Well, the marking's done - 240 essays read, written on, graded and added to the electronic system. Now all I have to do is teach and field the multiple interviews with students (the good ones) about how to improve their understanding, and find somewhere to stash the hundreds of uncollected pieces (bad students!). What I really want to do is crawl into bed and stay there for a week.
Infuriatingly, I left my Francis Wheen book at mum's place yesterday, with two chapters left. I hate waiting to finish books. I'll be in a different mood and mindset by the time I get back to it. Instead, I read Shane Ross's The Bankers: he's an Irish Senator, and the book names the guilty men and institutions which have ruined Ireland. In a nutshell: if every businessman, senior civil servant and politician goes to the same two or three schools and universities, plays golf at the same club and spends his time hobnobbing with the same small group, nobody is every going to say 'no', whatever you do. Politicians wanted cash, developers wanted loans and planning permissions, bankers wanted higher salaries and deregulation, regulators were former bankers (or joined the boards of the banks subsequently).
Even the Central Bank, the country's banking authority, stuffed its board with get-rich-quick bankers. The stockbrokers constantly hyping bank shares were owned by those banks! Chances of them pointing out that the banks were unstable? Zero.
Who lost out? Any depositor in Irish financial institutions, anyone with a pension, anyone who had to take out a massive mortgage to buy even the smallest house - and all the taxpayers who bailed out this tiny group of banksters. Who were also politicians. And regulators. Were it not for the rain, Ireland, far from being the Celtic Tiger, has been a banana republic since independence.
Anyway - Sarah's given me a calming book of proverbs to restrain the ranting, and I'm off to celebrate Alan's 52nd birthday. Then sleep…
1 comment:
See you tomorrow then Vole...
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