27th April
Limavady (outside Tesco). Caoimhe Archibald is Sinn Féin candidate for East Derry. SF have a safe seat and there might be an interesting “nationalist” contest. While SDLP might do better around Coleraine and Portrush, Sinn Féin will probably do better in the Roe Valley.
27th April.
Connswater Health Centre. Neil Wilson is the Tory candidate for East Belfast. I know nothing about him. Nor do I want to know anything about him. To his credit, he appears to actually live in Norn Iron.
27th April.
Mountpottinger Road, Belfast. Naomi Long, outgoing Alliance MP for East Belfast. The “Ginga Ninja” was elected in a perfect storm in 2010. Unionism was divided. DUP was sufferiing from the Iris Robinson scandal and she picked up some votes from the small number of nationalists in the constituency.
Ms Long is fighting hard to retain the seat. Certainly aided by Slugger O’Toole and the broader LetsGetAlongerist community. If she is defeated, I dont expect her to stop fighting. I would think it would to some damaging in-fighting in Alliance. And set up interesting selection conventions in two or three constituencies.
Malachi O’Doherty has already mentioned the jewelery in his poorly received “Belfast Telegraph” article. Certainly the bling is hard to miss. But just as interesting is the twin cranes from Belfast Shipyard. No doubt this is intended to emphasise her “I’m just an ordinary wee girl from Dee Street” appeal.
25th April.
Larne (corner of Main Street and Agnew Street). Ruth Wilson is the candidate for Traditional Unionist Voice in East Antrim. A breakaway party from DUP, it has one seat in the Assembly (Party Leader,Jim Allister In North Antrim). But clearly targetting one of the three DUP seats in East Antrim. They lack politicians with a profile and no doubt Ruth Wilson is standing to build a profile for 2016. Interesting how the slogan on the poster “Enough is Enough” sums up the Party.
25th April.
Circular Road, Larne. Roy Beggs MLA is the UUP candidate for East Antrim. Sometimes referred to as “Roy Beggs Junior” because his namesake father is a retired UUP politician.
Holds a safe UUP seat in the Assembly.
27th April
Linenhall Street, Limavady. Gerry Mullan, a local councillor is SDLP candidate in East Derry. The Party has a safe seat in the Assembly and John Dallat MLA is not expected to stand in 2016.
I dont know Gerry Mullan but standing in 2015 puts him in pole position to succeed John. But a lot will depend on how he actually performs on Thursday. Limavady is now in the Causeway Coast-Glens Council area and SDLP have six councillors and five are women.
This will mean an interesting SDLP Selection Convention for 2016…particuarly as John was one of the SDLP MLAs who abstained on Equal Marriage.
Thank GOD I am a Republican.
So a baby girl is born …a princess…no less. Just in time for so-called journalists to fill the Sunday papers with complete and utter shite. I think I will stay in bed all day as the TV News will be shite. No doubt Kay Burley will be out chatting to the crowds outside the hospital.
It really is pathetic. Monarchy disgusts me. “The Royal Family” disgust me more. The Journalists who actually report this stuff disgust me even more. But I reserve special contempt for the well-wishers …the “ordinary” people who will be outside the hospital, screaming their love and loyalty for this shower of scroungers.
Women are having babies in refugee camps in Syria and in hospitals in Gaza that have been bombed by Israel.
Kate Middleton is priveleged. Her only claim to fame is that her sister has a nice arse.
Obviously, I wish the happy couple well. And I hope they call the baby, Saoirse.
This is England at its worst.
Sinn Féin now circulating this election leaflet in North Belfast.
The most famous (albeit deceased ) resident of North Belfast is Henry Joy McCracken, hanged for his role as Leader of the 1798 Rebellion and now interred in Clifton Street Cemetry.
The United Irishmen had a philosophy of uniting Catholic, Protestant and Dissenter. The Republican Ideal. The Holy Grail of Nationalism.
Henry Joy…and indeed most of the Leaders of the 1798 Rebellion were Protestant.
Sinn Féin are betraying the Republican Ideal. Reducing Republicanism to dividing rather than uniting Irishmen and Irishwomen.
It is shameful.
Malachi O’Doherty is in a bit of bother.
I empathise.
I am a wee, fat, baldy, 62 year old man from West Belfast. And I can talk all day about the Falls Road. Impressionable people might consider me a genius. Discerning people from West Belfast might consider me a bullshitter. The further away from West Belfast I get…the more I am hailed as a genius.
There is money in Bullshit. Unfortunately I have missed out on the lucrative trade in Bullshit. Readers of this Blog get to read my Bullshit for free.
Sometimes you have to pay for Bullshit.
The biggest Bullshitters are those middle aged men jin An Cultúrlann, looking haunted in the hope of scoring with a female American tourist.
Malachi O’Doherty will have no problem with me saying that he is also a wee, fat, baldy 62 year old man from West Belfast. Obviously he is genius. We know this because a lot of people say he is. Yet a lot of people from West Belfast consider him a Bullshitter.
We both have an obsession with telling complete strangers about our lives …as scholarship grammar-school boys on the Falls Road in the 1960s. In fact we went to the same grammar school.
Malachi is much respected in the LetsGetAlongerist community. Or the “progressive” secular community, where his stirring tales of overcoming his background are popular.
But Malachi and I have another connexion. He likes to photograp and talk about election posters. Why do I do it? Well, in part because all Elections are unique and I want to cover it to best of my ability. There are clues in a poster. The location, the visibility, the props. But essentially I am using the posters as a visual aid to profiles of candidates. All the ingredients are there….nominations, hustings, posters, canvassing. It is like putting a jigsaw together …it might just give me a flavour of a constituency.
I dont know why Malachi does it. But his article on the posters in yesterdays Belfast Telegraph has offended many people…not just women. In writing about Election posters, I have not written about “plunging necklines”, “come hither looks” and “raven head temptresses”.
To be frank, a wee fat baldy 62 year old man only makes an eejit of himself to be talking like that.
I am usually the tacky one.
Malachi is “Writer In Residence” at Queens University, Belfast. I am not “Writer in Residence” at Queens University, Belfast.
Malachi has offended people. And Malachi is offended that people are offended. He berates Slugger O’Toole for not putting his piece in the Belfast Telegraph in context. The posters of some male candidates were also critiqued by a female journo. And dont we understand Irony? What happened our sense of humour?
Yet…Malachi seems to have miscalculated. He is at heart a serious journalist who writes pious articles about our squalid little society in Norn Iron. He has a certain ….gravitas. But really a piece of trashy tabloid space-filling is something he should have stayed away from.
Of course those who regard Malachi as a Bullshitter are enjoying his discomfort. And those who hail him as one of the greatest minds of this or any century are divided as to whether his previous (in their view) impeccable record of political correctness should be taken into consideration.
As one wee fat baldy 62 year old man from West Belfast to another…probably not Malachi’s finest hour. But I think he will be rehabilitated more quickly if/when he blames himself rather than everyone else.
In the meantime, you can search Yahoo to find images of Malachi O’Doherty. Like myself …he is no oil painting.
Meantime I am off to Belfast City Hall with my newest placard. “Je Suis Malachi”.
25th April.
Main Street, Larne. Stewart Dickson MLA, Alliance candidate in East Antrim. An Alliance veteran of a “churchy” Presbyterian background, Dickson was in local government and behind the scenes in Alliance until getting elected to Assembly in 2011.
Will he stand for Assembly in 2016? Only Gerardine Mulvenna a serious candidate to be nominated there …but do Ian Parsley and Paula Bradshaw have a home in the constituency?
Keeping An Eye On the Czar of Russia 