Sympathy for the daddy devil at last?

Obviously, men are evil and wrong. We already knew that.

Even when women murder their own children in cold blood, it's not their fault but that of some man, somewhere, who drove them to it by callously leaving them, or having the audacity to sleep with someone who isn't a crazy child-killer.

Yup, somehow, it's always a man's fault.

We've seen this in some of the commentary about this sad case, where an upper middle-class affluent mum lost the plot and killed her two toddlers.

Not one article has failed to mention that her husband left her insane ass before Christmas, as if that was the causative reason for the death of these two poor kids, and not their crazy knife-wielding mother.

And plenty of online comment has sought to exonerate her entirely in the context of the allegedly clear and obvious distress she was under due to the break up.

Well, what about the distress of the father? He's had to answer a knock at the door from the plod and hear that his children have been killed by their mad ma. He'll be struggling to contain his grief right now, wondering why he didn't take them with him when he split from their mother.

Maybe in future, the next time a crazy bitch decides that her children must die in order to hurt her ex-partner, the media and the public will lay blame where it actually belongs.

When Arthur McElhill burnt his family to death, no one would have dared suggested or implied that somehow his utterly innocent partner, who tragically died along with her children, had any responsibility for his despicable act of murder.

So why the eagerness to transfer some of Fiona Dennison's blame onto her former partner? Does anyone seriously believe, as he mourns his two children, that he isn't suffering enough right now?

This is how the patriarchy myth unfolds in such circumstances. Since, obviously, our society is cruelly dominated by the evil patriarchy, it stands to reason that it is the patriarchy and not the woman with the knife in her hands and the bodies of her children in the boot of her car who is to blame.

For some people, not to mention the legal system, mummy's always right, even when she's a latent killer.There is no court in Ireland or Britain prepared to grant sole custody to a father unless the mother is already in jail or a chronic substance abuser.

One hopes that one day people will see through these double standards. Hopefully one day we will mature to the point of Scandinavian nations, who rightly see parenting as a joint task performed by two people - mother and father.

In the meantime, there is a single glimmer of hope for devil daddies. Britain's bringing in a right to six month's paternity leave for new dads. It's not much. In fact, it's pathetic in the context of what children and fathers ACTUALLY need in terms of new legislation.

But it's a start.

Who raped Martin Cullen?

Who raped Martin Cullen?

According to the Minister for Fun and Junkets, media intrusion into his life has been like being raped.

Obviously, no cabinet minister would dare belittle victims of aggravated sexual assault by comparing their suffering to being written about in a paper, so presumably Cullen would only make such a statement if he was genuinely capable of comparing the two experiences.

Hence my question: who raped Martin Cullen?

Because frankly, if he has never been raped, then his statement is a thundering disgrace and a slap of contempt across the face of all victims of rape.

But did anyone ever expect any better from the poison dwarf of this feudal court ruling the country?

Karma in its most overt form

Tiger Woods and his many skanks.

All the Olympic sprinters and their designer doping kits.

That Hans Ritter UN weapons inspector chap who just got busted trying to seduce what he thought was a kid.

Why do they do it? What makes them think they're going to get away with it?

Ego is obviously one reason. (Because I can.)

That at least accounts for the first skank, the first steroid injection, the first - um - inappropriate internet contact with a minor.

But why keep doing it (whatever it is)? Why not quit the cheating (or whatever) once you've tried it and satisfied the curiosity?

Perhaps the answer lies in Mr Ritter's back history. This is not the first time he's been found trying to arrange sex dates with minors, it seems. In fact, he's been at this crack for years.

He's no moron. He almost-singlehandedly took on the Bush Administration at one point. So what made him think he could possibly get away with continually behaving like he has?

Probably the same reason that made Ben Johnson and the other sprinters keep taking the 'roids, even though they have to undergo regular and unannounced drug tests.

The same reason Tiger kept chasing hoochie-mama skirt even though there was a press pack never far away.

Because they got away with it once, that first ego-driven, curiosity-spiked time. But they don't think 'God, I was lucky to get away with that. Better not risk it in future, since I've so much else to lose.'

These people believe they are so intelligent, so smart, and so powerful that they will NEVER be caught. Having got away with it once, they are almost compelled to repeat, because they genuinely believe they won't be caught.

Which makes them get sloppy, which gets them caught.

And that, ladies and gentlemen, is how karma functions in its most overt form. What the ego drives us to do, the ego ensures we make amends for.

Nostricles in my frostrils

I woke up with nostricles in my frostrils this morning.

That's when I realised the boiler had packed in again.

I really, really am getting bored with being freezing all the time.

Having to undergo a crash course in boiler engineering by mobile phone in the dark in sub zero temperatures was not one of my resolutions for 2010.

But at least it's working now.

Global warming, where are you?

Looking back at the forecast

Okay, I made a few predictions about where 2009 was heading before it happened, so let's take a look back and see whether my crystal ball was on the blink or not.

1. A severe crash in the housing market of Britain and Ireland, even worse than what's already occurred. The governments forced to intervene with banks to prevent massive scale repossessions and defaults.

Half-right. Bizarrely, the British market rose slightly due to so little properties being on the market. Nevertheless that's only an indication of a delayed further crash.

2. The credit card lifestyle bill finally lands on the mat. Plenty of people with no assets other than a few payments on a 08-D car are going to find themselves defaulting on some very expensive credit loans. The problem of arranging refinancing, from semi-bankrupt banks who themselves cannot get credit, for these unsupported loans is going to stretch the banking sector beyond breaking point.

I think we can note this down as correct.

3. Multinationals use the excuse of recession to relocate to Eastern Europe. Cue 100,000 redundancies next year in Ireland.

Dell, anyone? And we got way more than 100,000 redundancies last year.

4. Euro or no euro (and given that 40% of our trade is with the sterling zone even today, the euro is not currently helping), we might actually have to call in the IMF if the government cannot raise the funds to deal with their income shortfall AND that of the banks, especially if the credit card bill arrives too.

They've avoided complete collapse so far, but then again all sorts of zombie economies are currently being propped up around the world. Faeces meets fan time has therefore been delayed until even worse culprits like Greece and the Baltics are dealt with first.

5. Empty shopfronts in high streets. Cars with for sale signs. Travel agents, estate agents, motor retailers all going bust.

Tick, tick, tick, tick, tick. 100% correct.

6. A general election in Ireland after either the Greens grow stones and pull out of Government or they lose a crucial Dail vote, an election which Fianna Fail lose quite significantly to a Fine Gael-Labour coalition.

Pure fail. We should have had an election but we didn't. Blame the spineless Greens. When we do get one in 2010, I expect the same result as I predicted will finally occur.

7. Obama's Clinton re-run presidency gets off to a poor start with a series of foreign affairs crises that even Bill and Hill can't solve for the noobie. For potential flashpoints, think Pakistan, Israel/Palestine, Ukraine, Indonesia and as usual most of Africa.

I think buyer's regret has definitely kicked in by now. And foreign affairs has been the locale for most of Obama's poor performance, even if he is being criticised over his (very good) health plan and the economy.

8. Britain definitely starts pulling out of their occupations. Troops to start leaving Iraq and Afghanistan. As recession bites, there will be a further round of culls in the Northern Irish public service sector.

We've seen the start of this already. Much more of the same to come this year.

9. Chelsea for the league, with Liverpool nipping their heels in second. United a distant third. Fergie to quit at long last. Perhaps Wenger to join him in walking from the Premiership.

Wishful thinking on my part, perhaps. None of the above occurred.

10. The beginning of the end of low cost air travel. As airlines consolidate, and routes decrease, and more and more craft are parked in the Nevada desert, the consumer ends up with the worst of all worlds - prices like the luxury days of the 1970s with service of contemporary Ryanair.

Sadly, this has come to pass. Hundreds of airlines went belly up last year, prices are rising, routes are being reduced and service standards across the board are abysmal and hardly helped by ridiculous (and pointless) security measures at airports.

I make that around 6/10 right. Meh. I always was a B student.

A spectre is haunting Europe

Not communism, but the spectre of fake Europe.

Fake Europe is the penumbra of countries that pretend to be European when they clearly aren't. Imitation may be the greatest form of flattery, but it gets irksome when these people are indulged in their delusions.

Is anyone else annoyed that this year's European city of culture isn't even in Europe, never mind in the EU?

It's just another example of a mouthy demanding country outside of Europe seeking to associate itself with a continent it doesn't belong to.

Previous exponents of this include Israel, who despite blatantly being part of the Middle East nevertheless are in the European Broadcasting Union and compete in UEFA.

And the EU has had to entertain hilarious membership applications from both these countries, plus other distinctly non-European places like Morocco.

I really wish the EU would produce a map of the world and give some of these people a basic lesson in geography instead of indulging their reality-defying fits of pique and envy.

Here's to you, Mrs Robinson

Ok, let's leave the schadenfreude to one side for now. Iris Robinson is, apparently, an ill woman with a recent history of suicidal ideation.

Of course, she's now utterly ruined as a politician and probably in her personal life too.

Her husband, the first minister, is hanging on tenaciously after a heart-rending performance on TV. But with the fundie Free Presbyterian Paisleyite moralists in his party to answer to, not to mention more questions coming about his family finances, that may not last long.

So where does this leave us? What have we learnt?

Well, firstly we now have first class proof, as if it were required, that the DUP are NOT holier than thou. They are not more upstanding or of a higher moral calibre. They are just as prone to sin, sex, and screwing up as everyone else.

We also have evidence of the dual standards operating in terms of gender. If a 59 year old man, who had been entrusted with the care of a teenage girl by her dying parent, then went on to fuck the girl for a period of time, what do you imagine the headlines might look like?

If the genders were reversed, and it were Peter and not Iris who'd had the affair, he'd be pilloried in the streets of conservative, religious, judgemental Northern Ireland. In fact, his life might even be at risk.

No matter how ill Iris is or claims to be (now, ten months after her apparent suicide attempt), her mental condition cannot excuse how she manipulated and abused her relationship with a much younger man who was effectively under her guidance and care.

I don't think it's too strong to say she groomed this young lad. Looked at through the prism of gender reversal, the scale of her wrongdoing becomes clear.

Finally, we have the prospect, in a British general election year, of NI's three biggest parties all changing their leadership.

Gerry Adams has been fighting a rearguard action for sometime against those in Sinn Fein seeking a change of leadership. But revelations about his child-abusing brother have stuck fast, and will be hard for him to shake off. Plus, there is a lot more to come out about Liam Adams. So Gerry may be forced to step down sooner rather than later.

Peter Robinson, who does appear to have been seriously wronged by his wife's behaviour, is also on a knife edge. He must explain his involvement in his wife's financial shenanigans, which comes on top of criticism of their lavish expense claims - the 'Swish Family Robinson' tag.

And then he must talk the fundies in Unionism into forgiving and forgetting. Meanwhile the TUV will snipe from the wings, and recent DUP converts will sigh and return to the UUP fold. It seems like he is a dead man walking.

Only the SDLP actually are choosing to change their leader.

Now is a moment of transition and possibility for NI, but also a dangerous time therefore. And there are still a lot of guns out there, especially UDA ones, despite their little PR stunt this week.

So here's to you, Mrs Robinson, for blowing holes in all the known assumptions about Northern Irish politics. If you achieved nothing else in your political career (and you did achieve nothing else) at least your sordid abuse of a young man has led to a moment of potential positive change.

And that change involves the eradication of pocket-lining big house Unionism in its modern DUP form - the Swish Family Robinson with their massive expenses and multiple luxury homes, or their predecessors the Paisley clan, with their multi-million church and dodgy property dealings.

Can Unionists turn their backs on such representatives for good? Or how many more such sordid revelations of DUP improbity can they stomach?

Does spouting about Christ in front of a Union Jack really excuse the dodgy pocketlining and sexual predation on a young Catholic man in the eyes of Unionism?

Let's hope so.

PS: I'm surprised to see that www.DUPcougars.com has not yet been registered by some enterprising porno king.

New Year's Revolutions

Happy nearly New Year, y'all.

Hopefully, you realise tomorrow is just another day, and you don't need to make lifechanging decisions while drunk tonight that will transform into mid-January bouts of guilt as you fail.

You could stop smoking, lose weight or try to get a new job starting any particular day. Why do it alongside the rest of the herd? Is there camaraderie in failing en masse? I don't know.

What I do know is that I think New Year's Resolutions are about as pointless as those 'Caution: Hot!' warnings on takeaway coffees - they're really only needed for the truly remedial.

So I've decided to go with some New Year's Revolutions instead. Here are the revolutions I'd like to see in 2010:

1. A Chinese counter-revolution. Seriously, fuck the Chinese Communist Party. I'd love to see them overthrown and subjected to a quick round of real people power, the human-abusing thug junta. This same prescription also applies to the scum ruling Belarus, North Korea, Burma, Zimbabwe and a host of other thugocracies.

2. A drugs revolution. The war on drugs is lost. Why are our governments still fighting it? Increasingly, world leaders, health experts, religious minorities and influential commentators have come out in favour of a complete reversal of current failed policies.
I hope that either the lawmakers start listening, or else a proper grassroots movement comes along and makes ongoing prohibition unworkable for good. If the EU reverted to the Portuguese model, we might finally get a handle on drug crime and on harm reduction for addicts.

3. An economic revolution. The return of the gold standard? The end of fractional banking? Back to barter? Jail for banksters?
I'm no economist (and am suspicious of that pseudoscience in any case), so I will refrain from being prescriptive.
But since the current system just went pop for the umpteenth time, you'd like to think we might rebuild with some new method that doesn't unerringly result in a bubble and collapse every decade or two.

4. A democratic revolution in Ireland. Take a look at the Dail. Do those people really represent you? Do they look after your interests? Well, why keep voting for them?
I'd love to see an end to the cronyism, the parochial parish pump politics, the gombeens, the brown envelopes and the nepotism in Irish politics.
But that would require an electorate to grow up and take responsibility for those they elect.

What revolutions would you like to see next year? And are there any that you're prepared to man the barricades to bring about?

Tis the season to be clairvoyant

It's that time of the year again, when most people defer cynical normality until the New Year, eschew common sense and start spouting goodwill to fellow men.

But not Skinner, no sirree bob.

For me, it's the season for casting a gloomy, pessimistic, jaundiced eye over the year to come, read the runes, scatter the entrails, gaze into the crystal ball and attempt to predict what the year ahead has to offer.

We'll hold fire on last year's predictions until this year is officially up. (Though nothing's stopping you checking now.) Instead, it's full steam ahead with what's ahead in 2010.

1. I can haz double-dip recession? Sort of inevitable at this stage, really. Credit card debt should do it for Ireland, which is tragically appropriate for what has happened to us as a nation in the mass delusion of the 'Celtic Tiger'.
In America, it will be the ongoing slide in dollar value, while Britain will simply run out of cash. China is hamstrung by its dollar exposure, lack of Western demand for plastic tat made in sweatshops and the fact that the rest of the world will be slow to forget how China stitched up Copenhagen for its own ends.
In short, more red lines on the charts, more capital flight to precious metals, more lost jobs, more housing price decline, more negative equity, more foreclosures, more unemployment and more excuses from those responsible.

2. What does Africa need right now? You were thinking 'major soccer tournament', weren't you? Isn't that top of their list of needs?
Africans agree, of course, which is why they're having two in six months. Never mind the HIV epidemic, the grinding poverty, the neverending wars, famines and disease. I must haz mi football. Right?
South Africa 2010 will see predictions of violence against the occasional drunk affluent visitor sadly fulfilled. Stadia will be full of white people flown in for the occasion. A European team, likely Spain or Italy, will win, though an African team, likely Nigeria, will get to the semis.

3. General election in the Republic of Ireland.
Seriously, this government wouldn't even have lasted this long were it not for the dire standard of political opposition in the Dail, and the utter disorganisation of political opposition outside of it.
Enda Kenny is as effective and reliable as the Billings method, while the beards running the unions have already shot their bolt and allowed their campaign to be cleverly cut in two by a government sneakily talking up public sector V private rivalries.
But to hold together an administration this flimsy, talentless and aimless would require both the cunning of a natural alliancemaker like Bertie Ahern and endless pots of overflowing gold to pay everyone off and keep them all happy.
Cowen has neither Ahern's touch nor any money whatsoever, since Ahern spent it all already. So it's inevitable that sooner rather than later the faeces will fly into the fan.

4. Result of election? Fine Gael and Labour, that unhappily married couple, back in the saddle again, this time minus the self-exploded Greens.
Stasis for the Shinners, though a few new faces in their line-up, including Joe McHugh. A move against Churry as leader of the party finally coalesces around someone other than the unelectable Mary Lou. Toireasa Ferris, perhaps?
Fianna Fail to regroup around a new leader - with Martin facing off against Dermot Ahern for the job and Martin winning. Most of the current cabinet retire to count their ill-gotten gains.

5. A general election is already scheduled for next year in Britain and the North, so they're already in mid-campaign.
The toff Tories to edge it in a surprisingly close-run thing after an initial rally of the British economy in the Spring. But they will claim no seats in the North, leaving their alliance with the UUP in tatters.
Lady Sylvia to win as independent in North Down, taking their last seat, leaving them behind the TUV, for whom Allister will ascend Paisley's old throne in North Antrim.
Alisdair McDonnell to become the next SDLP leader, and subsequently hold South Belfast. A resurgence for this party might then finally be possible, especially if a Shinner generation shift starts to coalesce.

6. Post-Lisbon, the EU will grow ever more important. Initially in Ireland this will either not be noticed or welcomed when spotted, since it will come alongside support for our comatose economy or will be warmly contrasted with our indigenous mismanagement of our political affairs.
But elsewhere, the twin-track Europe does begin to finally emerge. Eager to push on with the long march to federalism, the elites of Brussels will seek to seduce an inner circle to move faster. Welcome to the beginning of a Europe of the centre and the fringes again, just like the Roman Empire.

7. Poor ole spook kid Barack just won't catch an even break in 2010. With the messiah sheen of his election campaign long lost in most memories, Americans will get on with the fact of confronting growing poverty and unemployment, a reduction in international relevance alongside a growth in international danger, not only in current war spots but also in some new ones too.
I'd expect more Islamoterror next year, likely of the old Nineties format of attacks on foreign -based US troops. And that will of course stabilise Pakistan hugely.
Not.

8. China realises its dollars are worthless and we don't want their tat anymore, and there's only so much African resources and commodities you can stockpile for future good times, so it belatedly decides to spree its dollar mountain on Western assets.
This overt accumulation of Western trophies, akin to the Japanese intervention into California in the Eighties, will be the first sign for many of the Chinese century everyone was suspecting might come about.

9. Chelsea for the league, Barcelona for the Champions League, Rafa for Real and Mourinho for Anfield after an Arab buyout of the bankrupt Yanks.

10. Russia will play silly buggers with the gas pipeline to the West again as it tries and largely succeeds in splitting both Georgia and the Ukraine in two.
Everyone talks tough, but the Kremlin ain't listening. Once again, decadent old Europe realises too late that the Eastern threat to its stability has never gone away but merely morphed into yet another totalitarian guise, following the Tsarism and Sovietism of the past.

Should be a good year.

Sinn Fein Unionist Outreach Programme

Churry gets hands on and grapples Unionism at close quarters during a recent visit to Knutts Corner 'international' airport.

I'm no scientist

But I know a good bit of science.

It's the universe's way of punishing me, I think, for all those semi-smug, semi-idiotic moments when I thought in school: I don't need to pay attention to this - I'm going to be an ARTIST.

Hey, we were all arseholes at 15, you know?

Anyway, I know a good bit of science. I don't know when I last read fiction, or even fact that wasn't science-related. I do it for work, I do it for fun too. Right now I'm reading one book about zero-fields and another about medicine, for example. They're the books by my bed.

I've come to realise that this stuff, inexpertly presented to the public, is actually all that we can be assured of in relation to our existence on this planet. Everything else, and I mean everything else, is supposition at best.

That includes art, soul, music, passion, emotions - all the good stuff, in a way. But while those things continue not to be measurable, they continue to be perplexing.

We can be sure about light in a way that we can't about love, for example. But that won't stop most people anguishing about love at some point in their lives, of course, and nor is it any succour to be aware of the fact that you can in recompense understand what photons do, even as your better half pursues pastures new.

So science is no succour, but it's all we've got. And surprisingly, we have more than most people think.

One question is how did the general public become so divorced from the currency of scientific thought to the point today where almost nobody now knows, for example, that we do not see, but imagine, since our optic nerve conveys light information received on the eyeball as information which it sends to the brain where it is recreated?

Is it the media's fault? When Einstein came up with E=MC2 it was quickly popularised, yet today it's still the best known theorem. What happened to the media so that it dumbed down below science?

Or did science become so difficult that it transcended simple translation into concepts that the public can understand? In the West at least, we have a better-educated general public than ever in history. So why the assumption that they can't understand science?

Is it because of the fact that they generally don't, even on the rare occasions in which it is presented to them?

For example, a great nuclear reactor in the sky showers us from close range with radiation, light, heat, solar energy and a number of other things too. It is many, many times larger than this planet, and it provides all of our energy sources. We call it the Sun.

Yet the vast majority of people genuinely believe that burning fossil fuels is the main cause of change in our planet's weather system, even though we have plenty of evidence that the planet has experienced big weather changes in the past.

But even scientists are buying into that one (literally, in many cases, since their research funding so commonly requires them to posit a 'global warming' or 'climate change' thesis to gain grant aid.)

So what about something self-evident, like evolution?

How come a huge proportion of people in the richest country on Earth are able to coherently believe that evolution is wrong and that an imaginary daddy in the sky planted evidence of a vast pre-human history on the planet in order to test the limits of our imagination, or faith, since the two terms are effectively interchangeable?

In short, how come Americans with all their resources, freedom and affluence, believe in 'intelligent design' (itself one of the least appropriate monikers for an idea ever, since there is nothing 'intelligent' about the ideology)?

I wish more people knew more science. That's about the only thing I agree with the government about, actually.

Science has taught me how to tell truth from lies. For example, we have the Greens in government pushing through a 'carbon tax' on carbon-based fuels in this week's budget.

On the surface, to the unscientific layman, this seems like a painful but legitimate response to combating climate change. But even let us assume that climate change is indeed being caused by us burning carbon fuels, science still tells me that this move is nonsense. Why?

Because firstly, there is no alternative. We don't have wind or solar energy feeding the grid yet. We don't have alternatives for driving our cars or heating our homes. Therefore, science tells me that this cannot stop people using fossil fuels. It will only charge them more for them. Therefore, it's a government revenue raiser.

But science also tells me that whether climate change is caused by burning fossil fuels or not, oil is definitely running out. It's a finite resource, and while we may still find quite a bit more, we really have to quickly learn how to use it a lot more sensibly, because we're definitely running out.

And while penalising people for utilising a finite resource could be a disincentive, that can only work when they can avoid the punishment by switching to alternatives.

So a carbon tax is the worst of all worlds - a punitive law designed to raise revenue with no positive benefit to society. It's today's version of the window tax introduced by an English king in the Middle Ages.

If more people knew more science, there'd be a lot more anger about that budget, I reckon. When people cease staring into their wallets and lamenting, they could usefully look at the small print hidden in the budget and see just how bankrupt of ideas this government has become.

How to ruin places with architecture

I'm fed up of architects ruining perfectly good places with their architecture.

Let's try not to think, for the moment, about the Sixties monstrosities that were erected on the ruins of beautiful old Georgian and Victorian buildings across the cities of Ireland and Britain.

The Sixties really have quite a lot to answer for in retrospect. For more on this argument, feel free to track down BBC 4's splendid documentary on why the Sixties were actually total shit.

No, I'm more animated about contemporary architecture, which despite knowing almost nothing about it I tend to quite like, largely because it so often is used to replace dreadful concrete Stalin-baroque Sixties architecture which I loathe.

However, plonking some cleverly shaped, interestingly lit building on the site of a half-derelict tower block or concrete wall of council flats is one thing.

But erecting preposterous constructions in scenic environments where they totally destroy all of the existing ambience is another entirely.

Examples? It's probably easier to say what's good than what isn't sometimes. The London Gherkin is good - eye-catching yet functional and fits into its environment (the financial city) while still being quirky enough to attract attention.

What else is good? Much of the Dublin docklands, actually. Wandering around that end of town a decade ago was to take your life in your hands.

And when the Flugeltent is in operation, or in the middle of Octoberfest, it probably still is a bit hairy down there.

But few could claim with a straight face that the buildings of the docklands and IFSC area haven't improved immensely what was a rundown and decrepit area.

And what's shit? There's a lot of shit actually. Most of the ghost estates and apartment blocks are empty for more than the simple reason that they were built in the middle of nowhere in a ponzi boom. They're also empty because they look shit and no one sane would want to live in buildings looking like that.

Of course architects will smugly claim that those estates and blocks were actually designed without reference to their stellar professional abilities, and were lashed together by builders with no sense of design.

And they'd be right. But in response, I generally just show them this picture of a winery built by superstar architect Frank Gehry in Spain, and then they go very quiet indeed.

Here is how to ruin places with architecture:

Fucking horrible thing to do to a beautiful landscape, isn't it?

Architects - they've a lot of crimes to answer for, you know.

Cold, skint and depressed

I haven't blogged with particular regularity recently. This is because, as the title states, I'm cold, skint and depressed.

Like most of the country, basically.

Well, like those who aren't actually bankrupt or in hundreds of thousands of negative equity they now owe to the bailed-out banksters.

Or like those who aren't actually flooded out of the homes some gombeen developer built on flood plains with dodgy planning and possibly a brown envelope or two.

Or like those who can't get their operation or healthcare because our minister for Obesity keeps hiking the cost of a prescription or attending A+E.

Equally, I'm not so smug, comfortable, with my African dictator-sized Merc and Garda chauffeur, with my dodgy finances and my millionaire daughters to comfort me, that I'm in a position to advise those complaining about the state of the nation to fuck off and grow bluebells, like Bertie Ahern did.

I'm cold, skint and depressed, and I'm still better off than most. That's how bad this place has become. And it will get worse as Clowen and his cohorts seek to mug us all again in the budget.

Come the Spring, I might well grow some bluebells, in order to bring some much needed colour back into the place.

And then I'm going to Drumcondra to look for a former politician's arse I can ram them up, to stop the corrupt little fucker from speaking out of that particular orifice any further.

Seriously, why isn't he in jail yet?

Evra is a tosser

Sorry for the third football related post in a row, but I could not let things pass without noting for posterity that Patrice Evra (seen on the right, breathing heavily while sexually abusing a reluctant Wayne Rooney) is a multiple tosser.

Firstly, he has a girl's name. Secondly, he plays for Merchandise United. But primarily, he's a tosser for his response to the Thierry Henry debacle.

Yes, he said that they should erect a statue to his cheating pal. Yes, he also cheekily offered a replay on his playstation. But those moronisms are not why Patrice Evra is tosser of the week.

Here is his response to the fact that politicians joined the calls for a fair play replay: "When you hear politicians calling for a replay, you wonder if they know the ball is round or oval."

Erm, like your handballing mate Thierry Henry last Wednesday night, do you mean, Patrice?

Why the internet doesn't matter

I've discovered a new mathematical formula today. It expresses the relevance of the internet, and I have calculated it to be 0.1%.

How did I do this? Quite simply. I took the 300,000 people who said on Facebook that they would march to the French Embassy to protest against the thieving of our World Cup place and divided that number by the 300 or so who actually turned up.

This little illustration firstly confirms the old gag that internet petitions aren't worth the paper they're written on. But it also reveals the extent to which posturing has replaced action in the repertoire of modern man.

Perhaps we are much more cowed, more frightened, more afraid to rock the boat than previous generations. Perhaps we are more lazy, more indoors, more sedentary too.

But primarily I think we're more inclined to spoof and bluster and posture than previous generations, and few things fulfil that remit better than the 'look at me' amateurism of the internet, especially (yes, I know) blogs and social networking sites.

We already know that such things aren't work. They aren't proper communication either. And if they're what passes for fun in the 21st century, I'd like to be put on the first bus back to the 20th, please.

So what are they? A billion electronic clamours for attention? Hard to say. One thing is increasingly sure though. The internet doesn't matter, and what you read there is almost definitely bullshit, unless it was nicked from some more trustworthy offline source.

How bullshit? Well, on the basis of my calculations at the French Embassy today, somewhere around 99.9% bullshit (unless I somehow missed a quarter of a million people in my count.)

The French are cheats

Did anyone doubt that the French would cheat their way to the World Cup finals?

Well, consider your naivety shattered tonight.

The inevitable happened - Ireland won the game and were cheated out of the World Cup final by a combination of Thierry Henry's legendary lack of sportsmanship and FIFA and UEFA's desperate desire to rig the finals to ensure that the French (and their large TV audience) attend the World Cup.

Thierry Henry, as anyone who watched the diving petulant scumbag in the premiership will know, is an awful inveterate cheating arsebag who'd throw his granny in front of a train to rob an undeserved goal.

And he did exactly that tonight with his double handball which ought to have warranted a red card for such blatant gamesmanship.



But this vista could never had arisen were it not for the inate corruption within FIFA and UEFA, who rigged the draw AFTER the qualifiers were over in the hope of sparing France and Portugal proper tests in the qualifiers.

Not only did they insist on a seeded draw, they also rigged it to ensure that recent results (bear in mind Ireland went through their campaign unbeaten) were not included.

Then the nightmare occurred and la belle France got drawn against the Irish - nice team, everyone likes the country but only 3 million TV viewers, so fuck them.

Of course, France had to win. And after a dodgy deflection in Croke Park that seemed like an odds-on affair. Then Ireland arrived in Paris and destroyed the French. The referee was clearly desperate by midway through the second half to throw the French a lifeline of any sort.

You just knew that the first opportunity to give a free kick or penalty to the French would be gratefully granted by the ref on behalf of his FIFA and UEFA paymasters, who were so desperate to see a French victory.


In the end, some classic Thierry Henry cheating had to make do. It was the best a moribund and poor French team could offer, having been totally mastered by the Irish.

In short, we have been robbed of a World Cup final place, and the FAI, have they any balls which they do not, would be taking this to the European Court of Sports Arbitration.

The French have no place in South Africa and ought to be ashamed of claiming a role in that tournament, having blatantly cheated to get there.

Remember that. The French are cheats. Fuck them. Stop buying their products. Ignore their poncy perfumes and BS fashion. Shove their smelly cheeses up the place their aroma recalls. Drink Spanish and Italian wines instead (or Aussie or Yank - they're all as good and not as expensive.)

If you're a proud Irish person, don't let the French forget they had to steal our World Cup place by cheating. Take every opportunity in the next eight months to remind each and every French person you meet that they should feel ashamed of their nation.

Despite losing every war they fought for the past eight hundred years or so, the French remain bizarrely impervious to shame.

After tonight, it's time to introduce them to that concept. Because they should feel utterly ashamed.

The Big Bollix

I was in the queue at Ben Gurion airport when the Israeli security forces finally caught up with me. Probably, I should have listened to that little voice telling me to exit via the West Bank and Jordan, but I simply didn't have the cash to hand to do it.

So I risked exiting as I came, and they pulled me aside.

First, I was taken to a side room and strip-searched. Then they went to remove my bag. I protested, as images flashed before my eyes of getting fitted up for heroin smuggling or the like. Eventually, unable to remove my hands from the bag, they agreed to let me dress and search it in front of me.

They took everything out and found nothing to be suspicious about. But that only heightened their suspicions.

They swabbed every single item in my bag and tested the swabs for explosives residue. I felt like telling them that the closest I had come to armaments was their Uzis in my face, and the shots pinged at me in Beit Jala from the nearest Jewish settlement, but stifled my tongue. In the end, reluctantly, they decided to let me board my plane.

As they escorted me past the security desk, past my co-passengers (thus arousing their concerns - none would sit next to me on the flight), I decided to match their spite with my own. Rather than go to the gate meekly, I insisted on going to the loo and shopping in duty free.

I was frogmarched to the front of the queue in both by my security detail.

My last memory of Israel was a tourism poster of Tel Aviv on the airport wall as I finally boarded my plane. 'Come to Tel Aviv - The Big Orange!'

How pathetically tragic, I thought. But not so unlikely in a town so suffused with transplanted New York Jews. Here they were, missing the point about how their apartheid city was utterly unlike the magnetic multiculture of NYC.

How sad to be concocting such a transparently derivative nickname for a town once known by its Palestinian name - Jaffa.

As I drifted off to sleep on the plane, across two other seats vacated by my co-passengers (both Hassidic Jews), I thought that no other city would be so idiotic, so basely dumb as to seek to piggyback on the organically derived NYC nickname.

Surely, I felt, only a town with such obvious negatives for tourists (merely a century of history, little culture, the ground zero of Jewish nationalism in an apartheid state at perpetual war with its neighbours) could feel the need for such transparently borrowed plumage.

And I was right, until this weekend I came across tourism references to Bangkok as 'The Big Mango.'

That's even more pathetic than the Big Orange (which at least has the Jaffa orange heritage to recommend it.)

The Big Mango? Like mangoes don't grow anywhere else, or as if they originated in Thailand? Does a city of immense culture and 13 million people really need to promote itself thus?

I mean, what's their competition? They've got the Western market nailed on for South-East Asia. Burma is a dictatorship, Cambodia suffered a massive genocide in living memory and Laos is as close as you can get to the 13th century outside of Central Africa.

But if this is going to catch on, perhaps we should get in on the ground floor. Galway could be the Big Rainy. Cork, the Big Langer. I'm open to suggestions for Dublin. So are Failte Ireland, most likely.

Please offer your best suggestions ASAP before they start promoting the Big Bollix in America next Spring.

Stephen Gately RIP, but let's not pretend he was Gandhi

Stephen Gately was a moderately talented singer and disco dancer.

He was not Gandhi, or Martin Luther King, or Jesus Christ.

The cult of celebrity that led to firstly the virtually state funeral he had yester with thousands outside the church and secondly the wall-to-wall coverage of his death is to me sadly symptomatic of a society in thrall to fame.

Let's not forget, another man was buried yesterday - a man who was a talented athlete, who volunteered at his local scout troop, who was immensely talented at his job, training our air corps pilots and who tragically died last Monday.

Yet on RTE's 1pm news, we got 15 minutes of the Gately funeral and 15 seconds of Derek Furniss's funeral. Something's wrong with our priorities.

Gately died of a pulmonary oedema resulting from heart failure that appears to be genetically related. The lad was fit and healthy and drank little and smoked little. Some of the papers are carrying the toxicology reports, and they reveal only cannabis and some prescription medications in his system, none of which could possibly have caused his death.

He was involved in a relationship with his partner which is the homosexual equivalent of marriage - a civil union. However, despite this, he and his partner went to a gay nightclub on holiday and picked up a Bulgarian student, brought him home and took turns having sex with him.

The Daily Mail's Jan Moir was hauled over the coals for homophobia when she suggested that there was something 'unnatural' about Gately's death. There was nothing unnatural about his death except the tragically young age at which he died.

But on one point she was correct - the sort of sexual scenario Gately was engaged in at the time of his death - effectively sharing a nightclub pick up with his partner - does not advance the cause of gay marriage one iota.

Finally, Gerald Kean is representing the Gately family here. No one else. Hence there have been arguments with Louis Walsh among others over how information emerged and other matters.

Keane is speaking for the family when he contradicts the version of events presented by the Bulgarian. It is in their interests to see the public reputation of their deceased relative preserved to the utmost.

On the other hand, the Bulgarian may stand to make money by selling a sordid tale to the tabloids.

The truth may be discerned however by the fact that Gately's partner has not offered a version of events which contradicts the Bulgarian's version, and that the Spanish police are also happy that the Bulgarian's testimony is correct.

To conclude: it's sad he died so young, but he didn't die of sex, drugs or suicide, and he wasn't Gandhi, so let's all move on and not make this into our Princess Diana national cringefest, please.

Cliftonville FC 3 Glasgow Celtic 0

No, that's not a typo. It really happened.

North Belfast part-timers Cliftonville wallopped mighty Glasgow Celtic 3-0 last night and it could actually have been easily 6.

Few things on Earth are likely to unite the loyalist denizens of Ibrox and the Irish republicans of Ardoyne. But this astonishing victory by Ireland's oldest club over the famous Glasgow Celtic just might.

Fair enough, it wasn't quite Celtic's first XI. But there were numerous players on display for the Scots whose individual alleged values far exceeds that of Cliftonville's entire team, and Solitude stadium too.

My suggestion? Celtic should ditch the lot of them, because they were terrible, and buy Cliftonville's entire squad instead.

Incidentally, Cliftonville made about six substitutions, including their keeper, and Celtic still couldn't score.

It's fair to say that by the end of the game, when Cliftonville were utterly embarrassing their guests by playing Barcelona-style one-touch possession passing around them, it was actually Cliftonville's reserves outplaying Celtic's second string.

It's a far cry from the last time Celtic came to Solitude, when the friendly was interrupted by the RUC who decided for no good reason to shoot plastic bullets into the crowd in an appalling sectarian attack by the security forces, and thankfully so.

How times have changed in the intervening quarter century. Solitude has a gleaming new stand, the team hammered their prestigious guests and no one was hospitalised by police brutality.

For those who missed out on a night when Ireland's oldest club (don't listen to the LIES of Bohemians) made yet more history, here's some highlights:



And some more!

The tricky task of finding a Ceann Comhairle

The Irish parliament needs a speaker, after the last one was caught swanning around the planet like Marie-Antoinette at the taxpayers' expense.

This is a problem for Fianna Fail, because while the ideal would be for a member of an opposition party to take the chair (thus boosting the government's slender majority), it's unlikely that anyone from Labour or Sinn Fein can be bought off, and Fine Gael will have those who might be tempted on a tight leash in the hope of forcing an election or change of government.

Hence we're seeing some strange names popping up. The latest is Trevor 'I won't lead the Greens into Government with Fianna Fail' Sargent. On the one hand, that would ensure at least one Green in the next Dail, as literally all of their seats are now under real threat.

From a Fianna Fail perspective, it makes holding what they have in Dublin North very difficult. For them to win two seats, as they currently have, next time out would be a huge ask in the current climate.

But given the utter anonymity of their two deputies there, and the vast backlash against Fianna Fail, putting Sargent into the chair would leave them trying to defend two seats out of three when they could well be pushed to get one.

This is why I suspect Biffo will reverse one of the most egregious casualties of his Culchie Coup and elevate Tom Kitt, former Fianna Fail chief whip, to the post.

Kitt was always a good operator, knows the procedural elements of parliament backwards (unlike John O'Donoghue) and is civil and respected by the other parties (again unlike John O'Donoghue.)

But more importantly, he's threatened to step down from his seat in Dublin South, the constituency where former minister Seamus Brennan died and Fianna Fail were unable to defend the seat in a by-election that took a full year to be held.

Currently, that would leave Fianna Fail in the desperate position of having no one except Shay Brennan (Seamus' son) who was wallopped into a distant third place when he was parachuted into the aforementioned by-election, to run in the hope of regaining two seats.

But if Kitt retained his seat as Ceann Comhairle, a totally different picture emerges. Suddenly Fine Gael are in the position of trying to defend three seats in a four seater - impossible, frankly. And Fianna Fail retain the reins of the parliamentary chair for some time to come.

Fianna Fail are already in major damage limitation mode. They can smell the election coming. They saw at the weekend how close the rump Greens are to walking out of government. They've had to issue a stern warning just to whip the Greens into line on the forthcoming budget. In short, they know the gig is soon to be up.

So already, they're plotting for a life after government. A term in opposition, with a favourable Ceann Comhairle, and the opportunity to take at least one Fine Gael scalp during the forthcoming meltdown, would seem to be their best option.

If Kitt's not dead set on retirement (and I suspect he only promised to quit because of how he was ousted from cabinet by Cowen when he had reason to expect promotion), then I imagine he will be placed in the post.