowell is without doubt the greatest threat to the integrity of the Irish Republic.
When a commentator/politician declares that it is, after all, all about the children, it is fairly safe to say that they couldn't give a fiddler's f$%^ about our young people.
I'm determined to bring a proposal to the people means "I'm f$%#-ed if I know what the public wants"
This is a complex issue = "I definitely haven't a clue what the proposed amendment says or what it means"
We need a debate = "I'm f#$%-ed if I'm going to be the first to declare a position"
We need action now seems like an obvious exhortation. But by definition constitutions aren't meant to be meddled with, without careful thought.
'A zone of absolute protection', my, now aren't we the most sophisticated race on earth?
"Honest mistake, m'lud" ; Since when did a 55 year old child rapist deserve such a defence?
Why do we think that it is okay for a 15 year old girl to be aggressively cross-examined by a multi-millionaire barrister to ascertain that perhaps she was asking to be raped?
Would it not be easier all round if we just castrated all Irish men since they have the method, means and motive to be rapists?

That should save a couple of pages of letters to the Editor of the Irish Times!

In a previous blog life, Omani and I considered the possibility of re-writing the constitution (I still think that this would make a brilliant blog exercise). I've refined my thoughts on the preamble which surely needs only to say.

'When we talk about cherishing all our people equally' we mean the following definition of 'our people' :-

A person of any age, gender, marital status or country of birth

We don't care if the person is 5 years of 95 years ; if they are straight, gay or celibate ; if they are Irish-born or not ; if they are married, divorced or single. A person is a person is a person.

On a lighter note, I previously designed a new national flag. I'll have a quick word with John Waters and I'm sure we can have a new anthem knocked up in no time.

Paige

God Save Wikipedia

2007-02-20T13:43:00.000Z

Listening to some old codger on the 11A (was it Twenty Major, me wonders) rant about the offensiveness of the British national anthem, set me thinking. I like my Kanye West, Eminem and I am secretly pleased that several of my CD collection have "Parental Advisory" stickers on them. So when it comes to offensive lyrics, I reckon I can handle most things.

God Bless Wikipedia for delivering the lyrics of 'God Save the Queen'. (see here). I searched in vain for something that might annoy me. It's all "God save, God bless, lets protect, happy & glorious, long may she live".... hardly offensive material.

Now if I were Scottish, perhaps I be offended at the "Crushing of the rebellious Scots", but as I understand it, the Brits don't generally use these verses any more on account of the tediousness of the tune and the desire not to inflame their act of union brothers.

Not wishing to offend our fellow Celts, but I think that this omission is something of a shame. You see it also drops reference to Marshal Wade who was sent to do the crushing. And wasn't George Wade only born in Kilavally, Co. Westmeath!

I suppose it's because as our own anthem proudly boasts, "we're children of a fighting race" and all that talk of guns and canons roaring has us the way we are. But I swear to God if any other nation named an Irishman in their anthem we'd be having a national holiday and we'd twin their capital with Clonakilty.

But I'll leave the last word to the 'offensive' British anthem itself.

"Lord make the nations see, that men should brothers be"

Sounds like a plan. And about time we all grew up.
Paige

Where is the love....

2007-02-19T08:41:00.000Z

It is pissing rain all morning - the sort of rain only Dublin can provide - from a grey and dark sky that forebodes that there is plenty more up there, where that came from. I'm wet through. I've been splashed on by kerb-hugging taxis and the DART was hot and sticky and I've a damp spot on my back from being too up close and personal with a fellow commuter's sopping wet rucksack.

I've an interview in twenty minutes and I'm not looking my best. It is a job I really want, 'cos it is the job I've been doing for the last year and ... well I think I'm pretty good at it. (Don't you just hate having to interview for your own job? It just sucks. Note to self : The first politician who canvasses at my door and says he/she is going to strengthen employee rights is going to get my vote!)

Ordinarily, I'd be more than a little sour this morning. What with the rain, my ruined interview suit and the prospect on not keeping my own job. But I'm strangely calm and serene. I believe that God is good - even if we don't always realise the wisdom of her ways. I know that it will take more than a damp Regina number and soaking Bally shoes to distract the interview panel from my brilliance.

"Miss Harrison, can you give examples of your commitment to a career in marketing?"

"Well, there is the fact that I've abandoned my social life over the past six months and prioritised the 'Rising' account over my blog buddies!"

"Mmmmm. Interesting. So you think web-based delinquency more important than persuading the Irish public to fly Aer Arann do you?"

"Guilty as charged, m'lud!"

Thanks a bunch to you brilliant blog buddies. I know that I've said it before but you are the best.
Talk soon,
Paige

She lives!

2007-02-13T22:19:00.000Z

Would that the silence was a prelude to all sorts of interesting stories, a voyage of self-discovery, attainment of nirvana.... alas it is all much more mundane.

Couldn't come back or else people might think I was angling for a "Blog Award" nomination. (That excuse is now over).

I'm going to write again. I think. But first go and vote for Omani in the Blog Awards. Then boycott the awards 'cos JL Pagano wasn't even nominated. That's like Meryl Streep not being in the best actress category. We demand a tribunal of enquiry.

Keep smiling and keep those cyberhugs coming.
Love you all, lots.
Paige

Help Wanted : Apply Within

2007-01-05T18:19:00.000Z

Sorry about the silence. I've been doing a lot of thinking, lot of reading and little writing.
Check out here for my latest half-baked idea.

Happy New Year!

Paige

The Schizophrenics will both rule the world

2006-12-09T12:27:00.000Z

I know that when in company, I have a tendancy to 'dominate'. Its not that I'm gregarious, it's more probably me trying to over compensate for my innate shyness. Every group social interaction is a constant wrestle with my psyche.

"Speak up, say something, don't just sand there like a wall flower!", hectors one part of me.
The other part is aghast. Ssshing me, begging me to not say the first thing that comes into my head. You'd never believe how blogging has been such good therapy. Some of my most outrageous posts have been written but never published. This allow my ebullient side to cut loose whilst reassuring my cautious self that no-one other than me, the nerd who runs blogger and two Lithuanian computer hackers with a poor command of English will ever know.

So it comes as something of a surprise that when someone puts the phrase "Female Dictator" (an oxymoron if ever there was one) into the search engine "Dogpile", blankpaige comes up as the sixth most relevant result!

I really need to have another talk with myself!

U guys are gr8! - Part II

2006-12-01T20:56:00.000Z

What a difference a year makes! Or is it just an extra 23 garda trainees?

This time last year, blankpaige described herself as a virgin blogger until JL pointed out that she'd kinda lost her blog virginity. Delving proudly through the canon of work that is my back catalogue, I recalled my 'Operation Free For All' post. Posted below.

This evening, I had occasion to drive through Dublin's favourite traffic hotspots from the airport through to Blackrock at the height of rush hour. Several things struck me immediately. I sailed through the traffic. At every main intersection there was a fine young garda in a fluorescent tunic - each one looking cuter than the next. Somehow they'd more authority and confidence. As a consequence of this hi-vis policy, I saw no-one on their mobile phones whilst negotiating Gardiner St/Dorset St junction. No-one blocked the yellow boxes. No-one jumped the lights. I made the same journey that took 1 hour 50 min last year in 55 minutes tonight.

So might I just say, boys in blue. You guys rock! Credit were credit is due. Nice work.
Blankpaige

Operation Free For All

2006-11-29T16:27:00.000Z

Before my wee rant, let me first welcome to Dublin the 140 boys and girls in blue (and fluorescent yellow) recently released from Templemore Garda Training College. I'm sure for many of them, being thrown in at the deep end must be a daunting experience. Being billeted around various junctions and intersections across Dublin is probably no-one's idea of fun. Add to this the icy temperatures recently and I, for one, wouldn't wish to be in their shoes. It must be totally scary for those lads and lassies who don't drive, have never driven and possibly who never want to drive, having to do point duty in our grid locked city as a million and one demon christmas shoppers converge on the capital.

That all said, I observed with some amusement last night, one young recruit's contribution to Operation Freeflow. Stationed at the Clare Street/Merrion Square junction, this baby-faced enforcer watched the traffic loop around Lincoln Place & Westland Row, and catch it's own tail at the aforementioned junction. This perfect vehicular circle forms whenever the traffic builds on Westland Row. The AA girls' code for this ("Traffic on Pearse is backed up to Macken Street"), is normally a blatant understatement and fails to deliver the futility of this regular event.

Garda Awestruck watched in wonder as 3 vehicles proceeded to park in the yellow box that is designed to stop this interminable loop the loop. Pedestrians had to cross between the stationary vehicles. Two of the three drivers had their mobile phones glued to their ears. In the moment's while I waited to cross this junction, I noticed these traffic code violations proceed without eliciting ever a modest raise of the cute Garda's eyebrow. When a space formed in the traffic queue, the first two drivers exited the box - breaking the red light and nearly knocking over 3 pedestrians - and 3 more cars illegally entered the yellow boxed area. One driver, incensed that Joe Public might cross "avec l'homme vert" rolled down his window and shouted a litany of curses at anyone who'd listen.

Through out all this, drivers in the 2 intersecting roads who were being impeded by this bad driving discipline sounded their horns long and hard - in a manner not heard since the last days of Radio Nova. And the cute wee boy in blue stood with a terrified look on his face wondering why his mother ever talked him into joining the 'Force!

We Irish love chaos and all the better if it is needlessly self perpetuated. We just don't get it and never will no matter how we pretend by naming the uncoordinated deployment of unsure or unskilled children after military sounding campaigns - Operation Freeflow indeed.

[First posted : 29 November 2005]

Importance of Being Anonymous

2006-11-28T08:13:00.000Z

Regular readers of blankpaige will know that I've fallen into a state of little blog postings for sometime now. There are many reasons for this. Not the least because of some disturbing e-stalking action that some of my harmless (pointless?) post elicited. Another reason was that my email address became under serious threat from a deluge of spam attacks.

Various bloggers have touched on the subject of anonymity before. I've two minds on the matter. I don't mind too much because I realise that we all reveal so much more about ourselves through our thoughts and comments. Although I suppose I wanted to decide what aspects of myself I reveal to Blogosphere and what pieces I don't. For this reason, I've stayed steadfast to my first rule and only rule of blogging - I won't meet any blogger for a coffee, drink or unbridled sexual action. (Sorry, Ben!)

Even though I'm no techno-head, I realise that there are certain steps and remedial actions that I can/could have taken to prevent the irritations of unwanted advances/comments. One simple and specific step would be to not allow anonymous comments be posted. However, I don't think it fair that I should "hide" behind my own level of anonymity but deny some other blogger who wants to comment that same privilege. Hence I haven't.

So this makes the posts by one particular anonymous (and quite obviously deranged) individual all the more irritating.

So Dear Anonymous-of-the-1000-words-of-pointless-irrelevant-crap-variety, please stop this shit. I don't read beyond the first sentence. You are wasting my time and your own life. Go get one.

Paige

U guys are gr8!

2006-11-22T18:00:00.000Z

When I first started checking out blogosphere, I was concerned it was all a bit geeky - blogrolls, comments, aggregators and something called rss.

Then I realised that it was really about how you can't go through this life without impacting on somebody else. The only thing that you can control (and even then, only marginally) is if that contact is net positive or net negative. So thanks to all those brilliant people in blogosphere who have sent me cyber hugs. I'm honoured that some cool bloggers can even be bothered.

So some blog traffic back to ....... ainelivia, annette, claire, and fi. You guys are just the best!

And anonymous, we need to talk. What is it exactly you expect to achieve from your spam shite? That I'll suddenly start believing your horseshit theories? That I'll even care? That your denial of service attack is even going to bother me? That I'll want to date you? That I'll even care?

Of course all the good stuff has set me thinking all sorts of possibly profound thoughts. And I've resolved to try to capture some of that in a short prose someday soon. What is it about the human condition that needs to connect? That can't help connecting? What % of connections turn out positive unintentionally? What if there was a really cool blog meter that captured reader response? A sort of ebay-style scoring that was dependent on what people thought of you not what you thought of yourself? Nah, that would be geeky!!

Blankpaige

A cold night

2006-11-17T23:27:00.000Z

Standing in Dame Street waiting for the no. 123 bus to work this evening, brought it all home to me. The icy wind makes a million cuts of surgical precision in my pathetic excuse for a uniform. It might be alright in Southern Spain, but my skimpy white nylon job was certainly never designed for an Irish winter evening. It's cold. And I'm cold.

And all the world was in love. Couples of every shape and size hugged, snogged and gambo as if it were midsummer's night. The invigorating spirit of careless abandon warming their joyous hearts. And I'm alone. Again. The rain begins to fall and it almost feels like company. Not the sort you'd go out and seek. But company none the less. Some wize-cracking comedian on his way to the Laughter Lounge and a career in television, no doubt, tells me to cheer up. It's only my legendary fortitude and self-restraint that stops Anne Doyle from announcing that Gardai are investigating a vicious unprovoked assault on a young Dublin man by a deranged woman.

Another "It's not you, it's me" conversation that didn't need to happen. It was all going so well. He made me laugh and I've not really laughed in a long time. There are too many things that it just doesn't seem right to laugh in the face off. He made me feel frivolous and so important. Vital. Needed, wanted. He put a spring in my step that help me through several similar chilly nights.

The thought of him rushing into Reads on Nassau Street and emerging breathlessly and embarassed with a large inflatable globe, makes me smile. His cheesey line, "I want to give you the world", makes me smile a little. But my cutting retort, "Well, I want the sun and stars too!", doesn't seem so clever now.

I just want, nay, need a hug. Thank god for Blogosphere!

And the correct answer is?

2006-10-12T17:06:00.000+01:00

2:45pm. Board the no. 11 bus. The driver hardly seems to notice me and grunts what I think is a response to my cheery hello. (Although maybe it’s indigestion.) The bus is remarkably empty for the time of day. In fact there is no-one else on the lower deck. Great choice of seats. Notice that it is remarkably clean for a number 11. In fact it seems like the indigestion-laden driver had just driven the pristine vehicle out off an Alexander Bus showroom.

I love it when you’ve a choice of seats. I never sit in the same place twice, if I can help it. But given a choice, I do like to sit around the point of the rear axle. Too far back or too far forward is dangerous for a girl prone to travel sickness. You get thrown around like a rag doll.

A dishevelled elderly man boards clutching something that looks suspiciously like a whiskey bottle in a brown paper bag. I try not to make eye contact. Can’t tell if he is drunk or if his staggering is due to the driver’s erratic driving. (He probably has a packet of Rennies back at the depot.)(I mean the driver, of course. The drunk probably has a couple of bottles back at the depot.)

Like I was, the new passenger is spoiled for choice given the n-1 clean, new seats available He walks past every one. And sits far too close to me. Then suddenly and theatrically he gets up and in a boozy, strung out way asks if I mind he sits here?
Mmmm. Don’t you just hate that.

Poetry

2006-10-06T00:23:00.001+01:00

what is an isle
economic terms for dummies
ocasey the playwrite
orla barry newstalk
fada irish grammer
marion finucane drink
anorak bertie
econ 4 dummies
female dictators
brenda power newstalk
gaelige
spanish punctuations using alt key
sarah anna livia drive live
wise to invest?aer lingus share price
dheis de
analyst aer lingus ryanair
garda reserve today fm
wriggles gum
doh i got her pregnant
what is an isle?
brenda power mooney
sometimes i sits and thinks
bertie ahern teapot
the male singer at george best funeral
latin phrases in newspaper
ryanair aer lingus relations
shane mcgowan van morrison dispute
lino ritchie

The above movement was brought to you by www.statcounter.com

Blankpaige

Poetry

2006-10-06T00:23:00.000+01:00

Taoisigh in Glass Houses!

2006-10-05T12:04:00.000+01:00

Not content with muddling his way through the "Gift/Loan" crisis, Bertie Ahern has risked the wrath of Roman by questioning one of central tenets of Catholicism. In Leinster House, whilst under pressure from Enda "why use one word when you can throw in a couple more and six for the pot" Kenny, Pat "Don't come the common man with me, bucko" Rabbitte and Joe "the Comedian" Higgins, our erstwhile Taoiseach boldly announced that "no-one is infallible."

It comes as a great relief to blankpaige that the parliamentary onslaught didn't provoke Mr Ahern into an unnecessary swipe at Islam also. He is in enough bother as it is! It strikes me that what with a failed marriage, temporary financial difficulties, inappropriate gifts/loans, long-term support for Manchester United, a liberal attitude to ethics, recurrent temporary amnesia, the sacking of a junior ministers for the same behaviour, writing blank cheques, not remembering who you bought your house from and having friends with strange monikers such as "Paddy the Plasterer", our man in Drumcondra isn't really in a position to start questioning the Pontiff.

Taoisigh in glass houses shouldn't start throwing brown envelopes, me thinks.

Blankpaige

Casting the first stone

2006-09-29T09:05:00.000+01:00

This whole Bertigate thingy is all getting a bit boring now! For me, the problem with politics is that I don't have the staying power to sustain a particular point of view. In an attempt to provoke a reaction, I even posted a ridiculous 'Bertie should go' post. I didn’t get many comments but people started emailing me telling me that I was right on the money. Then my blogger account was inactivated!

Quick recap for those born yesterday.

We, Irish pride ourselves in our ability to bend the rules. We admire and value the cute hoor. But this benign attitude ignores the fact that basically we are a country of crooks.

DIRT & wholesale tax fraud by the majority of the population, a generation of illegals in US, an army of untaxed building contractors in the UK and swarms of teenagers fiddling slot machines in Germany demonstrate that we are genetically predisposed to "fraud". We don't obey the rules of the road, we drink/drive, given any opportunity we'll thieve and rob. We took ambulance chasing and litigation to such a level even we had to get a grip and invent a “Quantum of Personal Injury Claims”. We rip off visitors. For God sake, we commemorated the visit of the world's best golfer with fake pictures of his wife naked! We pride ourselves in our abilities to beat the system and our best boast is that the Brits found us ungovernable. We invented boycotting and guerrilla warfare. We are fundamentally anti-establishment.

One of the things that we all like about our Taoiseach is that he is decent, hardworking and generally an honest soul. So he got €8,000 for a few public speaking events in Manchester many years ago. Big deal? No I don’t think so. Most people I know would say, “Fair play to you Bertie, wear well.”

No, a big deal is that our legal profession are bleeding the country dry. One tribunal investigating the payment of €30,000 has cost us €24 million and is likely to double the before it is finished. Building contractors have subverted our planning laws. The cost of the port tunnel, M50 and just about every major capital investment programme we ever make escalates by a factor of ‘Think of a number, treble it, add 50% and then double it’. We pour €11 billion a year into our health service and get a third world service. We’ve allowed our hospital consultants develop the most ludicrous and lucrative remuneration system. We poured millions of Euro and thousands of Gardai into a small village for a 3 day golf competition but yet couldn’t afford to police the wild west that has become parts of Limerick. To me, these are big deals.

So folks can we get back to the real politics and stop pretending that we are all holier-than-Bertie?

Yours culpably ....

2006-09-26T20:42:00.000+01:00

Those damn fine folks at Irish Election are to blame. Their blog is so darn interesting that even if you don't have an interest in Politics you soon realise that you have an interest in politics. It's one small step from posting a comment to breaking your resolution never to blog again.

It seems to me that his tear-jerking face-the-nation routine will elicit all sorts of responses. It will give more ammunition to folk who want to keep digging, provide a soundbite or six for the Bertie faithful to defend the simple man in the anorak and give Matt Cooper/The Old Lady of D'Olier St/Vincent Browne something else to get indignant about.

I wonder if anyone will ask the following question? Why on earth did we elect a politician who having gotten himself into such financial difficulties, and having such generous friends, fabulously wealthy daughters and the means to wipe out his modest cashflow problem, hasn't been able to right the ship completely. If we knew that our Minister for Finance had money problems and didn't sort it when he could, would we really think him suitable material to run our country's finances? That's like Eddie Hobbs saying sometimes he doesn't mind frivolously blowing his savings. In my book this is a case of Culpable Incompetence.

Either he was incompetent and couldn't sort the problem (and so must resign)

or

He is not incompetent but is to blame for the whole sorry mess (and so must resign).

Time to call time, Mr Ahern?

Tragique!

2006-09-22T12:54:00.000+01:00

Blogosphere has always had an element of soap opera about it. Characters come and go. Actors are changed while the characters stay the same. But it seems that Blankpaige's departure was but a prelude to some really important departures. One of the minor nuns in a dramatic e-staging of Poulenc's "Dialogues of the Carmelites".

Those who venture across this page is be disappointed, nay devastated by the departure of, or continuing silence from

to mention but a few. Has my blog roll become some sort of death wish?

If Sarah Carey and Damien Mulley stop blogging, we will officially recognise the end of a brilliant era.

Occassional Paige

Au Revoir, Mes Enfants

2006-08-28T12:52:00.000+01:00

Regular readers will know that Blankpaige is often very flaky but what she loses in composure she makes up for in determination. A year ago today, I took my first tentative steps into Blogosphere. It started out as a concerted effort to prove my older, so much smarter sister wrong. She and her husband had one for their notorious dinner parties to which they’d invited their usual collection of interesting people and a boring single man. This latter pathetic appendage was recruited in the vain hope that some wonderful romance would blossom with youngest sibling and bring an end once and for all to her embarrassing state of permanent singularity.

Fortunately for me, the pressure to perform got the better of said gent. Or should I say Dominic’s bottle of 15 year old malt whisky got the better of him. Either way he had to be excused shortly after dessert was served. Being the family clown, Paige of course had to do a funny comic turn about the whole (otherwise) embarrassing situation which got the party started in earnest. We’d a wide ranging discussion on all subjects from our preferred name for Dingle (Dingle) to the most influential person we had ever met. Someone raised the question of “If one thing in your school days had turned out differently, how would it have affected your life?”.

Still flushed from my Perrier-winning comic performance, I suggested with only a hint of irony that had Ms McBride not taken my class for religion, I’d be less racked with guilty and would probably be living in a Parisian loft making a comfortable living as a social diarist with Le Monde and taking an interesting new cabinet minister as a lover every six months. I should point out at this juncture that every outlandish suggestion by the other guests was met with overwhelming approval and plausibility. My modest enough suggestion was in contrast met with disdain by all even Alan, a man I’d never met before that evening. I was disgusted, I can tell you.

But what really got up my nose was my sister’s dismissal of such a possibility on the grounds that I’d never have a discipline to write a diary for long enough to even describe one ministerial affair! I perhaps should be thankful that she didn’t call my voracious romantic appetite or attractiveness to French politicians in question. She casually mentioned the well know fact that I never finish anything that I start. I, it seems, don’t have the staying power to write for more than two days. Red rag, bull and, as I recall, many vodka & red bull’s later, I was rightly incensed. I could write if I wanted, I protested. But perhaps most annoying was that my notorious “unreliability” would prevent any editor from employing me. Such cheek! This coming from a woman who is frequently happy to entrust her new born child’s welfare in the hand for one so flaky. My sister has invited me to another dinner party next Saturday and I’m going to prove her wrong or what?

Over the past year, I’ve discovered that writing does indeed require great discipline but that I am capable of sustaining such an effort. I’ve written 285 posts in 360 days. Some of which I’ve even posted on my blog site. I’ve discovered a myriad of high fangled technology and can with some knowledge discuss statcounters, YouTube and Bebo. But more importantly, I have discovered a wonderful community of brilliant writers who encourage and support you even when you aren’t very good. Your few moments of brilliance are celebrated with Shaggy’s, Blogroll call outs and hyperlinks. It has been a privilege for me to have interacted with such fine individuals. I’d take anyone of you any day over a philandering French junior minister. Alas, I’ve also discovered that the reason I’m not ensconced in a rooftop overlooking the Seine with a naked Gaul has more to do with my lack of talent as a writer than with Ms McBride’s stern delivery of Catholic dogma.

I hope that you will excuse my discontinuing as a blogger. I genuinely don’t feel worthy of the description owing to my lack of original talent and the selfish (childish) reason that I started blogging. I will continue to check out your brilliant posts and wish you all continued success.

Paige

Invalid Response

2006-08-22T13:52:00.000+01:00

At the height of the last great Dublin city taxi driver convulsion a few years ago, I recall that the city streets were awash with those great big taxi vans. You know the type, the big, heavy sliding door and the cavernous interior in which you could loose a small pony (if you had a small pony). Flying around Dublin’s city streets, you were liable to get thrown violently from side to side unless you had a strong young man by your side. (If you had a strong young man!) The distance between you and the taxi driver was not inconsiderable, so you could pretend to be deaf and not hear his/her inane polemics, and you could take a short journey before his/her body odour became too unbearable.

The reason I ask was that over the past two days, I’ve encountered various wheel chair bound travelers attempt to get into taxis at several taxi ranks. Every car on offer seems to be a small Nissan. Now, blankpaige has nothing against Nissan cars – big or small – but I distinctly remember being told by the driver of the big van type taxis that they were specifically designed to take wheelchair users. He bemoaned, of course, at how he got no allowance for providing such a service. Mind you, I also remember the driver of a small Nissan taxi once tell me that those “big monstrous yokes” were an environmental disaster and completely unwarranted. Sure his/her wee Nissan could take any invalid passenger and sure the chair folds up and could easily fit into the boot, was the very definite pitch.

I’m sure that no matter how many wheelchair friendly taxis there are in our city, there are probably not enough. But I just wonder what happened to encourage taxi drivers to abandon these big vehicles? Was it a loss of tax concession? The increased insurance claims for injuries to recently separated young females consistent with being tossed around like a rag doll? Loss of a particularly valuable small pony?

And then, there is the whole question of what has happened to them? Did they get exported to a country with a high demand for the movement of small ponies? Surely the Shetland Islands don’t need that many new taxis. Have they been acquired by Musgraves for the rapid distribution of foodstuffs to Centra and Supervalu shops in anticipation of the opening of the Port Tunnel? Have the Gardai set up a special branch operation that involves lots of surveillance from the back of these vehicles fitted with tinted windows?

The public need to know. I feel a tribunal of inquiry coming on!

.....

2006-08-19T03:43:00.000+01:00

Insomnia

Certified

2006-08-17T13:29:00.000+01:00

Reports in today's papers suggest that 20% of Irish males fail Leaving Certificate chemistry and 16% fail ordinary level biology.

Is it just me or would anyone who has dated a young Irishman testify to the general lack of chemistry in such relationships and the lads' rudimentary knowledge of biology?!

;-)

Showing Too Much Reserve?

2006-08-15T13:45:00.000+01:00

I read with interest that the Garda Síochána have invited applications for membership of their reserve force. Varying reports indicate that 400 people applied in the first hours after advertising.

This set me thinking - a dangerous pursuit, you'll agree!

Who in their right mind would apply for a job that an employer does not want to fill, is being resisted by existing employees through a process of non-cooperation and which carries an indeterminate remuneration?

Also, there is some contradictory statements in the briefing notes such as that applicants must meet the same criteria as existing members of the force, yet they also have to be of good character, sound health and mind!

Also, people excluded from joining are members of the defence forces, prison service, people who serve summons, baliffs, practicing solicitors and barristers. (If you exclude this group it might be redundant to require applicants to be of sound mind, but I digress!)

It doesn't seem as if having served time in jail for a serious offence would bar you from joining the force. Perhaps this is okay, since most of those are either fully occupied with a career in crime or are taxi drivers, or both!

Worryingly, I also don't see any reference to the prohibition of people who sell narcotics or practice of paedophilia.

It seems that the main criterion is that you have to be a "good character". Now I'm as game for a laugh as the next woman, but do we want a reserve force that is moonlighting in the Comedy Club? I'd hate to be moved on from my casual loitering by a would-be Tommy Tiernan or Des Bishop. Anyway who is going to be bouncer on Copper-face Jacks?

It strikes me that a useful first approximation would be to exclude these first 400 applicants on the grounds that they are too enthusiastic (and hence likely to be too officious), such good characters that they'd demoralise the existing full time force or that they are The Monk or a former tribunal barrister that has made so much money that they no longer have to practice law.

Other questions remain. Does the reservist get free access to Neil Diamond concerts in Croke Park? What about those fluorescent cycling shorts? Do they come in all sizes? Do you have to have a country accent and pronounce the word “vehicle” as “Vee-hi-cul”? (i.e. why exclude the AA Roadwatch girls from the Reserve?) Does a gaelige-speaking weather forecaster from a Celebrity talent contest get to apply also?

Making a Difference?

2006-08-14T13:41:00.000+01:00

Yesterday, a young Bosnia girl, of about 6 years of age, came to my door. Her handwritten note explained she was in dire straits and would appreciate anything that I could give her. Earlier that evening, on the way home from town, a polite young man collecting for the International Association for Cancer Research stopped me on Dawson Street looking for a small donation. Between these two encounters, I passed four people begging for money and two guys selling the Big Issue. At least one of the four was well inebriated. In the three hours that I was out of my house, three different charity appeal bags were pushed through my letter box. Another polite note introduced three Poles who would be willing to do light housework and some gardening for me. I had a voicemail from an old friend who is traveling to The Sudan to do charity work looking for some sponsorship. Trying to escape from the need to make a decision, I turned on the telly. There was an advert looking for aid for the people affected in the bombing of Lebanon. Switching channels, I stumbled across Celebrity You’re a Star! It would seem that one of the game contestants was collecting for Cancer West.

My dilemma is that I don’t know what I can do that will make a difference. Every little helps I know but how much should I be prepared to give? I’d like to have some foolproof system for knowing who I should give to and who I shouldn’t. And is giving just an easy way of salving my conscience? Does it make any difference?

I tried to work it out logically.

Who are the International Association for Cancer Research? How do I know that this is a reputable organisation. The guy who stopped me in Dawson Street wasn’t able to say too much about what his organisation did. He was clearly a professional fund raiser. So when I got home I did some searching on the web. I found the International Agency for Cancer Research, the International Cancer Research Association and Cancer Research International. There is also the International Union of Cancer Research and the Association for International Cancer Research. The latter seems to be a Scottish charity group that funds cancer research. But we’ve our own national cancer research charity, the Irish Cancer Society incorporating Cancer Research Ireland. So what the heck is a Scottish charity group doing fundraising in Dublin? Do Irish fundraisers collect in Scotland? Why do we need so many organisation and can they not work together? If it is going to do fundraising telethons, then why doesn’t our national broadcaster collect for the national cancer charity? I’m reminded again of my evil thought that all charity collections should be outlawed.

A neighbour tells me that the young Bosnian girl is actually part of a Romanian group on a major scam. She might well be, but she could also be a poor starving 6 year old. I’ve no way of checking her credentials. My Sudan-bound friend is a well intentioned but flighty individual. She has absolutely no experience of volunteering and generally speaking isn’t the most self-sufficient individual. I honestly believe that she’ll do more harm than good. Of the three charity appeal bags that came through my door, only one had any contact details/charity reference. The rest seemed to be one-man shows which may or may not be legitimate.

For the record, I didn’t give to the Dawson Street chugger (charity mugger) and I closed the door on the 6 year old Bosnian girl. I walked passed the four beggars and I used the charity appeal bags for my domestic refuse. I have ignored the Lebanon appeal. I’ve not returned my old friend’s call. I bought two copies of the Big Issue – one from each vendor. I threw both in the bin without reading them.

What should I have done?

No Malice Intended

2006-08-10T14:25:00.000+01:00

Doctors may have been arrogant and insensitive in the practice but there was no malice or ulterior motive. (Dunne Report on Organ Retention Scandal, 2006)

Clearly the blankpaige is on some kind of depressing downward spiral of rants. I promise I'll snap out of it shortly. In the meantime, is it just me or does everyone think that we didn't need a judge, a barrister, 5 years and €13 million to tell us what we already know?

Paternalism, benign or otherwise, has been the overwhelming feature of our medical profession since, well actually, forever. Our doctors enter college having been selected as the brightest and best of our children, they spend six or seven years being told how wonderful they are, and if they are really good they get to play at being really important consultant - an individual who has a higher intellectual capacity than most, is the best at everything he/she turns their hand to, and gets paid about 15 times the average industrial wage. (They are so intellectually endowed, of course, that they are unable to wash their hands properly, but that's another rant altogether!)

I once listened to one such doctor being interviewed on the radio about how difficult it is discussing intimate sexual dysfunction with patients. You see the problem is that while the patient may have been sitting (patiently?) in the waiting room for 2 hours, the clock sort of restarts for them when they are seen by the doctor. They take ages to 'warm up' and won't come right out and tell the doc their problem. Sometimes the 6 minute consultation is up before they even begin to hint at what the issue is. Word of advice to such consultants. In future don't have your patients sit waiting to see your 2 hours and then only give them 6 minutes of your time. Medicine is supposed to be patient-focused!

I had a particularly traumatic experience of one such Consultant. After sitting in wait for 4 hours on a hard chair in a public corridor for 'my results' to find their way from the lab to his desk, he burst out of his office and down the corridor. He interrupted briefly his mobile phone conversation to shout at me from some distance that generally speaking everything is okay but that I'd be unlikely to ever become pregnant. He didn't even break stride or pause for a reaction as he delivered this news in the most matter of fact manner. He had resumed his telephone conversation (meeting someone on a golf course in an hour) before he had even come to within the socially acceptable distance for conversation. I was too stunned to even react.

Had anyone asked I could have saved the State €13 million!

Ipso facto or some other latin phrase

2006-08-09T12:39:00.000+01:00

Some sad individual left me a comment recently suggesting that my Middle East posts were "meaningless rants". Now excuse me if I have not joined up the dots properly, but isnt that one of the best things about blogging that you can have meaningless rants whenever you feel like it? Anyway, I always try to be the bigger person (a facet that I take into many aspects of my life) so I initially decided to ignore the twat. But of course, I can never resist a cat fight (another regular feature of my life) so I then decided to try to be condescending (ditto). But like a blog knight on a white stead, Omani came to my rescue with the most brilliantly incisive put down that almost makes my post worth reading just for the context alone.

The whole unsavoury incident set me thinking. Now I can't think about any blog subject matter without wondering is it just another meaningless rant?

So while we are on the subject, is it just me of have you also had your fill of charity muggers (chuggers) and free newspaper dispensers? A girl can't walk the footpaths of Dublin without being accosted on all sides by some twat asking for a minute of my time or thrusting another copy of the Daily Grind into my hand. If I want a newspaper I go off to a newspaper shop and buy a copy of The Guardian. If I want to find out something about the Ryder Cup or which local priest has abused which local temptress, I buy a copy of The Irish Times. (It's the paper of record don't you know!) If I want to find out who has shagged who on Celebrity Ready Steady Cook, I buy a copy of the Indo. I don't need some highly incentivised marketing graduate thrust me a ream of classified adverts cunningly disguised as a newspaper.

And then there is the chuggers. Am I the only person in this country (Bono excepted of course) who'd happily pay another 1-2% income tax so that all the things that should be funded get funded? If I get sick, I want a hospital bed because I need it not because some obsessive crank from Mullingar pushed a hospital bed around Ireland on a sponsored walk. Charity organisations should be banned and all their very important services provided for by the state. Full stop.

Still, this is probably just another meaningless rant.

In love

2006-08-07T00:17:00.000+01:00

Regular readers of the blankpaige, yes both of you, will know that this girl has shared some painful insights of late. Some of you good people were even kind enough to send me a little note of encouragement. Some went as far as to concur that, listen sisters, men are bastards.

So I feel a mixture of unbridled joy and acute embarrassment this evening, as I feel compelled to announce to all in Blogosphere - "I am in love!"

Now I've noticed that being in love isn't something that bloggers announce very often. There are plenty of my man/god/bookclub/credit card company has just dumped me and I'm going to take solace in a nice big bowl of Ben&Jerry ice cream/bottle of Chateauneuf du pape/Czech builder who is hung like a stag.

It is the same with songs. All the best ones are laments to love lost. All our best writers are missing something and our best painters are troubled. Performance artists and troubadour musicians battle the dark side. Even our best comedians are, we believe, secretly hiding something sinister.

(Admission to Omani. I’ve just deleted five paragraphs which attempted to weave a whole story about my new love. But I realise that I’ve pulled that stunt once too often. Is this the reason why you heartlessly call me a fibber?)

I don’t know how I missed it when it came out. I know that over the past year I have read every newspaper ever sold, distributed or force on me by an enthusiastic Brazilian in O’Connell Street. I realize those ‘so cool they piss ice cubes’ cinema critics in the Ticket must have written five whole articles extolling the wonder, then three more panning the crassness and then made much mileage in snide side remarks. But I can’t explain how I missed it.

But last night, a good pal and I sat in with a bottle of Chateauneuf (alas no Czech builder) and watched what I now realise is the best Irish movie ever made. The movie is based on a novel written by one of our best authors. The screenplay was written by the author and the film’s director, a man with a cannon of work of John Huston proportions. Our best male actor plays the lead role. It is the best movie despite featuring a cast of the usual Irish suspects (Gleeson, Rea and Neeson) and Van Morrison music. It is set in the most depressing decade of our country’s recent past, it tackles a theme of exploitation of innocence and yet it is joyously uplifting.

And if you haven’t yet seen it. Check it out at once. This is without doubt the best Irish movie of the last 20 years and probably the best European film of the same period. I can’t understand why it hasn’t run for weeks and weeks in our cinemas. Why hasn't some Roscommon TD on the make not insist that this be added to the Leaving Cert curriculum? Go figure.

Blankpaige

Buy Gum

2006-08-05T23:04:00.000+01:00

I see that Wrigleys, purveyors of fine chewing gum since 1786 have decided to give €1 million to Irish scientists to research ways of making bubble gum less sticky. Ungumming the gum as it were.

This set me thinking and being a lass known for her mental arithmetic, I started counting also. Walking up Merrion square this evening, I undertook my own scientific experiment. Using a 0.5 metre square sampling reference (i.e a paving slab), I counted the number of black chewing gum deposits per slab. On average there are 3 spots per slab and around government buildings the footpath is 5 slabs wide. Hence there are approximately 15 spots in each 0.5 metre distance of Merrion Square. According to AA Ireland, it is 3.6 miles from the Dept of Finance to the Dept of the Environment. (I really wish these guys would go metric some day soon.) That’s 5.8km in new money. Or 175,000 splots of chewing gum if you are obsessive compulsive like me.

€1,000,000 would buy you 2,000,000 packs of Wriggles gum, each packet containing 5 sticks of gum. Imaging that one half of the people who chew these 10,000,000 sticks ignore the nice silver paper and disgard the spent gum on the footpath. This is a gross generalisation but go with me on this one. So 5,000,000 sticks of gum is about 28 times between the Department of Finance and the Dept of the Environment. If one indolent person shuffling between these two points did one stick per day, in one month he (for surely it would be a man) would have littered spent the same money defacing a small section of our Capital City thoroughfare as Wrigley’s will paid to solve the problem.

And anyway, what would € 1,000,000 buy you in research brains these days? Let us say we put together a team of scientists. We’d probably have 5 of our brightest and best. Let’s imaging that we give them a 3 year contract and pay them €36,000 per annum each. There goes €540,000. And no doubt we’d need to rent them a laboratory. We’ll give them a reasonable sized laboratory in a modest part of the city. There goes another €60,000 minimum. We’ll probably buy them some chemicals and reagents and, irony of irony, we’ll probably have to buy them some gum to test. Lets imaging we spend €125,000 on consumables over the 3 years. We add on the 30% overhead that our noble universities will demand for hosting this crack gum busting scientists. That leaves us just under €60,000 small change to go to the odd international convention of gum busters, write the odd report and publish their findings.

Mmm, can’t help thinking the Dick Roche might have been better putting a 10 cent tax on every packet of chewing gum.

Resolutionary

2006-08-05T22:53:00.000+01:00

I’m afraid that Blankpaige has strayed into some serious stuff. Hang with me, there is some lighter stuff on the way……. but in the meantime, in response to Omani’s considered comments on my last post, I offer the following.

Issue 1 : What is Terrorism?
If only it would be so easy to make the word ‘terrorist’ redundant. However, even if it was, the first issue is not that the word might become a poor descriptor, it is perhaps that the word tends to be selectively applied. Principle 1 tries to recognise that whatever the reasons for the act of terror, the apparent justification or the ‘democratic purity’ of the perpetrator, terror is defined by the effect it has on the victim. The Russian, USA or UK military bombing a poor Chechen, Iraqi or Afghan village might be part of a ‘legitimate’ war on terror, it might even be UN-sanctioned. But if a family cowering under a flimsy bed while bombs fall about them is terrified, then an act of terrorism has taken place. (Even a Munster man would accept that the rugby team are unlikely to terrorise their opponents!)

Issue 2 : Reasonable Defense
Defence doesn’t constitute terrorism per se. But any defence in which the ‘defender’ seeks to overwhelm the victim and in the process instil a sense of hopelessness and fear, is an act of terror. (It is unlikely even if on they were on the rack that Stade Francais would feel so hopeless in the face of a Munster onslaught!) By my definition any act of aggression could be classified as an act of terror. But this is the root of the problem. A failure to recognise aggression as the cause of conflict, not the response, reasonable or otherwise, to conflict. Perhaps we’d be more effective if instead of calling for an end to terrorism or the war on terror that we sought an end to aggression.

Issue 3 : Name Calling
Of course you are most correct. The terrorist/freedom fighter perspectives simply don’t help resolve any thing? Name-calling only polarises and aggravates an already dangerous situation.

Issue 4 : Giving Voice to Public Opinion
I accept the points you make about how it might be useful/desirable to have not entirely unambiguous UN resolutions so that they can be read differently by different groups. Although I have my reservations about the value of ambiguity in any dispute resolution process.

Issue 5 : Respect the Mediator
The UN provides a forum for moderate voices in any dispute. But mediation only works if all parties respect the mediating authority and agree to be bound by its decisions. The US/UK has consistently undermined the UN to the point where it now lacks all credibility. Israel has further ridiculed the UN by selectively highlighting some resolutions but ignoring others completely. Syrians and Iranians have done similar.

Issue 6 : Moral Authority
Your point is well made on our apparent need to give moral authority to a position through a UN resolution. This is the UN’s most valuable attribute. This makes it all the more important that the long term status of the UN is not undermined for some short term manoeuvring by a big or small country.

Summary
We should be guided only by the principle that aggression is counter productive. It provokes an aggressive response and without moderating voices disputes quickly escalate into acts of extreme aggression (i.e. terror). We must not be afraid to condemn acts of aggression regardless of who the perpetrator is. Failure to do so becomes interpreted as acquiescence and tacit approval.

All that is necessary for evil to succeed is for good men to do nothing - Edmund Burke

A good friend tells you what you need to hear, not what you want to hear - Paige Harrison

Give it up for .....

2006-08-01T22:36:00.000+01:00

Apart from the sense of community, the thing that I love most about Blog O'Sphere is how whenever a good idea is thrown out, it is rapidly improved upon by several bloggers. Curl K recently took the initiative to improve upon her blog rolling by putting a descriptive comment under each blog link. I know that others have done something similar (e.g. Omani). JL Pagano, consistently the most innovative blogger**, regularly gives out Shaggies. Steven has now taken Curly K's lead and has introduce a Why #1 feature on his blog. And Damien has suggested profiling blog newcomers.

I say this, not because Curly K, JL Pagano, Omani and Steven have all written really nice things about me - which of course they have but that's besides the point. They generally say nice things about most bloggers. It is just that I'm struck by the convergence of thought. Then there has been the whole discussion around finding a blogger's best bits. Several brilliant bloggers (among them Sinead) have suggested that I highlight my better posts. (Of course this is probably just a subtle way of saying that you have to wade through a lot of dross before you hit on some nugget worth reading!)

It would appear that in any community, there is a constant search for interesting/likeminded/kindred spirits and once that this search has been sated, the quest turns to a search for their best bits. It seems to me that there is probably some really cool software solution to this 'problem'. But I can't help thinking that the various personal solutions work just fine.

So lets give it up for the brilliant blog community in all its colours. (''Insert HTML for group hug in here'')

(**hey, Damien, how about a "Most innovative blogger" award in the next blog awards?)

Foreign Affairs for Dummies

2006-07-31T18:04:00.000+01:00

It strikes me that trying to get to the bottom of any international dispute requires some simple
clarifications.

It would really help all international disputes if a UN resolution was passed to the effect that any party that uses force or threat of force either as an act of aggression or act of defence is by definition 'a terrorist'.
Having a democratically elected government doesn't mean you can't be a terrorist nation.
There is no point in determining which terror is justified and which isn't.
There also isn't much point in measuring proportions of terror (or for that matter, grief or justification). Proportionality of response is a stupid, stupid logic which presumes that a response was justified and that the only thing in question was the appopriateness of said response.
Saying that you won't negotiate with terrorists is a noble but futile position. It is futile because history shows that the only groups that ever get negotiated with are those which threaten violence.
Suggesting that an aggressive nation is guity of crimes against humanity, ethnic cleansing or mass genocide is an unnecessary distinction. This only serves to move the argument away from the absolute evil that is being perpetrated to a debate about the scale of that evil.
A people that have suffered genocide in their recent past are no more likely to desist from conducting their own ethnic cleaning than a nation that hasn't so suffered.
Promulgating the view that another nation should be wiped off the face of the earth is likely to encourage that nation to get their retaliation in first.
Saying that you will stop being evil, if they stop being evil first is nothing to be proud about. Only the nation that breaks the cycle has any claim of the moral high ground and even then only a tenuous one.
Wringing your hands and pretending to want a peaceful resolution whilst (a) doing nothing to bring peace about (b) providing more arms to one side to continue the slaughter (c) you don't talk to terrorists (d) or any of the above, means that you aren't really a superpower. You are just as despicable, culpable and evil as any of the warring factions.

Now, for the record, Israel and the Hezbullah are evil terrorists. Any resolution of this dispute will require US & Britain, Iran & Syria to stop supporting terrorists and start talking to terrorists.

The above clarifications generally also work in other international theatres of war, disputes between neighbours and resolving arguments between teenage boys.

Blankpaige

For the Love of God

2006-07-31T00:14:00.000+01:00

... and his sweet mother Mary, and all the saints in heaven, in the name of all that is holy.... who is it in RTE that has such a death wish on Brian Kennedy's career? What did the cherub son of Belfast do the deserve such a fate?

Those of us who saw Brian at his brilliant best in the early 90's at the Jazz Cafe in London singing Sam Brown numbers, know what a genius he is. He'd the voice of an angel. It was like the most expensive and luxurious chocolate indulgently melting down your throat. He was a master with a microphone taking us to musical heights with his fabulous talent. And a showman too, managing to keep the pathetic girlie groups teased, whilst nodding to those women in the audience who appreciated great soul music and any of their boyfriends who were unsure of their sexuality.

Alas, my boyfriend of the time was all to sure of his sexual needs and his ever insistent requests that we get my best friend involved in a bedroom experiment, forced me to have a very public breakup with him (the boyfriend not Brian) in the foyer of the aforementioned establishment. But he did have the decency to fuck off home leaving Brian's gentle renditions to soothe the badly bruised blankpaige. Was it any wonder that he captured my heart? On the train back to Morden, I realised that Brian was so right, in this town you listen with your eyes.

I have to confess, I was selfishly pleased that Brian never had the commercial success that he so richly deserved. While the rest of the country had Ritchie Kavanagh's 'Aon focail eile', Brian was a secret only a few hundred of us shared. Backing vocals for Van Morrison meant that he was only ever going to be heard by people who prefer poetry to music and clearly didn't value the ability to sing in key.

I worried when I heard about the River Dance gig, but again consoled myself that only Foster & Allen fans would get to hear his fabulous voice. Brian would still be mine. I'd be one of the few people who actually appreciated his talents. I've never liked football that much, but George Best's funeral concerned me more than a little for showed the world what we privileged few knew. East Ulster folk are nice but incredibly dour people and Brian Kennedy can make you cry.

So enter that homophobic, music hating RTE executive who decided it would be really cool to have our Brian sit on a big rock somewhere gazing misty eyed out to the Atlantic and crooning a series of 'come-all-yea's of the worst possible kind. Imagine the cheek of it, putting our angel on a Sunday evening graveyard slot! Then there was the Eurovision debacle, where we heaped more ridicule on the only talented male singer still living in the country. We all know RTE don't want to win the feckin' thing but that's still no excuse for reducing Kennedy to a performing poodle in a talent show held in small rural town with 20 years of aural in-breeding.

It was only through judicious avoidance of certain television stations and newspapers that Blankpaige escaped the whole ordeal relatively unscathed. But flopping in front of the tv tonight with a basket load of ironing, I wasn't prepared for the cruel Kennedy karaoke that I witnessed. Car crash television of the worst possible kind. Didn't Brian Cullen not promise to end this sort of senseless waste? A girl is suppose to be wearing her sexiest undies and have her hair perfectly coiffured before any spontaneous meeting with Brian. She's not suppose to be sitting in a paint-splattered track suit, with no makeup on and stuffing a golden grain biscuit down her hole.

Tonight I witnessed the saddest sight on television and Brian made me cry again for all the wrong reasons.

Blog Roll Call

2006-07-28T09:41:00.000+01:00

blankpaige? Anseo!
Omani? Anseo!
Sigla? Anseo!
Thatgirl? Nil si anseo!

As many of them tend to be, this post has been inspired by two bloggers - John of Dublin and Curly K.

Curly K has gone and done something cool with her blog roll by adding a short note on each link. I think it is a really smart thing to do. (I'm not just saying that because of the nice things she wrote about the blankpaige. Okay, so I am!).

John of Dublin has kindly added me to his blog roll. I fully intend to reciprocate. Interestingly he mentioned that his blog roll was very short. I've been aware of John for several months from his excellent comments but for some reason I'd not yet checked out his blog. I assume(d) that John's point was that his blog roll was deliberately concise (i.e. selective) as opposed to a work in progress (i.e. incomplete).

This set me thinking that I must revise my blog roll. I think I'll be a good deal more selective and informative in my roll call. In the meantime check out both Curly K and John of Dublin's excellent blogs.

Paige

Alice in Wonderland

2006-07-27T09:52:00.000+01:00

Alice Prendergast is not a household name – yet. But you heard it here first, this is probably the best Irish actor of her generation. I was fortunate enough to catch her one woman show last night in a small, intimate setting. It was truly remarkable and I feel privileged to have stumbled across this major talent by complete chance.

Alice began the hour long performance with a stunning portrait of a young woman embarking on a journey of self-discovery. Initially shy and lacking confidence, this character had just arrived in ‘the big smoke’ for the first time, having been abandoned by her feckless older sister. The girls’ parents weren’t mentioned in the 20 minute monologue and it was clear that the protagonist idolised her also unnamed sibling. It was also apparent, although never explicitly stated, that the abandonment by her sister, though temporary, was sudden and related in no small part to the attentions of an attractive young man. Informed by her own lack of interest in men and by her low self esteem, Alice’s character dissected and ridiculed the courtship charade. “I can’t see what that one sees in men, but her head is always turned by some young buck who’ll only go on to break her heart’, Alice observed with wisdom beyond her years. Although you clearly got the sense that these were someone else’s words.

The mood changed dramatically after a brief pause for breath. We were now in the Spar shop on Merrion Row, a busy and bustling enterprise that showcased all Dublin’s rich and colourful tapestry. Alice assumed first the role of a non-national worker with very poor English whose only function seemed to be to mop a precious 3 square foot of floor just inside the shop door and re-arrange the Ballygown water bottles into neat and even rows. An absent minded civil servant from the Dept of Finance arrived every day for his Guardian newspaper and a packet of polo mints. An earnest young business woman busily blackberried as she waited to be served. Every day Charlo Hughes delivered Cuisine de France produce to the store, piping hot from a Gallic patisserie somewhere west of Cherrywood.

We learned about these, and countless other characters though Alice’s accurate portrayal of Nina, the cashier who bantered with the customers and repeatedly made informative asides to the audience. Nina had the air of a vibrant young woman of Eastern European origin who was being woren down by the passive aggressive time-poor Celtic Tiger cubs. In one abrupt word, “Next!”, accompanied by a weary sigh, Alice caught the essence of what passes for customer service in our latte-fuelled, SSIA-financed world. Her accent momentarily drop from the distinctive clipped Baltic delivery to the throaty, careladened intonations of an older woman, born and raised in the Liberties. “Are you all roight der, luv?”

Those of us enthralled by the performance were indeed alright. And I travelled home convinced that I’d seen a sharp observer of society at her brilliant best. I fully expect to read an article in tomorrow’s Irish Times telling me that Alice has been recruited to play opposite Cillian Murphy in the latest Neil Jordan movie. If Alice Prendergast is the new face of L’Oreal within 4 months, I won’t be a bit surprised. Or if she appears in the Abbey’s next major Synge performance, it will be very good casting. Although, I am reliably informed that the State, Alice’s mother and child protection legislation take a dim view of a four year old being lumbered with such expectations so early in her career.

Major Apologies

2006-07-26T09:34:00.000+01:00

My sincere apologies for the silence of the past week. A combination of technical difficulties and technical incompetence rendered the blankpaige muzzled. Probably the most infuriating aspects of this enforced blog silence was that I'd hit a rich vein of blog ideas. I know that it doesn't happen too often but I was really cooking. I'd a whole entertaining (I thought) story about a Dundrum shopping experience, I wrote a rigorous dissertation on the current Middle East situation, I reviewed 3 books and 2 movies, I composed a passionate defence of the Gardai in the wake of Abbeylara report and I shared my Granny's receipe for Tiramisu. I made a confession about a growing interest in soccer that has some connection with Andri Shevkenko's tight haircut.

Of course when I say I wrote and composed, in some cases it was only in my head. But in a surprising number of situations there was hard copy to show for my musings. But the technical difficulties forced me to review and reflect on my "virtual work" as well as do a lot more blog reading. I know that I'm not a finisher. I get an idea, I toss it around, conceive a solution and then thats it. I loose all interest once I know what I want to say or once I see a solution to my problem. Saying it out loud or implementing the solution hold no joy for me. So I tend to tick the box mentally and move on.

So depending on how you look at things, you can

Rejoice that blankpaige is back online
Bemoan another pointless blog explaining why there isn't a blog
Rejoice/bemoan at the loss of blogs about Andrei, my Granny, the Gardai, Dundrum, etc

Paige

(P.S. Here is hoping that I was one of the missing routines in Omani's day of late. And I trust he got the in-joke in the title. Sweet Afton)

With supreme thanks to Super Shane

2006-07-17T13:30:00.000+01:00

The now permanently iPod-ed Paige has rediscovered her love of music. Like a romance of old, it has rekindled thoughts and memories long since buried by years of working in Cubicleville. However no amount of performance appraisals or competence-base models can hide the fact that I once indulged myself in poetry of a very special kind.

Last weekend, I discovered a box of my old cassettes that once accompanied me and my VW Golf all over Europe. I hope Victor who shared that magical journey to the South of France, still listens to the Pogues and thanks Paige for the introduction as much as She does him for learning about Elvis Costello. And I so wish I had this stuff on my iPod.

There is no need to forget Bell X1, Cooks or the Frames but no-one can call themselves an Irish music fan if they haven't come to love the poetry of our own Dylan.

White City
Here a tower shinning bright
Once stood gleaming in the night
Where now theres just the rubble in the hole
Here the paddies and the frogs
Came to gamble on the dogs
Came to gamble on the dogs not long ago

Oh the torn up ticket stubs
From a hundred thousand mugs
Now washed away with dead dreams in the rain
And the car-parks going up
And theyre pulling down the pubs
And its just another bloody rainy day

Oh sweet city of my dreams
Of speed and skill and schemes
Like atlantis you just disappeared from view
And the hare upon the wire
Has been burnt upon your pyre
Like the black dog that once raced
Out from trap two

(c) Copyright Shane McGowan 1989

Generation XXL

2006-07-14T13:41:00.000+01:00

Sometimes I think of a great title and then I blog. Other times I get the blog but can never pin down a good title. Well today, I've thought of a good title and I know I probably want to talk around obesity etc but can't think of an angle.

So consider this post as an attempt to claim the phrase 'Generation XXL' before anyone else does!

Paige

New Mantra - same as the old mantra

2006-07-14T13:40:00.000+01:00

Before I begin, I have to say that (yet again) RTE Radio One appears to have scored an own goal in the recent radio transfers. (trust me on this football theme, it’s going somewhere). Having decided to dispense with the services of the excellent John Kelly (Mystery Train) and the always interesting Myles Dungan (Rattlebag), the station has proven what we suspected/feared. RTE Radio One obviously sees its future in personality-driven tabloid talk radio. I’m going to switch over to Lyric FM so that I can continue to be musically educated by Mr Kelly. I’ll probably start looking for podcasts from the BBC to get my arts and culture fix.

The signing of Eamon Dunphy to host a chat show that isn’t focused on sport or current affairs seems to be the height of RTE ambition. Now anyone who has checked out the Blankpaige knows that she’s come to have a sneaking regard for the former Millwall hoofer. Dunphy is a good broadcaster, not a great broadcaster. He is of limited technical ability and gets by on the strength of personality and his willingness to graft. Pretty much like his playing career. But there is, on the face of it, little to differentiate him from Joe Duffy, Gerry Ryan, Pat Kenny and all those late night jocks on 98FM who work taxi drivers up into a frenzy of rage.

Last night, I caught the husky tones of Brenda Power on Newstalk. I think she might have been filling in for gorgeous George Hook. Now I'm of the view that women are naturally disadvantaged compared with men, when it comes to radio presenting. There seems to be two particular reasons for this. The majority of day time listeners are women and women generally prefer to listen to a male voice. Also, radio stations seem either deliberately or as an artefact of the broadcasting process, accentuate the bass tones. There is probably some technical name for this but the consequences are that only deep throated women sound good on radio.

At the risk of being called a raving lesbian feminist again (you know who you are and you won't rise me this time!), I have to say I was very very impressive with her. She was interesting, engaging, articulate and self-deprecating. She struck up a brilliant conversation with the sports guy (Ger Gilroy) on the question “Is Zinedine Zidane a new man?”

We’ve had the new sensitive man and the return of the lad (not to mention the emergence of the ladette). We’ve had the metrosexual a la David Beckham. Now we’ve Bloke Coke and the Menaissance. Faced with the prospect of equality of the sexes and the increasing marginalisation of the Father figure, men are going back to caveman basics and are asserting their rights to burp, belch and be lecherous.

Apparently, Mr Zidane’s explanation for his violent conduct in the World Cup Final was that he was defending his women folk. This wasn’t mindless thuggery, he was provoked by Materratsi. The Italian, not to be outdone, proffered his own understanding of the importance of women having lost his own mum at an early age. Give me a break lads! Time was when a sneaky Italian was a sneaky Italian and a violent Frenchman was a violent Frenchman.

But back to the excellent Brenda Power. "Is the essence of football not about discipline and controlled aggression", she enquired. "It's about a magical moment of great beauty," the sports guy countered. But her piece de resistance was when she confessed to being secretly flattered when a bloke chivalrously walks on the outside of the footpath. Of course this was just a subtle and successful ploy to get Gilroy to point out that Zidane was no renaissance man simply a Gallic hooligan!

If you are listening Newstalk Director of Programming, you could do a lot worse than signing Brenda up for a full time gig. Any one who can turn a routine football foul into a studied sociological analysis would, I’m sure, do wonders with payments to politicians, the M50, bedblockers, SSIA's and Northern politics. Of course. it struck me that RTE Radio One fill in their pompous talk jock (Ryan, Kenny) holiday absences with more of the same (McGurk). I know that one show is no basis for selection but I did wonder why no-one in Montrose thinks it worth considering Ms Power.

You see picking a radio DJ’s is just like picking a football team. You have to have a game plan, stick to it and not be distracted by the cries from the terraces. Supporters follow you not because you are successful but because you entertain (and because you entertain, you become successful). RTE Radio seems to be permanently managed by people who don’t seem to understand public service broadcasting. Like a manager whose own playing career was prematurely ended, they seem unable to spot and manage obvious talent.

As I write this post, I want to go off on so many tangents. Time for a discussion on feminism and the new man, the real answer to public service broadcasting, what makes a good broadcasting voice and where does the thinking person go now for radio entertainment.

Who & Where's That Girl?

2006-07-12T14:16:00.000+01:00

Okay, starter question for 10.

Q: Who is multiple award winning, independent, sassy, not afraid to call it as she sees it, and able to stand up to the Humphrey Bogarts of Blogosphere?

A: The answer is obvious isn't it!

Some time back, I had the distinct pleasure of "interviewing" That Girl, blogger extraordinaire and two times Irish Blog Award winner.

If you haven’t had the good fortune to follow/admire/covet her blog over the past three year, then I’ve some sad news for you. It seems that need to focus on other things will see That Girl stop thinking out loud.

It’s a great shame.

Blogosphere will be a poorer place without her brilliant and insightful writing. Articulate, elegant and informative, she has set the standard in writing and is an inspiration to many.

Maybe it’s time that we started a discussion around “Blog Burn Out”. We’ve had a number of high profile casualties over the past six months. People who have had to stop or reduce their blog output. Is this a sign of things to come? Or is it simply part of the natural order? Should we fret or simply be thankful to have had the benefit of their musings?

(Stop, Paige before you go all Carrie Bradshaw on us – Ed.)

Paige

Crumbs!

2006-07-07T15:46:00.000+01:00

You can debate the pros- and cons- to allowing US military flights to refuel in Shannon all you want. But is it just me or does anyone else think that blowing up a copy of the Quoran in a public building may not be the smartest move we ever made?!

I just hope that Martyn Turner doesn't do a cartoon on it, otherwise we might rapidly come
on an Al-Qaeda radar screen.

Paige

(Of course, hats off to the professional safety first manner in which this and yesterday's incident was handled by staff and passengers at Dublin Airport.)

For Pippa

2006-07-05T23:49:00.000+01:00

Going to an Aslan concert is like gatecrashing a Finglas wedding. You have no doubt that God will bless that happy couple in his own sweet way. This is just as well because you suspect that the woman in the white dress is actually 4 months pregnant and the main man is fighting a losing battle with drug addiction.

Despite not having the de rigeur spandex boob-tube and fake tan, you are enveloped by a sense of collective love, pride and hard won respect that the audience has for the band on stage. The room is charged with anticipation long before the band makes their entrance. Old friends and acquaintances catch up, compare hard luck stories and 'fuck' the management from a high over the price of a Bicardi Breezer and a bottle of Heineken.

An undernourished man in an ill-fitting Celtic FC track suit walks up to the microphone. You expect him to say something original like "Testing. One, Two, Three. Testing, Testing". Instead, he exhales long and emotionally, and in a Dublin-esque Jay Kay moment says "Howzitgoan?". He opens with the timeless classic that is "This is" and follows with "Feel No Shame". The band are clearly more than a little tight. What follows is one of the best rock concerts you'll ever witness. Each song eclipses the previous, the singer enthralls you with his experience-laden vocals and the band remind you that its supposed to be fun.

By the time the tracksuit top is discarded, you've stopped trying to work out Christy's obscure sign language. This isn't Marceau on E. The band are pumping, the hall is thumping and you are the only one who doesn't know the lyrics. Nevertheless you join in on the chorus when Christy momentarily splits the audience into chorus and counter-chorus like some latter day Herbert Von Karajan. You become part of the performance.

The hairs on the back of your arms stand to attention as they 'do' Angie better than Jagger ever could. Aslan probably view themselves as the Irish 'Stones but they're much better than that. They are the Irish Beetles. Christy Dignam is the Lennon whose McCartney OD-ed in a dingy Ballymun flat and so they never made it to their Abbey Road. Imagine how good U2 would be if more than two could play their instruments. This is Aslan. They've nothing to do with CS Lewis. Aslan are the band that Thin Lizzy never could be, and U2 never will be. Honest, stylish and intimate. They are for real. Of course, according to Wikipedia, this is what Aslan are. Only they are so much more.

If you've not got a copy of "This is" or "Crazy World" then you have been criminally negligent.
Only attend a concert if you wish all other performances to seem bland by comparison.

Jules is meant to be bent not broken

2006-07-05T23:03:00.000+01:00

When I first started blogging, I made myself make several promises. (1) Never even under pain of death or prospect of marriage arrange to meet with a fellow blogger (2)Don't blog about work (3) Don't blog about Tony (4)Don't blog about music, art or literature.

There seemed very good reasons for these 'rules'. (Sorry Kaz, I know I said that there should be no rules in Blogosphere!) Firstly, I've encountered some very strange people in my life and several of them have told me that I let out a lot of myself in email. I have had several good reasons to be very worried and mightily relieved. Secondly, I might end up breaching some obscure work policy document, leak some "price-sensitive" information, get severely reprimanded and lose my job. Thirdly, when it comes to (the then) domestic bliss, one shouldn't tempt fate. Fourthly, while you know what you like, Paige, when it comes to music, literature or art, you'll never be asked to guest on 'The View'. (Recognising the limits to ones intellectual capacity is an important and life-affirming realisation!).

Now that I've lost the job and acquired an Ex-, I find myself compelled to enter the realm of the music critic. Now I don't want to end up like one of those smug Irish Times critics who feted The Thrills until people started to notice them and then began to be very critical. BTW, this seems to be a common problem with the otherwise excellent newspaper coverage. (Note to 'The Ticket' crew : Sometimes you can try too hard to be cool.)

It has come to my attention that there is someone in this God-created planet who has not heard about Aslan. The Blankpaige will endeavour to rectify this forth with.

But in the meantime, would any of you Bloggers like to go for a drink?
Paige

(P.S. The post title has just come to me. I think that this might be the first inspirational line in my new novella about a young Spanish student and would-be poet who comes to Dublin to learn English. Away from the bosom of his loving family, Jules falls in with a mean-spirited cabal who are an unruly and disruptive influence. In addition to stealing all his life savings, this gang forces Jules to embark on a journey of self discovery in which our hero confronts his sexuality. After a series of painful although at times hilarious (in the Fiona Looney sense of the word) misunderstandings, Jules flees back to the small farm on the outskirts of Santiago de Compostella (as you can see the scenario has been extensively researched). As he surveys what remains of his savings, he realises that he is gay and that Dublin is awash with thieving charlatans. While completely at ease with his newly discovered sexuality, Jules hasn't enough funds to publish his poetry collection. Grimly he concludes that Jules is meant to be bent not broken.

(Note to would-be publishers. I have stopped opening letters of offer that contain advances of less than $20,000.)

(Note to RTE. I will not sell the story rights to a production company that has any association with Miriam O'Callaghan and unless Cillian Murphy is cast as Jules.)

I wonder did Joyce or Beckett have the same problem as me - i.e. that they couldn't really type and instead of correcting Jules as Rules concocted a whole novella to explain away what a backspace would have avoided?

Oh Captain, My Captain!

2006-07-03T15:52:00.000+01:00

The blankpaige is indebted to Tommy and Andy who supplied invaluable technical information for this post.

The recent exit by the English football team from the World Cup has come with its customary pantomime. Wayward lads going a bit wayward, reliable heads becoming reckless, master strategists losing the plot, strange tactical decisions, star player gets injured … oh, and a few missed penalties. I have spent long enough in England to know that they have a God-given right to win the World Cup and it is only the evil forces of Beelzebub, the ‘Argies’ and those satanic men in black that thwart their natural progress. So this competition was, it seems true to form.

However what has caught my attention though is the pernicious and vitriolic attacks on their erstwhile Captain, David Beckham. It seems to me (who knows little enough about soccer)(but has been confirmed by Tommo & Andy) that David Beckham has consistently delivered for his country. He has more or less single-handedly been responsible for England’s qualification to the last three major competitions. He has never been considered to be technically gifted but is recognised as a hard-working honest grafter. (Although this lack of technique didn’t prevent widespread adoration during qualifying matches where he has consistently played a pivotal role.) His particular technical skill has been his curling free-kick shots on goal during set-pieces which I am advised takes a lot of skill to execute. He is recognised as no longer having the stamina to run back and forth and in recent years he has been played on the wing to exploit his normally pin-point precision with crosses.

Beckham has had a rollercoaster career with England that has seen him go from mass adulation to naked hostility and back in a very short space of time. It is recognised that he takes his role as Captain incredibly seriously and has elevated this position through the respect he commands among his fellow professionals. Like other players he has gone through periods of loss of form but came into these Championships having completed his most successful season with Real Madrid. Although a midfield player, that he went through 15 games without scoring it seems is a particular issue. (Anybody know what short of fallow period did our best strikers endured?)

It seems that the English media take particular issue with him for his lack of a degree in English Literature, from his East End London accent and his marriage to a less than talented pop star. He certainly has enjoyed and cultivated the celebrity lifestyle but I don’t see the same vilification of his team mates, many of whom also enjoy the lifestyle. I wonder if the vicious attacks have more to do with a sort of ‘metrophobia’ than with a rigorous analysis of his contribution to English football fortunes.

Beckham certainly doesn’t fit the “man’s man” model of football Captain in the Bryan Robson mould. Beckham gets his hair, nails and skin regularly styled, shaped and stained. He has been seen wearing skirts. (Although, Tommy suggests that no-one accused Graeme Souness of being a bit effeminate when he got his perm and wore a kilt?) And what’s wrong with your team captain being sensitive?

It is said that David is something of a Gay icon. Of course, I’ve never heard any of my gay friends say so. So this might just be another one of those homophobic verbal attacks that says more about the accusers lack of comfort with their own sexuality.

This week, Beckham has seen his own personal dream crash and burn. He has seen his countries dreams of World Cup destiny fall asunder. He has suffered a significant injury at a time in his career when he could well afford not to be injured.

Yet he has recognised that one of the youngest members of the squad is likely to face the same treatment that he faced after his infamous and petulant kick out at an Argentinean opponent. So what does he do? He comes out bravely and honestly and faces the media. He resigns as captain describing his disappointment and expressing his hope to continue playing for England. This provides the incoming manager with the ability to drop him if he deems fit. He takes the spotlight of Rooney, Eriksson and his fellow team mates.

I’ve only a passing awareness of the subtleties of football and I hope that my fears of homophobia in football are unfounded. But I have been very impressed with the honest endeavour and dignity that Beckham has brought to a team that aren’t know for either. And I do know that I would be extremely proud to have someone of David’s calibre as captain of my country.

Ella and My ex-Fella

2006-06-29T14:32:00.000+01:00

I love my iPod. And I love the woman who invented the whole 'random' thing*.

This morning as I trudged wearily into work, my iPod gave me a lovely Nina Simone / Christy Dignam / Ella Fitzgerald musical sandwich. It made my heart soar.

So much so that it didn't hurt me that much that the only reason Christy was on my iPod was because my ex- had burned the cd to my hard disc. He burned a lot more things to a lot more painful places than my hard disk, but that's a whole different story.

And I thought the Son of Finglas held his own quite nicely in such lofty company. What's more, he even spoke to me in a way that previously only Ella or Nina might have done. Well actually he seemed to speak for my ex- as he intoned "you really fucked up this head of mine, what's in your heart is just a waste of time..." If only he'd said just that instead of 'why don't we just have a break'.

Today, my heart soars when previously it was just sore. Thanks Ella, Nina, Christy, those cute Apple geeks and the lass who invented the whole shuffle thing!

Paige

*I know it must have been a woman 'cos men are such creatures of (bad) habits.

Power Drive

2006-06-22T18:55:00.000+01:00

Blogging is pointless piffle. Blogging is for people who wish they were writers or journalists but who have neither the talent nor discipline to be either. Bloggers write about puff stuff – meaningless gibberish and selfish introspection. They blog about how they blog. They blog about how they have nothing to blog about. They create pointless games (memes) to stimulate others to read their blog. They recycle other people’s stories and jokes. They add no value to anyone’s life and represent nothing more than electronic noise or inefficiently transcribed viruses. Bloggers can’t spell, construct good grammar or move the reader.

Coimisiún na Scrúduithe Stáit
Bloggiachtá
Answer only one of these questions

(a) Discuss the above in the style of a blogger. This will have the advantage that you will have something to blog about. Demonstrate with reference to blogs what you once read how your blog is so much more important. (35 marks)

(b) I’m constantly struck by the number of profound and moving blog posts. I’m humbled by the honesty, integrity, humanity, and vulnerability of so many bloggers. I’d love if we could gather in a single site, those articles which the blog community found to be moving and powerful. Only those that were truly moving - not the humorous or politically adept stuff. It would be a great repository for a casual visitor to Blogosphere to see that some Irish bloggers hit a very high standard, that blogging can have an impact and why so many of us are inspired to try to emulate these. (590 marks)

Blue Chip Allstars

2006-06-19T16:20:00.000+01:00

Several years ago, I worked for an English blue chip company. There are many things that differentiate a blue chip company from an ordinary company. One of those is that the blue chip company makes a great play about how important its staff is to its continued success. Blue chip companies tend to be large in terms of numbers of staff and so establish exponentially increasing personnel departments. Only they call them Human Resources. The HR department produces copious policy documents and usually produces a glossy looking employee handbook that tells its staff about the joys of working there – just in case it wasn’t immediately apparent. Being a blue chip company employee, the sky is the limit. “We’ll only succeed if you succeed”, is generally the line pitched up.

In blue chip companies, most HR departments report into a Finance Director/Vice President who also has responsibility for building & estate management, IT and Audit functions. As a result, everything that is in the Employee Handbook is costed in the same manner as the decision to paint the canteen or install a new information management system. The perception is that staff developing is just another necessary evil the cost of which has to be managed.

I decided to engage with the “Find your own path” initiative that my blue chip company HR department was keen to promote. I scheduled an appointment with my personnel manager to discuss career options. A nicer, more personable individual, I could not have wished to meet and if truth were told, if I met him today, I’d probably be weighing him up as life partner potential. He was tall, lean and athletic and he had a mop of curly fair hair that seemed to be all his own. He dutifully explained how important I was to the continued success of the company. It was because of people like me, apparently, that the company had been successful.

Using all the HR best practices, he asked open, probing and reflective questions. We agreed to continue this exploration of my career paths over the course of several meetings. I noticed how we began each meeting with him holding a blank refill pad. He took copious notes and interrupted our discussions several times to “mmm” contemplatively and nod enthusiastically. Sometimes he even mmmed, nodded and note-took at the same time, which convinced me that perhaps men can afterall multitask. I noticed that he used a pencil which I thought then was quite old fashioned. I also observed the care and attention that he gave to his note taking. He occasionally erased a word and inserted a more carefully chosen phrase or expression. He finished each session with a recap of what we’d said and highlighted certain “critical actions” with a symbol that looked like an obscure musical notation. We closed each session with a scheduling of the next meeting date.

I know that on several occasions, I left these consultations with the same uplifting feeling that I had experienced as a child after my grievous and numerous sins had been absolved in confessions. I was comforted that this massive blue chip company cared enough about my career to assign a personnel manager to pathfind with me. One day, I left the HR consultation suites – you see this company recognised the value of it’s staff so well that it had designed consultation areas into the building – and realise that we had not scheduled a follow-up meeting. So I turned on my heel and went straight back into the HR manager’s office.

I watch the HR manager screw up the carefully prepared aide memoir of our conversation into a ball and pitch it across his office to the wastepaper basket in the far corner. He pumped his forearm in a Tiger Woods-esque clench and exclaimed “Yeeesss! Go on you good thing!”

It probably doesn’t say this in the HR Manager Handbook but it really should. Basketball slam dunk practice sessions are not advisable immediate after pathfinding staff appraisal interviews. If such activities must be scheduled in close proximity, it is advisable to at least close your office door, least anyone mistake this important results-focused physical activity as a commentary on the value of the Staff Pathfinder Programme.

Rules of Engagement

2006-06-16T13:52:00.000+01:00

The much admired Fiona of Mental Meanderings fame has posted a nice topic for discussion.
She develops an interesting article on "breaking the rules" in the context of international relations. I'm a firm believer that all external relationships begin with your own "relationship with oneself", so with that in mind (and because she starred at a blank page (blankpaige?) for 1/2 an hour, I thought I'd add my tuppence worth......

Fiona says.....
I’ve spent the last half hour staring at a blank page and thinking about what I should write. There are so many things playing on my mind at the moment – world cup politics, Charles Haughey, Big Brother, an historic parades agreement in Northern Ireland but still the page remained blank because what I really want to talk about is this: why have we decided that rules are made to be broken? The theme, of course, runs through all of those issues – world cup referees are being extra-vigilant for unsporting behaviour, Charlie was a rule breaking rogue who many secretly loved in typical ‘fair play you boy’ Irish style, the Big Brother house is full of more back stabbing, bitching, rule breaking vindictiveness than the Dáil bar and does anyone really believe that all the rules historically made in Northern Ireland will ever be adhered to? The culture of rule breaking is one thing when it comes to individuals or (relatively) small-time rule breaking of this nature. The thing that worries me is how rule breaking is becoming a pervasive pattern in international relations.

Lovely post Fiona. And if i can take it back to your original point about why we think that rules are there to be broken. I'm a great woman for the sweeping generalisation. So with that warning in mind, I believe that our national psyche is to disrespect and subvert rules where possible.

We love a rogue (CJ), we want to beat the system (e.g. filling coin operated machines in Germany with Irish shrapnel many years ago) and we hate being constrained. Maybe its for historical reasons, maybe its a sign of our immaturity as a nation.

Whatever the reason, we generally don't value order and certainty. we laugh at people who queue, we invent Irish solutions to Irish problems and appreciate those other nations who are spontaneous like us. We allow isuses to become "business critical" before we act. DIRT, Statutory rape, Speeding......

Interestingly, you wouldn't expect such a nation such as ours to compose a constitution. Our rule-obsessed neighbours don't have a written constitution and so constantly re-appraise their position on many items.

But perhaps as we mature we realise the value and limit of value that rules provide. We are a nation that believes paedophilia is morally wrong but can't impeach our judge save on some technicality. Today, a District Judge can dismiss serious drink driving cases on the basis of a strict interpretation of rules.

Maybe the issue is one of what do we want rules to be - General guiding principles or rigid absolutes?
Paige

He is gone

2006-06-16T00:25:00.000+01:00

We'll never see his like again. A controversial statesman is gone. A man who tore the country in two. One half loved him ; The other loathed him. He embodied everything that is characteristically Irish – for good and for bad. Brilliant potential, not always delivered. Born of humble stock, he was an enigma. Even his place of birth is disputed. A Dub who came from the West.

A republican in the old style tradition, he saw himself as a monarch. Staunchly conservative yet strangely liberal. He established the status of Irish woman in our constitution. He stood up against our bully neighbour. His stance and stature so unmistakable. A man of the people, he was aloof and distant. His anger was legendary. He suffered for his support of the armed struggle. The most gifted and able of his party left him to set up a rival political force. He lived too long for history to judge him kindly.

And why should it, for he stole for us with impunity. He stole our trust and then he stole our money. He led his people to believe that he was working for the public good when all the while he was feathering his own nest. A man of culture, we peasants couldn’t expect to understand his class.

But that’s enough about de Valera, today our focus is on Charles J Haughey. I wonder how he compares.

I'm not a failure

2006-06-16T00:14:00.000+01:00

Failing to win does not equal failure!

Paige A Harrison

I can't decide if he is being ironic. It's hard to know with JL. But one thing is certain. If I get quoted by Fence and then Fence syndicates his quotes, then I might just end up in an anthology of motivational phrases along side Dorothy Parker, Oscar Wilde and Anthony Burgess. (Please God, don't let it be a Brentism)

Its all in the Name

2006-06-14T10:06:00.000+01:00

Travelling on the 46A this morning along the Stillorgan dual carriageway, I noticed a convoy of Outside Broadcast trucks heading no doubt to a Northside Dublin mortuary church. The livery on one series of vehicles - the catering support trucks - caught my eye. It wasn't because of my rumbling tummy, I swear!

This company Observe (or in actual fact OB SERVE) was described as Outside Broadcast Support.

This is probably one of the cleverist company names that I've seen in a while and so it deserves a shout out. Any others catch your eye?
Paige

Gobsmacked

2006-06-09T12:57:00.000+01:00

For a boy in a small rural town in the west of Ireland, going "up town" is as important a part of the Community School curriculum as is metalwork, geography and english. That this particular school perched impressively high above the town didn't make much difference. The local boys still went "up town" at lunchtime for the craic and some devilment. The boarders were confined to barracks for the lunch from hell.

Some of the local lads had parent-prepared packed lunches which they'd try to sell to the always ravenous boarders. But this was an uncertain economy. A lad could get stung with a bag full of Flaherty’s pan loaf and a Dunne Stores pack of easi-singles cheese if a competitor arrived in with his Auntie Mary’s cheesecake. All it took was a particularly large wake in recent days, to see whole sides of ham and chocolate biscuits become the plat du jour. I’m sorry for your troubles and all that but any chance you’d have a few smokes?

One particularly entrepreneurial guy knew that he’d have to diversify his product offering. He’d need to become the middleman in a lucrative transaction and shift the stock-holding risk onto some local shopkeeper. Manage his working capital better. It is no coincidence that Finian O’Rourke was son of the local auctioneer.

Dolan’s Sweet shop in the town was one of the old style. Lots of jars of boiled sweets carefully dispensed by Eagle-eyed Eddie Dolan. Eddie had no need for any of that CCTV or magic mirrors nonsense. No-one shoplifted in Eddie’s no matter how the local kids tried to distract him.

Finian had noticed the colourful supply of gobstoppers and immediately saw the commercial potential. Priced at €1.25 per quarter, he could resell these large but not too heavy sweets at 20 cent each and make close on 400% profit. And so the trade began. Finian started small for he was a cautious business man and everyone knew that it wasn’t a smart move to advertise too loudly for fear of attracting new entrants into the market. He requested 10 such gobstoppers which Eagle-eyed Eddie carefully counted out and bagged. They went down a treat with the lads. The next day the order was for 20. The day after that, and despite the death of Angie McBride’s elderly uncle, he was able to shift 30 units.

By the following Monday, Finian had graduated to a whole quarter. An easier fiver he’d never made. By the end of the next week he was shifting two full quarters. This surge in sales did raise a minor supplier/trader dispute as Finian didn’t trust the ½ lb weight on Eddie’s antiquated scales. It seemed to be lighter than the 2 quarter weights which both men eventually agreed to use. Finian diversified into other sweets (cola bottles, candy teeth and oyster shells) but he knew that gobstoppers were where his biggest profit margin was.

It was all going swimmingly until Eagle-eyed Eddie noticed that the next Bill Cullen wanted his goods dispensed into a series of small bags. By now, Finian had struck up a partnership with his cousin Alice who still attended the National School. It would seem that there was no end to the disposable income of the pre-teen scholars.

When Eddie hiked the price of gobstoppers citing market forces, the bottom fell out of Finian’s sweet trade. Finian had been selling below cost to the Fifth year boarders in the hope that he’d get first refusal on a Robbie Williams ticket. He was now financially exposed. 100’s of children addicted to these sugary delights had to revert to Calvita slices and wholegrain bread and were none too happy. And it took Eddie a whole year to shift the bulk order than he had bought.

Which just goes to show you that even in a perfect economy, there is always some greedy bastard who’ll ruin it for everyone.

Story courtesy of my brilliant cousin Andy. I encourage him to use this anecdote in his forthcoming junior cert exam.

Men, huh!

2006-06-08T20:16:00.000+01:00

Apart from being able to multitask, walk in high heels and wear clothes made by a contortionist, weomen are more sensitive & perceptive and less self-centred & impulsive than our male counterparts. That's the accepted wisdom.

The more sensitive and perceptive of my blog readers have detected that Blankpaige hasn't been herself for a few weeks. But then I have tended to let it show of late. I've found blogging a brilliant release. The sort of joy, I used to get from confessions before I realise that Fr Morrison had a serious drink problem. (I don't hold myself responsible for this, I hasten to add!) And I'm sorry if I've been dumping on Blogosphere. It's just that, unlike my real life girlfriends, you are such a good listener.

My pals and I pride ourselves in our feminine intuition and we believe that we know when each other are in trouble even before we do. Perhaps it's because I've blogged it out of my system, but none of my close friends have spotted Blankpaige's emotional meltdown.

However a big hug is due to the three fabulous male bloggers who recently took the time to sent me an email with a few words of encouragement. And to my sweetest cousin, Andy, who despite facing into his junior cert, took the time to give his big cousin a really big hug and made me laugh a lot. Some young one is going to land on her feet when she lands him.

Gentlemen, your perceptiveness and sensitivity does you and your gender credit. Might I suggest you take the rest of June off and enjoy the World Cup. You guys deserve it!

Paige

Gotcha!

2006-06-07T09:30:00.000+01:00

I’ve tried to introduce a policy of composing a post, leaving it to cook for a couple of days and then re-editing it before it is published. This policy goes against my natural tendency to blurt everything out but it has stopped me from looking even dafter than I usually do. The down side is, of course, that events move on and you get scooped by another brilliant post by a fellow blogger. But I suppose a good idea is still a good idea even if I wasn’t the first to articulate it! I wrote a masterful piece a few days ago. Then I read two of Thatgirl's posts (one here on our Anti-intellectual Society and one here that includes an article by John Waters). It seems they said everything I wanted to say, and more. And they did it with some style. So I've been forced to can my carefully crafted post and blurt out the following....

The events of last week – Statutory Rape, Rattlebag/Mystery Train, Partnership Talks and Wayne Rooney’s Metatarsal – all seem strangely connected.

Now that the furore has died down and Mr A is back in jail, perhaps it is time to reflect. Did we seriously expect any of our politicians to put their head above the parapet and introduce six months ago new improved statutory rape legislation? Had someone been brave enough, would we have ever re-elected him/her? Would the opposition parties have done anything other than accuse the Govt of being on the side of child rapists? So, paralysed by fear of public reaction, our politicians quite reasonably did nothing – until they had to.
We’ve lost an unconstitutional law and replaced it with ‘emergency’ legislation that is (a) unconstitutional (b) contrary to most human rights conventions and (c) discriminates on the basis of gender. The Public gets what the public wants.

Ana Leddy sent an unmistakable message to any brave broadcaster or producer within RTE. Edgy and different is wrong, give the smucks what the smucks want. More rabble rousing rubbish (Liveline), less informed, intelligent arts & culture (Rattlebag). More safe playlist tosh (almost all RTE music save Lyric FM), less innovative and different music (Mystery Train). The Public gets what the public wants.

Another day, another partnership epic. Having spent the past 10 years in cahoots, the social partners were never going to do anything but agree a new programme. The only thing that remained to be decided was the colour of the glossy briefing brochure and the tagline name by which this agreement would be known. But the public demand rigorous debate and delicate negotiations. It just wouldn’t look right if the negotiations were concluded in 10 minutes over a coffee in Café Java. No we want brinkmanship and through the night negotiations. The Public gets what the public wants.

A footballer from a foreign country might miss the World Cup due to an injury sustained during a football match. Is this really newsworthy? I know nothing about football but know that injuries happen. At least 20 other players have suffered similar fates. However, our newspapers, radio and feel compelled to show us reruns of the ‘incident’, breaking news reports on the lack of deviation from a well established recuperation process, colour pieces on the wider societal impacts and details of how it affects our neighbour’s chances of winning the competition. Who cares? Clearly the Public gets what the public wants.

Do we want our society to enact laws because there is a ragtag rabble crew brandishing white flowers outside of Dail Eireann under the command of General Joe Duffy and not because it is the right thing to do? Are we happy that as a society, we want to punish child rapists and then hound them for the rest of their days in a show of extreme public vengeance? Do both the simplest and the complex issues of the day have to be reduced to a catchy tabloid headline before we will engage with it? Does the lowest common denominator have to set the bar for our aspirations? Are we really happy with the fact that we sleep deprive IBEC and ICTU delegates for several days before they make the biggest economic decision for the next 3 years? But more importantly let’s talk about Wayne’s foot…..

Important Research Project

2006-06-02T08:36:00.000+01:00

I'm planning to apply to the Health Research Board for funding to conduct a study into increased levels of amnesia among elected politicians. It seems that this group may be prone to all sorts of neurological dysfunction and may be more susceptible to 'Transient Alzheimer-like Episodes' (TEA) than are the general public.

Obviously I'll explore the possible causes for such a malady, the extent of the problem and if it is contagious. Clearly if a TD has TEA then he may also suffer from an apparent lack of control over his own law-making (ALCOHOL). It is bad enough if our politicians have TEA and ALCOHOL problems? But what if they suffer from SEX addiction (Stirs up Extreme Xenophobia). Or COCAINE or ENVELOPE syndromes. (I'll leave you to work out what the latter illnesses are!)

All I need is access to the patient subject group (any TD's willing to submit to a rigorous clinical assessment?) and a few doctors to conduct the rigorous assessment.

Paige

She's back!!!

2006-06-01T00:14:00.000+01:00

Attention all bloggers.

She's back!

I want, I want, I want!

2006-05-31T23:57:00.000+01:00

I want my Gardaí to be managed and resourced such that they maintain public confidence and have the best possible detection rates. I want my Director of Public Prosecutions to be vigorous in the conviction of those who transgress our laws such that we maintain respect for the rule of law. I want my politicians to be bold and courageous as they frame new and reform existing legislation. I want my Attorney General to be the best possible lawyer for the state and remember that he/she serves the Irish people.

Do I want too much? The current shameful statutory rape debacle seems to suggest so.

It appears that only a small percentage of those who are raped ever report the crime. Of that percentage, sufficient evidence is gathered in only a small number of cases. Of those cases that are investigated, charges are preferred in only a small number of cases. Of those cases for which evidence is gathered, the DPP proceeds with a criminal prosecution in only a small number of cases. Of those brought to court, only a small percentage result in a conviction. Of those that are convicted, a fraction serve time in jail. Of those jailed, only a fraction serve a full sentence.

We wonder why there is so much rape and so little respect for human dignity.

It is customary in our country to blame the guards for everything from why we speed to why we take drugs. Despite not resourcing them or taking any interest in how they are managed we expect them to be the best police force in the world – oh, and if it isn’t too much trouble if when you catch Uncle Joe the County Councillor drink driving, could you please send him home with a warning rather than arresting him for attempted manslaughter? In current Statutory Rape fiasco, we can exonerate the boys in blue. Indeed I’d suggest that these fine men and women must be driven spare by a criminal justice system that makes such a mockery of serious crime.

Our Director of Public Prosecutions has no role in deciding what laws are framed. So it is unreasonable to blame him for the bad law that was left on our statute books or for the supreme court decision that has released child rapist(s). It does seem reasonable to hold him in part accountable for the failure to vigorously pursue criminal convictions.

The supreme court, the high court, Justice Mary Laffoy and the Law Reform Commission have illuminated both the underlying problem and the obvious consequences for antiquated laws. There is no point in blaming any of them. The Minister for Justice and the Attorney General however should have no hiding place however. This is their job. Ignorance of the law is no defence.

Had Michael McDowell been a hotelier from Donegal, a school teacher from Limerick or a bookmaker from Wexford thrust into the challenging role of Minister for Justice, Equality & Law Reform, he would have had just reason to plead that he didn’t realise the seriousness of the situation. The fact that he is a barrister by training and profession, a former Attorney General and an enthusiastic holder of the Justice portfolio magnifies his culpability. That he changes the Constitution with the same frequency as you or I would change our underwear, demonstrates he has the capability to respond. That he failed to act and continues to prevaricate is a sad indictment of his competence to hold his portfolio. As a father and a human being how could he not be enraged and motivated to act.

Many years ago Irish society decided that we should protect our children by outlawing sex. In our adversarial legal system, it protected the victims from further terror by legislating that they were incapable of giving consent to sex.

Our children have a right not to be sodomised by adults. They’ve a right to protection by our under the law. They have a right to expect that if society fails to protect them, they at least shouldn’t have to suffer further ordeal in our court rooms. Is this too much to expect?