It’s important, particularly at election time, to remember that other people see the world differently from you. A couple of examples were available for your earhole on BBC’s ‘Good Morning Ulster’ this morning. The lead news item for discussion was the comment by a member of the Scottish parliament that while some saw the killing […]
February, 2017
TICK TOCK SAID THE CROCODILE
At last Arlene Foster has surfaced like some multi -toothed …erm….crocodile .Aye “crocodile” is the current buzzword for “bogeyman” or possibly for Nationalism itself, as the DUP prepares for battle in the coming election …Maybe she’d been watching Walt Disney’s version of “Peter Pan” and heard that old ticking clock that Mr Crocodile had swallowed […]
MODS ‘n ROCKERS (1) by Perkin Warbeck
Rock ‘n Roll is rife with riffs. Everything from such stirring guitar solos in Pretty Woman by Roy Orbison, in Sumertime Blues by Eddie Cochran, in Paperback Writer by The Beatles, in That’ll be the Day by Buddy Holly, in Wake up, Little Susie by the Everly Brothers, in Blue Suede Shoes by Carl Perkins […]
WOULD YOU BELIEVE THE DAILY MAIL…by Donal Kennedy
Would you believe the Daily Mail supported Fascists, Once? Twice? Many, many times? And, on 8 January 1934 that it had a frontpage headline “HURRAH FOR THE BLACKSHIRTS” …? And that its owner Lord Rothermere one week later described the British Union of Facists as “a well organised part of the Right ready to take […]
“CHILDREN MUST BE TRAINED TO FIGHT FAKE NEWS” by Donal Kennedy
“CHILDREN MUST BE TRAINED TO FIGHT FAKE NEWS -schools urgently need to distinguish fact from forgery if we want to preserve our democratic values” “AMEN” said I, to the quotation in HIGH CASE , and “hmm” to that in lower case. Partly because they appeared in THE TIMES (on La Fheile Bride) for that paper […]
Bertie Ahern: he hasn’t gone away, you know
The Irish are a forgiving people. You can treat them with contempt, you can rob them blind, you can kick their granny, but as a people we have enormous depths of forgiveness. I’m tempted to say that this is seennowhere more strikingly than in the resurrection from the political morgue of Fianna Fail. It seems […]
This ‘brutal’ election: language, please.
BBC’s ‘Sunday Sequence’ had an interesting discussion this morning, about whether this needed to be a ‘brutal’ election (that was Arlene Foster’s word for it, even before it began). It was a thought-provoking discussion and I’ll come back to it in a minute, but let me first consider (beggin’ your pardon) Donald Trump. Gerry Adams […]
Democracy by Joe McVeigh
For all our experience of elections and referendums here in the six counties there is still in some British and unionist quarters a great reluctance to accept the democratic will of the people. There is a reluctance to accept that in the north east of Ireland there are people living here like myself who have […]
Saturday pics of the week
Pics 1-3 are by John Patton (phototilly.eu) Pic 1 Pic 2 Pic 3 “Pic 1 Heron – St Stephen’s Green Stephen’s Green is a pleasant stroll on a Sunday morning. Despite the developers and the connivance of Fianna Fail, it remains largely intact as a peaceful haven in the centre of a city which attracts […]
Sinn Féin and coalition with Fine Gael
There are few things that make us cry to heaven for vengeance more shriekingly than public hypocrites. No, let me rephrase that: holier-than thou hypocrites. At the time of writing the Fine Gael party is in an awful state. After Mary Lou McDonald intimated that Sinn Féin might be open to being a junior partner […]