At 11:00 I was having lunch. Tuna in mayonnaise with sweetcorn on brown bread. The bread was home-made by a company that pretends to be a little old lady. The rest was away-made by fish, fowl and farmers.

It was gorgeous. So much so it made me feel guilty. You know. All the starving children. In the crèche in the village. They don’t get lunch until 12:30 the poor little mites.

Ah yes. The kiddies. The Irish Times was fretting about them too. Its Education Today section was in Tuesday’s edition. The Noticeboard carried information about upcoming events of interest to those about to leave school - an open day at the Racing Academy and Centre of Education for anyone thinking of a career in horse racing. There was even a URL for the RACE website. Fair play to the IT - it is not so long ago the same piece would have read something like more details available on the RACE website, with no link. Find it if you can.

Such a pity though these kids can’t access the Education Today section without paying a subscription fee.

The IT seems caught in a Lanigan’s Ball loop of stepping out then stepping back in again when it comes to technology.

At times, it meets new challenges with foresight and vigour, as it did many years ago when they it became the first Irish newspaper to launch an online presence. Then it shoots itself in that same foot that it struck out so confidently, as it did when it began charging for its online content.

Recently the IT admitted its website is struggling to break even. Surprise, surprise.

Madam

If you provide content for free the advertisers will be lining up in droves to give you their money. Even if you only open the archives you’ll make a killing.

Yours etc.

The Sneeze

The IT never seems to realise the commercial value of the Internet. Perhaps they fear the Internet. Or they simply don’t understand it.

On the one hand, it has some of the best technology writers in Karlin Lillington, Danny O’Brien and Mike Butcher. On the other, it has Colin Murphy saying things that many bloggers like to share their thoughts on politics, the media, popular culture and their toilet habits.

The Irish Times’ editorial policy on, and understanding of, blogging is confusing to say the least. Wednesday’s edition carried an opinion piece on Taoiseach Brian Cowen’s Irish language policy, written by none other than the blogger An Spailpín Fánach. The Education Section on Tuesday had some Leaving Cert related snippets entitled Blog tales which had quotes from leaving-cert.net (a blog authored by three eloquent school-goers), walsho.net (an equally eloquent one-manstudent blog) and, get this, boards.ie. Yes! boards.ie! boards.ie! Since when are message boards blogs? Is an IM an email? Is a magazine a newspaper? No. They might share a certain traits but they are not the same.

To further confuse matters, the IT hosts very popular blogs by three of its own journalists: Jim Carroll’s On the Record, Shane Hegarty’s Present Tense and Conor Pope’s Price Watch. Yet Conor’s column in the print edition invites readers to offer feedback, with options like phone, post, email or blog it! * So leaving a comment on Conor’s blog makes one a blogger? Eh, no. If that were the case then writing a letter to the editor would make one a journalist.

I cannot help but suspect that The Irish Times is deliberately muddying the waters in order to distract the non-tech-savvy from blogs. Who do they think they are fooling? I don’t care if the little old lady who makes my bread is actually a company if it tastes good - though it would be nice if they admitted it. I don’t care if the IT source a quote from a message board if it’s worth reading - though it would be nice if they didn’t call the source a blog.

Why are they bothering anyway? The bread complements the tuna perfectly. Neither are as good on their own.

* That could be blog on.

Let me ask you this: What do you, the regulars, read when you arrive at this blog? I could ask why, but let’s start with the easy one.

The answer is the latest post(s) and comments. That would make sense - you want to read the latest. Let’s call it the news.

There is a bunch of other junk accessible by the menu at the top of the page: About, FAQ, Mo Rogha etc. Do you / have you read these? The answer is you may have flicked through one or two at some point but seldom, if ever, opened them again. You may check Mo Rogha once a week for an update - for the news. But you don’t want the same stuff rehashed over and over again.

Now what about those of you who come upon this blog for the first time - what do you read? Well, you read the first page of posts, maybe the second. You click randomly on the other junk. Some of you click on a subject of interest in Sneeze Types. Based on this, you decide whether to return or not. Fair enough. You can’t be expected to read every damn thing. It’s not as if you are a judge for some awards thing and have to read everything in case you’d be accused of judging a book by its cover.

How can I say all this? From my stats of course. The trends are clearly visible. Regulars read the news while newcomers read a small sample. Actually, now that I notice it, almost all judges for awards things read exactly the same way as newcomers. But that’s okay, because judges have certain powers that allow them see content through a book’s covers.

My point is this: If you read a blog or newspaper regularly then all that interests you is what’s new - the news. The Irish Independent was slipping for a long time and finally lost my readership when it ran front page stories about the death of someone unknown outside the dinner party circle. To me, this simply was not news.

Following a brief and passionate affair with the Irish Examiner, I decided to settle down and spend the rest of my life with the Irish Times. No, I didn’t love her, but she was the best I could get. I would grow to love her.

Sadly, this relationship is failing too. On Saturday, Madam (as we must address her) announced “major developments”. I won’t bother inserting a link as you need pay an expensive subscription to view the article. Yes, even this article, an advertisement, intended to tell us how great her paper will be, is pay-per-view.

So what are these major development? Basically, magazines and supplements (which are magazines on poor quality paper). Maga-fukin-zines. Every fukin day. As if my recycle bin isn’t already under enough pressure, now Madam wants to burden it with more. Madam, I DO NOT WANT a health magazine. I DO NOT WANT a property magazine. I DO NOT WANT a motors magazine.

I WANT NEWS. I want news from a newspaper. Just like I want news from the blogs I read.

If Madam wants to dish out more fodder for my recycle bin, fine - I’ll work something out. But here’s the insult to the injury: It will cost 10¢ extra Monday through Friday and 30¢ extra on Saturday for all the extra junk I just don’t want. Why can’t I just have a newspaper? If I feel the urge to read a Guide to the 100 Best Wines why I can’t go buy it separately? Once I’ve read it I won’t have to read it again for a year - the interim issues will just be rehashing the same stories.

»» In the list of top 20 programmes favoured by 20 to 44-year-olds, audiences are increasingly turning to Today FM. Half of the top 20 shows are Today FM shows – the Ray D’Arcy Show is number two with this younger audience after Gerry Ryan, who takes the top slot, with 248,000 and 327,000 listeners respectively. [Source: BCI-JNLR survey - November, 2007]

»» Ryan and D’Arcy are two of the biggest gobshites ever to blow spit into a microphone - There are 575,000 gobshites listening to spittle in Ireland in the 20 to 44-year-old age group. [Source: Primal Sneeze - February, 2008]

Ryan, I could never take seriously since the lamb episode. Of all the voices on the national airwaves, only Joe Duffy’s grates more on my ears, and his Oprahesque treatment of topics is the only reason I can see for his show running 3 hours instead of one. One minute. The man uses more unnecessary adjectives than you’d read in a schoolgirl’s essay.

D’Arcy. His show’s a bit like Viz - Not as good as it used to be. At least Viz coined the slogan and they pride themselves in it.

I admit to being a mad fan years back when Martin Maguire was the producer. I’m no longer a fan. Just mad. And everyone involved with the show seems to be a producer these days. Maybe it’s a case of too many cooks or maybe Martin was a strong leader and made D’Arcy toe the line. I don’t know. All I know is that I seldom turn on the radio in the mornings.

I did tune in briefly on Friday while in the car. D’Arcy was disgusted that anyone would use a towel a second time. That didn’t surprise me - he’s a girl when it comes to hygiene. Actually he is a girl, so I just giggled like a girl back at the radio. I make myself laugh sometimes.

The next earth shattering topic was the Irish for gloves. A listener, a tradesman, was working outdoors in a Gaeltacht village and needed to buy some urgently. Someone suggested lámhainní via text. Someone else suggested miotóga. Neither D’Arcy, who worked briefly with Radió na Gaeltachta, nor co-presenter Jenny Kelly, who was winner of TG4’s Ní Gaelgóir Mé, could pronounce them. Well they actually could, but feigned inability. D’Arcy has become more Gaelophobic over the years. Maybe he thinks it’s hip and cool, and is what his listeners want. But my blood boiled when they positively bubbled with mutual appreciation of their failing. Christ on a bike, it’s not that difficult! Law-v-knee. Mi(t)-toe-ga. There. Now you have them in pronounceable body parts.

For me, the camel’s back was well and truly bollixed long before Friday. His increasingly I’m-open-minded, as-long-as-you-believe-what-I-do attitude led to the dromedary’s demise. Christ on another bike, get a blog if you want to be like that, man!

I cried as the poor camel breathed its last in August when he interviewed fellow blogger, Niall O’Keeffe, about Shitedrivers.com. A radio presenter himself, and well used to speaking, Niall couldn’t get a word in. D’Arcy was convinced Shitedrivers.com would glorify joyriders and boyracers and that was it. Adolescents would upload videos of themselves doing doughnuts and such. Niall tried to explain the registration and moderation processes. No! D’Arcy knew all about the Internet (like John Waters does) and there would be an endless stream of kids lining up to do crazy antics for the camera. And how will the site help reduce road deaths? Niall tried explain that wasn’t its aim. No, no, no. D’Arcy knew it wouldn’t do any good - there’d just be videos of car stunts. How Niall didn’t rip the big bobble head off the midget I don’t know.

Niall wasn’t the first, nor was he the last, to be subjected to D’Arcy’s pontifications. If he wants to play pope and issue Papal Bulls, then fine, let him. Waters does it all the time. But the funny thing is D’Arcy genuinely believes he is a fair interviewer. He tells the listeners he is often enough. I think I gave so-and-so his chance. I just asked him the questions you, the listeners, wanted answered. How many times have I heard this? Why the bull to accompany the Bull? If he needs explain himself, then surely something is wrong.

As for the 327,000 gobshites listening to the other eejit, well, they’re a lost cause altogether - lambs to Gerry Ryan’s slaughter so to speak. More worrying, is that 248,000 247,999 of 20 to 44-year-olds in Ireland don’t seem to see anything wrong with Pope D’Arcy the First either.

Contrast these three snippets from recent Irish newspaper articles. (Headlines underlined)

Katy on life support after heart attacks

… Katy’s failure to respond to treatment is viewed as so serious that doctors have ruled out moving her to a more acute hospital in Dublin … Close friends revealed Katy was …

Read the full piece from the Irish Examiner.

Tragic Katy dies in sister’s arms

… Katy’s heartbroken parents were also at her bedside … A team of consultants are understood to have examined Katy in Our Lady’s Hospital yesterday afternoon.

Read the full piece from Irish Independent.

Top model Katy French dies in Navan hospital

… Ms French (24) was taken to Our Lady’s Hospital in Navan … French celebrated her 24th birthday …

Read the full piece from the Irish Times.

Spot the difference? Top marks if you noticed the third one is journalism. I don’t know what you’d call the other two, but certainly not journalism.

The Irish Times is the only paper that has covered this saga impartially and professionally over the last few days. They have not lowered themselves to the lovey dovey style of familiarity the others have.

And rightly so. I didn’t know this woman. I never heard of her until this happened. You probably didn’t either unless you read society/gossip columns and their ilk. Being seen at parties and functions doesn’t achieve anything. It doesn’t stop wars, feed the hungry, advance life-saving technology. Not even help old ladies across the road or cats down out of trees. Nothing. So why the familiarity?

There are few exceptions for reporting on a first name basis. One was the Robert Holohan case. A child was missing and later found dead in a ditch. The whole nation empathised. The whole nation worried. The whole nation was united. Lines like “Robert is now missing three days” were acceptable. No, we didn’t know him, but it was as if we did, because we could imagine what his family and friends were going through. Our genetic programming triggers protective responses where the young are concerned. “Robert is now missing three days” = “A helpless child is now missing three days”.

This is not the case here. Despite its flaws, it would seem the Irish Times is the sole surviving newspaper in Ireland.

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.