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Perfuming the Pig

Submitted by Roanman on Sun, 06/02/2013 - 07:50

 

All you need to know about what is truly wrong with this world can be found in the following story.

Chronic liars holding political and/or economic power spend their days lying to their people, each other and themselves, expending enormous effort to maintain the illusion that what is rotted is indeed healthy and that they are worthy of their charge.

From the Irish Times.

As always you can click on the photo below or the little gears up there for the entire piece.

 

Recession out of the picture as Fermanagh puts on a brave face for G8 leaders

County’s makeover plan branded ‘a big lie’ as reality of recession is hidden

 

A vacant business premises in Belcoo, Co Fermanagh, in which a pharmacy was formerly located, has been made to look like an office supplies store.  Photograph: Bryan O’Brien

 

Hundreds of thousands of pounds have been spent on a Fermanagh facelift as the county prepares for the G8 summit in just under three weeks’ time, but locals complain the work paid for by the local council and the Stormont Executive is little more than skin deep.

More than 100 properties within range of the sumptuous Lough Erne resort which hosts the world’s wealthiest leaders, have been tidied up, painted or power-hosed.

However, locals say the makeover only serves to hide a deeper malaise which US president Barack Obama, German chancellor Angela Merkel, French president François Hollande and others will not get to see.

Two shops in Belcoo, right on the border with Blacklion, Co Cavan, have been painted over to appear as thriving businesses.  The reality, as in other parts of the county, is rather more stark.

Just a few weeks ago, Flanagan’s – a former butcher’s and vegetable shop in the neat village – was cleaned and repainted with bespoke images of a thriving business placed in the windows.  Any G8 delegate passing on the way to discuss global capitalism would easily be fooled into thinking that all is well with the free-market system in Fermanagh.  But, the facts are different.

Jim Sheridan, director of Belcoo Enterprises Limited, welcomes any attempt to tidy the area but laments the wrecking effects recession and the demise of the Celtic Tiger have had locally.

“That work happened just a few weeks ago,” he said. “The council got that place painted but it went under sometime last year.  A lot of people round here worked in construction and that work has gone now.”

The butcher’s business has been replaced by a picture of a butcher’s business. Across the road is a similar tale. A small business premises has been made to look like an office supplies store. It used to be a pharmacy, now relocated on the village main street.

Elsewhere in Fermanagh, billboard-sized pictures of the gorgeous scenery have been located to mask the occasional stark and abandoned building site or other eyesores.

 

 

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