No white smoke, then, at the time of writing. Enda Kenny is probably in the shower at this point, singing lusty versions of ‘The Broad Black Brimmer’ or maybe ‘Take It Down From the Mast, Irish Traitor’. David Cameron, eager to get home, is probably on his second round of toast and thinking (though not saying) what Reggie Maudling said after his first visit: “What a bloody awful place. Bring me a tall brown one”. Both, along with the political parties, are girding their loins for another quick burst of negotiation before Enda goes home to fret about Irish Water and David flies home to worry about Nigel Farage.
Word is that of flags, parading, the past and welfare cuts, only the last of these three is receiving focused attention. Flags, parading and the past can wait for another day, because nobody’s into changing their position on any of these. And who is it that are keen on flags? Oh that’s right – unionist politicians. And who is it that’s keen on marching? Oh that’s right – unionist politicians. There’ll be no movement on either of those two because unionist politicians are arguing the case for flags (Union flags, naturally) wherever and whenever people want. Unionist people, that is. What is sometimes referred to by Peter Robinson as ‘the people of Northern Ireland. And there’ll be no movement on parades because unionist politicians are arguing the case for parades (Unionist parades, naturally) wherever and whenever people want. The people of Northern Ireland, that is.
There was talk on The View last night of the institutions collapsing, of there being not one but two elections in May. I don’t think so. I can see a deal of some kind emerging, with Sinn Féin and the DUP managing to wring a few more hundred million out of Cameron. Just enough for Sinn Féin to be able to say they twisted Cameron’s arm and got what they said they’d get – like Oliver Twist, more. The DUP will say, of course, that being canny and thrifty, they were the ones who got Cameron to cough up the extra cash for the people of Northern Ireland.
One thing that slipped into the conversation on The View last night was a remark by Alex Kane. He was talking about the aftermath of an election here and he made a reference to Peter Robinson. Did my hearing go on the blink momentarily, or did he say “He [Robinson] of course will be gone by then” – or was he talking about somebody else? I don’t think so, because he talked then about Dodds nipping over to Downing Street, which did indeed present an appalling vista. But hey – wouldn’t it be a laugh if Dodds the Sod (I’m only quoting Eileen Paisley, Virginia) were to succeed Robinson and then, like Robinson, lose his seat? It could happen, you know. Ask Gerry Kelly.
SF will find it hard to convince myself that agreement on welfare cuts with no movement on Haass represents a job well done.
Infact, it’s becoming increasingly clear that both the SDLP and SF have no response to unionist intransigence.
This was the opportunity to assert pressure on unionism, agreement on everything or nothing.
So Stormont is saved and unionists have conceded diddly squat. Underwhelming and very disappointing.
Yes , Jude …I saw that bit on the View last night too. In fact I laughed out loud….really.Can you imagine Mr Glum being First Minister. That would be a face for future investment alright.
What
Cheque, mate?
According to Mr Donaldson, it is the people outside the room that matter? Who would they be? It would appear that unelected representatives lurking in the corridors of impotence take precedence over the British Prime Minister, An Taoiseach and the elected representatives of the other political parties. What a statement from a representative of a party that aspires to hold the balance of power after the next election.
Mr Cameron is keen to promote the private sector which will exploit unemployed people with zero hour contracts and the minimum wage. During 2014 the public sector has been subject to constant attacks while time and money was wasted in the Legislative Assembly. Mr Cameron was unambiguous, there is no money for welfare services while political unionism wishes to support contentious marches and bonfires funded by the taxpayer.
Tony Blair felt the heavy hand of history on his shoulder. Mr Cameron had to deal with the ham fist of the proconsul. On a positive note, Ms Sturgeon, Scottish National Party/Partaidh Náiseanta na h-Alba and Ms Wood, Plaid Cymru continue to provide dynamic political leadership for their respective parties and constituents.
There was a journalist from Norneverland on Newstalk Radio this morning, Esteemed Blogmeister, reporting summat the latest from the Belfast Summit.
This was a Murray mon who was talking so much in a hurry that one failed to catch his first name with one’s gradual FSS ears. Doubtful though if it was either Clarnico or Ruby as there a edge to his voice which was lacking somewhat both of the sweet and of the soft.
He did speak with a Ulcer as distinct from an Ulster brogue which was obvious the moment he opened his M1 mouth. The usual menacing point to it, so beloved of DOBlin radio stations, which delights in putting the brogue – orange alert time, folks ! – into the Shins as distinct from the Guards. Austentatious, in a yoghurt-currying way, one might say.
One didn’t actually catch the lyrics of what he was saying thought the tune was recognisable enough: all the blame fair and s. where it belonged, at the door of SF. As Joan Burton might put it: yawn. As mentioned above he spoke with an edgy voice and that is why his tune was so recognisable.
Like something decomposed by that bobble-hated lead-eyed guitarist dude in U2 whose 1,000 plus ‘tunes’ are all as interchangeable as the baldy bums of baboons. Lacking as they do a distinctive medodic line just indeed as does the wooly bobble hat lack the decorative piece of spherical fluff at the peak.
Likes to cultivate the look riff-raffy like many a Taffy trillionaire boyo before him, he does.
DOBlin is the capital city of the FSS, and derives its name from Denis O’Brien for the freakish manner in which he has acquired control of most of the Liffeyside media, such as it is, the flagship of which would be the Sunday Independent Cult (sic).
Curiously enough – such is the diversity of views in DOBlin – there was a not unintersting letter this morning in the sister paper of SIC, The Unionist Times which pleaded to be scissored out.
From one Colm Delves, Group Chief Executive Officer, Digicel Group in the Caribbean. That would be the maraschino cherry in the cocktail of DOB’s global commercial empire. Like Newstalk and Today FM it is in the wireless business.
Read at your peril, straight faced reader, the following guffaw-defying conclusion to today’s epistle: ‘Our strategy in Digicel remains unchanged. What we do want to ensure is that the appropriate consumer and industry protections are put in place so that we can pursue the strategy while knowing that there will be a level playing field for new entrants like ourselves’.
After picking himself up from the carpet where he had just been floored with the laughter afters, Perkie,ever desirous of, erm, delving beneath the surface, took a gawk at the different islands which come within the Digicel Caribbean ambit. At first, so tear filled was he with the residual giggles, that he mistakenly looked at the Coribbean where leprechaun in one of the local lingua francas.
Wrong direction. One of the islands which caught the Warbeckian eye was Tonga. Which has its own teanga/language. On Today FM, for instance, there is a spot devoted to – presumably to satisfy, erm, license requirements – called ‘Gaeilge Ghasta’/ Leprechaun spoken at the rate of Usain Bolt. It lasts on average, 9.1 seconds.
Wouldn’t, doesn’t work in Tonga. Tongan being a slow walking, arse swaying, heavy set sort of 22 stone language, which is more suited to tossing the 56 lb weight over the bar rather than the 100 yard sprint. No probs. DOB would be as flexible as a flex. Where Tonga is concerned, in anyways.
Still staying with The Unionist Times and not straying a mil-un (M. Noonan-speak) miles from Norneverland, as a weather vane to show which direction the breakwinds of the Status Quo are bluowing.
That organ of record’s G Double A correspondent, Sean Moran, dipped his oar into the Shuntygate schmozzle re. the respective merits of soccer,oops, football players and those of the G Double A. Naturally he takes a dim view of those who were disgruntled with Shunty and tut-tuted like good-oh:
‘That thin-skinned sense of self may have been more pronounced in the past but it still exists within Gaelic games. Latterly it has taken two forms: a world-class ability to bristle and an irritating desire for external validity. Hunt’s column provoked the former and for the latter we need look no further than the mid-summer obsession with what Sky viewers thought of the chamipionship’.
Eh, come again?
‘Ironically, the favourite for this year’s award (for Bainisteoir na Bliana/ Manager of theYear) is Irish rugby coach Joe Schmidt who has been on the receiving end of international priority when neither of his outstanding European Cup-winning seasons with Leinster were recognised’.
And so on, in this Moranic vein.
No mench here of the absence of one, B. Cody of Kilkenny from the Geansai Bui / Yellow Bib of Bainisteoir na Bliana for the past ten years.
With G Double A correspondents like this, little surprise that The Unionist Times can describe the recent sporting summit in the (gulp) Royal School in Armagh as ‘Ireland’s bid for the Rugby World Cup’ and get away with it.
What world would that be, now? There are in or around 200 counties on Planet Earth, around 20 or so of which are located on Planet Rugby. And of that 20 only around 5 or 6 at most have an earthly of winning it.
Roughly the same number of teams, come to think of it, who are in with a shout of winning the Liam McCarthy Cup in hurling, the game of Setanta, if not Setanta sport. Unlikely to hear Sean Moran stray into that kind of forbidden territory. Give the man a cap, a night cap.
To conclude, unlike the parsimonious Belfast summit there was a distinct sound of dosh sloshing around the gunwhales of the Armagh one.
Moine’s a Hoino, Hugo.
It wouldn’t have been Denis Murray OBE by any chance, Perkie?
Wouldn’t even dare to go there, Esteemed Blogmeister.
Beyond saying he did seem to be broadcasting as part of a, erm, OB unit. And with the slant at which his take on things was planted, can the E be far behind?
Be interesting to see which of the pair, dear old R. Maudlin and D. Cameroon ‘copped the quicker u-ey, mate’, as the cobbers Downunder so succinctly put it.
Or should that be a capital U, as in Ulcer?
Did anybody time them?
On second thoughts it probably was Alan Murray – a rather sterner critic of things republican…
What has the esteemed Sean Moran of the Irish Times done to merit the above snide rebuke from Perkin who seems to occupy a parallel universe at times.
He exists at a level to which you can only dream of aspiring, Argie…
A parallel universe of fabulists ,Jude…
And the compliments of the season to you too,Jude!Its fascinating what response an innocuous remark about the Gaelic Games editor of the Irish Times will bring.Its doubtful whether the comment on Perkin(with which some other posters seem to agree) merited your patronising aside.He’s more than capable of looking after himself and indeed has favoured me with a well argued civilised reply.I would still maintain that Sean Moran does not inhabit the same world as Stephen Collins(for whom I hold no brief).It would seem dangerous to tar all the journalists of that paper with the same brush.
What do you mean “seems” Argenta? He is completely in a parallel universe!
Argenta, a chara,
As a sometime inhabitant of Planet Gannet one unfortunately is cursed with an appetite so greedy that it might even be described as ‘gluttonous’.
This results in one devouring the likes of say, Sean Moran, for example, with the same voracity as one does with the likes of say, Stephen Collins, for example, in The Unionist Times.
Call one deluded, but this is born of a belief that sport is about as political as it gets on the islands of Ireland and that while Irish politics, on both sides of the Black PIg’s Dyke, is great sport entirely, one wishes it took some time out for a close season and gave the non-sporty section of the communities a breather.
Far from inhabiting parallel universes, as many seem to maintain for some unfathomable reason, Irish sport and politics are as intertwined as an urban python around a lampost on Montgomery Street in Dublin 1 in the absence of a rural antelope.
If an illustration of this phenomenon is required, perhaps the largest example on offer in Dublin sur Liffey and certainly the one most easily observed by travellers and other tourists on the train south from Belfast, is the unfinished cathedral of Croke Park.
The reason it is the Sagrada Familia of Sport is simply for political reasons. Despite being THE only unfinished, functioning national stadium in the world wide pursuit of Sport, this never merits as much a dickey bird or a silly syllable itself in polite society, of which S. Moran and S. Collins are prime examples.
Which is odd, rather. In Barcelona, they order things differently There, they spare no sinews in pushing their Sagrada Familia as a tourist attraction. The work of Bord Failte Barca is never finished in this regard.
Why Dublin, which cultivates a self-image as the hub of the Economic Entity known as Eire, does not do likewise is a puzzle beyond the mere understanding of mere Paddy Stinks and Mickey Mudds like the CBS ‘educated’ P. Warbeck.
Could be, of course, on account of the slime green statue of politico-sporting figure, Michael Cusack which stands in the same stadium, unrepentent. Mention of whom enables one to segue slinkily into that ultimate phenom of literary politics, ‘Ulysses’.
This, of course, is the sacred text of the tourist-attracting City Fathers on Liffeyside. Containing as it does an unrestrained racist attack on The Citizen (see statue above), c.f., the chapter set in Barney Kiernan’s pub, aka, the Cyclops episode.
Cyclops is right: as is evidenced by the blind eye turned to such oval-balled displays of soi-disant supremacy by an insolent minority. Try to imagine, say, Jerusalem, celebrating first a Shylock Day, later to be extended to a Shylock Week, later again to be stretched to Yahweh knows what. Try, and fail. Try again, and fail better.
Think what one may about the denizens of that storied city (and trust one, Perkie does) but at least, when it comes to the matter of amour propre they are decidedly not behind the door but in front of the wall.
One would have thought these meaty topics might have juiced up some tasty debates. Not in Dublin sur Liffey they don’t. Dublin, where the one trick pony is king of the media stud.
In conclusion, Argenta a chara, being also a sometime inhabitant of Planet Pomegranate, one is also cursed with boundless admiration of his former tutor in the Q’s English, the Esteemed Blogmeister.
Not least, for his indulgence in allowing all oddly clothed views to be aired, this side of out-right character assassination. (No Wilkes Booth boys here, as it says on the tin).
Having sadly failed to become the apple of one’s stringent tutor’s eye all that century ago, one is thankful for a second bite at the p for pomegranate. And full of boundless gratitute to all those cockeyed Cyclopian crusaders in the bought media who leave such rich pickens for those of us lost causes who are devotees of St. Jude.
Shoot ! in the immortal word of Slim Pickens.
Beir bua agus gach beannacht.
I couldn’t have put it better myself, Perkie…
Argenta, – Perkie does indeed inhabit a parallel universe.
But it happens to be a different parallel to the rest of us.
My best guess is, if you understand him, you haven’t read him properly.
A certain journalist used to be introduced to viewers and listeners as having “an insight into the thinking of Loyalist paramilitaries”! He was a very stern critic of “things republican”.