Monday 8th August

Tottenham riots

Kenny is a bar manager in Tottenham in north London . Kenny told Damien about the damage done in the streets in the locality. He told how he and some of his staff barricaded themselves into the bar on saturday night as rioters smashed windows and tried to get onto the premises.

Hollywood to Ballyvaughan

Alan Clarke runs the Ballyvaughan Tea Rooms in county Clare. He told Damien about his famous return visitor recently . Hollywood director Steven Spielberg stopped by for a peice of baked cheescake in the tea rooms. He brought along family members and friends and Alan is delighted that news of the visit will put the tea rooms on the map!

Car deal gone wrong

Jenny told Damien about her niece's experience buying a car through the website Done Deal.ie . She arranged to meet the vendor and pay cash , but when the money was handed over , the person selling the car drove off, leaving her wothout cash or car. Melrona from Done Deal spoke to Damien about some of the problems they encounter with advertisers on the site and gave advice to make doing deals safer for buyers.

Student grants

Callers told of their problems with the grant system , particularly people who were through the sytem already , or were mature students trying to work and pay fees. Frances told of her son who had previously been on a course but left . When he returned to university he found he had to pay fees and did not qualify for any support. The irony , according to Frances is that her son could get support if her went on the dole for a period of time, something he didn't want to do.

Booing at Croke Park.

A number of callers were annoyed at the level of booing that went on at the all Ireland football semi-final at Croke Park on Sunday. Jim was particularly critical of Dublin fans, he reckoned the close of the English premier league season , meant a lot of soccer fans attended GAA matches and that was the cause of the booing. other callers were quick to disagree .