Due to the fact that I have changed jobs and now commute on both train and Dart on a daily basis, it has only taken me 3 days to get really annoyed by the “Free Sheet litter” that is simply thrown around on both Dart and Commuter trains in the Greater Dublin Area. The free sheet is simply that, free and it’s designed to be small and concise in order for your train journey pass more quickly. Obviously its also designed to generate more advertising revenue for the Newspapers that issue them (and more luck to them).

Due to the fact that they are free they are available to everyone who wants one, I don’t take one as I rather reading a book, I cannot see  why should people insist on leaving them on the train, so that others can read them?. To me it would appear that these people are lazy and just could’nt be arsed is simply taking the paper with them and sticking it in a bin, we teach our children not to litter, so why don’t we teach ourselves not to litter. I  appreciate that not all conduct them selves in this manner but clearly enough of people do as if you travel on these modes of transport the evidence is everywhere.

So if you get a “free sheet “ for feck sake don’t leave on the train as nobody else wants to read it , bring it home or simply bin it. Littering is your responsibility not anyone else’s.

Firstly I have to admit that paying my visa card is an exercise that I complete on an irregular basis. Today however I decided to pay on time for once, and decided to pay a little extra so that I could purchase something on the internet.

I went into my internet bank site and logged on in the normal way. I went to “pay a bill section” clicked the bill I wanted to pay and paid it. When this was done I received a note telling me that the “payment could take up to 5 working days”. I said to myself “feck that for a game of soldiers”, so I decided to call the  visa card department to ascertain why it could take up to 5 working days for the money to arrive in my visa account, given that my current account was down by some €2500 immediately, and my card was issued by the same Bank.

I was told that “that’s the way the bank does it”, “feckin brilliant” I said to myself, I decided to call my Bank Manager at branch to verify this is the case, he confirmed that it was. When I calmed down I began to muse to myself as to what, roughly, would the extra income that bank will generate from this transaction, if everyone in Ireland were to do the same thing as I did.

Here we go, according to research carried out by the Central Bank, it was estimated that at the end of November 2004 there was €1.8billion outstanding in the form of credit card debt, I suppose as consumer credit was increasing at a growth run rate of approx 20% year on year ,this would make this figure about €3 billion today give or take a couple of €100 million, Credit Card interest is on average 16.3% Apr so this would give an interest income to the Banks of approximately €489m per annum, assuming that the amount outstanding stays fairly constant. This equates to €1.4m a day so should we all endeavour to pay off our balances today and it takes “5 working days for the funds to reach your account” the Banks will glean close to €10m , the interest is also calculated at the weekend.(Not to mention any late payment fee that maybe charged by some providers)

Secondly the Bank will also have €3 billion on deposit with an interest rate of say 4.5% they will additionally earn close to €370k free.

So to summarise the Banks will clear close to €10.4m just because you decided to pay off your credit card, properly.

Feck’in hell this is really annoying s##t of huge proportions, maybe its time for the Banks to wear masks, at least that way we’ll know we are being Ripped Off.

AT LEAST DICK TURPIN WORE A MASK WHEN HE WAS ROBBING PEOPLE

As I spend endless hours everyweek sitting in traffic, trying not to lose my mind, whilst making my way to and from work, I channel surf through the maze of radio channel's that are available in the "Greater Dublin Area". Almost all of these radio channels have a texting facility, where you the punter can add comments or impart information to your fellow listeners, this appears to be particularily busy during the "rush hours", when pissed off travellers text in information on the state of traffic on their particular route.The radio station, DCAL in this case, then  they relay this information to others, great idea!

Now for the really annoying s##t, by sending them the information which essentially forms the backbone of the content they broadcast, THEY CHARGE YOU 20c,  thats right you pay them for their content, and its not just DCAL that does it, they all do it. So should 100,000 people a day contact radio stations via text they will generate €20,000 per day or €100,000 per working week or €5,200,000 per annum, couple this with advertising revenue which should increase due to increase in listeners they are quids in,and they d'ont even change the content.

I just find this incredible, I have never had the pleasure of  working/consulting for a company where the people who get nothing from the company actually pay, if you were to extend this practise to Tesco/Dunnes or any other big retailer you would have to pay say €1 just for a browse, feck, somehow I would thing that Sales would begin to fall off pretty quickly.

Having said all that though I wish I had thought of it.

PS, Mark, d'ont be getting any ideas about charging per word now..................