It is not all that long ago that Ireland’s farmers were showered with grants for hedgerow removal. The reasoning was simple: taking out the hedges, filling in the ditches and laying new drainage systems meant larger field size and more arable surface area. Tillage farmers could use bigger, faster and more efficient machinery, and they could use it more efficiently as a machine covers more area in an hour the less times it must turn at a headland. Hedgerows on headlands also impeded crop production - they shade the crop and lower yield, and weed and pest infestation is more prevalent there.

In ways they were unwittingly shooting themselves in the foot. The hedgerows acted as natural barriers to insects and fungal pathogens. The artificial drainage systems, no matter how well engineered, seldom worked as well as the natural. Sheep farmers complained of foxes taking more lambs that usual. With the ditches and banks gone, so too were the rabbit burrows and the foxes had to find alternative food.

They were also destroying the habitat of so many animal, bird and insect species. Insects! you say. To hell with them. Horrible little annoying things that get in my hair while I’m out walking. Ever stopped to think what the pretty little birdies you so admire on your walks eat? I haven’t seen figures yet, but I can guess that many fledglings hatched this year died before leaving the nest, or shortly after, because their parents, or they themselves, couldn’t source enough food during the cold wet summer.

But were the farmers wrong? Not when you consider they were being advised by the experts and encouraged by the authorities- the EU. Were those experts and authorities wrong? Not when you consider that was the accepted wisdom of the day. There were an abundance of alternative habitats pre-Celtic Tiger when the population was lower and very few roads, commercial premises and houses were being built. The farmers were ill advised and the experts mistaken.

Once those errors were realised, actually a long time after they were, steps were taken to reverse the damage. The non-farming community were aghast that farmers would be paid to leave land idle under the set-aside scheme. It took a few years, but a lot of species recovered. I could see this myself. The REPS (Rural Environmental Protection Scheme) came later and went unnoticed by the general population. Substantial payments are be made for ensuring the preservation of wildlife habitats including hedgerows. This had an even greater effect.

Now I’m not a farmer, but the place here is bordered by hedges planted by my grandfather in the 1930’s. The roadside section is barren - the volume of traffic keeps all wildlife away from it. But the back, a stretch of about 180m, is high and wide. Some would say overgrown, but I say natural. Hawthorn flowers white as if weighed down by a blanket of snow. From my window I see branches drooping under a heavy load of red berries. Both wonderful sights, the second for birds too.

[Did you get this far, by the way? Or did all the talk of farming send you away?]

My problem is the Council are on my case to trim the front one. They have a legal right to insist, but it wouldn’t be an issue if they hadn’t resurfaced and widened the road, without consultation and all done for the Ryder Cup, but with the knock-on effect of trebling traffic volumes. It’s strange they are quoting the law now, yet encouraged land owners to trim their hedges before the legal September 1 date last year so as to have them looking pretty for the golf tourists.

But I can give in on this - it’s barren anyway as I say. My greater issue is the back hedgerow. Some of it has to be cut down to about 1m because of the house extension. I can relent on this too. But I am coming under pressure from my perfectionist builder who is insisting that the remainder will look bad if the rest is trimmed. Some of the neighbours have commented too, in their own subtle way - what are you going to do with that overgrown pile of shite, Primal? I have fobbed them off as politely as possible until now - mind your own business, ya interfering auld bollix.

They are right though. It will be an eyesore. If I am to cut it then January or February would be best. The birds would not go without their winter food supply and it would thicken up enough in time for nesting. But that would mean getting the hedge cutter in twice which is more costly - he’d have to re-trim the front to match. Plus the land is dry now and could be a swam come January.

Cut it now and be damned, you say. There are plenty of other hedges out there for the birds. There are wildlife reserves for them. But isn’t that passing the buck? Saying it’s not my fault, I had to do it - a common trait of late in Ireland. BSE as one of the papers called it yesterday - blame somebody else.

And if you’d ever taken a stroll with me at dawn when all is quiet you’d smile to see the birds feeding or nest building where they were meant to. For me, that is a far greater joy than watching them use an artificial birdhouse or feeder.

All the media carried news of the EU’s decision to abandon plans to finally end the use of imperial measurements. It was lauded as a victory for the so called Metric Martyrs in the UK. (Surely that should be Imperial Martyrs as that is their cause not the metric system. Who ever heard of Roman Martyrs being fed to the lions because they were Christian?)

The Diageo were delighted too - the pubs can continue to serve pints of Guinness. The UK can keep their road signs in miles. Gold can still be traded in troy ounces.

It is important to note that this ruling applies to no other unit of measurement. The UK can still print 1 lb on their butter packaging but must also show the metric equivalent. I have not found an article that mentions acres and hectares but I assume the story is the same. Not that any estate agent uses what we call packaging when selling land. They use other ways and means.

The Irish Independent seemed overjoyed at the news although they regretfully admitted it was too late for Ireland to revert back to miles on road signs. (I’ll post the link tomorrow - the Indo make searching yesterday’s paper all but impossible unless the piece you want is in the most-read or most-emailed bracket).

So overjoyed was the Independent that they lost the run of themselves. Another article was on the heart-warming story of two-year-old Giedrute Kaledaite who travelled 25 miles as a stowaway on board a bus before being detected and reunited with her parents. I’m sure the Kaledienes, who are originally from Lithuania, had to whip out their calculator to understand just how far their daughter had journeyed.

Now high as a kite on imperial measurements, the Independent ran a piece about how Irish teenagers are taller and fatter than their predecessors. The average 14-year-old boy is now four stone heavier than his grandfather weighed when he was the same age, it reported. And while their grandfather in 1948 had an average height of 4ft 9ins, today’s 14-year-old stands at around 5ft 6ins tall. What teen reading this would have the slightest clue how heavy 4 stone is or how tall 5ft 6ins is? If the message to teens is about obesity then it will not get through using imperial measurements.

All of us under the age of 42 or so were schooled in the metric system. We were never taught about stones, pounds and ounces. We wouldn’t know how many yards or feet there are in a mile.

We do have a sense of how long a mile is having having had road signs in that unit until recent times. We know what a pint is for obvious reasons. Some of us may have been apprenticed to a tradesman who insisted we use feet and inches. Some may have lived in the UK and US and had to adopt to their measurements. But most under 40’s do not have a solid grasp of imperial measurement.

The Irish Independent needs to realise that, EU decision or not, metric is the statutory standard of this country. By using imperial that newspaper is alienating it’s readers.

A school in Co. Mayo has banned students without a full driving licence from bringing cars onto the school grounds. It makes sense when you consider that few, or more likely none, would be on their 2nd provisional licence - for a learner permit to drive a car in Ireland you have to be 17 - the age of the majority of senior cycle pupils. As stupid as the law may be, only learner drivers on their 2nd provisional, are permitted to drive unaccompanied. For 1st, 3rd and subsequent licenses you must be accompanied by a fully-licensed driver at all times.

Therefore, leaving aside the health and safety aspect, the school has a good nimby case in that students driving to school unaccompanied are breaking the law. The regulation was proposed by the Parents’ Association and was welcomed by Co. Mayo’s Road Safety Officer.

Yet the decision, as reported by the Irish Independent, “has been blasted by parents who claim the rule is ‘old fashioned’ in an age when both parents are usually working and the waiting time for full licences is in the region of 28 to 30 weeks”.

Oh, so I get it now: Mick and Mary Murphy can’t take Mick Junior to school because they are too busy. He can’t ride his bike or walk in case he gets wet - this is Mayo after all and it rains a lot. Or maybe it’s just too far - this is Mayo after all and it’s rural. Or is it? Claremorris is quite a big town and most students would hail from there. Perhaps there is no bus service. You see, I just don’t know, but in their eyes, the Murphy’s have some valid excuse to let Mick Junior break the law.

I’m puzzled as to how young Pat Murphy gets to school. Does he get driven by his big brother? Maybe Mick Junior won’t take him and he walks or cycles - he’s young and the rain and distance don’t bother him. They didn’t bother Mick Junior at that age either. And there’s always the bus if it rains or he’s running late. No, there can’t be a bus or they’d both be using it instead of breaking the law.

And anyway, cry the Murphys, he wouldn’t have to break the law if the waiting time for driving tests were shorter. 28 to 30 weeks is scandalous. If our Mick got his test in the morning he’d pass with flying colours.

Now I’m getting a better handle on this: It’s the government’s fault for your son being forced to break the law. Well fret no longer - the Road Safety Authority have announced a number of privately run test centres for the country to reduce the backlog. Mick Junior won’t have to wait longer than 10 weeks, he’ll pass his test, get a full license and be a law abiding, proficient and safe driver.

Minister Noel Dempsey assures us of this: Road safety is a top priority for this Government. Today’s announcement by the RSA of this significant cut in waiting times for driving tests is very welcome news … I want to see safer drivers on safer roads and fewer tragic road collisions.

Now can Mr. Dempsey, the Murphys or anyone, please, please, please explain to me, in the name of the lord lanterning jayzez, the horse he rode in on, the mother of the six sniffling infants and any other minor deities you wish to call upon, how the fuck does reducing the waiting times make Mick Junior a safer driver and reduce tragic road collisions? Passing an outmoded test doesn’t mean Mick Junior won’t abide by the rules of the road and the law. Enforcement ensures that. That’s why we have the Gardaí. But as they seemingly can’t do that job, I say kudos to St Colman’s College, Claremorris, Co Mayo for enforcing at least one law.

ps. Posting has been sporadic of late - I’ve been moonlighting over at ShiteDrivers.com. Except for the wankers, in the absence of a totally clear commenting policy as yet, posting comments as if it was a kiddies’ message board, it’s an interesting site. Check it out.

A Chinese business man with a sense of humour.

(Even if he is colour blind)

At last some witty graffitti.

(Bear in mind, this is on a mass concrete bridge)

MacKozer has been writing about racism lately. In his latest piece he recounts the story of a Polish man in the UK found guilty of rape and murder despite evidence to the contrary. (The John Cornwell reference in the article can be found here). Prior to this, he wrote about the growing number of homeless immigrants in Ireland and the growth of racism in Western Europe in general. Mac has been personally subjected to excessive abuse on his blog by anonymous trolls.

Kevin Myers, in the Irish Independent, writes of the tidal wave of immigration. While I am not normally a fan of Mr. Myers, he makes some excellent points: 600,000 people arriving on our shores in the last 5 years is the same as 45 million arriving in the US or 9 million in the UK. Such a massive influx over a short period of time has to have an impact. The social fabric changes almost overnight. Incidentally, for once Myers, made me giggle: African after African in Balbriggan complained there were no places for their children in the existing local schools … how could we be expected seven years ago to have planned school-building projects in north county Dublin for Africans as yet unborn?

By the way, Mr. Myers, I suggest you keep this article on your hard-drive as you will get to use it again seven years from now. So few newcomers completed the last census form that we still don’t even know the true population never mind have the data needed to make plans for the future.

Myers is right - racism is not about a country’s inability to provide services for an unforeseen tidal wave. Let’s take this local: Don’t arrive unannounced to my house expecting lunch. My fridge is never well stocked. Call me first and I’ll have something prepared. Or better still, expect not to be offered lunch and eat something before you arrive to keep you going. As MacKozer says, so many [of his country's] people come to Ireland completely unprepared and without money.

MacKozer is right again - racism is about prejudging someone’s character, ability, intelligence, even propensity to crime based on their nationality, colour or creed and treating them differently because of that. Let’s take this local: My close neighbours were burgled this week as they slept. A lot was taken but by far their greatest loss was a family heirloom, a ceremonial sword handed down through generations. We all know how important such things are. Far too many of us know how it feels to have had their home compromised. It is impossible to sleep after such a thing. The whole community offered sympathy - many in person. Yet very few refer to this family as the Malhotras. They are the Indians. Mention the Malhotras and the response is who? Oh, yeah, the Indians. Everyone knows their name but just won’t use it. Is it a subtle way of maintaining distance?

Again, local: A woman called Tylda works in one of the pubs. Try saying the name. It’s easy isn’t it? But the vast majority feign an inability to pronounce it. She is called Tilly, Hilda, Helga and more besides. (I can only guess at what she would be called if her name was Zdzislawa or Ewunia). More commonly she is simply the Polish girl. No name - just a nationality and a gender. Not a person. Over the years there have been a Kate, a Kay, a Katie, a Cáit and a Kathy working there. Yet Kay was never confused with Kate. Nor was she called May.

When I was young, the biggest farm in the area was owned by a German company. The manager, Kurt Schlosser, married and reared a family here, yet twenty years later he was still the German.

Ireland has always been xenophobic and the racism was there before Myers’ tidal wave. It will be there if that wave washes back out. But we need to know what it is. It is not our inability to provide schools for the unforeseen numbers of newcomers’ children or to provide accommodation for immigrants who find themselves homeless through their failure to ensure they have the means to survive until they find work. These are issues we must address, but we are not racist for not having them solved yesterday.

Racism isn’t only about the glaringly obvious: Automatically assuming the foreign party is the guilty one; branding all Muslims terrorists; calling someone a Chink or a Polak; physically attacking an individual because their skin is the wrong colour; paying poor wages for long hours. The good people of Ireland don’t do these things. Oh, no, we condemn these acts. We are not racist, they shout. Yet aren’t the good people of Ireland being just as racist by keeping their new neighbours at a distance; by refusing to get to know them; by failing to nod a greeting when they meet; by pretending not to know their name?

Yesterday took me to a town south of here I hadn’t been to in a long time. A pleasant drive. Fine weather. Good roads. I seen very few idiots, which means I have no new stuff to post on ShiteDrivers.com. But that’s a good thing.

I just had to pick up a cheque. Collecting cheques is my second favourite activity, beaten only by lodging them. I had an address: the name of a road.

The snag was this road is actually a new business park. It is not signposted and everyone I asked was new to the town and hadn’t a clue. But I figured I had reached it when I seen a sign for Rosslare. Don’t laugh - this is Ireland. Interpreting our road signs is a black art you develop over time.

Now to find the office in this jungle. Golden rule: Never phone ahead for directions. Never. Doing this causes cheque books to fall into some parallel universe never to be found again. The element of surprise is key. You have to sneak up on them.

I stopped at the first office I came to and got directions and an erection from the (sizzlingly hot) receptionist. As I left, I heard my name: Primal, be the jayzez! If it isn’t the Sneeze himself. What are you doing here? I had a pain in me arse trying to find a place, came in here to ask, and now I’ve a pain in the front of me trousers from yer one at the desk. What are you doing here? Oh yeah, she’s a stunner right enough. She does it for me too. Anyway, this is my office. This what I’m at now. Com’on in and we’ll have a coffee.

It is about 15 years since I met Dan face to face. We were in college together. Mostly in the college bar. He took me to the canteen, pausing to introduce me to his wife - who was filling in for the receptionist. The temporary blood displacement switched to my face.

I’d been keeping tabs on him in the papers over the years and knew a bit about his company. So once the kids? ages? ever hear from so-and-so? questions and the remember the time stories were out of the way we got talking shop.

I read you’re doing well in Canada and Italy. The Post said actively pursuing overseas opportunities. Very snazzy. The last time you pursued an overseas opportunity it was that German girl who shared a house with Noelle Garvey. A strange combination - the countries, not the girls. How the fek did that come about?

Well my ex-boss, Gerry, was in Toronto on holidays and met a guy on a golf course who was bitching about pumping money down the drain trying to solve a problem. Gerry gave him my email and three months later we had the golfer’s business and six other sites in Ontario. You didn’t tell the papers that? Fek, no. That wouldn’t look right on the business pages. We down-played the golf course bit and played up the subsequent ‘wins’, as they call them.

Italy was a different story. A lad flying from Dublin read a piece about us in the in-flight magazine and called us the minute he hit the tarmac in Rome. I flew out the following morning and we had the site up and running a week later. Must have been a bitch of a job finding Italian speakers to support it from here in just five days. How’d you get around that? It was summer time and we offered a few school teachers mega bucks for a couple of weeks to get us up and running. Not for the papers either. Nope. We told them we had a pool of foreign language speakers to draw from. Which was true in a way - one of them is our young lad’s swimming instructor.

I left Dan an hour later with plans for pints made, collected the cheque and headed home thinking about all I’d learned.

· The old adage about the impossibility of getting lost in Ireland with a tongue in your head no longer applies.
· There’s always a catch with hot and chatty receptionists. If something’s too good to be true, then it isn’t.
· Never believe what you read in the papers.
· No matter how big or how small, business is all about contacts, luck and coping with the unexpected.
· Tesco now do a 3l drum of milk. Oh, I forgot to mention that bit didn’t I.