Starbucks has come to Ireland. I don’t know about the unit in Blanchardstown, but the units in Dundrum, College Green, and now Harcourt buildings fill me with amusement everytime I pass by. Not only have they been full when I have been passing, people have been queueing out the door in search of a cup of coffee.

I don’t get it. The insatable appetite for newly arrived Starbucks. I have been known to drink starbucks coffee, in America, back in the mid nineties, on my first trip, where it was a novelty. Later, in London. But then in London, I discovered the infinitely superior Nero and there was no going back. In America, (not that I’m there very often) I’ll go anywhere else.

Starbucks (for me) is to coffee what MacDonalds is to beef. That is just my opinion. (it is a fair comparison when you consider the calories in some of the starbucks drinks). I’d rather continue to buy my occasional latte in an Irish chain like Butler’s Chocolates. Mind you, I have grown out of my daily cup of coffee habit. We have plenty freshly brewed coffee at work, so I can get my fix there.

What I really don’t get about Starbucks in Ireland is the queue I see every single time I pass one of their premises. Anyone would think that there was no decent coffee to be had in Dublin. That they have come to save the nation of tea drinkers. To introduce coffee to us. There is plenty of coffee in Dublin. There has been for many a year. Much of it vastly superior to what is to be had in Starbucks. Judging by the queues , I think perhaps the coffee drinking population has abandoned the haunts that kept them satisfied for many a year. Although perhaps I am mistaken. Surely there are more like me, who prefer to taste coffee when drinking coffee. Not copious amounts of sugar and syrup and cream that make you feel sick from the sugar rush.

The coffee industry in Ireland is not in its infancy. There are few in the country who wouldn’t know what a Gaggia was. There are few who wouldn’t know that the presence of crema definitely doesn’t indicate milk. I learned how to make an espresso in an industrial machine when I was sixteen years old, it started in a little pizzeria in Cork. My family began ladening the car down with coffee from our summer holidays (France, Germany, Italy, wherever we happened to be) when I was eight. An electric coffee grinder has had a kitchen counter presence since I was a teenager. Coffee is not new! Brown Thomas, Roches Stores, Arnotts, they all sell espresso machines. People fall overthemselves to shell out several hundred euro on these machines. They discuss coffee knowlegeably. How best to make it. The pressure required. The art of frothing milk. Coffee art.

So who are the people I see in Starbucks? Am I really to believe that that far from being a well travelled population, Irish people have actually never set foot outside these shores. That Ireland, is indeed an Island with no way to get off? That none have ever before tasted coffee. The closest we have come to it is watering a spoon of Irel coffee essence down with a bit of boiling water. Coffee anyone? Baaaa. Let’s go to Starbucks. They have coffee there. Have you ever had a coffee?

Now that this situation is finally resolved, I have to rant about an experience SK and I went through in the last few weeks/months.

One of the responsibilites that comes with buying a property is having adequate life insurance to cover you in the event of death. Death comes to us all, and we never know where or when or how, but for must of us, in our thirties, we still have that sense of “Oh, plenty of life in me yet!”.

So, we got our forms and filled them out and detailed our health and recent lack of it (full disclosure on injuries such as my fractured elbow etc) . One of the questions that was popular was “Do you travel abroad for work? Have you any intention of living outside of Ireland for long periods of time e.t.c.”. Which seemed like a reasonable question. One that you wouldn’t expect anything much to come of. Afterall, it is the twenty-first century now. Lots of people travel routinely for work for short periods of time, but they are all domiciled in Ireland.

The underwriters from the first company we dealt with came back to us with a quote for basic joint life cover for our mortgage only (i.e. no accelerated illness cover) of just shy of two hundred euro. A month. Please, take my whole pay cheque why don’t you! SK and I drew deep breaths. My life part of the calclation was costing about twenty euro a month, so the rest was SK and his dangerous lifestyle. He’s a consultant for a telecoms company you see. Travels to dangerous places in Europe. If I knew what a dangerous person he was to be married to, I think I’d have rethought my decision. What irked even more is that if SK were to become a stay at home couch potato in the morning, he still wouldn’t be entitled to have the policy revistited and the premium readjusted accordingly for the absence of travel for work. Twenty to thirty years is a long time to be spending two hundred euro a month on life assurance.

Thankfully, there is some competition in the market. So we said “Bye bye” to the first company. There are plenty of other companies out there. All of them have another little question. “Have you been accepted on special terms, please explain”. So SK did. Filled out his information. Answered questions about his dangerous consultant lifestyle. Waited. Two hundred euro a month running through my brain. That would finance a new car!

Thankfully, all ended well, we have been accepted. On normal terms. At normal rates. You know, the rate you get when you fill out the little calculators on websites. In the region of forty euro a month for both.

I don’t know what goes on with actuaries, but all I can say, is, thankfully some saw sense.

The Irish Times has an interesting article in its property section today about people living in apartment complexes getting fed up of management companies.

I live in an apartment complex managed by the management company Wyse, and it has to be said, of my limited experience of their managerial skills, they are completely shite. I alone consider them to be completely shite due to their poor maintenance of carpets and their lack of hoovering said carpets. It came to my attention a few months ago that they had stopped doing some of the cleaning/hoovering/general maintenance that they used to. Like when the carpets were crawling with dust/debris/muck and obviously looked like they hadn’t been hoovered in a month, I rang their office to complain. In fairness, the woman there did take my complaint on board and about two weeks later the place was hoovered. But the lift wasn’t washed out, and this still annoys me.

But manky carpets aside, they really have completely daft rules. Like the “no pets, no laundry on the balconies!” e.t.c. The no pets I don’t understand. If Parisians and New Yorkers can live in apartments with their dogs and cats, then, why not the Irish? And does “NO pets!” encompass no goldfish? How would they know I have goldfish? The no laundry is another rule that really PISSES me off. For eighteen months now, I have had laundry in the living room/spare bedroom. I’m sick of looking at it.

I’m ranting I know, but how simple a concept is it?

Management Company: Uh, we don’t want laundry on the balconies, ‘cos that, LOIKE lowers the tone, ROYSH, so we’ll uh, ban people from drying their laundry outside.

People living in the apartments/purchasing apartments (who are never consulted about what management company they end up with): Yeah, that’s fine, but eh, the kitchens don’t have room for dryers, and those washer dryers are absolute shite, and there is no hotpress, because the cold water tank sits directly on top of the hot water tank, where there would normally be airing cupboard shelving.

Management Company: Uh, it lowers the tone, we don’t live in them, take your laundry to the laundry processing people if you wan’t it tumble dried.

People living in the apartments/purchasing apartments: Eh, but, that’s expensive, and, balconies are sheltered, and actually, pretty much make ideal places to dry laundry.

Management Company: Uh, it lowers the tone. Can’t be having that.

People living in the apartments/purchasing apartments: Uh, aren’t we supposed to be moving toward a more European way of living, isn’t that why this is an apartment complex? Have you ever not seen laundry in apartments in suburban areas of Europe where people live in apartments….. indeed in city centres, in European cities, you even see laundry on balconies?

Management Company: Uh, it lowers the tone. Can’t be having that.

People living in the apartments/purchasing apartments: Uh, right so, well, how about building us a laundry room then? One per building? Not with washing machines, as we have space for those ourselves, just tumble dryers, the industrial kind.

Management Company: Uh, can’t be having that….. that would cost us money to maintain.

People living in the apartments/purchasing apartments: But say they were machines that would only work when fed with money, like in laundrettes. Isn’t that profitable? I mean why else are laundrettes in business? Isn’t it our money that is being used from the management fees to provide this sort of thing, what exactly are you spending the money on? Twenty apartments per building, five buildings, fee of about €1200 per apartment and you’re saying you can’t afford to give us a laundry room? That’s €120,000 per year. Waste charges** and gardener*** and caretaker*** and buildings insurance** aside, where is the money going?

** €110 per apartment with communal bin
***, ** assume your own salary for these two…..

total: 120,000 -11,000**** waste charges **** = €110 * 20 apartments * five buildings

Management Company: Uh, into our pockets?

note, the above conversation is completely imaginary. The bit about having to ring to find out why the carpets in communal areas had not been hoovered in over a month is TRUE.

Is it any wonder the Arran Quay residents took back control?