An open letter to Arlene

Dear Arlene I would like to offer my sincerest apologies to you and your party for my recent fickleness. I have let you down and I pledge, from this day forth, to do everything in my power to regain your trust. As to my fickleness: A temporary failure on my part to give you the benefit of any doubt. I ignored the cardinal rule, if it’s a one off then give someone the benefit, if it keeps happening well it’s …

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New Year’s resolutions all round please.

If truth be told, at this point in time, I would happily pay off all existing MLAs (£50k each, OK £100k and not a penny more, off you go!) and be quite satisfied with 108 new Assembly members drawn purely randomly from the population at large for a fixed term of five years. Terms and conditions: no elections, no electioneering, no expenses just £40k a year and the thanks of a grateful public. If attendance and performance deemed reasonable an …

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The Radical Loser

Omar Mateen killed 50 people and wounded 53 more in the deadliest mass shooting in recent US history. It seems he pledged allegiance to ISIS in telephone calls made before being shot dead by police. You will see the following article quoted heavily over the next few days though rarely referenced beyond  the “radical loser”.  But what if he was just an everyday disjointed, malfunctioning  American Joe. The  article originally appeared in Der Spiegel on November 7, 2005 and is …

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World Cup Predictions 2014 Reminder

  Amid rumours that Robinson and McGuiness have been invited by Moy Park to visit the World Cup, apparently to see what a new football stadium looks like, just a reminder that there is one day left to make predictions. After the endless dithering of recent elections and multiple winners, the ultimate “Winner Takes All” competition the football “World Cup” is almost upon us. In the same ruthless spirit let the 2014 World Cup Prediction game begin. Below are  a …

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The US Presidential Election: For what we are about to receive…

Reading  Glenn Greenwald’s piece in Pete Baker’s previous post  will reinforce in the minds of many their negative views of the American political process and the Presidential elections, and that’s even  before we start getting personal about US presidents with our own favourite stories about their stupidity and iniquity. This  negative coverage will increase exponentially as the election reaches a climax, it always does, and many will sneer  and feel superior  little realising USA today, UK tomorrow alright  at the next …

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Widening access the UU way

Full marks to UU for their novel approach to widening access by giving  everybody who applied for their engineering courses a place whether one existed (exists) or not. Very French. For the full story please follow the link: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-northern-ireland-19307130 Here we have a situation where: – there were 180 places but all 370 applicants were  offered a place as  a result of a computer error whether or not they met their conditional  offers; -it was not possible for the University …

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Why do they do it?

“What is it that makes  people want to be politicians?” is not a question we often ask ourselves, more likely we might ask “Why would anybody want to be a politician?” in such a way as to suggest that  we already know the answer. I have a long held memory that Tony Blair’s response to the first question was “I believed I could make a difference” but I couldn’t find it on the Internet. What I did find was his …

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Olympic riff

Something unusual happened last night, some 30 million BBC viewers  watched a Performing  Arts event live on TV as did a billion more throughout the world. While we’re used to major sports events attracting large numbers of viewers very rarely do we see a Performing  Arts event promoted so heavily.  OK so it was the opening night of the Olympics, it was our Olympics,  and the level of anticipation, with Danny Boyle in charge, was feverish; but really it was …

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Euro 2012 Prediction competition

Another chance to predict the future; the 2012 UEFA European Football Championship, Euro 2012, is almost upon us. The tournament will be hosted by Poland and Ukraine and the first match kicks off this Friday 8th June 2012. Local interest here will focus on the Republic of Ireland, England, Poland and Portugal but not unfortunately N.Ireland.  All entries to be in before kick off Friday.   For ease of reference all of the teams, group matches, FIFA rankings and political …

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IF

  As this is now poetry corner, a piece of performance poetry which is almost prophetic (pathetic as well) Joe’s Bar,  Exit 30,  Interstate 4,  FLA,  USA,  Date: 9 December 1999          Side by side in the liquor store sat George Dubya Bush and Big Al Gore. “Dubya ‘tween you an’ me an’ that swing door, hell  no one gives a damn – no more.” So set ‘em up Joe. Si Si Senor.   “You know Big Al, I can’t …

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London Olympics 2012: the countdown is over for us

My campaign to get some London Olympic 2012 tickets for NI fell  at the first hurdle, see below http://sluggerotoole.com/2011/06/29/pt-brits-required And the last couple of days have seen the beginning of the countdown to London 2012. The BBC being unable to report on any tangible benefits for Norn Iron have rightly asked the question, several months after Slugger, what’s in it for us? http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-northern-ireland-14310859 The answer is zilch. No visiting teams, no visitors, no capital builds etc Kate Hoey suggests that …

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Are we becoming more and more Italiano?

Last night’s late night television on BBC 2 was riveting. It began with “This World” http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b006mgxx at 11.20 in which reporter Mark Franchetti investigated Italy’s Camorra who operate in and around Naples. Its hold on the city is extensive. It was followed by “Gomorrah” http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b00wyqzs a film set in Naples which exposes the murky world of this Neapolitan mafia in a series of five interlinked stories. Both programmes are still available on iPlayer and are well worth watching. In the …

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P/T Brits required

Someone very close to me and three friends have just succeeded in getting tickets for court No 1 at Wimbledon today and will see Djokovic’s and Nadal’s quarter finals. True they had to queue overnight and pay £74 each for the privilege. £74 each is a lot of money to them as they are students but hey as they say it’s a once in a lifetime experience both to see some sporting greats and to experience the atmosphere at Wimbledon. …

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Verse and Worse

  I’m looking to illustrate the following prayers.   All suggestions for illustrations  welcome, one  for each line perhaps eg a picture of  Rupert and News Inc might follow Evil ‘s empire in the second verse; also suggestions for making the verse better (or worse and better if you get my drift)   If any good should come of this I’ll publish the results.  And if anyone should want to turn this into a triptych viz “the politician , the journalist and the…………” then …

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Slugger Politics Award pitch: Building trust

Politics would be better if only politicians would …..begin re-building trust in politics, by trusting each other, by engendering trust between parties for the common good, by allowing and facilitating trust in themselves among the governed, and most of all by trusting the people, if given two paths, to choose the right one. Why is this important? Quite simply because trust is the mortar that binds the fundamental building blocks of democracy together; and without trust these sit uneasily and …

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