Copyright Old Grumbler Enterprises 2015

18 March 2017

The day after St Patrick’s Day

I am usually right about most things – especially in my own mind.

I was certainly right about St Patrick’s Day and Guinness as my ‘head’ continuously reminds me this morning…

i was also right about the Irish Times and Brexit! Today’s banner headlines include a piece entitled ‘Brexit and North more vital than departure date’ ascribed to Enda Kenny, the Taoiseach; ‘Ireland’s call: From Bandit Country to Brexit’s Frontier and ‘Teresa May puts her finger on the Brexit trigger’. There were others but you get the gist. As I said yesterday most of the commentary is tosh of the most speculative type.

The sad thing is that this will go on and on for the next two to four years or more. I am thinking of deleting the App

Now where did I put the paracetamol?

17 March 2017

St Patrick’s Day

Well, I am back. Still grumbling.

I know my predictions about Greece haven’t yet materialised but trust me it will end in tears at some point.

Anyway, it is St Patrick’s Day. It happens every year and it’s always the same old guff. The leader of Ireland and any other Irish politician of note buggers off to the United States because they have the best Paddy’s Day parties there and they are free. Besides that about ten times more Irish people live in America than in Ireland especially so since the Single Market and Freedom of Movement in the EU so the atmosphere is better, more Irish I understand if that doesn’t sound too Irish (try and keep up!). I have generally found that Irish in the wider diaspora are more Irish than in the Old Country.

Reading the Irish Times, as I do each day, it seems to me that this year as last the intrusion of  (what I like to call) the ‘Guinness Abuse Festival’ is a necessary evil with which to stop people going on and on about Brexit. Just read this newspaper and you will be astonished about how much tosh is being written about the subject. From tosh warnings of a ‘hard’ Brexit, to the tosh threat of ‘border controls’ with the North and the tosh threat of economic catastrophe. It always astonishes me with journalists and academics (the ivory-tower mob) that they know so much based on so little. The UK has yet to trigger Article 50 and begin withdrawal discussions so this early chatter is tosh – pure and simple like the freshwater streams that flow down into Galway Bay!

So to give everyone a rest from such tosh, the people of Ireland, the descendents of people from Ireland and those other people who barely ever need an excuse to get drunk on Guinness will have a day of Brexit free mirth accompanied by a few beers and a whole clatter of traditional Irish delicacies. This antidote to fine dining will include cabbage and champ (mashed buttered potato and scallion) with smoked ham or bacon; a Croque Monsieur cheese and ham toasted sandwich ‘Irishified’ with lettuce as a token green colour; Shepherd’s Pie with lamb and, finally, a beef stew. I don’t know about you but that sounds like a recipe to get to 20 stone in a few no doubt lost hours. I don’t think, however, that Paddy’s Day revelers will care a great deal if at all. They will get on with it like they always do and have a great day. It will all be short-lived though because tomorrow, just check the Irish Times and they will be at Brexit again. Remember though that it is tosh – all of it!

I refuse, however, to be accused of humbug on this St Paddy’s day miasma of euphoria and cultural invention – to be honest he wasn’t even Irish and there were never any snakes in Ireland as far as experts can tell! So I will be off to my local – The Farmhouse – in a few short minutes for a dose of all of the above delights – especially the Guinness but I will draw the line at three – I would hate to recover my long lost sense of humour at €5 a pint. I am as you know a miserable old git but things, as that old charlatan Tony Blair used to tell us, can only get better. I fear the Irish nostalgia for its hit and miss musical heritage will be in full train. I just hope that no one plays any stuff later (and I give away my age at this point) by Daniel O’Donnell, Dana (all kinds of nothing, I say), Val Doonican (maybe one or two), the Batchelors (I quite like ‘Diane’ and ‘No Light at the Window’) or even worse U2.

Speak soon…

24 February 2015

The EU and Fudge

Sad to see the usual drip feed of fudge coming out of the EU regarding Greece.
Syriza might spin the rejection of its electoral platform by its creditors into a ‘victory’ but the reality is only too clear. Greece will at some stage in the immediate future – probably in the next four months – leave the Euro and the EU and have to find its own way back to prosperity. The country needs the Drachma, albeit a devalued one, as the catalyst to regain some form of competitiveness which membership of the Euro will never allow – a difficult few years will follow, no doubt, but in the longer term, if genuine reform of the Greek economy then takes place, the benefits will surely flow.
The problem is that whilst the Eurocrats will continue to do anything they can to keep Greece in the club at the moment, the situation for Europe’s elected politicians is likely to change. The surge in support for parties of the extreme left and right across Europe – as an insidious form of quasi-democratic resistance to the non-democratic nature of the EU fuelled by resentment towards and within Germany’s hegemonic role within it – threatens the more established party system across the continent and the threat of electoral wipe-out will quickly lead to a re-think. The rise of Podemos in Spain and the election due there in 2015 will crystallise such fears.
I really do think that a little bit of honesty is needed here about all of this – acknowledge the facts, Greece will never be able to support accumulated loans; her economy, like others in Southern Europe, will never converge with that of her northern partners. Let Greece go, let the ‘Troika’ take a hit on her debts and support her in the transition back to the Drachma but send a clear signal to the other 18 members of the Euro group that membership is inconsistent with narrow and irresponsible nationalist populism; state profligacy, corruption and irresponsible government.
For now, however, it is just fudge… it will end badly.