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belfast greyhound has commented 11 times (0 in the last month).
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Books
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…if University education were universally available and availed of, the country would collapse in one generation
The words of Brian O’Nolan, variously Brian Ó Nualláin, Myles na gCopaleen, Myles na Gopaleen and, of course, Flann O’Brien. That O’Nolan was referencing his own dissolute student days at UCD only mildly distracts from the prophetic undertone of his words: I paid no attention whatsoever to books or study and regarded lectures as a [...] read our review »
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Christopher Hitchens, 1949 – 2011
Writer Christopher Hitchens has died aged 62. He was as contrary as he was brilliant. Here is a brief In Memoriam from Vanity Fair (his outlet of choice since 1992) and, here, a longer tribute from his friend Christopher Buckley Stanley in The New Yorker. Better, perhaps, though to post one of Hitchens’ own writings in [...] read our review »
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Talking to a brick wall: how to make politicians listen?
It took me a long time to warm to advertising agencies. The first time I worked with one I was working in sales management on Fairy Washing Up Liquid. I was due to attend a meeting at which I was to be told what consumers really thought of the brand. I remember my reluctance to [...] read our review »
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Comment on Any softpedallng on Adams unlikely to be politically motivated
on 19 January 2010 at 3:07 pm
As the Guardian put it son nicely about another scheming and mendacious politician, ‘He lied and lied and lied and lied’.
Mr Adams is walking in the same footsteps and his constantly changing story is in the realm of GOBU.
The whole affair throws open a door on to the highly undemocratic way this allegedly democratic politician and his allegedly democratic party actually operates.
It strains credence beyond breaking point to believe that Adams was the only person at the top and throughout the organisation who knew about the allegations about his brother and all who knew were compliant in the corrupt cover-up.
Republican and Loyalist terror groups existed(s) in atmospheres of secrecy and covering up things is entirely normal for them.
But the affair shows up the new realisation that the Republican side is dominated by dynastic families wielding power and influence over events and decision taking through the organisation in an entirely ad hoc and undemocratic fashion.
Like a Medieval Prince Adams can dismiss a member of the organisation according to his claims about how he dealt with his brother and then pretend that dark is light and change his story(s) as it suits him.
He must be pursued in these affairs by the disinfectant of daylight and the only channel for that is through the Press and the blogs.
Politicians are people who will say one thing and do another but if there has been a widespread cover-up of this and the other allegations of abuse now revealed in the Tribune and Irish News it shows a morally bankrupt leadership interested they say in change but only if everything stays the same for them.
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Comment on Craigavon Byelection…
on 14 January 2010 at 2:47 am
When do we get the result??
Tonight or the long drawn out tomorrow??
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Comment on If you enjoyed our coverage…
on 14 January 2010 at 2:44 am
£10 well worth the spending!!!
May the cash cascade in like money into the Robinson’s bank accounts………….Oh God !! How can I say that!!
But you know what I mean Swish Family Sluggr eh??
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Comment on Which collapse scenario do you prefer?
on 10 January 2010 at 10:07 pm
I love this already lost and direction-less line of argument.
There seems to be an assumption in Nationalist circles that the bankrupt RoI actually wants to be further involved in the quagmire that is Northern Ireland politics and is still interested in integration of the ‘lost six Counties’.
It is clearly obvious that this is not the case except in sentimental circles without a close grasp of financial reality.
So far as Unionist circles are concerned the notion that GB is interested in getting closer to NI affairs and running things front up is simply not a runner any more than SF holding the balance of power is realistic.
Clutching at so many straws in the wind as usual is better than accepting facts of the argument!!
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Comment on Iris is sacked by the DUP as Castlereagh initiates investigation…
on 10 January 2010 at 2:03 am
Comrade Stalin
I take on board all you say but even if that it is true for Stormont it cannot apply to Westminster where the arcane rules are different.
She will sit and sit and sit for the money – after all her love of money has been the root of her downfall.
We live in interesting times.
Just what are the rules really governing getting rid of people from positions they have been elected to?
As UUP Reg said you could not make this up and the the fall out is entirely unpredictable except in one way – the DUP with its ‘political flippers’ will suffer enormously at the polls when the election comes.
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Comment on Iris is sacked by the DUP as Castlereagh initiates investigation…
on 9 January 2010 at 10:19 pm
There is one small cloud the size a a man’s fist on this horizon of decisiveness for the DUP.
They can throw her out of the Party and dance around her political corpse BUT she will only be a corpse when SHE decides to leave all her offices.
They cannot throw her out of any of the political offices she holds and nothing in what she has done in the length of her political life would suggest that she is likely to fall on her financial sword over this.
She knows all she has to do is hang on in there and will walk away with a pension and cash after the next election.
Worse, either she is so ill that she is unable to speak to anyone and would therefore be unable to make a rational decision about her future so only someone acting in her name could make any decisions for her, or she is just having us on.
I’m sorry there are too many ‘unknowables’ about this whole business.
Did she make a credible and real attempt to commit suicide nor didn’t she?
[Sorry BG, I appreciate your point, but a bit too much detail there - mods]
As I said in previous posts the money is what to follow and Peter needs to show that his actions were not involved in any way in this.
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Comment on Our first home-grown political scandal…
on 9 January 2010 at 4:29 pm
Funny how even a ‘new’ story’ ends up with the good old come-all-yees singing the same songs of yesteryear and managing to obscure the real nature of the present day problem here.
Partition and a malign British influence in Ireland does not cause the moral, financial and political black hole which we are seeing in the Robinson Saga.
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Comment on And what the Robinson story was really about…
on 7 January 2010 at 2:40 am
The money is the key here!!
The evangelical side of the DUP (formerly known as the Protestant Unionist Party in a previous existence???) will be outraged by the ‘sex’ and shameless woman aspect but the more pragmatic and power hungry politicals will look to see what would actually stick as dirt – and a damnation to electoral security.
In which case there is no tension – the money does the damage.
The two sides to the DUP have always been in ‘creative tension’ and to secure the maximum in influence the aspirants to public office have always had to embrace the evangelical side as a heart on the sleeve badge of Protestant piety but that was only entirely on the surface.
As Ian Paisley Jnr. keeps saying in every other context – the reality is….entirely different.
I don’t have sympathy for Iris Robinson in this situation but I do have empathy for her because she has shown herself simply to be like the rest of us susceptible to our own feelings and like us just a normal human being who managed to have feelings she needed to express.
And who among you that is without sin,let him cast the first stone.
As a member of the been there, seen it, done it’ got the t-shirt and medal brigade, I cannot say more than that.Sexually here the bottom line is that adults screwing is normal and I would hate this revelation to somehow become equated with the rape of children within a family and the elaborate cover-up that shrouded that crime from public awareness.
The money trail will be the harder for the Robinson’s to shroud from scrutiny, as well it should be.
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Comment on A fundie Christmas
on 26 December 2009 at 5:29 am
As someone from a pretty fundamentalist Shankill Road background Protestant who eventually at the second attempt married a dusky Italian octoroon, rejected all notions of God and all his works, and now by dint of circumstance and many years passing, finds himself now regularly reading at church services for soldiers and ex-soldiers and their families, and have just found the Christmas Service of Nine Lessons and Carols, based on the Canterbury model I took part in, incredibly moving, especially as the unwelcome spectre at this particular Christmas feast was Afghanistan – may I wish everyone a very Merry Christmas and a Good New Year ‘when it comes’ as we say in Scotland.
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Comment on So. Explain sub judice to me….
on 24 December 2009 at 3:50 pm
And this will run and run and run………as it seems that L Adams is intent on atempting to stay out of Court in NI and so the process of the European Warrent has to be gone through and the publicity spotlight will remain on the man who says thay he cannot get a fair trial in Northern Ireland and cannot be ‘done’ for anything in the Republic.
And all the while the cardigan of lies half truths mis-information which G Adams has surrounded his participation in the sad business will continue to unravel in much the same way as the Clerical Abuse affairs did in the Republic.
Politics, you could not make it up and have people believe it!!!
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