School buses

Saw a very Irish thing yesterday. Coming around past Christchurch on a bus i spotted another double decker parked on the right. It caught my eye because it was petrol blue and had stuff painted on the back: low floor, seat belts fitted, super green school bus. It was packed full of kids. There was another double bus in front of it. It was royal mail red, and old, with a high floor, no seat belts and about as eco-friendly as that SUV blocking the school gates. It was packed full of kids.

Why is it that one set of kids gets an adequate bus and another gets one that would make the peasants of Dickens blush?

I hate this half-assed cheapskate shit. Nearly two years ago a bus flipped over in navan and killed five schoolgirls. An outcry followed. Promises were made. Every child will have a seatbelt on their school bus by Christmas 2006 said lying ministers Martin Cullen and Mary Hanafin.

Tossers. Shame on them - shame on all the reactionaries on this island who ignore the dangers of skimping on a few quid until there are children in the ground. It's politics driven by media and it's very bad politics.

Where are the new school buses FF/PDs?

The filth and their fury

The Sunday Times has 'Fury as the hostages sell stories' as the lead on its webpage. This caught my eye. Firstly, this was to be expected, no? In a world where everyone from Rio Ferdinand to Jade Goodey has an autobiography, there can't have been many people watching that lady who didn't think she would 'get a book out of it'. I call her 'that lady' becasue I have tried to ignore the petty details of this facile feud - and also because that's how she is viewed in the media ("the only female sailor!" they cry - so what?!).

Secondly the question must be who is furious? From the article I got the feeling the Times itself is furious. Which is a bit rich, since this drawn-out squabble lurched to its inevitably bemusing conclusion under the 24hour, rolling and intense glare of the jingo press. Before the hostage's release every angle of the story was sold - first to the press then to the readers. But now the pig has dropped a second litter this summer and the race is on to be the first to buy and the first to sell.

I'd imagine a more accurate headline would be 'Fury as hostages sell their stories to other newspapers!'. Because you can bet your last marine that Murdoch's rags would jump on the chance to do an tritely in-depth profile of this lady, and splash all over the Sun, the News of the World, The Times and Sky News tomorrow morning.

So really there is no fury - just indifference and acceptance, as with so much of what we watch and read.

Party Poopers

The Russian parliament has banned political rallies that have more than one person for every two square feet in Moscow. They've also banned political meetings where there are more chairs than people. They're doing it for 'the safety of Muscovites'. Rumours that they will soon ban chairs are unconfirmed.

The boys in green

Stan named the team today. Strange. Usually they guard it closer than an italian guards a cannoli. This comes after yeserday's thirty second tantrum - Shay and Stephen are ok, but I don't want to talk to you nar nar nar na. Obviously he's a man under pressure and he's feeling it, I'd say, as he's acting funny.

He brought a lot of pressure on himself - Saturday's team showed more dodgy flexibilty than Bertie Ahern's political ideology; he put a right back playing on the left and a left back playing on the right. Then he had some fella called Douglas playing in central midfield leaving both wet and sunny weather fans to say - who? what? why? Also Stephen Ireland on the right and Damian Duff all over the shop. A mess, quite frankly, and he takes the hump when people ask him questions about it. Hmm.

Life is hard enough. Don't make it harder Stan. Play people where they're good, answer honest questions with sincerity rather than contempt and don't try and take on the media. That Lee Carsley thing was such a drag - he clearly wasn't misquoted; perhaps he thought the question was referring to changes that happened during the game. And if he did then Stan could show a bit of humility and admit he was wrong. Drop the Secret Police are out to get me so I'm not talking to you crap. It's childish. Irish fans and the Irish media want the team to do well.

Playing McGeady from the start tomorrow is a step in the right direction. Don't understand why Hunt has been left out, but maybe it's because Duff and Kilbane are lefties and he intends to interchange them. A third leftie might upset the balance. And leaving Kilbane out might upset the economy (latest rumour as to why he has played 290 times in a row for us). Anyway that minor quibble aside this column is crossing its bits and pieces for a home win and a decent game.

A quick note on media coverage of the team - mostly it's been harsh but fair. However the Stan/muppet headlines are cheap and obviously take their cue from the vile rubbish served up in English tabloids. The media themselves seem to overstate the importance of the media/team relations too. I reckon your average reader doesn't care about it that much and the media look a smidge self-important/deluded about the whole thing.

Where is our Orwell?

A few days ago on the Guardian website (UK) a journalist asked this question. Leaving aside why he didn't ask it of himself, it's still something worth asking. Four years on since the invasion of Iraq and few journalists from the West are working in the country. Certainly the old idea of novelists trying to write about these massive events has all but disappeared on any credible level.

Many things have been lost in the tragedy; it is also true that free speech, the cornerstone of this 'democracy' Bush claims to be bringing, has not been found. It's too dangerous to be a journalist in Iraq and it is unfair to compare their situation to previous wars, where the enemies and objectives were clearer. Journalists are now pawns for the weak as well as the strong; as likely to be abducted by militias as manipulated by governments. It's sad but so is the whole thing.

But still, some venture. Patrick Cornwell of the Independent being the most notable one. He has worked around Iraq since the beginning. Is he our Orwell? He must be close. The question of course is not simply about names. It's about courage and guts. You need to be a bit nuts. Who is willing to put their neck on the line for often derided causes, for truth, liberty and justice, things that lazy hotel journalists sneer at, things that 'realists' find a way around and things that our doubtless being repressed from Iraq today.

Another who had the spirit of Orwell was Anna Politkovskaya. She was murdered last year, shot in an elevator. Here's an interview from her last book.

Fas advertising

I've been meaning to write about this for a while - the ads, on bus-stops and in newspapers, for the FAS Opportunities fair at Croke Park (not an historic occassion for opps fairs, I should add).

Anyway, the young lady enclosed, despite the obvious, is interesting for another reason. FAS for most people means apprenticeships. Trades. And so on.

When was the last time you saw a tradesperson (like that?) such as this well-groomed dame? Doubtless if mechanics looked like her I'd burn out my clutch every week. Of course they don't - so why use her to promote their fair? Attractive women attract young men to things, that should be clear enough if you look at all the TOP MODELS who strip to their knickers to promote everything from road safety to hair loss.

But there's more to it, I think. Media tend to use cleaner cut versions of particulars to highlight general trends. Take the Ryan Tubridy radion show. When they want to ask kids things, they always go to fancy fee-paying schools - hardly representative of Ireland's yuff. Or if they go to a school in town, they dress it up in some ironic presenter/reporter banter, pale, annoying Anto O'Carroller-Kellyer stuff. I might be wrong but it looks like middle class bias in the media.