ALTHOUGH I IMAGINE the Paddy's Valley crew carried away all of the Sunday newspapers, I spotted some things worth sharing under the Christmas tree with those who might have missed the print editions of the Irish Sunday broadsheets today. I finished my Sunday reading with the help of my SonyEricsson phone (a K810i, not the P1i in the photo at left), scrolling through Gavin Sheridan's excellent dissection of Bertie Ahern's inconsistencies.
You can buy an ethical toilet. Oxfam is launching a Christmas appeal to take the chemical-flush Bush Thunderbox back to Africa. Oxfam hope to raise enough money over the Christmas season for 26,000 latrines for 49 developing countries. If you want to flush your donation in this way, contact Oxfam Unwrapped. [1]
You can buy your own helicopter. "Ireland now has more privately owned helicopters per head of population than anywhere else in the world ... the figure now stands at 200 and climbing." Two of them land within 800 meters of my sitting room window. [2]
You can buy The Boss. Don't just believe me--believe the Main Man Jim Carroll who says, "Springsteen is rejuventated by how this band approach the emotional weight of the new songs." Amazon has recorded 311 reviews of the album, giving it four out of five stars. [3]
You can buy classical music. Do it for yourself and for your kids. Theatre director Sir Richard Eyre says schools and the BBC are failing to inspire the next generation. We're putting our little girl to sleep to Mozart and it sounds like she's humming along with the clarinet section already. [4]
You can buy a motor larger than three litres and help Ireland. Owners of big vehicles must pay €150 more to the Irish Exchequer every year when the new budget is released so true patriots will buy SUVs and help reduce the budget deficit. [5]
You shouldn't buy a Kindle. Well, maybe e-books are for you--but before you leap into Amazon, place your order and sit around for six weeks, consider John Walsh's advice. "Instead of the intense private communication with a book--living with its presence for weeks, noting how far into it you've strayed, sinking into a dark stream of connective insights inside its pages, looking back to earlier moments, subconsciously adding the cover image to your appreciation of its contents--we're being offered a bright, shiny little dustbins of not-quite texts, disconnected from their physical carapace, plus a host of techno-distractions, to make sure we don't try too hard to engage with any of them." [6]
Buy some time against malaria. Children at the Ugandan clinic in Katine are too sick to cry. They need virtal drugs and mosquito nets. A regular donation of £8 a month given over three years could provide more than 100 Katine families with the knowledge and the long-lasting mosquito nets they require to protect their young children from malarial. [7]
You could enjoy the best value-for-money smartphone on the market. That would be the SonyEricsson P1i. [8]
You can help Adrian Weckler with his wishlist. He wants a 10 megabits-per-second broadband service for under €30 per month, an iPhone that allows him to text properly, colleagues that stop signing off with "kind regards" and similar phrases, a home phone service that doesn't cost an extra €25 per month in fees, and a citywide metro wifi service that permits log-ons at a rate of 50 cents per hour. [9]
You can buy from my wishlist. I've taken time out during the morning to update my Amazon Wishlist after remembering how I got two iPods as Christmas gifts in 2004.
1. Abul Taner -- "Toilets top the ethical gift list" in The Sunday Times, 2 December 2007.
2. Derran Gilhooley -- "The Copter Class" in Style Ireland published with The Sunday Times, 20 December 2007.
3. Jim Carroll -- "Mad about the Boss" in The Ticket, The Irish Times, 30 November 2007.
4. Anushka Asthana -- "Arts Chief warns of cultural apartheid" in The Observer, 2 December 2007.
5. Pat Leahy -- "Motor tax rise to hit large cars" on the front page of the Sunday Business Post, 20 December 2007.
6. John Walsh -- "The Small Picture" in Tribune Review, The Sunday Tribune magazine, 2 December 2007.
7. Sarah Boseley -- "The enemy is malaria. The cure is £25" in the Observer Appeal, 2 December 2007.
8. During the past three months, our hands-on P1i provided exceptional touchscreen 3G service in cities and towns throughout Ireland.
9. Adrian Weckler in "Plaftorm", Computer in Business Magazine, 2 December 2007.
