Tomorrow is the start of the Patrick’s day festival, or maybe that was today, what with images of those who received the freedom of Dublin being projected onto the Custom House. The most famous image projected onto a building that I know of was the one of a naked Gail Porter onto the houses of Parliament in Westminster.

Anyway, along with the Patrick’s Day hoopla, there is the obligatory piss up that this year, Tesco are supporting. Lets not fool ourselves, large numbers of people in this country do nothing on St. Patrick’s Day except drink themselves into a stupor. If the day falls on a saturday or a sunday, which, this year it does, with the subsequent bank holiday monday, then the large numbers will drink themselves into a stupor for friday, saturday, sunday, monday.

That’s a lot of drinking time and every little helps so isn’t it grand that you can buy twelve cans, get twelve cans free in Tesco! Yipee! Free beer galore. RTE and TV3 are outraged about this and the story featured on the news. Tesco responded with “we fully support the position for the responsible enjoyment of alcohol. Only one offer per customer. Blah, blah, blah.”

Let me see, Dun Laoghaire, two different Tescos within a mile of each other, 24 cans of beer. Trip down into the Merrion Centre, not too far away, twelve more cans of beer, swing by Sandymount, again not too far away, twelve more free cans of beer. Hmm, where to next. Ah, Dundrum, twelve more cans of beer, wait lots of checkouts in Dundrum, trip to car to don sun glasses, wig, dress up as a woman, 36 free can’s of beer. Let me go back to Dun Laoghaire, no dress change required, 24 more cans of beer. Hey, this is great, I’m saving loads of money on the planned ferry trip to France. Then again, why didn’t I just hang around Dun Laoghaire and go through each till, shift change in the two stores. Sure, who’s even paying attention.

Tesco, what utter nonsense. There is no way you can police a “one offer per customer” rule like you are saying you will do. Hey, Guess what, I’m only buying the beer! Now, stick that in your marketing pipe and smoke it. If you offer, they will come! Yeah! But, who needs food or anything else when I’m on a mission to get as much free beer as I can! This is better than the SSIA! The government only gave me one for four. Tesco give me one for one. Think about the beer cost savings over five years.

There have been a lot of layoffs recently. Every time I hear of lay offs, I find it very difficult to muster up sympathy. Not because I don’t feel sorry for people who get laid off, more because I have been laid off myself and lived to tell the tale. Not only that, but I got a nice financial windfall which did all sorts of useful things like pay college fees, enabled me to take three months off one summer, gave me the cash to put a booking deposit on an apartment e.t.c.

Layoffs to me are like, sooo Noughties. You are not a worker of the Noughties if you haven’t been laid off. I fully expect to be laid off again. I am estimating once a decade. The government (and revenue) think that is realistic too, which is why you are entitled to a tax free redundancy (up to a certain ceiling) once every ten years.

The negativity and doom and gloom surrounding layoffs also leaves me scratching my head at times. They are what they are. In the case of multi-nationals located in Ireland they are self fulfilling prophecies from the first day that the multinational started operating in Ireland. The Leaving Certificate geography curriculum warns about the dangers of an economy dependent on multinationals. Take the recent P&G relocation from Nenagh to Poland. Sure, the Poles are happy now, but in twenty five years, they will be the ones coping with the layoffs.

Multinational manufacturing has served its purpose for Ireland. When we were a small, closed, low cost economy, we were the perfect base for multinationals wanting to locate near a skilled, English speaking, young workforce. We are no longer a small, closed, low cost economy. The gravy train of easy factory wages is going elsewhere. We are a small, open high cost economy. With that up-skilling (high cost implies higher levels of skills) comes the inevitable closures in low skill areas.

In my experience, factory workers laid off are amongst the most intransigent of all layees. (my term for those laid off). None of them believe there is any thing else for them in life. They firmly believe there is no work outside the factory. I think that is not true at all.

Several hundred people were laid off with me. We all survived. Some became entrepreneurs, some stayed in the industry, some retrained, some gave up work altogether. Everyone made an individual choice. Being laid off gives people back a freedom to be an individual again, rather than a factory worker. It can be a positive, life changing experience if people believe in themselves, if people are willing to make changes to their lifestyles and work choices.

You only have to look at the diversity of people working in the Irish economy and the number of immigrant workers to know that there very definitely is life outside a factory, be it a manufacturing plant, or an apparent skilled professional code warehouse. There is room for everyone and fat redundancy packages that at the end of the day, give people no excuse to whine. If you get a tax free lump sum constituting a couple of years wages, you have nothing to whine about and no excuses for failing to retrain.

Everyone I know who got laid off has been in exactly that position. Go, sprout wings with your financial cushion, fly. I’m not denying it’s traumatic at the time, but, it gets better and better until the day comes where you know you wouldn’t go back to your old job if you were paid to do so.

Sarah Carey, blogger, Sunday Times Columnist posted a few months ago about a certain train wreck of a car crash in Monoghan. I posted about it myself at the time. About how the guy driving on the wrong side of the road was obviously to blame. Later, I learned that everyone involved in the accident was friends. Later I learned that the two cars belonged to a driver who had already been cautioned or convicted, I really cannot remember which, for driving dangerously or doing doughnuts or something, if memory served.

The inquest took place and it appears to have been the case that the lads were playing CHICKEN. Which, on learning about the one owner of the cars and the trips in and out of town bore out the theory. The gardai appear to have stated that a car swerved but it was too late. If that doesn’t sound like CHICKEN (shouting CHICKEN from the roof tops), then what the hell could sound like a game of chicken?

Five people died in this accident and there are people intimidating Sarah Carey for stating the obvious facts. This can’t have been an accident. Jesus. Am I living on the plains of Africa with the head in the sand burying ostriches or am I in Ireland where most of the time, the roads are NOT to blame.

Lets not pick on people who didn’t cause accidents. Lets not pick on people who have an unbiased view of the facts. Sarah, I’m with you . They appear to allegedly have been playing a game of CHICKEN. That or, allegedly, one of the drivers believed (mistakenly) they were in a mainland European country and so one HAD to drive on the appropriate (for mainland Europe) side of the road (i.e. the opposite side to the Irish side), and only at the last minute, when they saw the other car zooming towards them at a high speed, did they realise the error of their ways and swerve to avoid the oncoming car because they were on the incorrect side of the road. Except, they didn’t swerve in time and the cars impacted head on and five people were killed. But of course it wasn’t CHICKEN. It was just an ACCIDENT. Just like every other accident. We all know that there was no speed involved either. Because cars don’t disntegrate at the point of impact if there is high speed. Life destructing, car destructing impact only occurs when you are driving sllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllloooooooowlllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllly.