Brian Cowen's Hallowe'en Address

While many Heads of State give a traditional address to their nation on Christmas Day, and many Prime Ministers speak to their people on New Year's Day (January 1st), Ireland's new Prime Minister, who is a fluent speaker of Irish (Us Gaelge), decided to create a tradition of his own.
Taoiseach Brian Cowen addressed the Irish nation today, on Samhain, the day that is traditionally the Celtic New Year's Day.

The address was broadcast live from Cowen's home in Clara, Co. Offaly, by RTÉ Radio 1 and Television. However, many people watching with a sense of anticipation were rather disappointed and said that they were not able to understand what the Taoiseach was saying. Well, that's not a new thing with Brian Cowen. It happens every week in the Dail, too.

Mooney's Money is a Scam

Normally I don't listen to RTÉ Radio 1 in the afternoon. Like most people I work at that time. But today was an exception. Last week I had ordered coal for the winter, and today they were delivering it to my house. So I took the afternoon off, to be at home when they come.

If you're not there when they bring the coal, they just drop it outside your front door and then you'll have a hell of a dirty work on your hands shifting the stuff into the backyard.

While I was waiting for the coal lorry to arrive, I had the radio on. And so I heard the 'Mooney Show', which is on Radio 1 every weekday afternoon from 3 o'clock to 4.30 pm. It's supposed to be a light bridge between 'Live Line' and 'Drive Time'. Well, it's not too bad, but for my taste too hyped-up on trivialities.

I remember Derek Mooney as a young and eager RTÉ reporter with a special interest in wildlife. In fact I used to watch quite a few of the nice little films that ran as a series, called 'Mooney goes wild on 1'.
I wonder if anyone in RTÉ saw the potential double entendre in that title, as Mooney was probably one of the first gay men the station employed in a prominent position.

But the films were really about animals. All sorts of animals, big and small, common or unusual. It beats me why that series is no longer produced. It was good, clean television, informative, educational and often also entertaining.

Maybe it was just too simple and straight-forward for modern TV, where everything needs to be spun and twisted. So now Mooney is on Radio 1, when he's not presenting one of the tacky game shows RTÉ still runs for the National Lottery. Embarrassing really how people behave on those shows. They would tell psychologists an awful lot about the Irish psyche...

I listened with some interest to the programme, but I was not chaffed by it. Just some bits and pieces to fill 90 minutes of dreary afternoon, mixed together for those who are at home at that time (which are not the most active, productive or critical people).

But there was one element in the show that made me sit up and listen in amazement, which has meanwhile made way to anger. The item is called 'Mooney's Money', and I am told that it is part of the programme every day. It runs like this: Mooney asks a really stupid or dead-easy question, one of those a three-year-old could answer without difficulty.
(I hate such questions, as they are saying two things: We at RTÉ think that our listeners are morons, and we don't care if we insult the intelligence of the few listeners who are not morons.)

Then they urge the listeners to phone or text the studio with the answer, and one winner - yes, just one, and apparently "randomly selected from the correct entries" - is promised a prize of € 1000. So far, so good.
But then comes the catch. "Entries cost € 1," says a sluttish sounding female voice from a tape. And if that were not enough, she adds insult to financial exploitation and explains: "Entries from mobiles cost more."

She doesn't say how much more, even though I think she should. But then again, the whole thing is a scam and made to appeal to morons.
So those who are dumb enough to fall for it and actually do phone or text (which is only possible from mobiles, and they "cost more") in the answer, will be fleeced for a minimum of € 1, and perhaps as much as € 2.50 per entry.
As the question is so easy that there is virtually no chance of a wrong answer, there must be thousands of people trying their 'luck'.

And this is how RTÉ gets the € 1000 prize money each day, and makes plenty of profit from the scam on top of it. So what they are giving away is not 'Mooney's Money', but yours, if you are dumb enough to participate.
If the money would really come from Derek Mooney, it would set him back a quarter of a million Euros in a year. And that would be more than the € 242,408 RTÉ pays him per annum.

No, don't be fooled! 'Mooney's Money' is really your money, and RTÉ makes plenty more from the scam. Yes, that's what it is.
A scam. And I wonder if this sort of thing should be done by our national broadcaster, to which we all pay our annual fee to keep it running. I think it's wrong. In fact it stinks.

When I mentioned it to Sean Fitzpatrick, my philosophical and dear neighbour, last night, he told me that a similar scam is also part of the 'Afternoon Show' on RTÉ 1 television. Same concept, same money.
So this is not just a glitch on Mooney's show. There is system in it.
A system to rob the gullible viewers and listeners who have time in the afternoon of their hard-earned money.

It's bad enough that the banks, the government, the supermarkets, coal merchants and almost everyone else robs us blind every day. Now even RTÉ is joining in. Shame on you, you greedy and ruthless people at Donnybrook! And shame on you, Derek Mooney! I would never have expected such a scam from a man who likes animals.

The wrong Sean Fitzpatrick

Do you known a man called Sean Fitzpatrick? I do. He's a neighbour of mine, a retired printer and a bit of a philosopher.
In fact, he's quite good as a philosopher, and often has wisdom beyond his age and even beyond all other people I know around here.
After he retired, he actually went to the college, quietly and without telling anyone, doing a course in Philosophy once a week in the evening. This went on for a couple of years, and now he's a real philosopher and even has a certificate to prove it.
But he's never been on the radio. Not even on our useless local private station that brings three times more tacky ads than information.

So I was surprised and - for a moment - delighted when I heard his name mentioned on RTÉ today. Good on you, Sean, I thought, you've made it after all, and now the nation is listening to you.

But my joy was short-lived. Very soon I realised that the Sean Fitzpatrick RTÉ was talking with was a different man altogether. Not my dear and wise neighbour, but the chairman of Anglo Irish Bank. I had never heard of him before. Did you?
Funny really how certain people whose name is known only to a handful of Dublin 4 insiders get to the top of large companies and institutions and then they control serious elements of our lives.
And in the case of the banks make a right bollocks of it.

But messing up the economy and driving us almost over the cliffs does not mean these people are now shunned, ostracised or sacked. Oh no, they are given plenty of airtime on RTÉ, while those who would have something real to say never even get inside a studio, not even as member of the audience.

So this other Sean Fitzpatrick, the disastrous gambler with our money, has admitted now that his bank - like most other financial institutions - has "made mistakes".
Well, it's a long time since I heard that sort of confession from a money man. But the portion of humble pie he was willing to eat on air was not a large one. He insisted that they had not been reckless. I would disagree with him, and think that history will be with me when the books on the global credit crunch of 2008 are written some day.

The chairman of Anglo Irish Bank - one of the six whose entire operation is now guaranteed 100% by the State (which means really by you and me and all of us, with all our money) - also said he was "grateful for the € 400 billion guarantee scheme introduced by the government".

Well, he'd better be. And he'd better show it to every customer. Arrogant bank managers talking down on customers and patronising them over small loans, late payments or overdrafts should be a thing of the past. They are no longer acceptable and better disappear.

There's not one ordinary bank customer who has ever been as reckless, stupid and arrogant as the men in suits who control the banks. Yes, they have more than enough reason to be grateful to the State, and that means us, the nation. And they better learn to behave like normal people, ordinary folk that has to make ends meet week by week.

It will be a long time before I can trust a bank again, if ever. And I know I'm not alone. Quite the opposite. No-one I know trusts the banks. So perhaps they should be working hard to get their books in order and care for their customers, instead of talking sweetly on RTÉ.

Next time the Donnybrook crowd wants to hear the views of Sean Fitzpatrick, they'd better give my neighbour a call. He'd have a lot more to say than any banker, and it would be much more interesting to listen to.

RTÉ has lost the Plot

Some people in RTÉ are completely nuts. We've known this for a long time. But so far at least the news desk had kept some degree of sanity.
Well, that last bit of sanity went out the studio window today.

Did you hear the news on Radio 1 at 10 and 11 o'clock this morning? If not, then I'll tell you.
There were items on the Irish cabinet meeting over the financial crisis, the EU meeting over the same crisis, and the GAA discussing a major change to its procedure. But none of these made the top of the news. At least the cabinet meeting should have. After all, what they come up with in there will affect us all very severely for the coming years... But no, it came down the line in the RTÉ list of priorities.

Those arrogant and overpaid raving lunatics opened both news bulletins at 10 and 11 a.m. - when everyone here tunes in to know what happened overnight and what's the agenda for the weekend - with the 'most important' news that "the former American Football player O. J. Simpson (now 61) was found guilty by a US court in Las Vegas of robbing sports memorabilia"!

Who the heck cares? The man's a nobody here, and a has-been for ages now even in the USA.
What relevance or news value has he for Ireland? Absolutely none.

But this grave error of judgement regarding the relevance of news shows how much the fecking gobshites in RTÉ are infected by the American virus, by global cultural neo-colonialism that creeps in everywhere, from Chicken McNuggets to the national news.

I am disgusted. And angry.
We are NOT the 51st state of the damned US of A... !!!
But the fecking dumbos in RTÉ treat us as if we were. And this at a time when real serious news that affect us all are aplenty.

I think it's about time that some real people go into Donnybrook and kick some arse.