Landlord law lacuna The head of the Residential Tenancies Board had a clear message to deliver. There were landlords out there just blatently raising rent above the maximum 4% a year in "Rent Pressure Zones" (aka, where the people are). And, by golly, there is absolutely nothing the
Reality Bites OK, so this is the Gist. Let's do the Brexit bit. So, basically, Ms. May's Wednesday claim the Cabinet backed her was missing the *until they start to quit. Mr. Raab, the man who had negotiated the Brexit deal quit, reputedly in horror at
May-Day! May-Day Brexit has been 18 months of watching someone trying to haggle on prices with the automatic scanning machine at a Tesco checkout. Now, having finally reached the point where the 'store is closing' announcements have got serious, the UK gov has decided to just pay for
Comics, cruelty and cameos Stan Lee lived to be 95 years old. Today, he died. 95 years is a long time- long enough for him to be a complicated person to write an obituary for. Fortunately this can be solved by ignoring the first 60 or so years of his
US President's enthusiasm for history dampened The person who was elected two years ago to do the job of being President of the US cancelled the plan to attend a memorial in a French cemetery for Americans who were killed in WW1 because it was raining. That'
Repubs Get Outta Town Democrats in the US, having received most of the votes cast, lost in the Senate, but won control of the House of Congress. The meaning of this is whatever you want it to be for the purposes of public discussion. But, just here, between us, it
Edgy Election Democrats hope to take control of Congress in an US. The local commentary casually acknowledges that the constituancies are gerrymandered, there is widespread vote suppression of minorities and that the voting machines are suseptible to tampering. Basically, it takes an overwhelming Democrat vote turnout to hit even representation.
News bit The media's love of fellas who'll leave their natural habitat of the golf club bar and tell you what they really think of travellers and women continued this week on TV golf club bar, the Late Late Show. Ignoring the specific spoutings (which is
Google staff Feeling less Lucky Thousands of people got up from their desks in Google at 11.10am all around the world and walked out to protest the spectacular failures of the company's management to properly deal with the sex harassment. This is a not great look for
Bank Holiday Hangover Schools are closed this week, and the bits of the country that didn't go back to work yesterday (newspapers and the like) found that their heart wasn't really in it. Similarly, journalists scraped around the sides of walls and even reported on wills
Europe's Anchors' away The Chancellor of Germany, Angela Merkel, has seen her once unquestioned power ebbing away across a number of lackluster regional elections. The Government parties have not been doing well- which is bad news for the political centre as both the main German parties are
Higgins triumphs unnoticed The President of Ireland having been reelected with the largest personal mandate in the country's electoral history, the media have immediately rushed to give more attention and oxygen to the reactionary comments of the shambling mound who came a very distant second. It is possible