PROC Guide to Arguing About the Panaban on the INTERNET

13th Nov 2018

To be honest I haven’t a clue what’s going on with Pana but I hear they’re trying to close down a chicken shop in town by driving buses up outside it. I also love commenting on newspapers’ Facebook pages. How can I weigh in?

Firstly, to add more punch to your outrageous, uninformed brain farts make sure that you turn off all spell checking software on your phone. Then say that you were ‘in town on Saturdoobee and there woz loadza peeple in dayure so I dunno wot the shops are moaning bout’. Or you could just as easily choose the other side of the debate and say ‘how woz I supposta go shoppin in town coz de cownsil tooked away all de parkin an’ iss dead now. It’s a total dissgrays #MahonPt’.

I’m an over educated, know-it-all academic on an inflated public service salary who has no experience of self-employment or running a business. I really dislike these hard pressed ‘small traders’ upsetting my whimsical desire to turn Cork into a cycling and public transport paradise like some boring city in Denmark that we’ve never heard of, where can I express my obnoxious opinion?

Twitter is the perfect place to make yourself look really clever, and where you can repeatedly tweet patronising comments to city centre traders who face losing their livelihood, along with accompanying links to impenetrable academic studies about the benefits of pedestrianisation in Eindhoven and Malmo that you found on Google.
 

A vehicle trying to find a place to park on Pana earlier this week

I’m an elected city councillor and member of a political party. How can I take advantage of this debate for my own popularity?
Dial up your favourite local radio presenter and tell him that City Hall is full of “faceless technocrats” who don’t care about city centre traders and are only interested in big business. This will have the nice effect of implying that councillors like you always have the small guy in mind and endear you to the common man.

State emphatically that you’ve no idea who controls these “unaccountable administrators” and when somebody mentions that it might actually be you, say that you’re going to demand answers at the next council meeting and then hang up. The local elections are coming up next year so it’s good to sweeten up those small traders when you’re looking for a few donations for the campaign. Hupyaboya!

I’m up in court for not paying my rates. People will think I’m not very good at running a business so how can I distract from my failure and mortification?
Be positive by being negative: the reason you can’t pay your rates is because of the Panaban, right?! It doesn’t matter that the rates were due since long before cars were banned from Patrick Street in August – sure, nobody is going to think of that. It’s never your fault.
 

Optical illusion: Depending on which side of your brain is more dominant you either see queues out the door of Golden Discs or you see a cold empty plain in Antartica.

There’s a new bike lane right outside my premises. Can I use this to create another excuse for a drop in trade?
Before you start rage-tweeting again, bear in mind that everyone has access to Google street view and could spot that there were already double yellow lines right outside your shop long before the bike lane was installed which could be mortifying.

I work in in RTE Radio in Dublin and I’ve been told to file one of my usual patronising, badly researched 30 second pieces about something outside Dublin so I’ve chosen this farcical, parochial dispute in Cork. Any tips?
For the love of Christy Ring will ye stop repeating that “cars are banned from Cork city centre” on RTE or you might be taken away in the middle of the night and deep fried like a chicken breast. Private cars are banned from just ONE street for THREE hours every day. ONE STREET!

I love the Panaban because I can cross Patrick Street without taking my eyes off my phone so I never miss a second of my old doll’s hilarious snapchats. What’s not to love about the Panaban?
Have you made a will, sham? If not you might want to fit your dying wishes into a ten second snapchat right now and press send because you won’t be capable of saying very much when you’re being peeled off the front of the 208 bus. Loads of pedestrians don’t seem to realise that bikes, buses and taxis still have full access to Pana. Be wide!