Investing in Education, or Old Skool discos for middle-aged men?

The government's all about education, they say. You know the buzz words - fourth-level learning, research and development, the knowledge economy.

Apparently none of this stretches as far as actually investing in education, of course. We'll be seeing third-level fees re-introduced after a two decade absence shortly (to add to the existing four figure sum 'non-fees' for 'registering' in college.)

And kids in schools with leaky roofs, no hot water but hot and cold running rats and roaches will have to take comfort in the fact that the education minister has secured additional funding this year - for renting prefabs, some of which have been in situ since the Eighties at this stage.

So, in this morass of misery that is the Irish education system, it does one's black heart much joy to see Irish universities hosting major international conferences into ground-breaking areas of research of significant importance to us all.

University of Limerick, take a bow. In these times of recession and Dell lay-offs, heaven knows the Mid-West is miserable now.

So fair play to the eggheads, who last year started something they couldn't finish. But this year they did finish it - two full days of a symposium dedicated to the work of Morrissey.

Seriously, they spent funds on studying the works of the old misery monger for two days. Don't believe me? Here's the awful, academic-meets-Manc-quiff proof of it all:

Stop me if you've heard this one before, but I'm not entirely convinced that indulging fortysomething daffodil-inspired obsessives is where our university system should be focusing its funding and attentions.

No doubt everyone present were charming men, but ultimately, what difference does it make?

Actually, shoehorning Smiths songs into a blog post may be fun, but spending state education funding on this sort of thing isn't justifiable when working class kids are forced to abandon third-level plans and kids are dodging the rodents in their pre-fab classrooms.

Silly and indulgent research events like this one might have been grand at one time, when we as a nation had the cash to be frivolous. But today?

That joke just isn't funny anymore.

Ireland is the most socially networked country on Earth

Social networking sites have been found to be national entities. And Ireland is the most socially networked country on the planet.

What do I mean? Sites like Bebo, Facebook and so on are in fact limited by national interests. Not one social networking site is genuinely global, with most limited from expanding into other countries by language barriers.

This study found that, inevitably, Ireland had the highest usage of social networking sites of any nation on Earth, as well as being Bebo's spiritual home.

But the study also reveals that social networking sites are becoming nationally limited in scope. Irish people use Bebo, Americans use MySpace (remember that?), Facebook is biggest in Turkey and Canada, Google's Orkut is big in Brazil, whereas India is the most LinkedIN.

What the study sadly doesn't reveal is why so many people still persist with such a moronic method of interacting. Maybe the Aliens will enlighten us when they start posting on Bebo.

Bono and the crusty Aussies

Okay, so Bono's a tool. We know this, especially those of us who live in Dublin. I went to the loo in a nightclub once and when I came back to my seat Bono was sitting on my coat. He didn't even acknowledge me when I pulled it out from under his arse. So he's a tool. I know this.

We know he's a hypocrite too. He moved his money to the tax haven of Holland only last year, yet he's always lecturing the rest of us to dig deeper in our pockets for the common good.

He's an anti-poverty campaigner with his own investment vehicle. So yes, he's no stranger to contradiction.

He's a pompous arse, too. We found that out when he sued his clearly mental former stylist for the return of an old hat.

But in fairness to Bono, he could sit in his big house and polish his vintage car collection, as other members of U2 appear to do, and not give a shit about Africa.

He's made his millions. He doesn't need to be going around to G8 meetings or sitting down with African despots trying to find solutions to the problems plaguing the continent. He's clearly doing a lot more for Africa than any amount of unwashed, dreadlocked, Aussie backpackers with a ropey video camera.

Yet, strange isn't it, how those trustafarian wastes of oxygen are the ones who start hectoring and assume the moral high ground when they bump into Bono in the street?

If I was Bono, I'd have just smacked them in the mouth. They don't even deserve to be spoken with, this bunch of lazy, entitled, morally outraged professional wasters.

So, hypocritical, pompous tool that he is, I doff my old hat to Bono for even engaging with these crusty losers.