Summer Reading

Before we get stuck into the Presidential Election I thought I might round out the summer silly season by revealing what has been keeping me entertained over the summer.

The First Law Trilogy - Joe Abercrombie

Normally I try to go for slightly more high-brow stuff in reading Sci-Fi and Fantasy. I know, oxymoron if ever there was. But in this case it was exactly what I was looking for. Cheesy, sprawling epic with so much fighting you start to get bored. But with all the humour and self-referential moments I couldn't put the books down.

Triumph of the City - Edward Glaeser

An interesting read on why and how cities are economically and environmentally superior to other forms of living. This is a the books I picked up after seeing the author interviewed on The Daily Show (Jon Stewart, not RTE). While I tend to agree with his overall premise, he does seem a bit too lax on planning and zoning, with a strong belief in the market's ability to solve everything. I wonder if it could be put on a reading list for city and county councillors?

The Information - James Gleick

As a teenager, James Gleick's Chaos was the book that probably pushed me to study maths in college. Based on how that career ended up, that may not be a glowing reference but it was certainly a seminal book. So I was quite excited to see that after a long break, Gleick was back writing again. And what a book. Covering the history of computing, communication and coding with lots of entertaining anecdotes. All the usual heroes of the story are covered as are many names that I didn't recognize but whose contributions to technology are huge.

A Kingdom Besieged - Raymond E Feist

So I claimed my fantasy was usually a bit more high brow. Well this isn't it. Feist is my guilty please. He hasn't written a really good book in years (Shadow of a Dark Queen?) but I can't help but get sucked in every time a new book is published. And he's done it again with the start of another series in the Riftwar cycle. I couldn't actually tell you what happened in this book except the Kingdom gets invaded by Kesh. The rest is the same as in every other series but I'll keep reading them nonetheless.

Dave Gorman vs The Rest of the World

A highly entertaining read as Dave Gorman challenges the world to games of anything from ping pong, to laser-based boardgames of the 80s. Read this straight through in one day.

At Home: A Short History of Private Life - Bill Bryson

A room by room history of everything that happens in the home. As with all Bryson books, full of quirky little bits of information. But a hefty tome - you wouldn't want to be reading it while standing on the bus or train. Definitely one for the comfort of the couch.

A Dance with Dragons - George R.R. Martin

Amazing. Well worth the wait. Not going to say anything else for fear of spoilers!

Transition - Iain Banks

This on the other hand was pretty poor. Daft premise, irritating characters and disjointed story. Probably should have given up about half way through but fell for sunk cost fallacy.

The Ripple Effect - Alex Prud'homme

Another Daily Show suggestion. With all the recent talk about Dublin's water issues, both mains and sewage, along with the Shannon scheme, this was an interesting perspective on how the water issue plays out in the US. While it was a bit of a slog to read at times, there was a lot of information and useful lessons that could be learned. Another one for the politicians' reading list.

Surface Detail - Iain M. Banks

Still reading this, but it really shows that The Culture novels are where Banks really shines. Having the point-of-view characters die in both of the first two chapters is an interesting way to start a book. Can't help but love it.

Let them eat ... bread

This evening on the way home from work I had to stop off into the supermarket to pick up a few items. Normally I just lob the groceries in the basket, paying no attention to the prices, and then hand over my hard earned cash. This evening though, for some reasons I noticed something a bit odd while picking up some bread.

Normally we get through about 3/4 of a sliced pan before it goes stale and starts turning a bit blue. So being my environmentally conscious self I had a look to see if they had any small pans on the shelf. Usually by 6pm the few that were delivered that morning are well gone but today I was in luck. There on the top shelf was a small Brennan's (non batch) waiting to find a new home. Yoink says I, until I noticed the price sticker underneath - €1.39. Casting a downwards glance I see plenty of full sized loaves prices at €1.60.

Now with my ostentatious cash splashing and jet-set lifestyle I shouldn't really be quibbling over 21c but it does strike me as odd that pro-rata the full sized loaf should cost 67% more or the half sized 43% less. I can accept that there are economies of scale in the larger loaf. I imagine that about 90% of bread is sold in the larger form factor. But is the cost differential really that much? While it uses about 15% more packaging per kg, it takes up the same amount of shelf space.

So who is pocketing the margin? Is it the bakeries or the retailers? Or is it just a case of this is what the market is willing to bear? To make this post even slightly political, one wonders was this price differential always the case, even in the era of the Grocieries Order. If not, then Micheál Martin has to bear some responsibility for this fiasco. I'll just add it to his long list of failures.

So in the end I put the small pan back on the shelf and took the large one. It's better value for money even if I know I'll end up putting the last few slices into the brown bin at the weekend.

Going Forward in 2011

New Year means resolutions and predictions, most of which will be abandoned by the middle of January. So in keeping with the spirit of the season here are my brief guesses on the next year.

General Election

The General Election will be some time in March. FF won't do as badly as polls suggest, Labour not as well with the end result around FG 63, FF 45, Lab 38, SF 10, Others 10 leading to a substantial majority for FG/Lab.

Presidential Election

David Norris will manage to get 4 councils to support his nomination but his transfers will help Michael D Higgins to just take the Áras from FG.

The Economy

The rising tide of European economies will drag Ireland back into low growth but without much in the way of job creation.

The North

Business as usual heading into the Assembly elections with SF looking to become the largest party and hold the 1st Minister position but being pipped at the post by DUP. Other Unionists and SDLP fail to make ground.

Dublin

The Dublin Mayor elections will not happen and the greater Dublin area will continue to suffer due to lack of joined up thinking. Metro North and the Interconnector will continue to be postponed but the Incinerator will push ahead.

TCD

Paddy Prendergast to be elected Provost with a fairly sizeable victory with no outside candidate to come even close. Well founded mutterings of closed shop to be heard.

Sport

Leinster to win the HEC and Magners League, Ireland to get to the Semis of the Rugby World Cup, Bohs to find a sugar-daddy to bail them out, Ireland to loose in a Euro-2012 playoff, Down to beat Kerry for Sam, Cork to retain McCarthy.

Online

I'll keep blogging and tweeting much to the annoyance of my missus. In 365 days I'll come back and see how well my crystal ball was working. Happy New Year to all!!

What a week

It really has been one of those weeks. Lets just take a minute to review

Monday

The week started with the dousing of Mary Harney with red paint at a sod-turning in West Dublin. I can't really condone Cllr Louise Minihan's shenanigans at the event, especially seeing as she was there in an official capacity representing the city council. However, considering most people wouldn't have heard of Minihan and Eirigí before this week, the publicity stunt seems to have worked and I am not sure that the Lord Mayor has any sanction he can impose on the unruly Councillor.

Tuesday

Tuesday saw the unexpected resignation of Dr Jim McDaid, FF deputy from Donegal North East. Having been an outspoken opponent of many of the policies of the current government and being long of the opinion that a general election was required, it was surprising to see him leave rather than vote against the budget and precipitate an election.

Wednesday

USI managed to organize their largest march in years with around 20,000 students taking to the streets protesting against education cut backs and the recently announced plans to increase registration charges by up to €1,500 from next year. The entire event was overshadowed by the occupation of the Dept of Finance by a small number of protesters and the heavy handed Garda response featuring the riot squad as well as mounted and canine units. This video on YouTube does not show the boys in blue in a terribly positive light. One wonders if they decided to use the students as practice in case a more aggressive protest against the budget happens in a few weeks.

Thursday

Thursday brought the passing of the DSW by-election writ while the other three vacancies were all voted down. All along the government have used the excuse that a by-election would distract from the current important business and had nothing at all to do with FF hanging on to power at all costs. Now with the distraction of having one by-election, what's the harm in having all of them at once? Oh yes, the spectre of the government falling and all the FF deputies having to face the music.

Friday

Like the main evening news, the week ended with a light hearted "and finally" story with the let them eat cheese fiasco. Considering that this is an event that happens every year under the radar it seems a bit stupid for a Minister to announce it in a Marie Antoinette moment. Brought a smile to my face and about a million bad puns to the Twitterverse.

I wonder if next week can match up to the excitement of the last few days. I hope not as there is almost too much going on to keep track of!

Congestion charges

No, not the central London traffic reduction measure. More the accusation that the Taoiseach was suffering from congestion when giving a radio interview on Morning Ireland on Tuesday. Now I'm all on for having a bit of a session even on a school night. I'm pretty sure there have been times when I've been somewhere between hungover and drunk going to work, probably closer to the latter than the former. But I make sure of three things:

• I plan my work so as the morning after the night before I do all the easy tasks that I have been putting off for ages like cleaning the office or returning the stack of overdue library books.
• I am not Taoiseach
• I do not have an interview with national media

Now obviously the last two are unlikely to crop up in my life, but Brian Cowen could have taken a leaf from my book and arranged his schedule to not do media until Pat Kenny or even Sean O'Rourke at lunchtime. As the great Falstaff said, the better part of valour is discretion and missing one interview would have saved an awful lot of uproar about essentially nothing.

Having made the initial error, FF then went into overdrive trying to spin the story by claiming various medical excuses, blaming Simon Coveney and eventually the Taoiseach apologizing to the public on TV news. All these action have just compounded the problem. Like an itch, they couldn't just leave it alone and their actions, and especially Noel Whelan's performance on Pat Kenny the following day, haven't helped at all.

Finally a special award to Batt O'Keefe in the "that doesn't necessarily mean what you think it does" category. Fulsome has several negative connotations with definitions like "offensive to good taste" and "insincerely lavish". Now I'm sure the Deputy didn't mean to stick the knife in, but sometimes you have to wonder.

Ireland v Darwin

First up it was the Minister for Education giving credit to Albert Einstein for coming up with the Theory of Evolution. Now it is the (Junior) Minister for Science launching a book that calls evolution a hoax. What is it with this country and poor old Charles Darwin?

Science is based on discussion and debate and so I would whole heartedly welcome a rational, fact based discussion on the merits of evolution. However, the huge preponderance of evidence points to the fact that evolution through crossover and mutation is the method by which order has been created from disorder in the natural world. The Minister for Science should not be seen lending his support to a polemic against a theory that has withstood the challenges of the scientific method. Having attended events where John May, the author, spoke (ranted would be a more accurate description) against the evils of teaching evolution I am certain that his book will add nothing to the debate on the origins of life.

Fortunately, following substantial pressure yesterday, the Minister has withdrawn from the event.

Anglo Irish bailout equivalents

Brian Lucey (Professor of Finance in TCD) posted a Anglo Irish challenge on Twitter this afternoon. He is looking for things that we could have spent the €25B that Anglo has cost the tax payer. These items might be useful or might be ridiculous. Here are some of my suggestions (some of these are a bit back of the envelope)

• A Maglev rail system from Belfast to Cork via Dublin. Based on the costs for the Shanghai one it would cost about €11B but lets assume Ireland is twice as expensive as Shanghai.
  
• The Porto metro system that has been built in the last decade or so cost about €4B and has about 70 stations over 60km of track. Therefore we could have a 400 station system with about 250km of track
  
• A round the world plane ticket costs about €1,500. So we could send every man, woman and child on three trips and still have money for some duty free on the way home.
  
• Canada is in the process of purchasing 65 F35 fighter jets for about €7B. Our Anglo money could get us 250 allowing for some bulk purchase discounting.
• The 200km long proposed Japan-Korea tunnel is estimated to cost about €60B. Dublin to Holyhead is about 100km so the Anglo money could almost bankroll a tunnel joining Ireland to the UK.
  
• We could buy for full cost all the external debt of Bangladesh. This is all the money owed by the country and its residents to outsiders.
  
• Pigs cost about €1.50 per kilo and weigh on average say 100kg. So that's €150 per pig or about 160 million pigs per Anglo which is about 5% of the world's total pig population.
  
• Gold currently trades at about €1000 per oz. One Anglo turns into 25M oz or around 700 tonnes of shiny metal.
  
• The construction of nuclear power plants comes in at around €1Bn per GW. Eirgrid's website suggests that Ireland's peak consumption is about 5GW in winter. This means we could power Ireland 5 times over for the cost of the Anglo bail out.
  
• It costs about €100k per annum to employ an academic between wages, PRSI, pensions etc. and there are about 2000 of them employed in TCD. Anglo's lump sum would cover TCD's academic staff costs for 125 years assuming no inflation. Given inflation that might come down to 40 years.
  
• My mortgage (not with Anglo) could be paid off about 100,000 times over. Instead it'll take me another 20 years to do it just once.

There is almost an infinite number of possibilities. I look forward to seeing Lucey's final list.

New Political Party

I guess it is symptomatic of the silly season, but over the last few weeks, blogs and twitter have been abuzz about the idea of a new political party being formed or a massive revamp of Fianna Fáil from within. Following various articles from left leaning commentators (VinB and FOT) about the possibility of a Labour led government, it comes as no surprise that a letter proposing a new liberal party was published in today's Irish Times.

what is needed is a truly liberal party which would provide a real alternative to the social democratic Labour Party and the centre-right conservatism of both Fianna Fail and Fine Gael, now indistinguishable from each other?

Sounds great in principle, a third way, free from historical baggage of the civil war, purely focusing on the liberal agenda and with a strong libertarian streak. In fact, in a way, it is the type of political party that this country has been crying out for. With almost 90 years of uninterrupted, centre-right, conservative rule, politics in Ireland could benefit from a conservative/liberal/socialist split with a smattering of smaller parties like you have in most modern democracies.

The problem is that any new party will struggle, as has most recently been shown by the PDs. Their relatively brief existence certainly shook up the political system for a while, but they never made the major breakthrough and eventually faded to irrelevance for several reasons: their agenda was absorbed by FF and FG, internal fighting between Cox, Harney and McDowell, punishment for acting as the FF mudguard.

A new party has two ways to form, either a disgruntled section of an existing party jump ship or else a grassroots movement eventually evolves into a fully formed party. The former is where the PDs came from, the latter the source of the Greens. There is no great groundswell of support from the general public to a new movement, therefore the only realistic route is through a splinter group from an existing party. Currently it is conceivable that some of the anti-Enda section of FG could bail and be joined by some of the disgruntled FF backbenchers. There are several problems with this scenario though

1. Neither FG nor FF or its members would be particularly aligned to the liberal movement. Sure FF sit with them in the European Parliament, but that is just to avoid having to sit with the nutjob right group they were in before.
   
2. The most likely FF to jump are the likes of Mattie McGrath and John McGuinness, neither of whom have a particularly strong national profile. From the FG benches you might get some of the heavers of last week but probably not Bruton, Varadkar or Kieran O'Donnell. Having no heavy hitter to lead the party would be a problem.
   
3. Were even a couple of FF deputies jump ship an election would quickly follow. Running a general election campaign takes between €10k and €30k per candidate. Were the party to contest every constituency they would need around €1 million. No fundraising that is within the SIPO rules could come close to that in the timescale required.
   
4. In an election any FF jumpers are still likely to be punished by the electorate for the financial meltdown of the last few years. A wolf in sheep's clothing is still a wolf.
   

It seems unlikely that we are on the verge of seeing a new political force appear. A long summer recess for FG to heal its wounds, for FF to pray for some economic recovery and for Labour to recharge the batteries for another year of increasing support levels across the country.