October, 2015

THAT SPINNING COIN

How are the unionist politicians of the Executive going to make sense of their current stance and their insistence on the existence of the IRA ,when the UDA have told us all publicly today , that they, themselves, actually exist and have no plans to cease that existence at anytime soon …no matter what anyone […]

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Remembering Brian Friel

Picture by Burns Library, Boston College Like thousands, maybe millions of people, I felt saddened by the death of Brian Friel. When I was in my early twenties, I used the fact that my sister was married to a cousin of his, and the fact that she knew Friel’s wife, to get an interview with […]

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Edward Snowden: hero or traitor?

Picture by Le Studio1.com Peter Taylor, the veteran TV journalist who has made many programmes about here, had a half-hour on BBC ONE last night. His documentary was about Edward Snowden. Snowden looks  young and remarkably upbeat. I say that because I’m surprised he’s not dead. He has exposed the way in which the US hoovers […]

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HERON

Is that it? The sunshine has gone and the drizzle has swept back scrubbing those clean, clear skies into a watery grey blur.The windows are already spotting with rain droplets and the ragged leaves on the cherry tree are already beginning to tear away in the looming breeze. I hate this getting up to the […]

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The perils of policing. And non-policing.

Policing is always a tricky affair, especially when dealing with those communities that have traditionally seen the police as their enemy. Why would they do that? Because they see the police as maintaining the status quo and the status quo leaves them near if not at the bottom of the heap. That’s why the PSNI […]

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Straining at the leash

Picture by International Transport Forum          Picture by electrapix They’re under starter’s orders – or at least that’s what RTÉ’s most recent blonde bombshell, Claire Byrne, says: there’s going to be an election in the south in November. I think she may be right. It has to happen by March. December would […]

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The BBC’s Question Time: cack from Cardiff

Picture by Joncitizen My God but this week’s Question Time on BBC One was depressing. For a start it revealed the scary fact that there’s another Kinnock in the British Labour party. He looks quite like his da Neil, only without the hair. He also takes himself quite seriously. He said a number of things […]

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‘Waiting for Godot’ : a review by John Patton

The Lyceum Theatre in Edinburgh celebrates its 50th birthday this year with a season of stellar work. It has been launched with a production of the most significant English language play of the twentieth century,  Samuel Beckett’s ‘ Waiting for Godot’, produced by retiring director, Mark Thomson, who has done much to revitalise   drama in Edinburgh during his thirteen […]

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