A new competition called Your Country Your Call has been set up. There is a 200,000 Euro prize fund.

The website is yourcountryyourcall.com.

High wind caused one of the oldest trees in the National Botanic Gardens in Dublin to fall at around 8.20am on the morning of the 31st December 2009. The tree was on top of the rockery in the Gardens.

We spent the weekend in Istanbul in Turkey. I got to practice my negotiation skills in the Grand Bazaar. We took a boat from Europe to Asia and we walked for miles exploring the sites. It is a very interesting city. Well worth a visit.

A new coffee shop called the Art of Coffee has opened up in the tall glass building on the corner of Grand Canal Quay and Pearse Street in Dublin 2.

The owner is an award winning Barista and needless to say, the coffee is excellent. The staff are always friendly and welcoming. It's well worth a visit if you are in the area.

In a strong vote of confidence for the Irish economy the World Bank has rated Ireland seventh out of 181 economies in terms of "ease of doing business".

One simple way to move Ireland even higher is to get rid of commercial stamp duty as we rank a woeful 82nd out of 181 for "registering a property".

Apparently industry is outraged at the falling maths and science results in today's leaving cert. Actually, it doesn't really matter.

Ireland is an open economy in a globalised world and is a member of the EU benefiting from the free movement of labour and capital.

Universities in Ireland can recruit students for their Maths, Science and Engineering courses from all over the world. Companies in Ireland can recruit talented staff without any limitations from 29 EU and EAA Member States. That's a labour market of more than 490 Million people. Ireland is only a small, small country.

Ireland has to strive to create a world class environment in which technology companies can thrive. This includes providing world class third level education and research organisations to provide skilled staff. If we can do this, we will have no shortage of excellent scientists and engineers in our country. The fact that they did not come through the Irish education system doesn't matter one bit.

£34 sterling is the fixed rate taxi fare for a 10 minute taxi ride from Heathrow Airport to Egham (7 miles). Makes Dublin taxis look like bargain.


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According to the Big Bang theory, the universe is around 13.73 billion years old. That is, the whole Universe was generated from the Big Bank to what exists today in that time.

Think about this now for a minute: Anglo Irish Bank will hit the Irish tax payers with a bill of around half that number of Euro (up to 7.5 Billion Euro).

Truly a frightening number when you put in context of the Universe's existence.