June, 2020

It must about fifteen years ago when I and  my wife, holidaying in Italy’s “Le Cinque Terra”,drove down to the major port of La Spezia. We were enjoying a snack and a cool drink when a party from an oversized cruise ship took over the  joint.  I think  the party won places on the cruise […]

 At the weekend, as you no doubt know, the statue of Edward Colson in Bristol had a rough experience. First they pulled it down, then they rolled it to the water’s edge, then they dumped it in. Much rejoicing – they’d had enough of living in a city where a slave trader was honoured by […]

I was the only customer, somehow finding myself in the café even before the exceptionally  early predawn opening time. Or was it the all night café, where all the small (vast) hours’ city chaff gathered? I asked for a paper cup of the Trinity of coffees, a triple express, ‘to go’, destination unknown; I needed […]

I don’t know whether my current plight should be compared or contrasted with that of Touchstone, from whom I have taken the quotation. I have been under lockdown in a comfortable  suburban house in a once Imperial capital these past thirteen weeks, warm and dry whilst the rain is pelting down outside. Touchstone  had been […]

​​​​                                   Miss Martin’s piano was lovely. It had a nice chocolate colour to it, not scratched and black like ours. All its keys worked and none of them had bits of their ivory missing.  When I pressed them, they gave a rich cushioned sound. When Miss Martin pressed them, it made me think […]

This blog first appeared as a column in the Andersonstown News A mental itch that I’ve carried for decades has flared up in recent days. The people responsible for the flare-up are the clappers: you know, the people who stood outside their door Thursday nights and clapped the NHS workers.  Am I saying that NHS […]

Sometimes, even though you know it’s been talked about and analysed from every angle, an issue is so big and so important, you cannot pass it by. That’s what’s happened this week. The appalling death of George Floyd created such a wave of revulsion throughout the world, it was impossible not to discuss it. Probably […]

On 16th January 1922, His Excellency, Lord Fitzalan, Viceroy of Ireland, most graciously raciously bestowed Dublin Castle on the Provisional Government of Southern Ireland. The Good Lord himself had been bestowed on Ireland by her Imperial Rulers in April 1921, to complement the British Military, Black and Tans, Royal Irish Constabulary, spies and hangmen who […]

 I write not of Cicero, Illinois, a Chicago suburb once run by Al Capone and his mob, and in the news as I write because of the backlash from the police murder of George Floyd in Minneapolis. No, I write of Marcus Tullius Cicero, whose ethnicity was shared by Capone, and whose moral character, philosophy […]