Jude Collins

There’s a scene in Shakespeare’s Henry IV Part 1 where the Welsh magician Glendower declares “I can call spirits from the vasty deep”, to which the hard-headed Hotspur replies “Why, so can I, or so can any man;/But will they come when you do call for them?” That exchange often pops into my head when I […]

Endorphins – is there a cheaper and more effective way to get a high? They are created when you put your body through a serious physical work-out. As your groans and gasps grow quieter, a feeling of acute well-being creeps over you and you feel you have just acted in a highly commendable fashion and are now ready […]

    It’s breath-taking, the precise balance we get in the reporting of our North-East Nest politics. If you were to put two people on a seesaw (remember see-saws?), invariably one person would be a little lighter or a little heavier than the other. Or a lot. I’ve never seen a see-saw where both ends […]

Pics 1-4 are by Antrim Lens   Pic 1 Pic 2 Pic 3   Pic 4    “Spent another evening down with my local Barn owl and thought your followers would like a few more photos of her. This is a new Barn owl unknown to Ulster Wildlife Trust or myself until two weeks ago. […]

Sometimes events here hit the bull’s-eye of craziness, that point where you want to just throw up your hands, lock yourself in the bathroom and put your head down the toilet bowl. You think I exaggerate? Then consider the case of the Catholics and the Flags. Several UVF flags were erected in a mixed area of […]

“When sorrows come, they come not single spies /But in battalions” Had Glenn Hoddle been in attendance at the Tory leader’s speech yesterday, he would probably have judged that Theresa May was paying for some terrible misdeeds in a previous incarnation. Was it the hunger for publicity that sent the comedian with the P45 up […]

Oh dear. Was that another crocodile moment? As you probably know by now, the potential First Minister Arlene Foster clashed with the potential Deputy First Minister at the Tory party knees-up yesterday. Michelle was asked if an Irish Language Act would make the north less British, to which she replied  “The north isn’t British”. Arlene, […]

You’ve probably seen the photograph of masked IRA men, complete with replica weapons, who were part of a historical tour of Derry. If so, you have at least one thing in common with Gregory Campbell, who is reported as saying “I see them as seeking to glorify and sanitise IRA violence. I believe they will convey […]

    There are those – you’ve probably heard or read them – who have seized on the situation in Catalonia and declared that there’s a contradiction between Irish republican support for the Catalonian independence movement and Irish republican support for a united Ireland. They say republican support for the removal of Catalonia from Spanish […]

  It should be pleasant to see people get comfortable with one another, but not when their doing so makes you uncomfortable. “Should those people be so cosy together?” a little voice at the back of your head demands. “Would it not be more comforting for the rest of us if they were less cosy/comfortable?” […]