Selfies in the polling booth

Selfies in the poll booth

Selfies here, selfies there, these damned selfies are everywhere, but in the polling booths!

Lots of people thought it would be a good idea to take a selfie in the polling booth but wait!! it is against the law, it may infringe on the security and integrity of the voting system, but lets be honest the politicians do that themselves. If you take a picture of yourself in the booth you are breaking the law so are the politicians doing it when they vote? How often are we subjected to images of them on the evening news casting their votes? Are they above the law and this allows them to show us every second of their trip to the booth.

If you take a picture of your ballot paper showing who you voted for it's affecting the privacy of the booth, Ah! sorry I put the mark on the paper I know who I voted for. As you may or may not know I believe in voting, just have a look here or here. Now I voted to-day and there are two elections going on, with Ireland using a PR system you get to number your ballot based on your preference first to last. This is a good system until you get handed two ballot papers one with 21 candidates and the other with 13 candidates.

I made my selections and due to the number of candidates I was tempted to take a picture to remind myself who got my lower votes, but that would be tempting fate, I will just have to leave it that I voted for the right candidate ;0)

When we leave the booth does this law still apply to us? Many times on leaving the polling station we are subjected to exit polls trying to work out who will win, if we are caught on camera telling the interviewer who we voted for can we be taken up for that?

This law dates back to a time before selfies or even digital cameras existed, so may be it has to be looked at? May be the law should realise how much society has changed in years since this law was made and consider moving with with it.

Election time again

It's election time again in Ireland, we are voting for local and EU politicians to look after our interests. The only problem is they have all been so under handed we don't know who to put our faith, trust and our money in!! I believe that it is my duty to vote but these politicians are making it harder to do every time an election comes up.
We have spent the last 5 years getting out of the mess our "leaders" put us in - we have to carry some of the blame too, now when there is light at the end of the tunnel we find out that there is more dirt in the cupboard and no one will stand up and take the blame.

Election time again - back to the same old tricks

Once again with an election looming near the politicians are back to the same old tricks namely blame everyone else and try to con the less well off. Any thing that is causing a problem is automatically related to something the opposition did 20 years ago, well you have had 20 years to sort it out why is it an issue now.

As for less well off after 5 years in power the politicians suddenly come to the realisation that if we don't promise them something they wont vote for us, so they magic up jobs in the areas that have been hardest hit, namely the construction sector even though they have talked for the last year or so about the need for it.

Election time again - More empty promises

I think the cabinet spend a lot of the time before calling the election on working out their strategy, but the strategy they work on is at what stage do we drip feed these NOT to be fulfilled promises to our gullible public. The public may know what is going on but at the same time we all go into the imaginary world of "This government is different they will keep their promises" and in 5 years time we are back to the same promises and looking into that imaginary world again!! What's that old saying

"Fool me once shame on you, fool me twice shame on me!"

Well how about 5 or 10 or 15 times! who does the shame fall on now?

Election time again - Is it real or a soap opera!

TV3 announced their new schedule with soap guru John Yorke and writer Peter McKenna coming in to produce a new soap, but I think they have been here for a while working on a different soap, it's called the "Dáil" that is the only thing that would explain what is going on behind the doors of Leinster House.

Election time again - Parting words

We can't tar all the politicians with the same brush some of them will actually run for election on a truth based manifesto! The only trouble is when they tell the truth they don't get the votes to get elected, I wonder why? Perhaps we all just want to live in that "imaginary world" where everything in the garden is rosy and hope that things just go back to the full bank accounts, low interest rate mortgages, new car every year and 45 euro chicken!

The 45 Euro Chicken

“What?” I hear you say “a 45 Euro chicken, it must be a mistake. They must have forgotten the decimal point or does this chicken lay golden eggs. Maybe this is an organic hand reared chicken that will taste like heaven or you are in a 5 star restaurant with a Michelin star chef doing the cooking.” Do you know what, all these thoughts went through my head too?

They are all wrong, let me explain- on a recent family day out we stopped off on the way home at a well known fried chicken fast food outlet – its name escapes me now something like fried chicken from as American state – oh yes that’s it KFC. We ordered the food and were told how much it was, I thought it sounded expensive so I ask for a receipt and a copy of the menu. On further inspection I discovered the chicken pieces cost 4 Euros 50 Cents and there were only THREE pieces in it. Now you are probably thinking that it must be a meal deal and that it included chips (French Fries) and a drink. Wrong!! only THREE pieces of chicken.

So where does the 45 Euro chicken come from? Well when you take the "secret mix of 11 herbs and spices" covering off the chicken and are just looking at the chicken you will see that you could easily get about 30 pieces out of a medium sized chicken. That means that each chicken will give you 10 portions which is 45 Euros you get out of a chicken.

Now the thing that really gets my goat up is that you can buy a medium sized chicken here for about 5 Euros, so that means they are getting 40 Euros out of each chicken, and through bulk buying they are probably making more on each chicken.

OK so I know that everybody has to make a living, but really!! Is this not just a rip off? I know that the building was designed and built during the Celtic Tiger but it wasn’t finished until after the Tiger had whimpered off into the jungle. Somebody forgot to tell these people we are in the middle of a recession, they will have to recoup the development costs over a longer period or run the risk of going out of business. We just stopped there because we wanted to get some food for the kids and it was the first fast food outlet in the town that we can to, now I know that the main rivals to them are an indigenous company SuperMacwho specialize in fried chicken too and another multi-national company with two golden arches over their buildings and both of these offer kids meals for less than the 3 pieces of chicken we got and you get a free toy with it.

To make things even worse when we got home and were watching TV there was an ad on for an adult meal deal they are offering in the North for 4 pounds 85 pence. With the current exchange rate this 5 Euros 81 cents which is 1 euro 31 cents extra for a hell of a lot more.

I know that everybody has to cover costs when working out their prices but is it because the recipe for the chicken is so important that we have to pay the wage of a group of bodyguards employed to protect the chef at each outlet who has to mix the herbs and spices or are we paying for the state of the art alarm system back at HQ that stops anybody stealing the piece of paper with the colonel’s secret mix of 11 herbs and spices wrote down on it.

Now don’t get me wrong I do like the chicken in question, especially the extra crispy type, and I know they do have some offers on but if we were to take advantage of the offers they have on we would be throwing half of it in the bin. We only wanted to feed the kids not feed a dinner to a family of four. So you see I couldn’t justify buying a bucket of chicken, I only like it some much.

Also in these times when people are being laid off or being made redundant, which in a lot of cases means they are having to struggle to make ends meet, how you spend the ever decreasing money has to be studied and re-evaluated, this being said I think I will keep driving the next time we are out and see what else is on offer.