Eight years ago, at about teatime on a Tuesday, there were 1,700 post offices in Ireland. Today, there are 1,200.

According to the Irish Postmasters’ Union most were closed on the retirement or death of the postmaster and low wages meant no one stepped in to take their place. Most small rural post offices were dependent on dispensing social welfare payments for their survival, but since the boom of the 90s fewer and fewer people were unemployed and many of those that were, opted to receive their payments directly into their bank account.

It was no longer economical for An Post to keep them open. Things changed - An Post had to react to that. The bigger ones survived but not as they were.

The functions we once used the post office for became redundant. Forgive me father for I haven’t penned - it’s 10 years since I wrote my last letter. I filled in forms and posted them - does that count?

Like many around the country, my local post office now offers a wide range of services. (See Table for One) Most of them I have never used. It’s nice to know I can get a Top Up there, whatever that is.

Like many around the country, my local post office would once have been considered rural. With the large influx of new residents it no longer is. Yet it retains that rural ethos.

Mistress Jackie, as our postmaster is affectionately known, does far more than her employer asks of her. (See Table for Two) And no, she’s not some little old lady with her specs on the tip of her nose and cat hair on her geansaí - she’s a 20-something about-to-be-hitched cutie.

An Post (as Postbank) have just launched their Everyday Account (a current account). Once again the list in Table for One has grown. I admit it will be handy having such a service in small towns and villages like ours. The drawback is that as Table for One grows, Table for Two shrinks. Mistress Jackie gets busier and busier, though her own current account remains the same. I just hope she still has time to make that call the next time Mrs. Murphy doesn’t turn up for her pension.

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.

Thursday was bitter cold. Bitter as a 70-year-old virgin. The painter’s fingers quickly turned a Smurf blue as he put masking tape on the windows. I helped as best I could with coaching and encouragement - Another one down, Lar. You’re motoring now. I’m sure he appreciated my assistance though he never said. Must be the silent type I suppose.

~~~~~

He got something in his eye and spent Friday at the hospital. His wife came though. She owns a cleaning company and offered to have the place scrubbed down in lieu of a house-warming gift. That’s a bit of a misnomer seeing as it isn’t a new house, just an extension to an old one. So strictly speaking her services were in lieu of an extension-warming gift. But that sounds like something you’d buy on eBay and hope the postman wouldn’t (mis)read the customs label.

I checked on her at lunchtime. We’re flying, Primal. The windows were a curse though - took hours - them fekin builders never took the tape off them. I suggested she let Lar know that - he’d be very interested. I got a quizzical look. Ok. I was going to call anyway to see how he was getting on with the eye. I made a hasty exit.

~~~~~

The cat turned up on Saturday after a three week absence. He was barely able to walk. Puss (appropriately for a cat) was oozing from a wound on its throat. Obviously there had been a fight and he’d lost and had been lying in a ditch somewhere. Now I hate cats, but I felt sorry for it. Something had to be done.

I called the vet. White male - approximately 3 years old - gangland victim - heavy discharge from infected wound on neck - deep laceration to left foreleg - dehydrated - impaired mobility - possible euthanasia candidate. Okay, Mr. Sneeze. You’d better bring him in. What’s his name? Name? I don’t know. He’s a stray then? No. He was one of three white sibs - Disclaimer, Terms and Conditions. Two died from trafficitis. I could never tell one from the other. Trafficitis? Yeah. Severe trauma to the torso caused by pneumatic tyres on heavy goods vehicles. I see. So what name will I put in the computer? Anonycat. What? Well it’d be stupid to call it Anonymouse.

~~~~~

Nervy Neighbour wanted to have a chat. He was having trouble with Nasty Neighbour again. We could have a pint. Pints are great catalysts for sorting out the woes of the world.

The pub was buzzing but not a barhound in sight. We stood there playing spot-the-barman. One bustled in all hot and bothered. The soccer? The soccer is it? Room down the hall there. Eh, no we w… Oh, the rugby. On in the lounge. No, we ju… Yee’re grand then - the racing’s on here. NO! We just want two fekin pints, ya tool!

That Irish publicans are more interested in sport than drink was another woe we added to the world’s ever growing list.

We hadn’t even gotten to start on the list when Strange Fellow plopped himself down between us. Know anything about car seats, lads? Are you giving up the window cleaning business and going into car valeting? No I am not. I bought a car. An 06 Saab. Well fair play to ya. After years riding around on the bike it’ll be great comfort. So what’s wrong with the seats? I can’t fit me ladders in. I’ll have to take out the seats. Do yee know how ya do that?

~~~~~

I’ve been needing two RJ-45 connectors to finish networking the office. Two lousy pins. Do you think I could get them? Not a hope in Hades. The so-called geeks in PC World never heard of them. I didn’t mind the blank looks from the staff in the hardware stores, but in PC World - com’on lads, get your act together. A local electrical supplies shop, Wesco, had them. 50c each. I suggested the guy behind the counter perform a sexual act on his own person if he thought I would pay 50c for something worth about 15c. I am a man of principle after all. Bad language, but principle. Principally bad language.

I could get them from an Irish online supplier, Komplett. €2 for a 10 pack. Excellent. €13 postage. Shite. They could perform the same act.

Maplin in Blanchardstown had them at a reasonable price, but I would join the folks at Wesco and Komplett in their new pastime if I was driving all that way just for two pins.

Would I go to Argos on Sunday morning and collect stuff? Ok. Maplin is near there so I could get the RJ-45 connectors. Men are from Maplin, women are from Argos. Fact. The women in my life happily spend hours poring over the Argos catalogue - I get as excited as a hungry baby in a topless bar with the Maplin catalogue in front of me.

But letting me loose in an electronics store is as dangerous as letting a woman loose [double checks order of those words] in Macys at sales time. I came home with a cordless screwdriver, a network tester, a solar-powered battery charger, a watch case opener and a simcard reader. All of which I will probably never use. Unlike the RJ-45 pins which I will. Or would have used, if I hadn’t left them behind on the counter.

~~~~~

Today is the day we celebrate St. Patrick driving the snakes up ladders without passing go or something like that. Maybe it’s the time he went camping with Tara and he lit a fire to cook shamrock while she played with his crozier. I’m not really sure any more. Sometimes I get mixed up between the St. Patrick’s Day we have in Ireland and the St. Patty’s Day they celebrate in America.

All I know is that I am to drink pints today as required by law. They will be black ones as they always are. I will wear jeans. They will be blue ones as they always are. I will express my wish that a friend be happy. I will say happy birthday to her as I always do on March 17.

It’s a bank holiday. Our national day. No one else’s. What could possibly go wrong?

A mail burst into my inbox on Tuesday bubbling over excitedly with the news that the County Kildare Community Network website, kildare.ie, run by Kildare County Council, won a LAMA award for “Best Use of External Communications”. You can read it here. Ah, don’t bother - I’ll give you the main points.

LAMA = Local Authority Members Association. Llama = a useful animal.

The award was presented by RTE presenter Sharon Ni Bheolain and John Gormley. For overseas readers, the former is just a teeny weeny bit less hot (about 1cal or 4.1868J) than Jolene Blalock, her name is actually Ní Bheoláin not Ni Bheolain and she works for RTÉ not RTE. The latter is a Green who sold his soul to Fianna Fáil for a ministerial post.

kildare.ie was recently redesigned. Adherence to web standards and improved accessibility & usability are an integral part of the new design. Ah yes, I remember them doing that. I couldn’t view a damn thing on the site for days unless I buried my pride and switched to Internet Explorer. Months later and their online planning system still only supports IE. If your browser of preference is Firefox or Safari you can use their LiteView version. So much for usability.

Here’s an interesting little exercise: Go to the World Wide Web Consortium’s markup validation service and plug in http://kildare.ie/. 23 errors! So much for adherence to web standards.

Go to the Council’s home page. Like the tiny text in light grey font with the white background? Pretty isn’t it? If your eyes aren’t the best it isn’t pretty at all. Oh, hold on, I apologise. I’m being far too harsh - on the right, toward the bottom there is a tiny link for Larger Font. Have you found it yet? Ok, I’ll give you another ten minutes.

*Puts kettle on. Makes nice mug of coffee*

Ok, you found it. Good. So now the font a readable size, even if it is light grey. See the Help/Accessibility link in the same section? Let’s go there and see what it says. Oh no! The font has gone back to the default size! Very accessible indeed.

Ok, well we’ll just have to struggle on. Let’s see what they have in the Publications section. Oh, look, the Development Plan for 2005-2011 is there. This will be interesting. I wonder what they have in store for my area? Now which is my area? I can’t tell because it’s all laid out in gobbledygook map references - I’ll just have to work my way through all the PDF files all until I find it. At least it’s usable.

Now I understand: They got the LAMA award, not for accessibility & usability, but for improved accessibility & usability. Believe me when I tell you most downloadable documents on the site used be in MS Word format - at least I can open PDF.

Personally I think the county would be better off with a few llamas.

We had the great eircom share sell off not so long ago. What I remember most was the incessant propaganda from every angle all but telling us how stupid we would be if we didn’t buy. Leinster House told us how we would become stakeholders in the state’s greatest corporation. (Well they wanted to offload the company, didn’t they). The banks offered tailored loans. (Well they wanted the interest, didn’t they). The outcome: Thousands lost a fortune.

Then we had the Ryder Cup. Home owners clambered to put their houses up for rent on the Internet. Hundreds of websites on which to advertise your property sprung up over night lunch. (Site creators made a killing on fees, didn’t they). The outcome: One single house that I know of was rented.

We Irish seem to fall for the hype and propaganda all too readily. Or maybe there’s something in our psyche that activates the panic buying gene - a throwback to famine times. Oh look! There’s a spud. Grab it now, you don’t know where the next one will come from.

The latest round is personal .IE domain names. If I get one more email from a two-bit reseller telling me time is running out to pre-register my personal .IE name I’m going to personally (see, I’m keeping it personal) visit the sender’s premises late at night and pour a bucket of giraffe pee* onto the CEO’s new office carpet. I was going to pour scorn, but I think pouring pee would be more satisfying.

Look lads! Leave me alone! I’m a big ape now. I can make up my own mind whether I want a .IE domain. And stop trying to hoodwink me with your special offers. I know how much a .IE should cost. Don’t try make me think I actually have to have a website associated with this address. Don’t try make it sound like a once off payment secures the name for life. Lads, lads, lads! I buy these services all the time. I know this stuff. That’s what I do for a living. Well, that and importing giraffe pee.*

Don’t give me this crap about protecting my name on the Internet and preserving it for children or grandchildren. Think about it - Paddy Mangan in Ballagh gets paddymangan.ie. Will Paddy Mangan in Fethard give a bollix? Will any of the 7,348 Paddy Mangans around the country give a bollix? I doubt there will be many offerings of bollix. And anyway, Paddy Mangan in Ballagh’s grandchild is Sophie so paddymangan.ie won’t be worth squat to her. And your man in Fethard hasn’t a clue about the Internet - he thinks it’s somewhere in America.

But most of all, lads, don’t tell me I can be pre-registered. That’s just baloney Clonakilty black pudding. The IEDR will not be accepting a single application for a personal domain name until October 31. You guys are merely compiling a list and will squirt it at the IEDR on that date. Every reseller in the country will be doing the same - at 1millisecond past 0800 GMT. Mr. Mangan in Ballagh may have preregistered with domains4u 3 weeks ago, but may lose out to his namesake in Fethard who only signed up with domains4me today if the latter’s queue is processed first.

Will the IEDR servers cope? Will it cause the equivalent of a DOS attack? Will the whole system collapse? This remains to be seen. I would hope the IEDR are working closely with the resellers to gauge the load.

Who is being honest about this? Well a few are. I have to say fair play to the folks over at Blacknight - We cannot offer ANY guarantees (neither can anyone else). And to Hosting365 - We cannot make any guarantee that your name will be accepted, but are offering a full refund (or you can choose another name) if it fails. There are others but some are fudging it - By pre-registering now, you will have the best chance of securing your chosen domain name. … The rules of application are defined by the Irish Domain Registry and their decision in relation to an application is final. No mention of queues or what the rules/procedures are exactly.

Oh look. Another email. From ezdomains. Now where did I leave that bucket?

*I got 40litres on the Internet from Universal Urine Suppliers and another 2kg of concentrate from Wees of the World dot com.

I upgraded to WordPress 2.3 this morning. What else would you be doing at 5am on a Saturday anyway?

They call the release Dexter after some tenor saxophonist I never heard of. Bet he was loud though. But that’s neither here nor there. What is important is that the site is working both for you as a reader and me as a ranter.

I’ve changed a couple of things. The colour scheme for one. Let me know if it is okay. I think it is a bit less harsh on the eye myself, but then I don’t have to read this stuff.

I also added AJAX commenting so the page doesn’t reload after you submit. Feel free to try this out. There were some issues with AJAX so if you find you can’t submit a comment let me know by mail (primalsneeze [ag] topmail [ponc] ie) and I’ll disable it.

There is also a check box so you can get mail if there are follow comments. These two are dependent on having Javascript enabled by the way.

The above is important. The below is just of interest. Maybe.

What’s new in 2.3? I hear all one of you scream. Well the visual editor is better - It has an Advanced Toolbar with buttons for Undo/Redo; text colour; paste text from Word (why anyone would use Word is beyond me); special characters like ø, © and ♣, so now all those Norwegian card-playing lawyers can use WordPress too. All great for folks who don’t like messing with HTML.

And the best part is underline is now supported in posts and comments. So you can shout at me without having to use capitals. There are a few other bits and pieces such as Clean up Messy Code, but I won’t go into them now.

The upgrade itself took about 5minutes - the testing nearly two hours - but I may have missed something. So let me know if you have any problems.