Non-recession trivia

NOâ€Ë†MATTERâ€Ë†how bad things may seem, we can't allow our sense of fun to evaporate. For months now we have been bludgeoned with figures that trail more noughts than there are beads on a rosary, and still here we are, ploughing along regardless. So this week's column is going to be devoted to anything that is not recession-related, and stoked by some of the material that cascades into the office every day and is, by necessity, ignored.[private] So, first off, how would you like to sit behind the wheel of a racing car and tear around a Grand Prix track? 'The impossible dream,' breathe the lads. 'Nonsense,' declare the girls (except for the less-unusual-than-before girl racers). Well, now you can without going through any of those bothersome years of rising through the ranks from karts to Formula Ford to Formula Three ... and you can help a charity as well. What the blurb describes as 'Ireland's newest driving experience, XLR8,' offers 'friends, colleagues, team mates and racing enthusiasts a realistic Formula One and Rally driving experience using professional race training simulators.' Sponsored by Paddy Power, the XLR8 driving experience in aid of Barnardos is coming to the Meyrick Hotel, Galway on Wednesday, December 15. It sounds like a lot of fun. Here's what Wayne Douglas, the XLR8 driving coach, has to say: 'The world's top race drivers actually use these simulators for their training; they are as realistic as it gets. The tyres heat up gradually and gain more grip as they heat; it's just like the real thing. Even selecting different weather conditions will change the driving performance.' It costs €80 a skull, including a snack, and you can find out more by ringing 1890 66 55 66. Just what your banger needs THE only slight doubt I'd have about the above is the Batman effect. When we were kids at the Batman serials on Sunday afternoons at the Mall Cinema, we'd rush out at the end of the showing with our duffle coats fastened around our neck like a cloak, jumping around like Batman. Now if some of those drivers get as excited in the simulator, who knows what they'll get up to when they get back behind a real steering wheel? By the way, another email came announcing the opening of a new Irish service centre for Porsche cars. It's located not far from Exit 16 of the M50, on Rochestown Avenue in Dun Laoghaire. It opens on November 15, and soon it will be selling the full range of Porsche approved used cars. I thought you might like to know that. Look it up, Tubs impersonator YOUâ€Ë†may have heard the item on the Joe Duffy show about the mother who objected to a child's T-shirt on sale in Dunnes Stores (no apostrophe) which had two spelling and grammar mistakes. She was criticised by the ignorant for bothering. 'It doesn't matter' they jeered. Maybe they should have been told about the company that lost thousands, if not millions, because of a comma in the wrong place in a contract. Oh yes it does matter, as some eejit impersonating Ryan Tubridy should know. In a piece in the Evening Herald last week slagging Tubs in a pretend Tweet he referred to 'that infamous presidential visit' by his hero, JFK. 'Infamy, infamy, they've all got it infamy' as Keith Williams said in Carry On Cleo. The silver (well, green) lining THE border between West and East Germany was a curse that hung over the country for over 25 years. Thousands of people died trying to cross it. We are most familiar with pictures from Berlin, where the wall sliced through the city like a cleaver. In the countryside it was just as grim. Watchtowers, fences, and a killing zone of open ground that was a kind of no-man's-land. Bit when the border was abolished, the Germans had the good sense to hold on to that unspoiled land and leave it to nature. Now there is a green corridor stretching the length of the country, from the Baltic Sea to the Austrian border, and it is a haven for wildlife. More than 600 endangered species have been found in what they call the Green Band â€â€ and if it is preserved all the way along the former Iron Curtain it will form a nature track stretching from the Arctic Ocean to the Black Sea. And all it took was a few determined environmentalists who realised, within four weeks of the fall of East Germany, that this invaluable windfall had to be protected. People of vision can work wonders.     â€â€ David Burke[/private]