October, 2021

 According to today’s Guardian newspaper, they’re taking a History text-book off the syllabus because of the language it uses. No, Virginia, the writer of the text book doesn’t go into a rant of effing and blinding. The problem is, s/he has asked an inappropriate question. In an A Level textbook by Hodder, the question is […]

Between the 13th and 24th of October Israeli newspapers have published 13 stories that reflect little credit on the Israeli Government or its agencies in their treatment of Palestinians, according to an email passed to me.   I cannot myself establish if the email correctly quotes the papers mentioned, But if the stories, which you […]

  Not much really. The columnist I alluded to this morning displays her off-putting image.   The first page leads with the story that a woman in Kenya was beaten, stabbed and and dumped, while still alive, in a septic tank by a British soldier, in 2012, that senior British officers were apprised of the […]

This TV Review first appeared in the Andersonstown News It’s some time since I sat down and watched even part of  NOLAN LIVE (BBC ONE). Like many others, I’ve grown weary of his shouty style and the way he shakes up outrage like cats in a bag on its way to the river. Last week I made an exception and I’m glad I […]

In my BLOG of 22 Oct. “There is no art to find the mind’s construction in the face ”  I alluded to a Sunday Times columnist, whose name I could not recall, a frequent occurrence at my (DOT) AGE. As I awoke I remembered the name of her partner, a drunken brawling ex Junior Minister […]

I do wonder. I remember when newspaper never carried photographs of their writers. Now things are different. One Professor writing regularly in the IRISH TIMES presents as a tie-less near skin-head thug bouncer in a down-market club. The sort of guy you wouldn’t want to ill-meet at High Noon, never mind by Moonlight.  Another regular […]

This blog first appeared as a column in The Andersonstown News On 24 January 2020, the UK government and the EU signed the Withdrawal Agreement, which laid out the terms under which the UK would depart the EU. No one, as far as we know, was intimidated into signing. No one was on drugs or bleary-eyed from booze. Both parties signed with clear heads and […]

That service in Armagh yesterday – it went well, didn’t it? Especially when the British PM turned up with a union jack on his face-mask and said the service had been ‘a wonderful commemoration’ – or was it ‘celebration’? And as politics continues, so does Covid – there has been an increase of people in […]

A chara, – I have nothing but respect and admiration for the Church of Ireland Archbishop of Armagh, John McDowell. I got to know him while he was Bishop of Clogher and I regard him as a good and holy man and as a friend. He did great work here while in the Clogher diocese […]

I don’t want to tear you away from your TV screen which at this moment is giving generous coverage to the Armagh service ‘marking’ 100 years of partition. But there are other things happening in the world as well. In Wales, for example. Like every other half-rational country, Wales is worried about the climate crisis […]