I posted this back in dark times wondering how we could ever find our way back from the abyss. Thankfully we did, but the war is far from over.

This Cabbage reminds me of Comical Ali on the banks of the Tigris denying the approach of the Collation Forces while US Abraham tanks rolled in the background.

"Let somebody competent deliver this" 🤣🤣🤣

It is a nonsense that 41.2 prevents women working. My mother worked for continuously for the Health Board until her sixties. She did not stop working when she got married, she did not stop working when she had me. It was her choice to work or not work.

To date 225 valiant IDF soldiers have sacrificed their lives, with thousands more injured since the Gaza invasion began, to satisfy Netanyahu's blood lust. How many more must perish upon his altar before Israel comes to its senses? timesofisrael.com/authoritie…

This is a post from @Nurses4lifeIrl Let's face it the last 3 years have not been easy for Nurses, Doctors and hospital staff in Ireland, Our ruler made them promises and still have not followed through. This brave person is a Nurse and a mother the laws have not stopped her from working, please listen to what she has to say. I have two requests please share this video far and wide, give @Nurses4lifeIrl a follow, and please #votenono Vote No to both proposals

Professor Smyth didn't last long as Chief Medical Officer. I wonder if she will write a book as well? rte.ie/news/ireland/2024/020…

It’s not fanciful or contrived to ask questions about ‘throuples’ in #referendum and the debate should not be based on misinformation michaelmcdowell.ie/referendu…

Prof Mark Woolhouse, an eminent epidemiologist and government adviser, lambasted the BBC for having “repeatedly reported rare deaths or illnesses among healthy adults as if they were the norm”. telegraph.co.uk/news/2024/01…

Fightin words from Conor. Time to take the gloves off.

Elon your consistent support on this matter has been truly appreciated and respected! We, the people of Ireland, will never tolerate any draconian/corruptible bills being passed into law here. We will not tolerate the attempted removal of our freedom to speak our minds and engage in fair, honest debate. A silly and weak attempt to silence opposition opinion is what this is and WE SAY NO! We will fight this all the way if it is attempted to be pushed forward. We will fight it and we will win. Thank you Elon, as we say in Ireland, fair play! 🇮🇪🏆

Ireland, 2024.

Local hire company bought a range of different Chinese brands. Some like the DR are pure junk, wouldn't pull you out of bed, but the MG ZS 1.0 GDI was a pleasant surprise, good fuel consumption, reasonable response, handles and looks like a Hyundai Tuscon. rte.ie/news/business/2024/01…

Looks like Conor has 2 County Councils that could endorse him for president. Only 2 more to go out of 29 remaining.

A perfect example as to why the governments strategy to rely 100% on renewables is delusional. At present with brass monkeys in danger of extinction, Wind is only producing 2.5% of Ireland's electricity demand, 7.5% by other renews, 80% is met by oil, gas and coal and 10% by UK

I know I swore I'd never fly Ryanair if another airline flew the route after MOL suggested only vaccinated passengers should be allowed fly, but AerLingus want €320 for Malaga to Dublin while Ryanair is only €15 to Belfast, cheaper even than the Irish Rail fare to Dublin. 😕

RT @rorymcevoy: Why can’t we train up thousands of block layers, plasterers, carpenters, plumbers, etc and build 150,000 new houses, includ…

I'm still trying to get my head around the UK Post Office IT scandal. 700 innocent postal workers accused of theft, fraud and false accounting, by the faulty technology, resulting in them being sacked, thrown in prison, and immense mental distress. mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/po…

First scribblings of "Saol Brian". All comments positive and negative welcome. I decided I'd start with an easy one. I estimate about three to four parts for this one each part a week apart. Spelling and grammar obviously shite, but the structure seems to be ok. Let me know what you think. Kosovo Convoy 1999 - Part 1. Trocaire’s financial controller Harry called me over to his office. “I’m away for a few days, I’d like you to go to that meeting in Tallaght”. “Me? That shopping trolley malarkey? The first time in ages they (Fundraising section) have project that has nothing to do with IT, and you want me to stick my oar in?”. “Just examine it from an operations perspective, I’ve a sinking feeling they haven't thought this through” They never think it through, I thought to myself, Why would this time be any different? “Fine, I’ll go,,,,,Why do I keep letting you talk me into this shit?” He grinned as I left. Some months earlier the large supermarket retailer, Tesco Ireland chose us to be their Charity Partner of the year and collaborated with our Fundraising & Communications section on a series of initiatives, the one in question being food donations for our Kosovo appeal. A shopping trolley was placed at the exit in each of Tesco’s 76 stores placarded with Kosovo Food Appeal signs, encouraging the shopper to deposit canned foods in the trolley to support the cause. When the trolley was full, it was replaced with another and at the end of the week Tesco loaded them onto their delivery trucks returning to the depot. The original concept was that shoppers would bring to the store unwanted non perishable foods that cluttered the shelves of their kitchens, like the alphabet spaghetti that the kids won’t eat any more but it quickly changed into asking ‘customers to purchase an extra item of food or sanitary products as they shopped and donate it to a Kosovar family.’ as if you were doing extra shopping for an elderly neighbour or friend in need. From a marketing perspective the appeal was already a major success. We achieved phenomenal brand and campaign awareness though our association with Tesco. Our donation telephone lines were jammed with callers who had seen the shopping trolley appeal but preferred to make a financial donation instead. The media loved the concept and both Tesco’s and our communications staff were flat our with interviews and promotions. From Tesco’s perspective it enhanced their corporate responsibility profile, of giving back to the community and those in need. Arriving early for the meeting. I was greeted by the Tesco’s Logistics manager, who following some introductions, requested that I follow him to the warehouse. Upon entering I saw that an entire section of warehouse cluttered with overflowing shopping trolley’s. I don’t recall his exact words but “What the fcuk are we supposed to do with these” is a close approximation. The meeting commenced and after a while the thorny issue of what to do with the trolley’s was raised. If the collection had been for a local charity it would have simply been a matter of packing them in boxes and delivering trunk loads as and when required. But these goods were destined for Kosovo, in fact strictly speaking, the goods were for Kosovar refugees in refugee centres in Albania. Somebody suggested that we could ship the goods by container. Then it dawned on me why Harry had sent me. A conundrum existed. Flour, rice, eggs, meat, potatoes, staple foods in the Albanian diet could be purchased in bulk locally in the Balkan’s, cheaper and quicker, than the cost and time involved in shipping the highly processed Western foods by container from Ireland. The most efficient thing that could happen would be for Tesco to take back their goods and issue us a credit note so we could purchase produce in the Balkan’s. But I wasn't going to say that out loud, not then anyway. In principle so long as we didn’t pay for it well then we could accept the goods being shipped by someone else to Albania. The group continued brain storming and the idea of using Tesco’s trucks was suggested. Tesco weren't against the idea but their trucks were right hand drive and only operated in Ireland and the UK. Most of their drivers had little or no continental experience, some had never driven outside Ireland. Then someone suggested they could go as a convoy. The communications and fundraisers instantly jumped at the idea. To be fair the convoy idea had been kicked around for a while, but this was to my knowledge, when the possibility became reality. A Kosovo Convoy. Once the idea took root there was no going back. It was no longer a question of should we deliver the goods via shipping container or truck or at all; We were sending a convoy to Kosovo and both parties were now focused on making the convoy a success. Driving back from the meeting I rang the Harry on the hands free to keep him in the loop. “Jesus Christ, Brian, A Convoy!” “I asked you to keep an eye on things not screw them up beyond all recognition. Couldn’t they just ship the stuff by container? Have you any idea what’s going to be involved in this?” He was talking purely from the financial perspective, the myriad of unseen costs and how his department would keep track of and process all the expenditures related to this new adventure, but his question had greater ramifications. What was going to be involved? Since World War Two, Kosovo had been an autonomous province of Serbia, which in turn was part of the Yugoslav Federation. The majority of Kosovo’s population were of ethnic Albanian Muslim descent, whereas over 80% of the rest of Serbia’s population were Orthodox Christian Serbs. Following the collapse of Yugoslavia and the subsequent Balkan wars, the Albanian majority in Kosovo sought to break away from Serbia. Civil protests took place but were brutally suppressed by the Serb controlled police. A low level insurgency developed and the Serb army was mobilised to crush it. Over half a million Albanian-Kosovar’s fled into neighbouring Albania, itself a poor State with a small population of three million, around 300,000 of which were Catholic. The Catholic and Muslim communities tried to help but were swamped by the sheer numbers of refugees and limited resources. The Catholic Church in Albania put out an appeal for assistance through the Caritas International network which led to the food appeal by the Catholic community in Ireland. The Convoy would have to deliver the goods to a Caritas depot in Albania. Only two years earlier Albania itself had descended into anarchy when a series of pyramid investment schemes collapsed taking with them the life savings of half the population. The massive protests that followed forced the government to resign and rioting was commonplace. Weapon depots were looted, banks were robbed and mafia crime gangs ruled. A 7,000 strong Italian-led UN mission had to temporarily intervene to restore order. Crime particularly low level crime was still rampant. Despite the recent upheaval Albania was still an independent sovereign State and not part of the EU. It had procedures for the importation of goods, regardless of their virtue, that had to be complied with. A waybill is a document used in consolidated consignment transport. It is simply a detailed list of goods on board the truck, container or ship. But you can’t just say 48,000 tins. You have to say 24,000 tins of beans in tomato sauce, 24,000 tins of marrow-fat peas and how they are packaged, ie 2,400 tins of beans per pallet. Many goods attract a tax or duty. Making an illegal declaration for the purpose of avoiding duty will land you in jail as an Irish Fruit & Veg importer found to his cost when he imported a mixed container of apples and garlic from China. He declared the whole container as apples and paid the 9% duty applicable to fruit, when garlic from China had a super tariff of 120%, landing himself in jail for six years. This meant that Tesco’s couldn’t just take all the goods from the trolley’s and randomly pack them in cardboard boxes to stack on the pallets. They had to ensure that only Tesco beans went in one box and Heinz Beans in another while Heinz Beans and Sausages went in another except since sausages are meat, pork to be exact, and as Albania is a predominantly Muslim country, and all meats must be halal, and pork may or may not be permitted. If pork was permitted it would have to be clearly labelled in the national language as you don’t want to be the Christian charity that fed Muslim's pork without telling them, like the British Army did in India, when rifle powder cartridges that had to be torn open by the soldiers with their teeth, were coated in cow and pig fat, insulting both Hindu and Muslim alike, and triggering the Indian Rebellion of 1857. Modern logistical systems are immensely streamlined. Goods are delivered to the warehouse on pallets and for the most part kept on pallets, stored in ceiling high racks and bays accessed by forklifts. When goods are required by a store, the required number of pallets are placed on the truck by the forklift. There is little or no manual handling involved, but if there is, it is at the box level not at the item level. Accordingly Tesco had a minimal amount of staff at the warehouse and they were predominantly assigned to forklift operations. The situation was compounded by the fact that many shoppers had donated previously purchased unwanted cans from their homes, some of these were out of date, others were bashed, and some were third party brands from other supermarket chains. These were mixed up in the trolley’s with the new Tesco purchased items, so each item in the trolley had be examined for its contents, condition and expiry date, greatly hindering the repacking process. Tesco’s assigned ten staff to help with the repacking but they were making very slow progress, barely keeping pace with new arrivals of trolleys from the stores. Another ten staff were brought in to clear the backlog but it was calculated that at the current rate of packing it would take them 27 days to clear the backlog of trolleys occupying the warehouse. A joint “Task Force” was established between the two organisations to co-ordinate on the Convoy. Hard decisions needed to be made. The Appeal had been launched on the 9th of April with great media fanfare but by now, two weeks later, most of the regular Tesco customers who wished to donate had the opportunity to do so. The pace of donations was starting to drop off usually a sign an appeal has peaked. Tesco needed their warehouse space back, and for things to return to normal, while the customers who had donated the much needed food were expecting media updates on how the Kosovar’s had benefited from their generosity. Tesco appealed to their drivers for volunteers and indicated they could at most make 9 or 10 trucks available. The middle of the last week of April was provisionally scheduled for the Convoy to depart so it was agreed to wind up the appeal on the first weekend of May. As the convoy would depart before the end of the appeal, Tesco management agreed to convert any donations received after the departure into cash. (I wonder where they got that idea from 😀). With less than a week remaining before the Convoys departure the focus was now on the backlog which at the current rate of processing would take 27 days to clear. Tesco put out a call to all its store staff for volunteers to assist over the weekend with the sorting and re-packing. Reportedly an estimated 250 volunteers showed up including Tesco Ireland’s Managing Director Maurice Pratt. In total over 500,000 items were sorted on to 242 pallets which were loaded onto 11 trailers. Even though the Convoy wouldn’t depart for a further three days and the campaign wouldn’t end until the following weekend it was agreed that any further items donated at the stores would be converted into cash. Everyone's attention needed to be focused on the preparations for the Convoy. ====================================== [One of the reasons that donated cash was preferable to processed canned goods was that it enabled charities to maximise what could be called “bang for buck”. A 415g tin of Heinz beans in Tesco’s costs €1.90 (Dec 2023) and provides 336 Calories. For €1.90 at Dec 2023 prices you could purchase wholesale in the Balkan’s 2Kg of raw beans with a calorific value of 6,600. Government organisations like Irish Aid and the EU often offered up to 100% co-financing, so the €1.90 would become €3.80 and could purchase 4kg of beans with a calorific value of 13,200, 39 times that of the tin of Heinz beans.] Notice: This is a draft personal memoir consisting of short stories covering selected aspects from my life, written many years after the events. I try to stick as closely to the truth as possible using material in my possession and also in the public domain but for expediency and to help the flow of narration I often merge events together or alter timelines, locations etc. For example what is described as a meeting may actually have been a series of telephone calls and a conversation in a pub. I also try where possible anonymise others involved unless they have a particular relevance to the story. It is also a draft and will undergo changes. If any individual or organisation feels I have referenced them incorrectly or unfairly please contact me an I’ll be more that happy to make clarifications, corrections or include an alternative perspective._

"Ireland had no 'excess' deaths during pandemic, new research finds" We screamed this daily - clear as crystal in 2020 - from Government data. And we know with certainty that the measures did nothing to reduce it. WE WERE CORRECT THROUGHOUT - on everything🤨