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January 29th, 2006
I bet you�d look good on the internet
The Arctic Monkeys, four young lads from Sheffield, released their first CD last Monday and it looks likely to be the fastest-selling CD in years.
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January 25th, 2006
Superwoman
The other day at about four in the afternoon, while watching my daughter at a swimming lesson, I got chatting to a couple of the other parents in attendance – mainly mothers – at the side of the pool.
My phone rang.
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January 22nd, 2006
Spatial plan a load of nonsense
Apparently, we have a National Spatial Strategy.
It was published some time last year, or maybe it was the year before. It was full of hubs, corridors and gateways. It said something about more balanced development, more decentralising of jobs and generally less congestion, commuting and snarl.
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January 18th, 2006
A 50s revival: shake rattle ‘n’ Rolls-Royce
Ireland is getting old. Over the next twenty years the population aged over sixty five will more than double to nearly nine hundred thousand. Today one in ten of the population is over 65; in two decades it will be close to one in five. By
2031, two hundred thousand of us will be over 85. -
January 15th, 2006
The nuclear nightmare that looms over the Middle East
The Jaffa Road is one of the most spectacular sights in Jerusalem.
Architecturally, it is no great shakes (apart from the odd 19th century Ottoman merchant’s house and a couple of ancient synagogues); it’s the people that make it. At one end, the Machane Yehuda souk bustles with life, smelling of exotic spices and buzzing with the background staccato of customers and shop owners haggling.
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January 11th, 2006
This land is Ireland, this land is their land: The Brave New World
By 2031, we are likely to have a significant black urban underclass, paying rent to a Chinese landlord class. There is also a good chance that we may have a second generation Polish Taoiseach, bankrolled by his oligarch father who arrived here broke in 2004. Irish academia will feature a disproportionate number of Indians, yet the Irish language will be stronger than at any point since before the Famine. The majority of white Irish people will be content and living in a huge – formerly agricultural – suburban belt which will bear more than a passing resemblance to Wisteria Lane of Desperate Housewives fame.
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January 8th, 2006
The world considers its nuclear options
Just when the two governments are more or less singing from the same hymn sheet on the North, Ireland and Britain are on the brink of the mother and father of all rows. The issue is nuclear power, Sellafield and the likelihood that Tony Blair is going to signal huge investment in Britain’s nuclear power programme for the first time since the 1960s.
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January 1st, 2006
It’s the North, stupid
This weekend, do you feel a bit fuller, fatter and tighter than you did two weeks ago? Are you having difficulty squeezing into that slinky dress that fitted like a glove just before Christmas?
What about yesterday’s 16’s collar that suddenly feels like a noose?
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