Viewed a Lisney's property yesterday. Their brochure is now a few pages of coloured photocopying, stapled at one corner. Gone are the substantial glossy productions.

It could be Linders but I guarantee that it is a Lotus dealership. I do agree that it is incongruous but it has been there for years.

It's been incongruous to me for the last 20 years how lotus ever managed to sell any cars

Aer Lingus' Mr Mueller:

He did not read the script provided by his largest shareholder, did he!

It does take an outside to call a spade a spade...
Mind you... probably not the wisest move of a defacto national airline to state that they think the country they operate the vast majority of it's flights from is fubared. Not sure I'd be over the moon if I was a shareholder like

I knocked down Chopper Reid a couple of months ago in Melbourne . I was only going 10 km though .
And you lived to tell the tale...
Whats he like?

I was going slow through heavy traffic so I did not actually knock him down as such . He just kind of rolled onto the bonnet . ( this was going to be my defense when I was tied to a chair in some disused warehouse somewhere )

Its a bad feeling to have somebody rolling onto your bonnet . Its a much worse feeling when you notice that he has no ears and is covered in prison tattoo's . When you put 2 + 2 together and come up with ' Chopper ' your stomach kind of drops into your ass . I said " Sorry mate " and he said " No worries , it my fault mate " . I drove off and looked for a toilet .

Would the largest shareholder not be Ryanair? I think the Government is 25%, Ryanair just under the 30%, Pilots about 10-15% and staff / pension funds / institutional investors the rest...

Although I stand to be corrected...

Don't forget DO'Bby and the other house elves...
(I think you're right with the figures...).

Investment in NEW Capital engineering projects (Oil/Gas/Chemical) has ground to a complete halt in Ireland, and is slowing down abroad.

For the first time since i can remember (20years) there are no project hours in our office this year.

Intrestingly, even though most of our work is now out-sourced to India/Philapines/Singapore etc, Indian offices are on 3 day weeks, and the Singapore office is closed for a full month.

For engineering, we are truly in a depression this year.

*gulp*

I'm surprised he didn't try to flog you a painting or something

Running the risk of opening a can of works here......

Staff own shares through employee ownership scheme, who provided the money for this and what security did they take? The shares. Share price has dropped, is the interest being funded? Unlikely since dividends are alot lower. We have a non-performing loan. Who owns the funds provider now, and now indirectly the shares, giving a market colluding majority?

Bet the EU dont know this, or Mr O'Leary for that matter.

I would have went with "Didn't ya hear the car. Are ya fuckin deaf mate? Clean out your ears." He probably would have gotten a laugh out of it. Strange bloke.

Back on topic ye lot.

I have a feeling you work in a vaugely similar industry to me based on your previous posts. Now here's a funny thing, every crafts guy I talk to these days is saying exactly what you are and saying that jobs are thin on the ground but the job searches I had set up 18 months ago with the usual suspects have started returning a lot of real sounding jobs since the beginning of December and I have gotten a few calls and direct emails enquiring if I was available for contracts. Now only a few of these jobs are in Ireland but that was ever the case with my chosen career. Seemingly enough jobs going overseas to provide a cushion of sorts though and I'm expecting to hear an announcement of a large capital project here in Ireland in the next three months (design work complete).