August, 2016

    Unionism is a sliding scale of bigotry, yes unionists don’t like to hear this, they have tried to argue against this on this site and failed miserably to provide a reasonable argument against my opinion other than blindly condemning it as racist which will cut no ice with me.   I have also […]

My lovely and loving sister Patricia (Friel) died early this morning, so I doubt if I’ll be doing a lot with the blog over the next few days. Apologies.   Jude

“Sail me on a silver sun, where I know that I’m free Show me that I’m everywhere, and get me home for tea” (“It’s All Too Much”) :The Beatles   “Ageism” isn’t necessarily the thought that immediately springs to mind when you are atop an aluminium ladder , racked out to it’s full extent, its […]

FURTHER TO MY BLOG OF AUGUST 2nd:-   It should not be imagined that when, in May 1981 THE TIMES  of London attributed all the deaths in “the troubles” since 1969 to Republican violence it made an honest mistake. The Ulster Unionist MP James Kilfedder had  uttered exactly the same falsehood on radio, and Margaret […]

  On my way to Spain yesterday, I read The Irish Times  (yes, Perkin, dirty work but somebody has to do it). They had a feature on their favourite political party, with the main news being that Sinn Féin had decided to give up the average-industrial-wage thing that they have with their MLAs, MPs, TDs and […]

Last January, the unpronounceable Reince Priebus, chairman of the Republican National Committee, surveying his party’s throng of presidential aspirants, tweeted: ‘It’s clear we’ve got the most well-qualified and diverse field of candidates from any party in history.’ Why, the world wonders, did they end up with Donald Trump as their nominee? The primary voters could […]

THE TIMES OF LONDON  let off a broadside on Saturday July 31 against Vladimir Putin with an article by Dominic Kennedy (no relation, please God!) and an editorial, and on Monday August 1st  it followed with another article by Dominic Kennedy headlined “Putin TV channel twists the thinking of western viewers” plus another headlined “We […]

I’m going to make a suggestion this morning that I suspect most of you who post responses will recoil from. My suggestion is that you ask yourself a question.  I know that self-questioning is a difficult and upsetting thing, sometimes, but I genuinely believe this one is worth asking. The question to direct at yourself: […]

[John Patton blogs at http://phototilly.eu] There was a collection in church today for the Scottish Catholic International Aid Fund (SCIAF). It is intended to relieve famine conditions which threaten 12million people in seven countries of Southern Africa. The El Nino weather phenomenon, one of the worst in 50 years, has caused intense drought in southern Africa […]

  My apologies – I should have included this in the first version – a total misunderstanding and my apologies to Joe especially.This email from him clarifies my massive boo-boo…. Jude, that piece was not written by me! It was taken from this publication below which I received in my mail. I don’t think it […]