A pet hate of many people is bad use of the English language. Even more so among those working in communications, where typos, mixing up of “their” “there” and “they’re” or just needless waffling, are guaranteed to generate a heated and colourful debate. That’s why I smiled when I found out that the people who
Some of the lessons of the first no vote to the Lisbon Treaty referendum seem to be have been learned, but then forgotten just as easily. We’ll soon know just how costly this will prove when it comes to the crucial Fiscal Treaty poll in early June. One of the big lessons was that engaging
Ask any PR person and they’ll tell you they can spot a novice or untrained media performer in the first few seconds of a radio interview. Our ears are finely tuned after years of providing advice to clients on the do’s and don’ts of the interview. My own PPP (personal pet peeve) is the interviewee
A few weeks ago, my colleague Michelle wrote a blog on the communications fiasco which was the Household charge. You’d think the Government would have learned a few lessons since then but events in recent days relating to the installation of water meters suggest otherwise. Indeed all of the signals to date are of two
You would need to be living on Planet Zog for the last month not to be aware of the introduction of the €100 flat household charge, as a precursor to a more proportionate household property charge in a year’s time. For that time at least, the political opponents of the measure have been banging on,
The tragic demise of the Costa Concordia has dominated headlines in Italy and further afield for the past ten days. If it wasn’t such a catastrophe, the multiple strands that have emerged on a daily basis would make a compelling plot for a daytime soap opera – a cowardly captain, a mystery blonde, a last
This blog is about how Ireland needs Brad Pitt. Well, kind of. A couple of weeks ago, I had the pleasure of seeing Moneyball, the film starring Brad as baseball manager Billy Beane (if you haven’t seen it, check out the trailer here, then go see it, it’s great). It’s based on a true story
In America, there is a lovely tradition at Thanksgiving where everyone gathered around the table for thanksgiving dinner tell of one thing that they have to be thankful for during the past year. Here in Ireland, we don’t tend to sit around the turkey at Christmas espousing our reasons to be grateful, and we’d probably
It’s no surprise that 2011 has been a massive year for social media. The ubiquity of channels like Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn has continued to grow exponentially, with each assuming a very significant part in the daily life of Irish business, political and the mainstream media itself. A look back over the 2011 social media