“You can take all the tea in China
Put in a big brown bag for me.
Sail round the seven oceans,
Drop it smack dab into the deep blue sea.”
Van Morrison, Tupelo Honey
Splat !!!!
Following the announcement on Monday 21 September of new NI wide restrictions on both indoor and outdoor social gatherings, I was talking with a friend. A friend who was somewhere between despondent, cynical & despairing.
Superficial positivity, however well-intentioned, really is not my thing. Remember the 1990s New Age “Practice an Act of Random Kindness”? Yeah right, my default setting was “Practice an Act of Deliberate Weirdness”.
Whatever… but to cheer-up my friend I suggested they just hang in there. and even suggested, “who knows, tomorrow something astonishing might happen”
I make no claims for prescience. I was an economist by profession. And as JK Galbraith put it “economic forecasters exist to make astrologers look good”
But something astonishing has occurred. Robin Swann, the Health Minister for Norn Ironland has written an op-ed piece for Rolling Stone. Specifically, he takes to trash and rubbishes the recent statements and tunes of Van the Man. Yeah, I know I know, Rolling Stone is very mainstream, about as cutting edge Barry Manilow, but still …. Robin Swann writing in Rolling Stone.
” … In an op-ed for Rolling Stone, Swann vacillates between disappointment, bemusement and anger at the new cause of one of Northern Ireland’s most celebrated singers. (full link below) “His words will give great comfort to the conspiracy theorists,” writes Swann. “The tinfoil hat brigade who crusade against masks and vaccines and think this is all a huge global plot to remove freedoms.”
Though I rarely have anything complimentary to say about our local political class, in this instance Robin, you have made my day…. maybe even lit a delicate flame to help me through the dark and weird days and months to come.
Who knows, maybe even some local politicians will issue apologies for attending Vans celebratory Cyprus Avenue gig.
We live in interesting times.
foreigner resident in norn ironlad since 1979
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