Filthy to the very last

Fianna Fail - they just can't help themselves.

If there was another reason required for Enda Kenny to stop playing footsie and thrash out a deal with Labour immediately, it's that while they don't do so, the existing Fianna Fail ministers - mostly just de-selected by the people - will continue to get as much corruption achieved as possible before being removed from ministerial office forever.

Check this latest horror story -

Corrib permission granted subject to conditions

Mr. Pat Carey, Minister for Communications, Energy and Natural Resources, has announced that in response to applications received on 31 May 2010 from Shell E&P Ireland Limited (SEPIL), acting on behalf of the Corrib Gas Partners, that permission has been granted, subject to conditions:

• for consent to construct a gas pipeline from the Corrib gas field subsea facilities to the Corrib gas terminal at Bellanaboy, Co. Mayo; and
• for approval of an addendum to the Plan of Development for the Corrib gas field development.

Copies of the consent letters and supporting documentation are available on the Department’s website at this link http://www.dcenr.gov.ie/Natural/Petroleum+Affairs+Division/Corrib+Gas+Field+Development/.

Talk about taking your revenge out on the people. This is akin to Ben Ali absconding from Tunisia with the country's gold wealth. Carey, out of spite, has just endorsed the giveaway of our entire gas resources as a last act of evil. He shouldn't be permitted to do this. He just got voted out of office. All decisions made by such lame duck, unmandated ministers must be undone immediately by the incoming government.

The death of the Irish Republic

Well, the traitors have managed to achieve the death of the Irish Republic tonight.

It was done without a shot fired in anger. Perhaps some shots should be fired in anger. After all, so many people have died on this island for so much less.

The world is talking about Ireland being 'bailed out.' I took a call from an elderly relative tonight, joking about tapping me for a loan, since Ireland is obviously now swimming in EU and IMF euros.

The world, and more importantly the Irish victims, clearly have no idea what is really going on. It's quite simple, quite dastardly and quite horrific.

Two Irish banks, run and operated by corrupt bankers, borrowed billions from European banks and billionaires like Roman Abramovich and lent the money out to property developers in Ireland and elsewhere.

Those property developers fuelled a property bubble, assisted by their pet politicians in Fianna Fail, and are now largely going bankrupt, with only unfinished houses to offer in repayment of their loans.

So the Irish banks have no money coming in from the developers. And their big depositors are worried about their viability, so they have taken their money in recent weeks and shifted it elsewhere. Now the Irish banks have next to nothing to pay off the billionaires with.

Except a foolish government guarantee, provided by the Fianna Fail crooks who have long been the developers' proxies in power. That irrational, illegal guarantee holds that the Irish taxpayer will repay any debt owed by these corrupt banks.

The billionaires want their billions back. They gambled and they lost, on a speculative market. But when you're hyperrich, you don't ever lose. You just change the game until you win again. And that's what they have done. The bank's bondholders pressurised Ireland and Europe to ensure that those debts would be repaid.

At the end of the line is the Irish taxpayer, who has received nothing tonight. Rather, the Irish taxpayer now owes 80 billion euro that they didn't owe before. That money will come from Europe to Ireland and be owed by Ireland to Europe. But Ireland won't see a penny of it.

Instead, it will go to the banks who will give it back to the billionaires.

And we will be paying off those debts for the next two decades.

This, in short, is corporate welfare gone mad. It is treason, conducted by the government on the people of Ireland for the benefit of foreign billionaires. A side-effect is that the country will now effectively be run by Brussels. The Euro-state begins here.

So for anyone languishing under the delusion that Ireland received anything tonight, let's be clear, all Ireland got was a debt that it didn't accrue. All Ireland got was the blame for bankers' mistakes. All Ireland got was the removal of its sovereignty.

It's a times like these that I get nostalgic for the paramilitaries that plagued my youth in Northern Ireland. If ever there was need of them, it is now.

Listen to how a nation dies today:

18% is still 18% too many

What's wrong with our education system when there's still 18% of the population prepared to vote for Fianna Fail after everything they've done to ruin this nation?

I find it tragic that these people, who fuelled the property boom, lined their pockets with junkets and expenses, facilitated tax evasion and had dodgy tax returns themselves, who took bribes for planning decisions, who bailed out their bankster pals at the cost of our children's futures, still somehow attract ANYONE who would vote for them.

It can't be said enough times - this has happened before (late 60s, late 80s) and will happen again until definitive action is taken to remove this cancer from our nation.

It's way past time that the bank bailout was reneged upon. It's not our debt and we shouldn't pay it. And it's even more pressing that the people responsible - the bankers and their pals GO TO JAIL FOR A VERY LONG TIME.

Why have their been no prosecutions? Why are we bailing out these corrupt scumbags? Why is this shameful government still in office when no one wants them there?

Do we have to actually wait for Britain or Europe to annex us entirely, and eradicate the final smouldering remnants of our sovereignty before someone is actually held accountable for their crimes?

Or will the people of Ireland ever stop splaying their buttocks for another round of 'necessary budget cuts' and stand up, pull up their pants and take these fuckers OUT?

Not my debt

The 35-40 billion euro quoted today as the (current) estimated cost of the Irish banking bailout is not my debt.

So I'm not going to pay it, and I urge everyone else who is not responsible for the debt to behave likewise.

Iceland has demonstrated that the idea that keeping bogey banks afloat is essential to the survival of a state is nonsense. Anglo and the other banks gambled and lost. They should have been let go to the wall, as capitalism suggests. They should still be let go to the wall even now.

This transfer of cash, from the taxpayer to the banksters, the banks and their bondholders is nothing more than corporate welfare. These scum speculated and lost. But when I lose a bet, neither Paddy Power nor the Government intervene to secure my money. So why do the hyperrich get their losses nationalised?

If you weren't in Fianna Fail's Galway tent, if you weren't on Seany Fitzpatrick's dinner party list, if you didn't help run up these spectacular losses, then it's neither morally nor legally your responsibility to pay them.

Brian Lenihan and the pondlife in Fianna Fail want you to pay these debts to bail out their pals. Don't do it. Only a policy of public disobedience in this matter will see this Government removed, the cancer of their corruption excised and the debts transferred to where they belong - to those who ran them up in the first place.

You can't stop them taxing you. But you can do everything possible to minimise your taxes. You can't bring down the banks, but you can hurt them by transferring your savings out of the state. You can't refuse to pay moneys due to the state, but you can delay paying them for as long as possible, and eke out those payments in instalments to create maximum difficulty for the state.

Or you could go further. I don't mean drive a cement truck into Leinster House. I mean get out on the streets and demand change.

There are only two ways to avoid being saddled with 40 billion euro of debt you never ran up - emigrate like hundreds of thousands of people are doing already, or protest. REALLY protest.

It's not my debt and I won't pay it.

Jail the bankers and their politician protectors NOW. Let THEM pay the debts THEY ran up. Or let them rot in prison.

Chav Cock, or how God tells Englishmen to steal Irish homes

This man is called Guy Chave-Cox. He is behaving like both a chav and a cock, thereby fulfilling the demands of his preposterous surnames.

He is also a vicar, and hence allegedly a religious gentleman of the Christian faith. But this has not prevented him from seeking to claim the homes of people in Sligo as his own.

The back story is available from the Irish Indo here, but to keep it short, his people, the Middletons, left Ireland some 90 years ago, never to return. They held land that was likely originally stolen by the British crown from Irish people and given illegally to their antecedents anyway.

In the Seventies, with the intention of sorting out land ownership, the people affected worked to trace the Middleton heirs and offered them hundreds of quid for the ground ownership. Having secured their properties, this all went to bed. They should not have had to do this, of course. All colonial claims to Irish land by non-residents ought to have been revoked upon independence.

Or so people thought till the boul vicar, a Middleton heir, along with his wife Heather, decided to try to lay claim to some properties that had not been resolved in the Seventies.

Here now is a true test of the Irish state and Irish judiciary. Clearly this man, who has no connection whatsoever to Ireland, has no reasonable claim to these properties. Yet he has issued eviction notices to people who have lived there all their lives.

The only rational response is to throw his claim out of court and charge him a fortune in damages for his malicious suit. Anything short of that, and you can reasonably conclude that the 'Republic of Ireland' and its judiciary are about as free and independent as Iraq.

The rich are suffering?

According to the spoofers, vested interests and eejits in the ESRI, the rich are suffering in what they euphemistically call 'the downturn' (a diminution akin to calling the civil war in Northern Ireland 'troubles'.)

Has anyone told Sean FitzPatrick yet? Or David Drumm? Or any of the other millionaire banksters who cut and run with their swagbags to their sunny hideyholes, laughing all the way?

The ESRI should really be wound down at this stage. It's nothing more than a national gag generator, and I mean gag in both senses, creating comedy and vomit in equal measure.

Remember, these are the same loons who were still predicting boom even after the bust had arrived, still wittering about 'soft landings' when the economy was in freefall.

Rhino-dating the Irish service sector

I've learnt quite a bit this week.

Apparently, 'Rhino-dating' is what happens during speed-dating nights when you sit down opposite someone of the opposite sex and they spend the entire three minutes criticising your clothes and ranting about how brilliant they are, then at the end of the night they collar you on the way out the door for some abuse, because they're shocked you didn't choose to see them again.

I've been rhino-dated by the Irish service sector this week, and it wasn't too pleasant.

There was the fuel firm who took my money, promising me my heat within 24 hours, 48 max. It took them five days to get around to delivering to me in the end.

And that was only after I had to call them daily, have others call them daily, and even threaten to sue for my money back. And on the rare times I got them on the phone, they had the insane audacity to say I was being unreasonable. They lied repeatedly, and even sought to fabricate emails.

But now that they've finally delivered to me, they've sent me an email asking me to 'keep their number safe' for future deliveries! Classic rhino-dating delusions there. I'd rather freeze than keep such a shower of useless cunts in business, needless to say.

I'm not quite at the point of naming and shaming, but if you're concerned to avoid these shitehawks, don't order fuel online like I did. Call someone local instead.

Then there's the bank whose machine chomped my banklink card earlier this week.

I called the number on the machine as you do, and got some thundering gobshite who insisted my card 'must have broken' their machine, who suggested I was lucky his bank weren't in the habit of suing for such damages and who insisted they'd never had an IT glitch in his 'twenty-five years with the bank.'

So we have someone manning a customer service desk - frontline with the general public - who makes up nonsense, fails to apologise for the inconvenience caused, preposterously threatens legal action and ridiculously claims that they alone of all firms on Earth are immune to technical problems.

Is there any wonder that AIB still have this mong manning phones after 25 years service, assuming he didn't make that shit up as well?

I'm fed up rhino-dating the Irish service sector. I'd like a nice positive interaction with a service industry who valued my custom, treated me with respect, took responsibility when they screwed up, apologised when they let me down and actively sought to resolve my problems with their service.

But in this country, that sounds like some romantic fantasy, far removed from reality.

Cold, skint and depressed

I haven't blogged with particular regularity recently. This is because, as the title states, I'm cold, skint and depressed.

Like most of the country, basically.

Well, like those who aren't actually bankrupt or in hundreds of thousands of negative equity they now owe to the bailed-out banksters.

Or like those who aren't actually flooded out of the homes some gombeen developer built on flood plains with dodgy planning and possibly a brown envelope or two.

Or like those who can't get their operation or healthcare because our minister for Obesity keeps hiking the cost of a prescription or attending A+E.

Equally, I'm not so smug, comfortable, with my African dictator-sized Merc and Garda chauffeur, with my dodgy finances and my millionaire daughters to comfort me, that I'm in a position to advise those complaining about the state of the nation to fuck off and grow bluebells, like Bertie Ahern did.

I'm cold, skint and depressed, and I'm still better off than most. That's how bad this place has become. And it will get worse as Clowen and his cohorts seek to mug us all again in the budget.

Come the Spring, I might well grow some bluebells, in order to bring some much needed colour back into the place.

And then I'm going to Drumcondra to look for a former politician's arse I can ram them up, to stop the corrupt little fucker from speaking out of that particular orifice any further.

Seriously, why isn't he in jail yet?

The NAMA Republic

At a time with approaching half a million on the dole, 25% of mortgage holders in negative equity, the government borrowing nearly a billion every two weeks to stay afloat, and all public sector and PAYE workers facing the third round of cuts in their wages, what does this corrupt and shameless government do?

They bail out their developer pals to the tune of tens of billions we don't have.

Congratulations. If you are an Irish taxpayer, you have just been heisted to the tune of around 35,000 euro. And that will go to bail out Liam Carroll, Sean Dunne and their odious ilk, who gambled and lost on a punt that the property prices they inflated would keep ballooning forever.

They've done this by propping up the corrupt bankers who gave them the preposterous sums in the first place. No room for capitalism here - no chance of watching these banks and their shoddy speculator customers go to the wall.

No, when it's the elites involved, it's time to bail them out with YOUR money.

Don't buy for a minute the nonsense that they need to keep these banks afloat. They do not. There are other, cleaner, banks in this country already. I bank with one, and I urge you to do likewise.

See this for what it is - corporate welfare for the guys in Fianna Fail's Galway tent. The guys who charged you half a million for a thrown together house in the middle of nowhere two years ago. The guys who handed over brown envelopes to the likes of Liam Lawler to get the fields they were built on rezoned.

Do you want to give 35 grand to those people? Do you want to keep on supporting the likes of Rody Molloy's pension, or John O'Donoghue's half a grand taxi jaunts across Heathrow airport, or the likes of Sean Fitzpatrick's holiday home in Marbella?

Do you?

If you do, sit on your hands and say nothing. Do nothing. They'll rob your money with impugnity and laugh at your foolishness.

But if you object to this, the greatest theft in Irish history since the Brits invaded and took the entire island, then you need to take action now.

Sorry about that. You will need to turn off 'Fair City' and actually DO SOMETHING.

Go on the NO TO NAMA march this Saturday if you can in Dublin. Better still, get in your TD's face. You know the fellow - jowly red face from too many free lunches at your expense. Go to his clinic, call his office, and roar down the phone at the prick for voting in favour of your being robbed.

Remember what they want from you. Your compliance. Your fear. Your resignation. Fuck that. Demand their resignation instead.

You could start by voting down the anti-democratic Lisbon Treaty. They badly need you to pass that. It's a great start. Then when they're hurting, demand a general election. And keep demanding until the scum are out of government. On the hustings, ask for written assurances from every candidate that they will back legislation to reverse NAMA, no matter what.

Don't take mealy-mouthed BS like 'We had to', 'systemic importance', 'going forward', or any of that oul blather. Get an assurance in writing that they will reverse NAMA or else resign yourself to writing them a big fat cheque for 35 grand.

Or watch this and learn what they're doing to you and your country:

How corrupt is UEFA?

I'm now officially suspicious about UEFA.

Normally, when people refer to corruption in football, they mean attempts to fix matches by dodgy Far Eastern gangs. The discussions focus on whether players 'threw' games, whether they might have taken a 'bung', whether the betting patterns reveal a coup.

But I'm beginning to wonder about UEFA's role in a couple of very odd incidents.

The first relates to whether they have been rigging the draw for the Champions' League in order to manipulate the big box-office matches that they want. Last year, the quarter final draw was revealed to a Liverpool fans website two hours before it was made.

Now, that's either a 104-1 lucky guess, or else it is overt corruption. According to UEFA, it was just a lucky guess. They then refused to say anything further on the matter.

However, the original post which revealed the draw suggested that not only was the draw a pre-decided issue, but that the details had come from a disgusted UEFA employee and that bookies had ceased to take bets on the matter, which they indeed had.

But things got even stranger on Wednesday night. My sympathies go out to Chelsea, who were effectively robbed of a second successive Champions' League final appearance by the extremely erratic, if not downright bogus, behaviour of the referee, who is now in hiding after he denied Chelsea at least two legitimate penalties.

Feeling hard done by, one Chelsea player chased the ref about the pitch yelling in his face, while another roared his disgust at the TV cameras, and a third has since come out stating that he believes the ref was 'under orders.'

Sour grapes? Perhaps. Until, that is, you hear that the UEFA website posted the result of the game HOURS before it even kicked off!

The 'test' post was supposedly a dummy run. But it had the correct score and even named the players who were booked!

Chelsea's manager, one of the most respected and experienced names in football, has openly speculated that the referee was under orders not to allow Chelsea to proceed to a second final against Manchester United, because UEFA thought a second all-English final looked bad.

Of course, UEFA have dismissed suggestions of a fix. But they also ordered the match referee to go into hiding and not to talk to the press.

Books such as the excellent 'The Ball is Round' have examined the corporate corruption of UEFA, and its parent body FIFA, and revealed how football administration at the very top is run by some extremely dodgy people.

I'm now wondering just how dodgy they are. Dodgy enough to rig a draw? Dodgy enough to rig a game? Dodgy enough to pick and choose who should play in the world's biggest club football game - the Champions' League final?

Perhaps they are.

Banana Republic mk 2

We've been thrown our bone.

Brian Cowen said something had to be seen to be done, and hence now we're getting some token action months after it might have been relevant.

The Gardai, at the instigation of the Financial Regulator (the new one, not the utterly incompetent one who quit and swanned off into the sunset with a big swagbag of a golden handshake), have gone into Anglo Irish Bank yesterday evening seeking evidence of wrongdoing.

They follow the path beaten by the Fraud Squad only a day earlier.

There is now a faint outside chance that some of the gobshite criminals responsible for the mess that we're in will actually face criminal charges.

But it's only a bone. The time for all this activity was four months ago not now. You can shred a lot of incriminating evidence in four months.

Don't forget, we still live in a Banana Republic. For those of you who forget that we had a country before the Celtic Tiger hallucination, here's a little bit of Bob to remind you:

The PDs are dead!

Hooray! At last some good news.

The PDs wound themselves up tonight, after winding up the rest of us for years. Obviously they couldn't face the hammering they were going to get next year in the locals.

Good feckin riddance to some seriously toxic rubbish.

What a rogue's gallery of chancers, gombeens, blusterers, pocketliners and ne'er-do-wells. I don't know how they ever had the audacity to pitch themselves as Fianna Fail's mudguard when they were the most damaging gombeen opportunists of all.

I note they leave just as the economic meltdown they helped create gets properly underway.

Chickenshit bastards that they are, they won't even try cleaning up the mess they made.

Can we now, pretty, pretty please, kick that lump Harney out of health before there are no public hospitals left, and implement some tax hikes on the superrich?

Thank you.

Time to cut taxi fares in Ireland to match the rock-bottom service

We have possibly the worst taxis in Europe.

Smelly, 92-C reg Toyotas, on their third lap of the mileometer, driven by smoking racists or immigrant ignoramuses, that's if they aren't actually also convicted rapists or a couple of years out of prison after serving time for mowing down three people under the influence the last time they had a licence.

Yup, rock-bottom service provided by characters of all sorts of dubiety, in cars that range from comfy new limos to stinking scrappers. That's the taxi industry in Ireland.

But you wouldn't get that impression if you listened to the industry, of course. Living up to rumours that they are riven with criminality, they took to blocking the streets of Dublin today, moaning as they always do about not fleecing the rest of us for enough of our money.

Well, I reckon it's time the rest of us spoke out about this appalling industry and demanded higher service rather than higher prices.

I suggest that everyone email the Taxi Regulator and send them a submission for the current public consultation on hiking taxi fares yet again. You can be sure that taxi drivers and their families are emailing the regulator asking for stupid money for their poor service. Well, it's up to the rest of us to put the regulator right.

Have a read of this. The taxi mafia want MORE money, again.

Well, it's time for the rest of us to mail the regulator before mid-June and tell them no. Here's the address: commission@taxiregulator.ie.

Put this in the title: Feedback on Consultation Paper Number 5 Taxi Fare Revision.

Then in the body of your email, tell the regulator that the current system doesn't deserve to hike prices. Tell the regulator that the service is so poor and poorly overseen, that in fact prices should fall and fall dramatically to truly represent value for the service offered.

If you don't fancy putting it in your own words, you could always adapt what I wrote:

Obviously the fares issue is one of the least pressing issues relating to the Irish taxi industry. The urgent requirement to ensure that drivers know the regions in which they drive, the need to enforce basic standards of car safety and cleanliness, the police vetting of drivers to prevent convicted sex offenders or those with prior motoring convictions from joining the industry, and the introduction of language proficiency testing are just four more pressing issues than the idea of hiking prices yet again.
Without these basic safeguards of professionalism in place, why should the public be forced, yet again, to suffer an unjustifiable hike in prices?
Frankly, without these elements in place, it would be more relevant to slash the current prices to account for the sub-standard nature of service within the industry currently.
I suggest cutting the minimum fare to a euro (1.20 during night time hours) for starters, and tarriffs should range from 40c per km to no more than 1 euro per km. No more than 1 euro is a legitimate booking fee, and extra passengers and luggage should be charged for in keeping with their addition to the weight being carried - therefore additional passengers ought to be charged no more than a 5% addition to the overall fare, and similar for luggage items.
As a post-script, it is essential that the regulator refuse all attempts by taxi representatives to enforce a cap on entrants to the industry, or any other form of protectionism. The regulator should not be bullied by stunts such as the blocking of traffic in Dublin today by the lunatic fringe of the industry. The public deserves better than for these people to be given into every time they behave in this sort of anti-social manner, disrupting the capital.
Currently, the taxi industry is a poorly performing industry with low standards and high costs to the consumer. What we want to see is exactly the opposite. It is imperative that the regulator place the consumer at the centre of all future revisions and changes to the industry.

Maybe if the regulator grows a set of stones and cuts their money, some of the scumbags will be driven out of the industry altogether.

Maybe the regulator might get some ideas from our emails and start implementing some basic police vetting for drivers, some basic knowledge and language testing for drivers, some basic hygiene monitoring of cars, and maybe the result of that would be some basic civility from the bolshiest and most dubious industrial sector in Ireland.

Do you laugh, cry or recolonise?

It's hard to know what the correct response is, when you encounter a story as bizarre, shocking and innately tragic as this.

To summarise, dozens of 'witchdoctors' in the 'democratic republic' of the Congo have been arrested on suspicion that they have been using 'black magic' to shrink people's penises.

According to a report from Reuters correspondents:

Rumours of penis theft began circulating last week in Kinshasa, Democratic Republic of Congo's sprawling capital of some 8 million inhabitants. They quickly dominated radio call-in shows, with listeners advised to beware of fellow passengers in communal taxis wearing gold rings.

Purported victims, 14 of whom were also detained by police, claimed that sorcerers simply touched them to make their genitals shrink or disappear, in what some residents said was an attempt to extort cash with the promise of a cure.

This isn't just a Congo phenomenon. Previous outbreaks of penis-thievery have occurred in Benin, Ghana, Nigeria, Cameroon, Zimbabwe, in most West and Central African countries, in fact.

How do you respond to this in the 21st century? Do we laugh at the stupid, ill-educated, superstition-ridden Africans?

Do we lament their ill education, their superstitions, their poor democratic structures and their silly belief systems as we have done for decades?

Or should we maybe start looking at the weeping wound that is Africa, the prevalence of Aids, malaria, demogogues, lynchings, rapes, civil wars, famines, plagues and general horrors, and think about that great taboo - direct intervention by the West?

Recolonisation runs against the liberal principles of many people in the Western bubble of affluence. But they - we - don't have to live in the reality, in the squalor, under the fear of random murder, or rape, or incarceration in a squalid torture prison.

Not to mention the real and present danger of having your penis stolen.

Perhaps if we did, we'd be calling out for Africans to come and liberate us from ourselves?

Is Michael O'Leary the biggest cause of misery on Earth?

I know it's a hard call.

After all, malaria kills up to three million people and infects over 500 million every year.

Fundamentalist religious beliefs not only cause repression among those who espouse them, but also lead to the oppression, usually by violence, of those who don't.

But of all the evils incomprehensibly permitted by God to ravage this poor planet, is there any greater cause of human misery than that rip-roaring cunt Michael O'Leary?

We are informed by experts that experiencing misery is an essential part of truly comprehending happiness in life.

But surely there is absolutely no excuse, no lesson to be learned, no mitigating factor in the unremitting evil that is Michael O'Leary and his army of hellspawn?

By now you may have gathered that I broke a vow I made to myself, the promise that NEVER EVER AGAIN would I subject myself to the Auschwitz conditions of a Ryanair flight.

I had to get to Cork and back. There really weren't many options. Driving and the train would take too long. Aer Arann, who also ply the route, were asking for a truly silly amount of money.

So I made the mistake of booking a flight with Ryanscare. (You know, a fright with every flight.)

Firstly, the flight down to Cork was largely uneventful. It nearly arrived on time (and of course, an annoying tannoy message erroneously informed us that it had done when we landed.) That lulled me into a false sense of security.

The next day on the return leg, things were different. Despite checking in online already, the scum wanted another 4 euro of my money to check in. What???

Then to add to my confusion, and their blatant thievery, they demanded that I pay 18 euro more to check in my hand luggage.

"No thanks," I said. "It's my hand luggage."

They insisted it was too big, or the wrong shape, or too fragile or some such bullshit to be allowed in the cabin.

I informed them that it had been perfectly permitted by the same alleged airline on the way TO Cork, only a day previously. Nothing had been added or taken away from the bag in the meantime.

But they insisted, like the jobsworth cretins they are. And what can one do, in Cork airport at ridiculous o'clock in the morning, as a queue of other harrassed people grows behind you and starts mumbling, only give in to Ryanair's preposterous larceny?

"You can write to Ryanair's head office and complain," suggested a Servisair monkey who was insisting that it wasn't her fault that she was demanding my money for no good reason.

Yeah. I've tried that before. They don't answer. You have to take the scumbags to court to make them take your complaint seriously. And then they really try to treat you like shit on O'Leary's leather loafers.

Don't believe me? Remind yourself how they treated THIS poor woman.

I'm not going to write. Instead, I'm going to ignore O'Leary, and address myself instead to the hundreds of grunts and minions who man his evil empire.

Dear Ryanair Staff:

Are you proud of what you do and who you work for? Are your parents proud?

Is harrassing the public something you aspire to achieve in life? Is there truly nothing else you could do to make a living?

Just because your name badge says Servisair doesn't mean that you're not a Ryanair employee.

Just because O'Leary's memo told you to treat the public like lepers does not mean you are obliged to.

Just because it says in your contract that you should, at every possible opportunity, attempt to steal money from the public to line O'Leary's capacious pockets with, is not reason in itself to do so.

Have some fucking self-respect. Do something useful with your life instead.

Become a student, even. Sign on if you must.

Try prostitution or drug dealing.

Torture Zimbabwean democrats for Robert Mugabe if the inkling grabs you. Suppress Tibetan freedom protesters with Chinese special forces if you're so inclined.

Whatever you do, it's bound to be more useful to society, create less misery on this Earth, than working for that butt-munching goblin O'Leary and his Empire of Evil.

You can give it up. And if you start, others will follow. Eventually, the whole thing will collapse.

It can be done. Start now. Resign your Ryanair job, or your proxy Ryanair job with Servisair and their equivalents, and begin to live a decent life.

You know you want to.

P.S. Has anyone else noticed that Ryanair's staff are some of the ugliest people on Earth?

I remember when the vocation of airline hostess was one almost entirely populated by amazing, gentle, kind, generous women with model good looks. That's still the case with proper airlines like SAS and Singapore Airlines.

But Ryanair seem to do their recruiting down dark alleys late at night, in the rougher parts of town.

Seriously, some of those trolley dollies make the Manchester United first team look attractive. I guess it's all part of O'Leary's masterplan to add misery at every turn.

Ulster says no - I say cheerio!

The Ulster Bank are crap. Simple as that. Rubbish at what they do. Complacent in a finally competitive banking market. Arrogant to their customers. And keen to rip them off at every twist and turn.

As of this moment, I have two current accounts (one of which I pay over €100 a year for the privilege of them minding my money in), one mortgage and a credit card from the Ulster Bank. I've already cleared the horrendously expensive loan account I held.

As of Monday, I'll have none of these things, hopefully.

Because the Ulster Bank are a bunch of shitehawks, and I've had enough of them living off my money and providing nil customer service.

I had a loan account with them for a car. The APR was well over 11%. Yet the bank were offering new customers the opportunity to borrow at 5.2%. Never mind customer loyalty, or the decades I've banked with them. I could go shove myself when I asked for my loan to be switched to the rate they were offering to dogs off the street. So I cleared the loan immediately.

I have a mortgage too, on a house with a low loan-to-value ratio. This means you get a lower interest rate. Only not with the bank that likes to say no. They want me to go out and spend hundreds on having the house professionally revalued before they'll consider dropping the 0.2% differential.

And this while they waive such requirements for new customers, and even bung them a grand as a bribe. A grand of course, they've made out of mugs like me.

Their credit card rates are particularly appalling. On my earnings, I should have been offered what they call their Zinc card years ago. This is the equivalent of a gold card - higher limit, lower rates for good customers. Did they offer it to me?

Did they fuck. They'd rather I stayed on their pissy rate. So it's been cut up and the balance transferred to the Halifax which charges less than half the Ulster Bank rate AND 0% APR on transfers for six months.

Now, you might be thinking what a mug I am for putting up with all of that for so long. But I'm the same as most people. I don't want to have to think about my finances too much. I'm complacent and just let things mosey along.

But when I recently had to urgently transfer funds overnight to another bank account, and paid the Ulster Bank a significant fee for doing so, and then they didn't do it, I got really annoyed. I got more annoyed when I had to go to the branch in person and sort out their mistake.

When I had to send funds abroad to pay for a holiday, and they didn't arrive for well over a week, again despite my having paid extra to ensure a quick electronic transfer, I got even more angry. Now they're threatening my fucking holidays!

But the final straw came yesterday when I had to rise from my sickbed and get a cab to the bank to pay an emergency tax bill. I got to the branch with minutes to go before they shut at 4pm.

However, the lard arse on the door had already locked it and refused to let me in, even though I was waving the time in his face. I called the branch manager from outside the door. She insisted to me it was past four, and during our conversation, I could hear the four o'clock news beginning on a passing car's radio.

The manager suggested that I could wait outside in the pissing rain for a half hour while she checked the CCTV tapes to see if they'd shut the doors early. I asked would she then let me in to pay my bill if it was established they had. 'No,' she said, of course. So why the fuck would I bother?

Wandering back into town I passed the permanent TSB. They were still open. So was the ESB. So was Halifax. I don't know who will get my current account business, but probably it will be one of them. I'll check the excellent Ask About Money website to see who are doing the best deals.

Probably your bank are shitehawks too. The Bank of Ireland and AIB have both been caught ripping off their customers in recent times. I recommend you pop along to Ask About Money and compare the rates and products there to whatever rip-off rates you're currently suffering from.

Then go to your bank and tell them to shove it. And move all your accounts. Like I'll be doing first thing on Monday morning.