o-regan.org » general

Crisp frosty morning

kevin — Wed, 10 Dec 2008 16:33:46 +0000

Crisp frosty morning, originally uploaded by ko’regan.

European Mattress Subsidy Programme?

kevin — Thu, 30 Oct 2008 00:07:04 +0000

I asked about this over on boards.ie and the consensus is that it appears to be a ~~scam~~a really bad marketing campaign.

Updated: Not a scam, but looking like an EPIC FAIL instead!

Apparently An Post jumped the gun and sent out these leaflets before the company had an opportunity to do any marketing. They now have a website and blog.

They are a UK furniture manufacturer who effectively take a trade-in on your old mattress when you buy a new one from them. The old mattress is then refurbished and exported to africa. They try to offset the environmental impact by shipping them in containers that would have returned empty anyway.

Why they couldn’t have said any of this in their leaflet I don’t know. Even with the website the leaflet still shows all the hallmarks of deceptive marketing

EU and European? I still see nothing ‘official’ about this. It looks like it was added to give it authenticity.
Subsidy – The usual definition of subsidy is money given from the government. Again there is nothing here that indicates that our or any government is involved.
The need for citizenship. Why on earth does a private company care? Surely the more customers they get the better….

End of update

This was ~~hand delivered (90% sure)~~ An Post delivered on Tuesday 28th October in the Carlow area.

There is no online information about this programme and the mailing address is a building with multiple offices including one that is a ‘virtual office’ that provides mail forwarding services.

The references to Irish Citizens is at odds with it being an EU subsidy.

The mention of a limit on the number of applications and disqualification is also suspect.

I’m not sure what they gain by targeting the over 50′s but it certainly needs to be brought to people’s attention that it’s not what it seems.

NOTICE TO ALL IRISH CITIZENS AGED 50+ (Born before January 1st 1959)

Irish citizens or Irish passport holders born before January 1st 1959 are entitled to a 40% subsidy on Luxury Grade 1 mattresses (same size or smaller) under the mattress scrappage scheme.

This programme is available in all EU member states and in accordance with all EU Health & Safety standards and the “GOOD SLEEP – GOOD HEALTH” code.
(Reference www.backcare.org.uk, a non-profit website)

The number of applications is limited and are on a first come, first served basis. There is a maximum of only one application per eligible person. Any attempt to make more than one application will result in immediate disqualification.

To register simply fill out this card and post it back to the FREEPOST address overleaf. (no postage stamp required)

Please allow 3-5 working days to process your application.

and on the reverse

[ ] I confirm my date of birth was before Jan 1st 1959.
[ ] I am interested to know more about the EU Mattress Scrappage Subsidies which I am entitled to.
[ ] I understand that I am entitled to a 40% subsidy on Luxury Grade 1 mattressses (Highest Quality Orthopaedic, any size) PLUS an additional 90% subsidy on an identical quality second mattress (same size or smaller) providing I agree to put at least one of m old mattresses into scrappage.

Name _____________
Address ___________
__________________
__________________
County ____________
Tel (Home) ________
Tel (Mobile) _______
Please phone me: AM [ ] PM [ ] EVENING [ ]

Mattress Scrappage Subsidy
FREEPOST
7 Upper Abbeygate Street
Galway

Bird’s eye views of Carlow

kevin — Sat, 19 Apr 2008 15:37:52 +0000

Microsoft’s Virtual Earth (http://maps.live.com) has bird’s eye views of Carlow.

Ruins of Carlow Castle as you’ve probably never seen them. You’d need a crane or a plane to get this shot.

Courthouse

The imagery looks like it was taken late last year based on the building work in Shamrock Square and an estate near where I live.

Gulliver Sculpture

kevin — Tue, 15 Apr 2008 09:23:48 +0000

Sand sculpture of Gulliver and a lilliputian in the IFSC in Dublin. Part of Once City One Book exhibition by Dublin City Council.

So what happened?

kevin — Fri, 11 Apr 2008 08:32:38 +0000

Between upgrading from wordpress 2.2.2 to 2.3.3 and the following jump to 2.5 I managed to lose all the comments on my posts.

The original 2.2.2 to 2.3.3 upgrade caused some corruption of UTF-8 characters but the comments were still there. Attempting to get to 2.5 to avoid spam attacks left me with no comments at all. They were still there in the database but weren’t being shown.

The installatron control panel couldn’t seem to return me to even the 2.2.2 state so I opted to take the various database backups and rebuild from scratch.