Fear and greed are generally held to be the two basic drivers of human behaviour, but without lust such a list is incomplete.

What do we make, then, of the outdoor and ambient ads springing up for the north Dublin property development, Belmayne?

Life "after dark" at your new apartment in Belmayne apparently includes being ravaged on your granite-topped kitchen island whilst being fed strawberries. For the lads, another image features two silken girls on a four-poster bed, one head resting in the lap of the other as skirts slide up and a mule dangles.

In shadowy background stands a pretty boy, voyeuristically drinking in the scene. Message: get that threesome you've always wanted after you buy off the plans, or at least a two-girl show.

Can there be any doubt the property market is in trouble when you're sold an expected return on investment measured in orgasms? Rumour has it they can be acquired for much cheaper than the price of a penthouse apartment. Whatever happened to dinner and a movie?

McCann Erickson are coordinating marketing for developers Hooke & MacDonald.

CHANNEL 4 IN A DEATH SPIRAL?

Britain's version of the BCI (combined with ComReg) issued a dark prediction last week. By the time analogue TV signals go dark in 2012, Channel 4 could go bankrupt as it faces mounting losses beginning in 2009 that could reach 150m per year.

Increased competition in a digital environment will see it lose more audience share, which will eventually put the squeeze on its finances.

At the same time, consultants PricewaterhouseCoopers released a report commissioned by Channel 4 claiming it put 3Bn into the British economy and supported 22,000 jobs.

Rivals accused Channel 4 of scaremongering, pointing to its large cash reserves and willingness to subject these islands to Celebrity Big Brother as reasons to let it sink under the waves.

But whatever the real reason, it occurs to Publius that 2012 isn't that far away, and the deadline for all TV to go digital is a European directive.

Britain rolled out its digital TV service, Freeview, in 2002. The Department of Marine, Communications and Natural Resources only began Ireland's digital terrestrial television trial (DTT) in August of 2006, with participants including Channel 6, Chellomedia Services, Communicorp, Eircom, RTE, Magnet and Sky Ireland.

Britain's DTT market is already evolving, with Richard Branson's Virgin Media offering a digital settop box to customers outside its cable service area and Sky proposing to offer subscription channels via Freeview.

British broadcasters have learned a lot in five years about operating in a digital environment. Their Irish counterparts are forced to keep whistling in the dark.

OOPS Publius's affection for PR people great and small is well-known. So it was with great mirth that we read last week of Microsoft's latest attempt to show its warm fuzzy side. PR firm Waggener Edstrom Worldwide was prepping Microsoft execs for interviews about its video blogging project, Channel 9.

The firm warned execs to watch out for wily Wired magazine reporter Fred Vogelstein, calling him "tricky". It even promised the client that Microsoft would have a chance to see the article before it was filed. Then they emailed the 5,500-word briefing memo.

To the reporter.

Wired editor Chris Anderson posted the memo on his personal blog.

Publius would quite enjoy any of our readers' briefing memos about us or any other reporter, though nothing quite beats getting it by accident.

Wired and the PR firm both deny, by the way, that any agreement existed to show Microsoft an article before publication. But clearly this vile betrayal of anything still decent about journalism still goes on more frequently than the industry would care to admit. Publius is occasionally asked to sell out in this way, but is never asked twice. Do email any tips on journos who do to the email address below. If we can substantiate the charges we'll then personally see them drawn, quartered, hung, shot and burned. Then we'll really hurt them.