June, 2019

I was in Waterstone’s  Bookshop in London’sCrouch End at the weekend. An excellent chain of bookshops. And Crouch End/Alexandra Palace and environs has perhaps the highest concentration of high-profile writers, broadcasters, TV commentators, and other media people in the Anglophone world. BBC Television.was launched from Alexandra Palace in the 1930s and down the hill, which […]

The U.S. premiere of Pulitzer Center grantee Callum Macrae’s The Ballymurphy Precedent screened at the E Street Cinema in Washington, D.C., on Monday, June 10, 2019. The film covers the Ballymurphy massacre, an event that occurred early in Northern Ireland’s “Troubles.” In August 1971, members of the British Army’s Parachute Regiment killed 11 unarmed Catholic civilians in Belfast’s predominantly Catholic Ballymurphy neighborhood. The Parachute Regiment […]

The political world has surely turned into a gloomy underworld, when you give a little gasp of disappointment at the news that a man who probably worked as an MI6 spy and who declares himself a devoted unionist is knocked out of the Tory leadership race. But that’s what happened yesterday – Rory Stewart was […]

Is there a link between a country’s sporting success and its political success? You can see how they might be. Cheering on the Irish rugby team is the nearest many people get to feeling pride in their country – although the buttock-clenching “Ireland’s Call” is bound to have a counter-productive impact. Gaelic games perhaps come […]

S President Franklin D Roosevelt was quite frank when asked why he supported a universally recognised sonofabitch.  “He’s OUR sonofabitch” he replied. His equally plainspoken successor, Harry S Truman, when asked why he had never spoken up for mistreated Arabs in Palestine, is reputed to have answered that he didn’t know any Arabs on the […]

You know the way the markets and business generally hate uncertainty?  That’s why the value of the pound has been sliding for months now. Try having a holiday in the US or the EU and you’ll know what I mean.  So there’s a pressing need for an end to the present uncertainty. But what if […]

SANYO DIGITAL CAMERA                                                                                                                                                                                 Mutt comes especially alive, blossoms, indeed,  on Bloomsday (June 16) that day of days for all true, blue DUPliners. And this year more than most, for it afforded him a chance to point out to an ineffable Jeff from their unmatched vantage point on top of Liberty Hall, […]

From THE IRISH TIMES  OCT 2 2014 ( Though Jude and I were the unacquainted with each other, he cited this letter of mine, with approvaI, in his BLOG  “Electorai Personation and Intimidation” on the day of its appearance in The Irish Times) “Professor John P McCarthy (Sept 30th) would have us believe that the […]

 The Twitter comments on last night’s Tory leadership debate on Channel Four were more interesting (if less respectful) than the debate itself. But there were a few things we can scrape from it. If there is a more irritating man in the world than Michael Gove,  he should maybe go into a dark room with […]

S Sometimes the powers-that-be overstep the mark. Most of the time they get away with it. You’ll recall, I’m sure, when Tony Blair was trying to sell his weapons-of-mass-destruction snake-oil, millions of people, particularly in the UK, took to the streets to tell him they didn’t believe him and they were opposed to the invasion […]