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Continue reading →: A right Charlie
Knee jerk reactions are popular with those who struggle to understand the complexities of any given situation. So it should come as no surprise that Charlie Hebdo got branded as a racist publication by people who didn’t understand French. One of Charlie Hebdo’s writers, Robert McLiam Wilson, patiently expressed his displeasure in…
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Continue reading →: Gregory Pardlo
I was encouraged to hear that a Pulitzer prize-winning poet, Gregory Pardlo, had not had it easy. A family history of alcoholism and the rejection of his writing by major publishers did not deter Mr Pardlo. Such perseverance has to be applauded and marvelled at. I wonder if his route to poetry was helped…
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Continue reading →: Did the earth move?
Omnipotence is a terrible responsibility, particularly when your divinity compels you to lay waste to cities, slaughter thousands and watch as children die in agony. What can we mortals do to avert such horrors? Some clerics may have the answer.. “Many women who do not dress modestly … lead young men astray,…
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Continue reading →: Prose poetry and drama
I was lucky enough to win a pair of tickets to see Sean O’Casey’s Shadow of a Gunman at the Lyric yesterday. My son and I tuned our ears to the rapid Dublin dialogue and enjoyed watching the humour and tragedy burst from the stage. I can’t claim to closely…
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Continue reading →: Scientific proof of virgin birth
Science and scripture have not always been easy bedfellows, but today there is incontrovertible evidence of the virgin birth. The only wise men on the horizon were ecologists whose findings have been published in the journal Current Biology. The latest virgin births do not herald a new messiah, but may have…
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Continue reading →: Preference
I must stop listening to phone-in radio shows. The Minister, and successor to Ian Paisley at the Martyrs Memorial church in Belfast, was pressed by Stephen Nolan on a couple of points. To the question “do you believe that the power of prayer can convert someone from gay to straight?” Rev…
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Continue reading →: self improvement or verse
I am aware of my shortcomings when it comes to writing poetry, so I have applied for three workshops on the theme of ‘place’ which might help improve my output. I submitted some poems recently to a couple of poetry publications, but I was not surprised to have had my offerings rejected. There…
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Continue reading →: Marriage
Talkback is the local phone-in radio show and Stephen Nolan encourages the usual suspects to come up with controversy. Gay marriage found callers divided on whether it would break 5 of God’s 10 commandments (?), or Christians should wake up and join the 21st century. A logical argument would not get much…
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Continue reading →: Eurovision weird lyrics
It’s that time of year again – Eurovision, the singing extravaganza that is such an easy target for ridicule, and yet we still watch it. I love the bizarre lyrics either in translation or in some semblance of English. Here are a few that took my fancy: This year’s entry…
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Continue reading →: Responsibilities
The Conservative government wants to restore the balance between rights and responsibilities in UK law. Here are a few suggestions for a citizen’s responsibilities; do not go running off to the European Court of Justice, because the UK parliament is always sovereign (if not always fair – MPs can be convicts (e.g.…
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