For some time now, anyone with their ears open will have heard of the “lock out” problem that is supposedly attributed to a 2G/3G handover issue on Meteor Ireland’s network for all users of the HTC Hero. Now when Meteor became the first Irish operator to launch an Android device last year (i.e. the Hero) they attracted a great deal of interest, myself included. I gave up all my beliefs about not paying monthly subscriptions, ditched my O2 prepay account and signed up for an 18 month contract. Since then there has been an array of issues all attributable to the Meteor network such as port blocking preventing some applications from running as advertised and the simply unbearable “lock out” issue.

Locked out on Android 2.1

The “lock out” issue can affect users of the handset anywhere up to 10 times a day on average. Basically what happens is that the phone drops signal and will not, no matter how long left alone, reconnect to the network. The only way of doing so is to reboot the phone or the faster route is to enter flight mode and then exit flight mode to re-register with the network. I have had friends verify that this is not an issue on other networks, trawling the web seems to throw up nothing in other countries but the Meteor forum is burning with rage about this issue. Some users are apparently being told that the problem will be fixed when the Hero is upgraded to Android 2.1 however, I can unequivocally say that this is not the case as I have been testing for a while now with a “rooted” Hero, running Android 2.1 and the latest radio firmware and I still experience the problem. For example, yesterday I had to cycle flight mode on my phone 6 times.

Normal people don’t check their phone every 5 minutes to see if they have a signal and as such this issue means that so many people are potentially going for the majority of the day without a signal on their Hero; paying for a service that they are not receiving. I can only imagine that this is going to turn ugly for Meteor and will no doubt be a PR disaster as currently, at least in my correspondence and the anecdotal sources on the Meteor forum, the company is not doing anything to appease the affected users and customer care agents are giving wrong information about Android updates solving the problem.

Here’s a video I made this morning of the “lock out” symptom and temporary solution of flight mode cycling.

The charm of the vulnerable, less fortunate, minority?

“Question my attitude? I’ll show you f**kin’ attitude!”

I was very fortunate to grow up in Ireland’s oldest city, Waterford, while even at times of recession and underdeveloped localities, kids had the resource of culture, a sense of pride in what was theirs, and a healthy respect for right and wrong. Now I’m not saying that kids didn’t fall off the tracks, of course they did but it was isolated incidents not a daily routine that turned into a reign of terror.

Today is a very different story. In ever-increasing numbers, young kids, young adults, and alarmingly their parents, are laying siege to our fair country. Anti-social behaviour is now a way of life, for which it is almost protected in local by-laws as a human right to invade and terrorise public spaces. Anyone who has not experienced anti-social behaviour or those who have witnessed it but never tried to tackle it, will find the next statement rather shocking: If you live in a private (whatever that means) housing estate that is being terrorised by gangs of ill-behaving teenagers (and sometimes younger) you are powerless to do anything to stop it…

The Garda response time is such that it is a physical impossibility that they arrive on time to catch the offenders in the act. If they do catch them and they are under 16 then they are simply dropped back home to Mammy and Daddy only to return an hour later, seeking revenge. If they are over 16, they are cautioned and told to move on – again the same problem ensues. If you can identify, provide video footage (since it is now legally, morally and socially questionable to take a photograph of a minor committing a crime because you are deemed to want that photo for immoral purposes), give written statements, and eventually turn up in court, then the best you can hope to achieve is the issuing of a JLO (Juvenile Liaison Officer – basically a visiting nanny) for anyone that has not previously been convicted of a crime or perhaps the ultimate goal of a slap on the wrists because by hell or high water you will not secure any other punishment! The number of ASBOs handed out since their introduction is almost countable on one hand, apart from that kids pretty much have to kill somebody before they are locked up. Oh the poor kids, the vulnerable, they must be protected! Of course if you do go to court and give evidence against (read harass a child who is crying for help if you are part of an action group) the child of a “bad” family, oh boy, you truly are on your own after that; not to mention what their bite-size accomplices will do.

We have spent so long identifying groups of people that social guilt forces us to describe as “less fortunate” or “minority” and nailing down legislation to protect them that we have forgotten to balance the legislation to protect the majority also. We now have laws that effectively ensure that any terrorising delinquent who is from a “less fortunate” or “minority” background will get away Scott free, while Paddy up the road gets 2 penalty points and a fine for doing 2kmh over the limit on a dual carriageway with no traffic. Hey, it’s the morally right thing to do, isn’t it? The law is the law and we must punish those who break the speed limit perhaps even put them off the road for repeated offences, but if you’re a member of a “minority” group or a youth from a “less fortunate” background, oh no, you can’t be banned then, the Equal Status Act and many other ridiculous pieces of biased legislation are your get out of jail free card (literally). So, just like every school kid knows the name of the Taoiseach, so too does this knowledge trickle down into the socially depraved ranks of delinquents and criminal undergrounds. Whether it’s casual vandalism or organised usage of un-prosecutable 11-year-olds to run drugs, we have laws that protect each and every one of them so that they can return tomorrow to do the same.

Attitudes change with age; we become less tolerant of our childish ways and a greater part of social conscious reflects that “boys will be boys” and the older we get, the more we forget our wayward childhood that caused anguish for our neighbours. Indeed it is possibly true in terms of our past interaction with our neighbours but what so many of these action groups and rights movements carelessly fail to recall, is that after running across our neighbour’s front garden we didn’t give their car a kick on the way out; after deciding to knock on somebody’s door and run away, the knock was not delivered through the heavy kick of a foot; anytime we were caught short on nature’s call it was when we were in the country with our parents and the nearest tree was the only option, we never unzipped and watered the neighbour’s plants like some dog marking its territory; I could go on but these meaningful differences would seemingly have no place in the debate of protecting the vulnerable.

We didn’t do these things because even though we may have been little terrors, we acknowledged that some things just weren’t done and weren’t right. Not for the age-old fear of getting a physical retribution from patre and matre but moreso because it just never entered our heads that you could urinate into somebody’s letterbox nor did it seem appealing that you could damage somebody’s car for fun – why would it? Somewhere along the line, attitude shifted, coupled with legislation and social mindset that provided enough freedom for “less fortunate” children (and indeed sometimes fortunate children who are still young enough to be immune to punishment) to roam free and test the system just short of murder. They passed on the way to the next rank below them and it propagated from there. Young adults they became and then parents themselves, taking with them the knowledge that life was just one big event without consequence – isn’t that lovely!

Where did it all go wrong? Through times of development and pseudo-boom many pockets of society developed extreme social guilt that others didn’t get up off their arses and make something of themselves – give rise to the term “less fortunate”. At the same time we somehow allowed ourselves to see criminality, trespassing, rape, public disorder, and illegal dumping as an ethnic way of life that must be protected. We then spent decades shouting this from the tallest soap boxes and instilling it in the minds of the community in addition to making those whom we patronised for their inaction and potential wastage, believe the social guilt that we spewed, that they were the “less fortunate” and “minority” groups whose way of life should never change and should be protected, why should they conform to laws that apply to everyone else? Yes, we’re “less fortunate”, our kids will roam the streets shouting and screaming so that everyone will identify them as “less fortunate” and excuse them from crime. We’ll cause social disruption, block roads, spill violence onto the streets because we are a “minority” that doesn’t have enough acknowledgement and it is our right to draw attention to ourselves so that people will understand us. The local councils will wash their hands of corrective action against “housed” problem families if they cause trouble in the community because it is their job to help the “less fortunate” and not punish them. The Gardaí will do their best to obey the letter of the law until such time that they can get a promotion from community policing and into a real position that allows them to enforce law equally, across the board. While the attitude of those who cause so many problems for society, stinks ever so badly, it is the social guilt of certain lobby groups and action groups who will never find themselves dealing with the results of their lobbying, whom have gotten us into this dire situation. They gave birth to the attitude of wrong is okay and insult thy neighbour but it’s not okay and it’s time that things changed.

No doubt there will be many who take exception to this outwardly suggestive prose, implicating the “less fortunate” as the main trouble makers and that “rich kids” are even more problematic – greetings to you who obviously have never dealt with these children outside of your social work and lobbying! Having suffered at the hands of anti-social behaviour for years now, with thousands of Euro worth of damage done to my property and living in fear most evenings to the extent that I have had to install CCTV around my home; I can tell you that 100% of my problems have been caused by “less fortunate” children from nearby housing estates. On quick survey of one estate, while working with the Gardaí to report damage done and anti-social behaviour on one occasion I noted that in a small council estate (about 40 homes) there lived a gang of over 20 children from different families, all of whom either engage in underage drinking, stone throwing at cars and houses, prior history with the Gardaí, and on, and on. There is no bad apple spoiling the barrel: The barrel is rotten, accept it. We do not need to nurture, condone, nor defend this indefensible way of life. We need to correct it and change the attitude of these social terrors so that decent people can get on with their lives. We created this attitude as a society who cared not and saw it fitting to develop unwarranted social guilt; we must now change it and correct the laws that give rise to such problems. Three strikes and you’re out – kids in detention and families evicted from housed locations for not dealing with the prior behaviour leading up to it. It’s the only way ahead, the only way to social harmony, and the only way to reduce petty crime figures.

Just a few of the things on my mind today:

1) People who walk into warzones with the ambition of refusing to let people fend for themselves and get into trouble, only to arrive home and brag about enjoying “Eggs Benedict” should never be received with open arms nor great applause for their false altruism and complete lack of a grasp on reality.

2) Mary Coughlan threatening the Irish consumers that shopping North of the border will cost jobs in the South. A few weeks back she and her cabinet were begging us to share everything with the EU now we can’t even drive a few miles North for massive cost savings without being held accountable for the way the country is run? Never mind the complete hypocrisy of the situation when the equivalent case is people in Waterford going on a shopping trip to Dublin, thereby costing jobs in Waterford, but somehow that’s ok? Get a f**king life Mary!

3) Wondering how we got to the situation whereby nobody has accountability when things are deliberately f**ked up in this country but yet the compensation culture always finds somebody accountable and punishable for trying to help or for doing their job.

4) Thinking that it’s entirely fitting and says a lot about the Irish future when the RTE correspondent on financial matters is called Rob Shortt.

5) Liking that Muse’s new song Uprising is making me think of a crossover between the original Dr. Who theme tune and Blondie’s “Call Me” and that’s exactly why I’ll buy it on iTunes.

6) I know David Byrne from Talking Heads had a solo career but why can’t I think of a single song title?

7) Thinking that evolution of communcations technology is a mostly useless activity that only causes more disruption and wasted finances that it creates benefit. We should be focussed on laying fibre to every door in Ireland and let the bandwidth provide the benefit instead of trying to lay shyte on top of it that nobody really cares about but only uses because the traditional channels are no longer open.

8 ) Wondering how much longer I can stand the constant irritation of reinvention.

9) Wondering how some people live life in a Scott free way, without any recourse for illegal activity and knowing fraud; protected by organisations that never find in favour of complainants nor admit failure despite being 100% wrong.

10) Thinking I’m going to need a bigger hard drive for the movie footage, 1h 20mins of HD is coming in at 40GB and there’s many, many more hours to be captured.

This Friday the people of Ireland will go to the polls and at this moment in time I have no doubt that the Lisbon Treaty will be approved by a majority YES vote.

Yes, I advocate the NO vote but so too am I realistic with respect to the current state of play. Without offence to any individual, the YES side is made up of people whose jobs would not exist if they were not needlessly paid by somebody to be there and die hard Euro fanatics who would question their own mother before questioning the European Parliament, e.g. die hard trade unionists, politicians, minority businessmen whose business depends on EU subsidies, etc. The NO side is made up of people who are independent, self-starters who didn’t inherit a business to run, and minority political forces who will never become career politicians of any magnitude.

So why am I so convinced that the treaty will be carried? Well it’s simple really. The Irish are easily scared, rarely exhibit backbone, and are too ignorant to actually read anything they ever vote on. In addition to this, so-called independent bodies have done nothing but publish guides on how to vote YES, debates on national TV have always portrayed a majority leaning towards YES, the only credible NO campaigner is the victim of a slur campaign by our government and also was brought onto the main evening news to be ripped apart while no YES campaigner has ever received a similar treatment nor stern questioning of the value in voting YES. Finally, effecting the Lisbon Treaty will have consequence as simply put, consequence is the result of implementing any change, and no act of sublime lunacy is without consequence.

So a provisional congratulations to the self-interest groups and career politicians who successfully ran a campaign of, well actually it debases all my beliefs to call it a campaign given that not a single fact was used by the pro-YES vote side. Equally annoyed I am at the pro-NO side for using equal amounts of scaremongering and fallacious rubbish before anyone says anything about them. Anyway, congratulations on making it an iron clad fact that the voice of the Irish people will never be listened to within their own country nor within the EU. Congratulations on securing an opinion poll majority from people who believe that Lisbon will effect economic recovery. Congratulations on reaffirming your unquestionable stance in society whereby democracy is always wrong unless it’s the answer you want. Well done – you should be very proud of yourselves.

For anyone as of yet undecided, for those who have not bought the claptrap that a YES will bring economic recovery, keep us in Europe, send out waves of positivity to foreign investors, and pave the streets with gold – fair play to you for not yet being sucked in. For those who are die hard that the EU has treated us so well, that being part of the EU is the greatest thing since sliced bread and that life can’t exist without the EU as it stands, I have the following question: Why on earth are you voting in a treaty that guarantees changes to the EU and doesn’t preserve it in the way that it currently exists and has been good to us? The only consequence as a result of Friday’s vote will be if the treaty is passed – any other outcome changes nothing about the operation of the EU nor Ireland’s role within.

I’m not a Euro sceptic nor do I have any paranoid delusions of the EU being out to get us. I simply don’t ever accept YES as a default action and I despise change for the sake of change; change that serves little other purpose than justifying huge amounts of expenditure by some group of bureaucratic pen pushers. Let’s put it this way, if the Public Service in Ireland was campaigning for the opportunity to give itself more power and waste extraordinary amounts of public money on rejigging documents that have little to no effect on the running of the country, would you vote YES to their campaign?

Anyway, “que sera, sera”. Frankly I am both ashamed to be an Irish citizen and also ashamed to be a European who is currently frowned upon for not letting petulant, power-hungry, politicians get their way. Post-Lisbon Ireland will bear little difference to pre-Lisbon Ireland – only the passage of time will have any effect on the landscape. Twice in recent history we stuck our heads out and said something to the EU and twice we were slapped on the wrists – I wonder will Lisbon change the respect that Ireland gets for talking? Will effectively becoming a spineless jellyfish who swallows pride and forgets beliefs, win us the respect that we clearly do not yet have from Europe? Only time will tell…

A couple of weeks back I was talking to Siân about what I perceived as the shameless pro-YES campaign being run for the Lisbon Treaty. I’ve been taking notes of the kind of voices that are being given air time from the NO side and the amount of YES side commentary and blatant lies that are being thrown around, coupled with ridiculous amounts of auld buddies from business lobby groups backing up their political friends. Anyhow, I made the remark that it would only be a matter of time before we saw an advert on RTE from Aer Lingus that told people that their deal for a trip Lisbon was just too good to ignore.

Gobsmacked, I sit here with a cup of tea watching ads on RTE and behold, Aer Lingus’ new advert for city breaks, hypnotic music, oodles of enticing and pleasant sounding words, mentioning of a great deal, and finally in big, bold letters, in the middle of the screen, “LISBON” – I kid you not. I’m not big on conspiracy theories as I like cold hard facts but I said that this would happen and now, 2 weeks before the treaty vote we have the advert that asks people how they could say NO to Lisbon. I don’t believe in that kind of coincidence – not in a million years.

A clever and appropriate nomenclature coined by John Murray Brown of FT.com to summarise Ireland at the moment. Our Emerald Isle is looking more like a junk shop, jade dragon – cheap, useless, outdated, and fragile. On one hand our country is fighting the evil of wreckless developers and their associated debts while on the other the government and courts appear to be doing everything possible to stop these people from going bankrupt and giving them all the chances necessary to welcome them into the ba-nama republic that we have created. It’s fair to say that some great strokes were pulled over the years by unscrupulous Irish politicians but what we are currently witnessing is the equivalent of the first admiral on the Titanic persuading people to get back out of the lifeboats! Amidst all of this iceberg hugging behaviour is the persistent belief that somehow getting the public to vote YES on the Lisbon Treaty’s second time referendum will save the country, as if Christ the Financier were due a second coming. Rather than awaiting the return of our money messiah however, we should probably be more focused on crucifying the current radicals that have brought us to the water’s edge but neglected to admit that they were drowning while supposedly they were walking on the surface. Here’s a link to the FT.com article.

Last October the Irish people went to the polling booth to have their say on the Lisbon Treaty – the result was a definite NO. The path is now being paved for a second vote on the treaty; So, what’s changed?

Before the first Lisbon vote, many people had a great number of concerns about the Lisbon Treaty’s content. Unusually despite this, every single, major political party supported the YES vote. The public were subjected to the opinions of ministers who openly admitted never reading the treaty document yet were convinced that YES was the only way to vote. After the NO vote won out, the government played out on the back foot for a while; the occasional snipe at the public and various fallacious comments such as how they made the recession worse by voting NO.

In recent times we have heard about the legal agreements sought by the government of Ireland, that would protect the points of concern, as expressed by the public. Concerns that you will remember, did not exist before the last vote as they were supposedly non-issues. However, the government now seems to agree that these are actually issues and has spent a great deal of public monies on legal council and drafting these so-called guarantees. So, the NO vote was right all along, we actually had genuine concerns?

So, the parties’ line is now that these agreements are in place and protect the genuine concerns of the Irish people so we can all be good little EU subordinates and vote YES because they want us to. Every major broadcaster and printed media has conveyed this message to the people and many lobby groups have convinced pockets of voters that YES is now the only option because these guarantees are in place. Very clever PR and electioneering; I take my hat off to the powers that be for conceiving and executing such an incredibly intricate and conniving plan.

What we haven’t heard anything about in the Irish media is how not a single word of the Lisbon Treaty document has been changed. We have also not been told how these guarantees are standalone documents that do not form an appendix to the treaty and that these guarantees are effected now, prior to the impending second vote on the treaty. What we are not being told is that voting YES to this treaty will supercede these guarantees, give power to the EU commission on all future decisions (a commission on which Ireland is still not guaranteed a seat) and allow the EU commission to govern with a treaty that remains unchanged from the original NO vote, still carrying all the concerns of the Irish public (confirmed recently by the Irish government’s actions as being genuine concerns). So essentially, Lisbon II will see the Irish government persuade the Irish citizens to return to the polls and despite ratifying all original fears and concerns, ignore their better judgement and vote YES anyway. This request will be made despite not a single word of the original treaty being changed and our only guarantees of comfort being standalone documents that will be superceded by the treaty coming into effect, rendering them null and void.

While not being one for holding back on what I believe in nor what I think about things, I really am lost for words that the Irish government truly believes that the Irish people are that stupid. I’m further confounded that somehow, lobby groups are managing to persuade certain groups that these hard times are linked to the last NO vote. I’ve always said that the Irish state verged on being Orwellian but am I truly gobsmacked at the blatant, stone-faced, audacity with which this deception is being performed.

Last time I voted NO because of concerns that the Irish government now says are genuine. Nothing has changed and the Irish people are being hoodwinked by clever political manoeuvres and fallacious scaremongering – this time I will be voting NO again, regardless of what anyone says. We’re still at square one.

When the Green party in this country were sucked into power last year by the great vacuous siphon of Fianna Fáil, I thouhgt to myself, this is no longer a party of idealists and tree huggers led by the political incarnation of Duncan from About the House; this is a Marxist and Sellout Party.

Sadly I have not yet been proven wrong. Despite all their fluttering and spluttering like a diesel engine under water, the party has stood fast in its only stable belief at the moment – it’s better to be inside the tent pissing out than outside pissing in.

I recently read an article in the mainstream printed media that cited further rumblings from the Green Party about further taxes on our emissions, our fuel, and pushing, pushing, pushing us further towards a carbon tax on every man woman and child. All this despite the fact that the country already has one of the higest global costs of living and the fact that we are in serious recession with no free money to spend on taxes that will be unavoidable if such measures are taken.

Recently I had the pleasure of spending lots of hard-earned money to get a BER certificate survey performed on my house that I am selling. The guy who did the assessment is a top guy and a true professional but enlightened me to the fact that half the assessment is guess work and based on assumptions. It doesn’t matter that you have a gas boiler that you may never use to heat your water it still brings down your rating if it’s not 100% efficient and many more stupid assumptions. So much in fact that a 5-year-old, modern home, with good insulation and double glazing was awarded the average rating of a D2, which is pretty low down the scale. Imagine introducing a carbon tax on that? Imagine what anyone with a 20-year-old home is facing!

Another thing that particularly annoys me about the Green Party in this country is not only do they choose to ignore EU stupidity such as the BER system and its impact on people but they also choose to ignore our own national stupidity. Just over a year ago the new road tax system came into being and vehicles were to be taxed on their emissions. On face value a wonderfully progressive idea, even if it doesn’t take into consideration that somebody might only drive 1000 km per year and have almost no emissions. However, such was the stupidity of our implementation that all possible Green intent was striped from this plan when it was announced that it only applied to cars registered in 2008 and beyond. Imagine an outwardly Green policy to reduce emissions and save the planet is actually encouraging waste, disposal of existing cars and purchase of new cars, incurring shipping, manufacturing, etc waste and emissions and dissuades people from the primary function of environmental consciousness, to recycle and reuse. Yet again our Green policies are nothing more than penalise the majority and tax everyone. Everyone knows that the only sensible way to be environmentally conscious about vehicle emissions is to tax the usage, i.e. tax the fuel and do away with road tax. Alas that idea would never fly.

Yes, our dear Green Party presides over a government of incompetence that sits only to tax and taxes only to cover its own blundering expenditure rather than putting any thought into policy making and budgetary planning. Indeed I think it is fair to say that the only shade of Green left in this party is that which reflects the envy of how Fianna Fáil have managed to garner so much power and that Super Duncan and co will never realise such ambition.

As much as it pains me to say it, my plans to run this year’s Dublin Marathon have come to an end because of injury. Despite trying to battle back to fitness, even short distance runs are leaving me crippled and I cannot entertain the idea of a 10 mile or more jog. So with deep regret I withdraw my ambition for this year and postpone it until 2010 when I will no doubt be wrapping myself in cotton wool until the big day.

…well actually I said it would never happen again. About 18 months ago I managed to complete one of my life goals and crossed the finish line in the Dublin City Marathon taking with me a few thousand Euro for a local charity in Waterford City. It was a thrilling experience and one, having felt the toll on my energy resources, thought that I might never do again. It never put me off running though and since then I’ve run half-marathon runs and several 10 mile races too.

However, last December, during an indoor soccer match I badly hurt my foot and damaged some ligaments that stopped me doing anything for a long time. During my recovery I made the typical mistake of yielding to an injury rather than working it back to health and I hurt my thigh muscle, which in turn made me put additional pressure on my lower back and yes, it went too. Long story short, I’ve been plagued with injury for the last 6 months and haven’t had a single run beyond the weekly game of indoor soccer. During that time I had a lot of time to reflect on how much I missed my regular runs and the freedom I felt when in a good stride and the endorphins are flowing through the brain and I decided to set my sights on October 2009 and the Dublin City Marathon.

So, yesterday, for the first time in 6 months I felt ready to take my first steps again and went for a run. I decided that an easy 10km was what I needed and easy wasn’t the word – it took me 1 hour and 3 minutes. That’s probably the slowest 10km I’ve ever run and well off my average pace by about 15 minutes. However, I made it and it was exactly what I needed to refocus my mind. So, that leaves me with 4 months of solid training until October when it will be a warm in to the race and I don’t think that I’ve ever looked forward as much as I am to putting myself through 26.2 miles of torment again. However, as many of you out there will appreciate, running is an addiction, the feeling you get after a good run is unquantifiable or when you hit a good stride at mid-distance and you feel as though you could sprint the next 5 miles non-stop, the thought of not doing another marathon is worse than the thought of doing one. Getting there and getting back to a decent pace will be a long battle though – I’m seriously off form!

Naturally no undertaking such as a marathon should be done without trying to raise something for charity and last time around it was a local hospice; this time I’ve chosen to run for the Irish Heart Foundation and see if I can get together a few Euro for them. All those of you with your hands on your wallets, steady now, I’ll publish details of the mycharity page nearer to the event. Wish me luck as they say!