Just spotted this one:

Odd Japanese links, so it might not last too long.

Only 9 months to wait.

I see the taxi drivers in Dublin, or rather a sub section of them, are revolting again. It doesn’t seem to be clear what exactly they want - the spokesman for the regulator said they “haven’t made any demands”.

Ahhh, the joys of Irish political protest, where the gesture is everything, and actually getting change is secondary. I was a class rep in UL when the Student Union decided to go out on strike over muggings of students. At the All-Rep meeting I asked for information on how bad the problem was. They had no data, just some anecdotes. I asked had they discussed the issue with the college authorities, and was told, no they had not talked to them yet. So I finally asked, what are our demands, and I was told they hadn’t decided on them either. Em, no proof there was a problem, hadn’t bothered to talk to the people in power, and didn’t even know what they wanted (other than a strike). For pointing out this I was branded a “trouble maker”. I think that was the end of my involvement in politics. A reasonable man is never welcome in his own country, or anyone elses for that matter.

To be fair to the taxi drivers I believe they do have some demands. But if you want to meet the minister wouldn’t it be better to go to his office instead of the taxi regulator?

Laura and I walked past a group of Taxi drivers on Saturday. They were loudly debating some issue, and all of them were in agreement about whatever it was they were getting worked up about (I couldn’t tell you whether it was the taxi business, the performance of the Irish soccer squad, or the impact of Freudian thought on early 20th century diplomacy in the pacific rim). But I did suggest to Laura that if might be interesting to see what would happen if a Taxi driver ended up as head of a country with a taxi driver cabinet. To the best of my knowledge it has never happened.

How lucky that nation, to be led by some of the sharpest, most insightful minds around. Think of the bold steps forward they would make. Are there any volunteers to be led by this august body of wise, if not necessarily learned, men? Men who have searched for and debated the solutions to all the worlds problems at length. Does no nation wish to tap into the bottomless experience and competence of a cadre of people who’s qualification for their job is being able to drive (in most cases), and for who career path is what you do on the sidewalk when you try to get home with a feed of pints in you? What no takers? I guess then that everyone just takes them for a crowd of loud opinionated, frequently bigoted, blow hards who give the impression that the world owes them a living. What a pity.

I mentioned the smoking and the shop closing times are annoyances to living here. There are a load of small upsides though.

I learned yesterday that the pubs here stay open on Good Friday. Not that I am that mad keen to get some drink, but it means I will be able to watch the Munster Leinster clash in Thomond Park that day.

With an Austrian address, and an Austrian credit card I can buy music from Amazon.at. I can avoid the iTunes lock in and get DRM free, legal, music. If I want that is. I find I have less and less interest in music these days, but that is another story.

The Austrin Luas system is excellent. And you can even ride in the cool old style trams.

You wouldn’t think it to look at them but they date from the late 60’s and 70’s. They aren’t very pram friendly, so they have modern low floor ones as well. I can get a tram (which runs every 5 minutes or so) from my house to 300m from work.

My local Aldi Hofer is selling Lederhosen on Monday. Though I am not sure is that a plus or minus.

And of course there is a wide selection of very good beer available in my supermarket. A half litre glass bottle sells for €1. Need I say any more?

I changed the positions of some elements on the side bar. I wanted Flickr and TripIt (which I am finding quite useful) to be more prominent. There is nothing to be alarmed about. You can go about your business as before.

I posted a while back about the video of the Earth with rings. Phil Plait has a quick run through on how feasible this might be.

The Bishop of Ferns needs help with his legal bills. So he made this statement:

Bishop Denis Brennan says seeking funding from the parishes is not about sharing the blame, it’s about “asking for help fo fulfil a God given responsibility”.

I understand the words when they are on their own, but when you put them together they don’t make sense. How does “help to fulfil a God given responsibility” relate to paying for the defense of kiddy fiddlers? Or have I becone more obtuse about the mind of the Catholic Church since I left it?

“Fuck!” Clatter-Crack! I am airborne.

Skiing is one of those things that becomes instinctive. If you want to slow down, it just happens. Muscle memory and experience does 95% of the work of keeping you upright and moving forward. I am good enough at skiing, that I count the time between falls in days, where once I thought making it down a run without getting a face full of snow was good. Of course you have less control over what other skiers are doing. At the bottom of a run, still buzzing from descent, a skier cut across my path from the right. There wasn’t time to react and we struck.

An instant between collision and impact. No time for conscious thought, but three ideas in my mind. A helmet would probably be a good idea right now. When I land this is going to hurt. If I do break something that will be a bollox, ending my trip on the first day.

Helmets aren’t compulsory in Austria, but after some fatalities, celebrity endorsements, and a publicity campaign most people here are wearing them. I wasn’t. Years of skiing hard, sometimes with injuries meant I was philosophical. But I have a wife, and should have a child in a few months. I need to be more careful.

Whack! Pain and cold. I am told it looked spectacular, but I just wait to come to a halt, fearing the sharp pain of a break, or a ski cutting me open. I stop with the right side of my face on the snow.

Snow generally is soft, but pisted snow can be quite hard, and skis are nearly 2 metres of plastic and metal attached to your feet. Getting into a high speed tumble with a pair of them is not a good idea. I have a scar on my chin from catching one in the face. And I cracked ribs from crashing on a level piste approaching a ski lift.

I stand up shakily, face covered in snow. Doesn’t feel like I hit my head. My shoulder hurts, not sure can I move it. My sister and her husband are with me in seconds. I had come off worst in the collision. My arm is stiff but it moves in a full circle. I reckon nothing is seriously damaged. An Austrian man asks am I okay, and says the other skier was at fault. I smile, thanked him, and ski off.

No one was seriously injured (I have a huge bruise on my hip). So as long as everyone comes away a bit wiser, I wasn’t about to make a big deal of it. I was a bit shaken though, and I skied cautiously afterwards. I also went out on Monday morning and bought a helmet. My worst collision in as long as I can remember doesn’t change the fact I love skiing though. There is nothing like being on the pistes with beautiful mountains, snow, exhilarating exercise and great company.

There were clenched buttocks on this plane:

If we get enough people to watch this we might even get the air traffic controller laughing as he says - I am running out of film, I won’t have enough for the crash.

I have seen this video posted up a few times but I only looked at it this morning:

Other people have said it’s sad that it’s all green screen these days, or that it’s amazing the scenes they can creat cheaply (look at that crashed ferry). Personally my thought was, there are some seriously skilled lighting people out there.

Charlemagne has an interesting post about industrial unrest across Europe. The continent’s economies are under pressure, and everyone is getting squeezed. So who is taking to the streets? It turns out:

the strikers were hardly your average citizen, let along members of a struggling underclass. They were, in a striking number of cases, public sector workers whose special privileges mark them out as notorious rent-seekers, even by the standards of European civil services, or workers in companies with such political clout that they are immune from the summary redundancies and wage freezes that affect other industries.

These people don’t need our sympathy, they need a kick up the arse. It is the rest of us that have to work to pay their benefits. German taxpayers are perfectly entitled to ask why they have to work until 67 paying taxes to bail out Greece, where employees will be heading of into retirement at 61 (Greek public sector workers are striking over the plan to raise this to 63).

As Charlemagne says:

You could easily get the impression that the ordinary workers of Europe are about to explode in rage, making it impossible for their governments to push through the painful austerity measures that are, alas, needed in so many European countries. But for the moment the reality on the ground is different. An awful lot of people on the streets are those who cannot lose their jobs, which makes them a privileged minority in a nasty recession, and they are protesting to defend perks and pay that others can only dream of.

The same thing applies in Ireland. I was reading this morning that the public sector unions are bringing in more restrictions on the work they are willing to do as part of their protest about pay cuts. Here again we have a pampered collection of workers protesting that some of their overly generous pay and conditions are under threat. It’s not the the private sector workers who have seen pay cuts, the value of their pensions tank, and can’t be sure if they will have jobs this time next year who are taking action. It’s the people with dinosaur defined benefit pensions tied to final salaries (which we in the private sector have to pay for), who’s pay and benefits raced ahead of the private sector during the boom, and who don’t have to fear being called in by their manager to hear that their jobs no longer exist.

I have been hesitant to write about what is going on at home as it seems a bit rich when I am off here in Austria (well Poland today). But at some stage during the year my employer is going to announce further big job cuts in Ireland. It is very possible that I won’t have a job to return to when my contract here is up. So I don’t have much time for the public sector worker’s protests. As I said last year, “it ain’t their members who are filling the dole queues”.