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Watch out! Sheerios expected to be on a stampede on Thursday night!

Written by Joerg Steegmueller
Watch out! Sheerios expected to be on a stampede on Thursday night!

RTE has reported that a number of Irish record shops will be open from Midnight on Thursday 02 March so that people can by the newest record by Ed Sheeran IMMEDIATELY when it is released.

WTF? It is ridiculous enough that Apple Stores open at midnight when a new iPhone is released considering that you could just stay in bed until the next morning and then leisurely stroll into your Apple Store and buy it at a time when normal people buy stuff. But ok, we know that Apple fan boys and girls need to tell their friends that they were there first.

That “virus” has now spread to Ed Sheeran fans? Apparently his fans are called “Sheerios”. (Not sure though if it is a flock of Sheerios or a herd of Sheerios or a gaggle of Sheerios that will be in Tower Records on Thursday night.)

Sure there is nothing wrong with being a big fan and there is also nothing wrong with shopping at midnight (I have been in Tesco myself around that time when many Tesco’s in Ireland were still open 24hrs.) but the mad run or queueing for something that is NOT scarce and will be plentiful in shops on the next day, just seems odd.

Dublin, Events, Society,

Mountain Walking will NOT be banned – Important Court decision

Written by Joerg Steegmueller
Mountain Walking will NOT be banned – Important Court decision

The High Court made on Friday an EXTREMELY important decision for everybody who likes Hill Walking or Mountain Walking.

In August of 2013 a Teresa Wall from Swords went for a Hill Walk in the Dublin Mountains near the Sally Gap/Roundwood. In that area old railway sleepers (big wooden beams) are put together to form a boardwalk across wetland. But Teresa Wall had a mishap. She tripped accidentally and fell on her knee. This is nothing unusual and has happened to most of us at some stage in our life. You and I would probably hurt for a bit, maybe even have to go to a doctor, but we know that if we trip, then we didn’t pay enough attention and it was our own fault.

Mrs Wall was thinking differently and must have seen an opportunity to make some money. She sued the National Parks and Wildlife Service (NPWS) and the Circuit Court under Judge Jacqueline Linnane made the crazy decision that Wall deserved a payment of EUR 40,000 because allegedly the NPWS who put the boardwalk there was negligent because the wood had rotted at a place, which was a contributor to the fall.

Luckily and rightly the High Court disagreed and overturned the decision. Teresa Wall will now get nothing and importantly it was decided that SHE was negligent and not the NPWS. A great decision to stop people from trying to make money through compensations but also extremely important because if the NPWS had been given all blame, they would have to stop people from using the boardwalks as otherwise the law suits against them would never stop.

www.rte.ie/news/2017/0217/853394-teresa-wall-hillwalker-appeal/

Environment, Justice, Society, Tourism, , , , ,

Car Insurance Madness in Ireland! Are they all incompetent?

Written by Joerg Steegmueller
Car Insurance Madness in Ireland! Are they all incompetent?

I needed to renew my car insurance and this is always a good bit of work. Since I made some significant savings a few years ago, I always compare as many as possible insurances every year to see if there is a better offer somewhere.

Last year I didn’t change the insurer, but this year it went a little different. My car is a Mazda with 1.8l and it is 9 years old. I have a full no claims bonus and have my drivers license since I was 18 so for quite a long time. I also am driving in Ireland for many many years, BUT I still have a German drivers license and annoyingly I was caught in last May speeding! Yes, I did drive 6km (!!) faster than allowed and got 3 very very annoying penalty points.

This is the framework and the points and the German license do make things a little less smooth.

The saga started with AIG (last year’s insurer sending me a renewal offer for EUR 780. Not too bad I thought. A few days later they rang me and asked me if I was interested in renewing, so I said I was but hadn’t decided yet. The guy suggested that he will check if there is anything better than EUR 780 he can do and off he went with all his questions. But suddenly we hit a hurdle: He asked me if I had an Irish drivers license and I said that I still (as for the last four years I was insured with them) had my German license. He claims that that was never on their system (which is rubbish) and he would have to recalculate the price. After a few moments he told me that instead of EUR 780, now the best offer was EUR 1040! Wow! Not having had any accident for many years but having a German insurance suddenly increased my risk by nearly EUR 300? How can that happen? He claimed it is because I got my license driving on the other side of the road. But the fact that I am driving nearly longer on the (wrong ;-) ) Irish side of the road than on the German side didn’t impress at all. Well, there was no going back! AIG was not to be my trusted partner in the future, so I started comparing in earnest and I found VERY interesting things.

I found, for example, that Liberty Insurance is TOTALLY incompetent (or alternatively very greedy OR all the other insurances are the incompetent ones). Why? Well, the insurance cost is meant to be calculated based on the risk that you pose to the insurance and you would expect more or less the same price from EVERY insurance, because it can’t be that you are VERY risky for one and not at all risky for the other insurance. But Liberty seems to live on a different planet then the others. They calculated the cost as EUR 1667 !! Wow! That is even more than AIG wanted after the “change”.

Well, since most others quoted around EUR 780-950, I new that AIG and certainly Liberty were completely mad. (HOW can Liberty get any customers with prices like that???)

I also found out that the insurance quote comparison sites are NOT much use. Chill and Sheridan and Compare Insurance all quoted higher prices than I could get elsewhere. So don’t rely on the quality of the comparisons.

AXA was also madly expensive at EUR 1263. Another outlier.

The lowest quotes I got at first from 123.ie and Aviva and I nearly had decided for 123.ie, but then I remembered that I had forgotten to check with Allianz directly. In the past Allianz was always too expensive and I had already received Allianz quotes this time through the price comparison sites. (Compare Insurance quote EUR 993 and Sheridan quoted 853 – How can there be such a difference for the same insurance for the same conditions??? 140 Euro!?)

But then I rang Allianz and I got SOME surprise! They only quoted EUR 604!! That was by FAR the lowest price (but how can it be so much lower than the Allianz price that Sheridan and Compare Insurance quoted???). And compare this to the mad Liberty Insurance once more?!

So, you can guess who I signed the contract with!?

Now, my parameters are different than yours and therefore you could have a completely different result. So I am not saying that you will get the lowest or the highest quote from the same insurances I mention here. But what I am saying is that the work that you have to put into comparing can easily be worth your time! EUR 400 less than the AIG quote? I am happy to compare prices for 2 or 3 hours for that.

So, COMPARE COMPARE COMPARE and do NOT trust ANYBODY in this business. I think they ALL have no clue!

Economy, Odd, Society, , , , ,

Snobbery in Dublin stops people from getting lower priced groceries!

Written by Joerg Steegmueller
Snobbery in Dublin stops people from getting lower priced groceries!

Once upon a time I was forced to buy my groceries in Superquinn. That was even before Tesco was in Ireland and before Aldi and Lidl arrived. Then I remember the week the first Aldi in Parnell Street opened. There were queues outside the shop and inside you couldn’t use a trolley because we had to walk through the shops like ducks in a row because there were soooo many people inside.

Nearly every Aldi and Lidl in Dublin (and there are MANY now) is busy and the market share of the two shop chains keeps growing, but there are some people who still think that they are too good to shop in Aldi and Lidl. But this snobbery is crumbling when you experience the high quality goods for SIGNIFICANTLY lower prices than others charge.

Oddly, though, when it comes to setting up new shops, some parts of Dublin are still totally against an Aldi or Lidl in their neighbourhood and I don’t believe for a minute that this is because of the dying village centres (they are already dead since Centra, Spar and Starbucks took over) or because of the REAL traffic increase. Maybe the PERCEIVED increase and this always reminds me of the stupid idea that Fingal County had when they limited the opening hours if Ikea near Ballymun and tried to force the shop to charge for parking during peak hours to avoid that looming traffic chaos that would bring the M50 to a stand still. Nothing like that ever happened and Ikea luckily was able to change the Fingal County rules.

So it is either a total misjudgement regarding traffic OR it is snobbery and I think ultimately it is the snobbery that is the reason for the NOs in Castleknock and Clonsilla that is described in this article www.thejournal.ie/lidl-2-3201010-Jan2017/

By the way, both Aldi and Lidl have managed to create pretty and very well integrated shops in some areas, so the look of the shops is not a good enough reason anymore to reject them.

 

Dublin, Economy, Odd, Society, , , , ,

“Dublin One” – INCREASING the North-South Divide

Written by Joerg Steegmueller
“Dublin One” – INCREASING the North-South Divide

The Independent.ie reported on Friday that Dublin has a new “district” and it surprised and puzzled me. I thought one of the fringe areas on the outer commuter belt might have got a new name, but, NO, they were writing about the “new district” called “Dublin One”. What?? A new district? Sounds like a whole pile of bullsh*t….and so it is!

Nearly a year ago, in January 2016, the Dublin Northside Attraction Alliance was founded and it seems that they have done close to nothing for the whole year. They started very confused when they included the Guinness Storehouse in the Northside list of attractions. (You better claim the biggest visitor magnet in Dublin for the Northside even if it is firmly on the Southside!) A website is up but not much else seemed to have happened.

And when you think about it, it does absolutely not make sense to create a deeper divide than there is already. By creating an artificial separation between Northside Attractions and other attractions (there is no “Southside Attractions Alliance”), you don’t market the Northside better, but you fragment our quite small city more and create unnecessary confusion in tourists.

The right thing would be to market DUBLIN (as a whole) and ignore that there is a river separating North and South. So it was an ill-advised initiative to create the Northside Attraction Alliance, but instead of seeing that it failed, now they plan to make it worse:

Last week Dublintown, the trader’s organisation for Dublin, launched “Dublin One”, a new “brand” to promote the area west of O’Connell Street to Capel Street and Parnell Square to the quays. Dublin 1 is already a postal district and doesn’t require any brand. So why a new “brand” was created for a fraction of Dublin 1 is a mystery. Oddly O’Connell Street seems to be EXcluded from the Dublintown district “Dublin One”, it only starts “west of O’Connell Street” according to the website.

Irish Independent journalist Pól Ó Conghaile suggests in his article that it is a great idea. But to subdivide Dublin further instead of pulling together and to promote based on merit and quality rather than on location can’t be a great idea. He mentions some of the highlights on the Northside and while he doesn’t claim it, it could appear that he implies that they are all in “Dublin One”, but they aren’t! Many of the sites he mentions are in Dublin 7 (e.g. K Chido Mexico, Old Jameson Distillery, the old Victorian Fruit & Veg Market).

No, Dublintown, “Dublin One” that only covers part of Dublin 1 and that is intended to discriminate some areas by elevating one small part of Dublin doesn’t make sense! It’s just odd!

Dublin, Society, Tourism, , , ,
 
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