Belfast Gonzo

IT’S been a bit morbid today, but another death worth noting is that of Watergate‘s Deep Throat, former FBI associate director Mark Felt. Possibly the best-known anonymous source in modern history, the ‘smoking man’ gave Woodward and Bernstein a smoking gun that eventually led to President Nixon’s resignation – the only US leader to have done so. While newspapers are often (and sometimes rightly) pilloried for their reliance on anonymous sources, without Felt it’s likely that the biggest story of …

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AFTER Gerry Adams offered the stunning insight to Barack Obama that jaw jaw is indeed better than war war, he sagely noted on Bloomberg that closer economic ties with the Republic of Ireland may see the island reunified within his lifetime. “You have an acceptance that partition no longer has any economic value,” said Adams. “It could be that the economy would be a big decider for many unionists.” Clearly the Sinn Fein leader believes that the exodus of Southern …

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COULD David McNarry (finally?!) have a valid point to make when he argues that Northern Ireland drivers should have the option of displaying the flag of St Patrick alongside their number plate? It does seem unfair that Scotland, England and Wales should be allowed to replace the ring of European stars with their own national flags – but not Northern Ireland. If St Pat’s cross can be agreed to form part of the new PSNI insignia, then it surely can …

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LAST October, Conor Cruise O’Brien told the Irish Independent: “I hope to die with a pen in my hand, but I am in no rush.” Now the writing is done. Love him or loathe him, the life of Conor Cruise O’Brien is one that had a profound influence on Irish politics – north and south – over the past half century. From his ill-fated UN diplomatic service in the Congo, to becoming a Labour TD and a minister, to his …

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NOT only have Northern Ireland dropped to 52 in the FIFA world rankings, but FIFA looks set to back plans for a ‘Team GB’ football team in the 2012 London Olympics. The BBC also reported that “it is thought he [FIFA chief Sepp Blatter] would be happy for all the players to be English if the other home nations refused to allow their players to take part”. In this part of the world, some unionists have taken offence at how …

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Indigo-Rose, Olimpia, Triniti, Honey, Vanilla, Tea, Ocean, Serenity, Autumn-Lyn, Kinga, Pepper, Yo-yo and Gypsy; Nolan, Rocklyn, Heaven, Maximus, Phoenix (also spelled Phoenixx), A-jay or Diesel – just some of the (ahem) ‘interesting’ names that parents in Northern Ireland have given their daughters and sons over the last year. Good luck with the teasing, kids. Belfast Gonzosluggerotoole.com

ONE in four of us in Northern Ireland now die from cancer, and the population – now more than 1.75 million – is the fastest growing in the UK, thanks in large part to immigration, although this might slow if the credit crunch continues. Other interesting nuggets from the 2007 annual report of the Registrar General are that 40% of births are now outside marriage, with more than half in the two biggest cities being outside wedlock, although it’s in …

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THIS is the last year of the 11-plus here, and the BBC magazine has a test for those who want to re-live the agony. How’d do you? Belfast Gonzosluggerotoole.com

THIS story is a real feather in the writer’s cap, nicely pointing out how the sheer absurdity of the rules we need in Northern Ireland to keep the peace are often applied to the most innocent of events. On this occasion, the turkeys of Co Fermanagh have now received permission from the Parades Commission to march the streets of Irvinestown. Presumably the lucky pluckers received no objections from militant vegetarians. Belfast Gonzosluggerotoole.com

If this works on a Blackberry, I’ll be amazed. Belfast Gonzosluggerotoole.com

IF you’re one of those sceptical types that believes public appointments are a political stitch-up, your suspicions probably won’t have been allayed by the exposure of this prickly correspondence. It was sparked after the Commissioner for Public Appointments told Stormont’s Public Accounts Committee: I think I could best sum up the attitude that I see on a daily basis by mentioning a phone call that one of my officials took recently from a civil servant who said: ‘well we know …

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IT was probably inevitable that in a society as broken as this one, that someone would attempt to politicise Eoghan Quigg, the 16-year-old Dungiven boy on X Factor. First, the News Letter stepped up to the mark with its story on ill-informed unionist complaints that Eoghan didn’t attend an armed forces rehab centre with other contestants (he had other commitments). Then, when Eoghan wore a poppy and sang along with the others on the massive single Hero, which is raising …

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UNFORTUNATELY, I didn’t see Mark’s offer to go walkabout yesterday morning, although it seems we took remarkably similar routes. A mixture of curiousity and convenience took me to have a nosey at the Eirigi protest, where 200-odd republicans took part in an illegal march up to police lines at the edge of the city centre. What struck me most was how closely this republican protest resembled the Orange Order parades that were banned in the late 90s – the rows …

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LAST week the Andytown News ran a leader strongly urging nationalists not to take part in a demonstration against the army’s homecoming parade. In case you’ve forgotten, the head was ‘It didn’t work for Paisley, and it isn’t going to work for us today’. But yesterday’s front page headline read: See you on Sunday. Last week, the ATN was all about defusing tension, today it’s about ratcheting things up. Over its six pages of coverage yesterday – seven articles, one …

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SINN Fein’s Barry McElduff took one small step at the weekend to stand up for the Ulstermen at Ravenhill (apologies for mixed metaphor). While rugby is an all-Ireland sport, Barry hadn’t been to a game before, perhaps because it’s perceived by some to be associated with unionism in Northern Ireland. However, he seems to have thoroughly enjoyed the experience, and says he would also accept an invitation to Windsor Park. Barry’s not the first to have crossed the (try?) line …

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THE Politics Show reports that four out of five chief executives here believe the devolved government is hindering our economy (although I think I read an account in the papers where they also preferred devolution to direct rule). The business community seems as frustrated as the rest of us, but with maybe greater reason. They know that the current economic climate makes wealth-creation more difficult, they know that political instability or stalemate is a huge disincentive to inward investment and …

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AFTER the premier of Hunger, Protestant playwright Gary Mitchell – whose mind seems uncharacteristically closed to watching the movie about another former Rathcoole resident forced out by the local loyalists – laments the lack of movies telling “the other side of the story”. Mitchell believes that views on Northern Ireland are being skewed in one direction, even though the unionist community is “exciting and interesting – there are plenty of fascinating stories in there”. Unionists often point to a sympathy …

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NEWTON Emerson asks what a lot of people have been thinking lately – is the Public Prosecution Service fit for purpose? Any lay observer of the recent failed prosecution of Chris Ward in the Northern Bank case, or Sean hoey in the Omagh bomb case could have predicted the result very easily, with minimal knowledge of the law. Both cases were doomed to failure because of the lack of evidence, leading one to question why the cases were brought to …

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THE death of the newspaper has been long predicted, but here’s a nifty device that might point an offbeat way forward and interest gadget geeks – an electronic newspaper that’s physically flexible, robust and combines numerous laptop-like facilities. Watch the video here, if you can stand the sales pitch. Belfast Gonzosluggerotoole.com

THE BBC reports that the different parts of the world’s oldest surviving Bible are to be reunited online, allowing anyone with internet access to view the Codex Sinaiticus. This seems to me to be in good historical keeping with the kind of democratisation that came about with the widespread dissemination of the Bible in previous centuries. The desire of ordinary people to read the Bible went hand in hand with the spread of printing, put reading and education in the …

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