Lithium - Scala & Kolacny Brothers

I had to post this version of Lithium from the people that covered the U2 song "With or Without You" for the Downton Abbey advertisement - Scala & Kolacny Brothers

The Greatest Speech Ever Made

My good friend Jason Reid sent me this and I must admit the speech is very appropriate to the current time, you would swear that Charlie Chaplin was a bit like Nostradamus.

The kids in the sweetshop..........Fianna Fail's useless policies

I am informed that in their wisdom Fianna Fail whilst in government allowed developers to police themselves when it came to building regulations.....How stupid was that?
Like allowing the kids to take charge of the sweetshop, the developers cut corners to increase their already overinflated profits.  Who is paying the price now? The unfortunate people that have purchased properties built by these unscrupulous builders.  I fear there may be more developments lurking out there waiting to be discovered by the fire officers and building controls people. From my own experience during my time as a contractor I came across some developments that were of dubious quality and extremely questionable conformance to any standards, one in particular should appear on the radar in the not to distant future.
I will be watching the developments over the coming months with renewed interest.

"The Developers" the saga begins.

I have seen one of my neighbours daughters on the news the other night, she was one of the occupants of the now famous "Priory Hall" development.  I cannot understand how any development could have reached the point of occupation without the building having been given the necessary fire certificates etc. (I would appreciate some enlightenment from those of you who are better informed than me). It beggars belief that these unfortunate people are now faced with a lengthy stay in a local hotel and in all likelihood might not be able to return to their homes before Christmas if not at all.  I read in today's paper that the developer was an ex-provo and got into the building game when he moved down south. I don't care if he was in the Salvation Army, any builder worth his salt would know of the standards expected when constructing a building for multiple occupancy, this guy cut corners plain and simple. His partners in crime were the banks who arranged mortgages etc. for these unfortunate people without demanding all of the necessary checks by surveyors etc. When I bought my first house I could only get 80% of the money and the building society demanded a thorough survey, what's changed? Some of these people that granted mortgages etc. are still holding jobs within the banking industry and they have not had to explain themselves to anyone. It seems to me that the banking industry is the only one that rewards failure.  The real victims of this "economic crisis" are those left holding mortgages on worthless property whilst the bankers still demand bonuses etc. for their executives.
I read that post by Johnny B (a fellow web tekkie) about the new AIB leader and he is spot on,  based on past performance none of them can justify their salaries never mind their ridiculous bonuses.  If they worked in any other industry they would be joining the dole queues, a little bit of humility might do the twats some good.

Some pictures taken at the 2009 Bike Show in the RDS

I popped along to see the launch of the new Ducati 1098 back in 2009 and was pleasantly surprised to see that they had brought along the 1098 "R" model which retailed at approximately €35K plus.

It is a beautiful machine but us mere mortals could not justify spending that amount of money on one. I will stick with the beemers thank you, on my second one since returning to bikes and I cannot fault them one little bit. OK they might not be as exciting as the Fireblades, R1's or Ducati's but they do what they were designed to do very well besides, one of the biggest selling motorcycles over the past 5 to 10 years has been the BMW GS1200. They are superb touring machines and surprisingly comfortable, my next bike will be the GS1200 Adventure because of the larger tank, the range when full is in excess of 400 miles, that's what I call a mile muncher.
I am posting some images of my visit to the show for your enjoyment or irritation (if you don't like bikes).

The Ducati 1098 R (pricey!!!)

The Honda Rune (Yeah I know a crap name, pricey too)

This was the first glance at BMW's S1000RR

BMW also used the show to give the public a first glance at was to become their first superbike, and what a bike it turned out to be. It was more powerful than any other machine in it's class, it was so good that the press were stunned. A company renowned for manufacturing top quality tourers could launch a machine that literally blew all of the other manufacturers of superbikes including Honda, Yamaha and Suzuki out of the water with it's very first superbike. I wish I was 20 years younger, I would have been first in the queue for one.  

Losing weight....or dying trying.

I've been trying to lose weight over the past few months and I have to confess it is very hard.
Going to my local park and walking / running 5 miles a day which I do enjoy but the weight loss seems to have plateaued at 15 1/2 stone. I am getting a bit fed up with the fact that I do not seem to be progressing as well as the previous months. I am in danger of throwing the weighing scales out the window, it must have developed a fault over the past weeks. The weather is now turning and the park will look less and less inviting, I might join a gym to avoid the cold. I've been looking at some blogs recently and the quality of some of them is absolutely amazing, I aspire to that level of creativity. It always amazes me how people can produce some completely different presentations for the same task, this was very evident when I undertook the digital web design course because no two websites were the same. Anyway, I'm off to the park for some exercise....back soon.