Having been away over the weekend, I've just got around to watching through some bits of the Olympic closing ceremony. The over-riding impression I was left with as I watched was the sheer organisation and discipline of the Chinese organisers.Huge numbers of performers, working in low light, with few cues. Beyond military timing. But close to perfect.And taking chances with high wire jinks and acrobatics, light wheels (gyro-cycles) and synchronised fireworks.Fireworks that can spell out numbers. That can be fired by cannon into the air. That make the coloured Olympic rings.With no way of practising the closing ceremony in the stadium after the sporting events had started, there was no opportunity for a last minute dress rehearsal. (Maybe explains why the camera work around the London...
It's not just Glasgow that can artistically place a traffic cone on top of a...
Three cheers for that bureaucratic pain, but first defence of human rights section 75 for taking Gay Rights to the top- even creating a ruffle in the Robinson household perhaps? And two cheers for the Belfast Telegraph for digging out the story under FoI ( great headline guys, you kept it simple). And to Pink News for, well, celebrating the news.
“First Minister to authorise grants despite wife’s outspoken comments
80,000 to gay groups within the next seven months — despite his wife’s controversial views on homosexuality.”
Officials have also confirmed that Stormont grant-aid totalling £100,000 was allocated to the gay sector during Ian Paisley’s period as First Minister.
It has further been revealed that money from the Office of the...
This is my current work area at home and will be for a little while, its very good i have to say! A blog has been one of the first stages of my new job! We have a webshop in development right now and there have been many setbacks but this week has been my first week in charge of the project. I am not sure if i feel like i am in charge just yet, a lot of our progress depends on the company who are providing all of our computer needs across the shops. To say that they have a played a huge role in our development over the last year is probably a bit of an understatement. It would be equally understated to suggest that these guys are very busy with all our current needs. In light of this we need to learn to walk before we run, and perhaps that is a good thing. So in the meantime, updates and...
For those who don’t know, my Astra was attacked in Donegal at the end of July. Woke up to the damage on the Saturday morning. The windscreen was fixed for just the £60 excess on the Monday (apparently these guys don’t do weekends). The Garda were nice but never inspired much hope of catching anyone and were ultimately useless. Anyway, having left work I finally got around to shopping around for estimates and thought I’d share my experience for anyone else looking to get a car repaired in the Belfast area.
My Experience
I actually got one from Bodytech Collision Repair in Carrickfergus a few weeks ago, because they seem to be the only car body repair outfit open on a Saturday morning. They came in at £666 + VAT which was £783.31 to you and me. They seemed very...
After the “kerfuffle” - the threats, the clarification, and the rebuttal - apparently the DUP and Sinn Féin are to hold talks next week. As the Belfast Telegraph report tells usThe DUP today said it was waiting confirmation of talks with Sinn Fein for next week to tackle the impasse threatening the future of devolution. Sinn Fein has also organised a series of internal consultations, including a meeting of its 27 Assembly members also next week.
Well we’re certainly not in May now.. But will they take the advice offered in the NewsLetter editorial? Probably not.....
In his column in the Irish News today, the always stimulating Brian Feeney raises one of the major issues emerging out of the population study I referred to frivilously on Tuesday. He in effect poses a 64,000 euro question: should government ( whatever that is these days ) abandon the fiction of one community and break it down into a range of different social and sectarian profiles?
“What is needed from the devolved administration at Stormont is a set of policies to take account of the different population profiles in the Catholic and Protestant communities, to answer their different needs and stop following the outdated NIO mindset of trying to pretend that everything here would be OK if everyone started behaving as if they lived in England”.
I want to be...
As August comes to a close, we announce the last couple of Slugger Awards categories. The late David Ervine MLA might have been an obvious and popular candidate for this award – because of his ability to transcend the normal babble of day-to-day politics, to cross from the boundaries of his Loyalism (he often polled as the most trusted unionist, by nationalists) and to communicate articulately (some commented that he often spoke too articulately, and teased about his having ‘swallowed a dictionary’. I know more than one colleague who signed up to http://dictionary.reference.com/ for their learned ‘word of the day’ in Davy’s honour!)
So, you have 108 to choose from – leaders, ministers, speakers, humble backbenchers, they come in all shapes and...
BBC
Children as young as 13 threw stones and petrol bombs at police in Londonderry on Wednesday night, according to a community worker.
Officers were attacked as they arrived at the scene of a hit-and-run in Carranbane Walk in Shantallow at about 2000 BST on Wednesday.
The car involved in the hit-and-run was abandoned and set alight, and...
This Sunday sees the first Old Firm of the new season kicking off.On the pitch Celtic appear to have a few injury worries. Most notably prolific hit man Scot Mc Donald and big Jan, and now it seems the Prodigal Shaun, who set Parkhead alight on his return last week (which I was privileged enough to see). I think an awful lot of this is media hype, and I think that the Hoops should ease past the despondent Gers side. Their display against Falkirk was magical at times, with Samaras even grabbing himself a brace!More interesting will be the abuse the Gers fans direct at the Parkhead faithful. Over the years the situation has got progressively worse. It started off with the naked sectarianism of chants such as the Billy Boys, moving onto the racist monkey chants at Balde and now culminating...
I see that Wee Willie has came to the rescue of his FAIR crony William Wilkinson.The former DUP representative in Ballymena, was yesterday charged with raping and attempting to rape a woman. Wilkinson vehemently denies the charge and was released on bail by a high court judge yesterday.However at this point I must point out that I support the due process of the law. Being charged is by no means a sign of Wilkinsons guilt. He could very well be innocent. Only time will tell.Wilkinson was granted bail after the High Court heard that wee Willie was acting as surety for Wilkinson.Now if Wilkinson is proven guilty of the charges this leaves wee Willie in quite a quandary. Firstly he will have bailed out a rapist. Secondly he will have had a rapist as an integral component of the FAIR project....
RTÉ reports that Taoiseach Brian Cowen has not ruled out a second referendum on the Lisbon Treaty, as those other battle lines are drawn. Meanwhile the Irish Times notes a Danish newspaper reportSENIOR IRISH officials met their Danish counterparts in Copenhagen earlier this month to get advice on how Ireland could opt out of significant provisions of the Lisbon Treaty in order to resolve the impasse created by the outcome of the referendum in June.
The Danish newspaper Jyllands-Posten reported that the Danish model, involving opt-outs from certain aspects of EU co-operation, was now being actively considered by the Government. Diplomatic sources in Dublin have confirmed the meeting took place. The newspaper reported a delegation from Dublin visited the foreign...
Great to see that Ballymoney is right up there almost with Japan in the world tables of life expectancy. It’s not a comparison we’re used to, but we can make the link if we compare World Health Organisation figures out today with Irish Public Health institute results last week.
Their quality of life is so high in the north Antrim Shangri-la that men can expect to reach an average age of 78.1 years; while women live, on average, to the grand old age of 82.4.
The average life expectancy for the whole of Northern Ireland, stands at 75.9 years for men, and 80.6 years for women.
The all-Ireland life expectancy is 75.6 years for males and 80.6 years for females. “
So it would seem the Celtic Tiger’s slightly greater prosperity doesn’t give them the...
The fate of Aer Lingus ‘s Belfast hub, launched with such a fanfare only a year ago in a highly controversial move from Shannon must now be in the balance as the airline posts frightful losses of 22 million euros. And with a “3-figure” million loss possible for 2009, as chief financial officer Sean Coyle admitted today.He added that the company’s cost per passenger is roughly double that of rival Ryanair.
With fierce competition raging between all airlines flying in and out of Aldergrove and City, it was a stinging blow to to reveal that after all the rows with staff in the Republic, Belfast passengers numbers were 60,000 behind their abandoned Shannon/ Heathrow link.
Aer Lingus sold just 176 seats on its Belfast Aldergrove to London Heathrow...
Here’s a topic to stir the blood.. Oliver Cromwell is the subject this week of a major reappraisal by Irish historian Micheál O Siochrú and the main feature of the BBC History magazine. I can do no better than let the excellent Fintan O’Toole introduce him, quoting his Observer review:
“Even in these times, when all the talk is of putting history behind us, the easiest way to tell the difference between the Irish and the English is to utter the word “Cromwell.” Is Cromwell merely a folkloric bogeyman for the Irish?
Given the dominant mood of contemporary Irish historiography, one almost expects Micheál O Siochrú’s forensic and fastidious account to conclude that Old Ironsides really had a heart of gold. The...
You have to hand it to the Americans (and particularly the Clintons). Their sense of political drama is sometimes faultless. Tonight Hillary Clinton followed up her cracking performance last night by proposing an acclamation of Barrack Obama as the Democratic candidate for the President of the US. It was enough even to get to the old Republican (Democrat-loathing) hacks at Fox News. It was a big play from Hillary, marrying her long term committment to health care and blue collar workers. Will it mean catharsis for the riven Democrats? Fox News thinks it is. Obama needs a little Hillary in his tank, to get to the tough places that, so far, only Clinton has managed to penetrate....
And so it is that Barack Obama has been selected as Democratic candidate for the White House. One-time presidential hopeful Hillary Clinton called a halt to the vote tallying at the Democratic convention in Denver and moved for support to be put solely behind Obama.When all the fanfare dies down, the task of making sure that this historical story gets the ending it deserves commences.Here's to President...
I spent yesterday working in Sheffield. After the two and a bit hour journey up from Gloucester, it was a pleasure to walk up through the town from the station to the building I needed to get to.I've no idea what the building is, or will be. But it was quite spectacular to walk past.Maybe someone with local knowledge can leave a comment to...
A good round-up of the political parties’ reactions to yesterday’s events, and the surrounding circumstances, in this iol report. Firstly, from the SDLP’s Margaret Ritchie“It is increasingly a manifestation of republican frustration at the failure of Sinn Féin to deliver what it promised to its own movement”
From Sinn Féin’s Pat Doherty“Nationalists and republicans will once again be disappointed by the attitude being displayed by the SDLP.”
The DUP’s Nigel Dodds“Any commitments that were given by the government to Sinn Féin are a matter for the government, but the DUP made the situation perfectly clear before we left St Andrews, that we had not agreed to any dates for the transfer of powers”
And...
The éirígí website has provided footage of the RUC/PSNI house raid believed to have lead to the disturbances in Craigavon.
“I was outside the family home when the raid began and I was inside immediately afterwards speaking with the family, who are close friends of mine. The reality of the RUC–PSNI was here for all to see in broad daylight and the residents of this estate remain justifiably suspicious of the force”
ADDS: This may inform some of the discussion here on how the disturbance in Craigavon started and dispel some of the claims on what/who initiated the violence. ...
Expect the blogging here to be even more erratic over the next couple of weeks as we take the show on the road: as of tomorrow it'll be coming from France, as I immerse myself in the local culture (trans: drink my weight in vin rouge). Might get messy. Expect...
Saw this over at Newsarama and had a chuckle:Screenwriters Matt Manfredi and Phil Hay (Aeon Flux, The Tuxedo) will pen Columbia Pictures’ adaptation of Garth Ennis and Darick Robertson’s series The Boys. Columbia optioned the comic back in February. [The Hollywood Reporter]It must be disheartening when the writers entrusted to adapt your book are clearly a pair of idiots. Ennis must be sitting at home (or more accurately, in some dive of a bar in New York), wearily thinking "couldn't it have been William Goldman or Andrew Davies, just this...
I mentioned the launch of Nasa’s new GLAST telescope previously and they’ve now released the first light images. Oh, and they’ve renamed it the Fermi Gamma-ray Space Telescope - a short history of telescopic observations here. There’s a dynamic image of the Vela pulsar too - which beams radiation every 89 milliseconds as it spins.
No mention, though, of the discovery of pulsars by Dame Jocelyn Bell Burnell.. or her part in Pluto’s downfall.. [Image Credit: NASA/DOE/International LAT Team]...
200 orgasms a day is probably not cool after while, but what about collapsing every time you laugh? Or actually being allergic to modern technology, that’d be a bit shit.
Some cool kids furniture, not so sure how practical the accordian dresser is though.
Some stunningly beautiful motion blur photographs.
Common sense is just plain lacking in some people.
Hot Chicks with Douchebags. This is what the internet is for.
Canon 50D specs leaked, then announced. I cannot afford any of this but its still fun to ogle.
Banksy’s opinion on advertising.
A very relatable comic, thanks noclarity.
A very cool optical illusion. Just a bunch of squares.
Ubiquity looks like a very cool app. I need to read the tutorials though.
Lots of pretty rainbow colours.
I actually think I’ve been...
The “casus belli” - not the cause as is often wrongly thought, but the opportunity for war, is always argued about furiously after the chips have fallen. Did the Georgians start it or did they fall for a Russian trap? Unfortunately, the arguments tend to divide according to where your sympathies lie, even in nuanced, well-informed and well-intentioned commentaries. Thus over Georgia, the Financial Times is clear.
“Most accounts agree that it was South Ossetian separatists who committed the first act of escalation when they blew up a Georgian military vehicle on August 1, wounding five Georgian peacekeeping troops. Georgia responded in kind, killing six South Ossetian militiamen….
FT cont.
“Capt Ivanov and Eduard Kokoity, the pro-Moscow...
In the NewsLetter, Liam Clarke notes the irony of the venue for Sinn Féin TD Caoimhghín Ó Caoláin’s threat to take the ball awayCrossan’s commemoration was an ironic venue to choose for a call for the return of control of security powers to Stormont but O Caolain didn’t stop at that. “If we are forced to conclude that change will not be forthcoming from the Executive, then we will have no option but to pull out our Ministers and seek to put pressure where responsibility ultimately lies, which is on the British Government in London,” he went on.
It is a sign of how far republicans have come when they are now threatening to pull down a local Irish administration with a cross-border dimension in the hope that the British...
Just to be clear: “Eyesight of thousands to be saved after NICE approves drug” applies to Northern Ireland although NICE is of course a UK wide body
The ruling applies to England, Wales and Northern Ireland - the drug is already approved in Scotland.
In Wales and Northern Ireland extra funding was promised to pay for all suitable patients to receive the drug.
Let’s give Iris Robinson a pat on the back for a change for running at least one decent campaign.
February 2007
Mrs. Iris Robinson (Strangford) (DUP): What is the Secretary of State doing to ensure that people have the same opportunity to receive treatment for macular degeneration right across the country? In particular, Northern Ireland seems to be the last part of the United Kingdom to...
Barack Obama’s decision to review the need for a special envoy to Northern Ireland may be overdue on our side of the pond but it’s “completely unacceptable” to the influential Irish-American lobbyist Niall Dowd. Firmly Democratic Irish America is not happy, it seems – suggesting Obama was either bold or rash to raise the issue at the very moment when party unity is everything. This issue exposes a split from the Clinton camp at exactly the wrong time. In March, at the height of the bitter battle of the primaries, Dowd’s paper Irish Voice ran a strong piece slapping down Obama’s lack of experience on Northern Ireland. At exactly the strategic moment, St Patrick’s weekend,
“Clinton’s deputy national policy director Jake...
How good of the Republic’s Broadcasting Complaints Commission to strike a bold blow for freedom and decide not to punish RTE and News at One Sean O’Rourke for asking the harmless question: “Did Biffo Blink?” At least he didn’t use the f-word version of the big fellow from Offaly’s nickname. What a crisis it would have provoked had they found against the broadcaster. Instead of solemnly poring over the case the way such bureaucrats do, they should have dismissed the complaint out of hand as merely frivilous. Not that the UK is immune from stirring up a fuss over lack of reverence to the high and mighty. The sacking of the BBC1 Controller over Queengate was an example of ridiculous over-reaction. These may seem minor cases but...
[This is taken from A Note from the Next Door Neighbours, the monthly e-bulletin of Andy Pollak, Director of the Centre for Cross Border Studies in Armagh and Dublin]This ‘Note’ will contain personal opinions which some strong traditional unionists and nationalists may take exception to - although I believe many ordinary thinking Northern Irish and Irish people will find them uncontroversial. So I should begin with a disclaimer: on this occasion these are my own ideas and do not at all represent the views of the Centre for Cross Border Studies.
Here is a provocative question. What if we already have a kind of a united Ireland – while at the same time continuing to have a kind of United Kingdom? And what if, in this globalised age of small national...