April, 2019

  The survival of the structure and most of the artistic and cultural treasures of Notre Dame is heartening. And listening to and watching the Parisian, other Frenchmen and women, and commentatorsfrom all over the world, was inspirational. Christians and other believers together with unbelievers and devout atheists lay claim to that Cathedral, proud to […]

It was interesting to see and hear the horror of the French people, and people throughout the world, at the news of the huge fire at Notre Dame cathedral in Paris yesterday.  Only a small number of these is likely to be Catholic, so the sense of sadness and loss clearly went beyond any religious […]

It was appropriate that Tiger Woods should have won the US Masters golf tournament on Palm Sunday. Pretty well all of us know the Bible account  of how Jesus entered Jerusalem on a donkey, with the people strewing palms before it and singing the praise of the Messiah. Euphoric is as good a word as […]

Nostalgia is certainly not what it used to be, given current controversies about the cause of the conflict in Ireland.  A disinterested observer exposed to evidence of chronic economic and social conditions in the north of Ireland prior to 1970, might wish to examine the role of the state in perpetuating the conflict, a state […]

SANYO DIGITAL CAMERA   A new Yawn, so,  in the life of a Yunefied Ireland, oopsy doopsy, Island. The Stretch of the Arms and the Trouser Cough will inevitably  follow the Yawn, as surely, Shirley, as  an Lá chuck-wagon follows Sioc na  hOíche. The Yunefication of Yunes North and Yunes South and the decision to […]

Captain Alfred Dreyfus, an  Artillery Officer in the French Army was accused of passing secretsto the Germans and found guilty of treason by Court Martial in 1894. The important aspects of the case are . 1. Dreyfus was Innocent.  2. Dreyfus was Jewish. Dreyfus was a scapegoat in a country poisonously divided between Conservative, largely […]

A few weeks ago I turned on the TV to behold one Willoughby de Broke speaking to his Peers in theHouse of Lords on behalf of UKIP. I had a double-take, for I thought he had been buried, together with the Third Home Rule Bill, way back in 1912. So I checked him out and […]

On BBC ONE  this morning, Andrew Marr had three women reviewing the papers. The bit that I caught was when they were considering Jeremy Corbyn’s relationship with anti-Semitism in the Labour Party. None of the four people, including Marr, suggested that Corbyn and/or the Labour Party might not be ant-Semitic. That was taken as a […]

Pics 1-3 are by Perkin Warbeck  Pic 1  Pic 2                    THE   WHOLE  of the  WALL  GANG                           (Rosc Catha: ‘Up an’  ATM !’) 3    SNAPS  to  HEAVEN   (as in Bread of same) SNAP  1:         […]

In 1946, aged 20, having served in the US Army and having had his first novel “Williwaw” published to critical and public acclaim, Gore Vidal betook himself to Guatemala to write another novel. He would have gone to Europe but that ravaged continent was not then open to tourists. He got to know and talk […]