Pud cont

Pud cont 21st January 2012

Off out around the park, its damp, three joggers and I almost get run over by a girl on a scooter. The old couple who deliver papers are there. Both clad in bright orange Hi Vizibility jackets, and grey hair. She waits patiently for him as he goes up the paths to deliver the newspapers.
We go to pay June its her first day she is working for Joan, the kitchen is in quite a state, she said, but she does her best. Sandy appears, and is furious about the state the carers have left the house. She will give them a rocket. We will have to time our visits to see Joan to coincide with the carers.
We wish them goodbye and go and visit Pud who is still at the vets. We meet a lovely dog are sniffed all over, and taken it to the ward section. There lies Pud fast asleep, we rub her ear, and though we don’t quite get an actual purr, I think she appreciates it. One paw is bound with a drip feed going into a vein. She has been very good and is more livier, today, not making any fuss even when injected. With a bit of luck we may be able to have her back home tomorrow. We shall see its a major conference on Saturday morning.
We spend the rest of the day trying, monumentally unsuccessfully not to think about her
Pork chops we watch Whisky Galore as good as ever. I am sure James Robertson Justice would be struck off the medical profession for proscribing tobacco and ‘a wee dram’ to his patient, how things change.
Though tired we play Scrabble today, Mary wins I get stuck with the Q at the end, I don’t even reach 300 never mind 400!

Fave Letters:

A Tory government, recession, rising unemployment, a royal wedding, inner-city riots and now growing tensions in the Falklands (Argentina hits back over Falklands, 19 January) – there’s something familiar about all this!
Joe Hartney
London

Mary Dejevsky (18 January) observes that the Costa Concordia accident reveals the apparent breakdown of the “women and children first” principle.
As an unmarried and childless man, I agree with the basic assumption that in a crisis, all fit and able men present have a natural duty to look to the safety of any women, children and infirm. There are strong social and historical reasons for this, but all of these boil down to a ruthless assessment of the relative value of human beings in the propagation of the species. Thus, save the life-giver and the new life first; let the biologically superfluous male make his own way.
This so-called chivalric code expresses a ruthless and uncompromising view of life that many people today are shielded from by legislation, political correctitude and social taboos. It is not surprising, therefore, that many choose to reject such thinking as an artefact of an old, less advanced world, and imagine that they live in a time when such considerations will never touch them in their relatively safe, modern lives.
These same people might then book themselves a cruise across the most powerful, chaotic and terrifying natural environment never tamed by man: the open ocean.
Michael Ranson

Please could Richard Branson sponsor the new royal yacht? It would be beyond words to have the Virgin Queen.
Fenwick Kirton-Darling
Hexham, Northumberland

Silver service
SIR – Silver cutlery is dishwasher-proof (Letters, January 13), if not mixed with stainless steel, and washed on a “delicates” programme with a liquid detergent.
Our children have accepted canteens of silver as wedding presents, and use them.
Jane Bennett-Rees
Sunningdale, Berkshire

A modest proposal
SIR – Bryony Gordon writes about the trend of extravagant marriage proposals (Comment, January 19). It is not the manner of the proposal that is important, but the passion and commitment behind it.
At least that is what my husband of 16 years has always assured me. He proposed during an episode of Friends in 1995. The fact that he waited until the advertisement break showed more love and consideration than any expensive gesture.
Frances Williams
Swindon, Wiltshire

Obituary:

In 1940 Bryce was a 17-year old Midshipman RNR in the minesweeper Fitzroy when, on the evening of May 28, she anchored off La Panne, nine miles east of Dunkirk. His captain ordered him inshore with the ship’s motorboat, saying: “Mid, I want you to bring off the British Army. Got it?” After several trips to the beach, Bryce’s Fitzroy rescued 109 British soldiers, eight Belgian officers, two French fighters and two Jewish refugees.
On May 30 Fitzroy anchored closer to Dunkirk where Bryce found “khaki everywhere ” and “the air alive with German aircraft”. Such was the press that he once found it necessary to fire his pistol in the air to maintain discipline, but embarkation smartened up considerably after he enlisted the help of a sergeant major in the Scots Guards ; that night Fitzroy landed 678 British troops in England.
A few days later, after two further evacuation trips, Bryce celebrated his 18th birthday, becoming one of the youngest recipients of the DSC.
Ian Kinloch Bryce was born in Darlington, Co Durham, on June 9 1922, the son of a tobacco salesman. He was educated at Queen Elizabeth Grammar School and, after the family moved to Wales, at Monkton House, Cardiff. Although of Scots-Italian stock, he ever afterwards considered himself a Welshman.
He joined the Thames Nautical Training College HMS Worcester in 1936 and was Cadet Captain there when he and a team of cadets helped man Cutty Sark on her last voyage, under tow, from Falmouth to the Thames. He remembered cheering crowds on the shore, and her arrival off Chatham, when she was greeted by his hero, the much-decorated Antarctic explorer Admiral Lord Mountevans.
On February 26 1941, while in Cardiff on leave, Bryce was hit by a bomb splinter during an air raid, but made a speedy recovery. He then served three busy years in the destroyer Oribi. During this time he took part in the raid on Vaagso in Norway (when, he recalled, Jack Churchill’s commandos went into battle to the sound of the bagpipes); and was with the ship when she rammed U-531, and on D-Day.
Postwar Bryce accompanied the Royal Family on their tour to South Africa in the battleship Vanguard in 1947, then transferred to passenger shipping until 1956. After that he spent six years as a shore manager with Regent Oil and a further seven years with Conoco. He then set up Kinloch Bryce Associates, a company which specialised in training young people in management and leadership skills.
In 2005 Bryce published his autobiography, Shipmates & Mistresses – Bye and Large; the mistresses were the ships he served in, but Bryce was also remarkably frank about the romantic life of a sailor ashore.
Ian Bryce married first, in 1949, Brenda Pearce. She died in 1962, and in 1964 he married Sue Balkwill, who survives him with two sons and two daughters.
Ian Bryce, born June 9 1922, died December 11 2011

Full Text:

Guardian:

The decision by President Obama to reject a major new pipeline that would carry oil from Canadian tar sands into the US represents more than the president standing up to cynicism of Congressional Republicans and the threats of the oil industry to wreak electoral revenge in this year’s election (United States: Setback for big oil: Obama rejects Keystone pipeline, 19 January). It is a major opportunity for David Cameron and Nick Clegg to withdraw their support for the Canadian government and Big Oil in pursuing what is one of the most environmentally destructive projects ever.
All eyes are now on Europe where countries are debating proposals – the EU’s fuel quality directive – that would effectively ban oil derived from tar sands from entering European forecourts. The UK should seize the opportunity that President Obama’s brave stand has created, and stop lobbying against these proposals.
Three months ago the Keystone pipeline looked sure to be approved; now the tar sands industry is facing real obstacles in getting to market. The European plan would be another important milestone in stopping the expansion of tar sands exploitation. Obama’s decision hasn’t just been praised by environmental groups, but also by labour unions and thousands of citizens across America and around the globe.
Cameron can now also show international leadership. The world waits to see if he will side – like Obama – with the people, or with the polluters.
Bill McKibben
Schumann Distinguished Scholar,
Middlebury College, Middlebury, Vermont, US

You report (18 January) how Sutton Trust summer schools help students to gain places at an elite university. Eton College universities summer school was founded in 1982 and has now seen 3,409 students from the maintained sector through its doors. Students choose the subject they wish to read at university and are given 10 days of intensive tuition, as well as specific help with their university application process. The school is open to all students at the end of year 12 from the maintained sector and we have forged close bonds with certain boroughs, notably Hounslow and Tower Hamlets. Oxbridge success rates are high, at around two-thirds acceptance for several departments, and most other students go on to top universities, including Harvard. Our small (and subsidised) fee is remitted for students from families in financial hardship.
Andy Halksworth
Director, Eton College universities summer school

Thank you, Zoe Williams, for stating the obvious so clearly (Who pays the Tesco CEOs £6.9m a year? We do, 19 January). There can be no supermarket profits without workers, and yet these workers are routinely paid so little that taxpayer subsidies are required to protect them from poverty. But low pay is not the only evil in modern business.
My adult son works for a major high-street retailer on a zero-hours contract receiving the minimum wage. This means no guaranteed minimum hours each week.It is not unusual for him to be offered just one four-hour shift in a week, which, after fares, leaves him with less than £15 before tax. When a competitor offered him the same exploitative terms, he imagined that he could perhaps do both to build up something approaching a week’s work. No such luck. The first employer warned him that he would be in breach of contract if he accepted work with the competitor. Apparently shop assistants on minimum wage are now subject to the sort of policies on commercial confidentiality previously reserved for highly paid executives. If Labour truly wants to promote a better form of capitalism, it should stop backing extreme austerity measures and start guaranteeing that the minimum wage will become a living wage, and ban zero-hours and unfairly restrictive contracts.
It is a sign of our desperate times that I have asked for this letter to remain anonymous and have not named the retailer. I fear any criticism tracking back to my son could lose him his job. I feel I have to respect his desire to cling on to this job at almost any cost because to be a young man without any means of earning a living is so deeply depressing and infantilising. This is exactly how they get away with exploiting young people.
Name and address supplied
• All the letters (19 January) in response to your leader (Battling the bosses, 18 January) were from men – so here’s a female perspective. I am a former Unison shop steward representing relatively low-paid support workers in further education. As Harriet Harman and Yvette Cooper have pointed out so forcibly, women are in the majority in poorly paid public-sector jobs and have been hit hard by redundancies and pay freezes. When you have no savings and have already tightened your belt as far as it will go, how do you cope when prices go up, but your wages do not? A pay freeze for a couple of years is acceptable, but there seems to be no end in sight to the austerity. The stress on frontline workers now coping with heavier workloads is incredible. It makes me very angry when I hear affluent men talking so glibly about freezing pay and attacking very modest pension provision. They should be made to go and work in a care home for six months on the minimum wage, or in a college helping students with severe behavioural problems, or in a housing department trying to find accommodation for the homeless.
Anthea Beaumont
Highworth, Wiltshire

Jonathan Freedland says expectations about President Obama “were almost impossibly high” (Three years of Obama: Disappointments can’t crush the hope, 20 January). Largely because of uncritical, power-worshipping coverage by the mainstream media, I would argue. For example, a front-page Guardian article about Obama’s July 2008 speech in Berlin breathlessly reported the then Democratic presidential candidate “almost floated into view, walking to the podium on a raised, blue-carpeted runway as if he were somehow, magically, walking on water.” The author? Jonathan Freedland.
Ian Sinclair
London
• It seems paradoxical to see Pakistan and England playing cricket in Dubai in a virtually empty stadium (Sport, 18 January). There are thousands of indentured (slave?) Asian workers in Dubai who would not be allowed to attend the match owing to their apparently subhuman status in Dubai. Does the ECB not have enough of a social conscience to back away from this kind of hypocrisy? They did with South Africa, eventually.
Duncan Grimmond
Harrogate
• Your article on poor dog control (19 January) did not mention dog-on-dog attacks. People are seeing their beloved pets maimed and killed, bringing psychological distress to the owners and in some cases serious mental health issues.
David Gwilliam
Exmouth, Devon
• A Tory government, recession, rising unemployment, a royal wedding, inner-city riots and now growing tensions in the Falklands (Argentina hits back over Falklands, 19 January) – there’s something familiar about all this!
Joe Hartney
London
• Was it wise to drop listings for daytime television from G2 – in the very week we learned that 118,000 more people now find themselves with nothing better to do than watch it?
Willie Montgomery Stack
Norwich
• I’m having difficulty navigating my way round the redesigned paper. Any chance of a wallchart?
Fr Ed Hone
Durham

Independent:

Beneath a photograph of Moldovan dancer Domnica Cemortan your headline asks: “Was this woman drinking with the captain – or an innocent aboard?” (20 January). The Independent clearly assumes, in the former case, that she is guilty of some sort of crime and is at least partly to blame for the wreck of the Costa Concordia.
This is grotesquely sexist nonsense – for which Terence Blacker’s timely report on research showing that men’s cognitive functioning declines in the presence of attractive women (Notebook, 20 January) provides no excuse. Anyone, however beautiful, who is invited to socialise with a ship’s captain is surely entitled to assume that he will remain capable of doing his job safely and responsibly; otherwise, knowing his limitations, the invitation would not be made. Ms Cemortan deserves an apology.
Andrew Clifton
Edgware, Middlesex
In your issue of 19 of January, in addition to a leader about the impeccable conduct of the coastguard in Livorno over the Costa Concordia accident, you publish a letter from a British resident in Italy disturbed by your previous reporting about the accident. One line in this letter struck me: “Stereotyping does not help.”
I dare to add that stereotyping does not help good journalism. Yet your newspaper cannot do without it apparently, as on the same issue you publish a comment by Peter Popham which is a “masterpiece in stereotyping”.
I tried unsuccessfully to appreciate his humour and his attempt to demystify what he calls “our fondest prejudices”, but let me say that he seems to fall 100 per cent victim of them. His choice of words looks quite insulting.
Alain Giorgio Maria Economides
Ambassador of Italy to the United Kingdom, London W1
Unlike your correspondent Andrew J Mulholland (19 January), I did not detect any racism in the reference to Captain Schettino phoning his mother in your 18 January report. On the contrary, I thought your journalist filed an appropriately worded, suitably damning response to the mind-boggling transcript of Schettino’s conversation with the coastguard.
David Cavanagh
Brighton
‘Taste of hell’ doesn’t help to train carers
While we welcome all education related to dementia, and understand that the session described in “Dementia: a small taste of hell on earth” (17 January) forms only part of a longer course offered by Liverpool Hope University, we would like to challenge the basis upon which this training is delivered.
Recently we have seen a rise in experiential learning approaches that involve putting learners through degrading and traumatic simulated experiences. It is a misconception that a learner must be put through an aversive experience in order to learn how to care. In fact all the evidence suggests the opposite; when we are put in a stressful situation general memory formation is impaired, and what is retained are minute details of the stressful experience.
Experiential sessions of this nature usually include being subject to degrading and unkind “care” from trainers taking on the role of staff, which then serves to normalise such practices. This whole aversive approach does nothing to counter the stigma attached to a diagnosis of dementia, and nothing to teach more humane caring skills.
If we no longer believe that children learn from being smacked, why do we assume that adults will learn from being hurt, humiliated and embarrassed? Would we advocate a course about pain management which inflicted severe pain in order to demonstrate what it feels like?
Let’s have experiential learning by all means, but base it on the lifetime’s experience and existing resources that dementia caregivers bring with them to the learning situation.
Dr Claire Surr
Dr Andrea Capstick
Jan Robins
Emily Malet
Bradford Dementia Group
University of Bradford
Royal yacht idea is an insult
I am stung into writing by the news that there is a call among a certain sector of society to buy the Queen a yacht for her diamond jubilee. On the news today I heard that some rich bloke has offered millions to buy or build one. The counteracting soundbite is that its cost should not come out of taxes, as if that makes it all right.
The Queen does not need a yacht. If rich people want to mark the jubilee, why not set up a trust or charity with that name to benefit unemployed people or people who have difficulty affording fuel and food?
If we are all in this together, maybe the Queen could do what some cultures do: give presents on her big day rather than receive something that is an insult to struggling people in Britain.
Sally Evans
Groeslon, Caernarfon
Please could Richard Branson sponsor the new royal yacht? It would be beyond words to have the Virgin Queen.
Fenwick Kirton-Darling
Hexham, Northumberland
Looking for a deal on Greek debt
John Day (letter, 19 January) and President Sarkozy have something in common: they clearly make little attempt to understand the financial markets.
The volume of credit default swaps (CDS) outstanding on Greece is estimated to be €60bn gross and €4bn net, around 20 per cent of Greek sovereign debt, not “many times” the amount. The private-sector bond-holders are endeavouring to strike a deal which will result in a voluntary restructuring, that will not trigger CDS.
This would normally require 75 per cent of creditors (ie bond holders) to accept the deal. Hedge funds in total, given their small balance sheets, will not hold such a significant amount of Greek debt that they could scuttle the deal without the support of other creditors.
The most likely key hindrance to a voluntary deal will be the coupon rate of any substitute bonds Greece issues, since this will impact the losses that the bond-holder will take in exchange for existing debt. As in any restructuring, investors (whether a bank or a hedge fund) are trying to minimise their losses and Greece is trying to reduce the cost of its debt by reducing the amount it pays back.
S Lewis
London, SW13
Curb abuses of lobbying
The Independent is entirely correct in stating that a statutory register of professional lobbyists is necessary (leading article, 10 January).
There is an urgent need to guarantee transparency, and to make sure that everyone in the political debate is operating under the same rules and with equal levels of access. You are also correct in asserting that a statutory register cannot be introduced in isolation, and must be accompanied by a compulsory code of conduct, a ban on professional lobbyists holding parliamentary passes, and a requirement for politicians and officials to declare their meetings with lobbyists.
This is not the pointless creation of additional bureaucracy the naysayers would have us believe. Without these measures, a statutory register will remain toothless. A code of conduct must be policed by a government agency, rather than by the profession itself, whose attempt at a fig-leaf of credibility – the UK Public Affairs Council – is incompetent and ineffective.
Chris Whitehouse
The Whitehouse Consultancy Ltd, London SE1
In brief…
Supermarkets offer real hope
The Fair Pay Network is wrong (“Supermarket success is costing us dear”, 19 January). The route out of poverty is a job, a qualification and an opportunity to progress. That’s not just our view – it’s also that of the Joseph Rowntree Report on poverty.
At Morrisons we help local people from all backgrounds to get a good job in a good company and that is a good start for most people. They also get the chance of an apprenticeship qualification and last year we promoted 2,500 people from the shop floor to management jobs.
We want to form a lifelong commitment to our staff and that involves more than just starting pay; it also involves a wide range of benefits, opportunities and a career.
Norman Pickavance
Group HR Director, Morrisons, Bradford
Three cheers for Birmingham
I was very pleased to see that Birmingham, for once, got good press, thanks to The New York Times (9 January). I lived there for three years: it is a lovely place, with lots of things to do and indeed, very romantic. I met my boyfriend there six years ago and our first date was a long drink at the Tap and Spile, an old pub overlooking one of the canals by Broad Street. The warm and welcoming Brummies can be proud of their heritage and their good humour.
Dr Arianna Andreangeli
Edinburgh
What to call Guy Gibson’s dog
In the TV film guide in The Information (14 January) you said, about The Dam Busters: “Hopefully, this broadcast is the sanitised version in which Wallis’s black labrador is rechristened ‘Trigger’ “. First, the dog was not Wallis’s; it was Guy Gibson’s. Second, its name was “Nigger”, whether people like that or not. The practice of changing historical facts because the truth is inconvenient is at best reprehensible and at worst dangerous. It is shameful that you should advocate it.
Mike Perry
Ickenham, Middlesex
Island homes
Mr Cameron thinks that the Falkland Islanders should have the right to decide their own future. Is he prepared to extend the same courtesy to the Chagos Islanders?
Trevor Walshaw
Meltham, West Yorkshire

Telegraph:

SIR – It is no surprise to me that families regularly argue about the dog (report, January 10). Dogs require rigid and predictable routines, without which they are often miserable and troublesome.
It is a worrying reflection on our society that so many families lead such haphazard and disorganised lives that they are unable to accommodate the needs of their canine companions, and resort to arguing about who should do what.
If we all owned dogs and treated them responsibly, there would be no time for distractions such as extra-marital affairs or family arguments, and we would all be much fitter, as we would be walking several miles a day with our pets and enjoying the fresh air.
Paul Blundell
Rugby, Warwickshire

SIR – Decisions about the future of social care are the heartbeat of our country, touching the lives of every individual and family. The way our society responds to the needs of older people and those with disabilities and mental health needs is an indication of the kind of country we live in.
So decisions about how social care is funded and policies about providing care are not just a matter of how taxes are spent, but of how highly we prize dignity and quality of life for everyone in our communities.
For those of us in local government, there is a great responsibility not only to make the right decisions for our regions, but also to talk to central government about what we think its priorities should be.
As council representatives, we call on the Government to follow the advice of the Dilnot Commission on funding social care. Social care is expensive and, with people living longer, the difficulty of providing quality care should not be underestimated. But concerns about money are not a reason to hesitate; they are a spur to take action. Not only is the current system unfair, it will also be more costly in future.
Changing the system and bringing in reform is crucial and needs to happen soon. Only last week, Dr John Sentamu, the Archbishop of York, called for more to be done to protect the elderly. He said that, while savings were needed, they “must be applied with caution and compassion.” He added: “We all know there are going to be cuts in government expenditure. We dare not cut compassion. Our nation’s humanity is at stake.” It is vital that, in line with Dr Sentamu’s sentiments, we urgently seek a solution to the financial challenge of paying for social care.
Finding an alternative to the current system, as costs climb rapidly each year and become unsustainable, was what Andrew Dilnot was asked to do. His Commission has spent months gathering evidence and considering solutions. While its recommendations are not without cost, they are workable.
The dignity of older people and of adults who need social care should not be at risk because a solution has not been put into place. Indeed, everyone, from the care sector to carers and from local government to older people, needs a solution to be agreed and put into practice as soon as possible. The recent integration report from the NHS Future Forum cites the possibility of using efficiencies from the system to fund social care services as one of the major decisions to be made.
The Dilnot Commission has found a workable solution that balances financial concerns with respect for elderly and vulnerable people. We recognise that the extra cost associated with the Commission’s recommendations prompts questions, and we understand that these are questions for government ministers to consider. On this basis, we can only advise that any limit on costs should be as low as possible to stay affordable, and should not be above about £50,000.
We believe public investment is necessary to protect “our nation’s humanity” and the dignity of older people in Britain.
Graham Gibbens
Cabinet member for Adult Social Care and Public Health, Kent County Council
David Sprason
Cabinet Lead Member for Adults and Communities, Leicestershire County Council
Colin Noble
Cabinet Member for Adult and Community Services, Suffolk County Council
Signed on behalf of the following local authorities: Bedford, Bracknell Forest, Brighton and Hove, Buckinghamshire, Cambridgeshire, Central Bedfordshire, Derby, Derbyshire, East Sussex, Essex, Hampshire, Hertfordshire, Isle of Wight, Kent, Leicester, Leicestershire, Lincolnshire, Luton, Medway, Milton Keynes, Norfolk, North-east Lincolnshire, North Lincolnshire, Northamptonshire, Nottingham, Nottinghamshire, Oxfordshire, Peterborough, Portsmouth, Reading, Rutland, Slough, Southampton, Southend-on-Sea, Suffolk, Surrey, Thurrock, West Berkshire, West Sussex, Windsor and Maidenhead and Wokingham.

SIR – It is welcome news that the Government has recognised the need to address the shortage of air capacity in London and the South East (report, January 18). We urgently need additional capacity to encourage trade with the growing markets in Asia, the Middle East and South America. However, even with the best will in the world, a new airport could, realistically, take 20 years to build.
In the meantime, what is the Government’s strategy to tackle congestion at our airports and improve our ability to reach key markets?
Baroness Valentine
Chief Executive, London First
London WC2
SIR – In 1970 the Roskill Commission was considering a number of possible sites for a third London airport. The majority of Commission members identified Cublington in Buckinghamshire as the preferred location.
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20 Jan 2012
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20 Jan 2012
Professor Sir Colin Buchanan was the only dissenter, favouring a Thames-side location to the east of London at Maplin, Essex. With his long-standing experience as a planning inspector and a professional transport planner he distrusted the simplistic cost-benefit approach that had led to the identification of Cublington, and he argued that a location to the east of London would promote urban regeneration there.
Roger France
Cambridge
SIR – A new hub airport in the Thames Estuary would be a disaster for the climate, and, as a result, for people and wildlife in this country and globally.
What’s more, there is no clear support for this airport from the British aviation industry. We know this because similar proposals have been considered by previous governments on at least three occasions, and each time they’ve been thrown out.
If anything, the case for Boris Island will only look worse this time round, because action on climate change is needed more urgently than ever. Aviation is already responsible for more than a fifth of the UK transport sector’s greenhouse gas emissions, and an airport accommodating 180 million passengers each year, as proposed by Boris Johnson, would be much larger than any airport in operation in the world today.
Such a scheme would effectively be the death-knell for the Government’s promise to be the greenest ever, and would undermine its ability to show international climate leadership. That’s why we will be opposing it every step of the way.
Paul Brannen
Christian Aid
Neil Thorns
Cafod
Martin Harper
RSPB
Craig Bennet
Friends of the Earth
Paul Cook
Tearfund
Colin Butfield
WWF
Joss Garman
Greenpeace UK
Kirsty Wright
World Development Movement
Susan James
Portsmouth Climate Action Network
Sarah Clayton
Airport Watch
Andy Parsons
Swindon Climate Action Network
Nicola Hutchinson
Plantlife
Lorna Howarth
Artists Project Earth
Jake Leeper and Hannah Smith
UK Youth Climate Coalition
Hugo Tagholm
Surfers Against Sewage
Peter Robinson
Climate Alliance
SIR – A White Paper on the future of aviation is due shortly, and much of it will revolve around our ability to handle more air traffic, especially from the Far East.
The four options on the table – an extra runway at Heathrow, Stansted or Gatwick, or a new airport in the Thames Estuary – each have their proponents and detractors. However, in economic terms, only one offers a rapid solution without expensive concomitant development, and that is a new runway at Heathrow. Most properties that would be blighted by such a runway are already owned by BAA and much of the infrastructure is ready. Talk of new roads, railways and islands for the other options is irrelevant if costs are to be limited in this economic climate, which may last 10 years.
A. T. Brookes
Charlwood, Surrey
SIR – If Nick Clegg’s against it, you know it’s a good idea.
C. G. Joy
London N3
Youth start-up loans
SIR – In this economic climate, young entrepreneurs are anxious about access to small-scale finance to start businesses. A young person has access to a loan for a business degree, but not one on equally favourable terms to start a business.
We call on the Government to introduce a youth investment fund. This would make favourable-rate loans available as start-up capital for young entrepreneurs, with the same conditions that exist for the much larger loans to prospective students through the student loans fund.
As university applications fall and young people consider alternative career paths, it is time to review the value society places on a degree above other choices.
Most start-ups look for finance on a small scale – below £10,000 – and, with the depression of university applicant numbers, the fund can be delivered without increasing the overall costs of youth investment. Any risk associated with these loans could be underwritten by a revamped careers service giving support in the same way that Ucas assists with university applications.
This is a bold proposal but we are hugely encouraged by the Prime Minister’s initial response. We now want to ensure his warm support for the idea translates into action.
Sir Richard Branson
Founder, Virgin Group
Neil Berkett
CEO, Virgin Media
Abdul Khan
CEO, ratethatcurry.com
Ronke Ige
CEO, Emi & Ben
Zoe Jackson
CEO, Living the Dream
London W1
Silver service
SIR – Silver cutlery is dishwasher-proof (Letters, January 13), if not mixed with stainless steel, and washed on a “delicates” programme with a liquid detergent.
Our children have accepted canteens of silver as wedding presents, and use them.
Jane Bennett-Rees
Sunningdale, Berkshire
Costing a mint
SIR – The new, thicker 10p and 5p steel coins will save the Treasury £8 million a year. But adapting equipment for their use will cost £80 million (report, January 18).
What lunacy! The Royal Mint should melt down the coins and start again.
Duncan Rayner
Sunningdale, Berkshire
Everyday neckwear
SIR – Well done to Prof Martin Roth, the director of the Victoria and Albert Museum, for extolling the virtues of ties (report, January 19). I have 31 ties: one for each day of the month. I will continue to wear them.
Ron Kirby
Dorchester
A modest proposal
SIR – Bryony Gordon writes about the trend of extravagant marriage proposals (Comment, January 19). It is not the manner of the proposal that is important, but the passion and commitment behind it.
At least that is what my husband of 16 years has always assured me. He proposed during an episode of Friends in 1995. The fact that he waited until the advertisement break showed more love and consideration than any expensive gesture.
Frances Williams
Swindon, Wiltshire
The backgammon habit soon settles scores
SIR – John FitzGerald and his wife’s daily games of backgammon (Letters, January 18) echo my own experience. Given an elegant backgammon set by our daughter one Christmas, my wife and I have played almost every day since January 1982 – and we have kept 30 years of scores in a set of little notebooks.
We play three games every evening, and the rivalry is so intense that we have nothing but affection for each other for the rest of the day.
Jeremy Gotch
London SE21
SIR – We, too, play backgammon daily, having started while on holiday in the Canary Islands some years ago. At the time of writing, I lead my wife by 11,316 to 11,312.
Anyone wishing to verify these figures is welcome to examine our kitchen diary. We remain fiercely competitive good friends.
Michael Brotherton
Chippenham, Wiltshire
SIR – Backgammon was popular among the late-11th-century Norman warrior aristocracy. In 1983, during excavations on the site of the first motte-and-bailey castle in Gloucester, I uncovered the remains of the earliest backgammon set to have survived from the medieval period.
It was made of red deer bone or antler, decorated with pornography, drinking and feasting, hunting, entertainers, astrology, falconry and dragon fights.
The former owner of the set may have finally got fed up with the game; he smashed it up, threw it in a rubbish pit and retired to become a monk in Wales.
Dr Ian J. Stewart
Carleon, Monmouthshire
SIR – My wife and I played backgammon frequently when we were first married. We stopped when she owed me £3 million and I settled for a cup of hot chocolate.
Peter Watson
Great Wolford, Warwickshire

Irish Times:

Emigration – a lifestyle choice?
Sir, – Isn’t it time that we were honest with ourselves as a nation on the topic of emigration? Minister for Finance Michael Noonan has walked into a hornets’ nest in his depiction of it as a lifestyle choice for many young people (Home News, January 20th), but is he actually wrong ?
For a country that seeks to base its recovery on exports and trade, our attitude towards gaining valuable experience of other countries and cultures is surely odd at best. Many of our neighbouring European countries highly prize time spent abroad mastering another language and broadening one’s horizons. Ask any young French or Spanish person about the most valuable addition to their CV and it will often be their stint working overseas. The simple fact is that even in the good years, there was a constant flow of young people in and out of the country to the same destinations as now.
For reasons of history, we appear to have a completely irrational attitude towards the beneficial aspects of emigration and a knee-jerk reaction to being reminded that it is a large part of who we are.
There are times when one needs to get over history and deal more dispassionately with the future we want to provide for our young people. Of course we should seek to provide for them in Ireland – as we did during the boom years. However, a trading nation needs people who know and understand the world. Speaking personally, when I am bombarded with negativity on the airwaves day after day about how bad things are in Ireland, I am hardly alone in wishing sometimes that I could go and ride out the storm in a more pleasant harbour. Alas, my mortgage makes me a real prisoner of the Celtic Tiger. – Yours, etc,
BARRY HENNESSY,
Turvey Walk,
Donabate, Co Dublin.
A chara, – That the criticism of the Minister for Finance’s remarks on emigration comes from Messrs Martin, Adams and O’Dowd is risible. It is people of their ilk that have created an Ireland in which so many Irish choose, of their own volition, not to live.
While being proud to be Irish, this pride does not bring with it a desire to build a life in the State whose passport I carry, moulded as it is by the hands by generations of Fianna Fáil and Sinn Féin. – Is mise,
JOHN O’REILLY,
Carrer Argenter,
Barcelona, Spain.
A chara, – Minister for Finance Michael Noonan should be fired for his insulting, offensive, hurtful and ignorant comments regarding emigration as “a free choice of lifestyle”. I hope he doesn’t take my letter “out of context”. – Is mise,
JASON POWER,
Maxwell Road,
Rathgar, Dublin 6.
If you don’t have a TV . . .
Sir, – The Government’s arguments for the proposed broadcast charge are weak in the extreme (Dáil Report, January 19th).
Argument one is that the charge will reduce evasion. Even if this does happen, it remains for the Government to explain why those who don’t watch television should pay to reduce evasion by users.
Argument two is that public service broadcasting is increasingly accessed online, via the RTÉ viewer and websites. If this is so, I see no reason not to charge at source, as the New York Timesnewspaper does, for example. By charging online, RTÉ can target only those users who wish to pay for RTÉ content online. The Government has provided me with no compelling reason to be forced to pay for online content that I have no wish to pay for.
In addition to this, I have strong ethical reasons for not owning or watching a television. I believe that a life is best lived by actively researching and sourcing one’s information and entertainment.
Television ownership, in my view, encourages a passivity that is harmful to personal development. Good television is so rare that it is best sourced by other means, such as DVD. In particular, the RTÉ State media output is so poor that I would never think about it under normal circumstances.
The Government is proposing to undermine what I consider to be a fundamental right: to freely choose not to watch junk. I would be compelled, under this proposal, to pay for others to do so. – Yours, etc,
FRANK O’CONNOR,
Mellifont Avenue,
Dún Laoghaire, Co Dublin.
Sir, – Before we get to nasal microchips at birth and a breath-tax, is it not time we got down to brass-tax? We could start with a pilot-project on some political chickens’ necks. – Yours, etc,
D FLINTER,
Castleview Estate,
Headford, Co Galway.
Wanted: emergency budget
Sir, – The 60 signatories to the letter calling for an emergency budget spoke of “a worrying rise in income inequality” and the need “to redistribute income from high incomes . . . to low- and average- income-earners” (January 20th).
I note that 22 of the 60 signatories are academics employed by our universities. A report last year showed that 200 of their colleagues working in higher education earn over €150,000 per annum ( The Irish Times, December 6th). Perhaps they could begin by taking a voluntary pay cut and ask their colleagues to do likewise? Their letter contained no concrete proposals of any kind and consisted of the usual vague sloganeering trotted out by left-wing pressure groups. Can they please tell us how much time and resources were spent on drafting and circulating this letter at a time of serious funding shortfalls in our universities? – Yours, etc,
THOMAS RYAN,
Mount Tallant Avenue,
Harolds Cross, Dublin 6W.
An ambassador for the Vatican
Sir, – Raymond Brown (January 20th) notes that representatives of 11 countries, including some among the poorest in the world (but also including Switzerland), recently presented their credentials as ambassadors to the Holy See and contrasts this with the position of Ireland. In fact, the ambassadors concerned are all accredited on a non-resident basis, exactly the same basis on which Ireland is to be represented. The Government’s nominee for the position of Ambassador has been accepted by the Holy See and is expected to present his credentials to Pope Benedict later in the year. – Yours, etc,
NOEL WHITE, Director of Press Information,
Department of Foreign Affairs,
St Stephen’s Green,
Dublin 2 .
Beethoven’s shopping note
Sir, – Donal Moore (January 20th) threatens to leave Ireland for Britten if there are any more composer puns. Having made this “free choice of lifestyle”, I wonder will he be Offenbach. – Yours, etc,
CONOR WALSH,
Carrowhubbuck South,
Enniscrone, Co Sligo.
Sir, – I’m not sure why Beethoven had to go to the bother of writing up a shopping list (Breaking News, January 10th). Why didn’t he just Telemann what he wanted? – Yours, etc,
CIANA CAMPBELL,
Cahercalla, Ennis, Co Clare.
Sir, – I baroque my sides Lauten when I Traetta unRavel the Messiaen with Beethoven’s Chopin Liszt. Peersons have been very Bizet, but to be Franck they have Coste me a lot of Strauss. – Yours, etc,
JOAN TIMONEY,
Grange Road,
Rathfarnham, Dublin 16.
Sir, – I am Verdi annoyed by this endless punning.
Hoddinott paid my subscription to The Irish Times, I would Adam well stop reading it.
Please, Finzi it at once – Mahlerned friends and I are all Straussed out by it. – Yours, etc,
PADRAIG O’ROURKE,
Merrion Road,
Ballsbridge, Dublin 4.
Time to say Non?
Sir, – From The Irish Times, January 19th:
“Pressure mounts on Ireland over corporation tax rate”.
“A key proposal in the Common Agricultural Policy reform talks would do ‘huge damage’ to the agri-food sector and Ireland needs to dramatically change it”.
“The money being used to pay off Anglo Irish Bank’s debts is having ‘catastrophic consequences on Irish society’.”
Given that we are told that our recovery will be export-led and that the agricultural sector is currently one of our best, isn’t it time that we said “Non, Non, Non!”? – Yours, etc,
FX O’BRIEN,
Forster Street, Galway.
Implementing abortion ruling
Sir, – William Binchy’s article (Opinion, January 19th) repeats the argument that Ireland is one of the safest places in the world for pregnancy, and implies that this is somehow related to the legal status of abortion in this state.
Prof Binchy’s campaign group’s website cites a 2010 WHO/UN report for this claim. Looking at the statistics directly, one can see that Ireland was the safest place to have a child in 2005. In 2008 (the latest available statistics), it was the second safest after Greece, which allows for “abortion on demand” up to 12 weeks after conception, and up to 24 weeks in exceptional circumstances.
Indeed, aside from Ireland, the top 10 countries for maternal safety all allow for “abortion on demand”, and respect the right of the mother to choose. Surely this suggests that maternal safety in Ireland has less to do with abortion law, and much more to do with the high quality of care provided by healthcare providers. – Yours, etc,
MICHAEL PIDGEON,
Brook Court,
Monkstown,
Co Dublin.
A chara, – While I agree with much of the sentiment of William Binchy’s piece on abortion (Opinion, January 19th), he is mistaken when he says the consequence of legislating in line with the X-case would involve “introducing into our hospitals an abortion regime, requiring abortion at all stages of pregnancy up to birth”.
The reason he is mistaken is that the test set out by the chief justice in the X-case, that abortion be the only way of avoiding a threat to the life of the mother cannot be satisfied by anyone in the real world.
It had been thought that a threat of suicide would satisfy that test, but the statement in 2002 by Prof Anthony Clare, then head of the TCD school of psychiatry along with his UCD counterpart that abortion is never the only way to avoid a threat of suicide in a pregnant woman, removed any possibility that the X-case could be legitimately used to justify the provision of abortion in Ireland. The same would apply to any other condition.
It would have to be shown that there is no other way of avoiding the risk to the life of the mother, and it is yet to be shown that such a condition exists. In conclusion the test in the X case cannot be satisfied in the real world, and the real legislators should not be introducing laws for imaginary scenarios. – Is mise,
MANUS Mac MEANMAIN,
PRO, Comhar Críostaí – The
Christian Solidarity Party,
Dublin 1
.
Swings and roundabytes
Sir, – Frank McNally was almost generous in An Irishman’s Diary (January 18th) when he described the service provided by AA Roadwatch as “not entirely useless”. While we appreciate that the piece was written with gentle humour there are many motorists across the country who can easily answer his question.
On that same Wednesday morning there were three crashes on the M50 and numerous calls, texts and tweets were fielded by AA staff advising motorists on alternative routes and on delays. There is no doubt that the information provided was needed and appreciated.
In addition to the broadcast reports which are necessarily short, as McNally noted the service also provides very detailed information on its website and via Twitter where it has some 25,000 followers.
McNally also repeats what has become a modern Irish cliché about the “AA Roadwatch” accent. This taunt will not go away even though the Dubs in the current team are outnumbered by their colleagues from Kerry, Clare, Wicklow, Louth and even Frank McNally’s native Co Monaghan.
I suppose that in the same way that John Wayne will always be pictured wearing a cowboy hat, AA Roadwatch will always carry that tag. Still we are grateful that Frank McNally is complimentary about the service, even in a “roundabyte” way. – Yours, etc,
AOIFE CARRAGHER,
Controller,
AA Roadwatch,
Drury Street,
Dublin 2.

Irish Independent:

As I sit in my office on a quiet morning in general practice, I can hear strains of ‘Mr Tambourine Man’ gently wafting in from the radio speakers in the waiting room next door.
This is followed by Pat Kenny talking about something utterly predictable, elucidating an array of opinions on the usual subjects; all of which are presumably in keeping with those of the listening public.
Indeed, the typical nature of my day, with its rather typical opening and somewhat predictable conclusion, causes me to seriously question the pace, and even the existence of social, cultural or intellectual evolution, at least in an Irish context?
‘Mr Tambourine Man’ was written and recorded by Bob Dylan in 1965.
It is often described as an ode to the use of drugs such as LSD, which was certainly part of the social experiment that was the hippy 1960s.
My point here is that whilst Dylan’s muse is of some historical relevance, and was clearly of significance in the 1960s, why does it remain part of the frozen musical repertoire of RTE today?
Fortunately, with the internet and YouTube, we have access to a world outside of the ‘groundhog day’ that is RTE, and to my delight — and sadness — my 14-year-old son almost every night introduces me to a world of music that evolves on a different planet to RTE.
Bands like Beirut; Joanna Newsom; Antony and the Johnsons; Life in Film; Devendra Banhart; M Ward, and many more, all of whom will hardly see the light of day if they are to struggle through the fixed concrete that RTE has poured upon the landscape of Irish media.
The interesting thing here is that the artists I have mentioned are almost entirely unknown to the Irish mainstream but are known throughout the world.
If the numbers of hits on their YouTube videos are anything to go by, they are part of an evolving world of music, passing Ireland by.
Yet there is also a sinister twist to the artistic stagnation that defines our national media. It is possible that this national ossification is more by design rather than by accident. One is not suggesting a conspiracy theory, but there is at present a massive global evolution occurring on the intellectual, as well as the entertainment and artistic front.
An evolution, which we in Ireland remain almost entirely ignorant of.
Old dogs are being buried around the world. Popular philosophers like Slavoj Zizek are reinventing democracy, capitalism and socialism, and would be very quick to point towards the brutal irony that Joe Duffy is as much a media celebrity as he is a ‘man of the people’.
The actual social distance between presenters like Duffy, Kenny, Finucane, or the late Gerry Ryan and the ‘real’ people of Ireland could be measured in light years, yet theirs is the petrified view that spans the airways.
Not only is RTE incapable of evolution, but it is happy to resurrect the retired, in the form of Gay Byrne. RTE has at least evolved the notion of the job for life into a job beyond retirement.
Newness of ideals remains an anathema to RTE, perhaps because newness is an anathema to the Irish people.
We continue to ‘play the Lotto’ and suffer from the same GPI (General Paralysis of the Insane) which Joyce accused us of in ‘Dubliners’ and ‘Ulysses’.
Perhaps it is this same paralysis that causes 1,000 young people to flee Ireland every week. Perhaps the usual palaver about our young having to leave Ireland because of the recession is as untrue as it is true.
Perhaps many of the emigrants themselves believe that the sole reason they depart Ireland is economic. And yet despite the media embrace of the recession, there may be more to this.
It may be that we Irish have no sense of ownership of our land, no sense of belonging to Ireland.
I consider myself a middle-class socialist; it is to my mind the path of least destruction amongst the by-ways of political philosophy. I suspect that most in Ireland are of a similar leaning.
The socialist TD Clare Daly has embarked upon a campaign to ignore the new residential tax. The Left, as is usual in Ireland, have missed the banana boat.
Their tactics remain unchanged since the water charges and the bin tax a decade ago. Don’t pay, go to jail and hopefully raise the profile of the socialist agenda.
But the Government is ahead of Clare Daly and Joe Higgins. The Government has passed legislation to ensure that the socialists will be denied their day in jail, as non-payers are to have the residential tax taken at source from their wages. Checkmate.
The real charge that Daly and Higgins and the entire Leopold Blooming nation of ours should be rejecting with heartfelt enthusiasm is our TV licence, as it is this money that pays for the concrete that is being poured upon the intellectual landscape of Ireland every single day.
Dr Marcus de Brun
Rush, Co Dublin

Killian Foley-Walsh is spot on (Letters, January 19) — why not use the entire tank in the National Pension Reserve Fund to open our very own Rating Agency?
Money for jam and risk-free. We have loads of large, empty buildings and thousands of nutty economists crying out for useful employment.
Imagine the sheer joy of causing consternation throughout the world as our Irish-based troika sets the fiscal rules of engagement.
Now’s the time to go for it — before the Greeks beat us to it!
Niall Ginty
Killester, Co Dublin

You’ll tell me I’ve little to be troubling my head with; getting hot under the collar about the calibre of character invading every crack and corner of our lives; you may be right.
It’s only that I get a chance to slip off the lead on a the odd evening when the War Office goes to central stores with the few shillings that the troika has been kind enough to leave us with.
There was a time on this mighty little island when a fellow had to do something, or be someone, to command a hearing at national level.
There was a bit of decorum about being in the public eye — it came with achievement and accomplishment.
I was about to knock the head off a beautifully formed pint, when a man I’d never even seen before asked me could I settle a bet for him, on the number of husbands Sinead O’Connor might have?
Whatever in the way of rearing I got, one thing remained, which was to be polite. So I forsook the pleasure of imbibing the creamy magnificence for a moment to say no, I could no more help him, than I could the poor, tormented, woman herself.
I’m settling back into cruise control, trying to savour this little bit of solace. We’re lighting the fire that bit later, and keeping the heating down low, in due deference to the austere times.
God be with the days when Lent only lasted 40 days. Thanks to the last troop of monkeys we elected, I think we could have ash on our foreheads and up our noses for a good deal longer.
I’m about to have a decent swig, when a scream like a banshee at an orgy comes from the corner. “Merciful hour,” I enquire, “what was that?”
“Shssssh,” I’m silenced, by a chorus that rings around this once semi-respectable establishment, “’tis ‘The Voice’, boy.”
They say you know your time is past when you start thinking the music is too loud and the voices of those you care for are too low. I supped away, but I’m telling you I was looking forward to going back to my cold house.
The word fame comes from the Latin fama, to have a reputation or to be known by many people; but it is not the same thing as having a good name.
Much of this can be blamed on the instant recognition conferred by the entertainment invasion where celebrity is the only altar of accomplishment.
Celebrity also comes from Latin celebritas, from celeber, ‘frequented or honoured’.
As I took my change off the counter, I wondered had I ‘frequented or honoured’ this place once too often with my custom. All they could provide by way of ambiance was a TV and a grunt from an indifferent barman.
It used to be said that Irish pubs were different: they had a unique X factor. They certainly have now.
BJ Heinz
Galway City

The most revealing aspect of the media coverage of the Rachel Allen pheasant controversy is how little notice the media generally takes of where the bulk of our meat comes from, ie, from factory farms. To focus on Rachel Allen’s exploits is to miss the much bigger picture.
Less than a century ago there was no such thing as a factory farm.
Today, 50 billion (yes, billion) chickens are raised on factory farms worldwide. None of these birds can fulfil any of their natural impulses, such as nesting, perching, exploring their environment, forming stable social units.
They live in windowless sheds for the duration of their genetically-altered short lives of 40 days. The sheds are getting bigger and bigger with every decade that passes.
Sheds containing 50,000 chickens is commonplace among the larger producers.
All factory-farmed birds are fed a cocktail of drugs — as not to do so would almost certainly result in the rapid spread of disease across the farm.
About 5pc of them will die prematurely, mainly from heart seizure, respiratory ailments, or because the excessive weight of their bodies are too much for their brittle-bone legs to support them.
In these cases, which are many, the birds simply collapse, are unable to reach food or water, and are either trampled on or die from stress and/or exhaustion. Three in every four chickens experience some degree of walking impairment, while one in four will have significant trouble walking at all.
This is not a snapshot of a factory farm. To describe properly what takes place on a factory farm would require a much longer letter than this, but it does, I hope, give some idea of what is, by any common-sense animal welfare standards (as opposed to the actual welfare laws laid down by the EU), an utterly unacceptable way to raise any animal.
The industry is incredibly powerful and uses its muscle at every turn.
Factory farms have become so big, so prevalent (they are continuing to grow at an exponential rate still, especially across the Far East and China), that it is only a matter of time before the ugliness within spills out into the wider world in the form of a virulent virus.
The World Health Organisation (WHO) predicts a pandemic; it cannot say when this will happen, it can only say that it will.
The probability is that avian flu will be the source. This is not a personal opinion, it is the opinion of the WHO itself.
Future historians will find it difficult to understand how we allowed the industrialisation of farm animals on such a vast and unsustainable scale.
Gerry Boland
Keadue, Co Roscommon

You’ll tell me I’ve little to be troubling my head with; getting hot under the collar about the calibre of character invading every crack and corner of our lives; you may be right.
It’s only that I get a chance to slip off the lead on a the odd evening when the War Office goes to central stores with the few shillings that the troika has been kind enough to leave us with.
There was a time on this mighty little island when a fellow had to do something, or be someone, to command a hearing at national level.
There was a bit of decorum about being in the public eye — it came with achievement and accomplishment.
I was about to knock the head off a beautifully formed pint, when a man I’d never even seen before asked me could I settle a bet for him, on the number of husbands Sinead O’Connor might have?
Whatever in the way of rearing I got, one thing remained, which was to be polite. So I forsook the pleasure of imbibing the creamy magnificence for a moment to say no, I could no more help him, than I could the poor, tormented, woman herself.
I’m settling back into cruise control, trying to savour this little bit of solace. We’re lighting the fire that bit later, and keeping the heating down low, in due deference to the austere times.
God be with the days when Lent only lasted 40 days. Thanks to the last troop of monkeys we elected, I think we could have ash on our foreheads and up our noses for a good deal longer.
I’m about to have a decent swig, when a scream like a banshee at an orgy comes from the corner. “Merciful hour,” I enquire, “what was that?”
“Shssssh,” I’m silenced, by a chorus that rings around this once semi-respectable establishment, “’tis ‘The Voice’, boy.”
They say you know your time is past when you start thinking the music is too loud and the voices of those you care for are too low. I supped away, but I’m telling you I was looking forward to going back to my cold house.
The word fame comes from the Latin fama, to have a reputation or to be known by many people; but it is not the same thing as having a good name.
Much of this can be blamed on the instant recognition conferred by the entertainment invasion where celebrity is the only altar of accomplishment.
Celebrity also comes from Latin celebritas, from celeber, ‘frequented or honoured’.
As I took my change off the counter, I wondered had I ‘frequented or honoured’ this place once too often with my custom. All they could provide by way of ambiance was a TV and a grunt from an indifferent barman.
It used to be said that Irish pubs were different: they had a unique X factor. They certainly have now.
BJ Heinz
Galway City

If the RTE licence fee is replaced by a household charge on those having neither television, nor computer, I expect regular home visits from Gay Byrne, Miriam O’Callaghan and Pat Kenny — to keep me amused, entertained and well-informed (‘New broadcasting licence to target every Irish household — even those without a TV’, January 19).
Dr John Doherty
Gaoth Dobhair, Co Donegal

Your report that “child benefit payments to over 5,600 people have been suspended for January — because they failed to respond to a department check on their residency details and entitlements”, has a familiar ring to it.
In the US, in the last decades of the 20th Century, actions that emanated from Ronald Reagan’s ideas regarding ‘welfare queens’ — a jibe at lone parents, which claimed that they procreated just to access benefits — began to take hold.
The demonisation led directly to a process known as “churning”. The relevant government department increased the amount of information and paperwork required to determine eligibility and low-income families who failed to keep up with the paperwork had their benefits stopped.
As always, with these things, the most vulnerable people are placed in the very serious danger of getting cut off, resulting in the loss of their allowances on which they totally depend.
Clearly, and particularly where children are concerned, cutting off payment should only follow after a welfare officer has confirmed that the failure to respond to letters sent, etc, is not due to valid reasons, such as illness or an inability to understand.
But perhaps the most amazing aspect of this case is the fact that this high-handed behaviour, of exposing people to the abrupt loss of income, in such an arbitrary fashion, is under the supervision of a member of the Labour Party.
Jim O’Sullivan
Rathedmond, Sligo

Well I must be off

best wishes John