The Null Device

Vanity Fair has a long but interesting article about the Irish financial crisis:

reland’s financial disaster shared some things with Iceland’s. It was created by the sort of men who ignore their wives’ suggestions that maybe they should stop and ask for directions, for instance. But while Icelandic males used foreign money to conquer foreign places—trophy companies in Britain, chunks of Scandinavia—the Irish male used foreign money to conquer Ireland. Left alone in a dark room with a pile of money, the Irish decided what they really wanted to do with it was to buy Ireland. From one another. An Irish economist named Morgan Kelly, whose estimates of Irish bank losses have been the most prescient, made a back-of-the-envelope calculation that puts the losses of all Irish banks at roughly 106 billion euros. (Think $10 trillion.) At the rate money currently flows into the Irish treasury, Irish bank losses alone would absorb every penny of Irish taxes for at least the next three years.

Yet when I arrived, in early November 2010, Irish politics had a frozen-in-time quality to it. In Iceland, the business-friendly conservative party had been quickly tossed out of power, and the women booted the alpha males out of the banks and government. (Iceland’s new prime minister is a lesbian.) In Greece the business-friendly conservative party was also given the heave-ho, and the new government is attempting to create a sense of collective purpose, or at any rate persuade the citizens to quit cheating on their taxes. (The new Greek prime minister is not merely upstanding, but barely Greek.) Ireland was the first European country to watch its entire banking system fail, and yet its business-friendly conservative party, Fianna Fáil (pronounced “Feena Foil”), would remain in office into 2011. There’s been no Tea Party movement, no Glenn Beck, no serious protests of any kind. The most obvious change in the country’s politics has been the role played by foreigners. The Irish government and Irish banks are crawling with American investment bankers and Australian management consultants and faceless Euro-officials, referred to inside the Department of Finance simply as “the Germans.” Walk the streets at night and, through restaurant windows, you see important-looking men in suits, dining alone, studying important-looking papers. In some new and strange way Dublin is now an occupied city: Hanoi, circa 1950. “The problem with Ireland is that you’re not allowed to work with Irish people anymore,” I was told by an Irish property developer, who was finding it difficult to escape the hundreds of millions of euros in debt he owed.

A few months after the spell was broken, the short-term parking-lot attendants at Dublin Airport noticed that their daily take had fallen. The lot appeared full; they couldn’t understand it. Then they noticed the cars never changed. They phoned the Dublin police, who in turn traced the cars to Polish construction workers, who had bought them with money borrowed from Irish banks. The migrant workers had ditched the cars and gone home. Rumor has it that a few months later the Bank of Ireland sent three collectors to Poland to see what they could get back, but they had no luck. The Poles were untraceable: but for their cars in the short-term parking lot, they might never have existed.

(via Infrastructurist) ¶ economics ireland wd2 0 Share

One possible silver lining on the cloud of Ireland's economic woes: numerous pop-up art spaces are opening up in vacant properties in Dublin. Could the Irish capital become a Berlin-style hub of spontaneous creativity?

¶ art ireland wd2 1 Share

Dublin railway staff used CCTV footage and Twitter to locate the owners of a cat that had wandered onto a suburban train and disembarked in the city centre. The cat, who is named Lilou and commenced her journey at Malahide station (in the suburbs of Dublin) was issued with an electronic smart card to use should she wish to make any future journeys.

Lilou is by no means the first non-human public transport user on record, or even the first feline one.

¶ animals cats dublin ireland public transport 0 Share

As of Friday, it is illegal to insult religious beliefs in Ireland; this applies to any religion, which is the fiercely Catholic nation's token sop to pluralism. While secularists are dismayed, other religious groups are overjoyed; apparently, Islamic states are already using the Irish law as a template for a United Nations blasphemy law.

A group named Atheist Ireland (God help them best of luck to them; they need it) are taking on this law and challenging the government to prosecute them by publishing 25 blasphemous quotations, with authors varying from Jesus Christ to Monty Python, from known troublemakers like Dawkins and Hitchens to Holy Men like the current Pope (quoted slagging off Islam, mind you),

13. Bjork, 1995: “I do not believe in religion, but if I had to choose one it would be Buddhism. It seems more livable, closer to men… I’ve been reading about reincarnation, and the Buddhists say we come back as animals and they refer to them as lesser beings. Well, animals aren’t lesser beings, they’re just like us. So I say fuck the Buddhists.”

15. George Carlin, 1999: “Religion easily has the greatest bullshit story ever told. Think about it. Religion has actually convinced people that there’s an invisible man living in the sky who watches everything you do, every minute of every day. And the invisible man has a special list of ten things he does not want you to do. And if you do any of these ten things, he has a special place, full of fire and smoke and burning and torture and anguish, where he will send you to live and suffer and burn and choke and scream and cry forever and ever ’til the end of time! But He loves you. He loves you, and He needs money! He always needs money! He’s all-powerful, all-perfect, all-knowing, and all-wise, somehow just can’t handle money! Religion takes in billions of dollars, they pay no taxes, and they always need a little more. Now, talk about a good bullshit story. Holy Shit!”

23. Ian O’Doherty, 2009: “(If defamation of religion was illegal) it would be a crime for me to say that the notion of transubstantiation is so ridiculous that even a small child should be able to see the insanity and utter physical impossibility of a piece of bread and some wine somehow taking on corporeal form. It would be a crime for me to say that Islam is a backward desert superstition that has no place in modern, enlightened Europe and it would be a crime to point out that Jewish settlers in Israel who believe they have a God given right to take the land are, frankly, mad. All the above assertions will, no doubt, offend someone or other.”

¶ atheism catholic ireland politics religion 2 Share

So that was Eurovision 2007. A bit of a surprise; the Serbian entry which won it seemed rather lacklustre compared to some of the others, but romped home in the voting, presumably due to Serbia being located in a geographical/demographical sweet spot. Interestingly enough, Eastern Europe dominated the voting, with the highest-scoring western-European nation being well in the bottom half of the rankings.

There were a few highlights: Georgia's entry started off as a traditional torch song by a woman in a red dress, but then morphed into eurodance, and then the dancers whipped out swords and started dancing about, Cossack-fashion, with a wild glint in their eyes. France eschewed the usual white-gowned piano balladeer in favour of a troupe of Dadaist mimes in Jean-Paul Gaultier costumes, highlighting the ridiculous side of Gallic culture. (Fat lot of good it did them, they ended up something like third-last. I guess it's back to the chanteuse and pianist next year.) Romania's entry was a bit like France's on a budget; five blokes dressed like the habitués of a slightly unsavoury tavern, singing "I love you" in every language on earth. The music was vaguely gypsyish, and sped up dramatically towards the end. Neighbouring Bulgaria's started off like Dead Can Dance with extra percussion, and then went electro. And, of course, there was Ukraine's entry, with its sequined, uniformed drag queen, looking like Elton John crossed with Austin Powers. It had camp and kitsch in spades, and raised a few questions. What, for example, was the significance of them counting in German, and did they really sing "I want to see Russia goodbye", and if so, how did that make it past the vetting process?

The lowlight was probably Ireland's entry, which was pure, unadulterated Celtic kitsch of the most obvious variety, and quite deserving of its final position at the bottom of the board. This year, though, nobody got a nul points, and they limped home with 3 points or somesuch. Britain did a bit better, largely thanks to Malta giving them 12, though their song was stuck firmly in the mid-1990s. And the teeth on that stewardess were frightening; granted, Scooch, as uninspired as they may be, were a lot less cringeworthy than last year's entrant (a middle-aged bloke pretending to be a teenage hip-hop street thug, surrounded by dancing "schoolgirls" who, apparently, were borrowed by Turkey this year). And I'd have to give a dishonourable mention to Russia, whose entry was a piece of soullessly machine-extruded commercial pop, trading on sex appeal (sample lyric from the three immaculately coifed girls doing the singing: "put a cherry on my cake and taste my cherry pie"; ooh-err!) lacking any of the madness or wrongness that makes for an interesting Eurovision entry.

The other competitors: Belarus (incidentally, the last remaining state with a KGB) had black-clad female dancers scaling walls like assassins and John Barry-esque strings over its power ballad. The full might of the Swedish culture industry was unleashed in the form of 1970s glam rock attired in monochromatic retro cool. Latvia's entry was in Italian, and like a low-rent version of The Divs. Germany had a bloke named Roger Cicero (son of Herr und Frau Cicero, I presume) doing a Sinatra-lite swing number, in German. Armenia's entrant seemed to follow, stylistically, in the footsteps of that other great Armenian singer, Charles Aznavour, only with an overwroughtly woeful and somewhat strained ballad. And Turkey's entrant was a short, hirsute man wearing a red jacket and a broad grin, surrounded by belly dancers Terry Wogan persisted in pointing out were British. Presumably giving the United Kingdom something to be proud of even should they have ended up with nul points.

While some speculated that Lordi's astounding triumph last year (reprised in the Lord-of-the-Rings-esque opening video) would have opened the door for a flood of hard-rock/heavy-metal bands, this did not entirely come to pass. Finland followed up their win with a new genre, which could be dubbed, Tolkienesquely, MOR-Goth, consisting of torch songs with emo-esque lyrics and plenty of black clothing and gothic makeup. The other main Lordi-influenced act was Moldova, whose song sounded like the sort of alternative-rock song that ended up on Hollywood action-film soundtracks in the late 1990s; all minor-key strings, crunchy metal power chords and drum loops.

The promotional videos played before the musical numbers were done quite well, executed as whimsical stories featuring elements of Finnish culture. Some of the odder ones featured a goth riding a rollercoaster, hackers coding computer demos at the Assembly festival, a heavy-metal festival full of corpsepainted teenagers, a troupe of clowns giving an athlete an instant makeover so he could enter a restaurant, a twattish-looking bloke in DJ headphones playing the pipes at the Sibelius monument, and Santa Claus playing chess with one of the Moomins. Oh, and lots of mobile phones (Nokia, of course); the Finns, it seems, use them at the dinner table, and even propose marriage with the help of their cameraphones. Other than mobile phones, heavy metal appears to be a big part of the Finnish national identity; other than the promos, there was the entertainment during the vote-counting break, which featured the heavy-metal string quartet Apocalyptica, as well as acrobats.

Last but not least, one has to mention the astonishing phenomenon that is Krisse, the somewhat frightening-looking young woman with the pink puffer jacket and big ponytails plucked from the audience to interview competitors, stumbling through questions and going on about herself (sample question: "on a scale of 9 to 10, how beautiful am I?"). For some reason, she reminded me of Leoncie.

¶ apocalyptica armenia assembly belarus bulgaria charles aznavour cossacks eurodance eurovision finland france georgia germany goth heavy metal ireland kitsch leoncie moldova nokia romania russia serbia sweden tatu turkey uk ukraine 0 Share

According to a quality-of-life survey by the Economist magazine, Ireland is the world's most livable country:

The Economist said: "Ireland wins because it successfully combines the most desirable elements of the new, such as low unemployment and political liberties, with the preservation of certain cosy elements of the old, such as stable family and community life."

The researchers said although the UK achieved high income per head, it had high levels of social and family breakdown.

¶ europe happiness ireland quality of life survey 0 Share

The Irish government has threatened to search all US aircraft landing on its airports after a manacled military prisoner was found on one such flight from Kuwait. This comes in the wake of the "extraordinary rendition" row. Of course, were this to happen, the US could just shift its refuelling to Britain; even if the British government were to do the same (which is unlikely, at least on Blair's watch), British police might not have the jurisdiction to search aircraft landing at US bases.

Meanwhile, new testimony about Howard Hughes' secret night flights to visit a prostitute with a diamond in her tooth looks set to reopen a lawsuit from a former petrol station attendant who claims that Hughes left him US$156M in his will.

¶ air travel howard hughes ireland the long siege 0 Share

Ireland's entry is fairly boring; just a well-coiffed gent in a suit singing banalities about every song being a cry for love or something. Bland and inoffensive and guaranteed to be impossible to laugh at, and thus to be easily forgotten.

And Sweden's entry follows the national tradition of sounding like ABBA. This year, they're ripping off "The Winner Takes It All". The singer has a Christian symbol inscribed on her bicep in black texta and scarily white teeth. I am told that she won Eurovision for Sweden in 1991, and then ended up joining some kind of Christian sect. That makes two representatives of fringe religious groups so far.

¶ eurovision ireland sweden 0 Share

The Irish city of Limerick is at risk of losing its city status, thanks to a population census coniciding with a rugby game, expected to take as many 20,000 of the city's 54,000 burghers to Dublin for the night. The threshold for a place to be considered a city is 50,000.

¶ census ireland limerick rugby 2 Share

The Discovery Channel's St. Patrick's Day edition on how stereotypically "Irish" names aren't:

Many popular male first names commonly thought of as being Irish, such as Patrick, Mick and Sean, actually originated with the English and the French-Danish-Norwegian Normans, who invaded Ireland in the 12th century and led to radical changes in the way Irish families named their children, according to a new study.

"Archetypal Irish names in Irish America, such as Patty and Mick, really are more a product of the Roman Catholic Renaissance (which occurred well after the Anglo-Norman invasion in 1167 A.D.). The clergy tried to wipe out traditional Irish names by replacing them with Biblical names."

Canonical laws in Ireland for many years prevented the baptism of children unless the chosen name was that of a saint. Girls often took on variations of the name Mary. At the same time, harsh penal laws from the 16th to the 19th century further weakened traditional Gaelic/Celtic culture.

At around the time of the invasion, popular Irish male first names included Diarmaid, Donnchadh, Cormac, Cathal, Niall, Brian, and Aodh (also spelled Áed). Female first names tended to vary more often, in part because women did not pass down the family's surname.

(via Google) ¶ culture ireland irish names 0 Share

The "metrosexual" phenomenon may be some 2,300 years older than thought; studies of two male mummified bodies discovered in an Irish peat bog have shown that one wore elaborate nail polish, and the other wore hair gel, imported from France or Northern Spain (which, presumably, was a centre of the cosmetics industry even back then).

"Clonycavan Man's hair style was swept upward on top of his head, perhaps to add a few inches to his height. The hair was held in place by a type of 'hair gel' which was composed of a mixture of pine resin and vegetable oil," Bog Bodies Project coordinator Isabella Mulhall told Discovery News.

His extremely well manicured nails indicate he also was a wealthy man, untroubled by manual labour.

¶ culture dandyism ireland metrosexuals prehistoric style 0 Share

IRA members stab a bloke to death in Belfast, intimidate witnesses and institute a cover-up. Mass public outcry ensues, with calls for the killers to be brought to justice. The IRA issues an announcement offering to have them shot. Looks like someone's missing the point here.

¶ belfast ira ireland terrorism 0 Share

Patrick Farley (who writes/draws the excellent Electric Sheep online comics, and has his head screwed on the right way on most things) has some interesting things to say about St. Patrick's Day:

A few facts about St. Patrick:

• He wasn't Irish, he was Roman.
• There never were any snakes in Ireland.
• "Driving the snakes out of Ireland" is a euphemism for leading the slaughter of the indigenous Celtic pagans.

Now, tomorrow I'll be wearing green to celebrate the arrival of spring, and surely I'll raise a pint or two of Guiness in honor of the Emerald Isle. But an Irish person celebrating "St. Patrick's Day" is as absurd as a Mexican celebrating "Cortez Day."

¶ catholic debunking ireland paganism st. patrick 3 Share

A thought-provoking rant about the commodification of St. Patrick's Day, and the tendency of everybody from British royals to Hollywood celebrities to ordinary people wanting an excuse to get blotto to assert their newly-contrived Irishness. An Irishness which has been reduced into a "concept", a "feeling", or a sanitised, Disneyfied lifestyle package for mass consumption.

Anyone can become Irish today. You can show our Irishness by going to the right pub, having the right attitude, by ticking a box on a census form - but not by getting drunk, fighting, shouting 'Fuck the Queen', or any of the other activities you might traditionally have associated with being Irish, which are especially frowned upon by fake Irish pubs like O'Neill's (no relation).

Is plastic-shamrock cod-Irishness, as some speculated, the one acceptable way in which white people can claim a funky, rootsy tribal identity; one with enough? (via Plastic)

¶ commercialisation commodification culture identity ireland irishness st. patrick's day 5 Share