Freshly back from an all too short week on the Spanish coast, things were getting steadily hotter during our seven-day trip….to such an extent that we weren’t all that sorry to fly out of a fairly sweaty Alicante Airport. Once it gets into July and August, the place becomes pretty unbearable these days.
Back on home turf, it’s clear that the election battle has been hotting up as well. At least it’s been hotting up in that fairly predictable Northern Ireland sort of way. It’s all been a bit fair to middling so far and it shows few signs of getting really tasty.
Apparently, Naomi Long (more of her later) and Gavin Robinson are slugging it out in an oddly friendly fashion around East Belfast, where Naomi concentrates on leafy Ballyhackamore, Belmont and the rest while Gavin pretends that he’s not a well-heeled barrister and shoots the breeze with the good folks of Tullycarnet and the lower part of the Newtownards Road. Perhaps they’ll bump into each other around the middle ground of the Arches.
Way out in the wild west, Pat Cullen has been discovering that electioneering isn’t all wine and roses, not that she probably thought it would be. She gives the impression of being made of sterner stuff.
Anyway, Pat got a few people annoyed when she did the old Sinn Fein trick of not actually condemning bombings, in particular the Enniskillen and Omagh ones. Even Stephen Nolan, perhaps not surprisingly, joined in the furore. Will it lose her votes come the day of reckoning? Probably not.
Meanwhile, down here where the seagulls fly high, Tim Collins seems to reckon that he has a real chance of providing one of the upsets of the election and beating both Alex Easton and the incumbent, Stephen Farry. If it came to pass, he might become one of two Ulster Unionist MPs. The other with a fighting chance of wee Robin Swann.
Alliance, for their part, reckon that they could do even better. There’s Naomi in East Belfast, were she wants to see Big Gav eat his words about the ‘Long Years’ being over when he won Peter Robinson’s old seat back. Then there’s Stephen Farry and Sorcha Eastwood who is one of the front runners for Jeffrey Donaldson’s old seat in Lagan Valley.
Big change might just to coming around the corner. Then again, it might not be. We’re good at status quo around these parts……
Sticks & Stones May Break My Bones……
Staying with Naomi Long, it’s fair to say that she’s not easily bullied. And she came up with a fairly stoic response to the various silly message that certain DUP figures had posted about her on WhatsApp…but were subsequently disclosed to the Covid Inquiry.
Apparently the two biggest giggling schoolboys were Edwin Poots and Peter Weir, who made jokes about comfort eating and hunger strikes. You get the gist. Regular readers will know that we’re not into schoolgoy humour. Or not very often.
But Naomi reserved her ire, not for the two protagonists, but for poor old Emma Little Pengelly who she reckons ought to have sprung to her defence, being a girly girl and all that. Or that’s what she seemed to say.
It is, of course, where the whole hugely expensive, waste of time Covid Inquiry at least provided us all with some entertainment. That’s all it will ever provide us with. Unless you’re a top-flight lawyer, in which case it might just go towards your villa in Portugal.
Kneecap & Balaclava Man
Back in the day, one used to have to put on a suit and tie for a day in court, whether as a humble journalist or as a defendant. Nowadays, perhaps lamentably, perhaps not, dress codes are a bit of a thing of the past.
But one thing is for sure. If you’re due up in court, you’ve got to dust down one of the auld masks from the Covid days so that you can hide behind it. But JJ O Dochartaigh – better known in music circles as DJ Provai – took things to a whole new level when he appeared outside court the other day wearing a natty Irish tricolour balaclava. As a fashion statement, it was quite something, especially when he stood beside his sensible, suited and booted solicitor.
Given our advanced years, we’re not big rap fans, to be honest. Our knowledge of the genre is limited to some exposure to the likes of Kendrick Lamar and Drake, a couple of American gentlemen who have been slagging each other off of late. Or dissing each other, to be more accurate. See….we can get down with the kids.
JJ O Dochartaigh and a couple of his mates make up Belfast rap band Kneecap and they’ve just secured High Court permission to challenge Kemi Badenoch and the UK Government’s decision to block them from receiving a £15,000 grant.
A judge agreed to a full hearing in November after the group returns from a series of gigs in the United States. JJ, or DJ, said on the steps of the court that wasn’t about the money.
“This is an attack on us, on artistic culture and on the Good Friday Agreement,” he said. “And, anyway, Fifteen grand wouldn’t pay our bar bill in America.”
Good man, JJ. Or DJ.
Yes, Taylor. What’s The Craic?
It was only a matter of time before someone on this side of the Atlantic laid claim to Taylor Swift. After all, President Biden is one of us, Barrack Obama was one of us, so why shouldn’t Taylor be Irish?
Even better, it seems that she’s from Derry. Although, to be a little more accurate, she has some fairly tenuous ancestral ties to the North West. But that’s not going to stop Derry claiming her as one of their own.
The ancestral story winds its way back to 1836 when two young people emigrated to the US of A in a ship sailing from Derry. Generations later, Taylor was born in Pennsylvania. All the city needs to do now is to convince her that she’s a Derry Girl and hope that she’ll take to the idea.
Why? Because everywhere that Taylor goes, she brings a tangible economic effect with her. Ask the city of Edinburgh, where she performed recently. Or Dublin, where she’s appearing next week.
But, if she did decide to visit her ancestral city (allegedly), one thing’s for sure. The Brandywell won’t be big enough. To paraphrase a classic line from Jaws, they’re going to need a bigger stadium.
And stadiums aren’t easy to build in this part of the world.
From Rampant Rabbits To Roulette
It was hardly surprising that a proposed change of use for a shop unit in Belfast’s Rosemary Street was going to have some people spluttering into their cups of tea.
The shop unit, you see, used to house the Belfast branch of Ann Summers, purveyors of certain types of lingerie as well as electronic and other devices for personal pleasure. And the applicants want to change it to a gaming centre – slots, roulette, poker and the like.
It was always bound to offend. And it did. Both the Presbyterian Church and DUP MLA Edwin Poots are among those who have lodged objections to Belfast City Council’s planning committee. The Council’s officers had recommended approval, but certain councillors thought differently and now it’s been deferred.
And the moral of the story? Stockings, chocolate willies, and things that vibrate are preferable to fruit machines. Who’d have thought it?
The Heat Is On
If that’s not enough to get you all hot under the collar, how about this?
According to the Belfast Telegraph, temperatures are set to ‘soar’ above 20 degrees in Northern Ireland next week as summer finally arrives. We might even hit the 22-degree mark. God almighty, they’ll be dropping in the streets.
Depending on your point of view, this might be a good time to get the Factor 50 in and make sure that you’re well covered up. Alternatively, it might be time to get the loungers out and the beer in the fridge. Or that nice pink wine from the south of France….depending on your taste.
About time too, it’s been baltic for the time of year.