Joe’s Blog

Don’t ask me where I got the energy - plenty of Döners and a good night’s sleep (well, in a 14/16 bed room you will be woken now and then) I was up early to get to the Chancellor’s Office for the open day. This is the most popular destination and people come from all over the country.
First of all, bags were kept in a cloakroom tent set up outside the perimeter. Then the queuing began - from 10:55 11:55 according to my camera but there was also some street entertainment. Once inside it was wasn’t packed at all.

The bottom two floors were open where the international guests are greeted and we were in the international conference room.
The Chancellor’s car is now an Audi actually, I had presumed it would be a Mercedes but someone said that the contract had changed recently. It is also no ordinary car. It looks like it is heavily reinforced. The Chancellor’s office is really a piece of architecture in itself and sits almost across from the new train station. Both buildings didn’t even exist in 1998. Outside the office again there wasn’t much to see - a couple of helicopters, some youth-sport stands and a stage where there was a band playing. I ended up at a Bundeswehr (army) tent again talking about everything from the army to the areas of Berlin and how good/bad they are.

The Chancellor came half an hour later than expected! She looked quite well, the speech was alright - very much about being one of the people and what a normal day in office is like. Finally she made her way around the park and I got quite close to grab a photo.

On the way back again I went through the park, passing by the thumpa thumpa of the various stages but one really caught my attention. The yeomen - www.yeomen.de are an a-cappella band. This weekend they were doing a-cappella techno mainly and set a (guinness book) world record for singing 6 hours of a-cappella techno on Sat. By Sunday, their voices were a little hoarse but they still managed some more techno, rock and even Rammstein:
Short Techno clip: www.youtube.com/watch?v=5KGgTG9owo8
Rock song “Sexy”: www.youtube.com/watch?v=AZmq8PKoQhA
Rammstein - Engel:www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dx0U2mWy640

Aug 26 - okay, I was wrecked from the night before and I was very good - only 1 Berliner Pilsner but really tired so I slept in a bit. The A&O Hostel am Zoo is very cheap and in a great location for me. I went for the 3-day special incl. linen and a take-away breakfast consisting of a doughnut, apple, orange juice, chocolate biscuit and joghurt. For 3 nights, that was €49 but the following 2 I simply opted for the €10 dorm. €10 is basically the cost per day of most apartments in Limerick and Berlin if you think about it. Anyways, I got up for the ‘breakfast’ and headed out into the sunshine.

Dunno why but I wandered towards the centre to see if there was anything on. On the way I came accross the open day for the Federal Ministry of Defense (Bundesministerium der Verteidigung). In I popped, after showing my passport as offical ID and my, was I impressed. They had 2 sections - one to show off the army’s equipment - Camp Bendler and another for the entertainment, information stands, catering etc. They even had a tent detailing how the army protects the environment especially during training exercises. The video I took doesn’t do justice to how good the drillteam are but here is is:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YVrJBxprFng

It wasn’t just the open day for that ministry but the entire federal government. Next up was the Ministry of Finance where they were putting together a jigsaw and every square had a little message from whoever put it there on the theme “Deutschland lohnt sich”. Inside the department, they had an area to sow some seeds (literally) and write ideas for the department in areas such as encouraging job creation. I got into a discussion about coporation tax!

The Federal Ministry for Food, Agriculture and Consumer Protection wasn’t as interesting as the first two but I did get an environmentally friendly bottle of sunflower oil with an additive to make it suitable for bicycle chains etc. It’s called PLANTOLUBE 4U and is

• quickly biologically degradeable
• does not endanger water???
• is non-toxic
• is made out of 95% renewable resources

After all that information, I needed a break and went towards the Brandenburger Gate/Tor and the street Unter den Linden. There I saw Peugeot’s Brazil exhibition. It’s bascially an exibition of concept cars I think or else they are expecting global warming to wipe out rain altogether. Either way, the cars look cool.

I don’t know if it’s like this every week but on the other side of the gate, there was a biker/skater park set up for a competion sponsored mainly by LG. Here is a sample:
www.youtube.com/watch?v=CbfcvlBKv4c

And beyond that there was a line of techno stands, one every 100 to 125 metres apart with food stands across from them. Outside each there were a few spectators and dancers but this was early, maybe 3 or 4. Another sample:
www.youtube.com/watch?v=klNgG0×01fY

The Siegessaule is a victory column with Viktoria standing proudly on top naturally. You can climb the stairs inside the column for a small fee €1.50 for students although there is a lot of graffiti on the walls. The view from the top is pretty cool though.

On the way back to the hostel I had to a)admire how Hungarian Airlines went to the trouble of putting 2 Irish cities on their map but b) they seem to think Cork is in north Kerry. Hopefully they have other maps for flying with.

Finally, this is really something. This is the Kaiser Wilhelm Memorial Church - you can see the ruins after the war but what they have built now is really something I’m not sure if I love or hate. Those are glass blocks from ground to roof and later on they are illumated in colours like blue and pink…this is Berlin.

Aug 24 - fly to Berlin Schönefeld. Absolutely love the fact that there is a fast train connection directly to the main stations in Berlin taking 31 mins. There was, believe it or not, a 6 minute delay which they apologised for profusely. Cost:€2.10

Appartment I was planning to look at was taken :(, checked into Hostel, walked to new workplace, found some more places to ring on the net, bought a new SIM card in ALDI - check this out for a prepaid tariff

All german telephone networks: €0.15 per minute, day or night
All national SMS messages €0.15
International SMS €0.20

The only problem was that I had to go back on the net or ring a telephone number to register the thing. After some food and rest I got that done too. However the places were either gone, not answering, not looking for short-term renters etc.
see www.medionmobile.de

Aug 25 - started looking for a bike, started in Kreuzberg - found nothing suitable, walked back towards Zoo, stopped in an internet cafe where I decided to be flexible with rent period and arranged 2 appointments. Then a bike appeared right beside me, €60 later and I was zipping along Potsdamer strasse :). The first appointment was rearranged even though I had gone to the area and discovered that there were Döners for €1.80 - normally €2 to €3 and don’t even think of Abrakebabra, these are 10 times tastier imho. In fact, Berlin is probably the world capital of Döners. As far as I can remember, Istanbul doesn’t actually sell as many at all. Anyways, I found a place for a month in an area I like - Schöneberg/Tiergarten within cycling distance of the TU, central Berlin, Kreuzberg.

Friday night is a big night in a german weekend and lets just say I made some new friends, went out to a few bars and a club in Kreuzberg. The music was still going strong when we decided to leave at 4.30 and guess what - the U-bahn runs throughout the night!

Well, it’s been a while since I wrote so lets break it down -

Aug 18th, Bid farewell to friends, packing and a short visit to the Tangoparty - thanks lads
Aug 19 - hauled myself up to Dublin

Aug 20 - Football in Croke Park, Hill 16

• Kerry minors beat Donegal and do it well.
• Mayo and Laois don’t impress but twas the right result in the end that Mayo won. Some players do a lot of the work though and I didn’t think they would get past Dublin at all but then again I haven’t seen Dublin recently
• Kerry beats Cork. I feel a little sorry for Cork that this was their 3rd match against Kerry but we were favourites with good reason

Aug 21 - Aug 23 met family and friends in Dublin, especially around the IFSC
PS: I’ve put up photos of the YFG summer school in Tralee - that was fun

Original post from Semper Idem

Back in March, Mary Hannafin claimed that FG’s proposals to make Irish optional for the leaving “would destroy the future of the language“. Given that, her call for colleges to remove the necessity for pass maths for access to 3rd level ever so slightly illogical.

Unless of course she is setting out to destroy maths, or some such. Or she was talking rubbish the first time out.

See also politics.ie.

Turns out she doesn’t even know her stuff: from the Irish Independent Institutes round on Hanafin over foundation maths failure

The institutes of technology said she was not up to speed on their recent decision to recognise foundation-level maths and to award points in the subject for entry to many courses.

Many of the institute registrars were annoyed by a much-publicised appeal by the minister to all colleges to accept foundation maths.

“We are already doing so in most institutes,” said Jim Devine, who chairs the Council of Directors of Institutes of Technology. The decision follows a comprehensive review of the foundation-level syllabus. The review led to an agreement that individual colleges could accept performance above 70pc in foundation maths as satisfying entry requirements.

Personally, I believe that the vast majority people are no more able to speak Irish coming out of Leaving Cert after 13 years of education than French or German after 5. And rather than there being an appreciation, it is loaded with years of resentment and not taken seriously which I realised was a pity in my final years of school. We need to teach culture, appreciation and the language. To what extent is debatable - should Leaving Certificate students with no interest or aptitude in ANY language be forced to sit Irish (Maths and English ARE optional)

And before FG are dismissed as a bunch of whiners - look at today’s plan for carers costed at €140m

24-7-365 Carers Policy Document
Coverage from
The Irish Independent
The Irish Times
The Irish Examiner

I missed Johnny Vegas on Podge and Rodge but here it is on youtube!

Also, did George W Bush grope Angela Merkel at the G8 summit or was he just being friendly? Jon Stewart of the Daily Show provides analysis and footage

To quote Matt Cooper in the Sunday Times

FOR a man who won popular support when he castigated the Irish government for its failure to spend our tax in the way that he saw fit, Bono now finds himself standing in a lonely place. Last week the rock-star-turned-campaigner was exposed for taking part in a decision that will deliberately reduce the amount of tax that he and his business partners in U2 will contribute from next year onwards.

Since June, the band and its manager have engaged in what is known as ‘tax avoidance’, moving U2’s publishing empire to the Netherlands where it can avail of a near zero rate of tax on royalties. It is absolutely legal, but it still jars. How can the music industry’s preacher-in-chief hope to retain his credibility when next he delivers a sermon to governments on how they should spend their taxpayers’ money? This development is a bitter disappointment to those of us who have admired Bono’s campaigns on behalf of the world’s poorest. The U2 singer has taken the unprofitable, and often unpopular, course of demanding adequate healthcare provision for those afflicted with HIV and Aids, advocating the reduction of debt owed by impoverished countries to rich nations and promoting equitable global commercial trade.

And Blogorrah also pointed out this:

The. Best. U2. Video. EVER…. The Big Question: What’s happened to Adam and Larry? Head, Shoulders, Knees & Toes - By Mono With ME2

I must say I like the apartment-search website wg-gesucht.de combined with map24.com and maps.google.com. But even handier is planning a route from any appartment to college/work by bicycle: BBBike. All you do is type in your starting and finishing streets for example:

From the Irish Independent:

THE Health Service Executive has been spending €51,000 a year renting a building in Sligo which has been unoccupied for the past four years, it has been claimed.

on further examination, he [Cllr Declan Bree - Lab] discovered that the premises, which the HSE said was being used for the Orthopaedic fitting service and for the Down’s Syndrome Association, had been lying vacant for the past four years.

It also emerged that the HSE is paying €198,850 in annual rent for the national project offices for the controversial PPAR human resources information system of the Irish health service in Duck Street, Sligo, while, Markievicz House - a building owned by the HSE on Barrack Street - lies vacant a couple of hundred metres away.

These are just two examples that have come to light. How much more exists, I don’t know but it galls me to think how hard some people work raising money at church gate collections and selling daffodils while hundreds of thousands are being wasted so easily.

Don’t blame the government - change it!

Irish Examiner Story

Wonderful - another me too project! It even reminds me of e-voting except this time we are supposed to be catching up.

WRONG: the irish postal system doesn’t need postal codes.
Why: there is a code for each building in the country. The database is not widely available and the codes are long but it does exist. Postal systems have advanced so the entire address can be read by computer.

So whats the benefit? To look modern?

Now to quote FG - there are potential drawbacks apart from cost:

• It would allow junk-mail operators to target more consumers with more post that will go straight into the bin.
• It would help marketing agencies to target individual households more accurately.
• The postcode may provide information about the socio-economic status of a household, which could have implications under the Data Protection Act.

What comes to mind when I mention Dublin 4?