Arriving back from Liverpool, I found a stale seeded bagel in the cupboard . I tore it up into crumbs and now the starlings are feasting on it in an excited flurry across the garden . I know , I shouldn’t be surprised at their antics…I must admit to enjoying a bagel myself.There’s something […]
August, 2015
Tramp, tramp, tramp, the boys are marching
Picture by tal32GBFB I got a phone call from BBC Radio Five Live last night. They were looking for someone to talk about the disturbances in North Belfast after the anti-internment march yesterday, and to put forward the argument that marches are an important part of life here and help the process of healing […]
The Turning of the Year by Randall Stephen Hall
The Turning of the Year. Just click on this You Tube Link to watch this short film. Cut and paste the link if it doesn’t respond. Thanks https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wT5imF3BHI4 We travelled over to Scotland this year, to drive for the first time up into the Highlands and over to the Isle of Skye. Just […]
The Red Arrows: so exciting, really!
Picture by Kevin Taylor Don’t you just love the Red Arrows? The way they fly so close to each other without actually touching, the way they belch out those different colours and then do a nice smooth angle away from each other. So it must have been very disappointing for the good people of […]
Is Jeremy Corbyn MAD?
Picture by vaXzine “Political satire became obsolete when they awarded Henry Kissinger the Nobel Peace Prize.” – Tom Lehrer. We’re in between two anniversaries at the moment. On 6 August 1945, the United States dropped an atom bomb on Hiroshima; on 9 August 1945 it dropped another atom bomb on Nagasaki. Somewhere between 90,000 and […]
My night with Martin and George
Outside there were about 200 protestors, with professional-looking banners declaring that the police/RUC/PSNI were not welcome in West Belfast. Inside it was packed, but my companion and I sidled past people and snaffled two reserved seats in the front row…Well, they could have been reserved for us, couldn’t they? Casual dress was the order of the day, […]
CONFLICT JUNKIES by Harry McAvinchey
Somebody on the radio referred to us in Norneverland as being a nation of conflict junkies….Or maybe not a nation of Conflict Junkies ….possibly some of ….us are conflict junkies. i think it was John O’Dowd , the Sinn Fein minister who said it in reference to the Mi5 spooks ,but it has a wider […]
Last night at West Belfast Talks Back: Lan go doras/full house
I’ve been going to the Feile An Phobail’s ‘West Belfast Talks Back’ discussion for over – well over – ten years now. I was at it last night and I’ve never seen it so packed. Normally the crowd are there with an interest in seeing the odd-man/woman-out: the unionist representative, the anti-republican commentator. Not last […]
Is Ted Heath guilty? No he’s not
Person 1: Ted Heath is innocent. Person 2: I beg your pardon? Person 1: I said Ted Heath, the former Conservative prime minister, is innocent. Person 2: You’re joking. Person 1: No I’m not. I don’t joke about things like this. Person 2: So Ted Heath, the man whom Scotland Yard have been investigating for […]
Is Ted Heath guilty? No he’s not
Person 1: Ted Heath is innocent. Person 2: I beg your pardon? Person 1: I said Ted Heath, the former Conservative prime minister, is innocent. Person 2: You’re joking. Person 1: No I’m not. I don’t joke about things like this. Person 2: So Ted Heath, the man whom Scotland Yard have been investigating for […]