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A flexible library service for the 21st century?
Following Alan’s piece on libraries, I picked this ‘advertorial’ from Google plus this evening… about how a US county library system is cutting costs and improving flexibility in their free at the point of delivery services by enabling the whole library service act as a functioning unit as opposed to the one discrete library… read our review » -
The lost art of reading (or drowning in too much information)…
Here’s a great review of a fascinating book (H/T reader Rory) on how the Internet is destroying our capacity for intelligent, focused and critical thought. It opens thus: …here is the news that Ulin brings in this slim, meandering book: that reading is “an act of contemplation”; that such an act becomes more difficult in [...] read our review »
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…if University education were universally available and availed of, the country would collapse in one generation
The words of Brian O’Nolan, variously Brian Ó Nualláin, Myles na gCopaleen, Myles na Gopaleen and, of course, Flann O’Brien. That O’Nolan was referencing his own dissolute student days at UCD only mildly distracts from the prophetic undertone of his words: I paid no attention whatsoever to books or study and regarded lectures as a [...] read our review »
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Comment on Civil Rights hero receives a belated honour…
on 17 May 2012 at 12:46 pm
A genuinely touching story – and makes for much more pleasant reading that Envelope-gate. :-/
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Comment on 2012 Irish Open: Executive swingers
on 13 May 2012 at 11:27 pm
As I noted from Twitter this evening, 3G has arrived for Portrush – but not Portstewart or other surrounding areas, for whom it’s a daily tariff fight between O2.ie and O2.uk in moving from the front room to the kitchen.
I wonder, how long would the existing rate-paying, tax-paying residents would have had to have waited before the town tart-up if the Irish Open *hadn’t* been coming? Also, am I now empowered to write to the Executive and demand that similar work on eyesores around the Province is included in next year’s budget? Bushmills, anyone…? Our favourite developer could do with a helping hand there…
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Comment on How would you measure a Belfast Buzz?
on 12 May 2012 at 4:34 am
Not getting into the more esoteric aspects of this discussion, it is interesting to note that Minister McCausland has initiated a range of High Street meetings across our fair land. He’s looking at how aspects of the Mary Portas report can be shoe-horned (an unkind word, it’s not quite what I mean) into NI, where the environment is a little different to that which our brethren across the water occupy.
A couple of points.
Neil, contrary to what you might think, the rates issue is not the same across NI. In one town nearby to me, most of the property is owned by four or five “developers”. The rent is often dearer per square foot than some of the office space available in Belfast.
Ownership in another town close by is fragmented, and often still in the hands of some doddery old dear who inherited from Plantation times.
I’m not saying rates are fair – far from it. But we often forget that less than half goes to your local authority. The talk of building owners “doing deals” to ensure that their property is occupied is fairly exaggerated. Many are quite happy to let them sit empty rather than do a deal on extortionate rents – the recession didn’t hit everyone quite so hard.
We are different from the continent, that’s for sure – but there’s nothing lets us down more when the visitors come and have to have everything done by 6pm that doesn’t involve a pub or restaurant. Our Sunday bye-laws are a disgrace. And I have limited sympathy when independent traders refuse to open on that day. Or indeed, go the extra mile to stay open til 7, when people might be able to use their services.
Fitz, on one hand you’re spot on the mark. I’m heading quickly for the four-oh, so not quite as senior as some, but I was appalled – remain so, even – at the rape of the fabric of the city by glass and steel during the boom years. I doubt very much, that beyond a few very skilled people, any of the buildings we have left could be recreated, such is the deficit of skills and proper training – actual real two year apprenticeships – in actual building and restoration. Atwood, Farry – you’re missing a trick.
My own former home in the Holy Lands is now a block of flats. (Until they build them bigger than rabbit hutches, I refuse to use the word “apartment”.) The little things have long since disappeared, down to the Tele sellers of old.
But on the other hand…just a little harsh, perhaps? “Sham” or otherwise, and setting aside that it’s my hometown – I’d spend 24 hours in Belfast any time over the Ballymoneys, Coleraines, Derrys, and Strabanes of this part of the world.
Spend a week in Omagh – perish the f**king thought that I sinned enough in a previous life to have to do so – and you’ll soon realise that the phrase “Belfast Buzz” has adequate appeal.
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Comment on “Police will consider the comments made by Judge Weir…”
on 5 May 2012 at 4:30 pm
““You mean, councillors?” Mr Justice Weir asked.”
Errrrr….
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Comment on 26 / 11 = 438,000,000 – 150,000,000 / 25
on 30 April 2012 at 11:29 am
This is, frankly, one of the greatest wastes this Assembly has come up with yet.
Your councils cost around 4-5% of the overall public sector pot. With the transfer of functions, that will actually go up to around 7.5%. But the functions being proposed are tiny. Worthless even. Worthless of the effort.
As always, central government has protected itself just nicely, thank you very much. It would have been worth transferring in one or two larger functions as a test run to see if it worked.
Cynic. With all respect, when you say about doing without, it’s just another uninformed harrumph. Framer – I don’t think the redundancy costs will be quite as sizeable as may be thought.
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Comment on OFMDFM: “We welcome our friendship with the Peoples Republic of China…”
on 19 April 2012 at 3:54 pm
Tumbleweed. And shamefully so.
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Comment on For Unionists Only: What would you relish in a United Ireland?
on 18 April 2012 at 4:15 pm
Nothing to relish really; but equally – and I use the word equally – nothing to fear. But then, I’m unionist-lite, and probably shouldn’t even comment here.
Turgon, I think your view – while to be respected – is a tad churlish. What freedoms do you think you might experience as a Western European living in the British State, that won’t as a Western European living in the Republic of Ireland?
Given the means of internet surveillance being proposed by the current unmandated coalition, I would reckon that the British State is moving far closer to being North Korea than our neighbours in the South…
Still, it’s a nice thought, all them counties realising they’d be better of under us-uns after all.
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Comment on NI Tories: “You have to wonder on which planet the new UUP leader is living”
on 2 April 2012 at 10:44 pm
Lee, I don’t believe I did get personal – but I will admit I should have said “your party” as opposed to “you”. But you’re an elected representative, you’ll not mind taking the hit. I feel the pain of your nine months on benefits. As did most of us, post-college and school. But things weren’t *that* bad in your Coleraine days, now, were they?
I wonder, as I have read elsewhere today, that Nesbitt – for all his faults – is a just an eensy bit scary for you lot, gimmicks or no. He’s not a farmer. He’s not from Fermanagh. He’s not Tom Elliott, he’s not David Trimble and he’s not David McNarry.
He *may*, though, probably representative of all those garden-centre Prods, the votes of which your party would love to get their hands on, but who just don’t turn out, because you just don’t get them. And I’d say he has a pretty good chance of making a land grab for at least *some* of them in the future – because they aren’t turning out for Tories, nor are they turning out for the Great Leader.
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Comment on NI Tories: “You have to wonder on which planet the new UUP leader is living”
on 2 April 2012 at 1:05 pm
Erm…is it just me, or does anyone else need eyebleach after reading a Tory (by whatever regional label) talking about poverty?
Similarly, Cllr Lee Reynolds (DUPe) has just tweeted:
“IDS created a think tank & invested his own personal time 4 years 2 research poverty. Nesbitt’s willing to give it 24 hours #notaleader”
Lee, 100,000-odd non-voting Unionists aren’t turning out for you. I’d be wary of pride coming before a fall. Yes, it’s outright gimmickry. But for you to criticise what Nesbitt is doing in light of what you might find if you click this link is nothing short of churlish.
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Comment on Nesbitt Landslide: a missed opportunity?
on 1 April 2012 at 10:18 pm
Could you imagine DUP/Sinn Fein/Fianna Fail/Conservatives etc electing(appointing?) a leader who was only a party member for two years and previously was a media personality without any experience in politics?
No. But one of those parties has a leader who actions from the past seem to have been summarily dismissed from the public psyche. I don’t think it really matters what Mike’s experience is.
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