Opinionating at the speed of electricity
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Quite chuffed, Quietpubs.com has become a bit of a runner. Was on Rick O'Sheas (Which is incidentally the answer to "What do you call an Irishman bouncing off a wall") talking about it on Tuesday evening, and since then there has been a steady stream of emails suggesting places.
Spent 24 hours in Vienna on Wednesday. While I was there a major news story broke on TV as I was watching: Austrian girl kidnapped 8 years ago regains freedom.
Natascha Kampusch was abducted when she was 10, she is now 18. Her kidnapper threw himself in front of a train when he found out she had escaped.
Very scary concept, being stuck in a basement for eight years wondering every day what is going to happen to you.
Stayed at the Hoffmann Beletage, which is one of these new designer hotels with no check-in etc. Amazing place, highly recommended. You should go for the breakfast alone.
So, after years of getting annoyed by publicans who play music at excruciating levels or having TVs on 24 hours a day, I decide to get my own back...
So for your pinting pleasure, please visit QuietPubs.com
Hilarious piece on YouTube about Bush's bloopers. It actually asks the question "Is Bush an Idiot" (answers on a postcard please).
What makes it all the more mind boggling is that the reporter says at the end:
"Whether George W. Bush has the intellectual curious...ness curiousness, if that's a word?"
If curiosity didn't kill the cat it was probably stupidity...
Portland, Oregon has an amazing public transport system (as reported on Newsnight last night) and support for cyclists. You would swear it is not part of the United States. Features:
Light years ahead of Dublin where to go from UCD to the Four Courts you would get a 17 bus to Blackrock (1.35 EUR), DART into Connelly (1.65 EUR) and a Luas to the Four Courts (1.40 EUR). A grand total of 4.40 EUR for a journey of about 5 KM as the crow flies.
Or how about Dundrum to Heuston? Luas to Stephens Green, walk 15 minutes to other Luas line and Luas down to Heuston? Yes, irish politicians let 2 new tram lines be built that do not connect up! Their initial reason was that it would cost too much and cause too much disruption. 2 years after completion of the last line and now that all the building machinery has been put away, the decision has been made to connect them up. Only this time it will cost twice as much and cause a longer disruption! Irish politicians & forward thinking? Seperated at birth.
Or howsabout Tallaght to Lucan? Two centres with very large populations in Dublin, only 8KM apart but no direct transport between the two of them. Instead you must go into the city centre of Dublin and get a bus back out more or less the direction you came from (A phenomenon known as "An Larism", as Dublin is "An Lar" in Gaelic).
And as for cycling in Dublin? Just forget about it.
"Ireland's domestic service economy remains uncompetitive and its public sector inefficient. That means relatively high costs for energy, transportation and business services, and higher living costs for workers who are now in a good position to demand higher wages.
This is a common problem in Europe. In Ireland, much of the blame lies with public-sector unions that have successfully won the right to have their salaries "benchmarked" to the private sector, without a similar benchmarking for productivity, job security, vacations or fringe benefits. But rather than get into a Thatcherite or Reaganese confrontation, Ireland's helplessly reasonable and polite politicians and union leaders have agreed to a strategy of quiet, piecemeal reforms in which flexibility is traded for higher pay."
Maybe Irish planners could take a look at this -
Madonna might be a time-spanning-chamelonic-poptastic-queen-diva-of-the-dancefloor, but her German sucks... The song "Sorry" starts off with her saying sorry in Italian, French and then German. Unfortunately she says "Ich bin traurig" which doesn't mean I'm sorry, but rather "I am sad"... Es tut mir leid Madonna... You would think with hundreds of millions in the bank she could pay a german to tell her the correct answer... C- for effort Madonna.
