Author Jude Collins

And speaking of Number Ones…This is a first guest post on this site. I’ll be interested to read reaction to it and to the idea of using guest posters/bloggers. The description below comes from Sammy himself – JC   Sammy McNally is an itinerant Fenian scribbler… and a fictional prod character bestowed upon us by […]

When I was a teenage boarder in St Columb’s in Derry, I used hold my breath on a Saturday night as my (illegal) crystal set ( attached to metal bed-post and under-mattress bed-springs) played the hits and told me what was Number One that week. Maybe that’s what’s motivating the flaggers: last night they were […]

When I was a teenage boarder in St Columb’s in Derry, I used hold my breath on a Saturday night as my (illegal) crystal set ( attached to metal bed-post and under-mattress bed-springs) played the hits and told me what was Number One that week. Maybe that’s what’s motivating the flaggers: last night they were […]

It’s been said of the game of golf that it’s a good walk ruined but I think that’s being too soft on it. It’s a game where you play against others but nothing you do can affect their play – unlike football, soccer, rugby, tennis hurling,  handball and lots of other sensible games.  I don’t […]

It’s been said of the game of golf that it’s a good walk ruined but I think that’s being too soft on it. It’s a game where you play against others but nothing you do can affect their play – unlike football, soccer, rugby, tennis hurling,  handball and lots of other sensible games.  I don’t […]

Well, Peter Robinson and Mike Nesbitt may believe in a shared future but they definitely don’t believe in a shared forum. That’s strictly unionist – no taigs need apply. Which is odd, really, because you’d think that violence in response to a democratic decision should be the concern of everyone. If you’re an inner-city trader […]

Well, Peter Robinson and Mike Nesbitt may believe in a shared future but they definitely don’t believe in a shared forum. That’s strictly unionist – no taigs need apply. Which is odd, really, because you’d think that violence in response to a democratic decision should be the concern of everyone. If you’re an inner-city trader […]

“Humankind cannot bear very much reality”  – that was T S Eliot’s judgement on us.  Had he been around in the 1980s to witness the huff-and-puff about the BBC NI programme Real Lives, he would have nodded in recognition. Alasdair Milne, who has just died and was director-general of the BBC at the time,  pushed […]

“Humankind cannot bear very much reality”  – that was T S Eliot’s judgement on us.  Had he been around in the 1980s to witness the huff-and-puff about the BBC NI programme Real Lives, he would have nodded in recognition. Alasdair Milne, who has just died and was director-general of the BBC at the time,  pushed […]

‘O Happy Day!’  Is that the song unionists will have on their lips today? Especially the flag protestor unionists? You might expect so, because today the Union flag will be raised over City Hall once again. It’s to mark the birthday of  Katie Middleton,  former commoner, now the Duchess of Cambridge. It’ll go up on […]