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We’re not worthy… of democracy

You know what? It’s true. If elections were held tomorrow, there’s every chance they’d vote in a bunch of religious fundamentalists who’d start wars and destabilise the entire Middle East. Nonetheless, I do think the American people should be allowed to choose their leaders democratically. Read the rest of this entry »

Are Fianna Fail scuppering their own recovery by denying us our Portillo moment?

It looks like game over. The most successful political party in the history of the state is virtually an ex-parrot. But it would be rash to go writing Fianna Fail’s obituary just yet. Today’s polls show party support steady at about 15%. Considering our present predicament, that suggests one-seventh of the electorate would vote Fianna Fail even if the local candidate were standing at their front door with an axe in his hand and a murderous twinkle in his eye.

From here, really, the only way is up. Read the rest of this entry »

The Tayto Years

This week, I’ve been inveigled into writing on the topic ‘Food Memories of the 1980s’. It’s kind of a tall order, given that I was only a small boy during that decade. It was all a blur of penny sweets and Subbuteo as far as I can recall .

Go on, they said. There must be a few special Eighties food memories that stick out… Well, there was that time Duran Duran dropped by my house and we ate Rice Krispie Buns and played Space Invaders together.

Really, they gasped? No, of course not. Read the rest of this article here.

The funniest thing I’ve ever seen.

Let me say this: that boy has no business on the back of that donkey. None whatsoever. At one point – when they both go careering into the bushes – I’m seriously thinking, if this video gets any funnier, I might actually die laughing. (Spoiler alter: it then gets even funnier.)

Of all the juice bars in all the world…

“Barkeep. Hit me with a Blueberry Burst – and don’t spare the blueberry!” Read the rest of this article here.

This is funny

Hello, is it me you’re looking for?

On the Palestine Papers

A few years ago, a friend and I were discussing conspiracy theories. We both dismissed the vast majority of them out of hand. But I was willing to entertain the remote possibility that Diana, Princess of Wales, might have been assassinated by British intelligence officers.

I don’t for a second believe that she was murdered. I was merely acknowledging that this far-fetched plot, unlike the moon landings, or 9/11, would at least have had a coherent motive and required the complicity (and subsequent silence) of a managably small number of conspirators. Read the rest of this entry »

I Wasn’t The Devil’s Double. I Made the Whole Thing Up. [UPDATED]

There’s an interesting story by Ed Caesar in tomorrow’s Sunday Times. It concerns a man named Latif Yahia, who is the subject of a new $20m film called The Devil’s Double, starring Dominic Cooper (Mamma Mia!, The History Boys.) Yahia first came to my attention four years ago, when I was on the staff of an independent magazine called Mongrel.

I had come across the story of an Iraqi exile living in Ireland. The guy seemed to have been through hell. He had been taken out of the Iraqi army, in which he served as a captain during the Iran-Iraq war, and forced to work as a body-double for Uday Hussein. He had been tortured and even forced to undergo cosmetic surgery that he might more closely resemble Saddam’s psychotic son. Read the rest of this entry »

Before they were famous: Sugababes

In one of their earliest incarnations, the Sugababes were a successful Sunday league football team with Archie Burnside the star turn at inside-right.
[NB: I’ve just posted an important public service announcement in the comments.]

If Lupus means “a penis”, then yes, most probably.

Keep seeing this ad here.