The Dossing Times

The Eiffel Tower, The Colosseum, Buckingham Palace, The Empire State building architecture matters. Buildings are so much more then just vessels for housing their contents, they are symbols that represent the cities and the countries that they are part of. Without architecture city breaks, the delight of the middle class, would be far less common. People visit the “sites” on holiday food and music usually are happened upon not sought out.

The recent fuss being made of the residence of the Irish ambassador to Canada, has brought me back to this point. While this falls now into the recent trend of getting our knickers  in a twist every time we see a bill it is something that needs to be nipped in the bud. Firstly a far cheaper proposal for the Irish Ambassador would be to rent a 1 bed flat in some Canadian tower block.

Obviously this would be stupid. The Ambassadors residence is not just his house. It is Ireland’s show piece in Canada. It our signature building that we use to make a statement about who we are. Surely we want to project an impressive image on to a trading partner and member of the G8. The ambassadors residents is not just the Ambassadors house. It is where the Ambassadors wines and dines the influential of Canada in a bid to embolden Ireland’s image among them. In a time of recession this is a time we need to be selling Ireland more not less. We should not be pinching the pennies on a false illusion that we are saving money in the short term.

Look at the American Ambassadors residence in Dublin would they be better served by a cheaper to run flat in north Dublin for €165,000. Buildings matter, impressions matter this building needs to be impressive. The fact of the matter is the impact of the ferrero roches would be fatally undermined if the party is being hosted in a dive

Initial thoughts on the list of Oscar nominations released this lunch time is that they represent an eclectic, if rather subdued list.

Most immediately, the mastery of ‘Up’ has been acknowledged, by being included in two fields, that of Best Animated Film and simply Best Film. This, along with the nomination for ‘District 9’, one of the best movies of 2009, gives great credence to the decision to expand the list of Best Film contenders to 10. ‘The Blind Side’ is the only one of the 10 films yet for a release on this side of the Atlantic. The list itself, apart from the monolith that is Avatar, is full of smaller films about people and smaller stories but all effective in their own way.  

Jeremy Renner’s Best Actor nomination for Hurt Locker has me second guessing my judgement of ‘The Hurt Locker’ – what did everyone see in this movie, while I felt so disengaged? I know all the reasons for the respect shown to this film, but whether it was the genre, the over exposure to the topic in the media, the hype surrounding the movie or even that I had just worked through the equally good, if not better, ‘Generation Kill’ on DVD, I’m non plussed as to the impact this movie seems to have made. The other nominees for Best Actor ably fill the standard requirements of effective portrayal of a historical character, effective personal portrayal from a star, a comeback story and the intense dramatic role. For the acting roles in general, I have a lot of watching to do, to pass judgement. Among the Best Supporting Actor nominees I have only see Christoph Waltz in ‘Inglourious’ and he has been spoken of in terms of this award since the film was first released and I can’t argue.

For Best Actress I have seen none of the performances, though there is a lot of love for ‘An Education’ across the nominations so I intend to see that soon and come to grips with Carey Mulligan’s performance. The early word is that Sandra Bullock could win both an Oscar and a Razzie in the same year, for ‘The Blind Side’ and ‘What About Steve’, respectively.  The two nominations for Best Supporting Actress garnered for ‘Up in the Air’ is a further sign of the punching weight of this movie, and it is in the performances this movie sings, rather than working as a whole. No look in for Diane Kruger or Melanie Laurent of ‘Inglourious’ who delivered excellent performances.

Irish interests are strong this year again, though ‘The Lovely Bones’, with Irish actress Saoirse Ronan,  is almost completely ignored bar a supporting nomination for Stanley Tucci. The Tomm Moore-directed ‘The Secret of Kells’ is nominated in the Best Animated Feature category along with ‘Coraline’, ‘The Fantastic Mr Fox’, ‘The Princess and the Frog’ and ‘Up’.

Nicky Phelan and Darragh O’Connell’s ‘Granny O’Grimm’s Sleeping Beauty’ is among the Best Animated Short Film nominees. The Door  by Wicklow company Octagon Films is nominated in the short film category.

Dubliner Richie Baneham is among the nominees in the Best Visual Effects category for his work on ‘Avatar’.

I’m looking forward to the show this year, Steve Martin and Alec Baldwin on presenting duties, and a rounded, wide open number of categories.  The biggest upset on an initial scan of the nominations is that ‘The Road’ has been forgotten. If nothing else Viggo Mortensen’s lead performance is a wonderful piece of work.

Other than the cliffhanger which saw out Season 5, there are of course some long standing mysteries to be resolved in the final 16 episodes of ‘Lost’ to kick off this week. I still remember the reaction of an old house mate of mine on overhearing a  conversation I was having with her fiancee about the smoke monster. She asked incredulously ‘there’s a smoke monster?’, and there ended any tolerance she had for our then Monday night ritual of drinking rum and watching ‘Lost’.

Which time travel rules apply to the world of ‘Lost’?

Does the island really have magical healing properties or is there a scientific explanation?

Who or what is inhabiting Locke’s body and how does this play into the rivalry between Jacob and his seeming nemesis?

What is the smoke monster?

What is the significance of the numerical sequence of 4, 8, 15, 16, 23, 42 ?

What’s the real beef between Ben Linus and Charles Widmore? Of course the larger issue of the hostile and the Dharma initiative also needs to be tied up, however the rivalry of these men, has indirectly driven a huge amount of plot.

Whats the story with Jacob and the seeming eternal life he has granted to Richard?

What has happened to Clare?

Will Walt re-appear? Why has he been let live back in the real world for so long?

Leo Varadkar raised the spectre of tax individualisation the other day. Some have talked about Leo Varadkar being lonely I will focus on the idea of tax individualisation. Tax individualistion was a hot topic around the 1999 budget. The idea was basically rather then taxing a married couple as a couple they would tax the individuals thus reducing the tax burden for couples where both work and not for couples where 1 works and one stays at home. This was deemed to be penalising stay at home mothers.

At the time Fine Gael opposed this believing it to be socially decisive saying that society is based on the Family, based on partnership. Saying it creates a individualistic society turning Ireland to the worst.  (prime Time debate from 2000 here).  So it is interesting that a Fine Gael member bring it back up.

From Leo Varadkar

It is important to talk about the status of the family. Tax issues are not dealt with in the Bill but there will be follow-on tax implications in the next or subsequent finance Bills. I have a problem in this regard. I am single and live alone. Being single, I pay a lot of tax. I do not wish to be poor-mouthing but must state I probably pay 40% of my income in tax. As a result I have to pay the mortgage and utility bills on my own, which is the same for the many hundreds of thousands of single people in the State. Ironically, if I were to marry someone earning less than €25,000, I would be able to share the costs of living and reduce my tax bill by €7,000. It seems to be somewhat unfair that as a single person I am essentially paying more tax to subsidise other married people who may earn more than me. This anomaly of the tax system is designed to support marriage. This issue will also arise with civil partnership in that the Finance Acts will be amended to offer the same benefit for those who enter a civil partnership. Single people will effectively be subsidising the lifestyles of married people.

Why should single people have to pay €7,000 more in tax? I accept an issue arises where there is a family. However, in a family there must be children. We should consider changing the system so that those rights apply to families with dependent children. It is somewhat unfair that some Members with the same income as mine, who have stay-at-home wives who chose not to work but spend the day on the golf course or lunching, pay less tax than I do. I do not have an objection to their choice but I object to single people having to pay more tax so that other people have that choice. This anomaly needs to be addressed in our tax system.

Simon is back to fine posting form on the blog, which I am happy to see. Life is busy but good for me away from the blog at the moment, so much so that I got a Christmas card from Simon and his girlfriend this year, a proper, made of paper, written in pen Christmas card and I have not yet managed to reply to thank them, even with electronic means. The intention is there.

Come hell or high water or indeed work deadline I will not miss the premiere event as ABC TV schedulers are calling it Stateside of the 6th and final series of ‘Lost’ next week. It has me excited like little else can. Yes its only TV, but its also ‘Lost’. See below an Olly Moss, artist du jour, reinterpretation of the poster of Hitchcock’s ‘Vertigo’ in honour of the ubiquitous John Locke.

In Fridays Independent Dearbhail McDonald wrote an opinion piece.

Justice must be done — and be seen to be done

PUBLICITY is the very soul of justice. It is the keenest spur to exertion, and the surest of all guards against improbity. So said the English jurist and legal reformer Jeremy Bentham in 1843.
Although the public’s understanding of and access to justice has radically altered since then, the aphorism that justice must not only be done but be seen to be done has not.
And it can not.

The idea that justice should be seen to be done is one of the oldest and most important concepts in the justice system. Yet what inspired Dearbhail McDonald to write this piece was not the decision to try someone behind closed doors but to prevent the media photographing the former mistress of the accused in the trial of Eamonn Lillis for the murder of Celine Cawley. What public good, what principle of justice was impinged by this move? None. Lets be honest the only reason that pictures of Jean Tracy were desired was to answer one irrelevant question.

Was she hot?

Coverage of criminal trials in Ireland has the same place in media that coverage of Jordan has in the UK and Paris Hilton in the US. It is celebrity. He have our celebrities, who we nickname, the scissors sisters, black widow, viper, the general etc. We want to gossip about Jean Tracy, we want to know whether she is hotter than victim. That is all, this is not anything about the sanctity of press coverage of court, this is tabloid journalism fuelling base desires.Newspapers are not public broadcasters they are companies, driven primarily by profit. Printing crime sells, look at the moving of Paul Williams from the Sunday World to the News of the World for a reported salary of €250,000. This shows that the News of the World believes this is what is needed to boost its sales in Ireland. In the UK the stable of the News of the World is celebrity gossip it looks like they are positioning the papers stable in Ireland to be crime.

The Lillis case  is not an isolated case. While the self-righteous indignation that has greeted the Gardai desire to spare an innocent women from the humiliation of gossip mongering might be a new level.

The simple fact of the matter is that Ireland has one of  the lowest crime rate in Europe. A crime rate Scandinavian countries would kill for(no pun intended).  Yet we have one greatest fear of crime levels. Some people believe that this is because we are a small country where everyone knows everyone and word spreads fast. But with societal ties diminishing and idea of the great Irish community spirit becoming more of a myth, the fact that fear is increasing in this situation not decreasing puts paid to the idea that this is reasoning for the fear of crime. Likewise the fact that other European societies with higher crime rates and even more isolated societies fear it less makes that argument even more redundant. Neither is the increase in fear of crime got much to do with the actual probability of being a victim of crime. Headline crime figures over the last 20 years have not risen a great deal and are international low.

The commoditising of crime by the media in Ireland is seriously damaging the fabric of society, far more then the commoditising of B-list British celebrities that we look down on. And in the process much of what is actually important is pushed down the agenda.

A friend of mine has a new blog Fuzzy Times. http://fuzzytimes.wordpress.com/ check it out.

There was an interesting side in the Irish Times.

60% have lost jobs in architectural firms

As many as 60 per cent of employees at architectural practices in Ireland have lost their jobs over the past two years, according to a new survey undertaken by the recruitment firm Hays.

In Dublin, the figure is slightly higher with 61 per cent of staff made redundant since the end of 2007.

The Architecture in Ireland Employment report, which surveyed 178 practices at the end of last year, shows that almost one-third of architectural firms have laid off between 61 per cent and 100 per cent of their employees.

Just 16 per cent of companies surveyed for the report did not cut jobs over the two-year period

While 60% is a bit much it does show highlight yet again the surplus of people educated into the construction sector. On leaving school a lot of my friends went in to construction. Now many of them have moved to OZ and the town is a far quieter place. Ireland simply will not have the amount of stuff to build and design to keep our trained construction workers in employment. And many of these people will not get jobs again in Ireland in their field.

Thus a massive investment in re-education is required. From carpenters to people with degrees in Architecture re-education needs to be offered. Universities need to be expanded with funding geared to courses with a future.

Interesting press release today.

Fine Gael Seanad Justice Spokesperson, Senator Eugene Regan, has lodged a formal objection to NAMA with the EU Commission in Brussels, saying the ‘scale and scope’ of the scheme is disproportionate to the size of the Irish economy, transfers too much risk from the banks onto the Irish taxpayer and does not contain sufficient safeguards that Irish depositors and borrowers will not be forced to pay for the huge mistakes by Irish banks.

Now what is interesting about this is the person who is lodging this. This is not a well know Fine Gael figure. Not a finance spokesperson either. Instead it is someone unlikely to hold cabinet ministry after the next election. So why him?

There is a number of reasons I can guess at.

1. This is a cheap stunt they know will be rejected and don’t want to waste a big hitters domestic reputation reduced by this.
2. They don’t want a big spokesperson to take the blame if it actually does get NAMA blocked.
3. This is a solo run.
4. They don’t want the name of one of the big hitters to be tarnished by this in Europe as they will have to deal with them if they get into power. As they think this is a pointless waste of time.

You can read the proposal here.