Monthly Archives: October 2010

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Logorama, directed by the French animation collective H5: François Alaux, Hervé de Crécy and Ludovic Houplain. It won the 2010 Oscar for best animated short.

If you’ve never seen it before, and harbour any kind of ill-will toward Ronald McDonald, you’re in for a treat.

[YouTube version for the Flashless]

source

The Irish Independent this morning reveals the people who bought lots of AIB shares and now wish they hadn’t.

Politicians

Fine Gael’s Richard Bruton; FF TDs Ned O’Keeffe, Sean Haughey, Sean Power and Michael Mulcahy; Mary Harney and MEP Joe Costello.

Charities:

The Claremont Trust for the education of the deaf and dumb held more than 40,000 shares in the bank. These were valued at €1m at the end of 2006 but are now worth just over €15,000.

Substantial monies were also invested on behalf of the Rotunda Hospital, the Royal Hospital in Donnybrook and Mercers Hospital.

The Catholic Marriage Advisory Centre in Cork, the Samaritans, the Legion of Mary and the Irish Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children were also AIB shareholders.

Protestants

According to the register of AIB’s shareholders, the Church of Ireland holds one of the biggest individual shareholding in the bank, with 750,000 shares.

When the shares were trading at their highest price of €23 four years ago, the Church of Ireland’s shares were worth as much as €17.3m. But the wipeout means its stake in the bank now stands at just €262,500.

Catholics:

Shares held by the Archbishop of Dublin, Dr Diarmuid Martin, and Archbishop Dermot Clifford on behalf of their dioceses were also badly hit.

Shares owned by Dr Clifford’s diocese have fallen in value from €24,495 to €372, while those of Dr Martin’s diocese are down from €21,206 to €322.

AIB People

AIB’s former chairman Dermot Gleeson’s 400,000 bank shares, which were once worth as much as €6m, have plunged in value to just €140,000.

The bank’s former boss Eugene Sheehy also has 2,760 shares, now worth just €966 — down from a high of €63,480.

Credit Unions

Credit unions in Carrick-on-Shannon, Co Leitrim, Castlerea, Co Roscommon and in Dublin are sitting on a total investment loss of more than €100,000 between them.

Business Folk

Dermot Desmond, who has a modest investment that has fallen from over €12,000 to €189; Margaret Heffernan and her brother Frank Dunne, who each own shares now worth €5,410 down from over €355,000; and Charlie Chawke, whose shares are down from €137,563 to €2,093.

Revealed: The Losers In AIB Shares Wipeout (Irish Independent)

No Corner Of Society Untouched By Bank’s Fall (Siobhan Creaton, Irish Independent)

‘This phenomenal picture (and close up) was taken by astrophotographer Alan Friedman on October 20th….You can see sunspots, giant convection cells, and the gas that follows magnetic loops piercing the Sun’s surface.

The (second pic) shows prominences leaping up off the edge and silhouetted against the sky. They look so delicate, probably because they make the Sun look fuzzy, like a comfy blanket… but have no doubts on the fury and scale of what you’re seeing here. See that little bright spot on the plume on the left, just above the Sun’s edge?

That spot is the same size as the Earth.’

Read more: The Boiling Erupting Sun (Bad Astronomy)

BoingBoing


The 80s revival continues with The Guardian sending a journalist to uncover the new drug menace gripping the nation’s capital. Apparently…

• €20 can buy 10 tablets.

• The two most popular drugs are Zopiclone and Zimovane.

• The drugs, which are highly powerful painkillers and sleeping tablets, are used to help addicts sleep and numb pain, especially during heroin “droughts”.

• The tablets are smuggled from Pakistan and China via Europe. Some are re-packaged in countries such as Croatia and Germany.

• Sellers can earn up to €500 euros per week.

Back at her pitch across from the Abbey theatre, Sandra agrees with that prediction. “I can get €200 a week selling the zimmos and that is far more than I can get on the social welfare,” she says.

See? It’s not all bad news.

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