Friday's rant

[Oldschoolsocks]

Lifestyle. Went looking for the current 22/23 blue jersey in Grafton St and then online for the heir. Nothing but XS. The gossun is 85kgs and 1.90m. So it might be a tight fit. Memo to Leinster Rugby, Adidas and Lifestyle! It's fu@£ing Christmas.

Lifestyle is a big bag of steaming dung

[Dave Cahill]

Babylon 5's a big pile of shite

[RoboProp]

Babylon 5's a big pile of shite

reported

[the spoofer]

SPOTY. What a load of shite.

Katie Taylor competes in a subset of a subset of a niche sport. She's probably really competing with about 5/10 people. McIlroy or JVDF should have won.

The O'Donovan's compete in a subset of a niche sport. Either the Irish Rugby team or Womens soccer team should have won.

[Laighin Break]

SPOTY. What a load of shite.

Katie Taylor competes in a subset of a subset of a niche sport. She's probably really competing with about 5/10 people. McIlroy or JVDF should have won.

The O'Donovan's compete in a subset of a niche sport. Either the Irish Rugby team or Womens soccer team should have won.

It's a strange one. I saw the breakdown, by sport, of previous winners yesterday:

Golf 11
Boxing 6
Athletics 5
Soccer 4
Rugby union 4
Horse racing 3
Cycling 2
Hurling 2
Swimming 1
Snooker 1
Mixed martial arts 1

Feels like golf and boxing are over-represented there, and strange that a Gaelic footballer has never won it (and only two hurlers).

[IanD]

BBC News - Rob Burrow's wheelchair accessible van vandalised in Castleford
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-leeds-64086021

Scum. Absolute Scum.

[blockhead]

Joe Brolly
a) Equates the Womens football team singing a "controversial" song to it being played on the tannoy in the RDS, and the lack of outrage that it recieved.
b) Mortified by the fiasco with Kilmacud Crokes, he says "irish rugby must be laughing their faces off" or something like that.

Why even bring rugby into it? Why not League of Ireland?
Why does he have such a hard on for rugby?

[Oldschoolsocks]

Joe Brolly
a) Equates the Womens football team singing a "controversial" song to it being played on the tannoy in the RDS, and the lack of outrage that it recieved.
b) Mortified by the fiasco with Kilmacud Crokes, he says "irish rugby must be laughing their faces off" or something like that.

Why even bring rugby into it? Why not League of Ireland?
Why does he have such a hard on for rugby?

Joe Brolly feeling needy on twitter is a constant

[Dave Cahill]

Rugby is a really well run 32 county game managed in the main locally by amateurs, played by amateurs with a professional core staff at the top managing the professional game

GAA is a really well run 32 county game managed in the main locally by amateurs, played by amateurs with a professional core staff at the top managing the elite game

Can't see the comparison myself.

[ronk]

Leinster's actions re songgate were masterful. They got out ahead of the story with an apology that contained all the elements of a good apology.

It was immediate and unequivocal; they said what happened, they apologised, they showed understanding of the hurt caused, they said what they would do to stop it from happening again.

The only people outraged by that were people who really wanted to be outraged.

[blockhead]

Raquel Welch, now there was a bird. Died today aged 82, RIP.
Inspired many a teenage boy in her day.

[Ruckedtobits]

Raquel Welch, now there was a bird. Died today aged 82, RIP.
Inspired many a teenage boy in her day.

"Inspired" is an interesting choice of verb and certainly is unlikely to have been used by that generation of "teen-aged boys' - up to about age 27!

[Ruckedtobits]

If the Government is genuinely intend on discouraging "small and accidental landlords" from exiting the market, surely it can devise wording to extent the exemption on evictions for "landlords owning and renting two or less properties" until say 30 June 2025. So corporate owners are not allowed evict tenants until that date but individuals renting two or less properties can proceed to eviction under the current rules for such action.

Or is that too much like common sense?

[ronk]

Corporate owners already effectively can't evict for their own or their families use.

Selling with vacant possession is the big one.

[paddyor]

If the Government is genuinely intend on discouraging "small and accidental landlords" from exiting the market, surely it can devise wording to extent the exemption on evictions for "landlords owning and renting two or less properties" until say 30 June 2025. So corporate owners are not allowed evict tenants until that date but individuals renting two or less properties can proceed to eviction under the current rules for such action.

Or is that too much like common sense?

I'm not sure the governemnt can do much about it now. Way too much hysteria("They're hoarding properties") on the subject for anyone to really take them at their word.

[Ruckedtobits]

Reading and watching the Dail Committee about the Independent Report on the proposed appointment of former Chief Medical Officer to a new Professorship of Public Health in Trinity, it is extraordinary to see and read the comments & responses of Robert Watt, Secretary Gen of the Department of Health. Never seen a Civil Servant with such arrogance who seemed to believe that he could make a decision to spend €20m of public money without any ministerial approval, other than his say-so.

Is he for real? Or what hold has he got over his Minister for Health? Or, how can a Cabinet allow one public servant to exercise such power?

Not acceptable to this taxpayer.

[Oldschoolsocks]

Reading and watching the Dail Committee about the Independent Report on the proposed appointment of former Chief Medical Officer to a new Professorship of Public Health in Trinity, it is extraordinary to see and read the comments & responses of Robert Watt, Secretary Gen of the Department of Health. Never seen a Civil Servant with such arrogance who seemed to believe that he could make a decision to spend €20m of public money without any ministerial approval, other than his say-so.

Is he for real? Or what hold has he got over his Minister for Health? Or, how can a Cabinet allow one public servant to exercise such power?

Not acceptable to this taxpayer.

I’ve a brother in law who’s high enough up in the civil service to be at least half believed. From listening to him prattle on I get the distinct impression that it’s the Civil Service who effectively run the country. The minister may set the vision but it’s the permanent government who spilt out the money and decide how it’s spent. A lot like the county councils where the County manager decides what’s going to be done and the councillors rubber stamp it.

So yeah it’s an awful state if affairs, but that’s how the country is run…

[Ruckedtobits]

Given that it's the 1st of August and we've just had the wettest July ever AND the Hurling and Football finals are over already AND the 4 Golf Majors are already played AND English cricket Tests are finished for the season AND Irish women are already out of the World Cup, I feel another rant coming on.

Why the f*uk does the Minister for Health want to appoint SIX more senior Executives on €250k p.a. each to the HSE? Has the Government learned nothing from the RTE / Tubridy fiasco, never mind the mind-boggling disaster of the Children's Hospital construction? The last thing this country needs is another clique of "talent" in any area of public expenditure.

Already it is clear from the requests to Ministers McGrath and O'Donoghue for more "cost over-runs" that Robert Watt's grotesque salary as Secretary General of the Department of Health has done nothing to bring good financial management to that bloated and ineffective Department and its spoiled godchild, the HSE. Despite the biggest Budget of any Government Department, it continues to have Independent Reports which are hugely critical of various areas under its remit. What does it do to improve the management of the vast resources that fall within the definition of health services? What sanctions are imposed on those who do not perform their roles adequately?

And then we have the Rail v Roads debate within Goverment with one side publishing grandiose plans of what we intend doing to encourage road users to substitute trains for their cross-country road journeys from 10 to 30 years hence. Meanwhile, the other side wheel out local TDs to "spin" the various sob stories as to why the N12345 MUST be finished because the population of Ballygobackwards are cut off from the vital infrastructure to allow them to get to their nearest town 15 minutes quicker.

Meanwhile (don't stop me now, I'm on a roll), that vital, but invisible, entity a sub-Committee of the Department of Agriculture Food and the Marine The Marine Environment Licensing Committee won't meet again until September, or is it October, in order to decide that they will further defer the issuance of Foreshore Licences to allow the development of off-shore Wind Farms in various sites off the coast.

Given that such Wind Farms are the most important potential assets of our country in developing a strategy for independent energy provision, it is mind blowing that this small sub-Committee is allowed to block such essential infrastructural development because of marginal, unquantified, pssible environmental concerns, which are confined to small local areas.

A lot of our Government decisions are low profile and effective. Some of their decisions are high profile stupidity.

Could somebody please clarify which are which and the particular reasons why, and then point them in the right direction?

[Twist]

Me to an Israeli work friend - "Happy Yom Kippur!"

Israeli colleague - "Thanks, but we don't really say that because its a day of atonement."

Me - "Ok, sorry about Yom Kippur."

Her - "Haha! We don't say that either!"

Make your mind up, lads.

[offshorerules]

Me to an Israeli work friend - "Happy Yom Kippur!"

Israeli colleague - "Thanks, but we don't really say that because its a day of atonement."

Me - "Ok, sorry about Yom Kippur."

Her - "Haha! We don't say that either!"

Make your mind up, lads.

Not a believer but I've always thought Happy Easter was a funny saying.