The Irish government
has brought in a couple of brilliant and progressive measures in the last few
years. The Plastic Bag Tax and the
Smoking Ban made so much sense it seemed unbelievable they were actually going
to do it. What’s next? We’ve come up with some suggestions that,
similar to the other two, may seem crazy at first but we think they’ll work.
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A Digital Price Sign. Those signs that tell you the capacities of
all the car parks why not have them for everything. Wouldn’t it be so much easier rather than trailing around all the
shops comparing prices if the prices were all up on a big board like a stock
market ticker and all you had to do was wait by the board until the object you
were looking for came up during the 3 hour rotation. Simple.
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Get rid of 1 and 2 cent
coins. They’re a complete waste of time
and effort.
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Name Badges. Wouldn’t it be great if everyone wore name
badges all the time? We could all greet
each other as we passed on the street.
And you’d never forget anyone’s name.
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The Spire. Something has to be done with this giant
pole. Possible uses are: giant flag, giant tether ball, giant
maypole, giant bird house, giant TV aerial.
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Gurrier Raft. If our prisons and youth detention centres
are too full to detain these pickpockets, muggers and vandals let’s just lure
them onto a raft and the push them out into the sea. This may seem to infringe their rights at first glance but when
you think about it we’d all just be much happier without them. They could be lured onto the raft by the
sound of mopeds. It’d be a beautiful
noise to hear them just drift away.
“Here bud, here, here, ah here bud, buddy, here!”
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Ban Burglar Alarms. Noise producing alarms, nobody pays the
slightest bit of attention to them.
They do nothing to prevent theft they just annoy everybody. I saw two Guards walking breezily past a
blaring alarm the other day, not even they care.
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Tanorexia. In a similar move to the ultra-violet lights
that prevent junkies from shooting up, surely there is some form of light that
could be put in women’s toilets so they could be shown what they really look
like with all that fake tan on them.
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Haggling. Bring back haggling.
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Saturday Night Concerts in
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City Swappies. See if we can swap any of our stuff for
another city’s stuff. “Swap you The
Floozy in the Jacuzzi for The Little Mermaid.”
“Alright but no keepies.”
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Job Swaps. Once a month you swap jobs with a randomly
chosen person so we all get to see things from someone else’s perspective. It would of course lead to dangerously
unqualified people performing complex jobs where somebody’s life is in their
hands but it’d be a bit of craic.
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No More Automated Phone
Trees. All phone trees must have real
people giving the options.
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Piggy Backs for Old People.
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All Women’s Toilets. Turn all men’s toilets into women’s since
men seem happy enough to just piss in the street like animals.
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The Hugging Hour. For one hour every Thursday everyone has to
greet anyone they see with a hug. They
then follow that with a litany of compliments.
This would increase everybody’s self esteem and make us all feel good
for the rest of the day. Of course there
be some perverts who’d get some kind of dirty pleasure out of all this
hugging. But sure why not. It doesn’t cost the rest of us anything and
if it makes them happy...
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Colour Days. Every Monday the city is given an
official colour to wear for Tuesday, thus brightening up the place, creating a
sense of community, promoting a carnival atmosphere, breaking up the week and
creating an air of anticipation for Job Swap Day and The Hugging Hour.
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The Prank
Commissioners. A state funded body that
would instigate pranks upon the population, either on an individual or
nationwide basis. Other possible
institutions would be The Department of Goofing Off, The Office of Surprise
Parties and The Ministry of Someone Fancies You.
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Skating. Rather than banning skateboarders and
pushing them out to the fringes of the city let’s encourage them. They’re very entertaining to watch. Have you ever seen one of these kids
actually manage a trick? It’s like a
live version of Kirsty’s Home Videos.
Provide your own laugh track.
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Uni-Bus. No more having to get a bus into town and
then get a connecting bus to where you actually wanted to go. Just have one bus that goes everywhere. Simple.
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While we’re on the subject
of buses, what about making them all free?
How much would that actually cost?
If the government really wanted to cut down on car use then maybe they
should just put the money in. Who
wouldn’t take the bus if it was free?
Especially when it’s faster because there’s no more waiting around for
the bus driver to perform his dual role as ticket collector.
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Work Less. With the Accession States joining the EU and
the economic boom here in
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No More Right Turns. We might as well take that final step and
ban right turns all together. At last
count there was only 7 places in the entire country where you can actually
still make a right turn (approx.), and one of those just leads to a car
park. Let’s make it official. We can all just do spirals to get to where
we want to go from now on.