The Troubles: The Irish Would Do Well To Forget And The British Would Do Well...
1169 and all that... This Easter, we were treated to a spectacle that used to be commonplace during the Troubles. Beer-bellied men in balaclavas standing under tricolours in graveyards, reading terse,...
View ArticleHackgate: Coulson, Cameron, Rees And The Death Of Daniel Morgan
It really does read like the plot of a noir conspiracy thriller. It all started back in 1987 with the grisly murder of a South London private investigator. Daniel Morgan was found in the car-park of...
View ArticleMistaken Identity: I'm An Observer Not A Cop
Civil unrest can be a very difficult subject to cover as a journalist. Too far away and you may as well be watching it on television; too close and you end up being one of the grisly screen-grabs for...
View ArticleIs Martin McGuinness Really Fit To Lead Ireland?
When Martin McGuinness announced his candidacy for the Irish Presidential election on 16 September, while not altogether unexpected, the news was still received with alarm by many South of the Border....
View ArticleLiam Fox Hunting: So What Have We Learned?
Who among us hasn’t, at one time or another, tried to use our influence to help our friends? I’ll tell you who hasn’t; the people who don’t have any influence worth using. Be that as it may; for most...
View ArticleI Love Crystal Palace But I'm Having An Affair With Cardiff City
While there's no official rule stating you can't support two teams, most football fans still consider it a cardinal sin. Here's how a Crystal Palace fan sunk deeper and deeper into the clutches of his...
View ArticleRIP Smokin' Joe Frazier
Tributes continue to roll in for former world heavyweight boxing champion Joe Frazier who died on Tuesday (08 November). The 67-year old, who succumbed to a liver cancer diagnosed only a month ago, was...
View ArticleThe Rubberbandits: Ireland's Finest Comedy Hip-Hop Duo
‘There’s no way I’m riding you unless I’m wrecked on bags of glue’ With hooks like that, I was always going to be putty in the hands of The Rubberbandits. You may not have heard of them yet if you’re...
View ArticleMuddy Waters And Whitewash At The Leveson Inquiry
Back in July, under increasing scrutiny for his own dubious connections with News International, David Cameron announced a two-part inquiry investigating the role of the press and police in the...
View ArticleCan The Brits Ever Be Rational About Europe?
Let me see if I’ve got this right. David Cameron exercised his veto in Europe in order to allow The City of London to escape the same tax regime as the rest of Europe... That would presumably be the...
View ArticleWestminster Lunchgate And The Democratic Deficit
I wish I could muster a greater sense of opprobrium and indignation at the news that we, the put-upon tax-payers of this disunited kingdom, are subsidising the meals of our elected representatives to...
View ArticleCombat Journalism & The Ultimate Price: R.I.P Marie Colvin
“Journalists covering combat shoulder great responsibilities and face difficult choices. Sometimes they pay the ultimate price.” When war correspondent Marie Colvin made these remarks; addressing an...
View ArticleHappy Women's Day: Can Women Have It All Or Are They Being Had?
Can women really have it all? One of the great questions of Metropolitan life that one; apparently it often gets asked round tables of women about a bottle and a half of pinot grigio into an evening...
View ArticleWhy Drugs Should Be Legalised
Not if we get our way... In the same month that Obama renewed his commitment to the War on Drugs in Latin America, the British establishment is starting to openly question the winability of such a war....
View ArticleWill the Real IRA Please Stand Up?
The first issue on any IRA agenda, according to the playwright Brendan Behan, will always be 'the split'. Behan was in a better position than most to comment on the shortcomings of that organisation;...
View ArticleWhen 2000AD Was The Future
It was heartening to read today that veteran sci-fi comic book 2000AD was celebrating its 35th birthday party at a sold-out SFX Weekender in Prestatyn. For a few fleeting seconds, I was right back in...
View ArticleSt Patrick's Day: I Feckin' Love It
Chicago Dyes Its River Green For St Paddy's Day St Patrick’s Day. I love it. The whole schtick. I’m sorry, I just can’t help it. Being Irish on St Patrick’s day is the best thing in the world; it’s...
View ArticleThe Worst Job I Ever Had: Picking Lobsters Out Of Jayne Mansfield’s Bum
The Worst Job I ever had?...Christ on a bike. Where do I start? I suppose I could always go into the minutiae of passive aggression and thinly-veiled sociopathy that characterised much of my white...
View ArticleDatura: The Scariest Drug I've Ever Taken
The first time I took LSD, it was like being thrown out of an airplane without a parachute only to discover that I’d always had the power of unassisted flight. It just came naturally to me; there were...
View ArticleEchoes Of War: An Afghan Tourist Diary
"Ladies and gentlemen, we are now approaching Kandahar Airforce Base, could all windown-seat passengers draw down their blinds and could everyone please put on your flak jackets and helmets before we...
View ArticleConfessions Of A Roofer Part Two: A Death In Westminster
After months of searching for paid work in the writing game, I’ve given up the ghost and dusted off my old roofing toolbag. People might not be prepared to pay for written content but they’ll sure as...
View ArticleAll The Fun Of The Arms Fair
Perhaps the most numbing role I took on as a journalist was running the International Phosphates desk for a HIGNFY guest publication candidate by the name of ‘Fertilizer Week’. It was more fun covering...
View ArticleA Week Spent Roofing With An Ex-Armed Robber
The rooftop blues; the early yearsDuring the Thirsty Years; when the I really thought I was Charles Bukowski, Ernest Hemingway and Hunter S Thompson all rolled into one, I worked as a roofer in London....
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