• Mr. and Mrs. Anthropy and their son Phil, who is a real ‘people person’.
• Mr. and Mrs. Truism and their generous son, Al.
• Mr. and Mrs. Evolence and their son, Ben.
• Mr. and Mrs. Ri O’Tism and their son, Pat.

Of course the fact that security at Dublin airport failed to discover the explosives during the luggage check is a serious issue, but then trying to lay blame on them for their potentially fatal mistake is far more worrying. The Slovakians didn’t contact the DAA directly until Tuesday and then had the audacity to criticise the Gardaí for arresting the owner of the luggage!

Servisair, the company who received the initial message and decided that it wasn’t worth passing on to the DAA, say that they receive hundreds if these telex messages every day. Does this mean that these mistakes are happening in their hundreds every day and that bits of plastic explosives are left on random baggage all the time? Surely not, one would hope that a message informing them of explosive material aboard a specific flight would raise the red flag. Oh, it’s OK for them, they weren’t travelling on the flight, they were happy to knowingly allow the flight to take off.

The telex sent to Servisair reads:

Dear Colleagues, please be informed that we have received info from police department of (Tatry Airport) that there is forgotten sample of explosive material in baggage on bord of flight no V58230.

The sample of grey colour is in plastic bag (size 5×5cm) in the rare part of black backpack (under harnesses) in hold no 3 or 4. The sample is not dangerous, it is only used for dog training. It is not able to cause explosion nor fire (no power source of detonator is included) Pilot in command has been informed about this sample by ATC (air traffic control). We would like to kindly ask you to return that sample with flight no V58231. Thx for coop.

So if they really believed that there were no safety issues, why did they not do what they were asked and remove it from the passenger’s luggage and send it back?

News source: IrishTimes.com

It is usually found in blog post comments, generally on the kind of blog post that consists of lists, the top ten this or that, screenshots of the top ten minimal websites for example, you’ve seen the kind of thing I mean. There is nearly almost always one comment that says:

Awesome round up, thanks guys.

Is it really? Does it inspire awe? According to the Random House Dictionary definition at dictionary.com, the word awe means:

an overwhelming feeling of reverence, admiration, fear, etc., produced by that which is grand, sublime, extremely powerful, or the like: in awe of God; in awe of great political figures.

Seeing the Taj Mahal for the first time or watching a baby being born would surely inspire awe. But the top ten websites for Photoshop tutorials? I don’t think so.

High above the city, on a tall column, stood the statue of the Happy Prince. He was gilded all over with thin leaves of fine gold, for eyes he had two bright sapphires, and a large red ruby glowed on his sword-hilt.

Click play button on the audio player below to listen to an excerpt of Oscar Wilde’s classic tale of The Happy Prince read by Jonathan Ryan.

Read the full story here, if you can stand the wallpaper.

• From Belgrade, Mr. and Mrs. Sthetic and their daughter Anna, who’s a bit dopey.
• From Minsk, Mr. and Mrs. Philacticshock and their daughter Anna, who has allergies.
• From Ireland, Mr. and Mrs. O’ Rexia and their daughter Ann who has lost a lot of weight.
• From Istanbul, Mr. and Mrs. Etomall and their daughter Paris, who feels no pain.
• From Croatia, Mr. and Mrs. Biotic and their son Anto, who has a cure for everything.
• Mr. and Mrs. T’septic and their daughter Ann, who’s has a thing about germs.
• Mr. and Mrs. Molean and their son Ger, who is currently dating Mr. and Mrs.  T’Septic’s daughter.
• From Ireland, Mr. and Mrs. O’Rea and their daughter Diana, who’s a great runner.

Lately, my local supermarket have offloaded piles of staff and installed automatic checkouts that regularly malfunction and only serve to irritate the customers. They’ve also removed the trolleys that hold two baskets and cut down on the number of small trolleys so that the customer is forced to choose between a basket they have to carry and a huge trolley, with nothing in between.

The big trolleys seem bigger and the aisles seem smaller, due to the fact that the shelf packers are always out in their droves when the shop is at it’s busiest so that the aisles are jammed with massive crates. It’s absolute chaos on a Saturday afternoon.

Then there’s the music.. invasive and completely unnecessary.  I recently had the bizarre experience of seeing a man who was obviously a victim of Thalidomide shopping with his wife while Nina Simone, or someone doing an impression of Nina Simone belted out  “I got my arms, I got my legs, I got my fingers, got my legs.. ” which seemed to be playing at an unusually high volume and was on a loop so that it played about three times while the poor man was in the shop.

Shopping at my local supermarket is not what it used to be, only the prices seem to have remained constant.

In recent years, the grocery shopping experience has become a tad more interesting, due to the recession & price wars. We now have Lidl and Aldi.

The first time I shopped at a Lidl store, I was struck by the morbid silence and stark lighting. Then there were the unfamiliar brand names and bizarre array of hardware/clothing/electrical items. I walked around in a daze for ages before putting anything in my trolley.  It reminded me of exploring the local supermarkets of holidays past but without the joy of the sunny weather outside.  The other customers looked the same as I felt. Then when I reached the checkout, I was dismayed and slightly panic-stricken to find that I couldn’t use my credit card until I realised that my bill was so low that I had enough cash in my wallet to cover it!

A few visits later and I love shopping there!  The products are fine, the prices are great, the hardware/clothing/electrical section is fascinating, the staff are friendly,  the silence is welcome and the subdued lighting, well, it’s all we need.

It really is shopping as it should be.

Here was one held in Udine in Italy on the same day. This one looks a lot more rehearsed but I think I preferred the Cork one as everyone joined in.