Archive for March, 2005

Forget working-class, middle-class, rural, urban, blue-collar or white-collar – the Irish workforce is now divided into two distinct tribes: the ‘nailed’ and the ‘non-nailed’. The nailed have clean, healthy, neatly-shaped nails with well defined half-moon cuticles. The non-nailed have chipped, broken, grubby stubs on the ends of their fingers, typically moderately deformed or covered with plasters.

Investors rarely factor God into their calculation. However, in the years ahead, He is likely to figure prominently in economics, politics andmoney – so we had better get used to Him again.

When Portuguese adventurers first arrived in India, drawn by the scent of spices and the lure of money, they set up their trading outpost in Goa.

By the middle of the 16th century, the streets of Lisbon were buzzing with stories of gold, spices, exotic women and ready-made fortunes.

Are girls good at hard sums? This question has started a culture war in the US in recent weeks.

In the eye of the storm was the brilliant economist Larry Summers, president of Harvard.