Oh well, it’s been a while. Fat Pat is gone to a better place, his timing looking impeccable as always. No doubt the current need to belt-tighten will prevent Irish people from ever finding out exactly which trees that sterling fell out of, or which horses it hit on the way down.

Now poor oul Biffo is on a salty-mouthed trip towards being the shortest-lived Fianna Fail Taoiseach in history. If you want to add a side to that, take Brian Lenihan, finally promoted now that the Bart is gone and family political dynasties can be eased back into their proper place. Brian is more than a little bit pickled by what Brian left behind in Finance, to stretch the metaphor.

Biffo does have heft in his favour when it comes to Sarkozy next week …

America, behold your Internet. Keep it full of paper and toner, because your economy depends upon it!

The best TV from over the Christmas, hands down. The show is so good, in fact, that it deserves its own category!

Bears in ill-fitting hats.

I’m tinkering around with a redesign.

Stuff may disappear and reappear without notice. Don’t be scared.

Edit: Getting there … going for a bit more colour this time

Right here.

The Sunday Independent knows.

THE latest theory doing the rounds in some property and banking circles is that London hedge fund boys are having an old fashioned crack at the Mick.

According to the theory, the City boys, sick of Paddy buying up key London landmarks, have seen an opportunity to put the boot in and short Irish bank shares.

Presumably someone, somewhere actually believes this. I’d love to meet them, since they could perhaps give me a comprehensive list of London landmarks that Paddy has bought up.

Whilst I’m on the subject, here’s a gem of a press release article from the Irish Times in January of this year. 

The body that represents the property professions has predicted that residential capital values will increase by a "modest" 4-5 per cent this year after a marked slowdown in the second half of 2006.

Oops. 

Here are some more predictions by ‘experts’ with an interest in keeping the property party going.

Florence is well known in surrounding cities for a water tower visible from I-75 that reads "Florence Y’all". Originally the tower advertised the up-and-coming Florence Mall, as part of an agreement by the mall developers who donated the land for the tower. However, because the mall was not built yet, it violated highway regulations, and the city was forced to change it within a short deadline. Rather than repaint the entire tower, they simply painted over the two vertical lines of the "M" to create a "Y". The intent was to change it back when the mall was built, but residents liked the tower’s new proclamation, so the city decided to leave it as it was.

From Wikipedia 

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