Really.
That is not my experience, but mine is merely light blue.
2 Likes
I didn’t know.
I’d second this. It’s not relevant here TBH. We’re very friendly, but quite a few have high levels of achievement both within and outwith academia and most of us have achieved that point in life where labels, however elevated, have lost the ability to impress.
7 Likes
Ah. That explains it 
I like ‘spira mortalis’ - a thing you shuffle off ?
A good listen, but really based around Le Pen winning power, and hopefully her four years in prison and the five-year ban from running for political will stick. Ne didn’t mention that. He likes a bit of sensationalism. That doesn’t mean that road ahead isn’t rocky though.
You should listen to more of his podcasts Jane. A lot of Irish in jokes but a lot of good stuff too. His latest describes the risk from the AI bubble. Something I’ve posted on here about since the start. It could make the dot com bubble burst look like a minor readjustment. Brace yourself.
FYI … Later verge cutting is due to the fact that it is better for the environment not for economic reasons
6 Likes
Good for you Theresa, not everything is a portent of doom. Personally I have nothing but optimism for France (or at least far less pessimism than for elsewhere 
).
2 Likes
Protests and demos.
A strong far Right party, against a weak and fractured left and centre.
A people which intends the state to continue to spend more than it earns.
Yet I agree with you!
2 Likes
People may see signs up “fauchage tardive”.
1 Like
I had and still have the same, hence my eagerness to help out by buying bonds and now my embarrassment when such is criticised. Taking it further, I now feel resentment towards the politicians who only think their idealisms and not the greater good of France, and also the rentamob whose sole purpose is to ruin everything in sight. I bet few of these, politicians and rentamob share in France’s debt…
I am sure that I have read articles my McWilliams before as I like the Irish Times more so than many - nay, all, other English written journals. He obviously knows his subject having worked as an economist in European banks. I prefer his written word to the podcast that is a little long winded for me. Not too sure though I like his message - although it is the same I get from every angle.
1 Like
Link??
It’s above
1 Like
Yes, his written word is more pithy. The podcasts harken back to the days when Irish economic tactics and strategy were decided in the bar of Doheny and Nesbitts, a stone’s throw from the Department of Finance. However, the podcasts, while meandering, do come to interesting conclusions at the end.
The thing about McWilliams is that if you sent him an email and told him you were going to be in Dalkey (where he lives) and did he fancy a pint to discuss the shit we’re in, he’d probably say yes. If the timing suited. He’s a very approachable guy.
Oh I do love Ireland and the Irish, I would live there in a heartbeat, but the weather, the weather…
I am not Irish, if anything not English I am Welsh with a smattering of Cornish, so I reckon my sentimentality for the far west must be Celtic in origin. I think the reason I did not die after the heart attack is because it is soft as grease and thus cannot snap.
No idea where all that came from. 
1 Like
So do I not a bad song writer too, apparently this is about a tramp he met.
A tenement, a dirty street
Walked and worn by shoe less feet
Inside it’s long and so complete
Watched by shivering sun
Old eyes in a small child’s face
Watching as the shadows race
Trough walls and cracks and leave no trace
And daylight’s brightness shuns
The days of Pearly Spencer
The race is almost run
Nose pressed hard on frosted glass
Gazing as the swollen mass
On concrete fields where grows no grass
Stumbles blindly on
Iron trees smother the air
But withering they stand and stare
Trough eyes that neither know nor care
Where the grass is gone
The days of Pearly Spencer
The race is almost run
Pearly where’s your milk white skin?
What that stubble on your chin?
Buried in the rot gut gin
You played and lost not won
You played a house that can’t be beat
Now look your head’s bowed in defeat
You walked too far along the street
Where only rats can run
The days of Pearly Spencer
The race is almost run
The days of Pearly Spencer
The race is almost run
2 Likes
Wonderful, and I do recognise the song, but can’t remember who has recorded it.
I know nothing about poetry, but in my apparent ignorance, I do love it when it rhymes. I am the very epitomy of the often sneered at ‘I know what I like’. Thus the little bits that I have written always have been truthful to that principle.
Most famously, Marc Almond.
Haven’t heard of him but listening to others’ interpretations of it I am still not sure who was the first for me. David Bowie is one but pretty sure that that wasn’t my favourite, I think a fellow called McWilliams was closest.
He wrote it. So yes he was the first. And that’s the version I remember. 