Lennard Ramone

In order to get to the main point of today’s story, I first need to explain something to you: the Irish postal system. Or, rather, the postal code system. Or, to be even more precise, the 2 postal code systems, because it’s Ireland so we have 2 systems for something that every other country has 1 of. There are 2 postal code systems for Ireland: 1 for Dublin and 1 for the whole of Ireland. The Dublin one is set up like this: the city has been cut up in zones, numbered from 1-24. This seems straightforward but there are some strange complications. The basic idea is this: odd numbers are North of the river Liffey, even numbers are South. Dublin 1 is North City Centre, Dublin 2 is South City Centre. Dublin 3, where I live, is just to the East of Dublin1, but I still live in the city centre. When I walk around the corner and to the end of the street, I’m in Dublin 1. Dublin 4 is then to the South of Dublin 2, and so on until you get to Dublin 24, which is far away, near the Dublin mount...

June 7, 2021, was a remarkable day in Irish history. It was the day the pubs reopened after having been closed for 164 days, a period of closure never before experienced in the history of the nation.  We all know the reason for this, ofcourse- the COVID-19 pandemic and the consequent lacklustre response from our government.  Ireland is a small island in the middle of an ocean. We have 3 international airports and 2 ferry ports. We should have done the same as New Zealand where, as it happens, my cousin lives. When it emerged that this was not some isolated incident in South East Asia, the New Zealand government made every Kiwi who was abroad come home immediately, kicked every non-resident out of the country and then basically locked up the country. They had 4 or 5 weeks of what in Ireland was Level 5 lockdown, then 3 weeks of Level 3 lockdown, and then.. life went back to normal.  You could go to the pub, go watch a movie, there were crowds at the rugby, the works. Okay,...

There’s been a lot of talk recently about the introduction of minimum unit pricing for alcohol in Ireland. The government is considering introducing this as a measure to combat problem drinking. I actually support this idea, but also have some side notes.  I’ve had a number of people sending me questions about this and also a number of people making jokes about me having to get a second job when this happens. These people don’t understand how this works and that these measures have no impact on me personally.  Let me explain.  This system is already in place in Scotland. In Scotland, you calculate the number of units in a drink as follows:  Serving size in litres x ABV. So if you have a 5% beer in a 500ml/0.5 liter can, this can contains 0.5x5= 2.5 units.  A bottle of wine at 14% is 0.7x14=9.8 units and so on.  The government then sets a minimum price per unit and that is then minimum price that is has to retail for. So let’s say that the unit price is 60 p...

The Dutch department of Foreign Affairs has a really nifty app with travel advice and other handy information for people when they travel abroad.  My favorite part is the map. Every country in the world is classified on it.  There is a color code that shows how safe it is to go: Green: Safe. No problems to speak of.  This is nearly the whole of Europe, the USA, Canada, Australia etc. Basically all fully developed countries. Yellow: Still safe, but keep your eyes open. This is most of South America, except for Uruguay (Green) and Venezuela(orange). Parts of Northern Africa and the Middle East, the tourist hotspots in Asia like Thailand, most of the Caucasus (except for border regions in disputed areas like Nagorno Karabakh, South Ossetia etc) and small bits of former Yugoslavia like Kosovo and the border areas between Bosnia and Serbia. Orange: Only go if you really, really have to, and if you’re there, I would get out pronto. Hire local security where possible. This is no...

  At the end of the year, people typically look back on what has happened and make lists of favorite new movies, albums or books, but at the end of this train wreck of a year, I couldn’t really come up with anything worth saying that hasn’t been said a million times already so I decided to look back a bit further. A lot further, in fact.  I don’t know exactly what triggered it, but I thought about my high school years a lot recently, so I decided to highlight some of my favorite teachers. You often hear people complain that high school was a drag and that they didn’t like it but I always enjoyed it. I spent my high school years at a place called the St. Antonius College in the city of Gouda in Holland, just outside Rotterdam. It was a midsized school back then, with about 700 students, housed in a 4 story building with 2 gyms, a large arts and crafts area and a cafeteria/gathering space (called ‘aula’ in Dutch). It was a pleasant place to go to school, despite it being on the...