And zooming in, he’s on the right -

My favourite picture of the day, a lady strolls past the Gardai lined up outside Easons after Blair had left. Protesters were shouting ‘Scum, scum, scum’.

The media are reporting that shoes were thrown at Blair when he entered the store, but all I could see were discarded Uggies. Very D4, in fairness.

Abandoned posters.

Footage of the protesters making a ruckus after Blair left.

Commenting last night on the latest tiger kidnapping where €300,000 was robbed from AIB Clondalkin, Ahern told us all that there’s too much money swilling about in Ireland and that ATM charges should be applied to reduce the amount of money in circulation.

Now Ahern’s argument is distinctly colander-shaped. Firstly, the customers of large money transactions are primarily commercial customers. Charging private customers for seems incongruent and patently unfair.

Secondly, what does Ahern mean by money “swilling” about the economy? If anything, the economy is deflating. Retailers are crying out for custom. That’s why Christmas is starting at Brown Thomas in September. Ahern isn’t the Minister for Finance. I’d like to think he consulted with Brian Lenihan on before he took this solo run.

Finally, what do money advisors like MABS etc thing about Ahern’s ideas? Along with building a plan and budgeting your spending, MABS advocates that individuals use cash – especially at Christmas. Even Eddie Hobbs does. Spending money on plastic, even Laser is an unreal experience. The value of money is lost. The very vulnerable in society - the elderly, families bobbing on the breadline and those with massive debts are either forced to use cash as is or advised to use cash to track spending. How can a government square putting extra financial pressure on these parts of society, now unfortunately, a larger group than previously?

The real reason Ahern is proposing this charge as it would be an ongoing shoehorn of income into the banks. We’re currently sinking tens of billions of Euro into recapitalising the banks. It’s not enough. It won’t be enough for years to come. An ATM charge would be a tidy little earner for the banks. It won’t generate the kinds of money that banks need to fill their balence sheet blackholes, but it’s certainly something they wouldn’t reject.

And then there’s the practicalities of trying to withdraw money from the bank counter. Talk to retailers and they will tell you that the busiest times of the week for retailers are Thursday night and the weekend. Oh and the only bank that used to open on Saturdays – Halifax - has jumped ship. Irish banks aren’t going to be flexible enough to open at those times. There’s things like fighting unions on working at unsocialable hours and changing how they do business on the line. Scary stuff! Not to mention the incentive not to be flexible and charge customers ATM use fees.

Surely common sense will prevail? Looking forward to Liveline already!

My Top 5 in no particular order, would be

• Eamon Ryan defending Willie O’Dea
• The Seanad debate on the social welfare provisions in the last Budget
• John O’Donoghue’s long goodbye
• The Seanad Select Committee on Members’ Interests and Ivor’s expenses claims
• Any Seanad Order of Business

Oh yes, and just to whet your appetite – the site is relaunching in September and have a raft of new features coming online in the Winter. Until then, we’re enjoying the Silly Season just as much as you are.

And here’s the liveblog for this weekend’s Labour Conference in Galway. To join in, leave a comment in the frame or tag your tweets with ‘#lp10′! Thanks to Suzy for setting up.

In the last few minutes, Dublin airport has joined Cork and Shannon in reopening to airline traffic. Shannon and Cork reopened earlier this morning. The IAA has announced the reopening:

The Irish Aviation Authority (IAA) has announced that as a result of the ash cloud continuing to move away from the South East of Ireland, it is lifting restrictions within Irish airspace except for a block off the south coast of Ireland. This effectively means that Dublin Shannon and Cork Airports will be open for flights.

Flight restrictions into Northern Europe still prevail. Parts of British airspace will be closed until early tomorrow morning, barring a clearing of the ash cloud from the skies.

Update – 11:07am: Channel 4 is reporting that long-haul flights to Gatwick are being diverted to Glasgow, as Heathrow and Stansted remain closed until 1am tomorrow morning.

Update – 12:17pm: Quickfire status on European airspace that remains affected by the ash cloud.

Airspace over Northern France remains closed until 8pm. Dutch airspace closed until 6am tomorrow morning. Danish airspace will be closed until midnight. Belgian airspace will remain closed today.

Flights to and from Finnish airports have been affected. Finland is expecting a new cloud of volcanic ash to arrive tomorrow morning, so restrictions look set to continue into the weekend.

Krakow airport has closed as well. It was scheduled to host arrivals for the state funeral of former President Lech Kaczynski. Airspace in Poland, Austria, Latvia, Lithuania and the Czech Republic has been closed.

Today marks the beginning of the Stranger than Fiction festival of documentaries at the IFI. The real meat of the festival begins tomorrow with a flurry of politically-charged films on rebellion, media shaping politics (and vice-versa), economics and

The Irish premiere of ‘The Sun Behind The Clouds: Tibet’s Struggle for Freedom’ tracks the ramifications of the 2008 protests on the Dalai Lama and Tibetans alike.

Far from being the staple ‘this is rebellion’ docu, the filmmakers had access to the Dalai Lama before, during and after the protests and documented his reactions in contrast to the rhetoric spiking on the ground in Tibet.

The Sun Behind The Clouds shows at 12 noon, tomorrow the Friday 16th April.

Trailer: Youtube

Site: thesunbehindtheclouds.com

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In ‘Videocracy’, filmmaker Erik Gandini returns to Italy to explore where Berlusconi and the Television Age of Reality TV and fame has taken the country culturally and politically over the past 30 years.

The film interviews members of Berlusconi’s inner circle, follows a paparazzo that sees himself as a modern Robin Hood except liberating wealth for himself and takes a wry look at shopping centre auditions.

The trailer has been banned from Italian TV stations.

Videocracy shows at 2:15pm tomorrow, Friday 16th April.

NSFW Trailer: Youtube

Site: Videocracy (beware of NSFW imagery)

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‘Last Time Home’ follows the story of a family, the Zhangs. A family of factory migrant workers, they leave a newborn at home in their rural village and only to see her once a year at the Spring festival.  Years pass and embittered by being left behind, she leaves the countryside to seek work in the city.

The film explores the changes in family, education and society brought about by economic necessity in modern China. The story of the Zhangs is the story of over 200 million migrant workers in China today.

Debut film by Chinese-Canadian director Lixin Fan.

‘Last Train Home’ shows tomorrow at 3:30pm (Friday 16th April.)

Trailer: Youtube

Site: Last Train Home on Eye Steel Film

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In ‘South of the Border’, Oliver Stone travels to South America to account for the might of the left in Venezuela, Bolivia . Termed ‘a political road movie’, Stone’s documentary examines the economic agendas of the US and the IMF in the region and the effect these policies had to the economies.

On the trip, Stone interviewed the presidents of several South American countries. The movie was negatively received in the US, as ‘cheerleadery’.

‘South of the Border’ shows on Sunday, April 18th at 4pm.

Trailer: Youtube

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Tomorrow, a barrage of free events hit the STF festival at the IFI:

• Ethics in Documentary
• A Lifetime on Film: Directors of ‘American: The Bill Hicks Story’ talk about the ups and downs of making the documentary

Full detail of the films are available at the Stranger Than Fiction festival site.

The IAA is sober about the Volcano Ash Cloud Monster:

The cause of the closure relates to the ash cloud from a volcano in Iceland, which is heading towards Ireland. It is not safe for aircraft to fly into volcanic dust as it can cause engines to shut down and other electrical faults. The volcanic ash cloud is also causing severe restriction in UK Airspace.

The IAA advises that customers contact their airline for further information. They are monitoring the situation and they will make another statement at noon.

Updates from the airlines:

Aer Lingus

Aer Lingus has cancelled all flights from Dublin. Customers need to search using their flight numbers on the Aer Lingus website. AL press release page doesn’t include live news alerts and it’s buried in the back of the site. Disappointing.

Update: Finally a news page on flight disruptions is live!

Ryanair

Customers should track flight status on Ryanair’s live flight information page, but it has announced the following disruptions:

• From 09:00hrs (local) no further Ryanair flights will operate to/from the UK
• From 10:00hrs (local) no further Ryanair flights will operate to/from Ireland
• From 11:30hrs (local) no further Ryanair flights will operate to/from Norway, Sweden and Denmark

Live Travel Information

Customers might find it useful to keep track of flight arrivals and departures on the Dublin Airport Authority website as well as AA Roadwatch’s alerts.

Photo via Aer Lingus

Sean Quinn continued his media blitz – we all saw him call Prime Time last week ya – in today’s Anglo-Celt. Quinn had a number of interesting things to say on the state of Quinn Insurance’s business to the Anglo-Celt’s Sean McMahon:

We will come up with a plan and we have more than one plan in mind… which will safeguard all the jobs in the area and get us back into motion. It might take a wee while to achieve that

….

If we don’t resume trading in the UK by next week, there will have to be lay-offs.

….

There has been innuendo suggesting there is something wrong here or something that has not been known. There is nothing there. It was dealt with in September/October 2008, when I was forced to resign as chairman.