Wicklow.com Webmaster Blog

This is a part of a page from todays Irish Indo. The man on the left is from Lithuania. He came to Ireland in 2003 in the hope of earning enough money as a landscape gardener to allow his family to come here. He is also a trained pilot.

The man on the right is a 19 year old Irish national, Kevin Dunne,  who repeatedly kicked the head of Mr. Sukys at the Royal Canal in Dublin in September 2005. Mr. Sukys was left severely brain damaged after the attack by Dunne. He cannot walk or speak unaided and his face has had to be reconstructed. The attach was unprovoked and unrestrasrained in sadistic violence.

Dunne was sentenced originally to seven years for the attack but this was increased to 10 years.

Dunne will probably get out in a few years and like a leopard, it is doubtful his spots will change. The violence will probably continue. He is just the tip of the iceberg. For every one in jail there are probably another 10 on the streets. Prison or the threat of prison doesn’t scare these people.

Some people will try to claim that people with a propensity for violence have experienced trauma or violence themselves. Maybe there is some element of truth in this but ultimately I believe some people are just “bad” and no matter what hand they were dealt in life, that badness will always dominate their lives and personalities.

Mr. Sukys came across this evil 19 year old who hated him because he wasn’t Irish. Scratch the surface and there are a lot more thugs with similar attitudes to foreign nationals in Ireland. They just don’t have the “bad” gene but it’s there in their comments and sniffy attitudes.

We should all think long and hard about what the two faces above say about Ireland.  

Had a nice few days off over the Easter. It’s great to re-charge the batteries. Finished off a book I started earlier in the week called “Good to Great” by Jim Collins. I highly recommend it if you’re interested in understanding how a business can go from merely being an “ok” company to being one that outperforms all its competitors over a long period and become great.

I was amazed that none of the companies I thought would be the models for a great company were mentioned at all. The truly great companies aren’t as well known but reading about them was a real eye opener.

Went to the Vigil service on Easter Saturday night. Have to confess that it’s been a long while since I’ve been to Mass. Up to about 3 or 4 years ago I went weekly. In my teenage years I would even go to Mass every day during lent. I can’t really put my finger on why I lapsed. I’m not going to say that the Church scandals over the years have been the cause, nor is it some fundamental shift in my belief system. I think I just got lazy.

Weeks became months and months became once or twice a year. Somewhere in all of that, I forgot what the buzz was like after a Mass.  That light hearted feeling. The energy. The Joy. I got that buzz again on Saturday night.

I was genuinely shocked at how few people were there in comparison to what I recall a few short years ago. Which is a pity as the new Parish Priest is a great speaker and gave one of the best sermons I ever heard.

Anyway, I’ve resolved now to make weekly Mass again as I realise how I’ve missed it.

A new shopping centre opened last week in Newbridge. It’s called Whitewater. There’s a shopping centre called Bluewater near London. Arklow is getting a shopping centre called Bridgewater.

There is some psychology behind this on the part of the developers marketing team. Something with “water” in the name automatically triggers the brain into thinking good things. Water (along with the Sun) is the bringer of life. We cannot live without it. Water is used in baptism. Water has a calming effect. Think about a sun holiday, and you think of a beautiful beach with clear blue water. It all adds up to making us receptive to the marketing message.

The Whitewater centre people have lost the plot in their radio ad though. It sounds to me like they are trying to make it sound like an epic journey a la Lord of the Rings. Listen out for it. Makes me cringe every time I hear it.

Speaking of shopping centres. The Dundrum Town Centre had a shop close last week due to trading difficulties. I predict there will be many more casualties in the Dundrum centre with maybe even one of the big anchor tenants pulling out. Rents must be too high and the all important ‘footfall’ figures obviously aren’t what the centre management predicted.

I don’t know if you have heard of Kick.ie but it’s a great site that allows you to seek out a news item of interest and post it. Users to the site can then essentially vote on what news items are worthy of making it to the home page. It is real user power in action.

I post news items from the Wicklow.com news site (http://www.wicklow.com/news) that I think will appeal or be of some interest to an Irish audience. The site is, afterall, an Irish community site.

I’m afraid the value of it is being undermined somewhat by (what I consider to be), spammy posts by one user in particular. The sheer volume of the posts indicate something beyond wanting to genuinely contribute to a community driven, Irish interest site. I’m not saying all the stories have to be Irish, but all these posts by one user are clogging up the system and make it hard to see posts from other users.

I know the site is a democracy and I don’t think there is anything to stop someone doing it, but I think it is sad that what could be a really great site in Ireland is being overloaded by spam.

The Sunday World have an advert running on the radio at the moment. It’s to promote the glossy supplement in the newspaper. The music playing in the background is a church organ playing something that sounds spiritual (I can’t work out what the piece is). The voice over person tells us all about what is in the weeks edition. It’s who’s jumping into bed with who, fashion features, gossip and so on.

So what, I hear you say. Well the interesting thing about this ad is the final line of the ad. It says “at least some things are sacred on a Sunday”. This is considered to be the “strapline” – the slogan that people remember. It is supposed to strengthen the message of the advertisement. What it is actually saying is “Well, nobody goes to mass any more. There’s no spirituality in Ireland. The Sunday World’s magazine is the only sacred thing about Sunday”.

I don’t want to come across as some kind of defender of the faith, but this sort of advertising simply adds to the media lie that religion is dead in Ireland. This simply isn’t true. There is no denying that churches aren’t as full as they used to be. In Ireland this is put down to many reasons. Church scandals, child abuse, lack of relevance of the gospel to modern life and so on. My opinion is that the drop off in religious practice corresponds with the increase in wealth in the country and the increase in materialism. Others have written at length about this but I really do believe it is true.

The Sunday World ad just contributes to a “tipping point” effect. If a message that religion is dead is perpetuated all over the media, people start to believe it. The tipping point hasn’t been reached yet, but more ads like the Sunday World are hastening the moment when that point is reached.

I was never particularly good at drawing when I was younger. Matchstick men and women was about the height of it. But take a look at the art of Akiane Kramarik and you’ll see the work of an 11 year old prodigy. Even the sketches from when she was 4 are just amazing.

To have talent like that is truly a blessing.

I’m a sucker for advertising sometimes. I am also curious and like to see how products are marketed. About 6 or 7 months ago you might remember that one of Alexa’s ‘Shakers and Movers’ was a site called http://www.what-is-the-secret.com

A very slick video on the site encouraged me to sign up to the email and be notified of updates. It was a long time coming but the Secret was revealed on the 23rd March.

I paid my $$ by Paypal to view the movie and I have to say I was blown away by it. I had an inkling of what the secret was. I always thought the stuff this video covered was airy fairy nonsense. But I now really believe there is more to it than meets the eye. I proved to myself that it works the day after I watched the film. I was taken aback and really couldn’t believe it. So I tried something else the next day and proved to myself that it works. I am no longer a sceptic about what the secret is.

Now, I’m not going to go along with the premise of the movie and tell you it is a deep hidden secret. It wasn’t just uncovered after being hidden for donkeys years. No, that was the marketing. I’ve been reading books and systems for years that cover pretty much what the secret does. The key difference now is that things have finally clicked. I ‘get it’ and can see how it can and does work.

I am deliberately not revealing what the secret is as I don’t want to spoil it for you. It’s $4.95 to watch online. It’s basically a no-brainer. Go online, pay the entrance fee, open your mind and watch the film. I think you might be surprised.

Why bother with these sweets in the box of Hero’s chocolates? 80% of people despise white chocolate (disclaimer:samples study was quite small) so why do Cadbury bother at all.

Put more Twirls or Crunchies in please.

I definitely must try harder to keep my blog updated. I’m concentrating so much on the Wicklow News blog that I hardly get a chance to wander over here and post.

I caught the tail end of RTE’s new Sunday night show, Celebrity Jigs and Reels. It’s presented by Marty Whelan who can do this sort of thing in his sleep – he’s such a pro that I doubt his heart rate barely goes above 70 doing it. He does seem like an odd choice as presenter.

Given that the slot it occupies is the same as You’re a Star which finished a few weeks ago, a more youthful presenter would have carried many that watched that programme. Since it is primarily teenagers that vote in these type of shows, I’m surprised once of the RTE2 children’s TV presenters didn’t get picked.

The panel seems like a decent line up. George Hook for comedy, Jean Butler for expertise in Dancing and just being a beauty to behold on screen, Colin Dunne – dancing expertise and I didn’t catch the name of the last guy but I presume he’s going to provide the Simon Cowell bitchiness.

No doubt the TV critics in the newspapers and magazines will lash this programme to high heaven. It will be accused of being a ripoff of similar programmes in the UK. They would be right in saying that, but who cares? It’s for charity and will provide a bit of Sunday evening cheer and bring us all in nicely to the first signs of summer when the show winds up on April 30th.

Let’s hope that the bulk of money from text messages and phone calls DOES go to charity and that O2/Vodafone/Meteor and Three are donating their profits too.