Screwed by Royal Appointment

Sean Fitzpatrick rides again.

With sterling nearly on a parity with the euro, we're getting taken up the jaxi.

Debenhams had the balls to display the sterling and euro price at the weekend, which must have been set 6 months ago.

When I took an item to the till they refused to give me the current rate, so I told them where they could stick it with bells on, as it's Christmas.

When I complained to the supervisor who was French I thought I would finally get le justice (well they would strike over a match).

She agreed wholeheartedly, saying she was a consumer first and foremost and had tried on several occasions to get Managment to change the prices but to no avail.

So, the English are giving it to us first and Cowlips is happy to wade in for seconds with his Ireland's call remark, (the bold Fenian men and women are now fighting in the shopping malls for dear old Ireland).

I'll be using my democratic right to shop up the North and give the Queen her shilling even if she is screwing us royally down here. As for Fitzpatrick and his 87m worth of loans? Let's put him, Drumm, the management of Debenhams and M&S, not forgetting Tesco and have a group mugging. Well at least Madoff had the decency to rob the rich.

Tis the Season to Cull

Culling is going on everywhere and it's not just for pigs.

'20% off everything' posters have replaced alien dummies with no front bottoms and Christmas window displays.

People have culled their spending and are thinking twice about that cashmere sweater. Before, they thought nothing of giving cashmere, even to facebook friends - now, they're thinking twice.

So, if it's a cotton and polyester mix you receive this Christmas, it could be their way of saying, 'I want out'.

Culling is going on in the estates too. Houses with festive outdoor displays which previously threatened the National Grid, have put on the dimmer switch.

But isn't it great? - that doll's house in Smyths which was €80 is now down to €15; that shitty house that needed 100k worth of work done to it, is down from 400k to 250k; that brand new car you were looking at 6 months ago is now 3k cheaper (not to mention the cashmere sweater).

Yes, by culling our spending, things are getting cheaper. If we continue to cull, prices will stay low. And if things do improve economically, learn from the downturn and continue to cull spending.

That way, maybe all of us will be able to afford a house with affordable mortgage repayments anytime soon.

Tesco's No Quibble Policy - A Play

A Play in two parts




We open on a customer service desk in a large suburban Tesco where we see a Tesco Manager and a Tesco Junior Manager.



Enter stage right - ME


ME- Hi, I'd like to return these pork products which I bought yesterday in your store and here's my receipt.

TESCO MANAGER- Sorry, we can only take our own label pork back.

ME: I'm sorry, but it specifically said on all media, to take pork back to the store you bought it in and you will get a full refund.

TESCO MANAGER- I'm sorry, but Head office has told us to hold off on a decision on other pork labels until the meeting with the Dept. of Agriculture later today.

ME: I don't think you heard me correctly - I'm just doing what I've been told to do by the national media and I'm sure that my statutory rights are being affected here.

TESCO MANGER - No, Madam they are not. And if i give you your money back then what am I going to tell all the customers I sent home this morning?

ME: Well, you're wearing a manager's badge, figure it out.......



Enter stage left - a man about 50 - with pork pot rost under arm(not Tesco's own)

Tesco Assistant Manager stares at his shoes (Tesco Own)



ME: Surely if you are selling these pork products (not Tesco's own), then you have deemed them fit for human consumption - the dept of Agriculture and the Food Safety Board have now ruled that they are not fit for our consumption so can we please have our money back?

Man about 5o with Pot roast

I just want my money back and i'm F***** not leaving til I get it.


Tesco Manager nods to woman on till and we receive our money back on our pot roast and clonakilty sausages respectively.

Exit all

The Swinging 60's are back

You be Deborah and I'll be Burt

I was in my jogging bottoms, Sunday paper opened and cup of tea on the go when I was suddenly forced to suck the tummy in and adjust. Apparently septegenarians aren't getting down and dirty in the garden anymore.

There were always rumours of one or two - the internet bears this out - but apparently now it's a movement. First we had the sexualisation of pre-teens with the Playboy logo on pencils and pencil cases - now it's the sexualisation of baby boomers.

The cream twinsets and pearls have been replaced by scaffolding bras and tickle-line stockings. But are they really into it or are the ad guys now trying to create insecurity in a previously secure target market?

You usedn't to be able to sell the 60+ bracket anything apart from life assurance and stair lifts.

'I've been drinking a pint of plain since I was a lad son - you can keep your foreign muck' and 'pay 150 quid to wear some bloke's logo on my chest- have you lost it dearie?' were familiar ripostes - now it seems they're advertising game.

As long as viagra sits alongside the statins and warfarin in the bathroom cabinet, advertisers will be sniffing around.

If you're getting it or want it, it stands to reason you got to look your best. You've also got to have the accessories. Well, Kitty from the golf club isn't going to want to get jiggy in the back of a Micra, she's going to want leather and lots of it.

And those Farrah slacks won't cut it with her either Tiger.

Don't kiss me, I'm Irish

Berl's Girls

Usually, when someone asks you 'shall I Irish that up?' you gratefully accept a sly old snifter in your coffee.

With Cowlips and Harney fronting Team Ireland these days, it's starting to mean something different. 'Irished up' is now seen as a dance with the ugly stick and now it seems, we're more famous for being aesthetically challenged than for our previous incarnation as 'Paddy who loves the craic and even the English when drunk'.

The repercussions could be significant. Years ago Guinness ran a campaign on St. Patrick's day - the basic thrust being - the day where everyone can join in the game of being Irish. Now the craic has fallen on hard times.

The pubs are 1/4 full with Tourists still searching from the 'Paddy who loves the craic and even the English when drunk' and plants from the Vintners association. Good humour is no longer on tap and without that what else have we got to offer?

Drink now, only comes out at home where you can smoke like a prisoner on death row and throw your empty glass at Prime Time whenever an ugly one appears. This St. Patrick's Day, let's get prepared. Get Ms Gilson, Rosanna Davies and a few of the 'lovely girls' and get them in political training. Well how hard is it to learn politics?

Borrowing from Peter to pay Paul is a skill most women practice every day while trying to run a home, while working full time. And Harney and Cowlips have been doing the job for years and are still shit at it.

Assuaging soon-to- be- striking workers? 'Unbutton the blouse there a wee bit Rosanna 'and even the most vociferous Union man will be mumbling like his 13 year old self. And as for our image abroad? It will open doors. Just glance around at the Italian parliament and you'll realise that sly old Berlusconi's got it nailed.

Japanese if you please

They're just checking their balance

My ma stayed over last night and she let rip. 'What the hell are you at?' she said, holding up a jar of Greene & Blacks drinking chocolate. 'And what's this carry on?' she added holding up a half eaten pineapple, slowly dying in tinfoil. But it was the packet of fruit fusion tea bags that threw her over the edge.

' I was 17 before I ate my first banana', she announced before adding, 'we used to get an egg a month in those days and even then you had to split it 4 ways and if there was a man in the house who was lucky to have work, then he got the egg.' Steady, ma!

This is a woman who grew up during the war, not the emergency. The only butter she had enjoyed from '39-'45 was when her older sister, on the pre-text of seeing a maiden aunt in Dublin, managed to smuggle some up her jumper and get past the Belfast customs at the train station on the way home.
But guess what - she's lived a better life for it. She doesn't over-eat or over-drink. She can run up an aran jumper in a few days, bake apple pies and beef and guiness stews and can use the internet better than me at the age of 73.

And then i got to thinking how stupid our generation is. We may have, during the tiger years, earned more than our parents ever did but now that's all come to an abrupt end. And what life skills have we learned?

We're a nation of twits who twitter but who can't cook, knit, mend, darn or save.

'Time to get like the Japanese' she said, giving me a stern look in the eye. Apparently they're pulling in their collective obi and are getting very zen about their yen.

I then looked around my kitchen with fresh, post-war eyes and I now feel cleansed. There'll be no more fresh pineapples or knobby drinking chocolate lying around and tea bags will now be used twice. So, so long the good times, I don't think they really suited us anyway.

Lord Saatchi - tit

Can you spot Charlie?

One word equity - a concept so 'simple' he had to use three words. Basically in the new digital times, whether you're a digital blow-in or a natural, he thinks our attention span is so amoebic that we won't be able to remember what an ad is trying to communicate.

Hence his reduction ad absurdum, - distill a brand into one word and there you have it. There's 750,000 words out there including 'meh' (which probably sums up the nissan micra, or the whole nissan range, but hey).

Apple, he says, can be reduced to 'innovation' and google, 'search'. But what happens when a brand's perception collides? Ok volvo is 'safe' but its one word equity could just as well be 'boring'.

Heinz can be both 'nostalgic' and 'modern' depending on when your mammy first gave you it. And what happens if a load of brands are fighting for the one word? Surely Jaguar, Lexus and the Maybach all want to own 'luxury'.

By simplifying a brand to one word, he's also removed an emotional connection from the brand and there's nothing simple about how people feel. And judging from the ads M&C Saatchi are producing at the moment, maybe their one word equity is 'shite'.

Ghost of Christmas parties

The office party is now to be dreaded. When things were going good there were no gripes. Our yearly steam-off migrated from the the local Italian to a local Italian in Perugia or wherever a cheap Ryanair group-rate would bring us. Wine flowed, compliments too and we all gave each other a collective pat on the back.

The next day would be spent laughing at how teenage we had all got. A hotel room was trashed - 'sure we're only having the craic'-but made good again as the company credit card was waved like a plaster in the face of an irate hotel manager.

Now it seems, things could get really ugly. Managers are nervous. Employees are nervous and the whole country is looking at its feet, terrified of making eye contact. It'll be the local Italian this year - but it wont be a Kodak moment.

We'll ignore the taste of the cheap house wine and instead throw it into us just to feel normal again. We'll push the pasta round the plate and then, just after dessert, we'll let rip. 'Tourettes with your coffee Sir?'

We'll mumble our disagreements to the bosses; our lack of bonus, our shaved salaries, our extra hours per gratis, our job fears, our new culture of presenteeism which jars with our Irishness. And then - before you know it - there'll be mints flying with four letter words. And this time, we've used up all the plasters.