Government research on the mainland is indicating that providing public services in foreign languages for non-English speakers is not only costing upwards of £100m a year (including £55m in the NHS), but isolating communities from each other.… more »

A jar of air. A novel idea for a souvenir or consumerism gone mad? Some might think it cynical, others genius. It's been said that one can sell absolutely anything on eBay - perhaps this will be the ultimate test of that assertion (actually, having se… more »

Ah this ever-so-democratic Labour government, which has gone to war in the interests (in part at least) of "spreading democracy" to the middle-east. While I've never been particularly pro-war or anti-war, I do find the way the government have been acting… more »

I've already discussed the rip-off charges imposed on Northern Irish customers trying to order PC components over the internet, but today seems an opportune momoent to highlight an even more reprehensible Northern Ireland consumer extortion - Phoenix Gas… more »

An admittedly rather simplistic (and/or misleading, depending on your viewpoint) University of Ulster study that denounced Northern Ireland as the "bigotry capital of the world" (reported at Slugger on Friday) and reminded me of some of the other rather… more »

It seems to have gone by largely unnoticed (at least to this blogger) but it certainly appears that the DUP, brave custodians of the union, are more interested in blackmailing the average pro-union voter into voting DUP than they are in safeguarding Nort… more »

This year's mid-winter travels took me to relatively new EU member state, Hungary. My posting has been so erratic this year that most people probably wouldn't have noticed but, following on from a trend begun last year for visiting cold places in the… more »