50 People, One Question - Galway

And so, in the shadow of another day-surf-trip, and with a new job starting in just under two weeks - here is one of my favourite ever videos on the web.  50 people, one question, in Galway, Ireland.

One question, but an amazing sequence of answers.  My favourite answer?  6:00.

Thanks to Anna Oliwa for uncovering it.

Irish surf and nighttime revelations

Wednesday 28th Sept. looks like the next chance.  What I'd give for an accurate forecast for 2 or three weeks in advance right now.  But Thursday 18th August was going to be this chance.

I had flicked open Magic Seaweed, and checked Bundoran.  The forecast (which like any other forecast tends to become more accurate the closer you are to the time) says there will a very small swell - borderline, and the winds are going to be onshore - not favourable, as they will collapse the waves from behind, destroying their perfect shape and spreading turbulent whitewater everywhere. 

I check again a couple days before.  The swell is still borderline, but... the wind forecast is dropping.  Wednesday 17th, I look again.  The forecast winds for the very early morning are 2mph - almost nothing.  High tide at 09:30.  The board is brought down from it's ceiling abode, the wetsuit is dug out of the attic, everything is laid out, and the alarm is set for 03:40.

 

03:59.  The yawning silence of the city in the dead of night.  The board is strapped on the car, everything is packed.  Gates are quietly opened, the car is rolled back out of gear with no engine, the gate is closed again.  A quick turn of the key, and we are trundling out of the estate and across the West side of Dublin.  The only other road users are taxis.  Somewhere in the Atlantic, a low pressure system has been rotating, driving energy into the ocean.

There's a diversion on the edge of Dublin, so shortly after 4 I'm sent down a sideroad past a suburban shopping centre.  20 or 30 kids are milling about in the car park.  Yesterday was leaving cert day in Ireland, and these kids have been letting loose all evening and night.  Everywhere is closed now, but they aren't ready to go home quite yet.  Who passed, and who failed?  Who has the marks they need, for what they want to do?

Gone 5, I'm whistling down the motorway towards Kells.  The home of bestsellers.  The radio is on, the pressure of the sound helping the windows to hold back the immense weight of the blackness outside.  Every few minutes a lone car flies the opposite way, towards the big city.

Past Kells, I pass through Virginia.  In the middle of town the road forks, and on the apex sits a massive church.  I've glimpsed it before, on one of these night raids West - set back, deep in the fork, brooding in the dark.  One day I'm going to come back and check it out.  I wonder if the baby is still asleep back at home.  Did I wake him, sneaking the board out of the house at 4?  Leaving Virginia, I pick up the first sign for Eniskillen, 70km.  The other side of the border.  Northern Ireland.

Twenty past five, and I hit Cavan - home to problematic insurance company Quinn.  The whole story of what the Quinn family have been up to with the money is going to come out one of these days.  Still black, everything is closed - but looking straight upwards, there's the very first hint that the sky might be starting to turn.  It looks a bit more dark blue than black up there.

Half past five, and I'm in Belturbet.  The sky is definitely lightening.  It's amazing how quickly that happens, isn't it?  All the shops are locked and dark, and the town is dead.  I ghost on for Eniskillen, another 35 kilometres on.  2 or 3 minutes further on, I'm suddenly across the border, in Northern Ireland.  The road surface changes, alien after 8 years living in the Republic, and familiar from my youth.  The first village speed limits seem bigger than is sensible.  Is this just the first town speed limits, or were the ones in the UK always this size?  UK Radio 1 is on now, and a lightbulb moment suddenly strikes me: nighttime radio is so much better than daytime fare.  The variation!  There's some grinding driving hip hop track clattering out of the radio - raw in a way that wouldn't make daytime radio.  The journey is getting good - revelations are starting to flow.  There's something very interesting in the fact that this takes 90 minutes of driving to start happening - it harks back to the idea that I stumbled upon back here - that with repetition, the analytical portion of your brain that drives it while awake is slowly decommissioned, and something much more interesting starts taking place.  Maybe this really is the revelation that the whole trip offers - but for the moment, the important thing seems to be that suddenly I'm fearing the return of daytime radio, with the tyranny of the playlists and mass appeal.

Enniskillen is reached at ten to six.  A tiny bit of traffic, but not much.  I was out of Dublin so early that everything is still closed so no breakfast roll here, which may complicate my eating an hour before water rule.  How can you surf without a breakfast roll?  I'm thinking of bacon (this is very distracting) hesitate for a millisecond, and get owned by a Micra at stoplights.  I'm supposed to be in relaxed surf mode, so I let them go, mentally wishing them well on the way.  I'm hungry.  It's very light now, I could almost switch off the headlights.  There are still some Union Jack flags flying defiantly, a reminder of how strange things have been in the past in the North.  Left for Belleek.

Reaching Eniskillen escape velocity.  By five past six I'm racing down the side of Lough Erne.  I've raced down the side of Lough Erne before, but this time, it's very different.  The sun is coming up behind it, making the whole body of water seemingly glow with early-morning radiance.  There isn't a single ripple on the water, dead calm, a hugely promising portent.  Jaw dropping beauty that I couldn't quite capture with the camera.

By six twenty-five I'm back in the Republic, and 13 miles to run to Bundoran.  I'm a huge fan of the beach at Rossnowlagh, so I go there first.  Unfortunately, the swell is too small to be causing anything more than a shoreline ripple there, so after hanging about for five minutes, it's back in the car, and down to Bundoran to have a look at Tullan Strand.

Tullan is reached around seven, and it's beyond perfect for me.  A really small swell running, not a single person there, and amazingly, not even the tiniest puff of wind. Dead calm.

The swell is so well behaved, I spend four hours in the water.  Some amazing waves (for me) caught, I even manage to weave my way through some people at a beginners surf school on a couple of waves later on, and due to the small size I'm able to manoeuvre myself all the way outside the breaking waves (still something of a novelty for me).  This means I end up sitting, bobbing in the sea, watching in amazement as 3 dolphins appear a few hundred yards out to sea, leaping completely clear of the water, arching, stretching and diving back in, slowly leaping across Donegal Bay in the sun as I sit on the board and bob up and down on top of the water.

Now, if that's not worth getting up at half three for, I have no idea what is.

The debt and the defacit

I've got to admit, I don't get the IMF/EU bailout of Ireland. I mean, I understand it from the IMF/EU point of view - Ireland was about to take down the Euro due to systematic risk, sovereign default, bond jitters, etc.

What I don't understand, is why Ireland is taking the so-called "bailout". If the state needs to borrow in order to keep funding services, logic might suggest that there are too many services going on and that they need to be cut. To borrow in order to pay for them surely just means paying interest on the loans, as well as for services that we can't afford anyway.

So never mind the defacit (which I take to be the gap between annual revenue and expenditure) - if the overhanging total debt is not payable, would it not be better to default now, face all the consequences early and get it done with, rather than kicking the can down the road on a debt that will ultimately require default anyway - while we all make the money-lenders a bit richer via interest in the meantime?

Huge surf in Ireland

From earlier this week - the remnants of a Hurricane finding an offshore reef somewhere off NW Ireland.

Mentioned on Andrew Cotton's blog here - he was out surfing it - and if you didn't see it in the Irish Times front page today, an incredible photograph from photographer Aaron Pierce's site is here.

Ireland, the Housing Market, and the Future

I've been a bit of a keen watcher of the Irish housing market - well - ever since buying an Irish house. Sinking yourself face-deep into negative equity tends to focus your attention like that.

Without having a crystal ball, and setting aside the possibility of a black swan such as a sovereign default, breakup of or expulsion/exit from the Euro, or some sort of economic disaster driven by an IMF package to avoid one of the first two possibilities, here's some random thoughts on what I (as an untrained eye) see happening and coming in the Irish housing market:

• Prices - Achieved prices at the lower end of the Dublin market are probably now about 55% of peak asking prices.
  
  
• Activity - finally, yes. Some sales are starting to go through again at the levels prices have now reached - probably a combination of some stability in prices for the first time in 2 years, and a glut of first time buyers who (a) have been waiting, and (b) can get finance at these prices. The employment situation and continued pricing stability is the only thing that will keep that wheel slowly turning.
  
  
• The commuter towns - asking prices boomed fastest, and achieved prices have probably collapsed hardest in the peripheral counties to Dublin. It's going to be a long road back for equity in the area surrounding the city.
  
  
• The city and the country - rural areas physically removed from Dublin (i.e. once you get beyond commutersville) probably see price changes lagging Dublin timewise. As people move less frequently, less urgently, and in smaller numbers in the country, the fall in house prices has much further to go in the more sparsely populated parts of Ireland. The fall in equity and prices in Dublin will eventually drag the rest of the country into line, but it is going to take time. (If I had a big paid-for house in the country, and wanted to swap it for one in the city, now might not be a bad time to take advantage of this presumably temporary differential)
  
  
• No tradeup market - a lot of people are in negative equity, so anyone who owns a house not in the cheaper part of the market (i.e. not a first-time-buyers house) is going to be waiting a long time for someone able to trade up from below.

So if I had to bet any money, what would it be on?

The most likely scenario to me is a distinct two-tier market. As the housing market hits bottom (and there is always a bottom, though you probably won't know where it was until we're long past it), it will likely fracture into two sections

• Houses in good repair, solidly built, in good locations, together with the best of the apartments, will start to slowly stabilise or recover some value.
  
  
• Houses that are brand new, poorly built, insanely situated, and the vast tracts of apartments in the middle of nowhere (that never made sense), may never recover value.

I'm not sure that fracture has occurred yet, or that it'll even be a distinct event as opposed to a subtle, drawn-out process - but I can't see any other logical conclusion as to what's in our future.

The Irish housing market - another moment of truth?

I took a moment this week to update my ongoing tracker of asking prices in our area of Dublin, and staring at the graph that gets spat out by my figures every time I update them, a bit of a pattern seems to be starting to emerge.

As a disclaimer - you've got to be careful with patterns - too much staring and you see patterns everywhere, but this one does seem to be reasonably clear.

My figures are sorted by house size and street, so there's a trace on the line for every street in our area, and where there is more than one house size, an extra trace per street for each size of house too. So the actual graph spat out is a messy splatter, resembling a rats nest of cables... something like this:

So it seemed to me the longer I looked at this, that there was a fairly clear "stepping down" thing happening. I took the average of all the streets on a clean graph, and tried to get a "line of best fit" happening that would bring out the steps. In other words, could I find discrete sections where the price was quite stable, and discrete sections where it was plunging?

The totally unscientific messing about seems to reveal something like this:

2008
up to Jan - Stable
Jan to Apr - Falling
Apr to Augt - Stable
Aug to Oct - Falling
Oct to Dec - Stable

2009
Jan to May - Falling
May to Dec - Stable

Or in terms of the monthly length of the stages: falling (4), stable (5), falling (3), stable (3), falling (5), stable (7).

The falls are precipitous, and the stable sections are wobbly, but the pattern does seem to be there. Whether this indicates general human nature (when prices are dropping, you'd better undercut your selling neighbour if you want out fast), estate agent strategy (hold fire on price reduction every 2/3 months and test the market resistance to asking price) or something else altogether, I don't know.

What seems reasonably clear though is that every fall is ultimately arrested by at least a brief ledge - and every ledge for the last 2/3 years has eventually collapsed into another precipitous step down.

The question in my area now, therefore is - after a half-year of relative stability, is this something of a bottom - or another ledge?

The recent (2-year) record would suggest that after 6 months without a major fall, we're likely to find out soon...

Theo Dorgan on West Cork

I was on a flight between Edinburgh and Dublin this week, and picked up the Aer Lingus in-flight magazine, Cara. Thumbing through it to while away the 45 minute flight, I came across an article on West Cork in Ireland - from where my wife comes.

It's actually more of an homage than an article - written by poet Theo Dorgan, it's an amazing hand-held walk through the emotions, magic, mystery, and enchantment of West Cork. Maybe I'm just getting more emotional in my old age, but I got a huge lump in my throat reading it. I love West Cork, and Dorgan's writing is really a perfected example of the type of writing I try and fail to do occasionally - evocative, heady emotional and slightly ambiguous journeys through subtle hyperbole.

[I'm reproducing the entire article here without the permission of Aer Lingus, Cara, or Theo Dorgan. As far as I'm aware I'm not infringing any copyright. Anyone concerned should feel free to contact me for removal]

It's an astounding piece of writing - more of this please, Aer Lingus.

West Cork really is amazing. Thank you Theo Dorgan.

- - -


WEST CORK IS a mountain fastness on the edge of the world, a land of secrets and dreams, of immemorial communities, standing stones, ruined monasteries, a deep-indented coastline washed by the long bulk and sprawl of the Atlantic. Small farms in hollows and valleys, prosperous knowing towns curled in on themselves and their mysteries, roads that jink and jive between high hedges, sudden dizzying views of mountains folded back as far as the eye can see.

Drive west from Cork through Bandon, that solid market town set among fields of grain, and small town by small town you are fed down to the sea at Bantry, the broad acres with their fine trees giving way to thin soil; pinched fields on the sides of hills; thick hedges where moments ago there were white painted fences. The colours brighten as you slide west and south, blues and reds on doors and windows, white gables, mauve of tall foxgloves, the flash of gorse in the high sun. You see the mountains in the distance, rank after rank, solid and blue and grey, and perhaps you get a sense that you are entering deeper and deeper into some half-remembered version of your life.

Or, leave Cork towards the northwest, along the rich valley of the River Lee. Beyond Macroom, you might start drifting north bit by bit until with a sudden instinctive resolution you pull the wheel to the left and feed yourself over Ráth an Ghaiscígh, the Rath of the Warrior, down through Tír na Spideoige, the Land of Sparrows, into Inchigeela and then Ballingeary, and you are solidly in the heartland again. On up the road to Gougane Barra, wellspring of the Lee, then down the long, winding road through sheep pastures and pine plantations, past the Hobbit-like buildings of Future Forests, a garden nursery, until you meet the easternmost inlet of Bantry Bay.

The sea again. The mountains again, this time shouldering you, leaning over you. Or you take the third way, south from Cork airport to the bustling, colourful harbour of Kinsale. A cosmopolitan town, studded with busy pubs and gourmet restaurants, the clash of halyards on masts in the harbour where yachts from all over the world are constantly making in, making out. You follow the Bandon river for a while, going left when you can, keeping to the swooping coastline; you make for Baltimore, perhaps, then Schull – the yellow gorse, the red fuschia beckoning you onward until Bantry.

Oh, but there are pathways into West Cork not laid down on maps. Maybe you’ll walk in, through Cúil Aodha, for instance, that hidden Gaeltacht the far side of Macroom. Maybe you’ll get the bus to drop you at Gougane Barra and hike up to the lake, where Finbarre’s stone church sits on its island, in a forest quiet. Or perhaps you’ll come in from the sea, spray-lashed, salt-crusted, working the helm and the sails, making in under the white beacon, Lot’s Wife, standing sentinel over Baltimore harbour.

You must understand this: West Cork is not just a territory on a map, a piece of real estate to be surveyed, traversed, absorbed and filed in your memories. This is a dangerous place for the unwary. I may have lost you already. We were coming down through the Land of Sparrows, remember? We stopped in Creedons for a pint and a sandwich? And you started thinking, I could feel the drift begin inside you, you started thinking ‘What if I didn’t go home? I could live here, in this steady quiet, I could find a small house under the ridge and be peaceful here.’ I heard the words stirring inside you, I saw the signs. Or, maybe, coming up from Schull we turned off for Mizen Head before Bantry and as we drove out and west through that high stony land you had a sudden illumination: you thought of your life and decided, with sudden clarity, I need to change. I saw it happening, saw you step out of the car and look around, the weight and beauty of that wild place settling inside you. You’re not the first, you won’t be the last. So many thousands have settled here in my lifetime, so many thousands who came with maps, plans, itineraries...


Ah, but you think you are made of sterner stuff than that? Perhaps you are. There are no flying columns ghosting through your ancestral memories, no Spanish fleets flying west from Kinsale, no ships of the French Revolution storm-beaten in Bantry Bay. Perhaps you are the sort of person who says, approving the wisdom, you can’t eat scenery. You notice the heavy traffic on the roads, you look for and find reassuring signs of normal life in the present day.

Let me bring you on west from Bantry through the storybook beauty of Glengariff, and west again through Adrigole, the minatory bare bulk of Hungry Hill shadowing us to the north. I land you down in Castletownbere, and you approve of the bustling busyness of the place, the fishing fleet, the ice plant, the trucks from France and Spain backing and filling in the busy harbour. And then I lead you quietly away down the pier to where the painter Sarah Walker has built herself a studio and gallery at the water’s edge. Did you linger there a little longer than you’d meant to? West again, the sun beginning to slant down towards the sea. I bring you to Dzogchen Beara, a Buddhist monastery in Beara, perched high on a cliff, and suddenly you are gazing out over an ocean without limits, you are gazing out into sunlit eternity. And now you get it. I see it in your eyes as the journey catches up with you. All those small fields, those dim sunken roads, the small hills and the sudden bulk of mountains, the dark world of the forestry, the bright, busy banter in shop and pub – vista by vista, moment by moment, unheard, unfelt, unnoticed, West Cork has been winding you into its spell, laying its enchantment deep inside you until now it owns your very breath.

Well, what am I to do with you? You have a life elsewhere, work, family, responsibilities. One last short journey, then, before you turn for home. A few miles more and we stop where the road curls round into a final vision for you. Below and to the left a bright-gold beach. Neat fields, long grasses, cows, horses, two cars stopped side by side, neighbours having a chat down there beneath us. You lift your eyes and you see the village of Allihies, its multicoloured houses piled in a bright pyramid on the far slope, under the mountain with its copper-mine chimneys, its glinting, water-bright ridge. The last of the sun gives an otherworldly light to the panorama before you, broad bands of red and orange and black to the left, the unkempt grasses a brilliant green below us, the far off houses bright with promises. Skellig on the horizon, appearing, disappearing on a whim.

I am taking you to my favourite pub in all the world, Jimmy’s. It might be a well of quiet this evening, or perhaps Ecky will be in, our German musician friend, long-settled here, or the poet O’Leary, or Mighty the raconteur. We could settle into conversation with Eily the postmistress, with the artists Charlie Tyrrell or Rachel Parry, the ceramicist Cormac Boydell. We might sit by ourselves, without speaking. I’ve brought you here so that you can settle yourself over a pint or three of Murphy’s stout, so that you can ease down and persuade yourself that after all it’s only a holiday, only a place you will have visited. How do I explain to you what you are already beginning to sense, that you may indeed go home, tomorrow, the day after, but now you will never leave West Cork?

Dirty Projectors - "Stillness is the move", Chic in Dublin & chasing the dragon

It seems like a long time since I enthused about Chic's epic performance at Electric Picnic 09. Well it turns out - they are coming back.

Chic play Tripod, Dublin, Friday 28th May 2010. Tickets available as of this morning through monopolising rip-off service ticketmaster. Despite my concerns that following EP this gig would immediately sell out the second it went on sale at 9am, and harbouring reservations that I might negligently be swapping the righteous funk of Nile Rodgers for bacon and sausage, I still stopped on the way to work for 4 minutes to grab a breakfast roll. Thankfully the trotters of fate intervened, and shortly after 9 I was able to secure the priceless tickets.

Having found out a day or two before (thanks to the Rathcoole hubcap appropriation loyal), I had a day to engage in something of a philosophical dilemma. On one hand - the hand wringing itself with existential angst - when you have only experienced something one time, and the experience has been as near-perfect as the Chic happening of EP09, is the only way to respect and protect that perfect experience to avoid attempting to repeat it?

On the other hand - the hand of realism - if a band is that amazing, and you wouldn't go see them again - what would you ever willingly do twice?

Realism, hope, and the impossible dream won the argument. Come May 2010, I will be chasing the Chic dragon.

Which brings me in a sudden and unlinked way to something musical but very different indeed.

While perusing my favourite ex-colleagues music and technology based column, Riot Gear, I stumbled across a review of a band I'd never heard of, called Dirty Projectors. Intrigued, I did a little digging.

It seems like la projectors are a bit of an oddball art/vocal project from New York city - a guy called Dave Longstreth running the show, Brian Mcomber on drums, Nat Baldwin on bass, and three wonderfully gorgeous girls (Haley Dekle, Amber Coffman, and Angel Deradoorian) singing harmony vocals which are alternately entrancing, enticing, intriguing, and occasionally terrifying.

As all music reviewers know, the best and fairest way to describe acts is as a metaphorical artistic collision of totally unrelated other acts. (That's sarcasm, incase you weren't sure). So, in keeping with the tradition, Dirty Projectors strike me as an oddball collision of Bjork, The Corrs, and the Beta Band. Stick that one in your metaphorical pipe and smoke it.

So here's the official video for "Stillness Is The Move" - a video that added heavily to the Beta Band element in my imagined metaphorical smashup. In the vid they're up a hill, the main man is alternatively leading some sort of yak-type animal around, or standing on a rotating platform playing a vintage/ethnic stringed guitary sort of thing. I'd call it a zither, but I googled zither and confirmed it's not one. It still sounds a bit zithery though.

Anyway, while he's playing the non-zither or leading the possibly-a-yak around, the three girls are singing like good things - either dressed in a white wraparound thingy and bridesmaid type dresses (not necessarily a bad thing), or medical-coloured MC-hammer cut overalls. The possibly-a-yak pops it's head up about 70 seconds in like it's wondering what the hell is going on. I know how it feels. There's a kind of wolf thing that appears - in fact there's more than one, and ultimately the girls end up taking the wolves for a bit of a run in the MC-hammer overalls.

It's great. I have absolutely no idea what any of it means, but the more you listen and watch, the better it gets.

Happy Friday!

Freefall and denial in the Irish Housing Market

The Irish housing market (and the ongoing attendant commentary) is pretty interesting.

I purchased a house with my better half (deciding that we couldn't wait forever) early in 2006. As luck would have it, that turned out to be very shortly before the peak of a historically insane price bubble, which is now in the process of bursting in an extended and messy fashion. They say the secret of comedy is in the timing.

Since 2006 or 2007, there's been an ongoing fall in the value of houses here, but recently there's been intermittent talk of green shoots of recovery, a bottoming out, a slowing down in the rate of descent (you always know you're in trouble when things getting worse at a slower rate is presented as an improvement), the start of a recovery etc etc.

For some reason connected no doubt to my interest in economic trends, statistics, truth, and a desire to view life-changing financial crisis through the prism of small, cute coloured Excel graphs, I started tracking the asking prices in our immediate neighbourhood in September 2006, about 6 months after we purchased.

Since then, every month (or thereabouts), I tap in the asking price for every house in about a half-mile radius that is on the market. While this doesn't give an accurate picture of prices achieved, it's a good guide to the trend. You can also make a reasonable assumption that when prices are falling, the achieved prices are below the asking price, and the opposite when prices are rising - in other words, the achieved price most likely drags the asking price around kicking and screaming behind it.

So based on the figures I have for my own area of Dublin (old settled low-density ex-council estate close to the town centre, for those seeking Irish context), from Sept 2006 to October 2009, here is what has happened.

Asking prices stalled in summer-autumn 2006, and remained static until Feb 07, when I recorded the first fall in my area. (My guess: achieved sale prices stalled somewhere around summer 06, and started to fall back prior to that Christmas.)

Between Feb 07 and May 08 asking prices fell slowly and steadily, shedding around 8.6% from the peak during this 15-month period (averaging a 0.7% drop per month).

Something went seriously to hell in spring 08, because around May prices started falling off a cliff. In the 17 months from May 08 to Oct 09, asking prices dropped 31% from the May 08 figure (averaging a 2.5% loss every month).

So where are we now?

Well my figures from the official asking prices (which come from a variety of estate agents) say this: we are currently in a situation as of Oct 09 where asking prices are 39% off their late 06 peak. So the next time you hear a news item telling you that house prices might fall by up to 40%, it's worth remembering that in reality, they already have. Not only that, there's nothing in the figures I've collected in my area to even hint that there's a floor in sight - the asking prices this month have fallen as much as any other month in the last 12.

Apart from the rash of unemployment in Ireland, a major reason for the continued express-elevator treatment house prices are undergoing, is the fact that the banks have abused their position as lenders, speculated wildly in markets and products in which they had no understanding of the risks, and now we the public are supposed to be paying through our taxes to keep them afloat.

As a result of the fact that the banks and financial houses are sitting on a carelessly stacked wobbling deck of completely opaque financial products, nobody knows where all the debt is. It's sort of like playing pass the parcel where everyone has a parcel, and a few of the parcels have booby-trapped bombs inside - except nobody playing the game thought to check before starting. The music has stopped, everyone has been left holding a package, and nobody wants to open theirs. Everyone wants to pass their package on, but nobody wants to take anybody else's. Endless stalemate - and the dissipation of trust that results means that the banks are not lending anything, to anybody.

In short, the banks totally irresponsible game of pass-the-parcel in the hope of astronomical profits has led them into a cul-de-sac where they are terrified to loan to anyone - they may need all the cash they can possibly lay their hands on when they are finally forced to take their grubby little grabbing hands and open their little parcels.

Without banks prepared to loan, there can be no mortgage approvals. Without mortgage approvals, the only way is down.

Minus 39 percent, and falling...

Chic, Billy Brag, and Electric Picnic 2009

Last Friday was the first one in a while with no Friday tune – the reason being that I was out of town, visiting Electric Picnic in County Laois. If there was a weblink for County Laois, I'd link it - but Laois isn't that sort of place.

I haven’t been to a festival for years – in fact I haven’t stayed as a punter overnight at a festival ever (only when I’ve been working) so it was interesting to see it from the other side.

The EP forums show a mixture of reviews, from great reviews of bands to dodgy reviews of the sound on some stages, and some concerns that there were less random art happenings going on than recent years, prices of food were high, the bad weather was dealt with too little and too late, and security was arbitrary and didn’t seem knowledgeable. Some of these things, EP may have to look at for next year – particularly some unsavoury crowd elements who people seemed to think were a bit more in evidence this year than last year. The beauty of the festival is that it’s not like rival festy Oxygen - it's more chilled, more arty, appears less commercially inclined, and has a friendlier crowd - they need to work hard to keep it that way. Reducing the capacity slightly, and turning the lineup slightly more non-mainstream might be a couple of subtle ways they can influence the crowd that are attracted.

That said, I had a great time. Great music, good sound if you stood in half-sensible places, lots of different stuff going on (like the tent with the Hookah on the right - I didn't get a Hookah, but we did grab some Brandy Chais later on Sunday when the relentlessness started to tell), and what I thought was reasonably priced food etc. I would also say that the €3 deposit on the plastic beer glasses was a brilliant judgment – I didn’t see one left around all weekend, so loud applause on that front.

Another great thing is being with an Irish crowd, particularly at a 'boutique' festival like this - it's very, very friendly even when it's massive. Generally, it's just lots of people having a great time.


To the music, and first up was Lykke Li. I’d never seen her before, and she was wearing some weird black thingy that didn’t really stick out in a dark tent with a dark background, but… she was really good live. Fascinating tunes (she’s a bit nuts), loads of energy, and really interesting. She’s got a mad haunting voice. I’d go see her again in a second.

Then we caught a bit of Seasick Steve on the main stage. The main stage didn’t work quite as well as the tents – the atmosphere wasn’t contained and amplified in the same way, which may have been something to do with the weather not being amazing, but he’s got mad energy and is a lot of fun.

Next up were Rodrigo y Gabriela, a duo from Mexico City with amazing acoustic guitar skills. They had the tent up and rocking, although for some reason I couldn’t quite put my finger on, it didn’t feel quite right. I think it’s that they would have been much better in a smaller venue – there was a weird mismatch between the music and the size of the tent, and it didn’t ever sit quite right, despite the fact that they were great.

Last act I grabbed on Friday night was Orbital, who somehow I’ve managed to avoid seeing live for the last 10-15 years. A properly seminal duo from the fledgling UK house scene of the late 80s and early 90s, they backdropped broken jackhammer machine beats with surprisingly melodic weaving synthlines, and it was this accessible sound that helped them to propel house and techno into the consciousness of the public at large. They were good, very slick, and played all the big tunes. My only problem with them now is that they are living off a back catalogue from a decade ago. It’s already a bit nostalgic for a music act - they need to write some new tunes, or they will turn into a touring glass museum case. And they should write some new tunes, because they do the live electronics thing more engagingly than nearly anyone else when they are on it. Here’s vintage Orbital – booked as the first ‘dance’ act ever to headline at Glastonbury in 1994, they shredded the place. Amazing times - this is "Chime"...

Apart from that, I saw a tiny bit of Madness on the main stage, who were doing the Madness thing – you’d probably have to be down the front for it really to work. Or perhaps better weather would have yielded a more Madness-friendly atmosphere...

Practically my only must-see of the weekend was Billy Brag, and I managed to see his entire set. He was as usual, direct (just him and a guitar), soulful, and of course had a little bit of politics sprinkled about, including a couple of digs at the second Irish vote on the European Lisbon treaty that’s upcoming, a vote of confidence on Obama’s ability to deliver universal health care, and loads of other stuff. And as usual, he was absolutely brilliant – I just never get tired of seeing him and listening to him.


Here’s Billy playing at SXSW, with a nearly completely rewritten version of “Great Leap Forwards” for the US audience. He lasts on the original for about one verse, and then suddenly he’s off into military spending, universal healthcare, double standards in democratic participation and media complicity. Mostly without missing a beat on the guitar either.

Billy Brag is a legend, and he's a knowledgeable and an active one at that. An inspiration.

Saving the best till last – playing inside a huge tent on Saturday evening, were Chic.

There’s not much I can find to say about this – they were one of the most amazing bands I’ve ever seen. Masses of people on stage, phenomenal singers, great drums and bass, horns, seriously funky guitar, and I’ve nearly never heard a band sounding so tight and rehearsed – they had it nailed.


And the back catalogue – to die for. Chic were famous for their hits “Le Freak” and my personal favourite “Good Times”, (which in it’s later sampled format helped the Sugarhill Gang drag hip-hop off the block and launch it kicking and screaming into the stratosphere with the outrageous sampling lift that was “Rappers Delight”). But aside from music that Chic actually recorded, they also produced the Sister Sledge album “We are family”, Diana Ross’ “Diana” (featuring the stunning ‘Upside Down’), David Bowie’s “Let’s Dance” (could they write basslines or what?!), Duran Duran, Madonna. On and on it goes.

And they played half of these in the tent. We are family, Upside Down, Let’s Dance, Le Freak, Good Times, just insane. They were instrumental in disco, one of their tracks helped put hip-hop where it is, and together with Bootsy, Kraftwerk, Roland and Yamaha, they are partially responsible for birthing house and techno. It’s long past time for Chic to get some serious recognition.


So seeing as a nice person already has it up on youtube, here (while it lasts) is a recording from inside the tent. The camera mic clearly isn’t up to the bass, but you get the picture.

And dance we did. We all did. Come back Chic…

Jordi Forniés - "Tír na nÓg" (land of eternal youth)

Dublin people - you will need to be quick to catch this, but I highly recommend you do go and have a look.

Jordi Forniés is exhibiting again in Dublin, for the briefest of times, and his stuff is really great.

Mixed media paintings, with a variety of materials (canvas, paint, latex, plastic, concrete, gold leaf, you name it!) used in ways which makes the paintings amazingly physical and three-dimensional.

I bought a "Jordi" last year, and ever since it has formed the inspirational backdrop to my work in the music studio. Highly worth it, and much more compelling in the flesh than you would imagine, even if you're not an art person (and I'm not, really).

The latest exhibition, "Tír na nÓg" (which translates as "Land of eternal youth") runs in Filmbase, Curved Street, Temple Bar, Dublin 2, from July 26th to July 30th.

The evolution of a Ryanair fare

Thinking about a flight in Europe? Why not choose Ryanair, the self-appointed "low-fares airline"?

Now the thing is, Ryanair was cheap - you could get genuinely rock-bottom fares, reasonable service (well, it was good enough!), it ran to time, check-in bags were free, and so on. Well things have changed - and with the airline industry in turmoil, and Ryanair cutting routes and grounding planes this year, it does somehow seem that they are pushing passengers to squeeze the last bit of margin out that they can, and see how far they can go before they strangle the golden goose.

I decided to have a look for a return flight from Dublin to Edinburgh recently, and see how it stacked up.

So first step - give lots of notice - so I chose October, a clear 3 months away. Secondly, shop around for a cheap day, and a cheap fare. And I got them - going out on a Friday, and back on a Sunday no less!

So what is the fare? €9.99 each way. €19.98 total - beautiful!

Well... not quite. You see, I forgot that that does not include "taxes and fees". It turns out that "Taxes and Fees" amount to €33.37 on the way out, and €30.65 on the way back! Hold on - that means my €19.98 fare is now €84?

If only.

Here's the breakdown of the extra taxes and fees for both directions:

And nicely summarised:

Ok, I see the Taxes/Fees (whatever they are - I'll come back to that). But €94? Where did the extra €10 come from?

That would be the Ryanair web check in scam. A bit of history needed here...

On Ryanair flights originally you checked in at an airport checkin desk, like a normal flying human. Then, they brought in the amazing web check in, so that you could print your own boarding pass, thus not needing to check in at the desk at all. Major staff cost-saving for Ryanair! So, to thank the passenger for checking in online and saving the airline money, they gave you a saving (or rather they penalised the normal check in passenger), by making it free to check in online, but introducing a charge for a normal desk check in.

Well, fair enough - a bit mean, but you have the choice. Well not any more - they have just done away with the check in desks altogether. So the vast majority of passengers now have to check in online. Ok, but online check in is free so that's not so bad, right? Wrong - because now that you have no choice, Ryanair charge you €5 per-flight to check in online.

So having saved the staff costs (that means reduced hours or lost jobs to me and you) involved in a check in desk, and bribed you to help them do so by incentivising you to do online check in, Ryanair are now going to stick it to you by charging you €5 per flight, per person, for the privilege of printing your own boarding pass. Brilliant.

While we're on this little scam, here's another thing - the ticket price is €9.99. If I have to online check in, and I have to pay the €5 for my own time and effort in doing it, why is the €5 check in fee not built in to the ticket price? This is the last straw for me with Ryanair - the stage where deliberate opacity becomes outright deception. The €5 is a known, predictable cost, and effectively a non-tax, non-optional part of my ticket price - so it should be built in to the ticket price, so I can see immediately what I'm actually paying.

Next, you'll notice in the above summary of charges image, that there's a little blue link next to the "Taxes/Fees" line item, so that you can get details [sic] on what the taxes and fees are. Me being the curious sort, I clicked on it - and here is the genius explanation of the taxes and fees that go to make up the €33.37 on the outbound flight:


So, for those that are curious about how the €33.37 Taxes and Fees break down, this should forever answer all your questions. €27.38 of that "Taxes and Fees" total is... Tax and Fees. I'm not sure it could be more of a deliberate non-explanation if it tried. Either Ryanair have mislabeled the window, and €27.38 is pure tax - OR they are deliberately or otherwise concealing the fees details from the customer.

As for the €5.99 "Insurance/Wheelchair Levy/Aviation Insurance", I have a couple questions - firstly, why are two types of Insurance listed, and secondly, if this is a constant cost, why is it not included in the basic ticket price?

Anyway, with my €19.98 ticket running at €94, it's time to get this thing booked before I choose "Priority Boarding" or something stupid.

So - it's on to baggage and Insurance (hold on - haven't I been charged for two types of insurance already?). Anyway:
Trying to keep costs down, I decide to check in no bag, and take no travel insurance. (Incidentally, a single check in bag would be €10 each way, catapulting my ticket to €114). As for the travel insurance, it no longer selects travel insurance by default, but it does make you select from a drop down list, with "No Travel Insurance Required" buried in the middle. Maybe ok for younger types like me, but the no-insurance option should really be the default - for an older person trying to book a flight, what are the chances of them inadvertently purchasing and paying for travel insurance they don't need?

Ok, so we are done - time to check out. The checkout section is ready to go, showing our €94 total:


So I choose to pay by Visa...


And it's suddenly €104. Another extra €10. And the explanation for this, would be what exactly?

Oh - it's a handling fee. One of those handling fees that only applies to a Visa transaction (although there are lower fees for bank debit cards etc). The thing that I cannot figure out, is this: if it's a charge for going through Visa, then how come this charge is applied once for every person, for every flight? For instance, if I buy a return for two people, I'm charged four Visa handling charges!

Are Ryanair so inefficient that they process my card two separate times to get the payment for a return flight? (I checked my statement, no they are not - they are simply charge you two Visa handling fees, for one Visa transaction)

Anyway, flight booked, and I can only be glad that I started out with the cheap €9.99 fare.

Because even with no check-in bags, online check-in only, no travel insurance, and no priority boarding, a €19.98 ticket is equal to a €104 charge when you fly with Ryanair the "Low Fares [sic] Airline"

Across 110th Street on the Emerald Isle

Here's a stunning performance by Bobby Womack, with a double-header of songs - California Dreaming, and the incredible "Across 110th Street", which is as relevant today as it was the day it was written (1973).

I've always found something quite magnetic about "Across 110th Street" - it explains urban decay and what follows more accurately than any dry text is likely to, and it's an amazingly soulful song. With Womack's voice, it's even better, and this performance with just an acoustic guitar is about as good as it gets.

It's a timely song as well, and it's a warning following the insane property bubble and unhindered development that's been happening in Ireland for the last 15 years. This frenzy of development was one of the first things that struck me when I moved to Ireland in 2003 - building of shoddy housing estates, on the extreme periphery of cities, and some of the larger towns. This is exactly what happened in Scotland back in the 60s with the concrete tower blocks - which were the great new thing at the time. The problem is that the estates typically don't get finished, you can't walk to anything or anywhere, public transport is patchy, and viable and plentiful services such as schools, shops, and a proper sense of community are never developed.

Take a very poorly positioned housing estate that sprawls for miles and is walking distance to nowhere, fail to complete it, fail to put in public transport, fail to add shops, gardens, parks and community, and then throw in a price crash trapping owner-occupiers on the estate, and a recession with job losses sapping them of any money they might have remaining, and watch the inevitable outcome.

A lot of people in dream housing estates are going to find themselves across 110th street in the next few years...

Waveriders

Went to see Waveriders last night - it's a film about surfing in Ireland, and particularly, the journey of the son of an Irishman in Hawaii who came back to California, popularised surfing, and nearly invented lifeguarding.

It's a good film - there are some great moments, like the multi-year world champion Kelly Slater taking to the Irish water (how easy does he make it look?). There's also epic footage of Aileen's at the base of the cliffs of Moher. Is there a more shapely big wave on the planet?

Anyway it's all great stuff, and I highly recommend going to see...