It’s a dreary, damp October afternoon as I write this. If I raise my rear-end six inches from the chair I can see the back garden – an overgrown tree, a badly-mowed lawn, in the distance Carrickfergus Castle and beyond that a grey strip of Belfast Lough. Bleak. So I turn my gaze back to […]
October, 2010
Sri Lanka, stooping down low and cultural cringe
It’s a dreary, damp October afternoon as I write this. If I raise my rear-end six inches from the chair I can see the back garden – an overgrown tree, a badly-mowed lawn, in the distance Carrickfergus Castle and beyond that a grey strip of Belfast Lough. Bleak. So I turn my gaze back to […]
Royal leg-up
Great news! What with funding for the arts being cut, promised hospitals being reneged on, jobs being eliminated all the way to the horizon – hooray! QE2 and her ever-faithful husband are among us! Well not quite among us but up at Hillsborough with Owen Paterson and down at UTV with Frank Mitchell yesterday. Frank […]
Royal leg-up
Great news! What with funding for the arts being cut, promised hospitals being reneged on, jobs being eliminated all the way to the horizon – hooray! QE2 and her ever-faithful husband are among us! Well not quite among us but up at Hillsborough with Owen Paterson and down at UTV with Frank Mitchell yesterday. Frank […]
Sectarian head-count (and other parts)
I first noticed the gap between the media construction of the world and the world as it actually exists when I was living in Northumberland in the mid-1970s. I’d been a Match of the Day fan for much of my life and had been impressed by the happy chants of the crowds in support of their various […]
Sectarian head-count (and other parts)
I first noticed the gap between the media construction of the world and the world as it actually exists when I was living in Northumberland in the mid-1970s. I’d been a Match of the Day fan for much of my life and had been impressed by the happy chants of the crowds in support of their various […]
Our proudest boast: we paid our way…
‘Man, know thyself’ was the advice Socrates gave us and that’s one of the great strengths we have, here in the north of Ireland. People in the south can go in for all that weasel talk and ach sure aren’t-you-great palaver, but here in the six northern counties, in Northern Ireland, let’s call it by […]
Our proudest boast: we paid our way…
‘Man, know thyself’ was the advice Socrates gave us and that’s one of the great strengths we have, here in the north of Ireland. People in the south can go in for all that weasel talk and ach sure aren’t-you-great palaver, but here in the six northern counties, in Northern Ireland, let’s call it by […]
Harry Windsor taken prisoner? Don’t even think about it
The English military are a strange breed, and when they overlap with that equally strange clan the Windsor family, odd things happen. The latest example of this whacko relationship has emerged over the Channel 4 drama ‘The Taking of Prince Harry’, scheduled for showing this Thursday. The film depicts what might happen if Harry […]
Harry Windsor taken prisoner? Don’t even think about it
The English military are a strange breed, and when they overlap with that equally strange clan the Windsor family, odd things happen. The latest example of this whacko relationship has emerged over the Channel 4 drama ‘The Taking of Prince Harry’, scheduled for showing this Thursday. The film depicts what might happen if Harry […]