August, 2021

The good news: Apple are going to be combating child abuse images. The bad news: they’re able to follow your every move. Did you know that the US soccer team is headed by “a radical group of Leftist maniacs”? That’s what Donald Trump believes anyway. And that they didn’t win a gold medal because they […]

The best bit in The Wizard of Oz  was when the curtain was pulled back and we found that the mighty-sounding mover and shaker wizard was really just an ordinary mortal full of sound and fury, signifying very little. The curtain has been pulled back good and proper in Dublin recently. Catherine Zappone, former Minister […]

This blog first appeared in The Andersonstown News It’s summer, which means it’s time for the BBC  and other channels to save money and roll out repeats. This can have its upside, as it gives viewers a chance to look again at programmes they had enjoyed or to view those they’d originally missed. How this […]

Well, enjoyed the Olympics, then? For me it had its moments, but overall these were the most disappointing Olympics I’ve ever watched. And I’ve watched a few. Why? Maybe start with the coverage. RTÉ carried the Games on RTÉ 2, except for those of us living in the north-east of Ireland, in which case we […]

What colour is your passport? And does it matter if people in NEI get an Irish passport or a British one? They’re still the same person regardless, surely? A few days ago was the anniversary of the death of hunger striker Kevin Lynch from Dungiven. Looked at from the vantage point of forty years later, […]

We all have it, but most of the time most of us try to curb it. I’m talking about the temptation to compare ourselves with others. In some cases – sport, for example – it makes sense, and there are teachers who think it’s a good idea to (publicly) rank the performance of pupils in […]