gregtimo proposed in comments some while back the idea of a Culture Thread. It’s a great idea. Currently culture is a bit strange, but people read, listen to music, watch television and film and so on – spread the net wide, sports, activities, interests, all relevant – and any pointers are always welcome. And it’s not just those areas but many more. Suggestions as to new or old things, events that might have been missed, literally anything.

All examples welcome. Quite the political analysis here: Ironically, what Fine Gael might need is a new, but very different, Garret FitzGerald — if such a person even exists. He or she would need Garret’s energy and intellect but instead of dragging the party to the left, they would move the party decisively on to centre-right territory and take the fight to the left both morally and intellectually.

Wait, what? News this evening that: Ivan Yates’s role as a co-presenter of the popular Path to Power podcast with Today FMbroadcaster Matt Cooper has been ended “with immediate effect” after it emerged he had coached Fianna Fáil’s Jim Gavin during the recent presidential race. We may recall his intervention in the Presidential campaign where he argued that FG should “should smear the bejaysus” out of Catherine Connolly.

Recently had to update my library card and was very impressed by how streamlined the library system is. Updating it online was almost immediate, no messing around, no having to bring it to the library itself. And using libraries is a pleasure these days. Emails when books are overdue, no fines, a good online interface (was entertained by how on the nose the recommendations online 'similar to titles that you have previously borrowed' actually were) and the libraries themselves well stocked.

Earlier in the year found myself picking up Len Deighton's Mexico Set. Like many of us I'd read a few books on the go - usually three or more, one non-fiction, a couple of fiction, one for falling asleep too. But with Mexico Set there was another purpose. Some time in 2019 it seemed like a good idea to read the entirety of the nine book series that that is part of.

From the Journal this morning, not unexpected news. A UNION HAS claimed more than 30 UK staff of Rockstar Games – the developers of Grand Theft Auto – have been sacked in a “union-busting” move by bosses. The Independent Workers’ Union of Great Britain (IWGB) has said it appears that staff at the company’s base in Edinburgh had been sacked for “trade union activity” and claimed that the dismissals were “unlawful and retaliatory”.

We Lost the Sea are an instrumental post-rock band from Sydney, Australia that have been around since 2007.

Caught by this on Wednesday: Microsoft said its cloud services were recovering from an outage that disrupted its workplace software products and the operations of several companies. The outage hit a service called Azure Front Door, which acts as an entry point for web applications built on the company’s servers, beginning at about 4pm on Wednesday Irish time, the company said.

GUBU. Taoiseach Micheál Martin has sought to defend himself and fight to survive as Fianna Fáil leader, saying that “no one gets it right all the time.” Mr Martin said MEP Billy Kelleher did not tell him soon enough that he wanted to run for president, while he wasn’t sure why former taoiseach Bertie Ahern would want to “bring on himself.”

Note how the terms 'immigration' and 'migration' and 'asylum' are 'confused' in the following: Ireland is experiencing economic migration and people should not come here if they know “deep down” they won’t be granted international protection, Taoiseach Micheál Martin has said. The Fianna Fáil leader was speaking after Tánaiste Simon Harris said that the number of people migrating to Ireland was “too high” and that it is taking too long for people with no right to be here to leave.

In this episode we talk to Madeleine Johansson of Red Network. Madeleine moved from Sweden to Ireland in the 2000s where she became active with the Socialist Workers’ Party (SWP) and People Before Profit (PBP). She was a party organiser and director of elections for the 2016 General Election campaign in Dublin Mid-West, subsequently co-opted on to South Dublin County Council in 2016, and returned in the 2019 and 2024 local elections.

Interesting thread here: That point re an upper limit is really intriguing. It makes sense. The days of a simple binary +1 (plus nationalist parties) in the UK are long gone. So are the days when a party could gain a very significant share of the vote at an election. That said let's not overstate those days either. 1983, Thatcher's landslide of 397 and Labour's nadir of 209 was built off 42.4% of the vote for the Tories and 27.6% for Labour.

Excellent piece by Theresa Reidy, which Stan noted, found in the Examiner. She writes about: a small but vocal minority of enraged voters. A total of 213,738 people spoiled their votes. And this figure is probably an under-estimate because evidence from the Ireland Thinks poll showed that some voters cast their preference for the Fianna Fáil candidate Jim Gavin in protest, or in the belief that this would be a spoiled vote.

As always, following on Dr. X’s suggestion, it’s all yours, “announcements, general discussion, whatever you choose”, feel free.

Yesterday wrote: Fine Gael may be licking their wounds, but theirs was a problem brought about by sheer bad political luck. Their front runner had to retire and they were left scrambling around for another option. If they made the wrong choice, and there was arguably no right choice, that was somewhat out of their control. Too soon! For yesterday there came mutterings of dissent in the FG camp.

Full text here. Last week a hugely significant Dublin City Council meeting took place, which neither Malachy Steenson nor Gavin Pepper bothered to attend. This was a specially convened meeting to consider three important reports, all of which will have a huge impact on housing provision in the City. While this important meeting was ignored by the anti-immigrant councillors, Steenson and his crew were delivering “Spoil Your Vote” leaflets.

So, the weekend brought not just the result of the Presidential election, but somewhat less remarkably, a poll from the Business Post/RedC stable. Sinn Féin 23 +2 Fine Gael 19 NC Fianna Fáil 17 - 1 Ind 12 -1 Social Democrats 9 +2 Independent Ireland 5 -1 Labour 4 NC Aontú 4 +1 Green NC PBP/Solidarity 3 -1 What to say?

Promised after the September meet-up, a late Autumn/early Winter gathering, for weighty discussion of the Presidential election results or maybe not. Anyone around early in usual spot some evening? Say November Thursday 13th, that week?

Wasn't it on here that someone suggested just after the Jim Gavin debacle that in any other party Micheál Martin would be toast, and correctly so. But before he would find himself being roasted there was the small matter of the Presidential election to get out of the way. No point in compounding the original error with a leadership election until the dust had settled.

To download the above please click on the following links: CAHWT LEAFLETDownload CAHWT 2Download Please click here to go the Left Archive. Many thanks to Joan Collins who forwarded these to the Archive.  These are the first documents produced by the Campaign Against Home and Water Taxes in the Archive - although individual documents released by groups in tandem with the campaign have been added in the past number of years. 

It's been a crazy few months. Candidates dropping out for health reasons, Candidates dropping out as they realised they didn't have any support , A Candidate dropping out mid campaign and still on the ballot. A Candidate becoming a cause celebre for certain groups after not getting on the ballot despite trying her hardest to do so for a fortnight.

All examples welcome. There's this gem: The awkward truth is that the left has been predicting an imminent political breakthrough since Michael D himself was in short trousers. It never happens. Maybe this time will be different. Connolly surely believes it will. Being a socialist means never having to admit you’re wrong. Starting with Fintan O'Toole: Yet even as she savours her deserved victory, Connolly cannot be unaware that she was also soundly trounced by the real winner: indifference.

Was out in the back yard on Thursday night looking at the sky which due to the low temperature and lack of clouds was very impressive. A lot of stars visible given that it is inner city Dublin, and saw a shooting star too, first time in a very many years - and an impressive shooting star it was too. …

Should have gone live at 9 but didn’t! Apologies.

You like Floyd? I don't much, bar Wish You Were Here, but be that as it may. You like Steely Dan? You like Yes? I'm with you on both of those, albeit less mid-period Yes and more 1980s Yes when Trevor Horn clambered on board. You like Santana? Ditto. You like the idea that there might be a somewhat heavier take on those groups?