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Interesting to see how many teachers have not turned up for work today given that the ballot was taken by the union in 2011 for this strike action on the basis of opposition to pension changes.  The turnout for the ballot was quite low. Loss of a day's pay in the mouth of Christmas won't be popular when other teachers will remain in school and have little affect on fully closing schools.  Few if any primary schools will be affected and so child care for parent will be much less of an issue for older children.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-northern-ireland-38150324

I wonder what Elmo's thought were on being forced to wear a poppy on the One Show?

He is a puppet, a piece of cloth and a few other materials operated by a person.  He is not a living thing.

Robert Vaughan in pictures:
https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/gallery/2016/nov/11/robert-vaughn-life-in-pictures

Did they strike the normal working day they have, 6:30am to 6pm, as they were telling us a few weeks ago?

No, the secondary teachers went out to picket during their lunch breaks and the primary teachers went out when they handed the children over to their parents at finish of their day. No strike, no loss of money.

Any word on whether yesterday's pickets outside schools across the North have brought Peter Weir back to the negotiating table?

Frank Mitchell Mc Clorey has his on,on UTV live tonight

He's a class one arse licker

Isn't he a College man?

Ghostwriters must make some money or be given a higher portion of the royalties. 

How much do you earn from writing a book?  From http://www.writersservices.com/resources/advances-royalties-inside-publishing

Writers are generally paid a royalty based on their book sales. Publishers usually offer to pay authors advances against royalties. The general advice is to insist on an advance if at all possible.  An advance is literally an advance payment and royalties on sales of the book are set against it. It is not normally refundable, provided that the author fulfils their part of the contract.

If the book is written and doesn't need more work, then the advance might be paid in two parts, on signature and publication. The royalties can be based either on a percentage of the published price of the book or on what is called the 'price received', i.e. a percentage of the publisher's receipts from the booksellers, which is a much lower figure.

There's also a tendency in trade publishing to move towards price received, because of the high discounts publishers give booksellers and because publishers would prefer to pay a royalty based on a lower figure.

Publishers sell books to booksellers at a discount off the published price, which can vary from 35% for small independent bookshops to 60%, 70% or even higher, for the chains, the supermarkets and online booksellers, which buy in bulk. So with a typical 50% discount on a book retailing through the bookshop chains at £20, the publisher would get £10 from the bookseller to cover all their costs, including the author's royalties, their overheads and distribution, and the production cost of the book. Their margins really are quite tight.

Many publishers believe that the UK has the highest discounts in the world, but discounts are under pressure in all the major English-speaking countries, as publishers and booksellers try to maintain their margins.

Hardback royalties on the published price of trade books usually range from 10% to 12.5%, with 15% for big authors. On paperback it is usually 7.5% to 10%, going up to 12.5% only in exceptional cases. Other kinds of publishers will offer lower royalties, often based on the price received. High discounts paid to supermarkets, chains or online booksellers will invoke the 'high discount' clause, meaning that the author will get a considerably lower royalty on copies sold this way.

Royalties are often on a sliding scale, which is to say that you might be offered 7.5% to 10,000 and 10% thereafter on a paperback edition.

23,100 sales for Jim McGuinness at an assumed average of £10 per copy across all formats would have provided a gross of £231,000.  7.5% on first 10,000 or £100,000 would be £7,500 and 10% on remaining 13,100 copies or £131,000 would give £13,100.  So the joint authors may have taken £20,500 between them. 

Not sure but it is provided by Neilson who are providers of book sales data to the publishing industry.

Check out the weekly sales figures provided by them:

https://www.writing.ie/category/news/irish-bestseller-lists/

[Until Victory Always by Jim McGuinness and Keith Duggan (23,100);]

2015 was a bumper year for book sales in Ireland with a 11% increase from 2014.  The best sellers were:

The Girl on the Train (60,476 sales)
Grandpa's Great Escape, the latest David Walliams (44,100)
Animal Activities in the Woods (36,000);
Old School: Diary of a Wimpy Kid, the latest Jeff Kinney (33,100)
Grey: Fifty Shades of Grey as Told by Christian (27,696);
Anne Enright's The Green Road (27,300);
Joe Duffy's The Children of the Rising (26,000);
Irelandopedia by John and Fatti Burke(23,300);
Until Victory Always by Jim McGuinness and Keith Duggan (23,100);
Brooklyn by Colm Tóibín (22,600).

Not a lot of books are sold in Ireland per annum.

Does anyone know the payback on authoring a book?  Do you depend mostly on the size of the advance?

Surely, to make a reasonable income, sales would need to exceed 100K.  The cost of hardback and softback print editions must be very high, the loss expected on pulping or bargain binning a significant percentage would raise costs and the return from highly discounted eBooks would be low per copy.

http://www.irishbookawards.irish/award/the-bord-gais-energy-sports-book-of-the-year-2016/

Tony has bought all but one of them already.

Stephen Nolan just explained why "controversial Tyrone star" Cathal McCarron won't be on show. This is the face of Tyrone GAA... Jesus wept.

The expression and pause from Nolan as he explained the withdrawal seemed to show he didn't really believe the reasons given.

The poppy appeal is used to raise funds for military personnel who fall on hard times .  Simply parliament voted to send the BA to war , parliament voted monies to pay for said war , parliament should them make sure soldiers are provided for on leaving army.

That's why the Poppy Appeal is flogged every year. So really, the ordinary people, many who were against the wars in the first place, actually end up inadvertently paying for them. And mop up the mess created by their government. Try telling a unionist that though.

Here is one unionist you won't have to convince:

http://www.belfasttelegraph.co.uk/news/northern-ireland/army-veterans-let-down-doug-beattie-slams-executive-over-help-for-war-injured-34959676.html

I live in an area of town where the residents are people of all religions and none.  Every year the poppy sellers call at every house and no one I know has any difficulty with them attempting to collect for their cause.  I am sure not everyone contributes but the door to door collection has continued for years.  It is no different from the many others who call at all of the houses in our area to collect for their causes.

In the same area, ticket sellers from GAA clubs regularly call on every house selling relatively expensive tickets even though they have travelled many miles from their own parishes hoping to make a sale in as many houses as possible for causes that have no relation to our community.  It would appear that no one turns the word on them as there is a regular stream of such ticket sellers in the area.

My observation this year is that there appears to be fewer people wearing poppies in public, numbers will probably increase as the we approach 11th November.