August, 2014

Hands up if you remember the moving statues? …God, I didn’t think you were that old. In any case, there’s a reminder of them in a letter to the Irish Times this morning. It’s not an attack on superstition or even the Catholic Church, it’s a little peek – a revealing peek – at two […]

There I was  wondering when our local icon , actor Liam Neeson was going to make a really good film…I know the man has  had a particularly bad run of luck , what with losing his beautiful wife in that freak skiing accident  a few years back and having a family to provide for…It’s just […]

Sometimes international politics defies satire. Over the last few days there was talk Britain and the US coming to the assistance of thousands of civilians stranded on a mountain in Iraq. This, while at the same time the US and Britain assist Israel in killing thousands of civilians in Gaza.  Not just that, but the […]

It’s crazy isn’t  it ? Marching …marching…marches ad infinitum….Years and years of it . The nationalists aren’t nearly as possessed by it as the riven unionist community .What do they call themselves now …the “PUL”…isn’t  it ? Protestant Unionist Loyalist…community. Well if you are a “protestant” you’ve got to” protest” …haven’t you? That’s what a […]

George Galloway is a controversial figure. I even find myself in controversy with me about him. I’m disappointed that he doesn’t believe Scotland is capable of functioning as an effective, independent modern state, on the grounds that independence would enhance Scottish sectarianism. He promised the Ballymurphy families a couple of years ago that he would […]

I see Sir David Attenborough has inadvertently become involved in the Gaza conflict . A piece  attributed to him is  circulating on the web and goes as follows… “I am unaware of any animal that is as cruel as Israelis — not even crocodiles. They bomb schools, hospitals, refugee camps, orphanages, UN feeding stations, water […]

Political judgement can be a slippery, awkward-to-handle eel of a thing. In the past twenty-four hours I’ve come across two examples that’ve set me thinking. The first involves cosmetics. It seems Garnier has air-dropped lots of their products so that Israeli women soldiers can look good as well as fight effectively in the offensive on […]

I  was trying to get to St Anne’s Square in Belfast yesterday afternoon and was held up by an anti-internment parade. It was pelting rain but the line of marchers, it seemed, went on and on. When they got to Castle Court, I learned this morning, they were pelted with coins and plastic bottles and […]

It was one of those events where many will remember where they were or what they were doing. In 1994 I was a teenager living in a community whereby British Army raids were the norm, armed soldiers patrolled the streets, members of Republican paramilitaries were operating within the community, the daily media coverage of shootings […]