Pat's High Hat

The Energy Regulator was on Pat Kenny this morning. In response to a case put to him by Pat wherein a person uses €3.00 of electricity per month but is obliged to pay a bill of €40.00 per month The Regulator treated us to a delightful yarn about hidden costs and some heretofore unheard of arrangement whereby the ESB are still paying for wires that were installed decades ago, the costs for which are being “paid back on average over time”.

This is the standard, this is where we’re at. The position of Energy Regulator, a big job, and a job that would definitely fall into the big swinging mickey category has attracted the caliber of person who will go on national radio and utter a sentence containing the words “paid back on average over time”.

Fr. Spud Murphy, my third year Maths teacher, had a well calibrated bullshit radar and when faced with an obfuscating student would simply nod and say “Yes, indeed and what’s the difference between a duck?”

It would be nice to see the eminent current affairs presenter of the national broadcaster deploy similar techniques when faced with something of the order of “paid back on average over time”.

Instead of some verbose comment designed solely to illustrate that he knows more about the subject at hand than the guest how about  “What’s the difference between a duck?”

I, for one, won’t live to see it; they have each other’s backs, these guys.