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Nothing much to say here, save for to note that England were completely hammered by a far-superior Irish side this Saturday. While the loss to France two weeks ago was no doubt a sickener, today’s historic victory is more the sweeter for the fact that it is the first time that Ireland played England at the bastion of Gaelic sport, Croke Park.

Just in case you were wondering, I really don’t buy into all this crap about the GAA being good to open Croke Park. The fact remains that had the GAA not the contacts in political circles and the IR£20million investment in 1997 from the Irish Tax Payer, Croke Park wouldn’t be what it is today. It thrives on gate receipts that never filter down to local level and in that sense are much like the Italian Mafia of the 1950s.

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Germany is a country many regard as one of the most efficient in the world, and most certainly in Europe. However recently, among my many visits to the former super-power, I’ve noticed some strange business rules and regulations, that in my opinion are key to the reasons behind Germany’s economic disasters and fledgling economy and elderly-population.

What’s happening in Germany is nothing short of archaic. There is some regulation which has been in existence since the second world war, that prohibits the sale of goods and services on a Sunday. This ‘law’ of sorts, is a wonder of modern Europe. I’m over in Germany for what seems like a long time, but is in fact 19 nights. I haven’t experienced a Sunday here yet, but the onslaught of tomorrow is something that is not only coming thick and fast, now that it’s just past midnight Central European Time, but is something that is jarring me.

Germany is an odd economy. It feasts on the taxes of its subjects and the scraps from the dinner table at the Brandenburg Gate fall discardely on its aging population much like the food given to an old and weary dog. But this dog is faithful, and so are the Germany people. Last year’s election in the country showed a distinct lack of passion, as both sides gained a narrow majority, and were forced to work together and let Angela Merkel run the economy in the stead of Gerhard Schroder. What’s happening now is that the country is getting further and further into depression.

The facade of modern Europe is crumbling at the seams here, as many Germans now resent the arrival of the Euro due to the spiraling house prices and the stagnant wages. What was once a world super power is now being reduced to petty in-fighting which is doing nothing for the economic progression so sought-after by all Europeans in the wake of the Irish Celtic Tiger.

Getting back to the closing of shops on a Sunday - this leaves Germans completely unproductive for one whole day of the week. Some argue that it’s a day of rest for the weary German who’s dedicated his week to working hard for his company. But others are now starting to rebel, saying to me in numerous places that they are fed up with the control of the State delegating days for the spending of hard-earned money. What this ‘law’ is doing is prohibiting the social and economic activity that is the transaction between business and individual.

Many years ago, Ireland was much the same. Back then it was considered un-Christian to open a business on a Sunday. But very quickly, people in Ireland realized that they were the masters of their own destiny, and giants such as Dunnes Stores and Tesco led the revolution of the Sunday that has now led to Ireland having more 24-hour businesses per head of population than any other country in Europe. (Official Diarmy Statistics)

Germany however is not so brave, and while the streets of Neuss and Düsseldorf were packed to capacity this afternoon, they fell eerily silent on the way home from the bright lights of one of Germany’s smallest big cities.

Traditionally, Irish people use Saturday and Sunday to make most of their purchases. In fact, according to Diarmy Official Statistics, if Sunday and Saturday are solely responsible for the massive boost in recent economic years.

So what’s Germany to do? With most Germans still earning today what they did 10 years ago, the German Government need to relax the Sunday trading laws. What Germany really needs is some economic stimulation. I cannot ever imagine opening a business here, because not only are businesses shut on Sunday, they also close frighteningly early too. This is an oddity if ever there was one.

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For the past week, if you’ve been eager to log on to Diarmy.net to see the most recent revelations from my mind, you may have encountered an error or two. Mecridia, the ‘mother company’, has ditched the servers supplied to them from the United States, and went in favor of high-spec systems based here in Ireland. This was largely due to the network latency and downtime issues in the US.

Since moving, I’ve also upgraded DDN’s blog system. I’m now running the latest stream of WordPress, version 2.1. This upgrade is highly reccommended for anyone using an older version of WordPress.

Upgrading is easy - but moving from one server to another is a nightmare. As an Irish-based blogger, I occasionally make use of accents in my text. But the MySQL Database at the back end can store these characters, but they get corrupted on an export from that DB. This can be repaired by exporting in the proper language factor, in my case I did a UTF8 export instead of a Latin1 export. This is all a bit technical, but suffice to say it’s a tricky business.

I’ve also updated the appearance of DDN. This new theme should last as long as the old K2 theme I was using. K2 is a highly-editable PHP theme, and this one seems much simpler from a coding perspective. Let me know what you think about it.

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I had the distinct pleasure to board an Inter City Express (ICE) train in Düsseldorf train station last week, on a business trip to the financial capital of Europe, Frankfurt. The journey started at the ungodly hour of something before 0400hrs CET (which is 0300hrs GMT!) with a leisurely breeze through the traffic-filled streets off the industrialised city. The tickets I’d been given the day before had a departure time of 0726hrs, which I took to mean ‘around half-seven’. Conditioning from the public transport system in Ireland however had proved almost detrimental to my health upon entering the expansive train station. As my German colleague rushed to find the ticket machine to print the actual tickets (which were garnished by holographic strips) I wondered what mass of technological wonder Germany had in store for me.

The rushing around didn’t stop there however. After finding my other German colleague and my Hungarian colleague, we headed for the appropriate track. Escalators, if you don’t mind, guided us up the steep enclave that led to the freezing outside world. Yet more panic ensued as the time crept slowly to the synchronised 0710hrs the guardians of temporal advance displayed, as the watched over the bewildered Irish man unaware of what was next. The ‘team’ of workers I was tagging along with headed for the oddly-formatted signage which had graphical representations of the train, and where each carriage would stop at the platform. What was more amazing that that fact was that each time during the day the train arrived at the station, it was a different configuration and size, and each of these were represented.

As the clocks struck 0723hrs, the silence of the cigarette-smoke filled air from my colleagues was broken with the ominous low-intensity gliding sound of the white snake-like monster that pulled up beside me. As the crowds promptly, but civilly boarded the massive behemoth, we quickly went in search of our pre-designated seats. This was all new to me. Seats were warm, comfortable and reclining. The glass was tinted and the scent of expensive cologne and perfume filled the air. The whirr of laptops was only broken by the frequent and quiet conversations the entire carriage was involved in. At exactly 0726hrs, the ICE pulled out of the station and headed for Köln and on to Frankfurt-am-Main. The first thing I noticed was just how silent the ride was. There was no jolt as we pulled off, no hiss as the doors between carriages closed and no sense of being propelled in any direction. It was like floating in a still pool of warm water.

As the work-related conversations wrapped up, I suddenly became aware of my surroundings. The beautifully crafted LED display over the chrome-framed glass doors at each end of the carriage displayed our destination, next stop and carriage number. Then as if by magic, the speed in KM/H was displayed. While I must admit I knew this was the high-speed train that served as Germany’s answer to the Train à Grand Vitesse, or French TGV, I was amazed that we were gliding through the German countryside at over 300km per hour! It felt and looked like a mere 90 or 100km/h from my window. But the proof of this speed came in the odd sensation of my ears popping as the white beast whittled through tunnels galore, each time forcing the volume on my now hugely-outdated iPod nano (Gen1) upwards, much to the annoyance of my fellow passengers, one of whom, an elderly lady, made her feelings known in German.

Departing the bleak-looking city of Köln, we headed onward towards Frankfurt, and to my amazement, more surprises lay in store for me. As I watched with awe at the information on the gorgeous LED board in the distance, I noticed the word “Flughafen”, which I knew to mean airport in german. This must be a mistake I thought, however, less than 1hr and 30mins after we set off from Düsseldorf, we swept into Frankfurt Airport’s underground railway station. As the announcement of departing flights greeted my footsteps leading out of the station/airport, I couldn’t help but wonder, what Ireland’s future was.

We are a nation of enormous wealth. We have the highest standard of living in Europe, the fastest and most prosperous economy and the most ambitious young population Europe has ever seen. Yet in a country which is at the tail end of recession, with an aged population and penal tax codes, Germany treated me to a train trip that would have taken 4-5 times longer in Ireland. While we continue to buy ‘organic’ and justify our new ‘Lexus’ to our wives in Ireland, Germany by comparison is quite happy to beaver away every day, in the comfort and luxury afforded it by realistic and politically-driven infrastructure projects. Ireland has a lot of ground to cover, and the time left in our cycle of boom is running out!

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