I was on a radio debate with Sammy Wilson the other day, discussing the idea of whether to ditch the BBC licence fee and make payment voluntary. You want BBC, you pay; you don’t want BBC, you don’t pay. Sammy had the advantage over me of possessing an Economics degree ,whereas I was hopeless at Maths. But […]
February, 2015
Prof John A Murphy, 2016 and how to fool yourself
It gets closer every day, and as it does the politicians in the south get more and more uneasy. I’m referring to the coming of the centenary of the Easter 1916 Rising. Professor Ronan Fanning has cut through the cringe-making government video for 2016 (which has since been withdrawn) by calling for a “shameless celebration” […]
Those New Mossley tyres: empty heads, empty prospects
The Nolan Show last night discussed the hundreds of rubber tyres and pallets that have been dumped in New Mossley, where the young people are busily gathering them to make an early start for the Eleventh Night bonfire. Yes, you read aright. Five months before the event, the energies of young New Mossleyians are directed […]
BUTTER ME UP, THEN by Harry McAvinchey
Glad to see it. Butter is good for you again .This year you can slather huge quantities of the creamy yellow cow- stuff over your toast and snaffle it all down without regret.Butter has been bad for you for over thirty years in Norneverland .It was decreed , I think shortly after it had made […]
‘Without Ceremony’ by Randall Stephen Hall
Without Ceremony. By Randall Stephen Hall © 26.2.15 Just click the link or cut and paste the link html into your search engine. On a bright Spring day it’s a good thing to lift the dull ragged weight of winter from off your shoulders. To fly with all the other starlings from […]
Down in the depths in Paris
What is it – nostalgia for a less complicated yesterday? A rush of blood to the head? Or maybe just pure bloody racism. Whatever the answer, the incident on the Paris underground where a black man was repeatedly ejected from a train carriage leaves many of us, I suggest, weak with disgust. “Our captain is […]
WHEN SPRING HAS SPRUNG by Harry McAvinchey
No …it’s not exactly Springtime, but there are a few wispy little intimations that if it has not precisely sprung yet , Mother Nature is girding her loins for a bit of a bounce sometime soon. There are a few forewarnings, of course ; those first green shoots and the longer days ; it was […]
‘On Being Intellectually Superior’ by Soinbhe Lally
415 It is very pleasant to be convinced of one’s own intellectual superiority. Better still, to be convinced of the intellectual superiority of one’s own tribe. So I couldn’t resist smirking and rolling my eyes when I read that TUV councillor Jack McKee objected to the erection of a memorial for eight Islandmagee women […]
AT THE FAR SIDE OF BETELGEUSE by Harry McAvinchey
Snug under the canopy of my trusted umbrella , the wind is trying its damndest to tear the old bumbershoot out of my grasp. I’m watching two sooty rooks battling and seemingly playing through the hard spears of rain and I’m thinking and wondering…they really must love this kind of cold aggravation or they’d […]
‘Is it Pathological?’ by Soinbhe Lally
Sometimes my faith in progress is shaken. How can it be that educated, seemingly responsible persons wilfully regress to the science and religion of the seventeenth century and demand that the rest of us defer to their regression? Why do so many DUP politicians deny scientific facts and set up in their place the […]