Yearly Archives: 2016

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Filmmaker John Mulvaney is one of many to turn his lens on music in Ireland, in lieu of any support for the community by the industry/officialdom.

Thus was born Fractured, a documentary series with an eye on metal and other harsh noises in Ireland, running on Metal Ireland and screening at various festivals and events throughout the past year.

The newest episode focuses on Clonmel prog/sludge outfit zhOra, and explores the band, their music, and growing/sustaining music outside of the industry in Ireland.

New episodes will appear here as they happen, also, but for now, here’s a catch-up playlist of the rest of the series so far, with eight episodes ready to watch.

Fractured

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At last we are getting some data regarding the performance of the motor insurance business in Ireland.

The mere fact that 21 companies are listed as providers is extraordinary when five companies account for 87 per cent of policy losses.

One company accounts for 37 per cent of the market losses, two others for 15 per cent, followed by two more at 10 per cent, with one major player in marginal profit.

One must, given the wide divergence in losses, ask the simple question as to why we are seeing huge and uniform percentage increases across the board, with the threat of more to come. We might be forgiven if we came to the conclusion that in reality we don’t actually have a competitive market.

That these companies would take their policy income and invest it in markets that are at their most volatile in decades is at the very least foolish.

The fact that this is common practice and a mechanism to underpin what clearly is an unstable, if not an unsustainable, business in its own right, suggests the need for urgent Government intervention before many hard-pressed motorists are forced off the road.

It is ironic that as I write this one of the larger providers has a television campaign extolling the virtues of its policies. Surely retrenchment should be the order of the day.

Derek MacHugh,
Bray,
Co Wicklow.

Insurance and motorists (Irish Times letters)

Previously: ‘There Is A Cartel Of Insurance Underwriters’

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No Monster Club – lost somewhere in the backwoods

What you may need to know…

01. Bobby and the lads are off in Amerikay at present, pressing the flesh and raking up road miles to support their current 7″ record, Where Did You Get That Milkshake?.

02. It’s somehow the Dublin lo-fi lads’ debut 7″ after a rake of releases, but also their first for Stateside label Emotional Response.

03. We would hope that the video above, for single Do the Mess Around, has not been an accurate portrayal of events thus far.

04. Broadsheet readers situated Stateside might be able to show up and give ’em the shlag. The rest of their tour takes them to the Dev in Utica tonight; tomorrow night to Otto’s Shrunken Head in Manhattan; Candy Apple Island in Bloomfield, NJ on the 2nd, and New Funky Jungle in Providence, RI on the 5th.

VERDICT: Another pop gem the likes of which Bobby Aherne and the boys seem to just have in a stockpile somewhere. Grand.

NO MONSTER CLUB

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This morning.

The Comptroller and Auditor General Seamus McCarthy fielded questions from the members of the Public Accounts Committee following his office’s report into Nama’s sale of Project Eagle.

During his appearance…

The meeting has just been suspended until 2pm when chairman of Nama Frank Daly will appear.

From 2pm, watch here

Previously: A Probable Loss Of Value To The State Of Up To £190million’

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It’s on.

Finally.

The Dublin Cycling Campaign writes:

Cycling continues to get the crumbs at the table when it comes to overall national transport spend. Of the €10billion allocated for transport investment in the Capital Investment Plan for 2016-2021, active travel (encompassing walking, cycling and other such measures) is allocated just €100million.

That means that cycling is to receive approx 0.5% (half of one percent!) of the transport pie. If that wasn’t bad enough, we heard in the last few weeks of further cutbacks in future funding for cycling projects for Dublin City Council by the Department of Transport, Tourism and Sport – as reported on Irishcycle.com.

This all comes at a time when we have had nine cyclist fatalities in Ireland this year already, the most recent of which was the tragic death of Donna Fox at the junction between Seville Place and Guild Street in the north inner city.

Dublin Cycling Campaign is calling on everyone who uses a bike in Dublin – for transportation or for leisure – to join our protest on Monday 3rd October so as to send a loud-and-clear message to the Minister that he needs to recognise that the status quo is not good enough – cycling needs proper funding to make it safer and to enable Dublin to reach its potential as a world class cycling city.

We are calling on the Minister to allocate cycling a better share.

Gulp.

Cycle Protest to Demand Proper Funding for Cycling! (Dublin Cycling Campaign)

Poster: Andrea Figueira