Pricewatch »

• Oh no! We hurt Bono.

  February 27, 2009 @ 8:00 am | by Conor Pope

  Brian Boyd interviews U2 in The Ticket today. Apparently Bono was “stung” and “hurt” by criticism of the band when it shifted some of its business to the Netherlands to lessen its tax burden after the Government capped the amount of tax-free earnings available to artists in 2006. Of course, he could have just left his money where it was and paid tax on all his earnings (just like the rest of us) and he’d have spared himself all that hurt. Yes,yes, the band have paid “millions and millions of dollars in tax” but they have paid millions and millions less than they would have, had they kept their money at home and, frankly, we could really do with that cash now.

• “Lunatic bloggers can have the blogsphere all to themselves”

  February 25, 2009 @ 4:16 pm | by Conor Pope

  Any time anything even remotely critical about Ryanair appears on the Pricewatch page (and, amazingly there have been people who have wanted to give out about the airline, for whatever reason) it is inevitably followed by a furious letter to this paper from their “communications” depatment. They write to a range of people in the company, including some whose names they can’t spell (but that’s another matter) to complain about my anti-Ryanair bias. While the letters are frequently abusive and often hysterical they have, so far, tended to stop short of calling me a lunatic. This poor chap wasn’t so lucky. CNN is carrying the story, which to my mind at least, suggests there are a number of unhinged people working out in the Ryanair HQ in Dublin Airport.

• The switch is on

  February 23, 2009 @ 9:39 pm | by Conor Pope

  THE IRISH electricity market displayed a bus-like quality last week when consumers who’d waited years for just one rival to challenge the ESB’s monopoly in the domestic market saw two come along at once.
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• All of a Twitter

  February 22, 2009 @ 9:13 pm | by Conor Pope

  I caved last night and decided to sign up to Twitter. On the site, I chose my username (I picked conorpope, imaginatively) but was then told it already existed.

  ‘What! That can’t be,’ I thought to myself.

  Oh, but it is.

  A Conor Pope in Blackburn, Lancashire is twittering under my (and, to be fair, his) name.

  Twittering, playing in an indie band (I’ve heard the demos) and posting “comedy” videos of himself and his buddies onto youtube (and yes, I realise that I sound like I’m stalking the poor fella but the whole thing is a bit alarming).

  He’s only young so he has plenty of time to become famous – for good things or bad – and completely ruin Conor Pope. I came across someone once called Alan Partridge, a name which was, for most of his life, pretty harmless. Then Steve Coogan happened along.

  There are Ted Crillys out there who’ve never worn a dog-collar but who can no longer say their name to strangers without them laughing and Fred Wests who lived a blameless existence only to find their lives blighted by coincidence.

  And then of course there’s Dave Gorman.

  Anyhoos, I went into a newly opened Lidl near my house today and decided to splash out on a bottle of €16.99 wine to drown my sorrows after discovering I was a two-time loser at the Irish Blog Awards.

  Thank you judges!

  Check out the winner’s site. Kudos to him.

  I googled the name of the Lidl wine when I got home, just to see if it was any good – well, I needed a break from googling the new Conor Pope – and I came across this site, which I thought was kinda cool.

  I registered the name conor_pope on Twitter and I’m not sure what I’m supposed to do next – but as long as I end up with more followers than that other conor pope – he’s only got three – I’ll be happy.

• Bord Gais and the Leccy market

  February 21, 2009 @ 5:19 pm | by Conor Pope

  Am doing a piece on Bord Gais’s move in to the electricity business for Monday’s Pricewatch page. As far as I can see, it’s great news for consumers and will lead to substantial energy savings for people who switch. The company deserve to be commended for making the big switch so easy. And for posting this onto youtube, although be warned if you watch the ad, you’ll be singing it for hours.

• You’re nothing but a trend-setter

  February 17, 2009 @ 4:15 pm | by Conor Pope

  Nothing to do with prices, but reading a story in the paper this morning brought me right back to the 1980s when I were a lad. According to today’s Times, a pupil in a community school in Dunmore, Co Galway was suspended for three months in 2004 for having long hair. On the day he started his Leaving Cert year, he was told by the deputy principal that he had to cut his hair. When he did not comply, he was called to her office where she referred to his “girl’s hair style”, said he was “nothing but a trend-setter” and asked him if he “wanted to be a girl?”

  “Nothing but a trend setter!” What a lovely insult.

  He was awarded €3,500 by the Equality Tribunal yesterday on the grounds of gender discrimination and victimisation.

• And the winner is. . .

  @ 12:16 pm | by Conor Pope

  Am deloirah to be on the shortlist in the Best Blog from a Journalist category in the Blog Awards which are taking place this weekend in Cork. Also on the list in my category are www.expad.ie, Adam McGuire, crime reporter Michael O’Toole and some guy called David McWilliams.

  I’m not sure how the winner is determined but I think it has something to do with a bare knuckle boxing contest in a carpark off Patrick’s St.

  Hats off as well to Fiona, Bryan and the peerless Mr Carroll who’ve also made it on to shortlists.

• It can still get worse

  @ 10:13 am | by Conor Pope

  Morgan Kelly has a typically upbeat assessment of our current economic woes in this morning’s paper in which he says the crisis will be over by the summer and everything is going to be fine.

  Only joking. It’s the fast-track to the soup kitchen for all of us.

  Sigh.

• Get the goods online

  February 16, 2009 @ 3:24 pm | by Conor Pope

  IN ADDITION TO containing more wisdom than the Oracle and more waffle than 10,000 years worth of Dáil speeches, the Internet is one of the greatest money-saving resources ever created. Tips and articles on how to spend less are two a penny, making it easy to research better value on everything from anoraks to zips. Then there are the auction houses, which sell everything for half nothing, and the people who are desperate to give stuff away for free.
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• Being too Dubai is so over

  February 15, 2009 @ 10:35 pm | by Conor Pope

  When it comes to fashion, value is in and being “too Dubai “ is out, according to Anna Wintour and, as editor of Vogue, she should probably know.

  Even in Dubai, being “too Dubai” is out and Mary Fitzgerald should know, she’s just back from there.

  And say what you like about Ryanair, but it has never been accused of being too Dubai. It has, however, been accused of many other things and now over 200 of its would-be passengers are suing the airline after their flights were cancelled or delayed and the company refused to pay compensation. Ryanair says it deals with complaints from customers within seven working days. But does it? Does it really?

• They’re taking the

  February 13, 2009 @ 3:36 pm | by Conor Pope

  A militant Indian group opposed to “corrupting” Western food imports has plans to launch a new drink made from cow’s urine something which is seen as sacred in some parts of India. The National Volunteer Corps, said the beverage is undergoing laboratory tests for the next 2 to 3 months but did not give a specific date for its commercial release.

• ‘You’re like a one-legged man on National Riverdance Day’

  February 12, 2009 @ 5:16 pm | by Conor Pope

  Irish people spend less on Valentine’s gifts than the rest of Europe and prefer to flirt through instant messaging than face to face, a new survey has revealed. Ciara O’Brien has the skinny.

  And it may be a year old but Charlie Brooker has a great idea for a new day of celebration.

• Competition improving slightly, NCA survey reveals

  February 11, 2009 @ 11:27 pm | by Conor Pope

  I spent the day reading press releases (well, not the day really, more like three minutes) from various supermarkets hailing the latest NCA price survey as proof that they, and they alone, are absolutely brilliant and providing their customers with fantastic value every day. If they’re all so great why are their prices so high? And why do so many branded products cost exactly the same across all the supermarkets?

• Roll it again

  February 10, 2009 @ 11:56 am | by Conor Pope

  Last week I carried an item on the Pricewatch page in The Irish Times about the rising cost of Cadbury Family Mini-Rolls. A reader pointed out that “for an age now” they cost €4.79 for 12 but, last month, after ordering the product from the Tesco website, she was not best pleased to see a 10-pack arrive in its place. I contacted Cadbury to find out more about the price rise. A spokeswoman said that, as the product was made by Premier Foods, it was not in a position to comment on the pricing – something I found a little peculiar as the product carried the Cadbury brand so prominently.
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• Do you think it’ll catch on?

  February 5, 2009 @ 10:17 am | by Conor Pope

  A RESTAURANT owner is praying a spur-of-the-moment decision to tear up his price lists for the rest of the month and allow his customers to pay what they think their meals are worth won’t end up costing him dearly. Gavin Gleeson of the Vanilla Pod in Killarney has taken the unusual step in an effort beat the economic downturn and drum up some business for the restaurant he opened six months ago.

• Why won’t they tell us?

  @ 8:09 am | by Conor Pope

  Why are Ireland’s big retailers so reluctant to tell us how much money they are making? The Oireachtas Committee on Enterprise, Trade and Employment committee was told yesterday by the head RGDATA that the shops should be legally compelled to disclose their margins so we could judge whether they are profiteering. Tesco Ireland and Aldi yesterday refused to give the committee details of their profits in Ireland. Tesco chief executive Tony Keohane said the company did not separate Irish profits from others in its international division but said returns in the Republic were lower than in the North. Aldi said its profits were “normal” whatever that means. Paul Cullen has more.

• George Lee just smiled

  February 3, 2009 @ 9:23 pm | by Conor Pope

  Yes, incredible as it sounds, it’s true – he grinned at the end of his studio interview on the nine o’clock news. And with Brian Cowen promising that the €2 billion in public spending cuts announced today was the start of a “fightback” by the country, (should we not have started that fightback months ago?) and Pat Kenny taking a 10 per cent pay cut, maybe we’re not doomed after all.