THE WEEK THAT WAS Graucho Marx once quipped: “Those are my principles, and if you don’t like them… well, I have others” while Alfred Adler, a student of Sigmund Freud, summed up much of the …
THE WEEK THAT WAS…. After two weeks of soaking up the sun in the Med it’s nice to come home and find that the Northern Ireland Assembly is reassuringly consistent. The debates are still as …
THE WEEK THAT WAS…. Encore! Encore! The cast and crew of Stormont the Musical thought we enjoyed this season’s performance so much that they raised the curtain once more on Tuesday for Belfast’s ‘East End’ …
THE WEEK THAT WAS…. Life is frequently cruel. Michael Jackson’s adoring fans have had the opportunity to see their idol perform one last time at the O2 snatched from them at the last minute. The …
THE WEEK THAT WAS…. The past seven days were what you could describe as a ‘workmanlike’ session for the Assembly (although the equality police may object to such a description as discriminatory against both women …
THE WEEK THAT WAS…. There was much talk of Black Holes this week; no, not the 1979 Disney flick which tried to out-do Star Wars, but the debate about the ‘Northern Ireland Assembly’s Supply Resolution, …
THE WEEK THAT WAS…. How Peter Robinson must envy Alex Ferguson. When Alex wants to get rid of troublesome, truculent star he can dispatch him to the bench or do a ‘Ronaldo’, banishing him to …
THE WEEK THAT WAS…. To lose one Cabinet Minister is excusable, two is careless, three is reckless and four is, well, just silly. If, however, there’s one thing worse than Ministers voluntarily dispatching themselves, it’s …
THE WEEK THAT WAS…. Is it a bird? Is it a plane? No, and it’s not Superman either, but another equally rare object, Executive Business on the Floor of the Assembly. Indeed, not only …
THE WEEK THAT WAS…. If Stormont’s Order Paper was a mini-skirt its skimpiness would raise eyebrows among even the most liberally minded. Another week and another session without even the fig-leaf of some Westminster inspired …
THE WEEK THAT WAS…. The editorial team at the Daily Telegraph must be laughing all the way to bank after having the wit to buy the disc of MPs’ expenses for just £70,000. For the …
THE WEEK THAT WAS…. If television programme commissioners can’t find enough reality shows to pad out the schedule, the next best thing is buy in a US import, preferable something formulaic like ‘CSI’ which …
“This little piggy went to market, this little piggy went to town and this little piggy went to Cancun where he caught a cold and infested the planet….” Ah, they don’t tell them like they …
After a fortnight’s break to recuperate and regroup, it wouldn’t have been unreasonable to hope that the Assembly might return with a zing in its tail. Well you can forget that – Hansard reads …