diarmydotnet

I’m currently going through my final exams, so I shalnt be updating DDN with the wisdoms beneath the confines of my cerebral cover. It’s a tough job but I’m sure I’ll do well, because if I don’t, it’s 4 years down the drain!!! Exams are tricky animals, and I’m pretty well covered for most, but for the Business Finance module - I mean, who needs to evaluate the Net Present Value of something if you’ll NEVER EVER EVER work with accountants? Why are we tested for crap we’ll never use? Ahhhh, Ireland

I’ll be back once the monotony of the Irish Education System has played its tedious role through.
diarmy

(Book Cover courtesy www.signgenerator.com)

Easter is one of the annual festivals for which I usually head back to the West of Kerry to visit my family. This year was no different, except for the certain apparent slowing-down of what I’ve come to be comfortable with in my fast-paced life. The internet cannot be denied by many including myself as a necessary life-enhancing element. As a nation, the Irish are a nation of talkers and thinkers, and not exactly movers and shakers. But in many respects, we are some of the most chat-friendly people when it comes to online communications. Every day, more and more people invest in computers and digital technology that enables us to communicate more freely with one another. 20 years ago in Ireland, if you rang up your friend, you’d never contemplate asking them “Where are you?” because you knew full well they were at their home or office because that’s where their phone was. Today, almost all people on this island aged between 14 and 60 have a mobile phone or some form of personal communication device. As a nation, Ireland has a high international ranking for use of text messaging and multi-media messaging. We love to chat, but also love the ad-hoc nature of communication. Chatting by text not only allows a certain level of anonymity but also allows us to privately converse with people throughout the island.

A complement to the text-a-holics in Ireland is the concept of internet meeting places. Bebo is one such phenomenon, with Faceparty and other sites rapidly racking up thousands of Irish young members who use the internet to find friends and more. MaybeFriends.com is an Irish-based example, however for personal experience, it’s completely lacking in design and connectivity.

As I entered the valley leading into Dingle (Daingean Uí Chúis) town, and turned off toward my now second-home, I went immediately to check my Bebo and to maybe read the day’s news from Google. But alas, my land-line connection was dead. Having changed from the unavoidable ‘eircon’ many years ago, and now a proud BT customer, we were again at the mercy of the company that symbolises corporate corruption and abuse of power in Ireland. When told that a ‘representative’ of that horrid company wouldn’t be available to repair my home phone line until Wednesday the 19th of April (because ‘eircon’ workers take the day after a bank holiday off as-well) I was left without a connection to both the local telephone exchange and the subsequent all-powerful internet.

Having a BlackBerry, I wasn’t completely lost in communication. My emails steadily flowed into my handset every 15 minutes, but as I discovered this long weekend, what good is email without internet. Sure, BlackBerries have WAP and GPRS, but Irish networks are so slow that it’s easier almost to not bother.

So, lost in the confusion, without a way to check bus timetables (Aertel is a joke and no-one seems to have the ability to answer phones in Bus Éireann) or do anything I’ve come to regard as normal in my daily plodding, I was left defenceless to the world.

But the sad fact is, even if my phone line wasn’t dead, I’d still only have dial-up internet - which usually means 30kbps from my ancient local exchange. Ventry, a popular tourist destination in which my local exchange lives on the side of a hill, still has not been unbundled and allowed to be connected to broadband networks. A full three years after Ballaghaderreen and two whole years since Dingle (Daingean Uí Chúis) got broadband, Ventry, a village less than 4 miles away cannot get broadband commercially. And it’s not as if people wouldn’t pay for it, it’s back to the old adage of ‘business-comes-first’ with the bastards in Eircom. They really don’t give a shit about the average consumer. I’m not one for floral language on DDN, but Eircom are a thundering shower of cunts. When frustrated to the point of explosion from speaking to a lovely guy named Padhraic from BT with whom I agreed with that it was not BT’s fault, I decided to give the cunts at Eircom a ring. When I eventually got through the world’s most annoying and patronising telephone answer system, I was connected with some utter bitch who really could do with a severe firing. After passing my details onto her she rudely said I was no longer an eircom customer (I wish!) and that BT would have to get onto them. She said “I’d have no information on your account” after acknowledging that I was who I said I was.

So where does it end with Eircom? Babcock and Brown have launched a take-over bid for the company, but would that allow them to over-haul the company and fire most of the staff, unbundle all the local loops and exchanges, upgrade the antiquated telephone network and change the face of the worst company in Ireland? I’m a disgruntled NTL customer but what are my options? If I want to get broadband from BT, I have to first get the shower of wankers in Eircom to re-connect my land line at a cost of over €100 and then switch over to BT and still pay line rental, even though the line is lying idle now for over 9 months with no-one paying for it. It just doesn’t make sense. In a country where we’re only 19 miles from Great Britain in parts, who have broadband penetration all over the place and speeds of up to 28Mbps in parts, when will Ireland join the Internet revolution and continue to connect with one another? Because at this stage, young people (i.e. THE FUTURE GENERATION) are getting rightly pissed off with the cat-fucking-about by Eircom and their sponsorship of everything from football to weather and their insanely-priced products and complete inability to treat ordinary tax-paying citizens with respect and dignity. If it doesn’t stop soon there’ll be nothing of Eircom left as more and more people switch. Which is a shame because had the cunts got a decent management style and business model and maybe some sort of code of ethics, then it could beat off every competitor in the market with a big stick.

And no, it’s not the government’s fault - it’s the cunts who bought it.

diarmy (agression ended)

P.S. take a gawk at my homage to eircon page: diarmy.net/eircon

Apologies to international viewers of DDN, but I have to dwell on this spiralling-out-of-control non-existant public debate that is at the heart of the future of the Irish Guardians of Peace - An Gárda Síochána. Many international viewers would be quick to point out that this is simply a word for “Police”, and indeed, many Irish people think the same. However, the term “Police” can sometimes convey scenes of gun-brandishing top-class men and women who fight crimes in the highest degree, murder and homicide and such like. But in Ireland, that particular reign of fire belongs to the Special Branch and the Detectives of our police-force. Gárda Síochána more accurately describes the ordinary cop in Ireland, a keeper of peace. Irish members of our police force who are outside of the Special Branch do not carry weapons other than batons. Therefore they are concerned with keeping a vigilant eye on day-to-day proceedings in the urban and rural demesnes or Ireland and of course, maintaining a close eye on motorists who occasionally break the speed limits on our national roads (with very little regard might I add for those who do so on our 80 or so percent of rural byroads.)

Last year, the Minister for Justice (or to give him his full title, Minister for Justice, Equality and Law Reform - so often forgotten when interviewers quiz him. In Irish, our national tongue, this is: An tAire Dlí agus Cirt, Comhionnais agus Athcóirithe Dlí) proposed the establishment of a Gárda Reserve force, which would be made up of civilians who on a part-time basis, assist the rank-and-file members of the Gárdaí with their day-to-day peace-keeping activities. This bill was given support by all parties in the houses of parliament, the Dáil and Seanad (House of Representatives and Senate for those in Ireland who don’t understand our language). These two houses are collectively termed the Oireachtas, or Parliament. It’s important to note that all parties supported this proposition.

What’s transpired on our television sets thanks to the brutality that is the only national debate show on Irish state-run TV, Questions and Answers, was a quick-fired debate between Union representatives of the Gárdaí and a member of Government. This week, the Gárdaí representative bodies are in Killarney to discuss, among other things, this Gárda Reserve Force.

Now, I’d like to quell the fears of readers here - I am NOT in favour of this “Reserve” force. Among the reasons are the 12 or so weeks of training these “Reservists” will be given, the fact that they will be unpaid and a few other things such as the lack of professionalism they’ll bring to an already over-worked tardy force. I’m more concerned with the fact that it will lead to goody-goody-two-shoes idiots in local communities, donning the pro-forma of a Gárda Reserve member and acting like the idiot that’s in them. I have no-time for these nosey-neighbours, and rest assured, they’ll be among the first to sign up. Aside from this, a Gárda Reserve Force is NOT the answer to our policing issues.

The Government promised a record number of Gárdaí on our streets by the end of a certain date. This hasn’t transpired, but how can it in all honesty? Let’s look at the profession as a whole. It’s completely without any thanks for one, you’re treated as an outcast among your own friends and to be honest, with all that red-tape, how are you supposed to do your job?!

There are ways the Government could improve the force however. I believe that there are enough Gárdaí in Ireland at present - whatever the number. What is lacking is sufficient policy to help Gárdaí do their jobs. Right now, Ireland is crumbling at the seams thanks to the unruly behaviour of what is an alarmingly more increasing number of “scumbags” or “chavs”. These delinquents are running riot in Ireland and there’s no power to stop them. At the moment, if Gárdaí so much as touch a person under the age of 18 in Ireland, it’s classed as harassment, unless the individual has been caught with blood on their hands at the scene of a crime. Even with this barely sub-standard possibility of capture, record numbers of children get off with warnings - which NONE of them heed. What we need, is a power vested on senior Gárdaí to arrest these “scumbags” and throw the book at them. There also must be the removal of barriers to prosecution which I attribute largely to bureaucracy. Gárdaí need to be allowed to follow their instincts and protect the ordinary citizens from these thugs. Of course, you could say, it’s the parent’s fault and they should be held accountable - and you’d be right! The sad fact is however, most parents of these “scumbags” don’t care what their children get up to on Friday nights, so long as they’re not in the house.

Social-carers say there’s a lack of things for children to do. But can you blame the local authorities for not providing playgrounds or recreational facilities for children? One reason is that they’d be destroyed by the already existing population of “scumbags” and the main reason of course is the compensation-culture that has smothered Ireland thanks to ever-more cunning lawyers and of course, Insurance companies.

I know there’s more to it than that, but to be honest, the 40-something criminals will in the next few years, get old and stop their loutish behaviour, while the 10-18 year olds have a long and illustrious future of violence, law-breaking and peace-shattering ahead of them. They need to be stopped now. And if the Gárdaí were to concentrate a smaller portion of their “Traffic Corps” on dealing with speeding motorists on the rural roads and the dangerous roads in Ireland, with the rest being deployed into urban and sub-urban areas to stop and prosecute the young for law breaking.

It’s not hard to spot these people. They’re the ones brandishing the cans of Dutch Gold on our streets at night, wearing white trainers, baseball-hats cocked at the rear, tracksuits and Celtic jerseys. They’re loud, hunt in packs and yes, they do wear hoodies too! It’s never been easier to catch a theif!

While I don’t condone violence, every citizen who, like me, has respect for our Nation and the rule of law, wants to kick the proverbial shit out of these kids, so why can’t the Gárdaí do it for us?!

Minister McDowell, please, I urge you, pass a law that helps crack down on these maggots who’re infesting our cities, towns and rural landscapes with their illegal bonfires, bad fashion sense and general scare-mongering. Oh, and if they say “You’re only picking on me because I’m poor”, cost out how much the Reebok trainers, Nike baseball hats, addidas tracksuits, Celtic jerseys and then ask them how much a gold chain from Elizabeth Duke (aka Argos) costs.

One puzzling thing though, is that these people pride themselves on being truly Irish. They bully the foreign nationals and cause racial abuse to break out. Yet, they wear Celtic jerseys and above all, sovereign rings - coins from the British Empire encrusted in tacky gold and worn on the finger. Go figure!

diarmy

They hype of the .eu web domains is well and truly visible by the sheer number of registrants in the so-called “Land Rush” phase of the introduction of the .eu domain. One such registrant, was myself. diarmy.eu launched today amid a flurry of non-movement in media circles. This brings to three the total domain ownership of the diarmy brand. Leading to the full establishment of a pan-European hub for the diarmy empire, I feel this website will finally tie down the current domains for diarmy.com and this lovely blog, diarmy.net.

Mecridia, my web development alias, kindly designed the website, with a familiarity that now adorns mecridia and ssdoc.com respectively. Make sure you’ve downloaded the latest version of Mozilla Firefox as I’ve no patience for IE users trying to navigate to my sites.

diarmy

This week, the Irish government announced the privatisation of the State’s only national airline carrier. This would mean that for the first time since the airline was established, the company would be run under the control of private investors, with allegiances to shareholders, the stock market and last but not least, the customer. So what does this mean for our national carrier? Will we never see the shamrock-adorned aircraft sleeping in the hangars at Dublin Airport again? The simple answer is no-one really knows. Simple business sense would lead you to believe that it’s in the new owner’s best interests to keep the airline and its aircraft in Dublin, right next to its bitter rival Ryanair. But Iolar house may be moved for cost purposes in the long run, leading to inevitable unemployment.

And now we come upon the truth of the matter, the rotten core of the greenest apple in the Government’s tree of state-owned fruit. Employment. Public sector employment is a horrible area for those of us on the outside looking in. They only do as they’re told, don’t go beyond the call of duty for anything less than hazard pay, and they don’t consider themselves traitors if they go on strike. Of course, this isn’t true for everyone, but the vast majority of people are somewhat like this. Why might you ask? How come descendants of the great land of a thousand welcomes suddenly become opposed to absolutely everything that happens in State-dom? Well, the answer is one of the most obvious you’ll find - Unions.

Unions are the salt in the wound of Irish free governance. They rule with iron fists, often smashing governmental policies before they reach the ink cartridges in the secretary’s printer. Unions hate change. They can’t deal with new and strange things. Unions do nothing bar threaten the establishment. Don’t get me wrong, in the late 1970s and early 1980s, Unions were needed more than ever to curb the exploitation of workers by smaller companies, and to make sure people got a fair day’s pay for a fair day’s work. But that motto seems to have fallen by the wayside as more and more demands are made for benchmarking and public-sector wage increases for what is essentially just a normal day’s work in the private sector. If people in a private industry don’t like their rate of pay, they approach management. If there is a percieved injustice, recompense will be paid. But in the cut-throat industry of baggage-handling, simply having to deal with more bags might deal a blow to the multiple cigarette breaks. Unions prevent even the largest and best-run companies from competing. In a world built around competition and highly volatile flight-pricing thanks to the Southwest Airlines model in the US, airlines need to be able to compete on cost, differentiation and price. If you have an over-staffed company with a large proportion of your staff doing nothing less than half of what they should, you’re going to have a higher-cost base before you even start to think about product differentiation or price competitiveness.

Our national airline has been the scene of great unrest in the last 20 years. Almost every part of it has gone on strike at least once. And now that the government has found its proverbial balls and decided to sell a majority stake in the company to private equity firms, Unions want a slice of the action. They want to make the company so unattractive to outside investors that they’re threatening strike action and demanding that no compulsory redundancies are made and that excellent severance packages be arranged for out-going staff. The truth is, in the private sector, people would be paid in relation to their performance, and on that basis they would be retained or culled. But in a government-run (or rather union-run) company, people can get away with doing as little as they need to and still get paid. All you have to do is look at RTÉ’s abysmal news service, tacky Prime Time journalism, and sheer sickening weekend tv schedule. Why should they change?!

diarmy