What about a Netflix for newspapers?

As newspapers and magazines vanish behind paywalls, I find myself in a conundrum. See, I understand the economics, and it’s one of the few areas I agree with Rupert Murdoch. Quality journalism can’t be free: someone has to pay for the journalists to go places and ask questions and to professionally report on that news. Everything can’t be free.

But here’s the problem: I’ve been spoilt. I want to read more than one newspaper and I don’t want to pay €20 subscriptions for a single one. I want to read The Economist, and New York magazine, and The Daily Telegraph and The Times and the New York Times and The Washington Post and The Guardian and The Independent and Der Spiegel.

So, what am I willing to pay for? Consider the Netflix option. I effectively pay €84 a year for that, but look at the choice. I feel like I’m getting value, and importantly, I’m paying-as-I-go, so I don’t take the hit of a large subscription.

So why not offer me a monthly subscription, but let me pick and swap, say, 10 of the wide selection of periodicals.

That I’ll pay for.

The Irish Psyche.

The Sum Of Our Parts

The Sum Of Our Parts

It seems to me that there are certain attributes that make up the Irish psyche:

1. A deep suspicion of ideas. We’ve never been great on the abstract concept or ideology. An Irishman would think little of going from being a Communist to a Capitalist, as long as there was something in it for him. And the English were in the other camp. Even nationalism, the most powerful political concept in Ireland, has more to do with hating another country than thinking through what it means to be Irish. Yet in our core we are deeply conservative, electing the same centre-right minimum change possible duopoly at EVERY election since 1921.

2. Grouphate. Whereas we don’t do ideas well, we’re Olympic class at hating a designated group. It’s almost impossible in Ireland to separate passionate nationalism from Anglophobia. Just count how many union jacks you have seen in a single week flying in Ireland, before Elizabeth II’s visit. Or have a detailed discussion about what a united Ireland would look like with its most passionate advocates. Once you get past “the effin’ Brits this” or “the bastard Brits that” they’re out of ideas. You’ll get a few slogans at best.

3. Masochism is a national sport in Ireland. Only the Irish would come up with a phrase like “If I had your money, I’d burn me own”. A boot to the throat and a face in the cold wet mud reveals a mind that’s thinking “As soon as this bastard gets off me and walks back to the big house, I’m going to give him the glaring of his life!” Whether it’s the Brits, the IMF, the EU or our own potatoes, someone is always plottin’ agin’ us, and winning too. Curiously, we kinda like the sense of helplessness, and the idea that nothing is really in our power.

4. Hypocrisy is a form of cleverness. Waving your fist at the departing British monarch, before turning to give your son a belt for not getting down on his hands and knees in the dirt as the archbishop passes in his finery, that’s us. Whether it’s abortion, the Irish language, child abuse, neutrality or nuclear power, saying one thing and doing the other is regarded as perfectly normal to the Irish. Only an Irish emigrant can return home to Ireland and start complaining about foreigners taking Irish jobs, and be regarded as being perfectly reasonable. The saddest part is that we approach these issues like a dog with his head under the bed: because he can’t see anyone, he assumes he’s being clever, and no one can see what he’s up to. The problem is that the whole world can see the Irish arse sticking out from under the bed.

5. We are genuinely shocked when other countries act the way we do. We go to Brussels to defend our national interest (read: Money). Yet when the French or Germans do the same thing to us we are stunned, and regard them as bastards for, well, being like us.

6. Loyalty is the trait we rate above everything else, the source of our strength and most of our problems. If one of our friends told us they’d murdered someone, our gut instinct is to find out why, listening carefully for a moral nugget to latch onto to preserve the friendship. It is a noble trait which has kept our communities strong. It’s also why we hardly ever jail anyone for corruption.

7. We assume that rules are a good idea. For other people. Only in Ireland can someone shake their heads in sadness at news of “the carnage on our roads”, shake their fist at the government for “doing nothing”, and then flash their lights at other drivers to warn them not that they are speeding, but that there is a Garda car or a GATSO van parked up ahead trying to catch people breaking the speed limit. Why else would most Irish be happy to choose Catholicism as a religion, other than we have the absolution of the confessional, the “a la carte menu” of religions?

8. We will accept things in other countries that we’d never accept in Ireland. People who sniff at the minimum wage in Ireland will wait tables in Boston, London, Berlin or Melbourne. Go figure.

9. We take greater pleasure in the failure of others more sucessful than us than we do in our own success. Better us all be living in the shit than some of us break out.

10. Yet we can be pragmatic and clever (defeated the British), creative (U2, our comedians), intolerant of total nutters (A democracy since 1921, deposed the Catholic Church eventually) and this is not, in the grand scheme of things, a bad country to live in. Go figure.

Note: A variation of this post was put up in 2011.

News from Ireland 2020: Uproar in Mayo as govt spending in Mayo linked to taxes collected in Mayo.

Mayo 2020: Large protests led by local county councillors and TDs have marched in Castlebar and Westport after it emerged that the County Council may have to raise a local council tax to fund local services. The row emerged after the directly elected Mayor of Mayo pointed out that under the 2017 Local Government Act, which devolved block grants to the County Council for health, education, policing and housing amongst others, if the the people of Mayo want to spend more on public services than the grants allow, then they have to be willing to fund it themselves.

“This is not rocket science.” The mayor said. “Mayo gets the same block grant per head of population as Dublin, and we decide how it is spent in Mayo. It’s true we have wider areas to cover, but we also have lower costs than Dublin. A nurse in Dublin gets paid more than a nurse in Mayo because his living costs are higher. If we want more services than other counties, we have to pay for them ourselves. We have spent years complaining about being told what to do by Dublin. Now, we are masters of our own destiny, something that some councillors seem to want to run a mile from. They’re into my office every day looking for additional spending on this GAA club or that road, but when I ask them to discuss how we pay for all this, they’re on the streets protesting against the county council that they are elected members of. Well, this isn’t the old days of the county manager. We run this county, the council and me, and it’s time they grew a pair.”

Councillor Olly Slipper (FG) condemned the mayor for “not standing up for Mayo”. “It’s a disgrace that the people of Mayo are expected to pay taxes for the services in Mayo. A disgrace! It is obvious that Mayo is a special case and should get extra funding from taxpayers in other counties, something that I think they’d be delighted to do. The mayor should be up in Dublin lobbying for other counties to pay a special Mayo tax to fund extra services in Mayo. We have a right to fairness!”

News from Ireland 2020: Michael O’Leary led for-profit trades union declares results.

WorkRights, the private for-profit trades union founded by former Ryanair CEO Michael O’Leary has posted a post-tax profit of €1.2m after its first year of operation. O’Leary, addressing the company’s first AGM, welcomed the profit result as vindication of his belief that old fashioned trades unions were failing their members, and that an AA style operation would better serve modern employees.

“How is it that in a single year we have signed up 42,000 workers at a membership fee of €150 per annum? I’ll tell you how. Because WorkRights stands up for all its members, not just the ones who work in the public sector. And I’ll tell you another thing. WorkRights executives don’t have anywhere near the feathernested packages of ICTU and SIPTU big cheese! We put our membership fees into providing services for our members.”

Since opening business in 2019, WorkRights has provided employment law advice to or represented over 12,000 non-unionised workers at the Labour Court, Rights Commissioners and Labour Relations Commission, as well as negotiated special pension, health insurance and other benefits for its members. O’Leary famously received a salary of €1 for his time as CEO, having promised that he could represent ordinary Irish workers better than “that crowd of hairy Hoxhas in Liberty Hall.”

SIPTU and ICTU delegates could not be reached for comment.

News from Ireland 2020: Action Party continues to lead FF/FG in polls.

Action Party Leader Suzanne Smith

Action Party Leader Suzanne Smith

The newly formed Action Party continues to lead in the recent Red C poll in the Sunday Business Post. Excluding don’t knows, the poll puts the AP on 38%, FF on 24%, FG on 18%, Labour on 6%, Sinn Fein on 13% and others on 1%. Sources in the FG/Labour coalition said that “the only poll the government is interested in will be on polling day.”
Political pundits have called the continued strong performance of the Action Party extraordinary, considering that it is only a year old and has no TDs or senators. Suzanne Smith, the well-known businesswoman and party leader, continues to lead in the polls as preferred choice for Taoiseach. Tom Haskey of the Irish Times: “What’s interesting is the level of enthusiasm for the party. People either love it or hate it, and let’s be honest, the National Guard is the source of much of that strong feeling.”

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An Occasional Guide to Irish Politics: The Two-Faced Councillor.

She’s all in favour of an elected mayor of Dublin, and will talk about Boris Johnson and Rudy Giuliani all night long. She’s been in favour since it was first suggested by Noel Dempsey and Bobby Molloy in 1999. Yeah, she’s been talking about it for 15 years. During which London has held a referendum, created a mayor, and held four mayoral elections. She’s all in favour.

Until she actually has to vote to let the people of Dublin decide in a referendum as to whether THEY want an elected mayor for THEIR city. Then the mask slips: the proposals aren’t radical enough, the mayor won’t have enough powers, there’s no consensus, any aul nonsense to prevent the little people from voting, because what’s it’s got to do with them? They’re not members of Dublin City Council, or South Dublin, or Dublin Fingal! They’re just the rabble who pay the Local Property Tax and councillors expenses. What’s it go to do with THEM? They should mind their own business, the nosy bastards.

The truth is, she doesn’t really want an elected mayor because she wants the one year rotating taxpayer funded jolly that is the current mayor of Dublin, and if there’s an elected Super Mayor people will start asking questions. But she can’t say that in public, so instead she’s try the “not radical enough” guff. So she can vote to block the riff-raff voting on it until her and the political elite can spend another 15 years discussing it. Funnily enough, she was in favour of keeping the Seanad and reforming that yoke too.

How’s that “Vote No for Reform” working out for you , by the way?

Enda is a good Taoiseach. He could be a great one.

To quite grasp what sort of Taoiseach Enda Kenny is, cast your mind back to the last chaotic weeks of the last Fianna Fail government. Remember cabinet ministers not actually knowing if the country was about to surrender its economic sovereignty. Remember members of the parliamentary party actually hiding in toilets or turning off their phones to avoid being appointed to the cabinet weeks before polling day. Remember the questions about drink in the middle of the greatest economic crisis we had ever faced?

Then we got Enda, and calmness, and a bit of dignity restored, and, it has to be said, a sense that the new crowd at least had a plan. That the bailout and the budget deficit would be rationally worked through, and that employment would be the number one priority.

And it was, and is, and slowly there’s a sense that things are picking up and the dust is clearing.

If Enda stepped down tomorrow, he’d step down as the most successful leader of Fine Gael ever (Enda!) and a Taoiseach who quietly surprised us all in steering us through the worst of the storm.

And yet he could be so much more.

Remember when political reform was bandied around in 2011? The New Politics, all that? Say that to people inside the bubble and you get the sneer. “Political reform? Yeah, that’s all they talk about on the canvass in Ringsend or Athenry.” It’s true, they don’t. Nobody talks about getting serious about electoral reform or separating the executive from the legislature on the doorstep. But here’s the thing. In 2007 I’ll bet they didn’t talk about banking regulation either, and the same class of fella in the bubble did nothing about that either, and crippled our country as a result. They may not be talking about political reform in the pubs across the country. They’re not talking about medical device safety standards either, or air traffic control, or the proper control on the sale of pharmaceuticals. But let a pacemaker fail because of shoddy standards and you’ll discover that the public assumed that the minister for health was doing his job. Just because it’s not being talked about on Joe Duffy doesn’t mean it doesn’t matter.

He’s giving the economic issues plenty of attention, and they have to be his priority. These are people lives, and they are the things he’ll be measured on, and rightly so. But the big picture, the political infrastructure that makes it all work, or in the case of the last government, takes us to the brink? All that stuff matters, yet it seems to have nothing to do with him, as if someone else will think the big thoughts. Well, there is no one else. There’s Enda, and this is the difference between a legacy as that nice fella from Mayo who tidied up after that crowd, and the Taoiseach who actually grasped the big picture and the importance of not just fixing the problems, but making sure they don’t happen again.

We’re looking for the next Lemass, and people sometimes forget that Lemass is revered today not for his day to day, but for the two big ideas that radically changed the status quo: industrialisation and Europe. It’s time for Enda to think big.

Check out “The Goo”

“The Goo” is a five episode comedy web series written by and starring Stephen Jones and Dave Fleming.

It’s the story of two young Dublin buckos about town in pursuit of the ultimate Goo night. It’s funny, but more importantly it’s got charm and authenticity.

You can see the first four episodes here. Get gooing.

Frank and Birgitte Vs. The Kremlin.

The White House.

President Frank Underwood rises from his seat to greet EU Council President and former Danish Prime Minister Birgitte Nyborg Christensen.

Frank:      “Birgitte, my God, look at you, it’s youngah you’re                               gettin’!”

Birgitte:   “Thank you Frank, you can take the syrup as poured,”

The President smiles at his EU counterpart, and directs her to a sofa.

Frank:     “Would you like a snack, Birgitte? Perhaps some                   ribs, or maybe I could tempt you to join me in                       an iced tea?”

Birgitte:  “Actually, I would like an apple, if that’s                                   possible?”

Frank:     “An apple? How sensible of you.” (sotto voce to                      camera: “An apple! How European!”)

Frank presses a button on his desk.

Frank:     “Maria, can we get President of the European Council of the European Union Nyborg                         (glance to camera) one of our delicious South Carolina apples?”

He then sits across from Birgitte.

Frank:      “Birgitte, I don’t mind telling you, It’s hard enough tryin’ to keep the Kremlin from                            spoiling the front patio when you guys over there in the European Union can’t agree on                      lunch, never mind a position on the Ukraine. I’ve seen better organised herds of                                  arthritic cats.”

Birgitte:   “I agree, but I think we can come to a common position…”

Frank:      “When? When he’s in Kiev? Riga? Warsaw? Birgitte, I grew up with guys like                                        our friend Vladimir. He’s a pretty straight guy, but he’ll only be straight with people he                     regards as equals. Whilst you guys are debating whether to cancel his subscription to                         G20 magazine, this guy is gonna keep helpin’ himself to your lunch money. You can win                     his respect alright: (Frank raps his heavy ring on the coffee table). With the stick.                               Maybe not used, but ready to be used.”

Birgitte:  “I agree Frank. I’m a nice caring European liberal, but I know a fascist when I                                     see one. I just think we need a little outside the box thinking.”

Frank:     “Go on.”

Birgitte:  “I’ve spent two days assembling a peacekeeping force. Denmark, Poland, Germany,                           France, Belgium and Luxembourg for a start…”

Frank:      “Luxembourg? Does Luxembourg even have tanks?”

Birgitte:    “They have anti-tank missiles and professional well-trained soldiers who know how to                      use them, Frank, and a Luxembourgish missile will take the turret off a Russian tank                          just as effectively as an American one. It’s a small force, Frank, just 160 vehicles. But I                      also have been studying this…”

Birgitte handed a file to the President. He opened it.

Frank:        “Public tenders for various building projects across Europe and the US. I don’t…”

Birgitte:     “Look at who is bidding on them.”

Frank reads on, smiles to himself, then turns to the camera: (“The Chinese are bidding on all these. Two Chinese firms in particular, both owned by members of the Chinese Military Commission. I Like the way her Nordic mind works!”)

Frank:        “You’re thinking of a pincer movement, aren’t you madame President?”

Birgitte smiles slightly.

Birgitte:     “NATO command tell me that the Chinese have a major exercise planned for the                                 Russian border for three weeks from now. Of course, if they were to suddenly mobilise                      and bring the exercise forward.”

Frank:        “Even the Kremlin doesn’t want to be worrying about an EU force entering the                                     Ukraine…”

Birgitte:       “A small but well-equipped peacekeeping force with US support available if needed,                          at the invitation of the Ukraine government,”

Frank smiled.

Frank:          “Of course. At the same time a million heavily armed Chinese are testing their shiny                            new armoured personnel carriers and fighter bombers on their Eastern flank.”

Birgitte:       “We’ll have to convince the Ukrainians to respect the Russian minority, of course,                              and perhaps devolve some autonomy to the Crimea and some other regions, but we                            leave the Kremlin very clear as to our lunch money.”

Frank:          “That we do, madame President. Let me see what happened to your apple. I wonder                          did they send someone to South Carolina to pick it!”

Meanwhile, in the European Council.

Clinking of glass.
Herman Van Rompuy, President of the European Council: Good morning colleagues, welcome to our beautiful new European External Action Service Headquarters, to this crisis meeting on the Ukraine. As you can see, we have everything we need, including WiFi and a really big screen…
Belgium: What’s the code for the WiFI?
Herman: J-a-c-q-u-e-s-d-e-l-o-r-s. Now, watch this.

The President pulls out a remote control, and activates the giant screen. It lights up with very
impressive maps and moving icons. Collective oohs and awws from around the room.

Herman: Good, isn’t it? We got a great price too. And this Japanese guy installed it for us. Now, you can see here the disposition of every Russian tank division facing Europe, live by satellite feed.

Sweden: Where are our tanks?
Netherlands: We have tanks?
Herman: Most of them are on blocks in a garage outside Leipzig. Something about their carbon emissions.
France: Why aren’t our tanks on the map?
Herman: The Americans won’t show us. They say it’s need to know only. Anyway, now, we all agree that we need to do something about the Ukraine.
Ireland: Sorry, Herman, is there any chance there’s some money in this for Ireland?
Herman: No.
Ireland: Right, well in that case I have to get to a funeral in Loughlinstown. Let us know how you get on. Oh, if you need to know Ireland’s position on any of this defence stuff (slides iPhone across the table) just press that button there. We’ve an app now. See yez lads!

Herman presses the button on the iPhone.

Pierce Brosnan’s voice says, with very clear
diction: War is bad. The United Nations is lovely. Kittens are lovely. Have you ever considered visiting Ireland? Or perhaps investing in Ireland?

Herman: Right, now, we need to consider economic sanctions.

United Kingdom: Now, let’s not be too hasty. Alexander Ivanovich, the young man who brings me my instruct…my coffee every morning says that we have to be very careful. If we impose sanctions it could affect house prices in Central London. Londoners might be able to afford some of them.

Belgium (as he changes his shirt,
showing of his smooth tanned,
lithe body): Surely there’s more to the British economy than Central London?

United Kingdom: Doctor Who?

Luxembourg: Should we consider…

Herman: I’m sorry, who are you?

Luxembourg: I’m the Prime Minister of Luxembourg.

Herman: Where’s Jean-Claude?

Luxembourg: Over there, trying to look in the window.

Herman: That’s Alex Salmond.

Luxembourg: No, beside him.

Herman: Oh, I see. Hi Jean Claude!

The Council waves at Jean Claude Juncker.
He waves back. Alex Salmond waves too, slightly over enthusiastically.

Herman: Right, so we’ve no consensus on economic sanctions. What about diplomatic sanctions? Freeze Visas?

Finland: Given that we have to live beside them, and you lot are who we have to rely on if it all kicks off, I’d prefer not to poke them with a stick.

Poland: We have to do something. It’s the Crimea today. It’ll be Talinn tomorrow.

Estonia screams and runs from the room.

Herman: We could kick them out of the G8?

France: Maybe cancel their Netflix subscription. The NSA say that Putin hasn’t got to the last episode of House of Cards yet.

Germany: How do you know?

France: We…have our ways. The Americans are very nice to us now since we started chasing crazies around Africa.

Herman: Is the Netflix account in Putin’s name?

France: Eh, no.

Germany: Whose name is on the credit card then?

Silence.

France: David Cameron.

Collective sigh.

United Kingdom: They made me!

Herman: What about sending the Kremlin a very sternly worded letter? How do we get a letter to them anyway? Does anyone know any Russians?

Germany: Does Gerhard Schroeder count?

United Kingdom: When you say sternly…

Ireland: War! Booooooooooo! Did you know Ryanair flies from every major….

And so on.