Sháinne Greoige Scripts: 5 of 2012

Another original script from Sháinne Greoige’s Athy Weekly World News – an occasional segment from Into Your Head podcast.

I’m Sháinne Greoige, and this is Athy Weekly World News. The news, the whole news, and nothing but the news. Plus weather, traffic, sports and celebrity births.

Kildare’s Libraries Czar has today published legislation which, if enacted, will lead to a fifteen percent “illiteracy tax” on the borrowing of so-called “audio-books” from county libraries. It’s believed the move was influenced by New York City’s recent implementation of a “fat tax” on sugary drinks. Opposition councillors have slammed the proposal, saying it appears to have been written in very legalistic language, and is difficult to understand.

Local consumer groups have launched an attack on Ireland’s Gas and Electricity providers. It’s being claimed that the utility companies are intentionally choosing colder days to visit customers for meter readings, leading to unfairly high heating bills. The industry’s independent regulator has responded by warmly welcoming the earlier proposal for a literacy tax,.

A group of local students has won third place in this year’s Young Scientist Awards, after proving once and for all that so-called “Empty Nest Syndrome” is a misnomer. The students spent a month studying a pair of elderly sparrows, whose children have all grown up and moved to their own nests, or been eaten by cats. The scholars observed that the nest was never empty, except when the parents were out and about.

Athy Town Council has announced that it is to increase, by thirty per-cent, the length of the gaps in dotted white lines, in an attempt to cut costs. Motoring groups have slammed the move, claiming that smaller modern electric cars are already slipping through to the wrong side of the road, putting lives at risk.

In weather, it’s just been announced that Athy’s oldest person has died, for the third time in less than two years. It’s believed that this time she had just turned one hundred and two.

I’m Sháinne Greoige, and that was Athy Weekly World News. Tune in tonight on television for another chance to see “Sháinne’s Cribs”, my 2011 investigative documentary about the commercialisation of the Christmas story But for now, a very good morning to you.

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