JULY
DEE Stitt is on Twitter. Or, more accurately, David Stitt BSc Hons is on Twitter. Arlene Foster’s erstwhile photo companion has been busying himself of late on the Kilcooley bonfire in Bangor, which he’s determined to ensure is the biggest and the best in Are Wee Country.
First up, Squinter’s not sure what Science Dee is a Bachelor of Honours in – the UDA man doesn’t say. But from the tweets about the appliance of structural engineering science to the massive edifice, it might appear that it is in that field of endeavour that he excelled at university. We might be tempted to speculate on what university handed the qualification over to him, given the quality of the spelling on his Twitter account, but let’s stick to the matter in hand.
On Thursday, as the bonfire crept out of the North Down troposphere and into the stratosphere, Dee gave vent to the vaunting pride that’s filling his barrel chest as the race for the title of Biggest Boney came down to the final furlong: “Kilcooley Bonfire, Well on its way to be Ulster Biggest 2018. A Military Operation, being constructed by Structural Engineers for safety.” Across the Pravince, men of substance nodded slowly and gravely and gave thanks that the health and safety of the children of the large estate is in such professional hands. Next day the Kilcooley boney fell down.
AUGUST
AN open letter from Emma Little Pengelly, DUP South Belfast MP, on the Glidergate scandal...
Thank you for giving me space in your paper to lay out my position on the Woodstock Road Glider stop, erroneously referred to by some as the ‘Short Strand’ Glider stop, among them the people who designed and built the Glider system and the people closest to it.
It has been alleged that I have never before shown an interest in bus stops.. Nothing could be further from the truth. At university I was a founder member of the ‘Campaign to Save Ulster Bus Stops’ and I wrote a very well-received pamphlet which I distributed to members (myself and one or two others whose names escape me) entitled ‘Classic Bus Stops of Markethill and Richhill – Ulster’s Hidden History’. Furthermore, I have on occasion been on a bus, although admittedly not for a while. That the Glider stop I referred to is near the Short Strand is not in question, but since when did geographical proximity have anything to do with naming things? The Donegal Celtic football club on the Suffolk Road is not in Donegal. The Dublin Road is not in Dublin. Even the Woodstock Road is not in Woodstock, which most people are unaware of (it’s actually named after a big 1960s hippy concert in Canada, or somewhere). So calling the stop Short Strand because it is near the Short Strand makes zero sense and is in fact potentially confusing. What is this place coming to when routes can’t be changed or amended just because they are traditional?
SEPTEMBER
SCOTLAND’S Shame, it’s called – the 1,000lb gorilla in the Holyrood Parliament that nobody wants to speak about. Many and frequent are the manifestations of anti-Catholic sentiment at the very core of Scottish society, but the antics this week of a senior Labour Party official at the party conference in Liverpool has seen the issue reach a wider audience and that may make it rather more difficult for it to remain a dirty secret. Speaking from the platform, Scotsman Andy Kerr, Chairman of the Labour Party’s ruling National Executive Committee, invited a woman to speak and then added: “Did you cross yourself there? In that case I might not.” Not surprisingly, the ‘joke’ went down like a fart in a space suit as Andy obviously forgot that he wasn’t speaking before a select audience in Glasgow. The apology wasn’t long coming “unreservedly” with Andy adding: “I was trying to be lighthearted but what I said was ill-judged and wrong.” Scottish Conservative leader Ruth Davidson said: “People from all parties and none will be appalled by this and by the casual dismissal of concerns.” Much as Squinter cheered Ruth’s decisive intervention, he must reluctantly point out that her party has blotted its copybook in the recent past when it comes to the matter of Catholics in Scotland. Last year a Conservative member of Stirling Council was readmitted to the party after being suspended for posting anti-Catholic comments online. Alastair Majury tweeted: “Why is the Catholic Church against birth control? Because they'll run out of children to molest.”
Of course, had Andy Kerr made a religiously loaded remark like the one he did about Catholics about, say, Muslims, or Jews, he wouldn’t have seen the end of the day. But in situ he remains, at the very heart of a party currently struggling with allegations of anti-Semitism which so far have not been solid enough to see any heads roll. The Zionist lobby which is after Jeremy Corbyn’s head would surely have claimed their first victory had this remark been aimed in the direction of Judaism. Perhaps you’ll remember that in July the Orange Order called off a parade in Glasgow. They called it off rather than obey a direction not to walk past a Catholic church where at a previous Orange Order march a priest had been spat at and struck with a baton by parade followers. Now the socialists have joined the KKK. Jings, crivvens, help m’boab!
OCTOBER
WHAT IS THE BACKSTOP?
The facts
An insurance policy (which the UK agreed to last December) designed to avoid a hard border in the event that a customs agreement cannot be agreed by the end of the transition period (December 2020). If no agreement is reached, the EU wants to see the north remaining in the Single Market and Customs Union until London comes up with a solution. Under pressure from hardliners, British Prime Minister Theresa May wants the backstop done away with or, at the very least, subject to a time limit.
The loyal Ulster facts
Keeping the Pravince in the Single Market and Customs Union while the rest of the UK leaves is an existential threat to the future of Are Wee Country and the DUP is battling to “save the union”. The party is clear that there can be no divergence within the UK, except on things that it wants to diverge on, gyeh morrage and abortion, for instance. A DUP source has promised to up the pressure on the Tory government: “We are going to squeeze their balls until their ears bleed.”
Promises, promises...
NOVEMBER
Which brings us to James McClean. Again. Since last year’s Remembrance Day festival the Derry native and Republic of Ireland international has switched clubs from West Brom to Stoke. In order to keep their fans informed ahead of the annual wearing of the poppy football shirts across the English leagues, the club issued a brief statement outlining the player’s historical stance and confirming that he wouldn’t be sporting a poppy on his shirt this year either.
Despite the fact that nothing had changed – other than the name of the club at the top of the press release – the statement sent the Pravince’s media to DefCon 1, just as it has since the day and hour James spoke his first words on the topic, occasioning the familiar angry social media blast from Ulster’s stout yeomanry. There’s a delicious and very fitting circularity in this local saga: just as nothing has changed in relation to James McClean and the poppy, nothing has changed in Ulster’s attitude to it.
DECEMBER
A BURNING question finally gets its answer. No, it’s not about Brexit, or world hunger, or famine or plague. It’s simply this: what do you call this item pictured below left? You may never have given the matter any thought, but Squinter has, because, well... because that’s the kind of guy he is. Fact of the matter is that you’re very unlikely ever to ask for one because 999 out of every thousand of these things sold are simply lifted by the customer and brought to the counter or check-out without a word. If you have a shopping list it will simply say ‘milk’ and everyone knows exactly how large or how small their milk requirements are.
But every time Squinter buys one he asks himself why he doesn’t have a clue what it’s called and, further, if a tourist asked him what it was he wouldn’t be able to answer. So, enough being enough, Squinter put the question to Twitter – and back came around 150 replies, some of them fairly sensible, some...
10. Quart.
9. Barrackbuster.
8. Big milk.
=7. Flagon/Jar.
6. Green milk.
5. Thing.
4. Container.
3. Jug.
2. Two-litre.
1. Carton.
*All intellectual and reproductive rights reserved
