The honeymoon’s over

According to The Belfast Telegraph on Saturday, the honeymoon between Paisley and McGuinness is over. Apparently, the sight of the love-ins and laugh-ins that the two men shared were just too much for everyone – diehard provies and stalwart DUP members in particular. Not to mention the rest of us gullible sods who have had to put up with the sight of nearly 40 years being laughed off overnight. So the word is out to the First Minister and Deputy First Minister from their own grassrooters – get a grip of yersel’s.

For what died the sons of Roisin?

I’ve been very busy work-wise so it seems I’ve more than a little catching up to do blog-wise. So these are some of the things that struck me over the last while:

Let’s start with The Famous Northern Ireland Peace Process: Shortly after my last entry, the auspicious day arose, the day when Ian Paisley and Martin McGuinness came together to jointly take up the reins of First Minister and Deputy First Minister. For me, the most telling image on TV was that of old Mr Paisley of the DUP turning to shuffle back through the front door of Stormont while young Martin McGuinness of IRA/Sinn Fein gently laid a guiding and – massively – patronising hand on his back.

That annoyed me somewhat. Not just because it was a hypocritical piece of body language, but mainly because we went through a period of three and a half thousand dead to get to this stage of patting each other on the back.

Let’s face it, if this is where everyone wants to be, why did we not – for example – accept the Hume-SDLP vision much sooner? Because that’s what we now have, albeit packaged with significantly more pizazz. And that’s why the prospect of smiling photo-calls with beaming SF and DUP MLAs now annoys me. Not because of the power of their mandate, but because they’ve both callously switched the ‘Process’ on and off in the past.

Noticed a death anniversary notice in the local paper for an IRA man. Standing proudly by the words Oglaigh na hEireann were those other famous Republican words: You’ll Never Walk Alone. And instead of an Easter lily or some such iconic Republican graphic, was the gleaming crest of Liverpool Football Club.

Like Luke Kelly sang long ago, For What died the Sons of Roisin?

George Bush does Bono

Bottom line: I admire the rep-rep-rep-rep-repetitive tenacity (ok, it’s late, I know there’s no such thing) of the guys and girls who put stuff like this together just for the hell of it:

Paisley, Sir Bono and a Chocolate Jesus

Excuse me for not blogging over these past seven days – but who could blame me? Because no sooner did something happen to inspire a line or two but up popped something else to put it completely in the shade.

Take Paisley and Adams at Stormont. Am I the only person in Ireland to see that coming? Judging by the comments so far, I think I am. But anyone who has monitored these two closely over the years could have seen the tell-tale signs of de Selby’s Atomic Theory happening before their very eyes. Readers of Flann O’Brien’s Third Policeman will remember that de Selby’s theory suggested that the more two things collide, the more their atoms are interchanged and the more they take on the characteristics of the other. His example cited a policeman and a bicycle. After years of contact over the bumby roads of Ireland, the bike ended up more man than machine and vice versa. Hence Paisley has recently taken to wearing the “broad black brimmer of the IRA” – the head gear favoured by the lads in days of yore:

 

And likewise, Gerry Adams has recently begun to look a little more clerical in his attire:

This time next year, you can expect Adams to be living in Ballymena and teaching Sunday School; and if you’re visiting a GAA match in Casement Park don’t be surprised to see Big Ian performing the honorary throw in.

Then came news that Bono had accepted an honorary knighthood, a la Terry Wogan and Bob Geldof. Apparently, Bono doesn’t want to be called Sir: “You have permission to call me anything you want – except sir, all right? Lord of lords, your demigodness, that’ll do.” Bless.

If that wasn’t barmy enough, we then had Christian protestors in New York force the cancellation of Canadian artist’s Cosimo Cavallaro’e exhibition which featured a nude 6 foot chocolate statue of Jesus. Having this banned in Ballymena I could understand – but New York?

Cavallaro is no stranger to controversy apparently and previous work includes painting a Manhattan hotel room in melted mozzarella and festooning a four-poster bed with 312 pounds of processed ham.” He had hoped that visitors might lick the sculpture. After all, he says, Christians receive the “body and blood” of Christ as food in the act of holy communion. Surely a case of My Sweet Lord.

But I’m surprised by all the fuss. The concept of a chocolate Jesus has been around a long time, as in the song Chocolate Jesus by Tom Waits:

Dont go to church on sunday
Dont get on my knees to pray
Dont memorize the books of the bible
I got my own special way
Bit I know jesus loves me
Maybe just a little bit more

I fall on my knees every sunday
At zerelda lees candy store

Well its got to be a chocolate jesus
Make me feel good inside
Got to be a chocolate jesus
Keep me satisfied

Well I dont want no anna zabba
Dont want no almond joy
There aint nothing better
Suitable for this boy
Well its the only thing
That can pick me up
Better than a cup of gold
See only a chocolate jesus
Can satisfy my soul

(solo)
When the weather gets rough
And its whiskey in the shade
Its best to wrap your savior
Up in cellophane
He flows like the big muddy
But thats ok
Pour him over ice cream
For a nice parfait

Well its got to be a chocolate jesus
Good enough for me
Got to be a chocolate jesus
Good enough for me

Well its got to be a chocolate jesus
Make me feel good inside
Got to be a chocolate jesus
Keep me satisfied

And who can forget chocolate Last Supper bars, as this from worldnetdaily.com suggests:

One day at a time, Sweet Jesus

‘Last Supper’ bars too tempting? (Bucks County Courier Times)

Speaking of appetite, in Pennsylvania, Jesus became the subject of a holy war over candy as chocolate lovers questioned whether they should consume bars featuring the image of the Son of God.

“I just don’t think that you should eat anything that’s Jesus,” Liz Samuel told the Bucks County Courier Times. “It’s OK to eat the cross as long as God is not on it.”

Chocolatier Pamela Roberts told the paper she was reluctant at first to sell “The Last Supper” bars: “Sometimes I think it could be a sacrilege. But the nuns just love them.”

Night night everybody – sweet dreams.

Amnesty International Ads: Pass them on

Credits:

Advertiser: AMNESTY INTERNATIONAL
Product or Service: ANTI-TORTURE CAMPAIGN
Entrant Company, City: BBDO DENMARK, Copenhagen
Country: DENMARK
Advertising Agency, City: BBDO DENMARK, Copenhagen
Country: DENMARK
Creative Director: Carsten Schiott/Mads Ohrt
Copywriter: Jesper Hansen
Art Director: Olga Bastian/Jesper Isholm
Photographer: Martin Soeby
Typographer: Olga Bastian
Account Supervisor: Jesper Hansen/Anette Milner
Advertiser’s Supervisor: Eva Hesse

Eamon McCann, Dory Previn and the IRA

I took the train to Dublin this morning (again) and once I had some work out of the way took a quick flick through the latest Hot Press magazine. It was then I realised (again) that my big regret about not living in Derry is not being able to vote for the redoubtable Eamon McCann – a man who has been representing the Socialist Environmental Alliance over the past number of elections. Being an obstinate bald lefty, he and I have much in common.

And now it seems we have an American singer in common too, because I see from his current column that he is now at an age when he believes he can appreciate Dory Previn. When I first heard her back in the very early 80s, I soon gave up name-checking her and playing her for friends when invariably greeted with “Are you for f**kin’ real?”

McCann – under the headline Songs they don’t play on the Radio – then goes on to name-check Tony Bird – a white blues singer from Malawi whom he once heard in a record store in Winnipeg. With a mention like that, I’m simply going to have to check him out myself.

I’m also smiling at McCann’s barbed comments about the futility of the Northern Ireland Troubles: “Was ever political death so futile as in the Six Counties in the last 30-plus years. No more the broad black brimmer, but the slim black briefcase of the IRA.”

Then he quotes Eamon Friel’s recent Here is the River which he calls the first best song of the ceasefire and loss: “When all the flags are buried/All the emblems and anthems too/Then I’ll salute the flag of me and you.”

Good man McCann – you’ve got an invite to this month’s God Save Ireland Dinner Party (see sidebar for details).

The Decemberists: Shankhill Butchers

I only came across this song at the weekend and while it is very good, I’m intrigued as to why a band from Portland Oregon should be singing about a gang of cut-throats in Belfast. I must find out more. The band are very good, by the way.

The shankill butchers run tonight
You better shut your windows tight
They’re sharpening their cleavers and their knives
And taking all their whiskey by the pint

And everybody knows if you don’t
Mind your mother’s words
A wicked wind will blow
Your ribbons from your curls
Everybody moan, everybody shake
The shankill butchers wanna cut you away

They used to be just like me and you
They used to be sweet little boys
But something went horribly askew
Now killing is their only source of joy

And everybody knows if you don’t
Mind your mother’s words
A wicked wind will blow
Your ribbons from your curls
Everybody moan, everybody shake
The shankill butchers wanna cut you away

The shankill butchers run tonight
They’re waiting until the dead of the night
They’re picking at their fingers with their knives
And wiping off their cleavers on their thighs

And everybody knows if you don’t
Mind your mother’s words
A wicked wind will blow
Your ribbons from your curls
Everybody moan, everybody shake
The shankill butchers wanna cut you away

A bone to pick with The Irish Times

Here’s a gripe. Shane Hegarty wrote a piece last Saturday that I found both predictable and lazy. It might also be labelled xenophobic if that didn’t open up a whole new philosophical can of worms about the border, unity, identity et al.

To give you the gist of it, he was having a pop at northerners in the light of the assembly elections in this neck of the woods. He said: “…while Northern Ireland is an important and relevant story, boy is it boring.” Also: “…the public finds the political inertia tedious, is tired of the familiar cast of characters spouting the same old lines and is baffled by the narrow-mindedness and intense parochialism.” No argument there, Shane.

Of TV news in the north, he said it contains: “…such a litany of misery that it becomes almost bleakly comic.” He lamented that: “we [ie, the Republic] show more interest in it than it does in us”. And finally he underlined his lack of political nous by claiming that: “This election was about water charges and house prices as much as it was about fighting a territorial war by other means.” (The results told us otherwise, Shane.)

Speaking as someone who has a foot in both camps, I can certainly understand why southerners generally bemoan the fact that their northern brethern have their heads up their asses when it comes to politics and entrenchment. And no-one will deny how tedious it all becomes.

But there is another northerner in the north, one who takes as much interest in the south as they do in their own local squabbles. These are the people who will watch the much more ‘exciting’ RTE/TV3/TG4 news. They are the people who believe the border never existed for themselves personally – in their business, social and sporting lives – who may or may not be Irish or British, or who even think of themselves as of Ireland, of Britain (the point has been made to me before). And they’re also the people who recognise that many other people in the north never had the luxury of looking to Dublin or The Irish Times for civic guidance because they had several more pressing demands closer to home.

I’m all for an end to tedious politics – just as I’m all for an end to glib journalism, one-up-manship and patronising attitudes.

The most ironic thing about the article was the headline that ran with it: ‘This is not about the North. Honest.’ At least that part was true. It actually said much more about Shane Hegarty.

Revealed: the real reason why the SDLP fared so badly in the elections.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

You see, if you go out canvassing and just stand around laughing at the less fortunate, well… you’re just asking for it really.

Remember I said that Gerry Adams looked cool?

Well I’ve changed my mind.

(see previous blog below)

Gerry Adams, The Duke of York and a Circus Pony

On Friday evening, I was frog-marched along – much against my will – for an after-work scoop to the Duke of York public house in the beautiful “Cathedral Quarter” of Belfast. Well actually it was my idea. For those of you not familiar with the city, or for those who never venture further north than Castle Court, The Duke is an old pub with a young crowd and is famous mostly for once employing a young Gerry Adams as a barman. The subject of Gerry always comes up when someone enters the pub for the first time. One of the guys dutifully brought it up on Friday night. “Do you think Adams had his fingers in the till when he was here?” His question took us aback. But he wasn’t casting any aspersions on Gerry. It seems our friend had read that anyone who works in a bar will have dipped the till at some stage. We were just about to quiz him on his own time behind the student union bar when our attention was diverted by a commotion at the door. It seemed a middle-aged man in a cossack hat was attempting to bring a circus pony into the bar. As you do, on a Friday after work. For some strange reason, he wasn’t allowed in (that presumably accounted for the long face) but the barman had drinks sent out to them. We then got back to the subject of Gerry Adams and someone wondered if Adams is actually the coolest man in Ireland. I wouldn’t have been in this camp previously but in the light of the election results, I think there might be a case – if you take Sean Og O hAilpin out of the equation. For example, Adams is probably about 60 but on the day of the election count he was wearing what people half his age are wearing in our office – jacket, jeans, open shirt – and he looked better than any of us. He has the knack of always effortlessly capturing the look of the moment. No doubt about it, the guy is in a league of his own. The only others who have a similar presence are Blair and Clinton. (But Paisley too has something about him. I met him once at a shindig in Stormont and half expected dandruff and hairy ears. Not a bit of it. He was very spick and span.) But Adams is a different class. Whether he’s Gerry the Author, Gerry the International Diplomat, Gerry the Antrim GAA supporter, Gerry the I’m-just-taking-my-grandaughter-to-Clonard-Novena-so-no-photographs-now-please, he nails the right look perfectly. I just wonder where the ‘peace process’ would be without him. Not because there aren’t the others to espouse the vision. Clearly there are. It’s just that ‘cool’ brings clout, and ‘cool’ keeps the cameras clicking. Remember John Hume? He didn’t make any of the cameras click and look at his party now. And is it Adams that is cool, or is it Sinn Fein? Well, picture any recent photo you’ve seen of the uber-casual Adams and just slot McGuinness/Kelly/McLaughlin in there. It doesn’t really work without Gerry. (Hey – there’s a slogan.) The only fly in the ointment is when Adams is moved away from the “We have to move the peace process forward” rhetoric. After his party’s Ard Fheis in Dublin, he was quizzed on RTE about Sinn Fein’s tax proposals and it was patently obvious that he knew few if any of the facts. He squirmed and looked seriously uncool. In fact, I think the circus pony would have had more of a clue than Gerry had. I’ll tell you what, check back here later – I’ll maybe have my pic of the said horse up by that stage. Then you can judge who’s coolest – Gerry or the one trick pony.

We get the politicians we deserve? Surely not.

I was never quite sure about the truth of that old mantra. Otherwise, I’m sure Michelle Pfeiffer would have been round knocking on my door wearing a Fermanagh jersey and very little else. I’m not quite sure what the ladies in the picture above deserve either, but they were probably quite satisfied when SDLP candidate and local chip shop owner Joe Somebody dropped in with a few fish suppers while on the hustings. One of them may even have remarked how much he looks like that nice Swiss Tony off the TV. But as we hardy, work-ethic-led Northerners come to grips with the power-hungry lot we seem to have elected over the past 24 hours, I just wonder how it will all pan out. Personally, I’m disappointed that the Greens didn’t do a bit better (I would have voted for that nice Al Gore had he stood). I’m also sorry that there aren’t enough any serious lefties elected to the corridor (sic) of power. I heard somebody say this morning that if you are now introduced to a Protestant that votes, it’s odds on they vote for the DUP. Likewise, if it’s a Catholic you’re meeting, you’ll be shaking hands with a Shinner. That’s the way it looks at the moment. We are a marked People. And the People have spoken. Sorry, THEY’VE SHOUTED. AGAIN! ONLY LOUDER! God save Ireland, says God save Ireland.

God Save The Queen at Croke Park

My mate wonders if listening to track 5 on the first Sex Pistols album on his iPod before the Fermanagh Mayo semi-final counts?

I’m afraid I’m going to talk about the Elections

When I was a kid I used to lie awake at night listening to a transistor under under the bed clothes. I would listen until I dropped off to sleep. And while I don’t relish listening to the general, run of the mill political commentary, I’m afraid I have to admit to a very sick habit of now lying in bed late at night listening to the swings and roundabouts of the election results. I love it. As I write, the radio is babbling away in the background, bringing us the latest on the transfers in Fermanagh South Tyrone and who is yesterday’s news in North Down. In a few moments we’ll be whisked to South Armagh. Then to the count in Omagh. And Ballymena, Banbridge and all points west. And we are treated to talking heads such as Gerry Kelly, the Reverend William McCrea and Robert McCartney. McCrea is one of my favourites. Years ago I used to collect C&W albums by Ernest Tubb – simply for the hillbilly contours of his face and the subtle retouched colour of the photo used. They were beautiful things. But they pale in comparison to the Mid-Ulster bible belt influences on the covers of McCrea’s gospel albums – not to mention the thin-lipped majesty of his countenance. Sorry – getting a bit carried away. But it’s hard not to want to vote for a man so multi-talented. Then there’s Robert McCartney – a slim, suave, silver-haired intellectual barrister who looks a bit like a Q-tip. One tip for Bob after tonight’s results – don’t spread yourself so thin. Because while I would dearly have loved the novelty of him succeeding in the five constituencies in which he stood, the garrulous Bob would just have ended up spouting five times the usual amount of shite. And as for Gerry Kelly, all I can say is that my good friend and neighbour thinks he is by far the best looking politician in Ireland. Sex on legs, I think he described him as. Uh-oh, the broadcast’s over. Time to play some music. Ernest Tubb or Willie McCrea? Hmmmm, God Save Ireland from them all.