Pricewatch »

• Best thing ever.

  March 1, 2011 @ 2:13 pm | by Conor Pope

  

  Right, I know that this clip has nothing to do with prices or the like but it has brightened up my day no end so it would be wrong not to share!

  Comments (2)

• I’m loving it…

  @ 10:11 am | by Conor Pope

  

  I wrote a piece a couple of weeks back about a move among some restaurants to include nutritional information about the food they serve on their menus.
  (more…)

  Comments (5)

• Eh, there must be some mistake…

  @ 12:01 am | by Conor Pope

  Dear Pricewatch blog.

  I know that we have grown apart these last few months but despite that, we appear to have made it on to the (long) shortlist in a category for the Irish Blog Awards. While I am obviously honoured to be on the list in the company of some very fine journalists – as should you be – it has made me feel bad. I have been neglecting you for some time, I can’t deny it. It’s not you, though, it’s me. I had my head turned by the harlot that is Twitter. But I can change. I know I can. And we can get back what we once had, surely? From now on I will be more attentive. I promise… I won’t let you down again ***

  *** I might actually let you down again.

  Comments (1)

• Pricewatch: News just in…

  January 10, 2011 @ 5:23 pm | by Conor Pope

  This morning in the Big Paper (well, if it’s good enough for the people who work for the Guardian’s website it’s good enough for me) I looked at the death of our pubs and the annoying bank charges rolled out just before Christmas by Bank of Ireland and I reviewed razors.
  That is all.

  Comments (6)

• Fight the power…

  January 7, 2011 @ 10:04 am | by Conor Pope

  Annoyed by the VHI price hikes? Well, if you are a subscriber there are ways you can fight back. Here are just three of them.
  (more…)

  Comments (6)

• Are you talkin’ to me? 7 things I hate about taxis

  January 6, 2011 @ 10:31 am | by Conor Pope

  I’m Free! Oh, no, wait I’m not. What is the story with taxi drivers driving around with passengers in their cars AND THEIR LIGHTS ON! Seriously, how hard can it be to devise – and then enforce – a system which would automatically shut the light off once the meter went on? Not very I suspect. And in daytime, how are would be passengers – and by would-be passengers, I mean me – supposed to tell if a taxi is free or not?

  Change, for good: Last night I gave a cab driver a €50 note for an €8 fare and he looked at me like I’d handed him the severed arm of his dear old granny. It wasn’t that he had no change, he just resented using it on such a puny fare. How hard can it be for a cab driver to keep a proper float?

  ‘I hear you’re a racist now’: Not all taxi drivers are guilty of this by any means, but I have encountered it enough times to know it is not just a small minority.

  Moaning: Yes things are bad for most of us, what with the near total collapse of our banking system and the arrival in town of the IMF. I don’t feel the need tell you how much my income has shrunk by over the last 18 months so why are you telling me how much yours has fallen by?

  Don’t be so picky: You are either accepting passengers or you’re not. You can’t roll down your window, ask me where I want to go and then speed off cos it doesn’t suit you.

  The grumpy ones: Listen, I can’t help it if I live 20 minutes from the airport – well, I suppose I can – and it is not my fault you have been waiting two hours out there for a fare, I just want to get home and I could really do with you sighing heavily at me because I don’t want you to take me to Graystones.

  Radio Radio: It’s either bangin techno or soft rock. Either way, make it stop.

  Comments (29)

• Last minute dot comedy

  December 14, 2010 @ 10:52 am | by Conor Pope

  Canny shop assistants will spend the last hours of this Christmas season looking for panic-stricken men – and it is almost always men – without a clue what to get for their nearest and dearest and then make them pay handsomely for their seasonal slackness.
  (more…)

  Comments (2)

• Tesco’s amazing sums

  November 25, 2010 @ 3:39 pm | by Conor Pope

  

  Hmm, I think this pic, sent in by a good reader speaks for itself. If you’ve spotted a similarly ridiculous sign in any shop send them in and I’ll do my best to bring them to a wider audience… Maybe I should even have a competition to find the funniest one? What do you reckon?

  Comments (24)

• Attacked by a Rabbitte

  November 19, 2010 @ 10:17 am | by Conor Pope

  I think most of the Irish people who watched this moment on Prime Time last night probably cheered even if they would have rathered Pat Rabbitte’s rage was directed at someone more directly responsible for the mess we are in today.

  Comments (37)

• Was it greed?

  November 18, 2010 @ 10:06 pm | by Conor Pope

  The main Irish Times editorial today is remarkable and powerfully conveys the anger and despair felt by most people this evening.

  “IT MAY seem strange to some that The Irish Times would ask whether this is what the men of 1916 died for: a bailout from the German chancellor with a few shillings of sympathy from the British chancellor on the side. There is the shame of it all. Having obtained our political independence from Britain to be the masters of our own affairs, we have now surrendered our sovereignty to the European Commission, the European Central Bank, and the International Monetary Fund. Their representatives ride into Merrion Street today.

  Fianna Fáil has sometimes served Ireland very well, sometimes very badly. Even in its worst times, however, it retained some respect for its underlying commitment that the Irish should control their own destinies. It lists among its primary aims the commitment “to maintain the status of Ireland as a sovereign State”. Its founder, Eamon de Valera, in his inaugural address to his new party in 1926, spoke of “the inalienability of national sovereignty” as being fundamental to its beliefs. The Republican Party’s ideals are in tatters now.

  The Irish people do not need to be told that, especially for small nations, there is no such thing as absolute sovereignty. We know very well that we have made our independence more meaningful by sharing it with our European neighbours. We are not naive enough to think that this State ever can, or ever could, take large decisions in isolation from the rest of the world. What we do expect, however, is that those decisions will still be our own. A nation’s independence is defined by the choices it can make for itself.

  Irish history makes the loss of that sense of choice all the more shameful. The desire to be a sovereign people runs like a seam through all the struggles of the last 200 years. “Self-determination” is a phrase that echoes from the United Irishmen to the Belfast Agreement. It continues to have a genuine resonance for most Irish people today.

  The true ignominy of our current situation is not that our sovereignty has been taken away from us, it is that we ourselves have squandered it. Let us not seek to assuage our sense of shame in the comforting illusion that powerful nations in Europe are conspiring to become our masters. We are, after all, no great prize for any would-be overlord now. No rational European would willingly take on the task of cleaning up the mess we have made. It is the incompetence of the governments we ourselves elected that has so deeply compromised our capacity to make our own decisions.

  They did so, let us recall, from a period when Irish sovereignty had never been stronger. Our national debt was negligible. The mass emigration that had mocked our claims to be a people in control of our own destiny was reversed. A genuine act of national self-determination had occurred in 1998 when both parts of the island voted to accept the Belfast Agreement. The sense of failure and inferiority had been banished, we thought, for good.

  To drag this State down from those heights and make it again subject to the decisions of others is an achievement that will not soon be forgiven. It must mark, surely, the ignominious end of a failed administration.”

  Comments (2)

• Ireland’s Own

  November 15, 2010 @ 11:29 am | by Conor Pope

  There was a big response to the 12 sites of Christmas story. Some readers wondered about Irish online shopping sites with great gift ideas so here are some of the best.

  Beautifully drawn and often hilarious limited edition prints (€150-€250) from this Sligo-based artist. anniewest.com Children’s illustrator Carla Daly has all kinds of growth charts, door signs, kids’ wall stickers and personalised art for kids’ bedrooms. carladaly.com Possibly the best online T-shirt shop, with tops emblazoned with slogans you’d have to be Irish to understand, eg “Where’s Grandad?” hairybaby.com This site has loads of presents, from cheesy mugs and novelty socks to natty lamps and Ugg boots. peoplelovepresents.com An online marketplace for finding lessons in everything from tuba playing to bee-keeping. mindhives.com A very cute site with a range of home accessories and gifts selected for their nostalgic feel, their sense of fun or their handmade nature. mabelandviolet.com Pigeon lamp, Charlie Monkey and Mono cat are just three of the gifts on this site but it doesn’t confine itself to animal-themed presents. nofixedabode.ie Hard to beat for its weird and wonderful range of gifts from the really cute to the really ridiculous. pressieport.ie

  Comments (0)

• Stop making cents

  @ 11:23 am | by Conor Pope

  We lost track of our pounds during the boom years but did a fine job looking after our pennies, mostly by storing them securely behind sofa cushions, in change jars and in the pockets of old pairs of jeans. But does the copper mountain we have accumulated have any real value or is it time we scrapped it, particularly as minting all those coins we treat so carelessly costs so much and none of us is likely to have two cents to rub together come Budget day?
  (more…)

  Comments (0)

• The 12 Sites of Christmas

  November 14, 2010 @ 10:06 am | by Conor Pope

  I was going to put this up last Monday but, um, dammit! I can’t think of an excuse…

  YES, I REALISE there are still 46 (40 as of today) cold, wet and increasingly dark days until Christmas and that by even mentioning the C word so early in November I run the risk of incurring the wrath of readers everywhere. But when it comes to shopping online – where some of the best bargains and most unusual presents can be found — it is important to get it over with early so you don’t spend Christmas week fretting about all those gifts which have yet to arrive.

  While the big players in e-tailing such as amazon.com, play.com and even ebay.com are going to be popular with Irish shoppers over the coming weeks, to find the best presents at the best value, it’s a good idea to cast your net wider.
  (more…)

  Comments (3)

• Organic growth

  @ 9:39 am | by Conor Pope

  These should be hard times for growers and sellers of organic food. Not only are they trying to sell premium-priced products in a recession, they also have to contend with increasingly downbeat scientific assessments of the nutritional benefits of the food they are coaxing people to buy.
  The latest study to cast doubt on the benefits of eating organically was published this week by scientists at the University of Copenhagen. After a two-year experiment comparing the health-giving properties of organic vegetables with those of conventionally grown ones, the scientists declared the contest to be more or less a heat.
  (more…)

  Comments (0)

• Post no bills…

  October 25, 2010 @ 4:38 pm | by Conor Pope

  Not a great day for O2 in The Irish Times. First there’s the post below this one… and then there is this story about the mobile company’s e-billing practices. ComReg has told O2 it cannot bill customers electronically without their consent and has given the company a month to sort out its non-compliance. In August, O2 wrote to customers in a jaunty fashion saying “If it’s okay with you, your next bill will be online instead of in the post”. The letter also carried guidelines on how people could opt out. This forced customers to opt out of the change rather than giving them a choice. This has been handled in a ham-fisted fashion by the company but as long as people are given a choice – rather than foreced to accept online billing – such changes should be welcomed. It is cheaper, envoromentally friendly and more up-to-date that the old paper trails.

  Comments (4)

• The puzzling case of the phantom iPhone

  @ 4:30 pm | by Conor Pope

  Recently Sinead Twomey tried to purchase a 32gb iPhone from O2 but was told the company was out of stock both online and in shops. “No one could tell me if or when they were going to be back in stock. I was told to just keep ringing and checking online.” She was told that O2 was at the mercy of Apple and there was nothing it could do about it. “The phone is fairly limited so I was told it would be very hard to get.” She happened to call into a Vodafone shop and asked what the story was with the iPhones. “I could have purchased the phone there and then.” She contacted O2 and told them “and they still had no response except to say check online and ring the stores. I was sick of it and to be honest all I wanted was to move to Vodafone. I can’t do this though because I have 11 months left on my contract.
  (more…)

  Comments (1)

• The rugby ticket rip-off

  @ 9:23 am | by Conor Pope

  HOW WOULD YOU like to see the rugby giants of New Zealand run riot this autumn? With tickets costing between €32.50 and €55 (or just €11 for a child), it seems like excellent value and we have to take our hat of to the rugby authorities for pricing the tickets so fairly in the middle of the darkest recession in more than 70 years.

  Sadly, it is not the Irish Rugby Football Union (IRFU) who deserve the kudos for this enlightened pricing strategy. All praise should be directed at their counterparts in Scotland. The upcoming match in Murrayfield is operating under a three-tiered pricing system with tickets selling for £45 (€54.99), €25 (€30.55) or €11.26 (£10) for schools.
  (more…)

  Comments (0)

• Aldi’s spin is ridiculously tiresome and unnecessary

  October 19, 2010 @ 3:21 pm | by Conor Pope

  Dunnes Stores is Ireland’s cheapest supermarket when it comes to branded baby care products while Tesco is the most expensive, according to a survey published by the National Consumer Agency (NCA). The story is published here.

  But what interests me right now is not that but the fact the Aldi were so quick to issue a press release which is, I think, just a little cheeky.

  This is what I got from Aldi a few minutes ago:
  

  “National Consumer Agency survey confirms Aldi offers best priced baby care products in Ireland

  Aldi’s baby products provide Irish shoppers with the best value in Ireland, according to the latest survey from the National Consumer Agency (NCA).

  The NCA’s Baby Care Products Price Survey compared a basket of six own brand baby care products such as nappies and baby wipes across retailers, and found Aldi to be cheaper than its competitors, with its basket totaling €30.20.”

  However this is not the full story by a long shot. The comparison of the six common own-brand products including nappies and baby wipes in Lidl, Tesco and Aldi revealed an identical total price of €30.20 between the German discounters while Tesco worked out slightly more expensive at €31.07, a difference of 2.9 per cent.

  Comments (11)

• Happy days…

  October 12, 2010 @ 10:53 am | by Conor Pope

  

  So, just how long would it take for a McDonald’s happy meal to rot? Well, according to the Daily Mail this morning, a very, very long time indeed. They have a story about a Manhattan artist, Sally Davies, who photographed the meal of fries and burger every day for six months and so far there is no sign of mould or decay. Yum.

  Comments (11)

• The rise of the savvy shopper

  October 11, 2010 @ 10:40 am | by Conor Pope

  BACK IN 2005, most of us – particularly those of us with access to cheap and easy credit – were still thrilled skinny to be the economic envy of Europe. We were assured by our political masters that the good times would keep rolling and even if they didn’t, we had the softest of soft landings to look forward to.

  Fast-forward five years and an almost impenetrable black cloud sits over the country. We have moved from being Europe’s economic powerhouse to its basket case and the soft landing we were promised disappeared faster than a truckload of money poured into the coffers of Anglo Irish.

  While there is undoubtedly much to be glum about, at least we can take some comfort from research carried out by the National Consumer Agency (NCA) which indicates that the hard times have knocked some sense into us when it comes to spending money.
  (more…)

  Comments (6)