As I have stated here before, the fiction writer’s eternal challenge is to come up with something that makes sense.
Sadly, reality has no such restrictions on it.
I was reminded today of the rescued Chilean miner, Yonnie Barrios, who finally was reached to surface only to find that his wife and another lady, a close acquaintance of his, were both waiting for him!
If a writer had to put that in a novel or screenplay, it would be rubbished as too contrived.
For most of the last 48 hours, I have been down the Word Mines, and the project is rapidly entering dénouement territory.
It can be a giddy experience, and it’s certainly disorientating to reconnect to the world around you.
Living in a novel can be akin to a claustrophobic experience when you, figuratively speaking, come up for air.
I share an island with this chap, although I sometimes suspect that he doesn’t want to be reminded of that-the island bit, that is, not me.
If a novelist had written up the scenario whereby we arrived at the Northern Ireland Protocol, especially the role of political unionism played, then, like our subterranean pal in Chile, the plotline would be stillborn.
No commissioning editor would buy the idea that such a group of credulous folk actually existed in the age of the smartphone and social media.
However, in the treason finale of Ulster Unionism, that’s exactly what we are watching.
The hard Brexit that the DUP insisted upon with their ERG buddies meant that there would have to be an Irish border to protect the Single Market.
There were just two choices and no others.
It could either be ON the island or at sea.
The then Prime Minister Theresa May laid out her red lines, and the hard Brexit die was cast.
The DUP chaps punched the air in triumph while the rest of us feared for the future.
Of course, Arlene and her pals were being reassured from within Westminster that all would well.
In fairness, she has rather changed her tune of late.
With a hard Brexit being the only show in Westminster, the only thing to work out was WHERE the Irish border would go:
Larne or Lifford?
If it had been the latter, then that would amount to tearing up the Belfast Agreement.
London expected Brussels to throw Paddy under the bus.
That didn’t happen, and in the end, it was Boris who decided that Sammy in Narne Arne was surplus to requirements.
There is no coming to consciousness without pain.
Indeed, there is certainly something Jungian about what is being inflicted on the buses of Belfast.
Shameful as that is, it is the human victims of this madness who should cause this entire Fascist street theatre to grind to a halt.
I hope that my fellow NUJ member Kevin Scott is making a full recovery. I know that my branch (Derry North West) has sent a message of support and solidarity to him.
In the end, this is much ado about sausages.
Those shameful scenes should point the finger at the failure of leadership of political unionism. They undoubtedly played a self-destructive role in the Brexit negotiations by supporting a position in the House of Commons that made a trade border inevitable.
They have also failed their communities for generations, and educational failure, especially among Protestant boys, has become multi-generational and endemic.
In the end, all that they have left is their fleg.
This from the Slugger O’Toole blog is worth your time.
This was Arlen Foster’s take on events.
You will note that the bizarre Tweet was liked by Fine Gael politician Neale Richmond.
Irish Twitter was on it like a flash and he was forced to walk back from his initial response.
As I look on at this dismal vista, I really DO need humour.
Thankfully these folks are always on hand.
Now, Tadhg Hickey definitely raised the bar with his Kate Bush extravaganza.
I look forward to that Cork fella doing an impression of the esteemed First Minister of Narne Arne.
A leader who has, for the record, in no way stoked up the paranoiac fears of the PUL community over the hated Protocol.
Enough of that craic; what we are seeing on the streets of the Six Counties is not good, not good at all.
It is, in equal measure, tragic and terrifying to watch.
Especially when you share the same small island.
Ok, that’s me on my way again to excavate another seam of useable metaphors.
My deadline is the end of the month, so you’ll probably be seeing very little of your humble correspondent in this place.
That also goes for comments being moderated.
So, please stay safe.
That virus isn’t messing around.
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Phil, not too difficult to work out what’s going on here. A message is being sent: try for a united Ireland and this is what you’ll get in the north—even if a majority in the north were to vote in favour. That said, who would risk even raising the issue if it was followed by bloodshed, which it most certainly would be? And if you live in the south, who would vote to include these ‘loyalists’ in their polity? Quite frightening, really.
On a lighter note, I see Phil The Greek has shuffled off those mortal coils. I must say, I was more than a little surprised to learn that he had single-handedly saved the world during WW2. At least that’s what the gushing hacks on EVERY FUCKING TV CHANEL would have us believe! But I’m being too harsh. I mean, imagine being wakened one day to be told you were to be the stud to the Windsor dam? I mean, have you seen her, even in her pomp? Is it any wonder—and this is only rumour–that Phil was reputedly the naked (except for a mask) ‘servant’ who wandered among the copulating couples at those elite London orgies at which Kristeen and Many Rice strutted their stuff and fucked their way through a swathe of the McMillan cabinet? A naked servant whose dangly bit you gently tugged if in need of refreshment. If it was indeed he, who can grudge him his small pleasures.
But as well as being the world’s saviour in WW2, we are told that he was the guiding light to his family! For fuck’s sake, not one of them has been capable of sustaining a marriage! And one of them is in serious danger of being fitted up with an orange jump suit in the US for dubious sexual practices with minors. You know the one I’m talking about, the one that doesn’t sweat!
Oh and by the by, on the subject of being the family ‘guardian’ where was he when that geezer broke into Buck House, and was caught in Brenda’s very own bed chamber? Where was the patriarch then? Obviously not even in kip with Brenda. Even when, a few days later Brenda, was admitted to hospital for a D&C—sorry, wisdom tooth problems—he was nowhere to be seen. But hey, perhaps he was at the theatre, for I have it on good authority that actresses were often in receipt of the Duke Of Edinburgh Award for outdoor activities.
I know we’ve got the funeral to come, and the mountain of sycophantic shite that will come with it. But my great fear is that Brenda decides to abdicate in favour of Brian. In which case we are in for months of gushing sycophantic pish. Or worse, what if they bypass Brian and give it to William! Arghhhhh! A new King Billy! Talking of which do they still have that curly wig the original Papacy-financed King Billy wore? Because that baldy bastard certainly needs one.
And by the way—I’m not bitter.
Funny how an opinion poll saw DUP losing support was quickly followed by the protocol nonsense. If its not the Ra bogeyman its the protocol bogeyman