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• The best sites for clickmas

  November 14, 2011 @ 10:54 am | by Conor Pope

  ’TIS THE season to be clever and the cleverest people will be doing at least some, if not all, of their Christmas shopping online. But with hundreds of thousands of websites touting for business and just a handful of big players hoovering up most of that business, it can be hard to find your way to the best, most unusual and best-value gifts.

  Last week, we asked readers to recommend the sites they favoured and they came back with dozens of suggestions, some of which we had heard about and others which are soon to become the first port of call for all our Christmas shopping needs.

  And before you say it, we do know that there are 41 sleeps until the big day and that Pricewatch is frequently to be found railing against the early-onset of good cheer but when it comes to shopping online, it is important to get it over with early.

  While many Irish sites – and some international ones – have a very quick turnaround and can deliver to you within days of buying, the simplest thing is to shop early so you don’t spend Christmas week fretting and sweating about all those gifts which have yet to arrive. Inevitably the big players in e-tailing such as amazon.com, play.com and even ebay.com are going to be popular again with Irish shoppers over the coming weeks, but for the truly original present, you may need to cast your net wider.
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• Governments don’t rule the world. Goldman Sachs rules the world.

  September 27, 2011 @ 10:36 am | by Conor Pope

  

  This interview was carried on the BBC yesterday and in less than 24 hours has been watched by a quarter of a million people. It is jaw-dropping and terrifying and makes me want to reach into the computer, drag the trader out by his, no doubt, hideously expensive tie, and punch him in the face over and over and over again. Now, maybe he is right, maybe Goldman Sachs (and all the other funds) do rule the world and are set on destroying the lives of milions of people so they can make even more money but surely a huge tax on traders’ profits introduced across the world immediately would soften their cough and restore the balance between the markets and the State? It’s not going to happen, however… And in any event, if this guy is right and the savings of millions of people are set to be wiped out in less than 12 months, it is probably too late to act now.

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• News evokes sadness but not surprise

  July 19, 2011 @ 4:56 pm | by Conor Pope

  THE NEWS that the receivers have been called in to Superquinn will be greeted with shock and sadness by many Irish people who have held an affection for the retailer almost since the moment the ebullient Feargal Quinn opened the doors of his first shop in Dundalk in 1960.
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• How to get rid of an impossible mortgage

  @ 4:55 pm | by Conor Pope

  THE BANKS ARE coming down hard on people who do not repay their loans, but some experts say many of those loans should never have been given in the first place. This means that ultimately the banks will have no choice but to forgive the debt, although they are unlikely to admit that they are doing so.
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• Go the f*ck to sleep!

  May 18, 2011 @ 8:44 am | by Conor Pope

  This might just be my favourite thing. Ever. This, um children’s book, has reached number one on Amazon’s bestseller charts this week even though it won’t be published for another month. And it’s not hard to see why. It may be a little (okay a lot) profane for a bedtime read, but any parent will be able to relate to ‘Go the Fuck to Sleep’, an illustrated plea to a trying infant who is using all the weapons in their arsenal to avoid going to sleep. A bootleg PDF version of the book has been in circulation for months now and has gone completely viral – the authors of the book are unlikely to be overly concerned about the PDF books s there have been over 100,000 pre-orders made already. The good people at storyful have the full story…

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• I made a mistake…

  April 5, 2011 @ 12:38 pm | by Conor Pope

  I am constantly trotting out the maxim that if something seems too good to be true then it is too good to be true. Well, I should have paid more attention to it when writing the article on how to cut the cost of your mortgage which appeared in The Irish Times yesterday. In that article I said that by paying a mortgage twice a month instead of once a month, more than €50,000 could be be knocked off a €300,000 mortgage over the course of a 30-year term. I said the savings would come at no additional or immediate cost to the mortgage holder.

  This was wrong.

  I could explain how the mistake happened but that’s largely irrelevant. The only thing that matters is that the article appeared under my name so I take full responsibility for it and apologise to anyone whose hopes I raised that such savings could be made without any cost to themselves.

  The savings outlined only accrue when a person pays 26 fortnightly payments as opposed to 12 monthly ones. If you make 12 monthly payments of €1000 you pay €12,000 a year but if you make 26 fortnightly payments of €500 you pay €13000 which equals an extra month’s payment each year. This comes off the capital and reduces the term of the mortgage. While some savings can be made by simply splitting payments from once a month to twice a month, they are small as the mortgage holder is not paying off the capital any faster.

  To add further to the confusion, the banks I spoke to last week said that twice monthly (or fortnightly) payments were possible yet when people contacted them on the back of my article they were told that they were not. Many of the banks say they will still facilliate fortnightly payments but some are now saying that they will not… They say they can do such a thing on an isolated case-by-case basis but if the practice was to become widespread it would upset their systems.

  There are very real savings that can be made by paying a mortgage once every fortnight and it is a pity that some Irish banks have decided that they can not facilitate it.

  But, this post is not about the banks. It is about my mistake. Again, I am sorry. And mortified.

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• The ad that never was…

  March 22, 2011 @ 9:53 am | by Conor Pope

  
  This is the Nike ad that supposedly celebrates England winning the Grand Slam in Dublin on Saturday. The only problem is that England did not actually win the Grand Slam in Dublin on Saturday. The orignal youtube video I linked to via Twitter yesterday has been removed – by who, I have no idea – and this one might well get removed too. I would love to know how this ad go out…

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• Cheap flights

  @ 9:45 am | by Conor Pope

  

  How am I only seeing this now? More than a million other people got there before me, for shame.

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• Some country for old men

  March 9, 2011 @ 10:30 am | by Conor Pope

  Yeats may have got it all wrong: a study to be published today suggests that this might be a country for old men – and women – after all.

  Most respondents to the survey of the over-50s (and yes, I know that that does not make you old) claim to be happy, relatively affluent and upbeat about their personal futures while more than two-thirds say the recession has not had a major impact on their lives.
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• Lecky prices set to fall after ruling

  March 5, 2011 @ 12:56 pm | by Conor Pope

  Some rare good news for consumers today. The ESB could reduce electricity prices by as much as 10 per cent within weeks following a decision of the energy sector regulator to open up fully the domestic electricity market early next month.
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• Buddy can you spare €800 a month?

  @ 11:54 am | by Conor Pope

  How easy would it be for you to find an additional €800 a month just to keep a roof over your head? Most people, already hit by a double whammy of pay cuts and tax increases in recent months, would struggle to cobble together the cash. But with the European Central Bank (ECB) giving its clearest signal yet that a sustained round of interest-rate hikes is looming, more than 500,000 mortgage holders may have no choice but to find it somewhere.
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• Give your wallet a break on holiday

  @ 8:45 am | by Conor Pope

  

  From trawling the internet for flights and apartments to skipping dessert and splashing out on secret deals, here’s 10 ways to spend less on holiday
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• Best thing ever.

  March 1, 2011 @ 2:13 pm | by Conor Pope

  

  Right, I know that this clip has nothing to do with prices or the like but it has brightened up my day no end so it would be wrong not to share!

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• I’m loving it…

  @ 10:11 am | by Conor Pope

  

  I wrote a piece a couple of weeks back about a move among some restaurants to include nutritional information about the food they serve on their menus.
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• Eh, there must be some mistake…

  @ 12:01 am | by Conor Pope

  Dear Pricewatch blog.

  I know that we have grown apart these last few months but despite that, we appear to have made it on to the (long) shortlist in a category for the Irish Blog Awards. While I am obviously honoured to be on the list in the company of some very fine journalists – as should you be – it has made me feel bad. I have been neglecting you for some time, I can’t deny it. It’s not you, though, it’s me. I had my head turned by the harlot that is Twitter. But I can change. I know I can. And we can get back what we once had, surely? From now on I will be more attentive. I promise… I won’t let you down again ***

  *** I might actually let you down again.

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• Pricewatch: News just in…

  January 10, 2011 @ 5:23 pm | by Conor Pope

  This morning in the Big Paper (well, if it’s good enough for the people who work for the Guardian’s website it’s good enough for me) I looked at the death of our pubs and the annoying bank charges rolled out just before Christmas by Bank of Ireland and I reviewed razors.
  That is all.

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• Fight the power…

  January 7, 2011 @ 10:04 am | by Conor Pope

  Annoyed by the VHI price hikes? Well, if you are a subscriber there are ways you can fight back. Here are just three of them.
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• Are you talkin’ to me? 7 things I hate about taxis

  January 6, 2011 @ 10:31 am | by Conor Pope

  I’m Free! Oh, no, wait I’m not. What is the story with taxi drivers driving around with passengers in their cars AND THEIR LIGHTS ON! Seriously, how hard can it be to devise – and then enforce – a system which would automatically shut the light off once the meter went on? Not very I suspect. And in daytime, how are would be passengers – and by would-be passengers, I mean me – supposed to tell if a taxi is free or not?

  Change, for good: Last night I gave a cab driver a €50 note for an €8 fare and he looked at me like I’d handed him the severed arm of his dear old granny. It wasn’t that he had no change, he just resented using it on such a puny fare. How hard can it be for a cab driver to keep a proper float?

  ‘I hear you’re a racist now’: Not all taxi drivers are guilty of this by any means, but I have encountered it enough times to know it is not just a small minority.

  Moaning: Yes things are bad for most of us, what with the near total collapse of our banking system and the arrival in town of the IMF. I don’t feel the need tell you how much my income has shrunk by over the last 18 months so why are you telling me how much yours has fallen by?

  Don’t be so picky: You are either accepting passengers or you’re not. You can’t roll down your window, ask me where I want to go and then speed off cos it doesn’t suit you.

  The grumpy ones: Listen, I can’t help it if I live 20 minutes from the airport – well, I suppose I can – and it is not my fault you have been waiting two hours out there for a fare, I just want to get home and I could really do with you sighing heavily at me because I don’t want you to take me to Graystones.

  Radio Radio: It’s either bangin techno or soft rock. Either way, make it stop.

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• Last minute dot comedy

  December 14, 2010 @ 10:52 am | by Conor Pope

  Canny shop assistants will spend the last hours of this Christmas season looking for panic-stricken men – and it is almost always men – without a clue what to get for their nearest and dearest and then make them pay handsomely for their seasonal slackness.
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• Tesco’s amazing sums

  November 25, 2010 @ 3:39 pm | by Conor Pope

  

  Hmm, I think this pic, sent in by a good reader speaks for itself. If you’ve spotted a similarly ridiculous sign in any shop send them in and I’ll do my best to bring them to a wider audience… Maybe I should even have a competition to find the funniest one? What do you reckon?

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