There has been so much written in Irish blogs about drivers that it might seem superfluous to add anything more. But as a newly-installed resident of Laois, I feel that I should write something. Not about Laois drivers, I should stress, but those from Offaly.

Here's a short guide on how to drive in Offaly, particularly of you want to pass yourself off as a native Offalian:

- The recommended distance you should leave between yourself and the car in front should be no more than five metres, particularly on any of the backroads between the N6 and Tullamore.

- Headlights should only be dipped when you come within twenty metres of an oncoming vehicle. When you are behind a vehicle in darkness, lights should only be dipped when you have reached the recommended five metres behind the vehicle in front.

- The footpath in villages and towns is for parking on. Prams and wheelchairs don't have tax discs, do they?

- If you are male and under the age of 25, your vehicle must have at least three of these features:
a huge spoiler on the back
go-faster stripes
a reg-plate dating from 1991-1994
tinted windows
under-chassis lighting
holes bored in the silencer
the red "L" from an L-plate, with all the white border removed

- If you are male and over 25, the recommended vehicle is a Toyota Land Cruiser.

- You may park anywhere at any time, as long as you leave your hazards on.

- Should you find yourself outside of the confines of Co Offaly and on a motorway, you should drive in the outside lane only, unless of course you are a woman, in which case you should drive in the inside lane.

- You do not need to indicate if you are making a left turn, particularly if a vehicle is waiting to emerge from the road into which you are turning.

- On roundabouts, you do not have to indicate a right turn.

- Traffic lights:
Green: Go
Amber: Go faster
Red: Stop, but if they have only just gone red, floor it.

- One-way systems in car-parks don't count.

Signing off for the festive season, I'd like to wish all visitors to this site a very Happy Christmas.

And Aoife would like to wish you a Happy Christmas too:

Someone's getting into the festive spirit:

These houses are not far from us in Portarlington, and invite those who come and view them to leave a donation for Laois Hospice.

For the last month or six weeks, radio playlists have become drearily formulaic. Go into any shopping centre and you can guess what music will be playing before you set foot in the place.

OK, I admit that I'm probably a teensy bit more cynical about Christmas than most, but by Jesus, I frigging hate Christmas music. Every year, it's the same ould shite that gets dusted off and wheeled out. The greatest offenders:

Merry Christmas Everybody - Slade

I Wish It Could Be Christmas Everyday - Wizzard (especially the tuneless chorus sung by the kids)

Stop The Cavalry - Jonah Lewie

Wonderful Christmastime - Paul McCartney. (Jeeezus, this guy wrote Let It Be, one of the greatest songs of all time.)

Fairytale of New York - The Pogues & Kirsty McColl (I used to like this song, and it's on one of my favourite albums of all time. but I have heard it too many times by now.)

Do They Know It's Christmas - Band Aid (Yes, they probably do, if only for the fact that this dirge is played incessantly on the radio.)

Last Christmas - Wham


Thanks be to jeebus they'll soon be back in the archive where they belong.

Being the besotted first-time parents that we are, my wife and I dressed the wee one up in a little Christmas outfit, took a blast of photos of her, and then used one of them to make a Christmas card. (Whether we will keep this level of activity up for any further offspring is a subject of debate among my siblings. My elder sister, herself a mother of three, drew my attention to a poem by Ogden Nash: First Child…Second Child.)

Anyway, this is from that photoshoot, when Aoife decided that sucking her thumb was more rewarding than having her photo taken.

One of the earliest entries on my old blog was about Newgrange, written this day two years ago. As today was the winter solstice, you might like to have a read of it again.

There was some welcome news for Mac fans of in Galway recently, with the opening of a new shop specialising in Apple products.

3G, one of the big players in the retail mobile phone market, is also an Authorised Apple Reseller, and it is they who have opened the new store in the Eyre Square Centre in the city centre.

I was in Galway today and nipped in for a quick look. I was impressed, with a good array of hardware on display, and enthusiastic staff who seemed to know what they were talking about. One assistant I spoke to said that the Macs "were selling themselves."

Hopefully if this outlet is a success, 3G will develop the concept further.

A man who plays piano with his balls...

Thankfully, not in the sense that one might have in mind.

I have been doing a lot of driving recently, as is the case every December. In the last month or so, I have been to almost every extremity of the country, travelling on motorways, N roads, R roads and letterless roads.

The one thing I find really frustrating about driving around Ireland (apart from the shit roads) is the general shittiness of road signage. For example:

- Following signs for a place through several crossroads, junctions, etc., only to get to a T-junction with no sign. You obviously have to guess from that point on.
- Crawling around Tralee looking for the road to Limerick/Dublin, only to eventually discover that you are supposed to follow the signs for Killarney, the road for which branches off the main Limerick/Dublin road.
- Seeing a distance sign like the one at the cross in Ferns, which puts Enniscorthy at 18km away; and then seeing another one less than a km further on, which puts Enniscorthy at only 12km away.
- Falling victim to the rural sport of sign turning, where a sign is rotated 180 degrees on its post. Just for the craic, like.
- The continuing presence of distance signs in miles, at least 25 years after the decision was made to convert the whole lot to kilometres.
- Signs sited behind big trees, invisible in summer when the tree is in full leaf.
- Different spellings for the same placename.
- The N15 going north, which has several signs for Lifford, but hardly any for Letterkenny.
- Several signs mounted on the one post, all at the same level. The one you want to see is the most likely to be obscured by one in front.
- A mixture of official roadsigns, signs for tourist attractions, and even signs for private businesses sharing the same signpost.

I'd reckon this one here sums it all up:

I was scanning the headlines of the tabs in Centra on Sunday morning, and one in particular caught my eye. I think it was in The Star, and it said something like "Killer Will Go To Funeral", the jist of the story being that the killer of Marlo Hyland will be in the congregation of his funeral, to pay his respects to the man he dispatched to oblivion.

This got me thinking - how would a priest go about the funeral of a gangland killer? Anyone who believes in Heaven and Hell would surely expect that when a scumbag like Hyland steps on the celestial elevator, he's can only go in one direction - down. Every funeral I have ever been to has the priest commending the soul of the departed into the loving embrace of Himself Upstairs. How could a priest do that in the case of Hyland or someone like him, knowing that the person who used to inhabit the corpse in front of him was a murdering, thieving, drug-dealing, misery-spreading bastard?

Jim, a long-time Mac user and has just sent back his new Core 2 Duo MacBook Pro to Apple and asked for a refund.

It seems that the problems that Jim encountered were not just as a result of rotten luck on his part, but are being experienced by other users too. Hopefully Apple is working on a fix for the problems, as pissing off your most faithful customers is rarely a good business move.

Mind you, if this had happened to Tom, the displeasure might have been articulated in more trenchant terms…

BUPA's decision to pull out of the Irish market leaves the PDs, and Mary Harney in particular, with a lot of egg on their faces.

For a long time, the PDs have sold themselves as the champions of the free market, competition and deregulation. That a PD minister (and former leader of the party) could preside over the implementation of such an anti-competititve monstrosity as risk equalisation is a bad joke. That she should just shrug her shoulders when the main competitor to the VHI folds its tent and leaves, shreds her credibility completely.

So now we're back to a virtual VHI monopoly in the health insurance market. The third player in the market, Vivas, will probably pick up some of BUPA's ex-customers, but the likliheood is that most of them will go to the VHI. Like when Eircom pulled the plug on Smart Telecom, many of those who were left high and dry went back to the former state monopoly, just in case they got caught again. So it will be with those seeking a replacement for their BUPA cover.

This was badly handled from start to finish. Once the government accepted that the PHI market had to be opened up to competition, it should have prepared the VHI for privatisation. But what about all those elderly and infirm subscribers? Well, what the government could have done was to do an audit of the VHI on the day before BUPA opened its doors in Fermoy, and identified all those subscribers that would be seen as a burden on a privatised VHI. These could then have been put into a new, government-backed scheme, while the rest of the VHI could have been sent to market to seek its fortune as a private company, on an equal footing with its competitiors. If risk equalisation subsequently had to come in, then it could have been applied more fairly.

BUPA's decision to quit does not surprise me. I know someone who was doing some consultancy work for them when all of this was going on, and he told me that he had seen the books, and that BUPA simply could not afford to stay in a post-risk equalisation market. They weren't bluffing.

I reckon Mary Harney is a lousy poker player.

I'm not a cricket aficionado by any stretch of the imagination, but my wife is an avid follower. The third Ashes Test is on at the moment and England bowler Monty Panesar has been in devastating form.

I'm going to check the back page of The Sun in the morning, to see if their headline chimes with my suggestion.

I'm not normally one for wringing my hands and asking what's the world coming to and saying things are desperate, but the events of the last few days could drive even the most resolute to considering phoning Liveline.

How could anyone feel anything but desperate sorrow for the family of Anthony Campbell? His life ended by someone who probably felt as much emotion in killing Anthony as he would feel if he was crushing an insect. I have little sympathy for Marlo Hyland - live by the sword, die by the sword and all that. That's not to approve of his killing or anything like it, but he was largely the author of his own fate. Not so poor Anthony, who just happened to find himself in a depraved parallel world at the wrong time. I hope that the faith his mother holds will help her through this awful time.

Last Friday, Alan Cunniffe was shot as he tackled an armed raider at his family's post office in Kilkenny. He later died from the injury he sustained. I remember when I was manager of an off-licence in London, the advice from the security department of head office was that there were to be no heroics in the event of an armed robbery. As one of my colleagues of the time put it, if they ask for your underwear, you give it to them and thank them for taking it. But I'd imagine it's different if it's a family business, and the instinct is to try to foil the raid. Another family facing a very sorrowful Christmas.

Up to me oxters with work at the moment, so little time to blog. I have plenty of ideas, but when I finally get to sit at the Mac of an evening, I'm too knackered to gather my thoughts effectively.

One idea I had stemmed from the story that thousands of Irish people were going to New York and Boston to do their Christmas shopping. I thought a rewrite of the Pogues' classic song of emigration "Thousands Are Sailing" might be appropriate.

The original lyrics are as follows:

The island it is silent now
But the ghosts still haunt the waves
And the torch lights up a famished man
Who fortune could not save

Did you work upon the railroad
Did you rid the streets of crime
Were your dollars from the white house
Were they from the five and dime

Did the old songs taunt or cheer you
And did they still make you cry
Did you count the months and years
Or did your teardrops quickly dry

Ah, no, says he, 'twas not to be
On a coffin ship I came here
And I never even got so far
That they could change my name

Thousands are sailing
Across the western ocean
To a land of opportunity
That some of them will never see
Fortune prevailing
Across the western ocean
Their bellies full
Their spirits free
They'll break the chains of poverty
And they'll dance

In Manhattan's desert twilight
In the death of afternoon
We stepped hand in hand on Broadway
Like the first man on the moon

And "The Blackbird" broke the silence
As you whistled it so sweet
And in Brendan Behan's footsteps
I danced up and down the street

Then we said goodnight to Broadway
Giving it our best regards
Tipped our hats to Mister Cohan
Dear old Times Square's favorite bard

Then we raised a glass to JFK
And a dozen more besides
When I got back to my empty room
I suppose I must have cried

Thousands are sailing
Again across the ocean
Where the hand of opportunity
Draws tickets in a lottery
Postcards we're mailing
Of sky-blue skies and oceans
From rooms the daylight never sees
Where lights don't glow on Christmas trees
But we dance to the music
And we dance

Thousands are sailing
Across the western ocean
Where the hand of opportunity
Draws tickets in a lottery
Where e'er we go, we celebrate
The land that makes us refugees
From fear of Priests with empty plates
From guilt and weeping effigies
And we dance

I was thinking something along the lines of:

Thousands are flying
Across the western ocean
To a land of retail therapy
That's ten times better than BTs
Fortunes they're spending
on perfumes, balms and lotions
Their luggage full to the seams
with iPods, bags and jewelry

I haven't really gotten beyond that, and am too busy to really have a go at it.
Anyone care to have a crack?

Doug Morris, Group Chief Executive of Universal Music, having agreed with Microsoft that Universal will get $1 for every Zune sold, is looking longingly at the iPod and wants a piece of it.

John Gruber imagines negotiations between Morris and Steve Jobs of Apple, in which Morris tries to extort agree a similar deal.

JOBS: How about you take one of those white Zunes and you turn it into a brown one, Doug. 

Jobs beams the full Steve Jobs smile.

I can't remember exactly where I heard this - I think it could have been on Today FM.

Construction workers building the Scottish Parliament in Edinburgh find a network of copper wires buried several metres below Holyrood. Archaeologists examine the find and come to the conclusion that the ancient Scots had an advanced telephone system in prehistoric times.

Workmen in London find a deeply buried network of fibre-optic cables during excavations for the new Olympic Stadium. Archaeologists confirm that prehistoric Londoners had a sophisticated high-speed telecommunications network at their disposal.

Deep excavations at the Port Tunnel site in Dublin unearth neither copper wires nor fibre optic. Archaeologists conclude that the ancient Irish communicated using mobile phones and wireless broadband.

Apple have introduced a "publish to web" option for iTunes Playlists, so I thought I'd give it a whirl.

It's a selection of some music I have been listening to over the last year or so. Not necessarily a "Best of 2006" or anything like that, as some of it dates back to 1998.

If you feel motivated enough, you can buy it in its entirety from iTunes, or just pick individual tunes off it.




To make an iMix, you first create a playlist in your copy of iTunes. Then highlight that playlist in the iTunes sidebar and either click on the arrow beside its name or else select File->Create an iMix. Beware at this point that iTunes will attempt to match the attributes of your list with that which it holds for the same tracks in the iTS. If they don't match, iTunes may leave the track off the iMix. This could be a conflict like a differing genre, or even a spelling variation. It's a good idea to check each track before you try to publish, just to be sure the iTS has it. If it doesn't come up even after this check, have a look at all the attributes and try to match as closely as possible.

It's a bit of a pain in the hoop, but it works eventually.

Could Arsenal's captain be on his way out of the club? On the face of it, it would appear not. Thierry Henry insists he will finish his career at Arsenal, and that there is nothing in the rumours of a rift between himself and Arsene Wenger.




He missed last weekend's win over Tottenham, and could be out until the New Year with niggling injuries, which both he and Wenger have put down to fatigue. 

Henry hasn't shown the form of past seasons this year, and his performance in the World Cup during the summer were well below his own standard. 

Did he regret not signing for European Champions Barcelona last summer? He says he did not. 

"Regarding the recruitment in the summer, my confidence was not betrayed. I am at Arsenal for life. I will not go to Barcelona."

What odds on Henry in a Barcelona shirt next season? 

(I know that this isn't a particularly interesting post, but I've been waiting years, years, I tell ya, to use that headline.)

Going through the referral list from your traffic stats is seen by some as a lazy way to get material for a post, so it should come as a surprise that this is my first time to do it.

Some that caught my eye recently:

liverpool echo history on post offices robberies 1990s

I can see it now - a tracksuited individual sits in a black leather chair. John Humphries asks him his name and where he's from.

"Terry, from Liverpool, like."

"And your specialist subject?"

"Post Office robberies in Liverpool, 1990 to the present day."

irish women in thongs

Mmmmkay.... moving swiftly on...

why isn't fergie available on itunes

I dunno, maybe he's too busy at Old Trafford?

johnny "mad dog" adair fan website

OK, put down the mouse...slowly...and move backwards out of the room...

Under €50:

A six-month subscription to ScreenCastsOnline.
Don McAllister's weekly video tutorial on Mac apps, tips and tricks is absolutely invaluable. (Not just Mac either, by the way. Don has just started a series of screencasts on what Google has to offer.) For $25, you get 26 weekly shows, mostly about 20-30 minutes in duration, with superb production value. If this was twice the price, it would still be a steal.


iWoz by Steve Wozniak
I haven't read this, and it is on my Christmas wish list. Steve Wozniak is 'The Other Steve' in the Apple story. While Steve Jobs was the public face of Apple, Wozniak was the engineering genius behind some of the company's most innovative products.

€50-€100

More RAM
Most Macs come with either 512MB or 1GB of RAM these days, but to really make the machine sing you should be looking at about 2GB+. You can get it from Apple if you like, but you will pay very well for it. Alternatively, you can order from Crucial, and in my experience delivery comes next day.

Parallels Desktop
Parallels is an app that allows you to run operating systems other than Mac OS X on your Mac, e.g. Windows XP. Why should you want to do that, you may ask? Because you can, and a Dell user can't run OS X on their machine, that's why!

Wireless keyboard/mouse
Freedom from wires, and as most new Macs have Bluetooth built-in, a wireless keyboard or mouse (or both) free up a USB port.

€100-€200

Speakers
The built-in speakers on most Macs are pretty lame, so a set of speakers would be a nice addition, particularly for someone with a large iTunes Library. I like the look of these ones.

Backup Storage
Hard drives can die, even on Macs. If your beloved Mac user has a large collection of photos, movies or music on their machine and isn't backing up, give them a back-up hard drive. And a slap. There are several brand names to choose from including LaCie, Western Digital, Iomega and Maxtor. Make sure to get one that supports Firewire (USB 2.0 will work fine too, but Firewire is faster.)

Over €200

iPod
A portable music device. Quite popular with the kids, by all accounts.

Displays
Expand the screen area of your beloved's Mac. Most new Macs now support screen spanning, which allows your dearest to greatly enhance their Mac-using experience. This Dell screen seems to get a lot of attention from Mac users, high praise indeed.

A new Mac
All new Macs now sport Intel processors, and the entire portfolio has been upgraded at least once in the last 12 months, so now is a great time to buy a new Mac.

...you see an unattended BMW 320 outside a Centra with its engine running, as I saw this morning. That would last about 0.4 seconds in Dublin.

...your local corner shop doesn't stock The Irish Times, but they have all the British tabloids.

...you can pull up on a double-yellow line outside the bank, go in and arrange a mortgage, safe in the knowledge that you won't get a ticket.

...shops close for lunch every day, at 1pm on a Saturday, and for a half day Wednesday.

The Sunday Turbine ran a piece today in their magazine entitled The Fifty Most Uncool People. For some reason, they managed to leave out the ultra-wooden celebrity cook Rachel Allen.

Oh, hang on, she's their cookery writer, isn't she?

On the face of it, Threshers, the biggest chain of off-licences in the UK would appear to have been caught out by its own web carelessness.

On the company's website, an offer was made to suppliers to avail of a special 40% discount, by using a special coupon that could be downloaded. It appears that more people that they planned got wind of this, and about 800,000 vouchers have been downloaded, and the company will have no choice but to honour them if presented in any Thresher shop.



A Thresher spokesperson said that the 40% discount "could hit the company's profit margins". 

Could??? Thresher must be working on considerably fatter margins now than when I was working for them back in the early 90s. But if they are, maybe they planned this to happen. Lots of publicity, loads of punters, and maybe even a slim profit margin as well.

OK, so you like wine. And you like dogs.

Put the two together and you get ... Winedogs

I know this is not genuine, but it's funny anyway: