Author Harry McAvinchey

  Art for art’s sake, a slogan translated from the French “l’art pour l’art” and was apparently coined sometime in the early 19th century by the French philosopher Victor Cousin. The phrase vaguely expresses the belief held by many writers and artists, especially those associated with Aestheticism, that art needs no justificationand that it needs […]

Now that’s interesting .I’ve been listening on the car – radio to a piece about cockroaches.Apparently they are a somewhat smelly little creature, possibly the most primitive insect on earth, originating in tropical or sub -tropical climes and have found our centrally -heated modern homes the perfect environment to colonise and propagate their insect race. […]

   The green seats of parliament in Westminster suddenly began to look very bare as uninterested ministers scuttled and clattered away like death-watch beetles, to the safety of the looming shadows and the hob-nailed soles of the Secretary of State for Norneverland as she rose to speak to the nearly empty, booming room. The Secretary […]

“Fully prepared, they waited there, to show that Orange and Blue Must reign supreme o’er rebel Green, and would that day should all Rome’s rebly dogs — the mobs — attempt to face Loughgall: mongrel mob, from moor and bog. from far and near they came; Ragmen, cobblers, cowboys, the halt. the blind, the lame; […]

Some mornings truly are fabulous …in the real meaning of the word. The sense that they are peerless…matchless even. There was a stillness as I walked by the laggardly flowing water and the morning mist was slowly steaming off the grass as the sun was breaking through the haze. The leaves were a riddle of […]

My, oh my….There’s still no cure for our political burgoo…the hokey, pokey, jokey,tokey, cokey continues to bubble as the bitter spices blend. All that unsaid stuff bubbling just below the surface …like how each side always used a form of political violence in the past and just might use it again ,given the right circumstances […]

“Sweet suffering succatash!” Mel Blanc, as the three-time Academy Award-winning Sylvester J. Pussycat, Sr. might have lisped to Tweety Pie in one of those wonderful Friz Frelang , “Looney Tunes” cartoons. It really is as mad as that, after all. Norneverland really is the land of lunacy all right. Here’s the latest revelation to ponder […]

It’s a fine open morning in October and the honeybees are still flying .indeed the big purplish -blue passionflowers, hanging off the trellis ,on the deck , are open and in mad, tattered bloom and the bees are wrecking through the big stamens looking for a late season treat. They haven’t settled to the idea […]

How are the unionist politicians of the Executive going to make sense of their current stance and their insistence on the existence of the IRA ,when the UDA have told us all publicly today , that they, themselves, actually exist and have no plans to cease that existence at anytime soon …no matter what anyone […]

Is that it? The sunshine has gone and the drizzle has swept back scrubbing those clean, clear skies into a watery grey blur.The windows are already spotting with rain droplets and the ragged leaves on the cherry tree are already beginning to tear away in the looming breeze. I hate this getting up to the […]