Ulster says….give us a few weeks

Momentous times. who would have thought 10, 20 years ago Big Ian would be sitting down with Gerry, ready to go into government, and especially with Martin McGuinness as his deputy first minister. In true point scoring style of course it couldn’t happen immediately and they have to wait a few weeks. The announcement prompted [...]

supersizing and pineapples

An Australian problem rather than an American one. It seems all is not well down under. Too much Fosters and too many many barbies (of the food not doll variety), means the Australians now need supersize ambulances and reinforced stretchers.
In Burma the military dictatorship decided a year or two again a fit of craziness to [...]

Africa, the Irish and the EU at 50

Its been a week of hearing about Africa from two well known sons of Ireland. The first much more famous being Bob Geldof. Bob was doing a ‘lecture’ at Queens on Wednesday – his speaking style, choice of language and illustrations probably weren’t to the Vice-Chancellor’s taste who appeared to be hiding his face behind [...]

stopping the traffik

As you’ll be well aware this is the 200th anniversary of the ending of the transatlantic slave trade. Amazing Grace has hit the cinema screens, Peter Hain has even been apologising on behalf of Ireland (check out the slugger thread here) for its part (once again not ingratiating himself by not having been too up [...]

Sarah McLachlan – World On Fire

World on Fire

I’ve always thought this an awesomely provocative video. A year ago I did a talk on money, and how as followers of Jesus we should think about money. As I was preparing it I realised that often my reaction to the inequalities in the world is that I should spend less, and not be [...]

Waiting impatiently

Voting day is one of the few days I realise what a privilege it is to live in a democracy. The feeling of walking into the polling station (dodging the slightly dodgy looking youth and nice old woman wanting to give me more bits of election bumf) and numbering your ballot paper really is a [...]

Things to do at lunch

There is no end to the ways you can waste your time online. The latest way to jump on the celebrity bandwagon is to see who you look like thanks to the people at myheritage.
Alarmingly some of my friends appear to have been right when they said I’m a bit of a girl! It’s quite [...]

So you want my vote do you?

Can’t beat the pre-election nitpicking on the politics show. For an election campaign that seemed to be more about the real issues, getting the politicians together seems to simply result in the usual old arguments. The Belfast Telegraph figure of 47% of the electorate undecided is hardly surprising. It seems to me that most parties [...]