mockney piers

With a current run rate of 15, it shouldn't take long!!!

MM, you shouldn't believe everything you see on Channel 5 ;-P

The famine has only just passed beyond living memory?! By god, that's quite some healthy diet there must be out there for such longeivity. Mind you, I should have guessed when I was comparing the jasmine revolutions with the spring revolutions of 1848 with an old codger in New Ross the other day who remembered them first time round ;-P 90 years may not be that old, but in the scheme of things it is a very long time to get your house in order. Dynamic countries like Croatia seem to have done pretty well in a substantially shorter time. Spain had to pretty much start from a far worse position in the 40s, and whilst Franco's conservatism meant that economic growth was slow to recover, I'd say post war malaise could stretch no more than 30 years. A dose of healthy democracy transformed the economy and European money multiplied the effect. It too suffered from a lack of diversity and depth of resilience in the economy, but though the end of the housing boom has caused difficulties, there wasn't the same level of greed despite the prevalence of a generation who knew poverty every bit as bad as the Irish (my dad was in his late 20s before he got his first ever pair of new shoes). And despite a greater penchant for low level corruption, Spain was actually much better at regulation, you only need to look at how acquisitive the relatively unscarred Spanish banks have been through the financial crisis. I'd suggest post-colonial malaise is a weak excuse at best and indicative of victim syndrome at worst. As Daragh O'Brien said "My friends back in Dublin are saying "we've decided to embrace the recession", jeez, in Britain they'd embraced it before it had even really started, not 2 years later, no wonder it's better placed to come out of it than Ireland". I'd suggest a bit of soul searching is in order and people just need to say, yeah we fucked up, lessons learnt, lets move on. And as bad as many of those fleece lining politicians were, blaming them is no better than blaming a 'post colonial maliase'.

90 years is a long time to be out-of-sorts and not do anything about it, and why should it result in a greed driven housing bubble?! I'm at a bit of a loss on this one I'm afraid.

"post-colonial malaise played its part in that" really?!

It was all started by a TD in the dail a few months back, and whilst joking, he was illustrating a serious point. I think the speech is on youtube somewhere.

:-$ too true.

*Dons slipper, light's top drawer shag, eases into recliner, pours gin, plashes tonic and a squeeze of lime* *waves to quids* - just us then, G&T?

It did make me chuckle when TB was being interviewed saying what a brave man Mubarak is and how he should be allowed to continue in office. Bless him, he really does dance to the tune doesn't he.

we were young a naive, what can I say. These days I need a pipe and slipers version. What would a pipe and slippers pub crawl involve?

I seem to recall one or two that were inadvisably thorough in the past. Bedford, Echidna, Tup, Moon Under Water, Puzzle, Alan Devonshire, George, Pitcher & Piano, Oxygen (?), Windmill, Frog & Forget-me-not, Rose & Crown, Sun springs to mind. I seem to also recall that January 2nd was a really really bad day!!!!

Is that the Pangean brewery ;-P Jsut joshing, effectively correct but for a bygone era. see PubCos (in this case apparently, Enterprise Taverns). Here's a very good post from an ex landlord that makes it all a bit clearer http://www.eastdulwichforum.co.uk/forum/read.php?20,67408,67854#msg-67854

"so there are no footie fans moaning the ball is the wrong shape" In all fairness I've never relly heard that from anyone but rugby fans when the football is on. I did once amusingly hear once in Ireland some fans watching the Leinster-Munster game, utterly affronted as to why anyone, in the other part of the pub watching a premiership game, would be watching "an English Sport". I chuckled and in my best mockney accent went, 'you tell 'em mate, enjoy the rugby'. Twonk.

"Can we live with a resurgent Australia and a home-advantage All-Blacks?" Errrr, no. Cool, hope to see you there, though missus mockers thinks it's not a good sports pub after watching the tumbleweeds during a dire west ham defeat to Birmingham City.

"Agree with Sean, "pretentious" is not the right word. undeniably shit, is probably more appropriate." :) Believe me there's worse, you could live in Stevenage for starters.

You see it's "the image" that's pretentious. ie people with chips on their shoulder pretend it's something worth getting het up over, all posh and intolerably full of accentless johhny come latelies; and not a pleasant but unremarkable main street in a relatively backwater suburb of London.

I had this weird moment of objectivity the other day when I realised that France are my favourite rugby team to watch. It was quite freaky and I still feel a little unclean. I shall of course be full-throatedly cheering England on, but with this offputting ambivalence creeping at the edges of my sanity. Anyone watching the game out on the lane? I shall be there with missus mockers and the mocklet.

Fair enough; tired rather than spent.

an interesting look at the AV referendum, and Cameron's possible fall from grace, from the WSJ. http://blogs.wsj.com/iainmartin/2011/02/18/the-battle-for-the-no-campaign-and-a-prime-minister-in-peril/

France are highly unpredictable and error prone, but full of quality and verve. I've no idea what the result will be on the day to be honest. England have looked a little patchy but have so far won convincingly in 3rd gear without really needing to up their game. Scotland are looking a bit more resilient than of late but I don't expect a challenge. Ireland look spent. They showed some promising periods of play against France but ultimately they lost the game rather than France wone it, and they were frankly lucky to pip Italy. I know it's in Dublin and I know we've had little joy against Ireland of late, but unless Ireland really turn it around/on I'm expecting a victory. GS would be lovely, I'd be happy enough with 6 nations victory, but frankly I'd settle for bragging rights with the missus.

I don't think they're perpetrating a massive con, what I genuinely think is that they're gleefully taking advantage of a demonstrable need for debt reduction to push through an ideologically driven agenda whilst they can with realtively quiet opposition from the majority. To call that morally wrong is pushing it, but it is entering grey areas for sure. But luckily they are meeting resistance. Already the forest sell off plans have been scrapped, this wide agenda for privatisaion will fail, we've all suffered too much under disastrous examples, both financial and in terms of services delivered, such as rail 'competition'.

such bravado, keep talking and my kiss of death should be nullified....

think setting on fire first ;-P

I know the EDT is annoyingly putting out classes and cutlery (a trend I'm not convinced will last), but how can it not be a pub? Or does any form of food (bar scratchings obviously) exclude pub membership?

apart from the fact the I obviously have no idea what you said in your blog, I'm struggling to get to grips with what you're trying to say here. I'm not normally a fan of bullet points as they encourage fisking, in your case I'd encourage you to read minkturtle's post here and order your thoughts. If your suggesting the military tail wags political dog, I think you're way off the mark. If you're saying the special relationship isn't really very special I'm inclined to agree, and that the perception (misconception) that it is special drives misguided policies, then to a certain extent I agree. If you're saying we should scrap our expensive nuclear deterrent, I'm wholeheartedly behind you on that one. If you're saying we should scrap the army then I think that's a bit bonkers frankly. Anyway, focus grasshopper....