Monthly Archives: April 2013

CopsBoston

“A series of explosions were reported near the finish line at the Boston Marathon on Monday, according to several media outlets. One report quoted “some sort of incident” on Boylston Street, near the finish line.”

“Competitors and race organizers were crying as they fled the chaos, The Associated Press reported. Bloody spectators were being carried to the medical tent that had been set up to care for fatigued runners.”

“There are a lot of people down,” said one man, according to The A.P., whose bib No. 17528 identified him as Frank Deruyter of North Carolina. He was not injured, but marathon workers were carrying one woman, who did not appear to be a runner, to the medical area as blood gushed from her leg. A Boston police officer was wheeled from the course with a leg injury that was bleeding, The A.P. said.”

Many injured in explosions in Boston Marathon (New York Times)

Live video report from NBC News here

Pics: Tyler Wakstein, KCCO New England, John Tlumacki via Josh Robin

Video: The Boston Globe

Slab

The slab at Dame Street and Lord Edward Street outside Dublin Castle.

It’s getting “beautified”.

Siobhán Maguire, of The Sunday Times, reported (behind paywall):

“A controversial grey slab of concrete built as a traffic calming measure outside Dublin City Hall will cost €4,000 to remove, according to the city council. The much-criticised object cost €15,000 to build. Details obtained under a Freedom of Information Act request show the council is planning to soften or beautify the “temporary” structure. The offending object is made up of a row of bollards with a concrete structure used as a ballast for three flagpoles. Councillors have queried why it was built without planning permission.“

 

Anyone got a Kango?

Previously: Slab City

Lucy1Not just us then.

It’s what they said about all the great leaders.

Nixon, Haughey, Robert Maxwell, William Martin Murphy, Pol Pot, General Eoin O’Duffy.

This morning Communicorp chairperson and Independent News & Media non-executive director Lucy Gaffney, above, spoke at a breakfast organised by Plan Ireland, during which she recalled the time when her boss Denis O’Brien was bidding for that Esat mobile phone licence and, no doubt, double parking like a boss.

How to get Lowry in and out of the building without being detected was the first problem

Marketing.ie blog report:

“Other issues which Gaffney spoke about included her experience working with Esat while bidding for the mobile phone licence in Ireland. She recalled how their office windows were blacked out and the room swept for listening devices every morning. ‘Like all entrepreneurs, Denis is completely and utterly paranoid,’ Gaffney said.”

 

It doesn’t mean everyone’s not out to get you.

Etc.

Gaffney advocates pooling news (Marketing.ie)

Previously: The Moriarty Tribunal Report: Esat Back And Relax

(Pic: Digicelcayman)

8285_69_pages_04_2100_620x270Teach them well and let them lead the way…

Then tempt them with a prize of  €2,000 worth of equipment for their school PLUS studio time to record a track.

Here is the shortlist of young acts for ‘School of Rock’ as chosen by the staff of Phantom 105.2. From this list only 5 will be chosen to perform at the ‘School of Rock’ final in the Academy, Dublin, on Sunday, April 28.

Keith Walsh of Phantom sez:

“Voting will be open until 11am Friday April 19, with the final 5 being chosen on Friday afternoon. Votes are important as they will go towards deciding the final 5. You can vote once a day”.

 

If your song is not among those to be selected don’t worry.

This is life and it totally sucks balls.

Screen Shot 2013-04-15 at 16.16.46Without having to drink all that Mateus Rosé.

Anthony Joyce (above), a solicitor dealing with personal insolvency and bankruptcy issues, spoke to Marian Finucane yesterday morning about choosing bankruptcy in the UK.

Marian Finucane: “I don’t know if you heard Ben Dunne [railing against Ireland’s insolvency laws] the other day, he was very, very strong.”

Anthony Joyce: “I did, I listened to him and it was very strong what he…basically telling people was to go to the UK to go bankrupt and to bring their debts to a conclusion that way and use their insolvency legislation to actually just bring it to a conclusion.”

Finucane: “More or less to imitate what..what..the developers..”

Joyce: “Yes, on a smaller scale…and he kept referring to the big developers as the big boys. And he’s sort of saying ‘if it’s good enough for them, it should be good enough for you’. And I’m at the forefront of dealing with people in negative equity and mortgage arrears and what I’ve been finding out over the last number of years is that they need a solution. And whenever people come into me, and they have a chance to go to the UK, so they’re mobile, they’re single, or anything like that, I say just ‘go’, ‘do it’, ’emigrate’.”

Finucane: “He was making the point that you know, you put in 15 months pain, if you don’t want to go that is, and if you’ve no desire to live in that jurisdiction, you put in 15 months of pain, rather than 30 years, working for the banks, for something that’s never going to…”

Joyce: “Absolutely. And, you know, we’re getting this personal insolvency legislation, it was passed just before Christmas. We’re now waiting for the Personal Insolvency Service to be set up. It was supposed to be in on the 1st of March, they kicked it back to the 1st of June and now there’s going to be difficulties introducing that. Now, we understand that it may not be the 1st of June either.”

Finucane: “Yeah, can you explain? Because as I, and I didn’t understand that you needed 15 months if you were in Britain. And I thought you needed three years if you were here? But is there a further call after that three years?”

Joyce: “Yeah, this is the sting in the tail. And this is where, again, it’s just legislation that’s been brought in, that any practitioners on the ground realise is not going to work. And it’s a five-year further application by the bank to extend their bankruptcy. So to get, OK, you’re discharged after three years, but after, for another five years, you have to make further payments. And the bank just makes an application. So if you’ve got a large salary, it’s pretty clear that the bank will say ‘look, we’re going go in and look for an application here for a further five years from your salary.”

Finucane: “Well, then what does the discharge mean?”

Joyce: “It means you can become a company director.”

Finucane: “Oh right.”

Joyce: “Or you can borrow again..”

Finucane: “And would you pay the same money, or increased money? Or, if you improved your situation, would they come back to you for more, in the five-year period.”

Joyce: “Yeah, again. This..The difference between Ireland and the UK. In Ireland, it’s a form of punishment. And this attitude is ‘let’s punish the borrower because they made a mistake. In the UK, it’s let’s resolve this. I suppose the way I compare it is the way it was in the 1980s aswell where divorce, it was a case of a divorce in the 1980s was seen as a taboo issue.”

Finucance: “Yeah.”

Joyce: “And now people are being, getting divorced, they’re actually having divorce parties, it’s not so much of a taboo.”

Finucance: “I haven’t been to one of those yet now I have to say.”

Joyce: “And it’s not as much of a taboo. At the moment, in Ireland, there’s a taboo when it comes to actual bankruptcy and the reality is that these, a lot of people were told ‘look, this is the thing to do, buy your house’. And this is why, the profile you would have seen this week of the people who are suffering are those people who are between 41 and 60. You know? It’s not the people that you would have expected, the younger people.”

Listen to more here