It’s been a while since I updated the prank dogbowl letters, so here we go. You may recall that I had enlisted the support of the then Taoiseach, Albert Reynolds, for a daft project to manufacture dogbowls modelled as dinner plates (which nobody seemed to notice was actually just a dinner plate). When the Head of the Small Business Division of the IDA wrote asking to arrange a meeting, I replied with the above proposed advertisement and a letter that included numerous clues to the silliness of the project. Here is the letter: >>>(more…)
On this week last year (October 29 to November 4, 2006):
What local Irish community wanted to be officially known as a place of harlots, and what former TD said of the area that ‘It has always been famous for its hospitality and the beauty of the local women. In my younger days I often went there for a funeral and didn’t come home for days’?
What new toy did Ryanair CEO Michael O’Leary offer to buy?
The Department of Marine finally promised to establish a sewage scheme in the Seven Villages coastal region of Waterford. When was the plan first proposed?
How many call-outs did the Dublin Fire Brigade service respond to on Halloween night?
How did a Limerick passer-by rescue a kitten that had been trapped under the bonnet of a parked car?
If you are interested in Irish football in the 1970s and before that, I’ve just put up a few more new entries on my Bionic Bohs blog.
If you’re interested in cultural nostalgia, this entry on the Bionic Bohs blog lists some peculiar Irish news events from one weekend in September 1977.
NationMaster.Com is a fascinating site, that brings together statistics from the CIA World Fact Book and other sources to create charts that rank nations in all sorts of areas of activity. Some of the figures are a bit out of date, because they have to match up the most recent data available from so many countries, but here are three areas that Ireland comes tops in:
Litres of Beer Consumed per Person per Year
Exports of Essential Oils, Perfume and Flavour Materials
Home Ownership
For completeness, here are the top ten in each of these categories: >>>(more…)
Bertie Ahern will be paid more than the American President
Brian Cowen will be paid more than the British Prime Minister
Willie O’Dea will be paid more than the American Vice President
Conor Lenihan will be paid more than an American Senator
But do you know how much our Ministers make compared to those in the United States, the United Kingdom, Germany, France, Australia, Belgium, Netherlands, Norway, Poland and Slovakia? Click here to find out: >>>(more…)
As I’m sure they’re busy today counting out Steve Staunton’s compensation money, I thought I’d help the FAI with this recruitment advert:
And what was John Delaney thinking when he made the bizarre claim that the FAI hired Steve Staunton because they were following a ‘European model’ at the time of hiring former players with no coaching experience because international coaches cannot buy players? If he believes this, which of course he doesn’t, he is madder than any of us ever thought possible. When the FAI appointed Staunton in January 2006, the European countries who had qualified for that year’s World Cup had done so with coaches who had an average of fifteen years experience each before they were appointed. >>>(more…)
As the FAI stumble comically into their constantly exploding clowns’ car to start the search for yet another new manager, let me tell you about how I applied to manage Ireland the year Jack Charlton accidentally got the job. Four years earlier, Eoin Hand had replaced John Giles. Hand got the job by one swing vote because one FAI board member thought that rival candidate Paddy Mulligan had thrown a bun at him on an away trip. After Hand had resigned in 1985, the Merrion Square circus swung into inaction. Two senior FAI men - President Des Casey and Tony O’Neill - drove around England in a hired car looking for people to interview, while I sat at home and honed my CV. >>>(more…)
The event was a great success, and was a very emotional occasion with Mr Curry and his customers saying they would never have believed that there would be such a mix of people in their bar. There were fans and directors of both Bohemians and Derry City, most visiting the bar for the first time ever, mixing with the usual customers, plus the Mayor of Derry Drew Thompson of the DUP, Councillor Sean Carr of the SDLP, and Dean William Morton. >>>(more…)
On this week last year (October 22 to October 28, 2006):
According to an international study by psychologists, what category of Irish people were the worst binge drinkers in the world of their type?
How many owners of imported cars had not payed the proper Vehicle Registration Tax, and how much had they payed in fines because of this?
In Antrim Court a man was sentenced after admitting four counts of pretending to be someone else in order to cast postal votes. He was also being investigated for punching a news photographer. Who was he, and what was his occupation?
With many people illegally bringing Halloween fireworks into the State from Northern Ireland, what new powers did Custom Officers now have had to deal with the problem?
Why was Gaeltacht Minister Eamon O Cuiv in the news for making a stand against bilingualism?
I’ve just spent some time enjoying This is Rapid News, a very funny podcast that Dubliner Mark Cantan produces every Monday. Episode 8, from last Monday, has two great interviews with a car dealer who is selling a lot of cars very cheaply using the Radiohead download model of letting customers choose their own price, and a drug addict who is so desperate to get a fix that he has moved to Afghanistan to fight for the Taliban.
Mark also has some comedy sketches on Youtube, including this job interview that is hindered by an unusual condition:
And written material on his website, including the following: >>> (more…)
Now that the prank dogbowl letters were starting to get a reaction from officialdom, with nobody noting that a dogbowl modelled as a dinner plate was actually just a dinner plate, I decided to keep the then Taoiseach in the loop. Here’s my next letter to Albert Reynolds and his reply: >>>(more…)
Today I am going to Derry, where Bohemians play Derry City in a league game. Before the game, we will be visiting the Tavern bar, which was attacked by thugs from Dublin when Bohemians last visited Derry. We will be presenting the bar owner, Mr Kingsley Curry, with €1,000 that we collected for him as a gesture of solidarity. And we will be conveying the following messages, which represent the views of decent football supporters throughout the island: >>>(more…)
On this week last year (October 15 to October 21, 2006):
According to a survey of almost 7,500 adults, how many Irish men and women have sex less than once a week, and how many less than once a month?
Of Irish men and women under 25, what age were most when they first had sex? And overall, how many Irish adults first had sex when under the age of consent?
Two entrepreneurs shipped a million dollars worth of an unusual product to America, for distributers to sell to Irish-Americans. What was the product?
A century-old law that was preventing a Cork couple from getting married was declared unconstitutional. Why did the law prevent them from marrying, despite them having been in a relationship for over twenty years?
Why did Bono appear before the High Court, and who did he describe as an eccentric who regularly wore U2 band members’ clothes?
I know that this is a really useful service, but I can’t help finding it very bizarre. It is a website where you can check, down to street level, in every Irish County, how many times an area has been flooded, along with details of any available photos, press archives and reports of those floods.
