Pricewatch »

• Ireland cheapest in Europe! As if…

  June 28, 2010 @ 10:47 pm | by Conor Pope

  We’ve all known for ages that Ireland is one of the most expensive places in Europe to live but, even so, it came as a bit of a surprise this evening when our high price society was confirmed in fairly stark terms by the latest survey from Eurostat.
  We have the second highest prices for food and non-alcoholic drinks in the European Union and this despite more than 15 months of deflation.
  Prices here are on average nearly 30 per cent higher than the EU average. Only Denmark has higher prices – things cost almost 40 per cent more than the EU average there. To put these numbers into perspective, prices in the UK are a measly 3 per cent above the EU average.
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• The cash from the ash

  June 21, 2010 @ 5:53 pm | by Conor Pope

  A reader has been in touch to see if any readers have received refunds from Aer Lingus (or indeed any other airline) in connection with cancelled flights arising out of the volcanic ash cloud of a couple of months ago. “This problem arose on April 15th last. I’m still waiting,” he writes. So, have you, or anyone you know who was affected by the cloud, got any money from any airline? Would be interested to know.

• Left bank impressions…

  June 18, 2010 @ 12:37 pm | by Conor Pope

  Halifax is to close many of its branches today with the remainder shutting in the middle of next week. The bank’s decision to pull out of the Irish market earlier this year has left 50,000 current account holders and 50,000 credit card customers with no option but to take their business elsewhere. I’m wondering how the experience of switching has been for those customers? How accommodating have the other banks been? How willing have they been to offer credit cards and loans and what the levels of customer service have been like? All impressions and experiences are welcome.

• Every little helps

  June 14, 2010 @ 4:11 pm | by Conor Pope

  Every now and then, I notice a product I like has disappeared from Tesco’s shelves – most recently I was dismayed to discover that De Cecco pasta (arguably one of the best Italian pastas on sale in Ireland) is no longer stocked by the retail giant.

  In recent weeks, several other people have complained to me about products disappearing without explanation from the store so I thought I might compile a list to see if it is worth investigating further. Have you noticed anything disappearing over the last 12 months or so? If so let me know. . .

• Apps for the thrifty tourist

  June 7, 2010 @ 2:44 pm | by Conor Pope

  The Huffington Post has jiust put up nine (weird number, I would have thought) essential iPhone apps for the thrifty traveller. Some of them are quite good.

• Greenwashed out

  @ 12:01 pm | by Conor Pope

  As the British Petroleum-owned oil rig off the US coast continues to spill tens of thousands of tons of crude oil into the Gulf of Louisiana in what has become the worst environmental disaster in American history, the executives who signed off on the company’s Beyond Petroleum rebranding campaign a decade ago must be cursing.
  
  Critics consistently damned the campaign, which stressed BPs role as Mother Earth’s best friend – it even changed its manly looking shield logo to a cute little flower – as one of the most outrageous examples of greenwashing, the practice which sees a company overstate its green principals in order to cash in on consumer’s concerns over the environment.

  But while BP may now have to move beyond its beyond petroleum campaign, at least until the world at large forgets what happened in recent weeks, the growth of the greenwashing business is unlikely to be tempered, not least because businesses recognise that we, as consumers, actually do care what happens to the planet and are willing to spend a little more on environmentally friendly products.

  But how much more are you willing to spend on products that do less harm to the planet? 10 per cent? 25? And how can you be sure that the claims made by manufacturers are not entirely bogus?

• Nice trackie, Sue

  @ 11:06 am | by Conor Pope

  
  WE HAVE BECOME so accustomed to product placement in US films and TV programmes over the last 30 years that we barely notice the farcical way expensive clobber is shoe-horned into Sex and the City or the Glee cast’s unhealthy obsession with products from Apple and Adidas. But what if Bela Doyle ostentatiously ate Tayto each time he wandered the streets of Fair City ’s Carrigstown or Ryan Tubridy only ever sipped Ballygowan on The Late Late Show ? Or just imagine if Renault cars featured prominently on prominent Renault car dealer Bill Cullen’s The Apprentice on TV3? Okay, okay, that’s already happened – one episode of the first series had contestants selling cars at the Bill Cullen Motor Company, an advertising opportunity the group paid handsomely for.
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• Giving short shrift to long trunks

  June 1, 2010 @ 8:47 pm | by Conor Pope

  

  WHAT IS IT with German men and Speedos? While most of the rest of the world quietly disposed of their shiny nylon budgie smugglers (or banana hammocks or mankinis, if you prefer) in the 1980s, and never spoke of them again, our northern European cousins clung tightly to theirs with a passion they normally reserve for the music of David Hasselhoff.
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• Pay less for your greens

  @ 8:44 pm | by Conor Pope

  IT IS A WARM sunny afternoon and Trevor Sargent, the former Green Party leader and recently resigned Minister of State with responsibility for Food, is covered in bees. Since he stepped down from his ministerial post in controversial circumstances earlier this year he has become an amateur bee-keeper and has proved so adept at managing his hive that the bees now need a second home. He is in the process of relocating some of them when Pricewatch interrupts him to talk gardening.
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