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It's been 10 days now since it started raining. A rainy day or two never bothered me, but ten rainy days in succession and torrential rain at that, is more than any summer deserves. Not that the weather alone is giving me reason to complain. Everytime I turn on the radio or open a newspaper somebody has just found a body in a fridge, or fallen over one while out jogging, or trains are at a standstill because there's a body on the line.

Whats going on in this country? Tourists are attacked with machetes and hatchets within 24 hrs. of arriving in the country, while others are head-butted on the street in broad daylight in our capital city. Old people are terrorized and even the guards are being pushed into rivers and beaten up by drunken yobs, while their friends applaud, film, and upload to YouTube.

Ban YouTube, police YouTube! The call goes out from all corners of the country. What a ridiculous, responsibility shirking reaction to what is clearly our own problem. It's time we took a long look at our changing society and find the real reasons for the decline in values instead of looking for scapegoats and assigning blame to the last frontier of democracy, the internet. We might as well blame the weather!

Meanwhile, back at the ranch, a quick message to Mr. D. O' Farrell of Malahide , Dublin, who had the misfortune to get a bad cup of coffee at one of our forecourts and actually had the good sense to contact us as he was drinking it. We are looking into the problem. Together with our coffee partner Lavazza we hope to have an explanation for you within a day or two. It's most likely a machine/maintenance problem. We use the same coffee bean on each forecourt and pride ourselves on serving top quality coffee. I will keep you informed. Hope the weather improves.