Having a slow laptop in 2014 is an affront to my human rights

My laptop in happier times

I have a slow laptop. This laptop was purchased in the grand summer of 2011. I know, I know, it was many moons ago. The iphone 5 was just a glimmer in the iphone 4's eye, nobody knew what a selfie was and Facebook hadn't even introduced the cover photo yet. Simpler times, yes. It was a well-behaved laptop at first. It zipped from programme to programme with the finesse of a figure skater and its new Windows 7 features were a sight to behold for someone like me who was more accustomed to the banality of Windows XP.

Alas, it seems our honeymoon period is over. It has been for some time, I think I've just been afraid to admit it. Now it seems more like a geriatric chain-smoker; choking its way interminably through the last few breaths of life. It's not just slow, it's glacial slow. 

Turning on my laptop is like trying to start one of those old-style planes you see with the propeller at the front. It's a whole ordeal. It takes no less than 5 minutes. As soon as I press the On button, the fan makes this terrible wheezing noise as if to say, "Kill me you poor bastard and put me and you out of our misery." I actually feel guilty using it as I know whatever nuts, bolts and chips that comprise its insides must feel like sweatshop workers at this stage. 

Then, when I eventually get to the homescreen and key in my details, it takes another few minutes to load the desktop. It vomits out the various features. First comes the taskbar. Then the desktop image decides to amble along. Then the various programmes begin to dot the screen very languidly, in keeping with custom of course. I then have to wait a couple more minutes as I know if I leap right into Google Chrome or my documents folder, my laptop will shit itself into a comatose state. 

And then when I actually get the chance to use it it performs about as well as Wayne Rooney in an England jersey. The programmes begin to not respond at will. If I have the audacity to click a feature too quickly or the cheek to try and multi-task by opening more than one tab, whaddya know, Google Chrome is not responding. And how do you know things are really fucked? The box informing you that the programme is not responding begins not responding. It's a nightmare. There are certain websites that just really get my laptop's goat as well. My laptop dislikes Youtube especially. It dislikes it so much that it panics and freezes as soon as I key the letter Y into the search bar. It knows. It has a similar distaste for Twitter. 

It hinders me. As a human. As a student. I want to be industrious and dilligent. I want to work on my projects and my college work, honest I do. But when I begin working on such work and the pages take their time to load or the programmes begin to not respond, I naturally cast my eye onto other websites. While that article I need for my essay is taking its time loading I might just pop over to Facebook on another tab for a gander and then, whack, I've wasted half an hour trying to work out if that girl with strict privacy settings who liked my profile picture is in a relationship or not. 

Allied to its inherent slowness, my laptop has another major problem. The shift key is busted. Broken. Caput. It does not work. This means I have to use the on-screen keyboard whenever I need to type a question mark or a dollar symbol or an at symbol or an exclamation mark. This is torrid. The on-screen keyboard is constantly on stand-by. The problem with it is that it is a sadistic bastard and likes nothing more than not responding. I can see it chortle as my screen turns pale and my faces turns red. It's a vicious circle.

They say that our generation has the greatest capacity for learning as we have the internet, an infinite encyclopedia of knowledge, while past generations only had libraries and books. That is true but they didn't have 180 petabytes of porn at their finger tips or notebooks that jammed when they began writing their essay. 

My human rights are in violation, I believe. No really. According to the UN, usually a good authority on the whole human rights malark, broadband access is a basic human right up there with "the right to healthcare, shelter and food". My broadband connection is ok but the medium through which I am to receive this broadband, i.e. my laptop, is a crock of shit. It's like receiving top class medical attention in a garden shed. 

The solution? I'm not sure. I'm broke. Student-broke, not proper broke. I cannot afford a new laptop though. Is there an answer? Will I forever be deprived of quality computing? How long more will I have to endure clunky interface and unresponsive programmes? I am Mandela and this laptop is my Robben Island. It's a long walk to freedom from slow computers.

Why do Irish people think being Irish is so funny?

We're fucking gas alright boys

Us Irish are hilarious. Everything we do from our daily mundane tasks to our zany idiosyncrasies is immeasurably funnier than any other nationality. How do we know this? Because we say so. And since, as stated above, we're the funniest fucking race on the planet, we're a pretty good authority on the subject. 

You know what I'm talking about. Those lists, those articles, those videos which seem to have invaded the internet in recent years celebrating the vagaries and the oddities of us Irish. "You know you're Irish when; You say grand stretch in the evening; You have an uncle John and an auntie Mary; You drink flat 7UP when you're sick; bleh bleh fucking bleh. 

What started out as a bit of harmless, self-deprecating-yet-at-the-same-time-vaguely-patriotic humour is now a bona fide industry online. Youtubers have jumped on this bandwagon in their droves. Blogs and Facebook pages are dedicated to this phenomenon. Even apparently respectable publications (*cough*THEJOURNAL.IE*cough*) churn out articles en masse on the subject.

It's all a bit tiresome, no? The popularity of these articles and videos has shown no signs of wavering. Last year, the third most viewed Youtube video in Ireland was Republic of Telly's contribution to this growing library of national self-aggrandisement. The video was, to put it bluntly, cliched and shit. Especially considering very few of the skits were original and a couple were rather blatantly lifted from online (The homework during Glenroe skit has been a like-page on Facebook for years).

We have a bit of an obsession with ourselves, don't we? You may have noticed I referred to these videos as self-aggrandising in the above paragraph which may strike you as odd as most of the videos and articles are ostensibly self-disparaging.. But they're not really. Even if it seems that the videos and articles are bemoaning our backwardness and stupidity, what they're really trying to say, in a broader sense, is "Look at us Irish! So unique! So goofy! And we can laugh at ourselves!". 

What made that Republic of Telly video I mentioned all the more disappointing was that it starred Martin Moloney who shot to fame playing the lovable waster Eddie Durkan in the brilliant online series Hardy Bucks (Yes, the online series, not the sanitised, bastardised version RTE put out). 

You see, Hardy Bucks was a much more subtle and, for my money, accurate depiction of Irish people's mannerisms. Sure, it was a mockumentary series, a medium which allows for much more scope and insight than a 4 minute Youtube clip or a 200 word article, but its depictions of Irish life felt much less contrived and much more natural. Which made it funnier. I mean, I've never actually, genuinely, heard an Irish person use the exact phrase "Grand stretch in the evening" and I don't actually have an uncle John or auntie Mary but some of the scenes in Hardy Bucks left me in awe at their attention to detail. If you want an example, this entire episode is both veracious and hilarious. 

What actually compelled me to write this article was the popularity of Mr. Cian Twomey, a Facebooker whose short videos documenting Irish mother's/grandmother's reactions to things have become wildly popular. I have no beef personally with him and I don't want to be labeled as one of his "haters" as the rappers would say but the popularity of his videos perplexes me. 

It's just the same cliched nonsense we've seen for years. Do people really find jokes about the immersion being left on and Bebo stunnahs hilarious after all these videos and articles? Obviously they do as his popularity is only growing though I think it says more about our obsession with ourselves than does about his comedic ability. I don't want to shit on him as it takes a lot of courage and confidence to post the kind of videos he produces and he does seem like an interesting and affable chap but it confuses me that Irish people still find this type of thing hilarious even though it's been done again and again and again. 

I guess my argument is a futile one. Humour is subjective and I can't say that just because I don't find something funny it isn't. But there is something deeper in this infatuation we have with ourselves. Other countries don't seem to bring it to such a level. I have a half-baked theory that it has something to do with the recession and the fall of the Celtic Tiger as during those years we seemed much less parochial than we do now. I'm not exactly sure why that would happen though. Maybe it's because of our isolation from the rest of Europe? Maybe it's because of the unfettering adulation we receive from other countries? Any sociologists in the room?

Super Serious Analysis: Is there any chance Ireland won't pass the Gay Marriage referendum next year?

Next year the people of Ireland will get to vote on whether or not to legalise gay marriage. In the 77 years since the Irish Constitution was enacted we have had 33 different referendums and, judging by our recent, farcical performances, we're still getting to grips with the whole constitutional amendment thing.

But surely this referendum will be passed? Yes? I mean, we like to think of ourselves as a modern country. A progressive, secular nation accepting of people from all walks of life. We are no longer, as the character of Sir John in The Wind That Shakes The Barley put it, a "priest infested backwater", are we? Are we? There's no chance we'll reject it. Is there? Let's do some quick (desk-based) analysis and try and work it out. 

Generally when a news or media outlet is trying to gauge public opinion in the run-up to an election or a referendum the first medium they use is opinion polls. So what do opinion polls on gay marriage in Ireland say? Well they tell us Irish people like the idea of gay people marrying. They like it a lot. 

Last November a Red C opinion poll commissioned by Paddy Power showed that a whopping 76% of likely voters would vote Yes to Gay Marriage and, when the "don't knows" are excluded, that figure rises to 81%. This is broadly on par with other opinion polls held in the last 5 years with polls conducted by The Sunday Times, Department of Public Expenditure and Reform and The Irish Times showing similar margins. 

But opinion polls are a bit too black and white. These particular opinion polls have not been held in the run-up to the referendum and so they haven't been influenced by external factors like campaigning or televised debates. One would imagine in the run-up to next year's plebiscite that Ireland's conservative lobby and, more pertinently, the Catholic Church will be doing their level best to swing a few heads their way. You can bet your bottom dollar there'll be plenty of oratories from the pulpit proclaiming doomsday in the run-up to the referendum and it's difficult to measure how strong an effect they will have, particularly in rural Ireland. 

A similar issue to gay marriage, in that it divides people along roughly the same lines - religious/non-religious, old/young, urban/rural - is abortion. So it's very valuable what we can learn from public opinion and abortion. It was about this time last year that those lovely chaps over at the Youth Defence started their sabre-rattling and drum-banging when a bill that legalised abortion in the case of a woman's life being in danger came before the Oireachtas. 

Opinion polls in the lead-up to the bill being debated were pretty unanimous - these two here and here will do as examples - and they showed that Irish people were keen for such legislation to be instituted. But Christ almighty didn't Youth Defence and those aul biddies from the Catholic Church put up one hell of a fight. Around 50,000 people marched on Dáil Éireann in protest at the bill in question in July of last year. 50 fucking thousand. Few demonstrations in the last decade have been so well-attended or so passionate and, bearing in mind what's happened in the last ten years - financial armageddon, corrupt politicians, Jedward - that's as astounding as it is sad.

Youth Defence are known for having similarly enlightened views on gay marriage so expect them and the Catholic Church to stage similar demonstrations closer to the referendum date next year. This doesn't mean that they are representative of all of Ireland or all of Rural Ireland or, even, all Catholics. It just demonstrates the clout these organisations have that they can mobilise such a large number of people when, as the surveys from only months earlier seem to suggest, this issue, theoretically, should have little opposition. 

History can help with our guesswork too. Let's take a look at referendums on similar issues which have been held in this country. The most relevant plebiscite is surely 1995's referendum on divorce when, after 58 years and one previous rejected referendum in 1986, divorce was finally legalised in Ireland. Again, like abortion, it divided people along the lines we would expect gay marriage to in next year's referendum.

Divorce is now rather quotidian and it never ceases to amaze me that when I was born divorce was illegal. It seems so quaint in a sort of horrible way. What's even more astounding is the margin that the Divorce Referendum was passed by - in short, it was a bloody close one. Out of 1,633,942 votes cast, the yes side won by just over 9000 votes. 50.28% voted Yes while 49.72% voted No. The voting patterns that emerged from the result were rather easy to spot and the most obvious one is illuminated in the map I have attached below.

Do you see it? Virtually no constituency in Rural Ireland passed the motion. The entire West Coast rejected it and all of the Midlands too. The only reason it passed nationwide was because the margin of victory in Dublin was so emphatic. The only other places it passed were urban centres like Limerick and Cork and three counties in Dublin's commuter belt Kildare, Wicklow and Louth. This illustrates the difference between Rural Ireland and Dublin. While I don't expect Rural Ireland to be so vehement in its rejection of Gay Marriage it has to be expected that there will be plenty of constituencies, particularly in the West of the country, that will reject this referendum. 

You can already see the lines being drawn. The recent Pantigate scandal involving drag queen Panti, the Iona Institute and RTE was big news in Dublin and online, particularly Twitter. But I can say this with certainty, as someone who lives in Rural Ireland, the story did not register as much as a blip on the richter scale here. It wasn't a hot conversation topic nor did Panti engender much sympathy among anyone I spoke to here. For a lot of young voters and urban voters, gay marriage is a hot button issue. If a candidate in Dublin openly expresses opposition to gay marriage, he/she will be roasted alive at the polls. This, however, is not the case for much of the more conservative and more religious Rural Ireland. 

And that brings me on to another point; religion. The Catholic Church's influence on constitutional matters and government policy has been on the wane since the 70s and church attendance has fallen dramatically in the last two decades but it would be churlish to underestimate their influence on certain demographics, namely the old and the rural. 

The best graph for determining their influence is the most basic; mass attendance. Even though Ireland's mass attendance has dropped off by an estimated 50% since 1990, Ireland has one of the highest rates of mass attendance in the Western World. A 2011 survey by the Irish Bishop's conference stated that 42.1% of the people they queried attended mass "once a week" while a survey from a less bias source, The Irish Times, in 2012 found the figure to be around 34%. That is still a healthy chunk of the electorate and, though I haven't got the figures handy, you can be sure the rate is considerably higher among older people. Why is this important? Well, for the same reason that protests by pensioners are much more likely to be effective than protests by students, old people are a lot more likely to vote.  

Again, there is quite a broad rural/urban divide in mass attendance. A 2011 survey found that a mere 18% of Dubs attend mass on a weekly basis. Now when we consider that Dublin makes up 1/4 of our population and that the national average is hovering around the 40% mark, it shows that rural Ireland is quite keen on mass. It's important to clarify that just because someone is a church-going catholic, it doesn't necessarily mean they will definitely vote No to the referendum. In fact, The Irish Times survey I linked in the first paragraph stated that 66% of the catholics they surveyed would vote Yes to Gay Marriage. One would venture to guess, however, that the Catholic Church will do their level best to swing the heads of that 66%.  

The referendum should pass next year. Indeed, at the moment, it wouldn't be unreasonable to conclude that it could pass by a double digit percentage margin. But we shouldn't underestimate the power of the lobby that will be opposed to it and the numbers they can mobilise, both population wise and monetary. It could be closer than we think. In Rural Ireland it's going to be very close, especially since the ratio between old people and young people has widened considerably in the last 5 years thanks to emigration.

To answer the question I ask in the title; There shouldn't be. I predict that this referendum will have an inordinately high turnout among young voters and this, and Dublin's inevitable passing of the bill will mean it should sail through. But this is no time for complacency and the lessons of the past tell us that the other side aren't going to go down without a fight.  

In praise of: the Paparazzi

The Paps. Ruining celebrities' lives since 1826.

Paedophiles. Ear wax. Nazi sympathisers. Dictators. Rapists. Cockroaches. Limescale. These are just some of the things our society holds in a higher regard than paparazzi. They are the pits. They are the lowest of the low, no strand of journalism (and this is saying fucking something) engenders as much contempt as they do. But can we just for a moment step back and reevaluate their role in society and perhaps add a little bit of balance to the debate on their function and the merit of their work? Because I love paparazzi. I truly, truly do.

I know. Don't act like I don't. I do. I know. Making the above admission is akin to admitting to being a member of the BNP or occasionally farting in an elevator. But when I see them on their miniature scooter in Downtown LA, clutching their camera in one hand, a copy of Heat in the other with the handlebars of the bike between their knees, chasing after Miley Cyrus or whatever equally loathsome celebrity they've spotted nipping into Starbucks to buy a skinny latte, I can't help but feel the kind of respect that a general has for his troops after winning a decisive military victory. "Gawd bless you martyrs", I say, "For King and Country, chaps."

Because celebrities are bastards. Real, major-league, full-time bastards. I should know, I presented a radio show on ULFM last year dealing with celebrity gossip so I encountered their idiocy and conceitedness on a weekly basis. Most people are incredibly sycophantic when they meet a celeb. Chat-show hosts fawn over them as if they were celestial beings bequeathed to us by the Gods and fans worship them as if they were Gods. Only paparazzi have the balls to treat celebrities like they really ought to be taught; as well-paid pieces of meat invented solely for our amusement and pleasure. 

Do they go too far? Nope. In fact, I don't think they go far enough. Hacking phones is amateur. They teach you that in Journalism 101. Camping outside a celebrity's property? Not good enough. Most celebrities' houses are better fortified than the Maginot Line was. They can't see you on the footpath in your makeshift tent. 

Trespass! Hop a wall, buy a pizza delivery boy costume, burrow underground like Steve McQueen in The Great Escape; there's a plethora of options. Then you can start really messing with the celebrities' heads. Rearrange their furniture, take pictures of their dirty linen, browse through their internet history. Just use your imagination.

Society on the whole is very vitriolic towards paparazzi but it is the fans of individual celebrities who hold paparazzi in the most contempt. Beliebers, Directioners and other "fandoms" purport to despise the paparazzi as they apparently invade the privacy and security of their chosen idol. Indeed, they often use their twitter accounts to vent their outrage towards their paps. Examples of said outrage can be found here, here, here and ooh, here. 

What's hilarious about the indignation that these fans express towards the paps is that their accounts and fan pages are peppered with photos of their idols that have clearly been snapped by the paps. They love sausage, they just don't love how it's made. Now, I don't mean to sound like a dick, most of these fans are kids so I shouldn't hold them to the same standards I would an adult but this dichotomy is nonetheless very amusing. 

Then there's the celebrities themselves. Apparently, they absolutely deplore the paparazzi. They are the bane of their otherwise perfect lives. But whenever they decide to wed one of their fellow vacuous celebs and exchange vows in some exotic place like the Seychelles, they like nothing more than to bring along a handful of paps to photograph the ceremony. For a rather large fee, of course. 

It's not surprising that they like being snapped in their most elegant, most beautiful for a handsome price and that they're not particularly fond of being caught in the glow of a thousand flashes for not so much as a tuppence as they're making the school run but, hey, you've made your bed now you gotta lie in it, celebs. 

So the next time you think about castigating the paps for their crass disregard for privacy or security and how they can ruin the lives of so many bright young things, just remember, these are the same people who elicited this response from Justin Bieber. Gawd bless 'em. The few. The brave. 

Does Fantasy Football ruin actual football?

"Shite, why didn't I captain Suarez this week?"

Before Christmas I was sitting in a pub in Tralee watching a football match. It was Arsenal vs Chelsea. These two are titans of the Premier League and between them possess some of the finest attackers on the planet; Hazard, Ozil, Cazorla, Walcott, Willian, Oscar, just to name the main cast. Arsenal play a wonderfully fluid style of football, their players float across the pitch with the grace of Njinsky in his pomp (Not the horse) and play with such a deft touch that they sometimes make David Ginola look like Razor Ruddock after half a pack of Lucky Strike. Chelsea, on the other hand, are certainly the more pragmatic of the two though in Oscar, Hazard and Willian, they have players who are capable of breathtaking moments of quality.

With all this in mind, isn’t it odd that I had a grin as wide as the Thames etched across my face as the game ambled, scoreless, to its denouement? Nah, because I had Terry and Koscielny in my fantasy football team and a scoreless draw was worth at least 8 points to me with the further possibility of bonus points for one of my defensive duo.

I’ll give you another example. I’m sitting in a bar in Ghana watching the Merseyside derby November last. A cracking game it was, as those who watched it will attest to, and I cheered so passionately when Romelu Lukaku knocked in a brace in the second half that it’s wonder I didn’t receive a smack in the gob from one of the Liverpool supporters sitting there next to me, glum and mute. I’m a Manchester United fan so it’s always nice to see Liverpool drop a couple of points but was this the source of my outpouring of ecstasy? Nah, as you may have guessed, I had Lukaku sitting in my fantasy team, hoovering up a tasty 8 points for his goals with three bonus points almost certainly guaranteed. And when Daniel Sturridge equalised for Liverpool in the dying moments to rescue a point for the Reds, my jovial mood was not perturbed in the slightest. I had my points and that’s all that matters.

This is the life of a Fantasy Football follower. For the uninitiated, fantasy football is a game where you select 11 active Premier League players and the number of points you accrue each week is based on the real-life performances of the players. So if one of your strikers scores a goal you get 4 points and if one of your midfielders scores you get 5 and if a defender keeps a clean sheet you get 4 and so on.

Yes, at the start of the season, every man and his dog has a fantasy football team but it takes dedication, perseverance and mental strength to last the whole season. It’s a strenuous task, taking minutes and then hours out of your day as you deliberate on who’s a better bet; Whittingham at home to West Ham or Ki-Seung Yeung away to Fulham?

But does it suck the fun out of football? When there’s a thrilling game on the telly, say a 3-3 draw or one of those mad high scoring victories like Liverpool’s 5-3 win over Stoke the other week, commentators often remark on how “the neutrals sitting at home will be loving this”. But oh, there is a paucity of games every weekend where I am actually a neutral. In the majority of games I usually have a vested interest. Or two. In the aforementioned Liverpool-Stoke game, I had Simon Mignolet in goal in my fantasy team. So I was not exactly thrilled by his less than proficient performance. At the same time, I had the honourable Uruguayan gentleman Luis Suarez captained so his two goals and one assist were much appreciated.

But that game is another example of my, perhaps, unhealthy obsession with fantasy football. When Liverpool raced into a two goal lead early in the first half, all I wanted was a nice, dour 60 minutes of scoreless football. Suarez had got his goal and Mignolet would get his clean sheet. This wish was dashed just before half-time as part-time beanpole Peter Crouch pulled one back for Stoke and then, the oldest looking 27 year old in the world, Charlie Adam, equalised for the Potters. The first goal was galling but after the initial disgruntlement I suppose there is a smidgen of liberation. After that goal flew in I thought, “Fuck it, score as many goals as you bastards want now”. I reverted back to being a proper, neutral football fan and genuinely enjoyed watching the two defences trying to outdo each other in incompetence.

So being a fantasy football nut makes neutrality downright unfeasible. But at the other end of the spectrum, it also makes supporting a team difficult. As I mentioned above I am a Manchester United fan and a very loyal and erudite one too, I would argue. While naturally I would never cheer a United loss or wish for them to drop points for the good of my fantasy football team, there have been times this season, a season which for United has been a puddle of shit might I add, where I have secretly been wishing for United to concede the odd tactical goal to add to my weekly fantasy score.

A case in point would be United’s match against Chelsea at Stamford Bridge last Sunday. I, like most mentally sound United fans, did not expect much from the game. At the same time, I am still a fan so I dearly, dearly yearned for a point or three. By half-time it was clear United had about as much chance of getting something out of the game as I have in becoming the pope’s meth dealer. So I did what any rational fantasy football manager would do, I mentally urged Oscar to get his name on the scoresheet as I had the baby-faced Brazilian in my fantasy team. “Well fuck it”, I thought, “If we’re going to lose does it make a difference if it’s 2-0, 3-0 or 4-0.”

United lost 3-1 in the end with Samuel “I’m worth more than the GDP of my country” Eto’o netting all three goals in what must surely rank as the worst ever hat-trick scored against United, narrowly edging out that time when Dirk Kuyt knocked three past Edwin Van Der Sar in Anfield from the accumulative distance of three yards.

So these are the things fantasy football does to you. It makes football a very artificial experience, one could argue. A cynic might add that it crystallises everything that is wrong with modern culture; intensely giving a shit about something which is entirely fatuous and that does nothing to advance you mentally, physically or even metaphysically. A philosophical cynic, maybe. And then someone else might point out that following an actual football team produces the exact same experience. I ain’t saying nuffink.  

Perhaps it’s a case of overegging the pudding. The Premier League is already a supreme dish which has nourished and satisfied me for two decades now. Fantasy Football is such a genius idea (Which we have the Americans to thank for) and in this digital age so instantly accessible that it’s irresistible. But maybe it’s too much. Two great things are not always compatible. One could say it’s a bit like drenching a sirloin steak in maple syrup. It is to my own personal relationship with the Premier League what the inclusion of Chachi was to Happy Days.

But fuck it, Lukaku at home to West Brom or Remy away to Crystal Palace?

Why hasn't an anti-immigration party like UKIP emerged in Ireland?

If it was a pint of Guinness he was holding we might reconsider

They were once famously branded as a party of "fruitcakes, loonies and closet racists" by David Cameron but UKIP have become so popular lately that Cameron's Conservative Party have had to adopt their rhetoric and even policies to prove their right-wing credentials. Yes, no one's chuckling at Nigel Farage's party anymore with the Guardian even beginning to acknowledge their seismic effect on the British political scene.

UKIP's success has largely been built on that most primal, most basic of human emotions - fear of the outsider. They have latched on to an issue with considerable historical baggage in Britain and an issue which still carries a lot of significance for a considerable portion of the population - immigration.

Inward migration to the UK is not something new. Nor is opposition to it. But never has a party which is so explicitly anti-immigration gained such traction in the UK. But I do not wish to discuss the reasons for that. What I wish to query is why a similar party or movement has not emerged in Ireland. 

Inward migration to Ireland is a relatively new beast and while it has abated considerably since the beginning of the recession, over 50,000 people emigrated to Ireland in 2012. The social fabric of Ireland has changed significantly since the early 90s. Prior to then, Ireland was decidedly white and decidedly catholic. Not since the Vikings had Ireland witnessed any real surge in inward migration. And we were world champions of outward migration, of course. 

While reaction to immigration in Ireland has been typically difficult to gauge (We're a nation who likes to keep our political opinions to ourselves - unless we're down the pub) there is unquestionably a sense of opposition among a portion of the population, mainly older and more rural people, to immigration. This opposition, its relative strength or weakness difficult to measure, has not manifested itself in any practical way.

There has been no mass, quasi-patriotic, anti-immigration movement in Ireland like UKIP. Does this not seem strange to people? I'm not advocating the founding of such an organisation but it seems like it would have been a natural step. So what are the probable reasons for this state of affairs? I can only speculate but speculate is what I shall do. 

Well first off, as I have already alluded to, we have a prolific history of outward migration. Like, seriously prolific. If each country was a player in the Emigration World Cup we would be Pele, Romario and Messi rolled into one. So is there an argument to be made that, because of this, we have a keener understanding of and sympathy with incoming migrants than a country like the UK would? 

Stories abound of Irish immigrants being the victims of very distasteful discrimination in America and Britain for much of the 19th and 20th centuries. No blacks, dogs, or Irish as the old adage goes (Indeed, A People's History of the United States of America by Howard Zinn is a good book if you wish to read more about the difficulties faced by Irish immigrants in the US in the years after the Famine.) So, perhaps there is a case to be made that we are more naturally welcoming to immigrants than our Anglo cousins for we've seen what a challenge it can be to up-sticks and move to a strange, foreign country. 

Now that point is really only speculation. I can't prove that. So perhaps we could do with some more practical reasons. Like the fact that we have much, much bigger problems on our plate than immigration. I don't want to dwell too much on the recession or the bank bailout or our new, 21st century brand of emigration but I have to. While the economic picture in Britain since the world was shook by the stock market crash of 2008 has been far from rosy, the entire fabric of their political and economic infrastructure has not been torn apart in quite the same way ours has. 

Here's just a few statistics. The UK's unemployment rate is currently 7.4% while Ireland's is 12.4%. Indeed, Ireland's rate hit 15.1% as recently as February 2012 and the sharp decrease has less to do with positive economic activity and more to do with the gentle massaging of statistics thanks to JobBridge and similar internship schemes, underemployment and of course our old friend emigration. Which leads me on to my next point rather nicely. Since 2008, over 200,000 people have left Ireland. And the problem isn't going away with 250 people still leaving Ireland every day. 

So maybe, in a very simple way, we just don't have the time to be worrying about immigration. Contrary to what the weekend papers have been trumpeting in the last few weeks, Ireland is not yet out of murky waters and our supposed recovery has been very slow and grinding. Perhaps for the more affluent classes it is a different story, but for the majority of the population, Ireland is still waiting for an actual "good news story". We remain too distracted by a myriad of serious issuess for an issue-heavy party like the UKIP to emerge and the emphasis right now is on the economy and not much else. 

Then there's the dominance of the major parties; Fianna Fáil, Fine Gael and Labour. Now some may claim that this point is moot as the major political parties in Britain have enjoyed a similar hegemony, since the Second World War at least. Labour and the Tories have taken turns as Britain's most popular party while the Lib Dems are as used to bronze as Dannii Minogue is to botox. Judging by the local elections held last year however, UKIP have broken this triangle of power. We'll get a better idea in next year's general election but judging by the polls, they should make some healthy gains. 

A handful of small political parties have made it into power in Ireland, albeit as very junior members of coalitions with the big boys. The  Democratic Left, the PDs and the Greens have all sat around the cabinet table in the last 20 years though two of those parties no longer exist while the Greens were virtually wiped out in the last election. No small political party in Ireland has ever had the impact UKIP have made in the UK. Some may point to Sinn Féin's recent resurgence but it's an entirely different story given Sinn Féin's prominence in modern Irish history. 

Ireland's attitude towards immigration remains difficult to gauge. While the assimilation of many different nationalities has hardly been rosy, the Immigrant Council of Ireland reports that there has been an 85% increase in the number of migrants complaining of racist incidents in the past year for example, we have not seen close to the disruption caused in Britain by rising racial tensions. I'm not quite sure why this is, some may point to the fact that Britain is far more industrialised and far more densely populated than Ireland and that this is bound to cause tensions to simmer, others may say it's more to do with our apparent apathy. 

In truth, whatever negative attitudes persist in Ireland with regards to immigration, it remains very unlikely that a party like UKIP will emerge any time soon. Even after the tumult of the last half-decade, Ireland's political arena remains remarkably stagnant and remarkably short of fresh blood. We may not be happy with our current lot, but it doesn't seem like there's much of a queue lining up to replace them. 


My own personal opinion (Related to but separate from the above post)

Now,  I've remained remarkably impartial throughout the above post so I feel as though I should state my position very clearly on immigration. I am strongly in favour of the free movement of persons regardless of colour, creed or race. I have grown up in a relatively multicultural society, much more so than people 20 or even 10 years older than me did, and can say with certainty that diversity and immigration makes things more interesting. 

Now it is important to remain aware however. The free movement of persons around the EU, particularly from the poorer Eastern countries, is loudly applauded by the capitalist classes and it's not because they're champions of multiculturalism. When there's an influx of foreign labour in Ireland it is used as a tool to drive wages and working conditions down. Foreign workers are more likely to accept lower wages and poorer working conditions than Irish workers and Irish workers in turn are forced to accept lower wages and poorer working conditions for fear of dismissal.

This is a win-win for the capitalist class as, along with the obvious monetary benefits, the Irish workers generally vent their anger towards the foreign workers instead of those who really deserve their ire, the capitalist classes. This is a vicious cycle and one which unfortunately will not be rectified in the foreseeable future due to obvious systematic problems. 

Oh, and I find the policies of UKIP and Nigel Farage pretty odious. I also find their cheerleaders in the media, namely the Daily Mail and the Daily Express, odious. People should look to alternatives from the political establishment (Cameron, Miliband and Clegg along with Kenny, Gilmore and Martin are equally distasteful) but, as history has taught us, the far-right route only brings intolerance, misery and suffering. 

The rise of Snapchat: What the f**k happened?

It looks like a silhouette of Zoidberg from Futurama. Or a condom

I must admit, I'm a bit late to the party. For those of you who don't know I spent 5 months in Ghana on Co-Op so my hitherto excellent and unflappable grasp of popular culture has taken something of a hit. Twerking passed me by, as did most of Miley Cyrus' gallivanting and it was only two weeks ago I discovered that the tall lad from Glee who couldn't really sing or act or dance died in a pool of alcohol, vomit and heroin. 

The most significant change that occurred while I was away in Africa however has to be the rise of the selfie and the main vessel on which it sails, the smartphone app Snapchat. I was a puzzled boy when I returned and found that not only has Snapchat become incongruously popular but that it's so popular that it's threatening to dismantle Facebook's vice-like grip on the teen social networking market. Facebook!? Dear God, when I left it seemed it would take an alien invasion or at the very least a nuclear fallout to stifle Facebook's dominance. I had to get to the bottom of this. I had to see what all the fuss was about. So I asked myself, just why is Snapchat so popular?

The first thing that puzzled me with regards to Snapchat was the selfie. I was familiar with the term before I had left (To be honest, it's not too fucking difficult to work out) but it's become a bona fide pop culture phenomenon. It perplexes me though. Before 2013, anyone posting selfies on Facebook or any other website would be, at best, considered a tad self-satisfied and at worst a vain, preening shitcake. 

What happened in between? What made it ok to post teasing, attention-seeking images of your own mug? I was always of the understanding that there was a subtle yet strict moral code which all us decent human beings on the internet abided by. Don't cyberbully. Don't laugh at 9gag. Don't share those inane "One like = One respect for Cancer Victims" facebook posts. Don't be a vain, preening shitcake. 

But this moral code has been flipped upside down and rendered useless by the advent of the selfie. It admonishes and, nay, encourages vanity and self-obsession. The selfie has been assisted in its propulsion to ubiquity with the help of celebrities such as Cara Delevigne and Kendell Jenner. Celebrities are always reliable cheerleaders for any thing which encourages conceitedness, self-adoration and solipsism. (Solipsism is a pushing it a bit but, fuck it, I have a word count and it sounds intelligent.) These celebrities regularly post selfies on their instagram accounts to their adoring followers who number the hundreds of thousands. Instagram, ironically, is owned and operated by Facebook so maybe they aren't the big losers in this selfie explosion. 

So, in an attempt to understand Snapchat's obvious appeal I decided to download it on my own phone and give it a spin. I encountered a number of difficulties, chief among them that my phone, while ostensibly a smartphone, is a steaming pile of cheap dog shite and trying to run Snapchat on it is like trying to run the latest edition of World of Warcraft on Windows 98. I have no front-facing camera and the one on the back is a measly 3MP so the pictures end up about as clear and concise as a Jackson Pollock painting. 

Nevertheless, in the 30 or so minutes I spent faffing about on it I really didn't enjoy it. Jesus it's intrusive, constantly bugging you to "invite your friends" and "sync your contacts" so even more people can be vain, preening shitcakes with you. It sends instant messages to your phone as soon as one of your friends sends you a picture. Jesus. Do people really find their friends that interesting? 

Have we truly reached the stage in digital saturation where we want to be updated instantly as soon as our friends posts a drunken selfie or a picture of their dinner? I've barely tip-toed my way through the incipient stages of my 20s and I still feel too old for this shit. 

I can sort of understand the appeal. Snapchat is much more intimate than Facebook and, as many commentators have pointed out, Facebook has lost its cool factor thanks to the multitude of parents, aunties, uncles and even grandparents who clog up teenagers' news feeds. Is it a fad? Probably not. It's just another rung on this digital ladder which we're all climbing together. In a few years time, we'll probably be discussing the latest social networking craze that teens are flocking to (to the apparent detriment of Snapchat) and wonder if it's the end of Snapchat. But it probably won't be. Like Facebook now it'll still remain relevant and popular long past its peak. Why? Because when you get this big you don't just fall away into anonymity. Now to post a selfie of my twerkie.