The Original Sims

There is a story that a T.D. (member of the Irish Parliament) once claimed that there was so sex in Ireland until the arrival of broadcaster RTE.  Niall Stokes told me a story in his in his early days as Hot Press editor coming home through Dublin Airport having a copy of Playboy confiscated - he had bought it for a John Lennon interview.

But there is sex in Ireland now; I asked for directions in Dublin a few months ago and the helpful passerby directed me "Past the Anne Summer’s shop …".  I do believe my jaw dropped just a little.   There is even sex.ie (don’t get too excited - it’s hardly worth the click - but you will, won’t you …).  OK I’ll wait, then.

Back?  Crap isn’t it?  Back to the story.

According to today’s Sunday Times (Ireland edition)

"A business manwho tried to register the porn.ie domain namehas been refused under Section 3.4 of the .ie naming policy which states thatwebsite addresses ‘must not be offensive or contrary to public policy or generally accepted principles of morality’

According to both the Irish register of the .ie internet domain extension and the Companies Registration Office (CRO), the word "porn" is a danger to public morality."

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According to the same paper  Irish students beat world at drinking . 

The country is going to the dogs …..

From The Sunday Times

SHROUDED in autumnal mist, within earshot of the din of the M1 motorway in Bedfordshire, extends an enormous, grey windowless building that covers an area six times as large as St Paul’s cathedral, or seven times the size of the Royal Navy’s biggest aircraft carrier.

Amazon.co.uk’s “fulfilment centre” at Ridgmont, just south of Milton Keynes, is well into a pre-Christmas recruitment drive that will treble the size of its workforce in 12 weeks to deal with up to 450,000 parcels dispatched on each of the busiest days in the festive season.

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The 1,000 students and temporary workers arriving at Ridgmont and its sister site at Gourock, west of Glasgow, are hard evidence of the explosive 25% to 30% annual growth in internet retailing.

Whether it is customers buying Humble Pie by celebrity chef Gordon Ramsay from Amazon, or one of the 42,000 cars for sale on Ebay’s UK website, or mince pies from Tesco, online retailing this year is expected to rack up sales of £10.3 billion, excluding services such as travel and finance.

“We are planning for very strong and sustainable expansion,” said Brian McBride, Amazon UK’s managing director.

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It’s astonishing what you find on Wikipedia.  It’s only recently that I discovered there that I discovered that I was born on the same day that Heartbreak Hotel was released.  Although I'’ve never been an Elvis fan.

In the late ’70’s when the smell of Punk was still fresh in the Belfast air, I began my broadcasting career playing loud, discordant music to a small audience of radio listeners. Following a stupid argument with a BBC executive I was hired as a radio producer by the corporation to establish a "youth programme" at a time when "youth" a fashionable accessory for the broadcasters of the UK. I continued to present occasionally, including a series for TV which all now accept to be a "mistake".

In the 1980s I was to been found in the glittering world of Radio 1 during the last days of the Smiley and Nicey brigade, and in the intellectual capital of broadcasting, Radio 4, working for two periods until overcome by home sickness and an unalterable belief that there is no place better than Northern Ireland. And that was when Northern Ireland was generally a dangerous place to be. I returned home to work on a range of programmes on Radio Ulster.

I joined BBC Online in 1999 first as a producer and was appointed Editor in 2002 overseeing the production of bbc.co.uk/northernireland and interactive and enhanced TV productions. The growth of New Media audiences has been staggering. The website now has more monthly users than there are people in NI and around 12 million page impressions each month.

In the vanguard of driving forward a digitally aware and literate Northern Ireland, I work with several other organisations including NI Government departments, BT, Business in the Community, Educational Guidance Service for Adults, BBC R&D, Qinetiq, Northern Ireland Council for Voluntary Action, Invest NI and a whole bunch of others.