April, 2006

I’ve been playing with the del.icio.us bookmarking service recently. Delicious allows you to keep all your bookmarks online and access them from any computer.

It also allows me to include my latest links in my RSS feed, so those of you who use modern technology to keep up to date will get some extra reading material for free! I’ve posted instructions on how to use RSS previously.

If you’re interested, you can click through to keep up-to-date with my latest bookmarks. It’s my intention to build this as a list of Northern Irish/politics related links, with the occassional dip into music or movies. Exactly as you see here.

First up will be a series of my favourite blogs that I bookmarked for your reading pleasure earlier this evening…

Wednesday, April 5th, 2006 // News & Media

I’m stunned this evening to read about the shooting of Denis Donaldson, the former Sinn Fein head of administration. According to the BBC:

…a neighbour had found Mr Donaldson’s body on the floor of his house with a gunshot wound to the head….Mr Donaldson moved out of his Belfast home last December, and had been living in a run-down cottage without electricity or running water in County Donegal.

For once, I can echo the words of Gerry Adams: “We are living in a different era, and in the future in which everyone could share”. In the back of my mind, I suspected that Donaldson might be a target, but ruled it out because, as Adams said, times have changed.

Moreover, Ian Paisley has waded in. Not to offer words of consolation to Donaldson’s family, of course. No, he’s using it to justify (yet again) his entrenched position. Congratulations, Reverend Paisley, I’m glad to see the human element didn’t win over the usual political sentiments.

Given Donaldson’s connections to both the IRA and British intelligence agencies, there will certainly be some speculation as to who was behind his murder. Details are still emerging and the full story isn’t likely to be known for a few days yet. Fingers will be pointed in all directions.

I have to say that some responsibility must lie with the Sunday World, for tracking the man down and broadcasting his whereabouts to the world at large. Surely an ill-conceived plan all for the sake of a story?

As I said earlier on, I’m a bit shocked at the events still unfolding. However, John’s words from earlier today are still ringing in my ears and my thoughts (and hopefully yours too) are with the family of this man.

Tuesday, April 4th, 2006 // News & Media, Northern Ireland: Politics

War Of The Worlds. The big budget, Hollywood version featuring two heavyweight players: Steven Speilberg in the director’s chair and Tom Cruise in the lead role. A translation of a literary classic.

What the hell went wrong?

The movie starts out excellently, quickly establishing the main characters. Cruise plays Ray Ferrier, a regular fella who’s looking after his estranged children for the weekend. And no sooner has the ex-wife gone out the door, but the wee lad steals Ray’s car and things start to go downhill for humanity from there….

The special effects are outstanding as the alien antagonists start to emerge and ruthlessly annihilate humans left, right and center. By the time Cruise had got himself to safety, I found myself letting out a sign of relief!

And the movie continues in that vein as Cruise and his estranged children attempt to outrun the extraterrestrial attackers while developing poignantbonds along the way. Until the boy decides to confront the big alien death machines. Causes conflict in Cruise as he has to choose between children, eventually abandoning the boy, who goes missing-presumed-squished.

No complaints so far, until Cruise and wee daughter end up in a basement with a deranged dude. Suddenly, the whole movie turns boring. The tension is still there, but this part lasts way too long. Eventually Cruise slips off with their freaky host and stoves the man’s head in with a shovel. Well, you would too if aliens were vaporizing your neightbours and you were stuck in a basement with a lunatic…..

No sooner has the Tomster put the loony in a shallow grave, but the aliens start coughing and spluttering. Guess what? They can’t survive in our environment! Ha ha, forgot to do your research before the big invasion, did you E.T.?

How likely is that? Damned aliens have been observing the planet for thousands of years and when they decide to invade they conveniently ‘forget’ to pack their allergy tablets? Plonkers.

What it looks like (not just to me - I’ve asked around) is that the basement scene drove most of the test audience to suicide and Speilberg decided to wrap things up pretty quickly afterwards. Whatever, the movie ends abruptly after the basement. Aliens drop dead in the streets, Cruise and daughter find the mother (and new husband, and new in-laws) alive and well in the middle of a city. Didn’t the aliens start the annihilation in the cities? Not the safest place to be hiding out then?

Oh, and even better - the teenage son has mysteriously survived and managed to beat Cruise back to the family home. And Cruise immediately welcomes him back with open arms. No “How the f**k did you survive the bad aliens and then race across country ahead of us?”. No signs of remorse for killing the dude in the basement. And what about the ex-wife - are the doors open for a reunion? Do you care?

At the end of the day, War Of The Worlds is a great action/sci-fi movie. I was genuinely disturbed by the alien invasion scenes, up until the basement hell. The ending is abrupt, poorly executed and leaves a ton of questions unanswered. I can only assume the Director’s Cut will have a ton of extra material to fill in the blanks…

Phew! Got this far without a single comparison to Independence Day…

Tuesday, April 4th, 2006 // Movie Reviews

I saw on Slugger this morning a piece about a new Ulster Scots website for children, and it reminded me that I’d meant to post about this some time ago.

The funniest thing about Ulster Scots is that I grew up listening to it, and talking it to some extent. While I don’t agree that it’s a language, it is a dialect which marks out parts of Northern Ireland as culturally unique. Up in North Antrim and the Glens, the air is peppered with Ulster Scots phrases.

And there’s no harm in it, either. I don’t understand why folk get so emotional about Irish or Ulster Scots. Alright I do - they buy into the political ownership of our cultural capital. I mean, why do Republicans ‘own’ Irish and Loyalists ‘own’ Ulster Scots? My upbringing in Ballycastle was non-political, but the home was Roman Catholic. Yet my parents and others around me were supposedly speaking this “Loyalist” language?

For my part, I think Ulster Scots has tremendous tourist potential for Northern Ireland and shouldn’t become bogged down in sectarian politics. Same goes for Irish. Visitors don’t care about our borders, they travel to Northern Ireland from far and wide to soak up our culture and the remarkable scenery.

Tuesday, April 4th, 2006 // Northern Ireland: Politics

Mr Levee recently posted about the new phenomena that is Google Idol.

We spotted the Pomme and Kelly videos early in the contest and knew they would go far. It seems that we were right and this week Pomme and Kelly became our new Gidols and were presented with the grand prize of $250 (which they are going to donate to charity!)
The girls entered the contest as just a bit of fun, but have found themselves drawing the attention of the worlds media and have aquired thousands of fans in just two and a half months.

Getting more attention than they bargained for, the girls controversially removed all their videos except their Google Idol entry from their website and asked that anyone with downloaded copies keep them off the internet.

If anyone is checking out the Google Idol site, make sure to check out the Anthony and Katy videos. these are a bit more rehearsed and less raw than Pomme and Kelly’s offerings but equally hilarious!

Monday, April 3rd, 2006 // Observations

I came across Google Romance on Sunday and thought it was the coolest idea ever! I raved to Mr Levee about how I wished i was single and could participate.

Of course I have since discovered that it was obviously an April Fools joke and I am the biggest fool ever.

No flies on me eh?

Monday, April 3rd, 2006 // General