Lá Fhéile Phádraig.

Dodgy dealings….

Spotted in the local euro/poundshop today – not the most thought out of brand names – though in fairness, even the biggest corporations get it wrong sometimes – e.g. Disney’s ‘Epic Mickey’ for the Wii…….

How well represented are we?!

To quote Enda Kenny on the latest government reshuffle (and remember he’s trying to destabilize or discredit the government) “The latest cabinet reshuffle is like putting firelighters on a fire that’s already gone out”. Now Enda, just a quick question – why would you put firelighters on a fire that’s lit? Idiot. You put firelighters on a fire to light it so adding them to a fire that has gone out is a good thing. Well done Enda on complimenting the government. Proof positive we have no real alternative to the self serving inarticulate bumblers that are in place at the moment. What’s also quite funny is that the media haven’t picked up on Enda’s error and are playing the soundbite left right and centre as if it’s a great statement – evidence of their inability to analyse the stories they report…. While I’m on a rant – events at the passport office are hitting the headlines today with civil/public servants being yet again criticized. Apparently the civil & public service do nothing – yet when they work to rule (i.e. just do the job they are paid to do and nothing else) chaos ensues – demonstrating the importance of the services they provide and also displaying how existing flexibility in their modus operandi enables the public/civil service to function correctly despite staff shortages and recruitment moratoria. Hopefully the public will get this message and start to pressurize their local representatives and the government as a whole into formulating a real, intelligent solution to the problems the country faces.

Most cruel toy of them all?

Pictured is the VTech “Crawl and Learn Bright Lights” ball… It’s quite a fascinating thing for babies to see – it sings, it flashes, it has little tags and is bright and vibrant. Where it gets cruel is that it rolls around the floor – so basically, after attracting the child’s attention, as they reach for it it whizzes of in a different direction. Apparently this encourages them to learn how to move/crawl, but seriously it’s such a mean way of doing things! After putting in all the effort of rolling over to look at it, it rolls away just out of reach… I can see bad things happening to this ball in the future as the child it torments takes revenge…

Irish Times does it again!

From the front page headlines on the Irish Times website this morning:

“Ballymun tore expects 1,000 shoppers an hour after it begins trading from 11am.”

Surely they mean ‘store’?

Update:

We’re getting mileage out of this story – latest gaff by the Irish Times on their website:

“The Republic’s first Ikea store opened in Ballymun today with a traditional log-cutting ceremony outide the main door door.”

Door door?

Nice work by the Irish Times

From the front page of the Irish Times website, a nice picture – accompanied by the headline “A line of pilgrims on the final accent on Croagh Patrick in Co. Mayo”

That’s right – ‘accent’ not ‘ascent’ but ‘accent’.

FFS!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Proof again of the quality of editing and standard of reporting that our national daily newspapers aspire to.

Oh and can someone please explain to the Irish Independent what a fada is and how to insert it?

The new boss.

Something wrong with this picture?!

See anything wrong with this picture? They managed to do two before being stopped…

Spotted on my travels…….

 

Spotted on my travels recently (in Bristol airport to be precise).

What are you supposed to do? Demolish the door then wait for help? Yet another example of the falling standards of global education… mind you this was from the country whose society has collapsed so far as to allow 13 year old boys to father children.. Nice.

Alas, on my return home however, I was greeted with similar grammatical errors:

 

 

Ah yes, the classical ‘your/you’re’ mix up… at least I suppose we can claim it is a second or foreign language to our Old-Ireland wired brains?

Have some pride people!

Would you trust this man?

Would you trust what this man has to say?

Looking somewhat like the lovechild of Mr Magoo and Mr Magika, I’m afraid he doesn’t inspire much confidence.
Who is he? His name is Dermot Ryan and he’s a senior inspector in the Department of Agriculture who informed us recently that the type of oil used in animal feed processing here has resulted in Dioxin/PCB contamination of the feed and the animals fed it.
In some ways the government is to be commended for their swift action in relation to this incident however the ill-informed manner in which they went about it is certainly not.

Given the collapse of the pork processing industry as a result of the ban, it is interesting to note how the same contaminants that are in pork products are not harmful in beef products and therefore beef will not be removed from sale despite certain beef products failing to meet the required standards.

The EU has carried out its own testing no and has advised that pork products from this country are safe to eat, thereby casting doubt on the initial reaction by the authorities here. Although no doubt in the wake of the Belgian Dioxin/PCB scandal of a few years ago they were ‘acting in the National Interest’

What I find interesting is that had this contamination occurred back in 2005, it is highly probable nothing would have been done or said about it – the EU legislation in relation to Dioxin/PCB content (Commission Regulation No. 1881/2006) was, as its name suggests only passed in 2006 and so there was no control on the contaminants up to that time.
Again, perhaps the government is to be commended for enforcing the regulations in a relatively quick manner, however again it has been done haphazardly as we don’t have the relevant testing facilities available to detect Dioxins/PCBs in foodstuffs.

As a result of this, I find it hard to accept what the ‘Experts’ say when they tell us the food is safe and that is only a risk after prolonged exposure – I put it to them that we have already been exposed in a prolonged manner given that there was no regulation prior to 2006 and as Dioxins/PCBs accumulate in body fat over time it would seem highly likely that the population have all been exposed to high levels. Has anybody though of testing a sample of the populace to find out if this is the case? Typically no.

All we can currently do is sit back and get some entertainment watching the government squirm as they try to backtrack/weasel their way out of yet another fine mess that they’ve gotten themselves into.

Whilst the government is to be somewhat commended for it’s response (a week late due to our inadequate testing facilites) it is yet again frustrating to be dealing with another uninspiring ham-fisted response.

For more details on Dioxins/PCBS, the following links may be of use:

http://www.fsai.ie/publications/info_notes/pcbs_dioxins_2008.pdf

http://europa.eu.int/comm/food/fs/sc/scf/out90_en.pdf

http://www.inchem.org/documents/jecfa/jecmono/v48je20.htm