indecision reigns (again)

So, it seems we are about to have a little election over here. At least I’m assuming that there will be a little election over here based on the fact that every lamppost has a poster with some smug looking politician’s likeness, my post has become a daily deluge of flyers and the TV and newspapers are beginning to bore me.

The trouble is, as ever, that I don’t know who to vote for. I look at my options and despair. The candidates for East Londonderry include:


Gregory Campbell (DUP) – our current MP. The DUP, and specifically Campbell, have held the seat since 2001 and that isn’t likely to change any time soon. The DUP’s stance on education make them really difficult for me to support. Campbell’s somewhat belligerent attitudes tend to turn me off as well.



Thomas Conway (SDLP) – a councillor from Derry. Despite the fact that Coleraine is the largest and greatest populated town in the constituency his reams of literature only seemed to mention it once. Or maybe I just fell asleep halfway through reading it. Inspiring it certainly isn’t.



Barney Fitzpatrick (Alliance) – I’d love to be able to vote for the Alliance, I really would. But supporting them is like sucking a huge ice cube, it makes you look silly and it’s a lot of pain for no gain. Until there’s some form of electoral reform there’s no point in Alliance even running in East Derry.

Billy Leonard (Sinn Fein) – as novelty value goes Billy has it all. A Sinn Feiner who used to be an RUC officer – and worse still – a member of the Orange Order! It makes me wonder if SF have to run him to fulfil some equal opportunities legislation. Having said that it would take much more than that to make me forgive the sins of the decades that hinder me voting for Sinn Fein. And I’ve just found out he’s not actually standing… It was just assumed he would be. Sorry about that.

Cathal Ó hOISÍN (Sinn Fein) – the actual Sinn Fein candidate. Pretty much everything that I said about Mr Leonard stands… except the interesting past bit. So, despite the fact that I could only find one of his posters littering Coleraine, and thus am extremely grateful to him, I won’t be voting for him.




Lesley McAuley (UCU) – for those who don’t know UCU stands for Unionist… Collation… Ulster… um… Conservatives…. United Cameron… All you need to know is that this is the Ulster Unionist party standing on a joint platform with the Conservative Party. I know little about the woman in question (although a much more political friend did make the point that I “couldn’t vote for THAT woman whatever party she ran for”) All that matters is the C in their name. The Conservatives will cut funding to Northern Ireland, make major cuts to the Public sector, cut funding to education, cut the number of teachers, give marrieds tax breaks, cut inheritance tax… David Cameron may as well have held up a photo of me and said “We’re going to take everything from him and give it to rich married English couples instead, ok?”
And just to show I was only pretending: Ulster Conservatives and Unionists.

William Ross (TUV) – Now I know you don’t need me to tell you how slim the chances are that I would even consider voting Traditional Unionist Voice. Apart for the silly name they are the least progressive, single issue driven, negative party I have known in a long time. Their leader, Jim Allister, comes across as a tired, bitter old man each time he appears on TV. Being asked to vote for them is like someone nudging you and saying “So… the troubles… those were great times, eh?” William Ross used to be our MP when he was a member of the Ulster Unionists. He did nothing of worth then so I can’t see myself putting an X beside his name on Thursday.

So you see, I really am in a pickle. I’d close my eyes and stick a pin into the candidates list if the danger of picking a TUV or Conservative candidate didn’t haunt my dreams every night. I wish I lived in Brighton so I could vote for the Green Party.
Okay. I’ve thought long and hard about it. I’ve weighed the pros and cons. I’ve decided. I’m going to vote for the bald headed one with the red nose (and I don’t mean Jim Allister)


good from bad

Good often comes from bad – or so they say anyway. Sometimes, however, you have to look really carefully to spot a tiny blossom of positivity in the face of overwhelming devastation. At times like these I find it’s probably best not to mention the positive side of things for fear of attracting incredulous stares of disgust at your gross insensitivity.

For instance – and this is probably a good example of stretching things a little – Northern Ireland can boost some of the best surgeons in the world. We are especially known for our experts in the field of reconstructive surgery – they are in demand throughout the world. It’s something of which we can be justifiably proud.

The price for this success? Thirty years of punishment beatings, kneecappings, bombs, arson attacks, abductions, hijackings, executions and general acts of terrorism. Our surgeons spent so long patching people up after explosions and fires that they became pretty good at it. Something a little bit good came out of something very very bad.

So I’m hoping that something positive can come out of the violence we experienced this weekend – but I want more than just some well practised surgeons in return for the lives of the police and soldiers shot this weekend.

The class I was covering a few minutes ago don’t remember ‘the troubles.’ The last time a policeman was murdered by terrorists here they were crawling around – some of them weren’t even on solid food. They don’t know what it was like back then. But even they know that nothing can be achieved through this kind of violence.
This view is shared by the thousands of people meeting around the country for vigils right now. Politicians, church leaders, all kinds of people sharing a time of silence that will hopefully say more than a thousand speeches.

I’m hoping that somehow the way all sides of the community - unionists, nationalists, protestants, catholics, old, young, rich, poor, blonde, brunette – have united in revulsion and condemnation of these murders… well I’m hoping that it sends out the message that we have no appetite for a return to the violent old days. I’m hoping that support for the ‘real IRA’ and the ‘continuity IRA’ melts away when they see how it flies in face of public opinion.

Wouldn’t it be a beautiful irony if these attacks actually strengthened the peace process they were designed to disrupt? Wouldn’t it be glorious if sectarian violence led to us stamping bigotry out of this troubled little country? If that happened then it would be one positive from a negative of which we could be truly proud.

let us live our lives!

I’m angry – really angry. I’ve tried looking at it for every point of view, tried to work out their thought process, but I give up. The powers that be in terms of IT provision in Northern Ireland Education have decided that Blogger is too much of a risk to young minds and blocked it from the C2K network. This means that anyone trying to access a Blogger or Blogspot blog from any school in Northern Ireland will be shown a blocked access page instead.

I am appalled. As an English teacher I teach the variety and uses of blogs, I encouraged pupils to express themselves using blogs, I used blogs to look at the concept of writing for a specific audience. Now I am completely unable to look up any of my trusted sites.

It’s not just blogging that is suffering from C2k blocking. When I was a learning support teacher I regularly used word games from the East of the Web website. These were incredibly useful and fun ways to improve all kinds of literacy skills. Within six months of discovering them I lost them again – apparently in their clampdown on gaming sites East of the Web got the chop again. Surely even the IT geeks in Belfast running our network can distinguish between educational games and games where little cartoon tanks firing atom bombs at each other – maybe then they can explain why my pupils can play the later but not the former.

From a personal point of view it’s a pain in the arse as well. For the better part of two years I’ve been adding posts to ToaSNT during my lunches and free periods. Now that’s impossible – well almost.

In their efforts to avoid our impressionable young folks seeing anything with bad language, sex or violence C2K have blocked even the tamest of sites. By blocking hardcore porn the pupils moved to softcore, by blocking that the pupils moved onto ‘mild references to’, when all of that got blocked pupils moved into chat rooms. But, as we all know, chat rooms are evil and eventually got blocked. The pupils then moved into social interaction sites. Then Bebo and Myspace made headline news and Youtube became the home of happy slapping – so they got banned. This meant that anything that allowed pupils to upload photos, share ideas or actually express an opinion (horror!) had to be blocked and so we get to wave goodbye to blogs – well almost.

You see, here’s the thing. With everything of interest blocked the pupils had to get inventive. Every week they discover a new proxy site and, before it gets blocked, use it to check out their bebo pages and prank youtubes. Of course the proxies aren’t exactly discerning types and so we see the return of hardcore porn and sickening violence.

Ironic, eh?

So C2K please, for the sake of my sanity and a sex ed teacher’s ability to research lesson plans, get off your power filled, litigation fearing censor fest and give us a system that lets us teach… and maybe write the odd blog entry during our frees.

shock horror... dave and I agree.

I was going to write a political entry today. One about a photo I saw in the press that stopped me in my tracks and caused me to swallow many flies.

I was going to but I've had my thunder well and truly stolen by Dave who wrote what I was thinking with a lot more style than I could have. I can't believe we're actually like minded on something - must be some kind of precedent. So rather than waste your time reading something here why don't you pop across to his blog and read how I would like to be able to write it.

Northern Ireland 2 Sweden 1

Once again little Norn Iron punch above their weight and move to the top of their section in the European Qualifiers. This time Fortress Windsor Park witnessed them coming from behind to add Sweden to their list of conquests. And once again it was (sir) David Healy who scored the goals for them.

There are people out there wondering why it is that he constantly scores important goals for Northern Ireland against world class opposition like Sweden and Spain yet can’t seem to score against Coca-Cola Championship teams for Leeds United. While Northern Ireland are top of their table due to Healy’s goals (he’s scored 9 of their 10 goals in the competition – in only 6 matches) Leeds are languishing in last place in their table – and Healy has only scored 8 goals in 28 appearances.

It was David Healy who eventually broke the 1298 minute goal drought that Northern Ireland were suffering a couple of years ago. It was David Healy who reduced Ian Wright (BBC pundit) to a great big huff when his goal beat England soon after. Yet David Healy can’t even get a place in a Leeds side that is really struggling to avoid relegation. Why is that?

If we give David Healy chances he will score. He had two chances and scored both - top class, world class finishing.
N Ireland Coach, Lawrie Sanchez

Well they don’t play him from the start of the match regularly enough. Often they play him out of position. I don’t know – maybe he just likes the fact that he is the big star in the team when he plays for NI.



To be honest I don’t know and I don’t care. I just like the fact that he scores goals for his country – I’ll leave Dennis Wise to ponder the rest.



The one thing that annoyed me most yesterday was TV. During the match itself I was doing sound for a play in Bangor. All I could do was check the BBC website for the scores on my phone. It was alright – the BBC were going to be showing highlights later on when the show had finished. After the strike I went to the green room and turned the TV on.



A Match of the Day Special. Highlights from all four home countries European qualifiers… except it wasn’t really. In a 45 minute slot the “highlights” of an abysmal England game against the mighty Andorra took 35 minutes. The Northern Irish game was shown in under 2 minutes – what was the reasoning behind that then? I can only assume that some power-that-be decided that more of the population would want to see England play than Scotland, Wales or Northern Ireland. But then I didn’t realise that the BBC was there to serve the majority at the expense of the minority. Anyway I won’t rant anymore – I was annoyed.



Luckily I think there’s a good chance that I got more enjoyment out of our two minutes than any England fan got out of their thirty five. And David Healy has something in common with the England players – he’s scored nine goals in the competition, and so have they.

I used my voice - i just don't think anyone heard

So I went and handed in my vote. I won’t say what direction I voted – I know people who read this on both (all?) sides who wouldn’t speak to me for weeks either way. I remember once at a BB Camp telling one of the helpers I had voted a certain way. Within minutes he had announced this to all the other helpers and most of the boys – hardly the most discrete person I’ve met. So much for secret ballots. I wouldn’t have minded so much but I wasn’t actually being serious when I told him… still, reputations are formed on less.

A

nyway, as usual I turned up in the closing minutes of voting. I like to leave it to the last minute in case some reaction to the election changes my mind. There was a volunteer outside the Polling Station who handed me a piece of paper showing how to vote in order to maximise the DUP mandate. He didn’t say anything, try to gauge my intentions. I wanted him to say “I trust you will be supporting the DUP this evening?” I wanted to ask him his policy on education and the environment. I wanted to listen earnestly to his reply then point out that that is the precise reason I wouldn’t be supporting the DUP that evening. He didn’t say anything.

So you know I didn’t vote DUP but that is hardly a surprise. And, in all likelihood, I doubt if they really missed my vote.

Mr Paisley would have proved it is possible to triumph at the ballot box without abandoning religious views considered prehistoric or abhorrent by mainstream Christianity. His website still contains polemics against Roman Catholicism, Billy Graham and Jesus Christ Superstar.
Van Peebles Land

I live in a particularly unionist part of the world. It would be a massive shock if the good Dr’s crowd didn’t match or improve upon their standing in 2003. I reckon it’ll turn out a bit like this:

And if the results do turn out like that I'm going to quit my job immediately and start training to be the next Peter Snow. Despite the fact that it has been one of the lowest-key elections in years with everyone expecting a dead cert and parties lacking motivation for a full out fight there was an impressive turnout. Over 60% in my area. Having said that with minutes remaining there wasn't too much of a queue when I arrived.

I was a long time in the booth – there was quite a queue when I left. It wasn’t that I was finding it tough to come to a final decision – I just found it interesting looking at the list of candidates. For the first time I noticed that five of them – fully one third of the candidates came from the small town in which I teach. Each of the main parties had a candidate from Limavady – as did the Green Party. I didn’t know it was such a political town; well not beyond writing sectarian slogans on walls anyway. Maybe I should pay more attention to the kids I teach – one of them may just represent me in Stormont someday.

England Croke in Dublin

"In front of a supercharged home crowd on a dry but blustery day in Dublin, Ireland tore into the white-shirted visitors from the kick-off" So said the BBC website almost 2 years ago to the day. Ireland again entertained the English today and again beat them - so what were the differences.

When the England squad's preparation includes a history lesson, you know that this is no ordinary rugby international.bbc.co.uk

Well, first of all it was held at Croke Park - the home of GAA in Ireland. Contrary to the predictions of a friend of mine this didn't turn out to be the issue it could have. "Rugby is now the most sectarian sport in this country" he proclaimed sagely. He obviously didn't expected to see the crowd politely applauding the British National Anthem. I'm not sure what he did expect - pipe bombs?

The crowd of mainly Irish fans respected the British national anthem "God Save the Queen", and the English flag flew next to a grandstand first built with rubble from the 1916 Easter Rising by Irish nationalists against British rule. Guardian Unlimited

The second difference was that this is an English team with a bit of confidence about them. Two years ago England were a demoralised bunch even before kick off after losing 9 out of their previous 11 games. This year's England team were sitting second in the table after beating Scotland and Italy - there were even whisperings of title contention.

The Irish put on a show of intensity not seen since New Zealand's infamous victory over France in November 2004, and the English were powerless to prevent the green tide that washed over them, leaving few survivors in its wake. World Cup Web

The third difference was that England Coach Andy Robinson has left the building to be replaced by Brian Ashton. Quick note to Mr Ashton - Resting key players, mind games and pretending players 'may' not be fit enough might work for Alex Fergusion. But International Rugby is a very different game from Premiership Soccer. I hope you learned the lesson our players taught. By focusing on one player and turning him into some kind of saviour figure you forget one thing - a team will always beat an individual. Jonny Wilkinson wasn't at his best today, but even if he was Ireland would have won the game.Difference number four. Hmm... struggling now. Ah, of course - the weather. According to that BBC quote at the start it was dry and blustery in 2005. This year it was rainy and still. In this situation a good kicking game is favoured. Luckily for the Irish O'Gara (not always my favourite player) was on fire, scoring 8 kicks out of 8 and totally confusing the English with his range of positional kicks and poor old Jonny W - with the weight of his country upon his shoulders, was overshadowed.

Ireland delivered the performance the occasion demanded on Saturday when they hammered England by a record 43-13 in a momentous Six Nations encounter at Croke Park to reignite their championship ambitions. New Zealand Herald

Finally, the fifth difference between now and 2005. The score. Two years ago Ireland won 19:13 - a handsome enough victory. In 2007 Ireland won 43:13. A record breaking score that will make anyone wearing green well up and choke back a few tears of pride. Congratulations to those English supporters who did themselves proud by singing and cheering throughout a match they never looked like winning - it can't have been easy. The commentator said towards the end of the match "The Irish players are beginning to enjoy this now." Me? I enjoyed every second.

who to vote for...

Dave presents a rather unnerving projection of the state of the union after the various regional and national elections facing us in the next few years.

voters in Northern Ireland will probably elect the unashamedly fundamentalist Protestant leader Ian Paisley and ex-IRA commander Martin McGuinness into power.

Inevitable

The Welsh Assembly elections on May 3 may well result in the formation of a Labour-Plaid Cymru coalition

 Scarey

Scottish National Party has a sneezing chance of winning the keys to Edinburgh’s sparkling parliament building on the same day

Scarier

Feelings of ecstatic liberation at having a nationalist party in power may prompt the Scots to vote in a referendum for independence... Sinn Fein would then claim the UK is effectively dead. and it could tell its followers to expect formal Irish unity by 2021... Isolated Protestants in the northwest of Ulster would start talking about negotiating a separate union with England and Wales.

Scariest

I have to admit that I have a tiny wicked desire to see this happen - just for the sheer interest of it all. At the same time I would probably emmigrate so I could witness the excitement from a safe distance.

In a few weeks I will head off to a local primary school to vote (lucky primary school teachers must get the day off.) I will (dv) definitely vote - I take that responsibility seriously. The thing is, at this stage I have absolutely no idea who I will be voting for.

I'm not one of those tribalists who votes for the party his father, grandfather and Noah voted for. And I'm not of the opinion that your vote is defined by the Church you attend - why restrict your opinions to two or three parties because the rest go to mass on a Saturday night instead of heading down to the local RP, FP or P on a Sabbath morning?

What are my options? Well, in my area the DUP are hot favourites to take all that they survey. Despite their reluctance to enter into power sharing they're not so reluctant when it comes to electioneering. Within hours of the election date being announced they had their banner up in the most prominent position Coleraine has to offer. My major problem with them is that I disagree with their policies on the Environment and Education. I would find it hard to vote for someone who doesn't share my principles when it comes to Education.

Next up we have Sinn Fein. Its hard to trust ex terrorists as a rule. It's even harder to trust ex terrorists who can talk for twenty minutes without actually saying anything or can turn a valid criticism of republicanism into a damning indictment of the british government. I admire the strides they've taken - but am I ready to vote for them? I'm not so sure.

The SDLP. Where Sinn Fein can turn a position of weakness into a position of strength the SDLP are adept at the return journey. I was very disappointed with their handling of the policing situation in recent times and it really shook my faith. They need to work hard to regain respect in the community.

UUP. The Ulster Unionist have had a hard time of it lately. Has a stint in opposition done them good? Not a bit of it. Instead of fighting tooth and nail to regain power the UUP have been practically anonymous. Oh, I must admit Reg Empey did call the DUP naive on Friday... that'll have them quaking. While the DUP and Sinn Fein have been painting to country red, blue, white, green and gold for weeks I saw my first UUP banner two days ago. It's like they are counting on past glories and I think somebody needs to tell them that the recent past hasn't been very glorious for them.

The Alliance Party. Good old yellow pages. They're the party we'd like to vote for but never do. They say nice things and paint a lovely bright yellow future. Unfortunately they have all the bite of a box of stale cornflakes. Maybe someday... but not today.

As for the rest, Conservative Party (the tories?! I think not), Green Party (like Alliance but more green than yellow), Make Politicians History (funny name - not much else), People Before Profit (Socialism is much easier to say), Procapitalism (probably invite the People Before Profit folk round for tea all the time), Progressive Unionist Party (interesting bunch - their bark tends to be louder than their bite), Socialist Environmental Alliance (appear to be mixing the greens with alliance - makes a greeny yellow I think), Socialist Party (more honestly named than the PBP lot), United Kingdom Independence Party (UKIP?!? you can't be serious), Workers Party (if all the workers in the country voted for them I reckon they'd stand a better chance.)

I'll look into the Independent's when I have an hour to waste. Maybe by March I will have a better idea of who to vote for. I hope I do. Is it possible to put -1 -2 and -3 instead of 1,2 and 3 on your ballot paper?

paradox city

A photo I took while driving through a familiar part of North Antrim this morning. I was trying to use up the remainder of a film I had used as part of an assignment for the local PWA. I love driving through the Antrim Hills - you see so many beautiful (and varied) sights. I long to leave this country often - but I never want to leave North Antrim.

wonders will never cease

It seems today Ian Paisley met with the head of the Catholic church in Ireland, Dr Sean Brady. Now, I have to admit that it came as a little bit of a surprise to me. Having said that I am pleasantly surprised. It's only twenty years since he was describing the pope as the antichrist.

Actually I most pleased with the fact that both delegations described the discussions as positive and there are plans for more meetings. It's a rare thing in this little country to hear such sentiments.

I don't doubt Ian's religious views are unchanged - but it's nice to see him trying for a bit of moral high ground.

I'm glad it's not like this all the time

A week or two ago I wrote a post all about watching Derry City play in a chip shop in Ballymena - that's me watching it in a chip shop, not them playing in a chip shop. It was a post of joy and optimism. A post proclaiming love and peace in a country thought of as a recovering war zone. I was uplifted writing it.

Now I am crestfallen.Coming from Northern Ireland it is hard to avoid topics of religion and politics. If you see a film in NI it generally mentions the "situation" Plays set in Ulster tend to have a group of loyalists and a group of republicans playing montagues and capulets, stand up comedy routines tend to have at least one Big Ian reference - they're not funny otherwise. It's hard to avoid these topics, but not impossible. A group of us make short films in this country and I can't remember one reference to "the troubles" - unless you count a prank involving an Irishman in Camp David wearing a balaclava.

I had intended this blog to be sectarian free but thinking back over the past couple of months I can point to at least six posts with something to do with political religion in Northern Ireland. and here I am about to write number seven - I guess I failed.

You see it's like this. Derry were playing the return leg of that football tie in Paris last night. I went back to Ballymena to stand outside that chip shop waving my rangeltic scarf (creating it involved mutilating two separate football scarves to make one but I think it was worth it) If I thought I would witness a similiar show of bon ami I was sadly mistaken. Two drunks paying no attention to the football and a rather angry looking youth who called me jaffa scum because I was wearing a hearts shirt. I left despondent.

A friend of mine lives in a loyalist area of Derry, or should we say Londonderry. Her nephew is the result of a mixed marriage and is being brought up a a Protestant in a Catholic area. She told me today how she had picked him up from Boys' Brigade last night. They had gone to buy stickers in a shop near her house and as they were leaving the shop he looked up at her and said, "It's just as well we went to your shop and not ours. Cause if we went to ours they would have see me in this uniform and known I was Protestant." He's four. So young, so cynical. She said it nearly brought tears to her eyes - it very nearly brought tears to mine.

Things have improved. Things are improving. I just wish they'd hurry up a bit.

look into their eyes - what can you see?

Do you see joy at the prospect of a goal bonus? Do you see excitement at the thought of moving to a bigger club? Maybe you see relief at the fact that the tabloid press will be positive rather than slating you? Or perhaps you see nothing more than unadulterated ecstasy at scoring a goal for your country against all odds.

Healy, Gillespie and the rest of Lawrie Sanchez's Green and White Army - We salut you.

we're not Brazil, we're Norn Iron

Congratulations to Northern Ireland - I'm typing this with 4 minutes left of a game against Spain - We're leading 3-2 but even if [Oh! great save Taylor!!!] they lose 4-3 it'll be the result of the year.

England only managed 1-0 against Macedonia? Scotland 2-1 against Lithuania - If this stays the same for a few more minutes I think we can claim to be champions of Britain - for a few days anyway. Crouch could only manage one, Healy has scored a hat trick - three goals against one of the best teams in the world - I think that makes him Britains best striker - for a few days anyway...

...until he returns, with the rest of his countrymen to the lower leagues and Crouch and Terry etc resume collecting wages in the premiership.

This is what makes this game so great. I'm so proud I could burst. Spain are in the top 7 in the world. If I was a betting man I could have got 11-1 on a Northern Irish victory [Another great save!!!]

30 seconds - and I know I'm not being very lucid. The 90 minutes are up. Into injury time.

three minutes of injury time - this is torture!

Spain are throwing everything at us.

1 minute left! It has to be... please let it be. I haven't felt like this since we beat England...

thirty seconds... it's a corner! no, a goal kick,

surely that's the end...

We won! WE WON!!! We won!

We're not Brazil we're Northern Ireland

We're not Brazil we're Northern Ireland

We're not Brazil we're Northern Ireland

But It's all the same to me!

I'll make more sense tomorrow - I promise.