Author Jude Collins

            People who like to pat themselves on the back can be irritating to the point where you’d be tempted to give them a kick on the backside. You probably know the kind of person I’m talking about. A discussion about the price of petrol in the 1980s is hi-jacked while he tells of the […]

            Rummaging in my drawers, as I do occasionally, I discovered a piece I wrote nearly 16 years ago.   You will forgive me if I unload it on you.It refers to something arising from events 36 years ago.   I have changed the name of one correspondent and institution […]

God loves a tryer, they say, but He or She must be getting tired of some tryers. There are tryers who not only try our patience but in fact give us a glimpse of what might be their insanity. Cast your mind back to, let’s say, 2011.  That’s when Martin McGuinness announced his intention of […]

Arlene Foster now broadcasts on GB Radio and she’s very cross with Rishi Sunak – it appears he’s a bit less that 110%  behind the Union. Is she realising that only now? Jeremy Clarkson has talked about how much he hates Meghan Markel, and how he dreams of seeing her walking naked down a street […]

In letters and articles  over many years I have let fly at Fergal Keane’s broadcasts and articles and in private conversations indulged in what an unlettered but inspired neighbour described as upstream language.   When I heard him on the BBC claim that Michael Collins had tried to get his comrades accept the partition of […]

    “Balancing the right to privacy and freedom of expression is a delicate exercise. But in Britain this balance is being tilted too far towards the former with the result that the rich and powerful are being handed tools to evade legitimate scrutiny.   The latest restriction on press freedom is a draft new […]

I never cease to be impressed by the ease with which the mainstream media can make themselves invisible. For example, in today’s Irish Times Letters page, there’s this from Danny Boyd of Newtownabbey: Sir, – Anne Harris’s column “Varadkar, right now, is the leader we need” (Opinion & Analysis, December 20th) includes the statement, “Blair […]

  I sent this letter to THE IRISH POST on 4 January 2011.  I Don’t know whether it was published. But 12 years later I trust some readers might enjoy it.     “THE TIMES (January 3rd) carried an  Obituary of the historian A.T.Q. Stewart whom it  described as  ‘the foremost historian of Northern Ireland […]

I’ve just had a brainwave: Stephen Collins could make a fortune as a stand-up comic. No, really. You start to read his column with laughter the last thing on your mind. After the first ten words you’re plunged into a glorious fit of giggling. Like Stephen in The Irish Times last Friday. Under the sober […]

                                    The (London) TIMES today, Saturday 17 December 2022 on pages 10 and 11 carried a  picture taken in October2021 at Chevening  the official Country Home of the UK Foreign  Secretary.    The accompanying storyline says that staff […]