I was sad to hear of the death of Nuala O’Faolain this morning. Although we both worked for the same paper for many years, I only met her once, more than ten years ago at a press event which had the aim of bringing senior journalists from north and south together and getting them very, very drunk - although to what end, I can’t really remember and what I was doing there, I’ve never known. All the journalists from the south sat at one table while those working for papers and broadcasters on the other side of the border sat at another - so I’m not sure if the aim of fostering togetherness, if that was the plan, was achieved.
Anyways, I ended up sitting beside Nuala and her buddy Marian Finucane at dinner on the first night. She was hilarious, instantly engaging, interested in other people’s stories and wonderfully indiscrete, (direct might be a better word ) particularly when it came to winding up the editor of ireland.com, Seamus Martin, about the low rates which the people working on the website (including myself) were then being paid. She was one of very few journalists working on the big paper to show solidarity with the web journalists at the time and for that I’ll always think of her fondly. Like many people, I found her recent interview on the Marian Finucane show compelling and moving, if very difficult, radio, and I am glad, for her sake, that she did not suffer the slow lingering death that had filled her with completely understandable dread.
Habitat went out of business in Ireland yesterday afternoon. “Slow sales and high costs” were blamed for the store’s collapse. I’d say slow delivery and high prices are the more likely explanation, frankly. While I’ve bought my fair share of Habitat tat, I really used to hate the way they’d make you wait months for delivery of even small pieces of furniture and make you pay through the nose for stuff while almost identical furniture and lamps and cutsey candles and the like were selling in Ikeas everywhere else in the world for a quarter of the price. Even though I hadn’t bought anything there in ages, I reckon I’ll still miss it now that it’s gone.
A third of us who book airline tickets online are being “ripped off, misled or confused”, the European Commission said today. Consumer Commissioner Meglena Kuneva has threatened to take action against airlines and tour operators for what she says are “serious and persistent” consumer problems, including misleading advertising in relation to online ticket sales. Misleading pricing is the biggest problem and was recorded in 58 per cent of the sites under investigation while in 49 per cent of the sites, there were irregularities related to contract terms. Problems with non-availability of advertised offers also appeared frequently.
Britons throw away 4.4 million apples, 1.6 million bananas, 1.3 million yoghurt pots, 660,000 eggs, 550,000 chickens, 300,000 packs of crisps and 440,000 ready meals, according to a British government-backed report published today. And most of the food waste is made up of untouched food inluding whole chickens and chocolate gateaux that lie uneaten in cupboards and fridges before being shamefull dumped. I wonder what the numbers are like in this country? Not great, I suspect.
More bad news today from Aer Lingus. The airline announced that from Thursday its baggage charges will increase by as much as 50 per cent.
Well, I’ve just been on the change.ie website where I spent ages calculating my carbon footprint. I dutifully answered all the questions and according to the site I am responsible for exactly 0.0 tonnes of carbon emissions every year. I reckon that’s pretty good seeing as how I leave all my lights on all the time, burn mountains of coal in my back garden and spend way too long on my computer logging on to sites that fail to deliver on their promise to work out my carbon footprint.
The letter pasted below appeared in The Irish Times this morning. It makes for interesting reading.
Madam, - I read with interest the report of May 1st by Conor Pope on the exorbitant prices being charged by “low-cost” airlines to fly to Bristol and other nearby cities for the Heineken Cup rugby final.
On January 26th I booked two seats on Ryanair flight FR506 flying to Bristol at 6.50am on May 24 for a price, before taxes and charges, of €49.99. On March 27th I received a schedule change from Ryanair advising that this flight was now departing at 15.00 and that I could avail of a full refund. As this flight would not have arrived in Bristol in time for the start of the Heineken Cup match, I had no alternative but to accept the refund and rebook the flight with Aer Lingus from Birmingham.
Surprise, surprise, flight FR506 is now departing again at 6.50am with a seat price of €229.99. I would be very interested to hear Mr Peter Sherard’s explanation for this. - Yours, etc,
TERRI KIERNAN MERLIN, Sarah Curran Avenue, Dublin 16.
