THE man who burnt a million quid and sprayed a toy machinegun at an unsuspecting Brits audience has been back to Belfast, to re-imagine the city. The wonderful Bill Drummond is no stranger to Northern Ireland, and I kinda wished I’d bumped into him, like Moochin Photoman did a while back. Drummond seems to have a genuine love for Belfast – he makes it sound like it’s really worth visiting. Oh well… maybe sometime. Click to hear the Radio 4 programme instead.
More as a trailer than a review – as it’s out on Thursday– I draw attention to Fintan O’Toole’s latest polemic “Enough is Enough – how to build a new Republic“. Fintan has been promoting the book vigorously on this side of the water, on Radio 4’s Start the Week and here at greater length [...] read our review »
Here’s a great review of a fascinating book (H/T reader Rory) on how the Internet is destroying our capacity for intelligent, focused and critical thought. It opens thus: …here is the news that Ulin brings in this slim, meandering book: that reading is “an act of contemplation”; that such an act becomes more difficult in [...] read our review »
Not according to metallurgists Tim Foecke and Jennifer Hooper McCarty whose research has suggested that dodgy Harland and Wolff rivets were at fault for allowing the Titanic’s hull to be ripped apart by the pressure of the iceberg impact. With six of the hull’s chambers exposed to the Atlantic waters, the “unsinkable” ship lasted less [...] read our review »
Sounds like a great humanitarian……£1 million would go a long way in the Third World.
Still Art can teach us so much……but obviously not on this occasion.
Nice programme, if a bit odd to hear about Belfast (even 70s Belfast!) as a metropolitan wonderland, seen through the eyes of a very excited child. Bet the tourist board’s delighted.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/K_Foundation_Burn_a_Million_Quid
read all about it on wiki, to put it in context Abu Dhabi “burt” £12 million in the form of a fireworks display last year…
Of course he also owns the Curfew Tower in Cushendall so doesn’t just know Belfast.
“Sounds like a great humanitarian……£1 million would go a long way in the Third World.”
…would go a long way here too!
As an election approaches, and given the louses (lice?) crawling from the woodwork to seek votes, let’s remember that, in the immortal words of the philosopher Drummond, ‘they’re justified, and they’re ancient and they roam across this land…let’s throw them off a bridge’.
(Last line’s not quite right, but ticks my boxes)