Writing Top 5 lists is an easy way to start earning money online. There is no cost whatsoever. Money for nothing? Not quite, you do need to invest time, but if you are part of the great unemployed population of Ireland you will have time on your hands for a long time yet.

The Internet is free because of advertising. Anyone with a page on the Internet can earn money from advertising. You do not even need a website. You can write articles for various submission sites like Info Barrel and earn 90% of the ads on your articles.

You can also write Top 5 lists for Best Reviewer, which is easier in some ways. You earn money from ads around your Top 5 list.

You will need to visit Google (TM) and sign up for their advertising program for publishers (Adsense (TM)). You need a website to sign up, just go to blogger.com and start a free blog, make a few posts and sign up for the Adsense (TM) advertising program there.

Check out this Top 5 Places in Ireland list I did and you will see the idea.

If you did a list at Best Reviewer about the top 5 hotels in Dublin it would attract ads from Dublin hotels. If you did one about the top 3 car hire companies in Cork it would attract ads from Cork car hire companies,

You can install a firepit on your patio as a permanent feature or you can have it sitting above ground.

If you buy a firepit they are mostly stainless steel shallow bowls with feet that sit about a foot above ground level. For maximum safety you need to dig a hole to put them into, so they sit slightly below ground level and present no trip hazard.

If you install a fire pit on your patio you can take out one slab, dig a hole, put half bricks in the corners of your hole so you can put the slab back again when you are not using the firepit. Dig the hole deep enough that you can leave the firepit inside, even with the concrete slab on top.

A fire pit is different from a barbecue because is is meant to give flames for light and heat. A barbecue never gives visible flames except when you are lighting it. If you want to cook on your new firepit you will need to buy an optional grill attachment.

You can build a fire pit yourself, just remember to allow for air to get to the base, or the wood will not burn well

The best thing about dragon boat paddling is that it is an inclusive sport, Everyone is welcome. Blind paddlers can be accomodated. Paddlers in wheelchairs can be accomodated. Crews are usually made up of me and women, boys and girls from about 10 years of age, up to about 60.

It is cramped in a dragon boat. The boat is 40 feet long with twenty planks across for twenty pairs of paddlers to sit on, You sit facing forwards and use a single bladed paddle.

You do not need a superb physique, though obviously if you have one and know how to make your muscles work together you will be a better paddler.

The nearest dragon boating facility to Cork is a University of Limerick facility on Lough Derg near Killaloe. Everyone there is very friendly and it is wonderful paddling on Lough Derg. Peaceful, silent except for the crew’s breathing and paddling.

If you are interested in paddling a dragon boat I urge you to give it a go. You will get wet, but the exercise will keep you warm, regardless.

You have to take the “Half Price” offers with a pinch of salt, but the wines that are sold as “half price” are generally worth the reduced price. They are rarely worth the claimed unreduced price.

You can buy very drinkable wines for €6-8 from all the big supermarkets. Supermarket wine is a lot better than most people give it credit for.

Avoid Vin de Table, in fact avoid any French wine under ten euro a bottle. French wine is grossly overpriced. Avoid Lidl (TM) and Aldi (TM) wines – they are cheap butonly fit for adding to punch or for cooking with, they have no bouquet and always taste rough.

Be careful buying Rose wines. Californian Rose is wonderfully light and many Spanish and South American Rose wines are designed to look like Californian ones. The imitations are much heavier, they do not have the light and fruity character of Californian Rose.

Aldi (TM) repeat their computer special offer every few months, but it is always a similar computer.

This is no top of the range gaming machine, but a work-horse. It will run Windows 7 and comes with plenty of memory and hard disk space. Graphics and sound are usually integrated into the motherboard, though you could add separate graphics and sound cards if you wanted to.

The Aldi (TM) computer base station is aimed at people who have no need for customised computers, no need for separate graphics or sound cards and no need for a monitor. You use it with a monitor you already have. This is a stripped back PC that does the job.

If all you need is a PC to browse the Internet and type a few letters on then this is the computer for you.

Aldi (TM) usually have this offer starting on a Sunday and each store is only sent five or six computers, so you will need to be queuing at the door before the shop opens.

I went to the shop where I bought one last year on Oliver Plunkett Street and when the shop assistants could tear themselves awat from their private conversation one told me that they never sold them, more or less calling me a liar. I walked out and will NOT be going back, ever.

I was trying to keep the business local. In the end I had to go online and eventually found the bulbs I wanted on eBay, for half what I would have paid in Ireland.

It seems to me that Irish business is still ripping us all off

You can take your unwanted items to a car boot sale, or you can sell them from your own house.

Car boot sales have the advantage that they attract lots of buyers, but the disadvantage that you have to carry tables, chairs, hot drinks and food with you, and bring unsold items home again.

Home garage or yard sales may be difficult to attract people to unless you spend money advertising or live where there is lots of passing traffic.

Most people in Ireland opt for the car boot sale option.

Car boot is a euphemism for Toyota Hi-Ace van and trailer. You cannot pack much into a car, so borrow a van if you possibly can.

Visit a few car boot sales as a buyer before you go as a seller.

If you do decide that this is a way of making a few bob from your old junk, then get yourself organised. Grow extra plants from seeds or cuttings to sell. Clear out the kids’ bedroom cupboards. Empty the loft. Take every single thing out of the shed.

You will be amazed at how much stuff you have that others might buy. Expect to earn a tenth of what you think it is worth, though. Expect to be cold. Expect thieves and aggression. Take at least one and preferably two others with you to help.

The used furniture usually comes from the offices of companies that have closed down and it is commercial quality, infinitely better made and stronger than flat pack desks that are aimed at the home office market.

You can find superb corner desks that will allow you to use the corners of your office efficiently. These desks have welded steel frames, so they do not come apart.

You usually have to arrange your own delivery, but it is a simple matter to hire a man-with-a-van or find someone with a trailer.

In Cork there is a massive used office furniture on the Old Blackrock Road just 10 yards from the South Infirmary car park entrance. I have personally bought desks and office chairs here and I recommend them without reservations.

Even if you are looking for a bedroom desk for a teenaged son or daughter you are better off buying a used commercial quality desk. It will be deeper and strong enough to sit on without collapsing. Domestic desks are rarely deep enough to use a computer screeen and keyboard comfortably and buying one of these used desks is the only way most people can ever get a desk the size they need.

Planning ahead will reduce your Christmas stress levels. Buy your wine and beer early. Have a week’s worth of food, including frozen vegetables, bread and milk in your freezer at all times, especially over the winter and bank holidays.

Plan to start your Christmas on the morning of Christmas Eve. Avoid shopping on that day. In fact do not go out of your door on Christmas Eve, There are too many drunks on the road and the last thing you need is an accident.

If you are having family around for drinks or food over the holiday, make sure you have plenty of liquid refreshment and food in beforehand. Remember eggs, cocktail sticks, cheese, fruit, flour, stock cubes, soft drinks, tea, coffee and sugar.

Relatives can be a major source of stress, especially your partner’s relatives. If your outlaws are visiting set yourself up with a bolthole you can escape to if necessary. Make sure that all parties clearly understand the duration of any visit and have common expectations.

Going away for Christmas sounds like a good idea. If you have children however, they will want all your family Christmas rituals regardless of where they are. Make sure any friends or relatives are prepared to be flexible to accommodate your family’s needs,

My garden is not new, but I had tractors and diggers in two years ago to reinstall the septic tank, so I had a 20 foot wide swathe of mud all down it, about 40 yards. I did not get around to doing anything with it for a year, then this spring (February 2010) I weeded it, picked up most of the stones and raked it sort of level.

Somebody told me you can sow grass seed if there is an R in the month, which would have made FebRuaRy ok. February 2010 was extremely cold in Cork, where I live, and as the seeds sprouted they were caught and killed by the frost.

I tried again in April and this time the grass seed grew away. I slung cotton across my newly sown “lawn” to stop pigeons and crows from eating it all. That worked well, not a bird to be seen eating my grass seed.

The grass is green lawn now, but hardly bowling green quality. I wish I had raked it more level than I did. Green it is but lots of weeds at the moment. Next year I will apply a lawn fertiliser to kill the weeds.

My previous gardens had grass in the middle with a few shrubs planted in borders around the lawn. I did experiment and plant a shrubbery in a very dark side garden about ten feet by thirty and this was successful, except for the weeds.

The first job I did in the yard was to dig up a six foot by fifteen feet small lawn and plant shade loving shrubs I brought with me when I moved. I used weed-control fabric covered with wood chips that I barrowed from another part of the yard.

Over the past four years this first shrubbery has been over-run with buttercups and other weeds that have rooted down through the ‘weed-control’ fabric. They are now almost impossible to get out. I cannot hoe because of the fabric.

I learned my lesson and when I planted shrubberies in the back yard to divide it up I covered the area between the shrubs three inches deep with my own mulch. This keeps most of the weeds down, even though it rots down and needs topping up every few years. When the weeds grow through the mulch I can keep them under control by hoeing between the shrubs once a week.

I have shrub beds dividing the garden into smaller discrete areas. The shrubs are all native to the area where I live, Ireland, so they were cheap, they grow fast and the local wildlife loves them.

I have tried to mix spring and summer flowering shrubs, with evergreens and autumnal color in each bed aand have mostly succeeded. I need to move a few shrubs in the spring because they are looking a bit crowded, mot a big deal.

The bowler hat dates back to 1849. The design was commissioned by a man named William Coke in England. His gamekeepers (which tells you a small bit about the man) kept banging their heads on overhanging branches while they were riding through his forest in their top hats.

He wanted a hat that was lower than a top hat, but that would offer some protection against bruises while riding alonf wooded paths. The result was the bowler hat.

Throughout history hats for men have been badges of status. In the 19th and 20th Century and working class men in England would wear a flat cap, middle class men such as supervisors, bankers and office workers would wear a bowler hat and the gentry would wear top hats.

There are now many different kinds of hats but few men wear a hat except for special occasions.

Particular groups tend to wear particular hats as a badge or label. Orangmen in Northern Ireland still wear bowler hats on parades. This dates back to the time when all the foremen and supervisors were protestants and they wore a bowler as a mark of their status, rather than their religion. The bowler hat meant they were easy to pick out in a crowd or at a distance.

Musicians favou porkpie hats and jazz fans like to wear fedora hats.

Bowler hats are now fashion items for women, both in traditional black, but many other colours, too.

You will often see cheap bowler hats for sale in the run up to St Patrick’s Day parades in America. Bowlers are not worn in Irish Paddy’s Day parades, perhaps because of its association with the Orange Order in Northern Ireland.

Then through my thirties, forties and fifties I got fatter, very steadily, but ever heavier.

My problem is that I love food. I live to eat, rather than eating to live. I love cheese, fried breakfasts and fatty red meat; all the worst foods for putting on weight.

I am 58 years old and all that has gone. No more full English breakfast, or full Irish for that matter. Cheese once a week at the most and red meat only on a Sunday.

I have totally changed my approach to food. I only eat when I am hungry and I eat healthily.

For breakfast instead of the rashers, black and white puddings, sausages, fried bread and two fried eggs, I have 2 spoonsful of Shreddies with chjopped apple, pear and kiwi in it, with skimmed milk. That is about as healthy a breakfast as anyone can eat.

For lunch I have home-made soup always ready. Lunch is my danger time. If there is no soup ready I am tempted to have something like a toasted cheese sandwich or just cheese. I make a pan of soup every morning, either by adding to yesterday’s or by just starting from scratch.

My main meal is almost always fish; mackerel, salmon, trout, smoked haddock or grilled cod. Occasionally I have chicken and on a Sunday I permit myself red meat, but I avoid goin over the top, even on a Sunday.

My new healthy lifestyle is already working. I feel much better and the trousers are looser than they were.

I just need to keep it up for 20 years. I reckon I should have 3 stones lost by next May and another stone after that by next autumn.

I grow my tomatoes in the vegetable beds I have around the garden. I have to fit tomatoes into the crop rotation and have to be careful not to grow newpotatoes and tomatoes in the same bed in successive years because they belong to the same family.

I have grown tomatoes in grow bags, but they are always disappointing, often diseased plants and late crops, along with incessanty watering even in our summers.

Tomato plants have deep roots so it is better to grow them in the ground. You can grow them in pots but watering is a problem again as well as making sure they get enough nutrients.

I have my spot picked out where I plan to grow some yellow tomato plants next summer. I love Sun Gold cherry tomatoes for their sweet and unique taste.

Next year’s tomato bed already has lots of organic matter from buried cardboard and compost, but I intend to add a lot more.

This month, November, I will barrow half a ton, about 6 barrows full of my own compost to my new tomato bed. This is compost I have made myself from garden and kitchen scraps in my pallet framed compost bins.

I will cover the tomato bed three inches deep with compost, cover it with landscape paper, then cover the brown landscape paper with a three inch thick layer of my own woodchip mulch.

I will poke holes through the wood chips and landscape paper and plant the tomato seedlings in them. The paper will stop any weeds growing around the tomatoes and will rot down over the next year. Covering the landscaping paper with mulch makes the bed look attractive, but the mulch will also rot down over time, improving the soil further.

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There is a better way to feed the birds. You need to give them insects and other invertebrates to feed on. You don’t have to go to the fishfood shop to buy maggots. You can encourage harmless beetles and woodlice to live in your garden. These provide food for birds the whole year round.

You can buy bags of woodchips from supermarkets, but you can also make your own. Your own woodchip mulch will not contain dyes and will soon be teeming with bird food on the hoof. Food that reproduces itself ao it provides an endless succession of meals for hungry birds. A real garden for wildlife!

The insects also break down the woodchip intro a form that plants can use. As the woodchips rot down the number of worms in your soil increases. More worms means more bird food and more soil aeration.

I plan to prune back a large hedge around my garden before Christmas. I do this every year. I use a telescopic chain saw, an electric one to lop off the large branches about twenty feet up. The branches thinner than three centimetres just go straight into my electric garden chipper. Wood chip ulch comes out the bottom. Large branches are left to dry out, then next year I will saw them up for free firewood.

Over the winter I pile the woodchips in a corner to start rotting down. They may provide somewhere for hedgehogs to hibernate over the cold months.

If you use mulch anywhere in your garden you can stil hoe any weeds that grow through it. You cannot hoe weeds that root or grow through so-called weed control fabric.

It is getting a bit cold now in November, but all through September and October the only heating in my house was from an open fire in the living room, and that was only burning blocks of wood.

I have two bags of coal and a pile of peat briquettes, but I try not to use those either. The coal burns too hot and I get a hot wood smell from the fire surround. Peat burns down to a very fine ash, so although it is renewable it is very messy.

Cost-wise peat briquettes and coal work out about the same.

I am fortunate in being able to cut my own logs. I have a thirty foot hedge around three sides of my garden and I trim back the bigger branches every few years. I leave them to dry out over the summer, then saw them up, using a hand saw over the autumn. Timber burns down to next to nothing and wood ash can go on the compost heap as a rich source of potassium anyway.

I thought about buying a wood-burning stove, but was vetoed. One day…What appeals to me is the greater efficiency of a stove compared to an open fire. I will get 5x as much useful heat out of each log I burn, so I will not have to get up every 15 minutes to put fresh logs on the fire.

I have the space for a wood-pellet boiler in the kitchen, it is just the bulk storage of the pellets in a bone-dry environment that is the main obstacle to this purchase. It’s another plan for the long-term though.

There are many possible explanations for the little people dying out.

1. Some Englishmen say they were only the figment of an Irishman’s imagination
2. They were killed by disease
3. They were killed by people
4. They just died

Consider these one at a time:

1. There never were any little people. Can so many sightings over centuries be wrong? Was every sighting by a drunk after the pub closed?

2. Disease killed the little people. Possible, in the same way that the common cold wipes out tribes of South American villagers who have never encountered it before, so they have no resistance. Possibly the higher natural radiation levels worldwide since atmospheric nuclear testing since 1950 affected the little people more than humans.

3. They were killed ny people. It must have been the English, no Irishman would ever harm a leprechaun.

4. They just died. This seems more likely. Sightings of female leprechauns were always rare. Perhaps they had a very low reproductive success rate. Perhaps foxes ate all the leprechaun babies and children. There were never sightings of young leprechauns, they were always ancient.

The little people do not seem to have evolved sufficiently to survive, so they died out. Evolution left the leprechaun behind for a while and he never caught up.

I was made redundant in March 2010. That day, I went down the drive unscrewing two out of every three bulbs…I have a long drive and even though I replaced the bulbs with CFL lights a long time ago they still add up and if you are unemployed you need to reduce every outgoing you can.

I moved house in 2004 and set up every room with low energy lighting solutions. I tried LED lights, but most of my bulbs are CFL bulbs. LEDs just do not give enough light.

I have spotlights fitted in my kitchen but I wince at the cost whenever they are on. If you have 6 spotlights on that uses the same electricity as 3o CFL light bulbs. They look good, but if you had a slot meter for your electric you would soon turn them off.

Another way I have reduced my electric bill is to pay by direct debit – I get another 2% off!

I have stopped cooking a full Irish breakfast, too. First because I have put on a stone, 14 pounds, since being made redundant and second to cut down electicity costs, the grill uses 6kW!! My bills have really come down and my weight has started too, as well.