Well, better late than never. Some slightly-less-lazy hack in the VO came up with the news yesterday that the Free Presbyterian Church didn’t bother respond to a Department of Health audit into child protection. That’s the Free Presbyterian Church whose former head, one Ian Paisley, went all the way to Scotland to protest the Pope’s […]
Paedophile Priest: it’s easier to say than ‘paedophile clergyman’, isn’t it?
Well, better late than never. Some slightly-less-lazy hack in the VO came up with the news yesterday that the Free Presbyterian Church didn’t bother respond to a Department of Health audit into child protection. That’s the Free Presbyterian Church whose former head, one Ian Paisley, went all the way to Scotland to protest the Pope’s […]
The most frightening sound in the world: silence.
We all talk too much. You, me, everyone. Watch people in the street or on a bus, in a restaurant or in a theatre interval: yap yap yappety-yap. What are they saying? What is so important that they say it with such intensity? As for politicians, whether in or out of the Assembly/Dail/Parliament: besides being […]
The most frightening sound in the world: silence.
We all talk too much. You, me, everyone. Watch people in the street or on a bus, in a restaurant or in a theatre interval: yap yap yappety-yap. What are they saying? What is so important that they say it with such intensity? As for politicians, whether in or out of the Assembly/Dail/Parliament: besides being […]
Sri Lanka, stooping down low and cultural cringe
It’s a dreary, damp October afternoon as I write this. If I raise my rear-end six inches from the chair I can see the back garden – an overgrown tree, a badly-mowed lawn, in the distance Carrickfergus Castle and beyond that a grey strip of Belfast Lough. Bleak. So I turn my gaze back to […]
Sri Lanka, stooping down low and cultural cringe
It’s a dreary, damp October afternoon as I write this. If I raise my rear-end six inches from the chair I can see the back garden – an overgrown tree, a badly-mowed lawn, in the distance Carrickfergus Castle and beyond that a grey strip of Belfast Lough. Bleak. So I turn my gaze back to […]
Royal leg-up
Great news! What with funding for the arts being cut, promised hospitals being reneged on, jobs being eliminated all the way to the horizon – hooray! QE2 and her ever-faithful husband are among us! Well not quite among us but up at Hillsborough with Owen Paterson and down at UTV with Frank Mitchell yesterday. Frank […]
Royal leg-up
Great news! What with funding for the arts being cut, promised hospitals being reneged on, jobs being eliminated all the way to the horizon – hooray! QE2 and her ever-faithful husband are among us! Well not quite among us but up at Hillsborough with Owen Paterson and down at UTV with Frank Mitchell yesterday. Frank […]
Sectarian head-count (and other parts)
I first noticed the gap between the media construction of the world and the world as it actually exists when I was living in Northumberland in the mid-1970s. I’d been a Match of the Day fan for much of my life and had been impressed by the happy chants of the crowds in support of their various […]
Sectarian head-count (and other parts)
I first noticed the gap between the media construction of the world and the world as it actually exists when I was living in Northumberland in the mid-1970s. I’d been a Match of the Day fan for much of my life and had been impressed by the happy chants of the crowds in support of their various […]