October 2025
Nashville calling
Hi y’all!
I spent a couple weeks in Tennessee, specifically the world headquarters of country music, Nashville.
The city’s booming. Bars, theatres and a host of other amazing music attractions are the lure. It’s vibrant, fun-filled and most assuredly welcoming. Politeness and good ole-fashioned southern hospitality abound.
The city is a magnet for tourists from all over the world, and Nashville isn’t letting the grass grow under its feet. Music, pharma, religion and a rapidly growing IT sector are the main drivers. Tourism is big and getting bigger.
To attract hundreds of thousands of visitors every week – close to 50,000 every day – you must have a modern, state-of-the-art airport. Nashville International Airport isn’t slowing down to catch its breath. It has completed one multi-billion-dollar expansion and has embarked on a new $3 billion ‘growth and renovation plan’.
‘New Horizon’, as it’s called, will drive passenger capacity up to 40 million annually. There are Federal and State aviation grants but the building work is primarily self-funded through revenue generated from parking charges, landing fees and rents from literally scores of retail and food outlets.
Northern Ireland airport operators could do worse than take a few days to visit this go-gettin’ international ‘gateway’ to see how it should be done.
Meanwhile, in downtown Nashville, they’re building a new indoor American football stadium to replace the existing one which only opened twenty-six years ago. Work began on the new Nissan Stadium in 2024 with a completion date in the Spring of 2027. How’s that for a no-nonsense approach?
The project’s costing $2.1 bn with $840 million coming from the Titans football team; $500 million from the State of Tennessee and $760 million from bonds and a 1% hotel and motel tax.
Back home, and years late, Casement Park continues to grow weeds as the bickering over funding takes precedence over delivery. Oh Nashville, I miss you already!
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Hornets unite parties
The appearance of an Asian hornet has united political opponents in their call to action.
These invasive giants are a threat to honeybees and other pollinators and must be eliminated.
An all-out effort’s underway to see if the Asian hornet discovered in Dundonald was alone or one of several. Two nests, discovered in Cobh and Cork, were destroyed but the question remains: where this did invader spring from?
The Environment Agency is on top of things and working with the National Biodiversity Centre in the south. The hornet’s no respecter of borders. The consequences of the species establishing a foothold here are too shocking to contemplate.
Now, if we could see the same single-minded focus on saving Lough Neagh, we’d all be better for it.
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Sign ‘wars’
The unity over hornets was short-lived. Dual language street signs are the new political battlefield. Signs in Irish have some politicians seething. They say the Irish language isn’t the problem, but rather the way it’s being ‘weaponised’ for political purposes.
They’d all do well to take a beat. We’re starved of finances to pay nurses and police officers and tackle chronic patient waiting lists, waste, capital overspends and pollution. Would it not be a good idea to leave divisive street signage off the agenda for now to devote energy and effort into sorting out all the other messes first?
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Tough few weeks
The Department for the Economy has had a torrid time of late.
First, it was the cost of staff away-days - £101,540 – in the past five years. One MLA asked how many staff were involved, where they were held and what were the outputs.
Then, it was what the Department and its arms-length bodies spent on social media ads and subscriptions over five years - £4.3 million.
A difficult few weeks culminated in a Northern Ireland Audit Office report on the Energy Strategy. Three main targets were set out which were due for completion by 2030. The NIAO wasn’t impressed with progress.
Work on the Strategy has cost £107 million and the NI Comptroller and Auditor General Dorinnia Carville said it was difficult to assess if that figure represented value for money. She went on to say that there was a risk key targets would not be met.
The headline writers focused on one failing, namely the target to save 8,000 Gigawatt hours. As of March this year, it had saved 90 hours – a mere 1% of the overall target.
Elsewhere, the ‘Irish News’ has had the Department for the Economy in its sights over spending.
First, it was the cost of staff away-days - £101,540 – in the past five years. One MLA asked how many staff were involved, where they were held and what were the outputs.
Then, it was what the Department and its arms-length bodies spent on social media ads and subscriptions over five years - £4.3 million.
Tourism NI topped the list at £1.9 million, followed by Invest NI on £1.67 million. A little context might help. This £4.3 million covered fourteen of the Department’s arms-length bodies and, not surprisingly, the Department said all spend on social media was ‘carefully managed to ensure value for money and alignment with key business objectives.’
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A not-so-good cross-border trade
The vast majority of the cross-border business that is done is beyond reproach. It helps boost company profits, create jobs, build business collaborations and serves to tear down barriers.
There’s one cross-border trade that is reprehensible and illegal. It involves stealing cars to order and driving them to a chop shop across the border.
The ‘Irish Independent’ reported how there were more than 4,000 cars thefts and related offences recorded in Dublin. It’s said the cars-to-order ‘business’ is worth €500,000 a month.
The high-end cars are stripped in the chop shop with valuable vehicle parts sold on.
The hope has to be the Gardai and PSNI will nab the baddies before they can deliver further heartache and misery.
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Washington wrecking ball
Donald’s wielding the wrecking ball and bringing in the diggers at the White House.
The property developer is demolishing the East Wing of the historic property to make way for a $250 million ballroom.
Apparently, it won’t cost the US taxpayer a cent as the President says he and some donors will foot the bill. It’ll be the finest ballroom in the country, he boasted.
The President insists it won’t interfere with the main building but what isn’t known is what will happen the First Lady’s busy office. Maybe a relocation to Trump Tower in Manhattan or Mar-a-Lago is on the cards.
President Trump is now turning his attention to marking the 250th anniversary of the United States and is thinking of erecting an Arc de Triomphe-style edifice to mark the milestone.
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Grip of indifference
Staying with presidential matters, and the election down South has us caught in a tight grip of indifference.
Michael D retires and two candidates are vying for the €270,000 job in the Phoenix Park.
It hasn’t been your typical election given that the role of President is largely ceremonial. For all that, in the final televised debate, we had opposing opinions on fox hunting and Europe but nothing on the brutal war Putin is waging in Ukraine.
The favourite is Independent Catherine Connolly with Fine Gael standard-bearer Heather Humphreys trailing way behind.
People from here are barred from voting for people down there. It has been a lack-lustre campaign with nothing of substance to counter voter apathy. Turnout’s expected to be below 50%. What a surprise!
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Food for thought
If you think you have it tough, think about the people who shudder at the soaring cost of foodstuffs.
In a world where those in business watch interest rates and look at international markets, we often don’t see how howe market volatility affects those around us.
Take Alicia Mehaffey from Strabane. Alicia works as a carer in the community and has one young child. To her, interest rate headlines hold little ‘interest’.
She doesn’t need to look at them. She knows all about rising prices. BBC News NI reported that, although Alicia is in employment and receiving support from a local food bank, at times, she has been forced to skip meals to ensure there is enough to feed her daughter.
Sometimes, we don’t need the percentage figures. Alicia certainly doesn’t. She knows that for her, it doesn’t add up. Food for her daughter is a priority even if she has to go without.
Our carers helped us through Covid, looking after our elderly and vulnerable. I guess they thought that they, too, might be looked after … that’s ‘food for thought’.
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Fewer taxis and potholes
The fallout from Covid is still being felt. Up until the end of March last year, there were 8,375 taxi drivers on the roads – a loss of 3,068 or almost 27% since 2019.
Tougher testing, higher insurance premiums and Covid health fears were all contributory factors.
One factor not mentioned is the daily nerve-jangling joust with potholes. More than £115 million was spent on road repairs in Northern Ireland in the past twelve months. And that’s only what was paid to external contractors. Add a further £16-21 million on in-house contractors and you can begin to understand the extent of the problem.
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Standards
There’s a new Standards Commissioner to watch over our MLAs at Stormont. Former PSNI Chief Superintendent Stephen Wright got the part-time job. His policing role as a former head of professional standards made him a good choice.
He follows his former colleague, Assistant Chief Constable Mark McEwan, who resigned from the post just days after he was appointed to take up a senior post with Surrey constabulary.
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If you want a lot of chocolate in your biscuit…. 🎶
And finally….
I’ve heard it all! The advertising jingles, ‘if you want a lot of chocolate in your biscuit join our Club’ and ‘pick up a, pick up a Penguin’ are no longer appropriate!
McVitie’s Penguins and Club bars can no longer be classed as chocolate. The cost of coca has seen a four-fold increase in the past 18 months and so owners, Pladis, had to find a cheaper alternative. They are now using cocoa mass rather than chocolate for the coating.
The same cocoa cost increase has also been the cause of Easter Eggs soaring in price over the past few years.
The removal of chocolate in Penguin and Club biscuits will not make them an acceptable alternative in our household!
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