When the Clintons decided to leak this ‘controversial’ photograph of Barack Obama to the American press, my first thought was ‘So what’s the big deal – Barack once spent a summer as a trolly dolly for Swissair?’ By the way, can I refer you all back to Dispatch no 8 of February 13th of last year when I endorsed Obama for Taoiseach? I don’t think he’d even declared his run for the Presidency. Check it out for yourselves

Almost a third of local authority planning divisions are operating without architectural services, a report has found…

In an article in the Irish Times earlier this week, Simon Coveney raised an interesting and important issue. In the case where people are trying to prove ‘local need’ in making applications for planning permission for houses in rural areas, they are frequently asked to supply the Council with quite personal information...

Whenever Prime Time Investigates or the Irish Times decide to take a pop at the ‘unsustainable’ planning practises of some poor rural local authority, you can be sure that in the course of their investigations they’ll unearth a Local Councillor who happens to be an auctioneer and pin the blame upon this unfortunate for whatever recent planning travesty has caught the outraged eye of D4.

Oh, for the love of God, this whole Car Boss situation is getting out of hand. I mentioned it in the last Dispatch because I thought talking about it would get it out of my system. But it’s only made things worse. Now I have two Car Bosses. Mike…

It seems like every gas bag in the country swung a junket to the US for the primaries. If nothing else, it seems to have cured them of their habit of referring to LA as Los Angeleeze and Mar’lan as Mary Land.

Opponents of the European Union reform treaty are offering "misleading and incorrect arguments" in their efforts to defeat it in this year's referendum, the Teesh said the other day. "If that is what they believe, fine. If that is what they believe then I think that they are insane,"

I always think that the measure of a page is how quickly you turn it. So I’ll condense my critique of the recently released ‘Maximising the City's Potential: A Strategy for Intensification and Height’ on the future of high rise in Dublin by saying that I can’t believe it’s only 18 pages long.

… I’m intrigued by that planning application for the redevelopment of the Grand Parade in Cork

I’m on the horns of a dilemma. I drive a 99 reg Saab 9-3 with 130,000 miles+ on the clock which is one day going to stop in the middle of Roscommon and then I’ll be screwed. I’ve been talking about changing it for three years now, but I have a problem – I don’t have the male car gene.

Hey kittens. I love you all. You’ve only just gone and put my name on the long list of nominees for two categories of the Irish Blog Awards! Best Blog and Best Specialist Blog.