Looking back on 2011 what springs to mind in this eventful year? Well, it certainly has been an eventful year from all angles, both nationally, internationally, politically, socially and a host of other categories. Here are a few things that stood out for me in the past 12 months (in no specific order).

• Steve Jobs R.I.P. – a genius, a true innovator, an inspiration; a slice of madness that gave the world a pie full of greatness. Many will have their own take on “the Steve” but I’ll not hear a bad word against him. For as long as I can remember, the world of Apple and more importantly the world of Apple under Steve’s control, has been a source of wonderment and inspiration to me. Although a late adopter of Apple hardware (for financial reasons) I have now become an almost shameless whore for their products, with the exception thus far of the iPhone. I do now worry for the future of Apple without Steve. Albeit that Steve may have been one man, let history remind us of the harm and good that can be done by one man, I personally don’t think that Steve would have released iPhone 4s or at least if he did, I would have wanted it. We’ll miss you greatly Steve.
• Frank O’Sullivan – a dentist, a scholar, a gentleman and a friend. This one is entirely personal. In the latter half of this year, Waterford lost a great man, Dr O’Sullivan, dentist but known simply by most as Frank. Taken from us long before his time, Frank will be sadly missed by the many whose lives he made less painful and whom he made smile regularly, not just for dental inspection purposes.
• Hackgate – and so the Murdoch empire appeared before a special inquiry with respect to alleged hacking of phones by one of its newspapers. The absurd theatre took over the mainstream media and culminated in appropriate fashion by the youthful wife of Mr Murdoch defending her beau at millisecond reaction time, from a pie flinging malcontent in the audience of the inquiry. The actions of whom made for the most interesting press of the entire non-event in my personal opinion.
• Bye bye Fianna Fail[sic] – yes 2011 finally saw the fall of the tyrannical, pseudo-democratic empire that reigned over Ireland for so long. A regime that borrowed and borrowed so that a wall of money covered its ineptitude and so that people would turn a blind eye to such. They neglected to inform all concerned that the repayments would soon be due but not before they all had time to bugger off and take a hefty goodbye payment and cushy pension with them. My only regret is that the party hasn’t been dissolved or branded an illegal organisation.
• Queenie, Queenie whom has the balls – the first of two hugely significant state visits in the space of a month brought hope and welcome distraction to the people of Ireland. The visit of the Queen of England was yet another positive point in the rebuilding of relations between Ireland and England. Her visit to the garden of remembrance, a significance that no words would reflect appropriately enough. Following up this year with fond and respectful reference in her annual Christmas speech to the nation, hopefully the past will soon fade to the history books.
• Goodbye Osama, Hello Obama – just weeks after the U.S. finally nailed their long time prey, Osama Bin Laden, the Irish people were treated to another state visit. Of course that visit was of the American President: The one, the only, Offaly’s long lost grandson, Barack Obama. A flying visit to Ireland but one that brought hope to many and lifted the spirits of even more. Had it not been for these two visits (Obama and the Queen), the Irish news headlines would have been nothing but depressing this year. Now, however, one would be forgiven for thinking the year to be an unmitigated success in relative terms.
• John Patrick Byrne – who? Many will be forgiven for not knowing this name but I have no doubt that most will recall his actions. In July of this year, Mr Byrne selflessly jumped into the river Liffey in Dublin, to rescue his pet rabbit, which had been thrown in by despicable members of Dublin’s ever growing rabble. Mr. Byrne (homeless at the time of the incident) received worthy, high praise for his actions that secured the life of his pet rabbit Barney. I hope that both of them are doing well.
• EU Oligarchy Rumbled – yes, 2011 was the year that it all became hugely apparent, to all, that the EU is truly an oligarchical structure and not a true union of members. A few small fringe countries get into financial collapse due to monies recklessly loaned by the ECB (and even more recklessly abused by the recipient banks) and suddenly the entire EU is in collapse with fears for the future of the Euro. When the achilles heel is that easy to wound, one would really have to question the future for the EU.  What was worse was the reaction by France and Germany (the real EU). 2012 will be a very shaky year for the EU and the Euro; the Mayans may very well have predicted the end of this little fantasy world, if not the greater globe in which we live.
• English riots – yet again, just a few years short of 100 years to the day that Archbishop Ferindand was shot and much unrest began, so too did a single event (the fatal shooting of Mark Duggan by Metropolitan Police) trigger wide-scale riots across England. These riots burned parts of London to the ground, devastation not seen since a small bakery fire in 1666. Violence, looting, arson, a litany of offences to report but the most unusual item reported was that relating to the use of social media to orchestrate the riots. Everything from Facebook to Twitter to Blackberry messaging was called into question and given partial blame for the rapid spread and precise organisation of the events. While we may have reached a point in our technological evolution whereby mass groups can mobilise themselves with such ease, the question really stands as to why they cannot be controlled when they do and further more, why so many people are so ill at ease, to a point where they are ready to riot at the next Facebook update.
• Middle-East riots – anything you can do, we can do better. Not to be out-done by the riots in England during the Summer, most of the middle-East countries decided to organise their own riots on social media at the beginning of the year and overthrow governing regimes that were in place for decades. Oddly enough, most have been successful in their primary objective, even if they have caused significant, resultant issues. One thing is for sure, social media has (allegedly) changed the face of the middle-East and rioting for a long time to come.
• Can you spell Gadaffi? – Not taking from the real news that was the death of Libya’s dictator but what struck me while reading about the events in various “rags of record” was the huge variety of ways in which his name was spelled. Everything from Gadaffi to Gaddafi to Gadaffy (duck?) to Gadafy to, well feel free to make one up, everyone else seems to. Of course this brings an end to the rule of Libya’s dictator and of note is the fact that this happened by local rebels teaming up with US forces to fight against a common enemy. Now that rings a bell, local rebels and the US fighting together, when was that again? Oh yeah, 1980′s Afghanistan when the US fought beside the Taliban, against the “enemy of the month” Russians. Let’s hope that this one pans out better.
• The God Particle – otherwise referred to as the elusive Higgs boson. In December of this year, the science world was alive with anticipation from Cern that they may eventually have found the “God Particle”, the sub-atomic particle credited with possibly being one of the building blocks of the universe. So far the news is that they are unsure. Oh well nevermind, continue to plough money in. After all organised religion has been doing the same for millennia without a single glimpse of God but keeps the donations coming. Looks like science and religion have finally hit a meeting point.

I’m sure that there are many other noteworthy events of the past 12 months but for me, right now, that about wraps it up. Have a great New Year everyone!

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1) You are what you tweet – the Gillian McKeith debacle. Yes midway through the year, we were treated to a rather scrumptious story from the twittersphere. A spat had developed between nutritionist Gillian McKeith and Bad Science guy Ben Goldacre. In what can only be referred to as an alleged sequence of misdemeanours, tweets were sent that accused Ben Goldacre of telling lies. Then suddenly the twittersphere went nuts, the topic was trending and retweets were rife. Once the story hit the big time, the tweets from the Gillian McKeith entitled account disappeared (i.e. were deleted) and the world’s worst cover up was attempted including the statement that the account was not Gillian’s despite several official tweets and logos, and prior printed publications suggesting otherwise. Ladies and gentlemen – how not to use Twitter!

2) Dublin Metro despite all needs. Yes, I’ve been banging on about this for years now but it’s still as valid an argument as ever in my opinion. I was delighted earlier in the year, to see that Kevin Myers has joined my band wagon of sense by slamming the metro in one of his columns. I have great time for Kevin’s articles, his lucid and direct arguments, even if sometimes I don’t agree fully – it was a relief to know that I was not alone in my thoughts on what I consider to be one of the biggest travesties in the state. This year, Ireland is swinging from the door frame of wreck and ruin. The country has been swept with budget cuts, banks have been all but nationalised, the IMF even turned up for a friendly chat, we were dealt an austerity budget, and in the end we were forced to take a bailout loan that the country will probably never have the capacity to pay back in full. Yes, Ireland will be in the back pocket of the IMF and more worryingly, the EU, for a very long time to come. It’s never a good idea to be the littlest member of the family whose causing trouble for your bigger brothers and I believe it won’t be long before we see hard evidence of that. Anyway, I digress. Despite all of these economically horrific events the one thing that has not been cut is the Dublin Metro project. Roads around the country have been slashed, hospitals will probably be increasingly centralised (i.e. further limit access to), and other nationwide capital expenditure for local councils is being slashed too. However, Dublin still wants its metro and a two finger salute to all those who speak sense to the contrary. The whole thing has become so absurd at this stage that despite there being no money to construct the metro, the project still isn’t being taken off the table. Sheer stubbornness, ignorance and callous disregard for their fellow man. One really does have to wonder whose legacy this metro is. No project as ridiculous as this, in these austere times, would ever survive if it wasn’t to serve as a tombstone epithet for some politician.

3) Student protests and Garda violence. This was the moment that really worried me this year – the moment that democracy all but died. What was largely a peaceful, in some parts sit down, protest by the students of Ireland, turned to a brutal and characterless assault of anyone that dared not be moved. Students moving through the streets, bleeding, Gardaí caught on camera kicking and beating students with truncheons. There could be no cover up for these events, in this time. Yet again Twitter and other social networks started to buzz with photos and videos of the events as they unfolded. We still await the outcome of what will no doubt be a suffocated inquiry.

4) Attack on Prince Charle’s car. Student protests in England surrounding education fees and such, boiled over into troubles and riots. During said troubles, Prince Charles and Camilla were being driven to the London Palladium for a night of unashamed entertainment. So, what would one do? I know Jeeves, let’s drive our most opulent vehicle through the riots. That will calm the students and show them that all is fair and equal. Boom, bang, crash! What more can one say…

5) Wikileaks. Well the year wouldn’t be worth mentioning if we didn’t mention Wikileaks and the debacle surrounding it. For anyone living under a rock for the past year, Wikileaks is essentially true freedom of information sped up and nothing more. However, when civil servants and petty government officials who feel they can be less than diplomatic in their words and actions have information tied to them, released to the public without the option of redacting it, then there’s a problem. Wikileaks isn’t making up anything, it’s simply setting free information that has been gathered by elected and employed public officials, on behalf of their countries. In other words, public information that citizens elected their governments to manage and gather in the best interest of the country. However, as we can see from some of the leaks, not all that information is in best interests, indeed it would appear that a right bunch of immature, undiplomatic and untrustworthy individuals are running this globe. Founder of Wikileaks, Julian Assange is strangely finding himself at the centre of a scandal and arrest with subsequent trial at the same time the US are screaming for his head – hmm, me ponders. Amazon cancelled the hosting used by Wikileaks, PayPal froze access to the accounts used for donations to Wikileaks and apparently also froze the accounts of people who donated money to Wikileaks because the US State Department told them it was illegal. Just what kind of people do we have running this world; Where repressed news reports and public information is a reason to assassinate somebody’s character and act in an undemocratic way?

6) Horse Outside. Well, well, “Horse Outside”. The duo known as the Rubber Bandits, known for their antics on RTE’s Republic of Telly, released what can only be described as the track of the year. A controversial, possibly offensive to most societal groups, riotous composition and video to accompany it. I think it’s best to approach the new year with a smile on our faces and a happy state of mind. So, with that philosophy I salute 2010′s passing with one more play of “Horse Outside”.

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Some of the main focal points of the budget include a cap on public service salaries at €250,000 (as I noted yesterday), cuts to social welfare payments, cuts to capital spending, a notable increase in the PRSI contribution for the self-employed, removal of the stamp duty relief (now 1% on all sales under €1 million, and 2% on sales above €1 million), and a widening of the tax bands so that more people are “contributing” to the tax take of the state.

Let’s look at some of the things that weren’t done. To start the cap of €250K on public service salaries is ridiculous, this figure is way too high as I explained in yesterday’s opinion. It’s not that there are enough people earning this to make a significant contribution back to the coffers but rather it plays on the expected average wage and thus increases costs right across the board, untenably so. Ministers and An Taoiseach received a cut. Again a frankly ridiculous token gesture that still sees An Taoiseach earning more than the UK Prime Minister – take a hit, share the pain and then people will accept your proposals. Give them free cheese while you party hard with the leaders of the big countries and you’ll lose them forever – lead by example An Taoiseach. In capital spending we hear that many road projects will be stopped due to cutbacks but still the white elephant that is the Dublin Metro is allowed to proceed as if nothing was wrong. What exactly is the fascination with this project that it has to be kept on the table, even in the most austere times when the potential few who might use it will probably end up emigrating so that it can be built? Means testing social welfare, children’s allowance and pensions was not entertained. Such a simple idea that should gel well with a cabinet who seemingly believes that those who can afford to pay, must and I ask why not those who can afford to go without, be allowed to go without? Rather than cuts in children’s allowance, etc for everyone why not means test it for equitable treatment of the truly deserving? Same goes for pensions, I can’t imagine that ex-Ministers will really be requiring the level of pension payments of which they are in receipt of? Pensions are supposed to be about maintaining a good standard of life after the work is done, not about acquiring even more wealth and expanding savings.

Some basic things that I would have changed anyhow, for what it’s worth. The reality however is that amid all this talk of cuts and harsh measures, we really are just farting around in a huge cup of tea with no chance of achieving anything other than a comical enactment of a Brownian Motion demonstration. The wonderful bailout still hangs over our heads like a net of Damoclean rocks awaiting orders to fall. Senior bond holders (to you and me, this means people who took out a risky investment plan but paid enough in so that nobody would tell them they lost money in a downturn) still go untouched at our expense, even against the recommendations of the IMF. Yes, the IMF (the experts in sorting out financial disaster) were overruled by the boys in the EU who controlled the sweet box full of treehouse monies – thankfully our fate lies in their learned and experienced hands! Yes, the bailout we will not escape. It’s a mathematical certainty of which, only the most unscrupulous liars would have no trouble in denying.

How will the man in the street feel tomorrow morning? Probably a little more annoyed than he feels today, probably a few Euro worse off per week, probably not any different in terms of surviving than he was 12 months previous nor any worse off in those basic terms than he will be in 12 months to come. The country does need a heavy FDI injection to get some money circulating again while we endure the illusion that someday it will all be over and we can go back to 4*4′s in every driveway, bringing the 2.3 children to school and borrowing to acquire a holiday home which would be situated at most, 250 miles from your doorstep but ultimately people just need a reason to drive themselves forward again.

Apathy will attack the heart of the society for some time to come but we need to keep doing something, not for financial gain nor debt removal but for the continuance of the human race and to make life bearable. Very few will end up in 3rd world conditions, it’s attitude and spirit that keeps our heads above water while our meager finances more than cover the real cost of living. Only when man stares into the abyss and all that. I hold out hope that society will bond again, that neighbourly relations and community projects will thrive again and people will turn away from the “it’s my entitlement” attitude that has stifled so much in recent times. I have begun to see small pockets of this spirit grow in the last few months and I dearly hope it will foster the multitude into a new way of being – the old way of being. There’s no need to panic, unless of course you really want to. Maybe the threat to the Irish ladybird at the hands of the Asian ladybird is enough to push you over the edge?

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Much is being uttered regarding a cap on civil service salaries – most recent indications suggest €250,000 will be the limit applied. I do subscribe to the philosophy that there is no greater pain and suffering at any level is individual, beyond comparison. As such I always stay clear of making a logical argument into a battle of two sides where each defeats the other and the problem lives to fight another day – the kind of politics that has been played in this country for way too long. Without applying the classical “but”, I do still feel that as a corrective measure, this rumoured limit is still grossly excessive. Public service is just that, it is people who seek a career that aims to improve the standard of life for everyone and to partake in the running of the country – it’s a vocation of such. Sadly in the last 10 years the public service has been seen as a gravy train by many (sometimes rightly, sometimes wrongly). There are many lower paid public servants that rightly voice their concerns about cuts but there are equally as many, excessively high-paid public servants, with guaranteed pensions of 50% of their final paycheck who scurry for subterfuge when genuinely angry people come knocking. This is where the gravy train view of the public service gains most credence and it needs to stop. It needs to be tackled by sensible caps on top level scales, the kind of salary that will only attract somebody who wants to make a difference and serve their country not chancers looking for big money first and duty second. The guaranteed pension at 50% of final salary for a full service term also needs to be scrapped or alternatively made less exclusive and opened up to the public to choose as a viable pension offering compared to the leading institutions – either way a flat 50% is not a viable payout.

One of my biggest worries is the legacy of the Greens and the carbon tax inclusions in this budget. Carbon tax was pushed so much as an environmentally conscious mechanism to reduce emissions. However, last week, in the criticism of the 4-year plan by other political forces such as the EU, the truth became blindingly obvious (not as if we didn’t already know). One criticism of the plan by the EU (to save a crippled economy and bring more cash into the public finances) was that they would have liked to see greater carbon taxes. So, there it is folks, the bitter proof – there is no interest in using carbon tax at all, to dissuade pollution or emissions, it’s plain and simple, a tax generator to screw the common man in everything he does. Even in a crippled economy. I dread to see what else will appear under this guise in years to come.

News broke this morning regarding the honour bestowed upon Brian Lenihan, as worst finance minister in the EU. To be honest, I never had much time for Brian, always thought that his ideas and interactions with the public were the actions of a desperate man. However, I don’t think it fair that he has been branded as such in this poll. He inherited a poisoned chalice, a bird’s nest of public finance mismanagement, and a black hole of financial corruption (at least a black hole in terms of public knowledge, some government officials may well have been aware of what lied upon if not beyond the event horizon).

It’s still cold outside; about the only thing that hasn’t entered a state of flux in the last week. I’m working in a public service building whose temperature was well below the HSA guideline minimum (due to heating failure) but nobody left on such grounds. Not a bad result for a country that is supposed to be a militant, unionised farce who drops shovels at the first breach of conditions. Despite what some people want to believe (let’s call them secondary problem creators, primary problem failures) this is not “Carry On at Your Convenience” – if you don’t get the reference then try to watch that movie with its own brand of bawdy, British comedy at some stage that it will probably be aired this festive season. If only people invested the same effort into problem solving as they did into pitting groups against each other; We’d not be in this predicament now, that’s for sure – the eye would never have been off the ball.

So, we sit and wait for the published budget to be aired tomorrow afternoon. We await our financial fate with unprecedented, nervous anticipation. For many years budgets have come and gone. I certainly never paid much heed to the prophecies of doom in previous times. I don’t think we have ever really had a harsh budget in recent history. However, tomorrow’s tale has me a little concerned for the future of society. I foresee a long Winter of civil unrest, should certain things come into being. Yes, it will be cold for a long time to come.

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Journalist Fintan O’Toole has ignited the bitpipe by launching his website and online petition for “radical political reform” and even moreso by the observation that his Twitter account (@fotoole) is only following broadcaster Miriam O’Callaghan (@MiriamOCal) and nobody else. The Twitter world went crazy off the back of this news – really, you’d think there was nothing better to talk about.

Bank shares climbed high this morning, the final days of Anglo Irish Bank are finally predicted, bonds shoot through the roof after the fluff regarding our so-called bailout (moreso crippling, inextinguishable loan facility) hits the business world. News that senior bond holders will escape all pain from their gamble angers the public, while the common man sees pension reserves trundled into keeping the fires burning at the state’s most reckless lenders. Performance artist Will St Ledger serves notice of eviction on the Dáil and hands out fake bank notes featuring Bertie Ahern’s face. That’s more paper than I would personally have wasted on anything that wasn’t a warrant for his arrest.

The freezing weather conditions continue to hamper the country; treacherous driving conditions all over, icy footpaths, schools, workers and daily practices, all disrupted. A slight thaw around midday quickly subsides into biting cold, as the slush starts to freeze once more. The psyche of the public turns to log fires and Dickensian walks home in the snowy pasture of Ireland’s once tarmacadam’ed streets. A news report at lunchtime aired advice from senior citizens to senior citizens: The simple things one can do to keep warm, like maintaining the heat on all day and using the old Super-Ser to boost temperatures. Simple things indeed, to stave off hypothermia in the advent of the next coronary inducing gas bill.

To summarise, I think a trio of verses from that lyrical poet Bek David Campbell (otherwise known as Beck), says it perfectly. I leave you with:

tonight the city is full of morgues
and all the toilets are overflowing
there’s shopping malls coming out of the walls
as we walk out among the manure
–
give the finger to the rock ‘n’ roll singer
as he’s dancing upon your paycheck
the sales climb high through the garbage-pail sky
like a giant dildo crushing the sun
–
so get out your lead-pipe pipe dreams
get out your ten-foot flags
the insects are huge and the poison’s all been used
and the drugs won’t kill your day job…honey

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The conversation went from acknowledging the catastrophic leadership of Fianna Fail to immediately seeking a scapegoat to blame more for the problems. Granted the Greens deserve a piece of any right thinking person’s mind, on any given day but to move to them as a worthy recipient for the blame deserving of Fianna Fail and their gross negligence in office at a time before the Greens even had a seat at the cabinet table! Is it any wonder that this country is in such a state? How do we ever expect to progress from the playground if we can’t allow ourselves to identify right and wrong when it comes to our favourite political team? When will we see politicians as employees to get a job done rather than somebody to support as a hobby? It sickens me to the core that we live this way.

Some years ago I was accused of attending the Robert Mugabe School of Economics by a die hard Fianna Fail supporter simply because I wanted to see more emphasis on regional development instead of centralised infrastructure and a focus on industrial and high end jobs to bolster the economy rather than building speculative retail centres and dubious ring roads whose real raison d’etre was always to open up land for rezoning to retail rather than traffic management. I think history will reflect well on my beliefs and hopefully his will be retained, embarrassingly at the back of his mind. Let us never forget that the self-centred, centralised policies of Fianna Fail caused this and those who subscribed to those policies because “they were alright Jack”, well you deserve special mention in the history books.

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Students from around the country were united in protest, in Dublin yesterday. Protesting against the notion that this country’s government would place their education in jeopardy by doubling fees that they simply cannot afford in this depression. A government that would rather deploy a vanity metro project to buff the appearance of the capital and serve no other purpose rather than investing in the future generation of workers in this country. If I do make it out of here I’m handing back my passport – I don’t want to be associated with this nation ever again as long as Fianna Fail and their ilk continue to seize power in our once fair land.

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Everywhere I look these days, the problem exists. You might think that gentle encouragement and making somebody feel good about themselves despite an obvious lack of ability would stop at the playground years in favour of guiding true ability towards a career and professional, self-sustaining existence but it doesn’t. We pad everything in life to make us all seem like winners and to start believing the pretense that we are all top of the class when paradoxically we have all become losers by our refusal to acknowledge our failings.

Let’s look at some examples. At the moment the Irish governance is hell bent on establishing what are termed as “centres of excellence”. These centres of excellence are rolling out all over the country to the extent that it is now viewed that if you don’t have a centre of excellence then you are somehow lacking. However, by pure literary definition, if everywhere has a centre of excellence in some discipline, is it not true to conclude that excellence has lost all meaning and centres simply compete on a par with each other? Why does everywhere have to be excellent when that simply isn’t the case and will eventually extinguish itself as a mark of quality if continued?

Another example, this one is pretty current and I’m sure that everyone has heard the terms at some stage in the last few weeks; national credit ratings. There has been much talk of the downgrading of Ireland’s credit rating and in the last week we have seen the rating of Anglo Irish Bank further downgraded to I think it was a ‘B’ rating – whatever the hell that means. What the rating means is frankly irrelevant when most of the countries in the free Western world have credit ratings scored in terms of multiple ‘A’s. What the hell? When did A stop being good enough? No, these days we have a ‘AAA’ rating and a ‘AA’ rating before eventually failing to an ‘A’ rating – perish the thought! Why? Is it simply that having a ‘B’ rating (originally second best in the “normal” man’s scoring chart) was perceived as failure and even if you were second best but had an ‘A’ that would somehow be better despite still being second best? Where is the sense? Not everyone is a winner or the best, accept it and move on. ‘AAA’ come on, just how insecure is the mindset that gives rise to something like that?

In the last number of decades we have become obsessed with lying to ourselves about how good we are. We could blame self-help books, psychology quacks, or any number of things but really we just need to stand up and say, “yes, this is crazy, we can’t all be excellent at everything”. Sadly, we’re not saying that and instead we are continuing to delude ourselves further and further. Recently it was common place for people purchasing a starter 3-bed family home in Dublin to say, “yes, we can afford a EUR 500K mortgage” because that’s what everyone else here is doing and you know what (well of course you do), the banks were so eager to not criticise the credit rating of the customer who had never defaulted that they bumped them up a couple of ‘A’s and viola! a new piece of history was being written, entitled “bubble and collapse”. It didn’t matter how many lies, how many delusions, how many fallacies had to be believed, we soaked up every single one of them.

We are a nation a world obsessed with being the best at everything. This is not the natural competitive edge of genuine competition and hard work. This is the self-deluding practice of simply keeping a stiff upper lip while trying to walk on water. This is the system of life that has seen the entire planet plunged into a financial recession not seen since stock markets crashed in 1929, before all this nonsense started. We are a world of losers who still believe that we are winners. In July of this year Ireland had its credit rating “slashed” (another term that loses all meaning in this context) to a ‘AA’ rating despite having impossible government guarantees for all the national banks, some institutions on the verge of defaulting and overwhelming national debt. They say one man’s trash is another man’s treasure but this is really taking the piss – ‘AA’ and on the verge of bankruptcy, I’m still laughing and ironically it is all the way to the bank…

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