Ryanair CEO Michael O’Leary was on The Last Word on Thursday evening, arguing against the provision of the Dublin North Metro project. This is a pet topic of Ryanair, and one that I noted their opinions on before. (Download an MP3 of the interview here.)

But this time O’Leary excelled himself as the arrogant, pompous, “Look at me, I’m on the side of the consumer” little gobshite that he is. His schtick is that because the majority of passengers come to airports in cars, therefore they are not interested in any other form of transport to get them to and from Dublin Airport. During the debate, his views were challenged by Sean Murphy, Director of Policy at Chambers Ireland. Whenever Murphy spoke, O’Leary could be heard making derisory snoring noises.

What he failed to say is that Ryanair have a commercial interest in maintaining the status quo. They have a deal with Hertz at the airport, and earn commission on referrals to Hertz from the Ryanair website. In addition, car parking is a valuable revenue stream to the DAA, and any reduction in that would doubtless lead to higher landing charges for airlines like Ryanair.

Still, expecting them to come clean would be futile. This is after all the airline that tried to pull a fast one on Munster fans earlier this year. Predicting as far back as January that their team would reach the final in Cardiff in May, fans booked the 6.50am flight on Ryanair to Bristol for fares in in the region of €50 or so. Once Munster won the semi-final, Ryanair ‘rescheduled’ the flight to 3pm (which would have been too tight to make the 5pm kick-off time), and offered fans a full refund if the new time didn’t suit. But a few days later, the 6.50am flight miraculously reappeared, this time priced at €229.

Excellent news comes today from the Irish Times, who will open up their online service free to read from Monday. The paper has its faults (pomposity, Dublin-centric, oh-so-fluffy Weekend Magazine), but compared to the competition, it’s streets ahead.

The new service will also have a new url: irishtimes.com, and the existing one, ireland.com will continue life as a portal for everything Irish. (A portal site? How very Web 1.0!)

The new Bulmers TV ad for summer 2008 is out, and as usual, they have chosen a great song to accompany it. This time it’s ‘Lazy Day’ by The Byrds (or maybe The Flying Burrito Brothers). It’s a good example of how to do music in an ad like this. Take a classic song that most people will just about know, and don’t mess with it. They have done this several times in the past, including this one from a few years ago, featuring ‘Sunny Afternoon’ by The Kinks.



A good example of how not to do it comes via the Corona beer radio ad. It takes the 1979 hit “My Sharona” by The Knack and alters the lyrics to “My Corona.” Another line becomes “Ooh, you taste so good, like you should, like I knew you would” or something like that. My ears bleed every time I hear it. Whoever came up with it deserves to be cast into the wilderness wearing sackcloth and ashes, to feed off locusts. Here’s the original:

The wee one is showing signs of having green fingers. These particular genes come from the other side of the house, I can confirm with some confidence.

Another good 'un from The Joy of Tech (click for the full cartoon)



Average price at the pumps today for a litre of unleaded, according to Pumps.ie, is €1.22

Today will go down in history as an historic day for Ireland. A new leader has been chosen and a new era dawns. An era of hope and opportunity, one where Ireland potential will be realised. This era will see Ireland become a power across Europe and hopefully across the world.

Yes, people, Wednesday, 7 May will go down in history as the day that Declan Kidney was officially announced as the new coach of the Irish national rugby team.

Oh, yeah. This guy from Clara started a new job today too.

Another house fire tragedy claims the lives of a family, and once again the tabloid press cover themselves in glory. Not. It was as if they were competing with one another to run the most sensationalist front page headline today.

This happened before, of course, when the McElhill family perished in a fire at their home in Omagh last November. Back then, the red-tops didn't even wait until the bodies had been removed before hoisting the lurid headlines on their front pages.

Now, I know that this story merited its front page billing, but did the News of the World really need to scream "DAD SHOOTS WIFE AND BURNS KIDS ALIVE" from their front page? Do they not realise that the families, friends, neighbours, work colleagues, school pals, etc. of the Flood family are trying to come to terms with the enormity of this tragedy? Are they not allowed to grieve in peace and privacy? Do they not realise the effect a headline like that would have on friends of the children, already traumatised by the loss of their little pals, but now being told in graphic detail how they died? (Not that the official cause of death had been released by the time the papers reached the news stands, but in the world of the tabloids, that's by the by.)

The tabloid press is an utter disgrace.

The latest edition of Hospitality Ireland has an interview with Marco Pierre White, the latest British gastro-celeb to cross the Irish Sea. His new venture, Hell's Brasserie, will open at Harry Crosbie's Point Village in 2009.

Eager to learn from the mistakes of his peers, he wants to be sure that he doesn't offend local sensitivities by only having a token presence in his Irish emporium:

"I'm not going to go to Ireland with that attitude, like certain people do who come from the mainland."

Yup. That's a great way to start.

Driving around as much as I do, you really get to realise the cavalier approach so many Irish road users have to traffic lights. For cyclists, the code is "Green: Go; Amber: Go; Red: Go." Pedestrians seem to think that they are there just to add some colour to the streetscape.

But it is the motorist who is often the worst offender. Frequently I pull up at lights just gone red and one or two vehicles in the neighbouring lanes will go through the red light. Lads, there's only one shade of red! Another is the left or right turn filter. Some junctions have specific signals for left or right turns, and when you approach the junction the signal may be green to go forward and red to go left or right. But to some drivers, these red lights are discretionary. I have seen cars, vans, taxis and even buses break these lights, often crossing a green pedestrian light in the process.

Speaking of pedestrian lights, some drivers seem to be of the opinion that these don't actually count as traffic lights at all. Just this morning, I was on my way into Dublin, when I stopped at the red light of a pedestrian crossing. A woman and her two kids were just about to set foot on the road to cross when a truck sailed through the red light. A second later and they would have been run over.

I did a graphic design course a few years ago and during it developed an interest in typography. Since then I have become a font geek of sorts. (Just as I can tell the difference between an Australian and a New Zealand accent, so too do I know the difference between Helvetica and Arial.)

Which brings me to the point of this post. Found, via the excellent Daring Fireball (whose author, John Gruber is a font uber-geek), The Rather Difficult Font Game.

The server upon which it is hosted seems to be getting something of a caning at the moment. It flaked out on me on round 22, by which time I was enjoying a score of 19.

(Disclosure: I only cheated a teeny-tiny bit, and referred to Font Book once or twice, but only to confirm my suspicion.)

Anyone that reads my ramblings on a regular basis will know that I am an advocate of the Mac platform. In my last job I had a fair degree of autonomy and so when I went computer shopping, I was free to pick my platform of choice. Not so in my current employment, and when I started in January, I was given a standard-issue Dell laptop.

It's quite a good machine, in all honesty. It has a 2.2 GHz Intel Core 2 Duo processor, 2 gigs of RAM and a 120 GB hard disk. Windows XP SP2 came pre-installed, and even though it's a big improvement on my last experience with Windows (W98), it's very frustrating to use at times.

There are days, like today, when everything you run crashes. Open an Excel spreadsheet. Crash. Try to extract an e-mail address from a message in Outlook. Crash. Try to drop an image into a Word document. Crash.

However, when I was in Dublin earlier today, I saw the electronic billboard at the top of Grafton Street and realised that I wasn't the only one having problems with Windows today. (I took the photo on my phone, so sorry for the poor quality.)

Tom Tomorrow's "This Modern World" on the crisis in the US housing market:

(click to see the whole cartoon)

I got the news of Bertie's falling on his sword as I queued up for the Ryanair flight to Verona from Stansted. As a result I missed all the fall-out, as I had no internet connectivity except for my Nokia E65, and I wasn't planning on paying outrageous data roaming rates.

It was the right thing for Ahern to do, of course. But he should have done it ages ago and sorted out his dealings with the Tribunal away from the pressures of the office of Taoiseach. But it seems that he thought he could brazen it out, and if he kept stonewalling or running to the High Court to try to stymie the Tribunal's work, then it might leave him alone. But it was the evidence of Grainne Carruth that brought him down in the end.

So now, assuming I'm still living in Laois in 2012, and that the county will still be spliced to Offaly for electoral purposes, I'll once again have the opportunity to cast my vote for an outgoing Taoiseach in a general election, as I had in 2002. And didn't take up.

Speaking of the Observer, a few weeks ago they ran a feature entitled "The 50 Most Powerful Blogs". It featured mostly the influential American political sites like Huffington Post, Talking Points Memo, etc; as well as the gossipy ones like Perez Hilton and Gawker.

But up there at No 8 was none other than "I Can Has Cheezburger?", the world-famous Lolcat site. Now I can understand it being in a list of popular sites, or it being recognised as an internet publishing phenomenon, but as a "powerful blog"?

If by powerful, you mean ability to set the narrative or break a story of national or international importance, then ICHC is anything but.


moar funny pictures

It's for the magazine that I buy the Observer most Sundays. Often the main part of the paper ends up in the green bin having been hardly read at all. I enjoy Jay Rayner's restaurant reviews, particularly the delightfully bitchy ones; and Tim Atkin is to my mind the best wine writer in any newspaper across These Islands™ today.

However, the publishers of the Observer sometimes allow one or two conceits to creep in. The first is the themed issue, like The Gardening Issue or The Fashion Issue. The other is the Guest Editor, usually some pompous celeb. Last Sunday, they did both, and Thom Yorke of Radiohead was in the editor's chair for The Climate Change Issue.

Now, I know that climate change is a pressing issue, but self-indulgent nonsense like this just annoys me. Is Thom Yorke a respected climatologist? No, he's a rock musician, and as such has about as much claim to the editorship of the Observer's Climate Change Issue as any other punter with an opinion on the subject. The least they could have done was get someone with a contrarian viewpoint - a climate-change sceptic, or maybe someone that sees the problem but disagrees with how we are combating it.

The one thing I found amusing among all this po-facedness was the fact that thirteen full pages of the magazine were given over to advertising cars, five of which were double page spreads.

I drive a lot in the course of my job, and while I would never consider myself to be the best driver on the roads, I come up against a lot of idiot drivers on the highways and byways of our fair isle.

Like the one I encountered this morning as I drove to Cork. I overtook a few slow-moving vehicles just south of Urlingford, and as often happens, the overtaking lane ended before I had a chance to get past one particular truck. This was a big artic, carrying ESB poles or something like that. It couldn't go much above 60 km/h. However, I wasn't the only one in this position, as there was a Nissan Primera in front of me and behind the truck.

The truck driver obviously knew that there was traffic building up behind him, and did what he could to allow it to overtake him. But our friend in the Primera made such a meal of the manoeuvre that it wasn't until we were beyond Horse and Jockey that he finally got past him.

For the first mile or so, it wasn't feasible to try to overtake as there was too much traffic coming against us. Then when it cleared, Numpty in the Primera puts on his right indicator and promptly hits the brakes. So I hung back, as this would normally be an indication that he was going to turn right. But he didn't, he just went on for another mile or so with his indicator on. The truck moves over to the hard shoulder to let him go, and Numpty starts to overtake. Some traffic appears from the other direction, and yer man panics and slams on the brakes. He could have gone safely, having not crossed the central line, but instead aborted the manoeuvre. Then we get to Turnpike, so the truck has to pull out of the hard shoulder. Between Turnpike and H&J Numpty thinks about it once or twice again, but decides to stay put.

Then after Horse & Jockey, the truck practically goes into the ditch to give him enough room. He hesitates for a while, but finally makes his move, out way over the central line (even though his own lane was completely clear, the truck having all its wheels in the hard shoulder), and forcing an oncoming car into the hard shoulder on the opposite side. I got out past the truck right after him, but of course he's now right up against the white line. Eventually I got past him.

Today it was announced that penalty points will be dished out to car owners who allow their registration plates to become illegibly dirty. Surely they could put in a category for idiocy too?

…as Carl Hooper might say.

This optical illusion tricks your brain into seeing a black and white photograph as colour.

(NSFW, I should add)

The people have spoken. Ireland's representative at this year's Eurovision Song Contest is to be Dustin the Turkey, with the song "Irlande, Douze Points."

Back in May, after Dervish were sent home from last year's Eurovision with just five points, I opined:

"If Ireland is ever to have notions of winning the Eurovision again, the strategy involved must change dramatically. Forget the idea of meaningful songs. Eurovision is as gay as Christmas, so to do well, Ireland's entry needs to camp it up. Two and a half minutes of fizzy Europop, that kids can remember just long enough to vote for it, performed by a pop starlet or a boyband/girlband. Skimpily clad dancers swishing their hair around, all that sort of stuff. Nothing deep and serious, as that just scares the votes away."

And this is exactly what Dustin is doing. The song is hi-NRG Europop nonsense with a catchy chorus. A very appropriate chorus too - "Irlande, douze points" is after all selling a message. The backing singers and dancers are as camp as they come. It's Eurovision gold, I reckon.

A new typographic expression is born - keming.

"Someone is wrong on the internet"

(both via Daring Fireball)

An old Joy of Tech, but a good 'un.

Leinster House is to undergo some renovation work shortly, and to facilitate this, Seanad Éireann is to temporarily relocate to the Natural History Museum. The Dáil is to stay put, but if it happens that it is required to move, then I reckon its temporary home should be the Gaiety Theatre.

The Gaiety is a very traditional style of theatre, and I always think that it bears a striking resemblance to the theatre of The Muppet Show.

Which begs the question - which politician best matches the various characters in the show?

Kermit - Bertie (or possibly John Gormley, being Green and all that.)
Miss Piggy - Mary Harney
Sam the Eagle - Enda Kenny
Animal - Conor Lenihan
Gonzo - Willie O'Dea
Scooter - Pat Rabbitte
Beaker - John O'Donoghue
Thog - Brian Cowen

Any more suggestions?

In the meantime:

This was a headline in the news digest of Saturday's Irish Times:



What a brilliant idea! Build a new network of roads especially for non-nationals. Then they can drive on the right hand side to their hearts' content and it won't affect Irish drivers one little bit.

Oh. Hang on. Maybe not…

I was up in the Cavan/Monaghan area today, and after I heard of Senator Donie Cassidy's moment of brilliance, realised that it would have a fundamental effect on a stretch of road I drove today. How would we manage border crossings? Would we lobby the British Government to have Northern Ireland adopt the same side of the road as the Republic? Or just nip across to the other side whenever we crossed the border?

The N54 between Cavan and Clones crosses the border four times.

The rubbish some people come out with sometimes…

Fianna Fáil leader in the Seanad, Donie Cassidy suggests that non-national drivers should be subject to a lower speed limit on N-roads. Instead of the usual 100 km/h, he suggests they should adhere to an 80 km/h limit. What happens then of course is that queues of traffic will form behind these restricted drivers, leading to frustration and dangerous overtaking. Way to go. But that's not the best of it. Senator Cassidy also reckons we should look at switching to driving on the right hand side of the road (like they did in Sweden in 1967), so as to facilitate tourists and immigrants. Maybe we should do it on a phased basis, just so that we can all get used to the idea. Trucks and buses only for the first six months, and then cars.

And then on the other side of the wather, comes this nonsense from Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams, that Sharia Law could operate alongside civil law in the UK to help ease Muslim alienation. For the love of God/Allah/The Flying Spaghetti Monster, where do these ideas come from??

via MacUser:

A UK based cruise company, who already owned the domain name cruise.co.uk, have just paid £560,000 (€668,000) to buy cruises.co.uk.

The new owner said that the the plural always came ahead of the singular in Google searches, and that they wanted their site to be "the first port of call" for searches.

Boom, boom!

MacBook Paper:

One of my favourite Monty Python sketches of all time:

Conor notes Ryanair's announcement that it is to increase the cost of putting a bag into the hold of its aircraft from €6 to €9 per bag. Quoting a Ryanair spokesman, he says that the company are doing this to "encourage" its customers to avoid bringing checked baggage when they fly, and wonders if Aer Lingus will follow suit.

Fewer bags means that airlines have less to pay for baggage handling services. In theory it should also mean a quicker turnaround, but as I learned last Monday morning, this might not actually be the case.

I was on the 06.40 Aer Lingus red-eye from Dublin to Heathrow. As the first London-bound flight of the week, it's also one of the busiest. I was going over for just one night, so I brought one bag with me, which held my overnight stuff in one compartment and everything I needed for my two days' work in another. No need to check anything in. But of course, about 90% of my fellow flyers had the same idea. The overhead lockers were stuffed before even half the passengers had boarded. Luckily, I was able to fit my bag under the seat in front of me, but others were attempting to board with what could only be described as suitcases. It was a bloody mess, and of course, we were delayed taking off because of it. We should have landed in Heathrow at 08.05, but it was nearly 08.30 before we touched down.

How long before airlines start to charge for cabin baggage too, I wonder?

Spotted in the long term car park at Dublin Airport last Tuesday afternoon:



There were dozens of them. Big fuckers too, so they were.

If only…

Spotted this in today's Turbine:



Hit by "lightening"? Did they spontaneously become lighter?

And as for "aircrafts"? Dearie me.

We went for our weekly constitutional at Emo this morning, and the overnight cold meant that the lake was still partly frozen over. The ducks were having great fun, and luckily I had the camera with me to catch a bit of footage.



(Yes, I know the music I used was Swan Lake, but unfortunately Tchaikovsky never wrote a ballet called "Duck Lake".)

And while on the topic of birds, our birdie restaurant on the tree out the back is packed out these days…




…but danger looms…

It's strange how your eyes and mind can play tricks on you. The following two headlines popped up in my RSS reader this evening:



Whatever way I looked at it, I initially registered the top one as "Apple targeted by Firefox wielding protesters"!

I had planned to keep away from the keyboard today, but as there is absolutely nothing worth watching on TV, I find myself staring at that familiar screen again. Hope the day went well for everyone.

Joy of Tech's seasonal cartoon is a good 'un:



Some pics from Aoife's Christmas:


Our Christmas card pic


Harvesting low-hanging fruit from the Christmas tree



Santa's been here!

Twenty posted his top ten Christmas songs today, and I have to say I agree with him.

Every year, on December 1, radio station bosses decide that the season is open, and the Christmas songs can be played. And every year, the same old shite gets trotted out. Most of it comes from the 70s and 80s, which is in line with general playlist policy of stations like 98FM and FM104, who seem to think that music stopped on 31 December 1989. Here's my all-time top five crap Christmas songs:

5 - Last Christmas - Wham!
Back in 1984, a mate of mine in college had a dual turntable and used to DJ at house parties. One night in December, we were at a party, and he asked me to take over as he was on a promise. So there I was, trying to be as cool as fuck, when this hot young wan from college (that I had the major hots for) comes up to me and hands me a copy of "Last Christmas" by Wham!. What could I do? Play it and lose my cred, or refuse to play it and blow my chance with (I've forgotten her name) forever? I played it. I blew my cred. I never even spoke to (I've forgotten her name) again. I will hate this song as long as I live.

4 - Merry Xmas Everyone - Slade
My elder brothers were the custodians of music in our house, and one of the earliest bands to creep into my consciousness was Slade, along with The Sweet some time around 1973, when I was seven. This song dates from them, and gets wheeled out faithfully every year. Noddy Holder must turn on his wireless every December 1, and then sit back and wait for the royalty cheques to arrive.

3. I Wish It Could Be Christmas Every Day - Wizzard
From the same year as Slade's opus, Roy Wood is most likely living a comfortable retirement on the proceeds of this ditty. But what about the tuneless kids that sing the chorus? Do they still get royalties?

2. All I Want For Christmas Is You - Mariah Carey
A cash-in-on-Christmas song, complete with Mariah's vocal gymnastics and the obligatory sleigh bells. Hey, let's face it, anything with Mariah Carey in it is going to be shit, isn't it?

1. Stop the Cavalry - Jonah Lewie
The early-1980s charts are peppered with what I call anti-hits - songs (exclusively one-hit-wonders) that are outside the normal genre of a pop song but for one reason or another capture the imagination and get to No 1. Good examples of this are "Save Your Love" by Renee and Renata (itself a Christmas No 1), "Shaddapa Your Face" by Joe Dolce and "Grandma We Love You" by St Winifred's School Choir.

"Stop the Cavalry" is shit on two counts. First of all it's a perennial Chistmas radio favourite, and secondly it's an obvious anti-hit. And it's got fucking sleigh bells, too.

This was originally going to be a Top Ten, but I'm tired and need to go to bed. I may revisit the topic again before Christmas.

Rocky Frisco corrects me on the lyrics of JJ Cale's "Cocaine" here.

I've often gotten my wires crossed when it comes to lyrics, as I'm sure have many others. A friend of mine always thought that the opening line of Elvis Presley's "Suspicious Minds" was "We're calling a tram/I can't look out."

As it's the season that's in it, perhaps it's a good time to reveal one of my earliest lyrical misapprehensions. As a kid, I was under the impression that the words to Jingle Bells went like this:

Jingle Bells, Jingle Bells,
Jingle all the way,
Oh what fun it is to ride
In a one horse ope and sleigh

At about age 10, I began to wonder what on earth an "ope" was, and subsequently realised what the correct lyric was. It was an early Father Dougal-type "Oh, right, Ted!" moment.

Which brings me to this, a brilliant ad for Maxell tapes (cassette tapes - remember them, kids?) from the 80s, featuring "Into the Valley" by The Skids.



So do you have any lyrics that you have been carrying around for years in your head, only to discover that the real lyric was actually very different?

In Lidl yesterday, picking up a few bits and bobs (including their very good Serrano ham and Italian salami), I was making my way to the till along the aisle with the wines. Up to now, I have found the wine selection in Lidl to be atrocious, and normally wouldn't bother even looking at what was on offer. But a couple of things caught my eye this time around. It would appear that they have done a bit of work on their Italian offerings.

I picked up a Teroldego Rotaliano Riserva 2004 for €7.99 and a Vino Nobile de Montepulciano 2004 for €10.99. Teroldego is a grape variety local to Trentino in the north east, and sightings of it are rare on export markets. This one was perfectly drinkable, but it lacked the smoothness and depth of flavour typical of this variety. I'm enjoying a glass of the Vino Nobile as I write this. Vino Nobile di Montepulciano is made using the Sangiovese grape, and comes from the village of Montepulciano in Tuscany. Considered one of Italy's finest red wines, it usually retails for €20+. (It's not to be confused with Montepulciano d'Abruzzo, which is made using the Montepulciano grape and comes from the Abruzzi region to the east of Italy.) At €10.99, this is a genuine bargain.

Also a bargain, and I suspect a mistake, is Lidl's Parmesan. Priced on the shelf at €19.99 per kilo, but at €9.99 on the packet, I bought two quarter-kilo chunks for a fiver. It's the real stuff too - Parmigiano-Reggiano - not some ersatz parmesan-type cheap hard cheese.

I think it was Woody Allen who once quipped "Cocaine is God's way of telling you that you have too much money."

Maybe that's not so true anymore. By all accounts, it's now easier to score coke than hash in Ireland. There will be much hand-wringing in the next few days over Prime Time's special report on cocaine in Ireland, following on from the recent deaths of two men in Waterford after they ingested the drug. And of course there's the whole Katy French story.

I seem to get the impression that the Independent News and Media titles are trying to portray the death of Katy French as Ireland's Princess Diana moment. Talking to people I know, most had never heard of her until her name surfaced in the news last week. Maybe it shows just how few of my friends and acquaintances read the Sunday Independent.


JJ Cale:

Tonight, all across the land, off-duty nurses will don their trackies and slipper-socks, tie their hair up in a pony tail, install themselves on their sofas (with their feet drawn up underneath them), and armed with cups of weak milky tea will wait for the moment to say:

"She's doing that wrong!"

Yes, ladies and gentlemen, ER is back.

Back in June of this year, in response to an item on the late lamented Blogorrah, I created this -



I caught the tail end of an interview on The Last Word this evening, and it would appear that a magazine along these lines is indeed about to be published.

What can I say?

If you have been missing your regular dose of Raiméis, the good news is Maca's back after an eight-month hiatus.

Stephen Fry's blog is also a repository for his weekly Tech column in the Guardian. This is good news as it saves me from actually buying the paper, thus reducing my carbon footprint somewhat, which seem to be all they ever go on about in the Grauniad these days. (Also the fact that I can never find it on the Graun's website is a pain.) He has also just written a long piece about the perils of trying to have a full-throttle, no-holds-barred, fists-banging-the-table debate with Americans. It kind of reminded me of the criticism Carole Coleman came in for after her combative interview with President George W Bush a couple of years back.

(As an aside, I find it hard to forgive Fry for coming up with the awful neologism "Blessay.")

The Kindle… hmmm… I'm not so sure. Reading a book is more than just scanning the words on a page. There is the tactile experience of handling the book, turning the pages and so on, that I would miss if I were to go all electronic. There is also the $400 (or whatever the Euro equivalent will be when/if it ever makes it over here) I would miss too. Is it the iPod for books? John Gruber doesn't think so.

I was away in England from Friday to Monday and so only caught a glimpse of the tabloid headlines following the McElhill tragedy in Omagh. One paper ran with a front page headline along the lines "Sex perv Dad torched them all!" Now, whatever were the circumstances surrounding the deaths of these poor unfortunate people, some of the tabs were well out of order in their coverage of the story. These headlines were being printed as the family were still lying dead in the burnt-out ruins of their home. Their relatives, friends and neighbours would have still been trying to get some sort of grip on the awful events, so to run these lurid headlines even before the bodies were removed from the scene of the fire was insensitive in the extreme. The tabloid editors will no doubt defend their headlines by saying that they are only reporting the news that their readers want to read. But are the readers of Irish tabloids really that interested in such sensationalism? As I said, I was away last weekend. Was there any debate or discussion about the behaviour of the tabloids in the aftermath of this tragedy?

The Department of Revenue and Customs in the UK has managed to lose the details of every family that claims child benefit - all 7.25 million of them. I'm so glad that I'm not the poor sod that decided to call the courier.

Now that winter is upon us, it's time for my annual rant about drivers who haven't got a clue on how to use their headlights. They fall into several categories, ranging from those who underuse their lights, to those who overuse them:

Exhibit A: The motorist who drives around a lit-up area with just parking lights o