We had Japanese clients visit us at work last week. The discussion moved on to broadband quality and price in Japan. They told me that they pay around 8 Euro per month for a 100MB fibre connection to their homes.

I was slightly embarrassed to tell them that we pay 40 Euro per month for a 3MB connection.





I took the above pictures in Tokyo in 2003.

I took them to see Newgrange in Co. Meath on Saturday and they were very impressed.

I wish they could be as impressed with our broadband infrastructure as they were with our ancestors work of 5,000 years ago.

We have temporarily fostered Betty from the Ashtown pound in Dublin. She has a home in the UK to go to next week.








See Betty's page on dogsindistress.org

This was taken on my Nokia N95 camera phone to show you the view from my office window on this sunny Friday afternoon.

Claiming that you are the nominee because you won the popular vote is like losing the Wimbledon final

6-4 1-6 6-4 2-6 6-4

and claiming you should be the winner because you won more games (24 verses 21)!

I was surprised to hear that the Habitat stores in Ireland have been closed suddenly and without prior warning. The stores, located in Dublin and Galway, were closed on Friday and a note was posted on their doors. See the notice on their website here.

Rent issues?

Previously, the Dublin Habitat store moved from it's Stephens Green location to its College Green base because of high rental costs on Stephens Green. The rent they were / are paying must be astronomical.

Sometimes I wonder how businesses manage to survive at all in Dublin with the rental cost of retail space.

Let's encourage the government to be good European citizens and remove the anti common market vehicle registration tax on cars in Ireland.

If the Government wishes people to vote Yes on the upcoming Lisbon Treaty, the least that they should do is to remove the protectionist barriers and allow people to participate in the Common Market.

David McWilliams explains the issue in his piece in the Sunday Business Post today. He says...

Let’s make a contract with the government. We will vote Yes to the Lisbon Treaty when it starts to treat us European citizens on a par with the other citizens of the union.
....

Our state demands that we sign up to a treaty, yet every day it thwarts thousands of citizens who are trying to reap the benefits of the common market.

If an Irish citizen wishes to import a second hand car from the UK, for example, the Government imposes a Vehicle Registration Tax (VRT) on the car before it can be used legally in Ireland. This is clearly in contradiction to the European Community laws outlining of "The free movement of goods".

Watch the video here. Maybe next year.

This is very good:

Here Comes Another Bubble by The Richter Scales

check it out.