The Afterword

Musings on the byways of popular culture

Menu

Navigation

More trouble every day

by 101 Comments

Hot weather, injustices in each direction, and it’s kicking off. Politicians trying to sound like a stern headmaster never convince me, any more than the headmaster did. From months of apathy and boring keyboard belligerence, to numbskulls using a significant mass killing by a mentally disordered offender to shift the concern from poorly managed mental disorder in the community, to the beefs stirred-up and aggravated by bad actors on social media. When people are angry and upset, telling them “you’re wrong, now go home” is generally an excellent way to REALLY piss them off. Are the folk kicking off correct to object to the two-tier system they claim means immigrants get away with offending in a way the dispossessed white working class are not? Is this one of those situations where there is a conflict between fair and equal?

A song for Jeffrey

by 20 Comments

‘m concerned about this little man called Jeffrey. He has a problem with his identity, which seems to be existentially affected by minor administrative activities affecting some lorry drivers traversing the Irish Sea. Naturally, the only way he could reasonably address this identity crisis was by collapsing the entirety of regional government. Let’s hope he gets well soon. Here’s ‘Jeffrey’s Identity’, a calypso to this stalwart of democracy.

Jeffrey’s Identity

Oh, won’t you help me with Jeffrey’s identity He’s so confused he don’t know who he’s meant to be He got upset about this line down the Irish Sea It blew his mind and he collapsed the Assembly

He’s gone to sulk with his friends in the DUP Oh, why can’t things just be like they used to be? Tie up the swings like it’s 1953 What was so wrong with state-sponsored bigotry?

A little man with no connection to reality He doesn’t seem to see the disparity With the Democratic Unionist hypocrisy And its lack of accepting democracy

He lies awake under his union jack eiderdown He thinks of England – England thinks he’s a clown He goes on TV and he tries to be sinister He just can’t » Continue Reading.

Dinosaurs at the ballot box

by 22 Comments

Looking at BBC News site pics of todays internal election of a new DUP leader (28 voters, I think), I came to the ghastly awareness that the DUP HQ is literally a few hundred yards from my home – a drab building on a street corner that I assumed was a constituency office.

Up for election are Edwin Poots and Geoffrey Donaldson. There is no known problem to which Edwin Poots – a man who believes the world is 6,000 tears old – is the solution. There is only one problem to which Geoffrey Donaldson is the solution: Edwin Poots.

Outgoing DUP supremo Arlene Foster – the woman who personally presided over the waste of hundreds of millions of pounds of public money with an insane heating scheme (it was either corrupt or monumentally stupid) – will apparently sever her links with the party once she leaves office.

All political careers end in failure.

Anyway, it sent me off to Spotify for an immediate injection of ‘Northern Ireland Politicians’ and ‘Smash the System’. It’s the first time I’ve used Spotify. Someone here, at the AW, brought up the topic of the current digital availability of something else » Continue Reading.

At this time of the year, as we spread joy and forgiveness, we must not, of course, forget to make an exception to that rule for Northern Ireland politicians…

by 7 Comments

After last year’s full-band ‘Smash the System’, concerning NI regional assembly members receiving millions in public money for two years of not turning up to work, I had consciously moved on. Because the danger with Northern Ireland politics is that there is never any good news – it’s one long, relentless sewer of bigotry, corruption, rancour, hypocrisy and idiots. Too long in that world wouldn’t be good for you.

But maybe the snow is beginning to fall in Narnia… The vote share for both the DUP and Sinn Fein – the two extreme parties – was significantly down at the recent Westminster election, and the DUP lost two seats (Sinn Fein lost one – albeit a prominent one – but gained another). The vote share, and seat share, for the centrist parties was up. Hurrah! There will very likely be a national-government-initiated Stormont Assembly election in January – because the DUP is still refusing to go back to work there after three years and counting – and in that election, I sincerely hope they and Sinn Fein are significantly diminished, that neither is the largest party and that this collapsing of a democratic institution cannot happen again.

Having followed » Continue Reading.