Rumours from the campaign trail

Some great rumours out on the campaign trail so far, most of them libellous and likely untrue and probably all of them being spun by rival candidates about each other.

My favourite election yarns so far -

* Not one but two candidates in Dublin are allegedly hiding secret illegitimate children. Extra points for candidate A for his secret illegitimate child apparently being black.

* A candidate who supposedly has more than a passing acquaintance with the gay porn industry in their past.

* Straw grasping award goes to a number of Fianna Fail incumbents who are telling anyone who will listen that people should vote for them to ensure a 'strong opposition', which is apparently 'essential' for a healthy democracy to function.

* The candidate allegedly telling voters not to give Joe Higgins a preference because if he's elected Clare Daly will become an MEP for Dublin.

* My "Avril and Mairead' award for the best internal party spats so far - the evergreen rivalry between FF's Mary Fitzpatrick and Bertie's bagboy Cyprian Brady in Dub Central. Silver medal position for the battle of the outgoing ministers Hanafin V Andrews in Dun Laoghaire. Bronze to Fine Gael's Derek Keating and Frances Fitzgerald in Dublin Mid West.

* The Dublin South West candidate who reckons that his rivals are taking down his posters is mistaken - it's actually a craze among the local kids who are making Halloween type masks out of them!

* The Nigerian ministerial advisor on integration to the Lenihan brothers was so impressed by their understanding of migrant cultures that he quit his job in disgust to run against Brian in Dublin West.

* Oh, and could someone tweet or poke or (forgive my retro-ness) even just tell TV star Dylan Haskins that the real election is held in voting booths around the country and not on internet discussion boards? The poor lad apparently thinks he's got it in the bag because he topped an online voting poll, bless him. The bookies think otherwise in a big way, needless to say.

As you can see, I don't get out of Dublin much. I'm reliant on ye all out beyond the big bollix to let me know what great yarns you've heard about the candidates in your area.

Don't get pissed at me if I have to moderate them though. I don't want sued.

How to ruin places with architecture

I'm fed up of architects ruining perfectly good places with their architecture.

Let's try not to think, for the moment, about the Sixties monstrosities that were erected on the ruins of beautiful old Georgian and Victorian buildings across the cities of Ireland and Britain.

The Sixties really have quite a lot to answer for in retrospect. For more on this argument, feel free to track down BBC 4's splendid documentary on why the Sixties were actually total shit.

No, I'm more animated about contemporary architecture, which despite knowing almost nothing about it I tend to quite like, largely because it so often is used to replace dreadful concrete Stalin-baroque Sixties architecture which I loathe.

However, plonking some cleverly shaped, interestingly lit building on the site of a half-derelict tower block or concrete wall of council flats is one thing.

But erecting preposterous constructions in scenic environments where they totally destroy all of the existing ambience is another entirely.

Examples? It's probably easier to say what's good than what isn't sometimes. The London Gherkin is good - eye-catching yet functional and fits into its environment (the financial city) while still being quirky enough to attract attention.

What else is good? Much of the Dublin docklands, actually. Wandering around that end of town a decade ago was to take your life in your hands.

And when the Flugeltent is in operation, or in the middle of Octoberfest, it probably still is a bit hairy down there.

But few could claim with a straight face that the buildings of the docklands and IFSC area haven't improved immensely what was a rundown and decrepit area.

And what's shit? There's a lot of shit actually. Most of the ghost estates and apartment blocks are empty for more than the simple reason that they were built in the middle of nowhere in a ponzi boom. They're also empty because they look shit and no one sane would want to live in buildings looking like that.

Of course architects will smugly claim that those estates and blocks were actually designed without reference to their stellar professional abilities, and were lashed together by builders with no sense of design.

And they'd be right. But in response, I generally just show them this picture of a winery built by superstar architect Frank Gehry in Spain, and then they go very quiet indeed.

Here is how to ruin places with architecture:

Fucking horrible thing to do to a beautiful landscape, isn't it?

Architects - they've a lot of crimes to answer for, you know.

The Big Bollix

I was in the queue at Ben Gurion airport when the Israeli security forces finally caught up with me. Probably, I should have listened to that little voice telling me to exit via the West Bank and Jordan, but I simply didn't have the cash to hand to do it.

So I risked exiting as I came, and they pulled me aside.

First, I was taken to a side room and strip-searched. Then they went to remove my bag. I protested, as images flashed before my eyes of getting fitted up for heroin smuggling or the like. Eventually, unable to remove my hands from the bag, they agreed to let me dress and search it in front of me.

They took everything out and found nothing to be suspicious about. But that only heightened their suspicions.

They swabbed every single item in my bag and tested the swabs for explosives residue. I felt like telling them that the closest I had come to armaments was their Uzis in my face, and the shots pinged at me in Beit Jala from the nearest Jewish settlement, but stifled my tongue. In the end, reluctantly, they decided to let me board my plane.

As they escorted me past the security desk, past my co-passengers (thus arousing their concerns - none would sit next to me on the flight), I decided to match their spite with my own. Rather than go to the gate meekly, I insisted on going to the loo and shopping in duty free.

I was frogmarched to the front of the queue in both by my security detail.

My last memory of Israel was a tourism poster of Tel Aviv on the airport wall as I finally boarded my plane. 'Come to Tel Aviv - The Big Orange!'

How pathetically tragic, I thought. But not so unlikely in a town so suffused with transplanted New York Jews. Here they were, missing the point about how their apartheid city was utterly unlike the magnetic multiculture of NYC.

How sad to be concocting such a transparently derivative nickname for a town once known by its Palestinian name - Jaffa.

As I drifted off to sleep on the plane, across two other seats vacated by my co-passengers (both Hassidic Jews), I thought that no other city would be so idiotic, so basely dumb as to seek to piggyback on the organically derived NYC nickname.

Surely, I felt, only a town with such obvious negatives for tourists (merely a century of history, little culture, the ground zero of Jewish nationalism in an apartheid state at perpetual war with its neighbours) could feel the need for such transparently borrowed plumage.

And I was right, until this weekend I came across tourism references to Bangkok as 'The Big Mango.'

That's even more pathetic than the Big Orange (which at least has the Jaffa orange heritage to recommend it.)

The Big Mango? Like mangoes don't grow anywhere else, or as if they originated in Thailand? Does a city of immense culture and 13 million people really need to promote itself thus?

I mean, what's their competition? They've got the Western market nailed on for South-East Asia. Burma is a dictatorship, Cambodia suffered a massive genocide in living memory and Laos is as close as you can get to the 13th century outside of Central Africa.

But if this is going to catch on, perhaps we should get in on the ground floor. Galway could be the Big Rainy. Cork, the Big Langer. I'm open to suggestions for Dublin. So are Failte Ireland, most likely.

Please offer your best suggestions ASAP before they start promoting the Big Bollix in America next Spring.

The sound of sirens

Hello sirens, my old friend,
I'm on the Northside once again.
Because when I was in Clonskeagh,
a gentle quiet came over me.
Now the Northside skangers are yelling in the night,
about some shite,
amid the sound
of sirens.

In restless dreams I walk alone,
through hordes of drunken Gaa-head clones,
neath the halo of a street lamp,
I turned my collar to the cold and damp,
when my kidney was stabbed by the knife
of some junky skite.
Oh what a fright,
amid the sound
of sirens.

And in the naked light I saw
Eighty thousand boggers, maybe more.
People drinking without speaking,
People puking and then pissing,
People throwing their shite in my front garden,
They all dared,
despite the sound
of sirens.

You fool, they said, don't you know
the Northside's full of crazy Joes.
Hear my words that I might teach you,
Take my arms that I might reach you.
But their words like silent raindrops fell,
and were lost,
amid the sound
of sirens.

And the people drink and bray,
and piss and puke outside all day.
Perhaps I should have heard the warnings,
Resident protests seem habit-forming.
And the signs say that they'll clamp you
right outside your own door,
by tenement halls,
amid the sound
of sirens.

Trapped in Dublin

Are they trying to trap us here?

First the security chimps at Dublin airport go on an unofficial work to rule, preventing nearly 100 passengers from getting to their flights before they departed.

Then the main train line to the North mysteriously falls into the sea.

And there is a strike on at Dublin Port that could start affecting passenger ferries at any time.

Already it costs money to leave Dublin via motorway, and of course, with the Greens in government, that will keep rising.

Are they trying to stop us from leaving so that we'll be forced to pay their preposterous new taxes in the Autumn?

Moonlighting for the Irish Left Review

At the request of the Irish Left Review, I've done some in-depth analysis of the Dublin Euro election and the Dublin Central by-election and the Dublin local authority elections.

The story of the transfers reveals both crisis and opportunity for the many-headed hydra that is the Dublin political left.

Read more here.

I'm voting against Fianna Fail today

In the locals, in the by-election and in the European elections.

I will carefully arrange my preferences to insure my vote doesn't come within an arse's roar of benefiting any Fianna Fail candidate.

Thankfully, given the abysmal candidates they have offered me, there is no confliction whatsoever for me in doing so.

Were Seamus Brennan Sr running, for example, there might be a slight twang of regret at putting his preference bottom, below non-entities like George TV and kerazees like that O'Gorman punter.

But thankfully they've made it oh-so-easy for me to punish them completely and properly for their corrupt mismanagement of this nation to their own selfish ends by running some of the most unqualified, shirking, gombeen eejits one could ever dread to meet.

These people are the wannabes (or in Eoin Ryan's case the hasbeen) in an institution that has lined its pockets and those of its wealthy benefactors at our expense.

They are the party that beggared the nation, who destroyed the economy for generations, and who are still doing so. A party so bereft of morality that, far from apologising for their many, many corrupt and shady deals in government with developers, rapist papists, and giving away our natural resources, they are still in utter denial of having done anything wrong.

These are the people who stole our gas, who let rapists away with it and paid for their sins with our money, who puffed property to the sky for their developer funders so that ordinary couples are now in debt for generations with only a shoebox in a dormitory burb to show for it, who took brown envelopes to rezone sites of national heritage for motorways.

Vote Fianna Fail LAST. Give them the very dog-end of your preferences.

Go right down the ballot, past the fringe parties, past the Shinners, past the single issue candidates, past the kooks, the loons, the anti-immigration nutjobs and the psycho Catholics, past even the Green lapdogs all the way to the end. And then vote Fianna Fail with your bottom preferences, or no preference at all.

It's time they were held accountable for their crimes. Let it start on Friday with a ringing rejection of all they've done to us. Let's get off our knees and kick the gombeen bastards in the bollocks.

Your boys took a helluva beating...

Yes, that really is a man in South Ossetia riding a tricycle through a war zone wearing a Tyrone GAA jersey.

No, the picture is not photoshopped. It was taken by an Associated Press photographer and was published on the Guardian website last Wednesday.

I can only assume that while the lad is somewhat unhappy about Russia invading his country and looting and destroying it, he might be just a little pleased to hear that his adopted Gaelic football county slaughtered the Dubs at Croker today.

Okay, maybe 'slaughtered' isn't quite the most appropriate word.

Sorry!

The Culchie Coup D'Etat

Yes, I know I wanted rid of Bertie Bung. Be careful what you wish for and all. I know.

But still.

A culchie coup d'etat?

The BIFFO for Taoiseach we knew about. A man with no experience outside of politics running the country (into the ground) in a time of economic downturn. Fantastic.

What we didn't see coming was the near total eradication of Dublin influence in the governing party at the executive table.

With Bertie gone to the back benches, and Seamus Brennan jumping (for health reasons) before he was pushed, and his constituency colleague Tom Kitt bizarrely axed, the cabinet loses three Dublin ministers.

And with Mary Hanafin demoted for her mishandling of the autism issue (and for being from Dublin), the capital loses further influence.

In their place comes perennial non-achiever from Caaark like, 'Batt' O'Keefe, and Cavan-Monaghan slogger Brendan Smith, the man who has spent the guts of a decade ploughing a lonely furrow in the North-East defending the indefensible health cuts on behalf of the government.

And the indefensible herself, Mary Harney, remains at the trough, against all common sense.

We also saw the arrival of Pat Carey as chief whip, replacing poor Tom Kitt. This is the man who previously oversaw the national drugs strategy. No, not the strategy that led to Ireland becoming awash in cocaine. The strategy that tried to prevent Ireland becoming awash in cocaine. So, not much talent there.

And some of the other appointments are culchie-tastic too. Micheal Martin as Foreign Minister? We lose the urbane (but potential Taoiseach) Dermot Ahern as our international representative and have him replaced by Langerman? The man who launched a thousand health reports? Give me a break.

Dermot Ahern to Justice is another demotion, no matter how it's spun. That's Biffo's none too subtle method of de-fanging the main opposition to his leadership. Ahern must surely realise now that he should have had the stones to make a contest of the leadership.

Right now, he'd be better off as a disgruntled back bencher, leading the anti-biffo FF, than in his current ignominious position implementing Brian Lenihan's policy agenda.

But it gets better. Instead of sacking that useless oxygen thief Martin Cullen, Biffo has promoted him to Tourism Minister. Frankly, if this country was the sunniest, safest, and cheapest on Earth, I'd still think twice about visiting if it was his ugly lying mug asking me to. And Ireland is none of those things.

But the real 'fuck you' to city dwellers is the elevation of 'lovely girl' Mary Coughlan to Tanaiste. I mean, come on. Are we meant to laugh or cry at that? Are we now basking in mediocrity to this extent?

In fairness, it's been a bad day for Dublin South, losing two cabinet ministers at one fell swoop. I predict incinerators and sewage plants to be built in Dundrum shortly.

Tom Kitt may have been smarmier than Bob Monkhouse, but he was at least an effective whip, toiling away beyond notice, ensuring that FF maintained their ever-tenuous but ever-present grip on power for the past half-decade.

The loss of two ministers will go down well next to Harvey Nicks. Well, it won't, but it'll go down really well with the bogtrotters who bussed it up to Dublin from Offally and gathered outside Leinster House like gombeen groupies earlier to cheer on Cowen's elevation.

If I were a betting man, I'd go out and stick a couple of quid on Fine Gael to lead the next government. If they can't outpunch this bunch of gobdaws, they don't deserve to ever run the country.

Prison by the motorway

Okay, so the new national juvenile detention centre is to be located at Lusk (subscription required), a small North Dublin village near the coast and the M1.

It will cost 145 million euro.

Fair enough, if that's what it costs, though one wonders why not build it OUTSIDE of Dublin and away from picturesque coastal villages, where land is surely cheaper.

One also wonders why this centre, like Thornton Hall before it, are being built in greater Dublin at all. We've already seen the obscene cost of Thornton Hall spiralling out of control like so many infrastructural projects before it.

But surely one way to keep the price down would be to locate these facilities outside of where property and development land cost one of the highest prices per square foot in Europe?

Locating prisons in remoter areas would have the added benefit of not assisting escaping prisoners. If anyone does get over the fence from either of these facilities, they're mere miles from the main train line and motorway to the North. Within an hour of breaking out, they could be out of the state, or indeed anywhere within it.

This is further squandering of tax payers' money, and indicative of a lack of joined-up thinking by the authorities and their 'advisory committees.'

Kill off the marathon cult

Today I got penned into the house by a horde of marathon runners. It was a bit like being stuck in the house on the 12^th of July in the North, only without the sectarian banging of drums and alcoholism present.

However, the sense of smug and unwarranted superiority emanating from the sweaty, heaving throng of middle management jogging bores in shorts was just as potent as that which comes from an Orange Order march.

What is it that makes people, in this age of the combustion engine, want to run pointlessly for over 26 miles? Furthermore, why the fuck do they have to run past my doorstep and block the city up while they do it?

Fair enough, when Pheidippides first legged it from the site of the Battle of Marathon to Athens, he had a reason. He wanted to tell his pals that they had defeated the mighty Persians.

However, today’s numpties running in gorilla outfits or dressed as French waiters may be interested to learn that Pheidippides dropped dead on arrival in Athens.

No silver paper cape for him, no medal or commemorative T-shirt. No sense of palpable achievement. Just heart palpitations, the ironic words ‘Victory is ours!’ and then death.

Sadly, health science and medicine have improved somewhat in the past 25 centuries. Nowadays, even beer-bellied middle-aged men undergoing midlife crises can be cajoled to jog for 26 and a bit miles without death ensuing. More's the pity.

But that doesn’t mean that marathon running is good for you. It isn’t. The impact on the joints alone means that marathon running does more harm than good. Face it, the lesson of Pheidippides is that running for that distance is bad for you.

Of course, we live in a free society. If people insist on trying to add some challenge to their humdrum existences by running endlessly around various cities, who am I to try and stop them?

But can someone please explain to me the point of closing off the entire city for most of a day to let this cult of jogging loons have freedom of the roads?

It might be a bank holiday, but some people have work to go to, you know.

Others just want to go out and enjoy their day off without having to traverse their way through endless Garda diversions.

Diversions which have been judiciously placed to ensure freedom of the city for the jogging nutters and utter frustration for those who have lives and want to travel across town in order to live them.

In short, there’s no good reason to pen people into their homes in order to facilitate this cult of crazies in their lung-busting attempts to kill themselves slowly.

If there must be a Dublin Marathon, let’s have it at four in the morning over the Christmas holidays when it will cause least interruption to the rest of us.

Oh, and let the cars on the road at the same time. At least, with the addition of a goodly few festive drink-drivers weaving their way drunkenly at night and at speed through throngs of mongs in shorts, the Marathon might finally become a spectator sport I’d want to watch.

Dublin's cost of living rising

Relative to other world cities, Dublin continues to be one of the world's most expensive cities to live in.

The latest edition of the Mercer Cost of Living Index reveals that Dublin is now the world's 16th most expensive place to live, marginally behind New York.

Think about that for a sec. You're paying New York prices for Dublin living standards. Sad but true.

This is two places higher than Dublin was last year, indicating that the cost of living relative to other cities is still rising in Dublin, despite cooling house prices. Conclusion: rip-off Ireland is still alive and well and scorching the wallets of everyone in the Pale.

Moscow tops the list of the most expensive cities in the world to live - not a surprise to anyone who's tried to get accommodation there or even buy a sludgy coffee near the Arbat.

London is second, no surprise there either, and the Asian cities of Seoul, Tokyo and Hong Kong make up the rest of the top five.

In case anyone's wondering how Moscow could be the world's most expensive city, here's Mercer's rationale:

"Mercer's annual Cost of Living Survey covers 143 cities across six continents and measures the comparative cost of over 200 items in each location, including housing, transport, food, clothing, household goods and entertainment. It is the world’s most comprehensive cost of living survey and is used to help multinational companies and governments determine compensation allowances for their expatriate employees."

Mind where you walk, you dozy crooks!

Here's some quality bit of research done yesterday by Fine Gael. Basically, they uncovered the fact that the Dublin councils paid out a mammoth 15 million euro in a four year period to people who tripped and fell on the footpath.

Now, have they paved Dublin with minefields when I wasn't looking, or does this sound like another compo tidal wave to you?

The worst part, or best depending on whether you're a member of the Law Society or not, is that half of that money went to solicitors.

This isn't the first example of the current government shovelling money at our learned friends in the Four Courts, of course. The tribunal payouts have made multimillionaires of many legal eagles, or as I prefer to refer to them, tax-sucking parasites on society.

Interestingly, the Dublin councils managed to spend a mere 17 million euro on street repairs while ponying up almost the same amount to people claiming compo. Seems a poor return, doesn't it?

I recall there was a road in Turf Lodge in Belfast that during the Eighties was known as the most dangerous street in the world. Not because of any Troubles-related violence, but because of the number of local residents who had claimed compo off Belfast City Council after going arse over tit on the pavement.

No matter how many repairs were done, it only took a crack on a single slab (one that might occur mysteriously overnight, after some local lads had passed by with a sledgehammer) for the locals to be fighting each other to hurl themselves to the ground as they walked over the crack.

Far be it from me to suggest that anyone in receipt of compensation from the Dublin councils in relation to footpath falls were in anyway claiming illegally. But Dublin pavements are simply not minefields.

Watch where you're walking in future, you dozy crooks!

Living in denial - The property bubble

Living in denial seems to be one of the most common pastimes these days.

In fact, it's probably the third most common pastime in Ireland today, behind slumping in front of the telly to watch CSI: Miami and slurping wine with friends while comparing the notional values of their overseas property portfolios.

I thought it might be useful to run through a few known facts that people are living in denial of in Ireland today, just as a reminder and in the vain hope that some people might snap out of their torpor and face up to some of the scary realities that await us all.
Today, we'll kick off with a biggie - the Irish property market.

Irish property prices are about to collapse, because it is the biggest bubble in the global property market bubble. Yes, people have been predicting this for years, and with good reason. It is inevitable. No, it hasn't happened so far, but that just means the crash will be more severe when it occurs, which is very, very soon.

That one bed apartment you bought within a mere hour's commuting distance of Dublin city centre (if you leave for work at 4am) will not continue to inexorably rise from the half million euros you bought it for.

The reason for this is because it is simply not worth anything like that amount in real terms.

Let's look at the fundamentals of this market. Historically, the average family house anywhere was thought to be worth approximately three times the average industrial wage. In Ireland, accommodation now is a factor of around 12 times the average industrial wage.

Also, the US property market has just tanked, and Ireland's exposure to America makes us particularly vulnerable to economic developments there.

Finally, didn't you notice that the only people talking up house prices are those with vested interests in selling them? Auctioneers (recently demonstrated on Prime Time to be utter cowboys), Estate Agents (who increasingly and quietly have been selling their own houses and renting), and newspapers (whose lucrative property sections which shrilly trumpet new developments are dependent on the advertising from those same developers).

Get out now if you can. Banks have already divested themselves both of their own property (HQs and bank branches) and of their property debt. The clever speculators left the Irish market at least a year ago.

This is a pass-the-parcel game where the last one holding the overpriced package will see it explode messily, devastating their finances and personal security.

Indications from data gleaned from popular sales and letting website Daft.ie show that more and more places are on the market longer, being repeatedly listed at ever lower prices and that a full crash is imminent.

There has never been a soft-landing in a bubble market. There wasn't one with Dutch tulips or South Sea stocks, there isn't one in the US housing market now or the London and Tokyo bubbles from previous decades, and there won't be one in Ireland now.

The market will crash, perhaps by as much as 30% in one year. If you are still in doubt, cast an eye over the excellent web analysis conducted at Daftwatch, and the informed discussions on The Property Pin.

Prices in London took the best part of a decade to recover from their crash in the late Eighties. Prices in Tokyo took even longer to recover. Prices in Ireland are more inflated now than either of those markets ever were.

If you've just taken out a large mortgage, you could be trapped in the property you've just bought for a decade or more, in order to avoid negative equity.

If you have a string of properties, each leveraged off the back of notional equity increases in previous properties, you are extremely exposed and could even find yourself close to bankrupcy like this fella.

The party's over and normal rules of engagement are about to resume, people. Which is good in the long term for all those unable to purchase their own dwelling, but very bad news for those seeking to make money by sitting on their backsides.

Treasury seek to destroy a Dublin treasure

Bewley's famous and much-loved cafe on Grafton Street is once again facing closure, this time due to a lawsuit threatened by the property's landlords.

The cafe, which closed briefly two years ago to the dismay of all Dubliners and those who visit the capital, was reprieved after it was bought over (with the famous name retained.)

It was deemed back then to be uneconomic to retain such a large cafe with such high overheads in one of the most expensive rental streets in Europe. However, current management Cafe Bar Deli have proved that to be wrong.

The threat this time around comes from the actual owners of the premises, the controversial and notoriously litigious Treasury Holdings. Because of their penchant for aggressively pursuing court cases, I am sadly not in a position to express my true feelings about the way they conduct their business.

But I hope I am safe in suggesting that Treasury would be only delighted to force the forfeiture of Cafe Bar Deli's lease on the beloved old cafe, as it would enable them to either develop the site or rent it for a higher price to a tenant likely to renovate it for retail use, which would put an end to the 80 year history of Dublin's favourite cafe.

Their predatory eye has clearly been on the site for some time, given the revelation that they sought to buy out the lease for €6 million only two years ago.

Treasury have been censured in the past by the likes of An Taisce for their bully-boy tactics, producing potentially dangerous developments and riding roughshod over local communities.

Anyone with a love of Dublin's cafe culture and the unique atmosphere of Bewley's in Grafton Street can only hope that Treasury's latest attempt to get their own way through bullying litigation is unsuccessful.

No Sleep till Breakfast

I notice Cllr Seamus Ryan complaining on his blog about bangers and fireworks being set off by what were once called juvenile delinquents down in Waterford.

Obviously, the staccato of bangs followed by the howling of petrified domestic animals is not restricted to the sunny South-East.

Last night, the little feckers in my neighbourhood kept it going well into the night, through the small hours and into the big ones again, leaving me with no sleep whatsoever.

The good councillor feels that more needs to be done to prevent those illegally importing and selling fireworks. I have an idea myself in relation to that.

A few years back, the Gardai invited me down to a little spot they have between Heuston Station and Kilmainham in Dublin to witness what happens when shoddy fireworks bought (or in the case of the Gardai, siezed) from shifty market stallholders go off.

In their illuminating demonstration, it was mainly fingers that went off, followed by eyes and the skin of the upper torso. Thankfully, the demo was performed on dummies.

I'm a believer in leaving explosives to the experts, like that genius who does the Paddy's Day fireworks along the Liffey, or the Provos. But it amazes me how many people want to play with fireworks without having the slightest idea what safety measures to take.

And what gets me is the gradual lengthening of all holidays these days. Christmas marketing begins in November if you're lucky, we have a week long St Patrick's festival instead of just the one day, and Hallowe'en begins with a bang in early September and goes on and on and on.

Why can't people restrict the fireworks, self-maiming and scaring of animals to the one day it was supposed to be?

Given that in the month before Hallowe'en each year, old people and animals are terrified each evening by the constant noise, that people like me can't get to sleep because of it, and especially because the kids buying and using these things swamp the hospital A+E departments in their dozens, I propose a modest solution to the problem.

Every person caught importing or selling fireworks and bangers illegally should be punished by having one superglued to their hand then lit.

Then perhaps next October, I can get some bloody sleep.