Strong Language
Irish Times – Cents & Nonsense
Numbers don’t add up
Announcer: Now, ladies and gentleman, it’s time for the show you’ve all been waiting for – The €38,000 Question! Many thanks to our sponsor, the Taxpayer! Our competition sees the “Leaders” pitted against the “Little People”. In tonight’s exciting show, An Taoiseach, Bertie Ahern, and Tánaiste and Minister for Finance Brian Cowen, will test their [...]
Get rich, quick!
Scene: Grafton Street in the early to mid-noughties. A man, wearing his hair slicked back and an expensive dark Italian suit, steps up to a golden podium and speaks into the microphone: “Feel left behind? Need a spring in your step and a designer watch on your wrist? Ladies, want to look 10 years younger? [...]
Balancing books
Every one of them has a story to tell. Some are quiet and introspective, others brash. Even though they have loads of personality, without anyone to talk to, they are really very lonely. Many feel used. In most cases, it’s been years since anyone touched them or put their hand on their spine and pulled [...]
Giving pensions the hard sell
Fri, Aug 10, 2007 Cake or cat food? That’s what you brought me here to see: a big, glossy advertisement with an outstretched pair of hands holding a rich chocolate cake in one hand and a manky bit of cat food in the other? Ad exec: We think that it really drives the message home. [...]
Welfare as tragi-farce
Friday, July 13, 2007 Scene: A social welfare office in Ballythisis- progress. Ten staffed customer-service hatches line the far wall. The first person in the queue, a very nervous, bald, middle-aged man, looks down at his wet, scuffed shoes. Behind a shiny glass partition, two Government ministers sit back-to-back to ensure a full view of [...]
We cannot run from it – age will wither them
Friday, June 29, 2007 Grandpa broke out of the Carousel yesterday. Everyone else was excited by the night’s colourful, explosive finale but he couldn’t stand the thing so he just ran and ran. It took some planning with the plastic surgery and all, but it looks like he might actually make it to Sanctuary. Grandpa [...]
Kids of prey
Friday, June 15, 2007 The vultures fly ever closer to the large brown object slumped in the shade of a small tree. The mighty wildebeest is too old and tired to keep up with the great annual migration across the Serengeti plains. When the predators get him – sooner rather than later – the birds [...]
Bitter pill
Friday, June 1, 2007 The candy man was the only thing on my mind when I shuffled my egg-shaped body through the door. I was huge and those transactions – I mean contractions – really slayed me, writes Margaret E. Ward. From the exact moment I became a wild animal in a cage or, to [...]
Birthday presence of mind
Friday, May 25, 2007 The blindfolded girl holds a stick in her tiny hands. She whooshes it through the air until she makes contact with the brightly coloured bull-shaped piñata. Thwack. A harder thwack. No joy. The bigger boy steps up and takes his best hurling-style swing to its cardboard belly. The bull yields, spilling [...]
Speak out
Fri, May 18, 2007 The line is busy again. Ok, now I’m through but I’m on hold. The automated bank branch voice comes on: “Press 1 to buy our latest high-cost, low-profit investment product. Press 2 to become a credit slave. Press 3 to wait on hold for an hour and then be disconnected. Cash-cows, [...]
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