Showing posts with label Sean Mallory. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Sean Mallory. Show all posts
Sean MalloryYeah, yeah, I’m back and all down to the great spirit in the sky, the Editor, bending the knee to me in seeking my assistance . . . crawling shit!

But like Jessie Pinkman, it’s a one off so don’t go all moist that I’m back to regularly bring light into your dreary, miserable and uneventful lives for not even a bolt of napalm could enlighten those up.

No, your prosaic existence will continue tediously until your eventful demise. A fate that will befall you hopefully sooner rather than later. Now, now don’t be too annoyed - for look at Scappaticci’s demise. This being a prime example of when someone’s parting can bring a smile to even a stranger’s face. Like you lot, a something he failed to do in life and like Scappaticci you’ll not be around either to see the joy your demise brings . . . sad but true. Every cloud has a silver lining though!

On Saturday past, 24 hours after the day marking how an Irish Republican starved himself to death 42 years ago for political beliefs that ran contrary to the Windsors' and now it would seem Sinn Féin’s, Michelle O’Neill accompanied by an entourage of potential British agents made their way across the Irish sea, not in a curragh mind you, to Westminster Abbey. With the intention to obsequiously bend the knee in submission to the newly crowned British king, Charles III and to dine and gorge themselves at his banquet table. Without any consideration of the cost of living, food banks, Khadar Adhnan or even Bobby Sands. Just as they filled their goblets with Joe Biden and teased their taste buds at the anniversary dinner of the Good Friday Agreement. An occasion where Adams was photographed having a good auld catch up with Peter ‘Punt’ Robinson of the DUP, probably discussing protocol for the upcoming coronation and in particular what cutlery piece goes with what course. Something Michelle, hailing from the land of the O’Rahilly, and being raised on such culinary delights as spuds & mince, may be a tad ignorant off. The apple seldom falling far from the tree.

Invited by the Windsors, Michelle chose to describe her and her entourage attendances in taking the knee to be in accordance with their party’s reconciliation policy rather than an act of snivelling, spineless, toadying, sycophantic subservience or simply the final nail in the coffin of Irish republicanism. 

Adams was not in attendance. Deftly avoiding being seen with the hammer in hand. Acts like that are best left to Michelle – Scappattici’s demise and his reported Robyn the Jackal type files were causing quite a stir on the Falls Road and it was best he remained at home to deal with the potential deluge of known agents. Enough of a stir for one of their old click, a known agent for quite some time, to up-sticks and flee but not on the same curragh as Michelle . . . apparently having been advised by Adams’ crew to do so but with the refreshing news that when it all quietens down he can return. Defending British agents seems to be another party policy that Michelle and the girls practice. Well they did vigorously defend Scappaticci.

Having spent Sunday morning taking down all my celebrating paraphernalia of the Windsors' coronation and trying to recuperate from over-indulging in celebratory refreshments, replacing it all with my paraphernalia celebrating the Bhoys winning the Scottish Premiership as they downed Hearts by a brace of grouse . . .  South East Asian migrating grouse to be more specific and listening to a recording of the Bhoys singing their hearts out (no pun intended) expressing eloquently their view on the Windsors and their big day as Charles’ derriere stained the Stone of Scone, my front door was unexpectedly knocked by a candidate running in the upcoming local council elections. A person whom I know and who is a long-term member of SDLP and a person who I have great respect for as he actually works quite hard for the local community.

A brief hello and me reminding him that they, the Bhoys, were on and what the hell was he doing canvassing on a Sunday and this Sunday of all Sundays, to which his response of time waits for no man or something as pithy as that didn’t salve my predicament at all. After another short conversation and me clearly showing anxiety to return to the game (my wonderful Gunners downing the Geordies in their own backyard too and Galway under Pádraic Joyce claiming a Connaught Title again – what a Sunday!!!) he left without any commitment of my support . . .  but a promise to consider his offer., especially having heard that his seat is no longer guaranteed. A pity to lose a worker such as him but my reluctance to give my vote to a party that recently failed to attend a meeting where the non-mandated Orange Order acting through a DUP Orange Man and councillor voted against the Council’s longstanding policy to award a grant to the Orange Order - non-attendance is such a weaselly excuse of avoidance - neither the Greens or the Scone and Tea Party of Alliance will get it either as they voted against the policy and in favour of the Orange Order. It seems there are Orange men of every colour!

The Tories having been severely lashed in the local elections across the Irish Sea by all English parties, were hiding under a few rocks especially Gove and Hunt who now realise that their treachery and odious policies of feeding the rich while starving the poor once supported and defended by the DUP who voted against a pay rise for nurses and who could live with 40,000 job losses, is now coming back to haunt them, one and all. When the veil of treachery once fleetingly rewarded by those once betrayed slips, it seems the revelation can bring an epiphany or sorts or more precisely when it hurts the pocket . . .  logic applied except where SF are concerned for treachery it seems is continually rewarded by those who were betrayed, leading to many other awkward unanswered questions.

Having crossed the political sea of no return and discarded any remnants of Irish republicanism on their way, Irish republicanism now being political flotsam to be washed up, collected and dumped in the nearest landfill site, irrespective of which coastline it washes up on, SF have now become a party viewed only as ‘republican’ because of their past associations and not their present actions. Leaving political Erin (32 counties that is and not the 26 that is now taken to mean Ireland since Bertie and the boys gleefully removed articles 2&3 during the negotiations of the GFA and instantly began to revise Ireland’s past in England’s favour and ensuring their strangle hold retains its grip) bereft of anything resembling Irish republicanism. Drug induced dissidents need not apply.

A political ideology that now seems certain to fade into history. A course on a tasting menu that lasts as long until the next is presented to the diner. Best to be consumed and forgotten as the future holds more tastier political morsels of self-interest and advancement. American style republicanism is the new republicanism for Ireland. An ideology long adopted by both Fine Gael and Fianna Fáil and one that is flexible and NATO adaptable especially to where a buck is to be made and can quickly jettison weighty, burdensome and inhibiting party ideals such as values, morals, ethics, or even scruples. Similar capabilities once held by Edward Coulston and like Coulston and his slave trade, now warmly embraced and ideally suited to the establishment Sinn Féin.

Irish Republicanism as I once knew it and defended is dead. Killed by those who sent me out to kill. Neither dissidents, or old hands secretly recorded by Britain’s spy masters talking treason in back rooms reminiscing of days gone by will resurrect it. Let’s not flog a dead horse, let’s be honest,

The King is dead long live the King.

Sean Mallory is a Tyrone republican

Amuse Bouche ✑ The Michelle-In Guide To Irish Republicanism

Sean Mallory reviews a memoir of a life spent in conflict. 

 
Kevin Myers and journalism – never the twain should meet!

Every now and then a book will land in your lap that under normal circumstances and for a variety of reasons, it would never ever have been your choice of read. A book that grips the reader from the first paragraph, engages them throughout, absorbing their curiosity and enhancing their excitement in their quest to discover its secrets, informative and adding much to their delight. An intriguing digest.

This book certainly isn’t one of those! In fact, by page 4 the reader is pondering where is the journalism? And by page 7 realising that Meyer’s professionalism as a journalist had evaporated into a cloud of narcissism and you are being splattered in an outpouring of his intensive anglophilic political thoughts and his life’s experiences or rather ramblings of those.

At this point and after another induced yawn, you quietly begin to contemplate closing it, placing it on a top shelf out of arms reach and appropriately and most suitably, filing it under ‘drivel’. A most apt repose for such a publication.

Now, armed with hindsight’s wisdom, I fortunately had never ever read anything by Meyers and I am never ever likely to after this. I recognised Meyers from my fleeting memories of his very public and globally reported fall from grace to which I took little interest in and even less in his polarised vindication.

Those who currently find themselves labelled anti-Semitic or as a holocaust deniers usually turn out to be the opposite and Meyers is certainly no holocaust denier. Those terms these days being so loosely bandied about and applied willy-nilly have greatly devalued their potency and relevance.

What I believed he simply attempted to demonstrate was that the Nazi’s having realised that mass shootings were no longer cost effective and that by moving such actions to an industrial scale would resolve the issue. Hence the gas chambers and crematoriums. Therefore Holocaust should not be used to cover the whole of the genocide as millions died by other means prior to this. Certainly no denial of what we have come to understand as the holocaust or as having happened.

As for the other public indictments, be they misogyny or whatever else, deeply offensive or not, I can honestly say that I have no idea if they have substance or not and I am not remotely interested if they do. On saying that I nevertheless persevered and sat down to read his endogenous tome.

The implied theme of the book is to impart to the reader, Meyers professional and personal experiences as a journalist reporting on various conflicts, both personal and around the globe over the last 40 years.

A preconceived notion of a narrative of the Fisk / Cockburn quality is quickly diluted to that of the anti-Assad reports generated by The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights group which is based in Coventry ...  and as it turns out is a preconceived gross optimistic mistake!

What we get is mostly an obnoxious and somewhat arrogant discourse on the conflicts within Meyer’s life. His sexual exploits and meanderings and the improper and unethical reporting of those of former colleagues and associates, laid bare, bluntly, boorishly and crudely exhibited. A life spent mostly righting the savage and brutal injustices inflicted upon the British Empire and mainly upon her loyal subjects dwelling in Ireland, planted and concealed as Irish citizens.

By an Ireland of extremely neurotic, homicidal, manic and demented religious psychotics (of the Vatican kind) but mostly Irish republicans of all hues.

Every now and then an actual global conflict anecdote manages to slip in to the narrative but these too soon diverge in to a realm where reality, improbability, and at times inconceivability, both current and historical, cross-over as does much of his personal conflicts. The death of a young girl in Beirut being a kind of Schindler’s List moment! Schindler’s child wearing a red coat while Meyer’s child wore a purple dress.

And this is the problem with Meyer’s narrative, reality and what we seek to be true become so entwined it is difficult to disassociate one from the other and the reader is left wondering on the plausibility. Lacking the skill of the craftsman and unable to weave, historical facts are hacked in to his invective narrative to buttress his claims and give them substance. Reducing the academic value of the book to that of sociopathic gossip’s prattle.

Myers has done to journalism what Nazism did to socialism. Accolades for his work he may have received but for their work, so did Jeffrey, Bungle, George and Zippy.

His brand of narcissism makes Trump and Johnson look bland, modest and unassuming and takes narcissism to a level otherwise unknown.

As for his fall from grace – petulant child, innocent or not, for the world to turn on you so quickly and ferociously, illustrates how much you are despised.

‘Thank God for that!’ – my words on reaching the last page.

Kevin Myers, 2020, Burning Heresies: A Memoir of a Life in Conflict, 1979-2020. Merrion Press. ISBN-13 : 978-1785372612

Sean Mallory is a Tyrone republican and TPQ columnist.

Burning Heresies

Sean Mallory with his take on a red hot book.


Reinhardt Schwimmer,
Born?
Died 14th February, 1929,
Chicago.

Like Schwimmer, and his deluded alter ego of believing himself a gangster through association, Jonathan Bell and his equally deluded alter ego of believing himself a politician through association, probably wished he never hung out with the big boys!

The RHI (Renewable Heat Incentive) scandal has been well publicised and documented. There was very little of it left undisclosed that could still titillate the recalcitrant inquisitive mind and those ‘bits’ that did remain unexplained went to the wayside as the public moved on. Covid-19 had knocked it off its centre-front public pedestal.

So what could McBride bring to the table with this book, his book?

McBride, political editor for The News Letter, a unionist daily paper, had all the experience and nous required to write any number of books on the scandal. Books that could mitigate the blame to those more favoured to his papers political ethos, books less critical of a bureaucratic system that consistently malfunctioned or books that upheld devolved government generally as a success, with RHI being reported as the extreme exception.

But what he has done is to collate as much of the evidence as possible and present it to the reader in a series of chronological stages that cover the scandal from its elementary inception to its literal death, 'flip-flopping’ between dates. The reader is guided along a timeline of how RHI was formulated, implemented and nurtured, ending with its death throes as the final flames were extinguished.

A journey through a tragedy best described not as a Dante divine comedy but more of a Machiavellian layer cake.

The skill of his narrative is further enhanced with his handling of all the protagonists in this tragedy of RHI.

Bringing in to the public domain their private personalities, their political aspirations, their relationships, both political and personal and which often overlapped, their naivety, their inanity, their loyalty and their disloyalty, their treachery, their fealty, their covetousness, their benevolence, and the dearth scarcity in the required skillsets for the roles they readily occupied and would defend. Politicians who became people, people who became politicians. The unqualified and unsuitable who became government ministers and government ministers who became surplus to Party requirements. The bureaucrats who became mandarins and mandarins who became satsumas.

Engrossed from the start, the reader is assailed with the deceit, the corruption, the greed, the flagrant abuse and widespread disdain of devolved government rules, regulations and protocols. Tied to an ill-equipped civil service drowning in flawed and malfunctioning practices – manifested and exercised in the malfeasance of Foster and her DUP motley crew and their school yard bullish treatment of the civil service mandarins serving in Their devolved government department, the Department of Enterprise and Investment (DETI).

A disdain not restricted to local geography but extended to the British ‘mainland’ public. Reflected in their avarice desires to rob Her Majesty’s Treasury of her taxation monies in-order to ply the NI public psych with the charade that they were the only capable party with the necessary skills to lead ... the party to put your future X beside.

McBride does not direct the reader to a defined conclusion of where or who is to blame and he makes this clear from the start. His intention is not to pollute the readers mind with his own interpretation but to present the evidence and leave it to the reader to articulate their own conclusion.

He defends his Northern Ireland, against this abuse in as much the same way as Varys Targaryen defended the Seven Kingdoms – it doesn’t matter who sits on the throne, the realm is what is important and Stormont might be broken but the realm isn’t. But that begs the question if government is broken is the State not also?

While Sir Patrick’s enquiry was underway the DUP continued to wield their disdain and contempt for rules and regulations. In their Brexit campaign, failing to fully explain the origin of their funding for their wrap around pro Brexit news sheet and their unequivocal support for the flotsam of lies spread by Boris and his troupe.

Post RHI, their party colleagues appeared to continue to circumvent the rules and regulations at both local and devolved government level with Edwin Poots and his family’s questionable land applications and Trevor Clarke and his MLA expenses where conflicts of interest appeared obvious to the non-party eye but blind to the otherwise.

And of course the DUP confidence and supply agreement with the Tories – £1.5 billion’s worth of loyalty ... that displayed itself in a no vote to a pay-rise for the staff of their beloved NHS. £1.5 billion being a more direct assault on the Treasury. And it would be remiss of me not to mention the icing on the cake that is Paisley ... no words needed for that.

Unlike Varys, a fictional character, McBride will not be immolated for his beliefs, certainly not by biomass! And the debate surrounding the health of the British State of Northern Ireland is a debate for another day.

The journey through RHI is one of shock and horror at the systemic abuse so widespread that is it quite difficult to find those exempt or excluded from its tentacles of corruption. All elected representatives to the Stormont Assembly each share a degree of responsibility for the corruption. A degree of responsibility that requires defining in terms of quantity and quality rather than simply turning the other cheek. For some, more so than others.

It leaves the reader pondering what alternatives there are to a devolved government and raises questions as to the haste and the degree of honesty to which all parties, with the exception being Sinn Féin, demanded to have the institutions restored immediately. Especially since they have re-installed Foster back on her throne without any form of restraint or correction and especially since they recently took back control of their expenses! It would seem that the playground roundabout that is Stormont, is still spinning.

Questions about how those directly involved in RHI, displaying contriteness or not, have been rewarded with career moves and lucrative retirement packages for such malfeasance with the only exception being Johnathan Bell. But his soul has been cleansed which seems to have pleased him.

The system is broken and no amount of glue is going to hide the cracks behind the political cosmetics of photo opportunities, courteous but limp handshakes coupled with over-stretched grins unmatched by eyes bereft of the emotion of the occasion.

Like Westminster, her sibling, Stormont, is broken and with it quite possibly the State that is Northern Ireland.

This book lays bare the crude and wasteful practice of how public money is spent. It exposes the ineptitude, the ignorance and the illiterate and empty-headedness or our elected representatives. Attributes propped up with a dire lack of morals or ethics and which the reader soon discovers, are prevalent throughout the whole of the Stormont administration, executive and all.

It is a heavy tome replete with detail, but detail that is required. Attached to it is an also heavy purchase price but a price that is worth every damn penny. Even with prior knowledge of the scandal, the reader is soon gripped and willingly encoiled into its web of intrigue.

To answer the question what McBride through his book has brought to the table - he can take solace in that he has restored some semblance of faith in the guardians of democracy – the press.

Sam McBride, 2018, Burned: The Inside Story of the 'Cash-for-Ash' Scandal and Northern Ireland's Secretive New Elite. Merrion Press. SBN-13: 978-1785372698
Sean Mallory is a Tyrone republican and TPQ columnist.

Burned

Sean Mallory shares his thoughts on Dame Vera Lynn and Bobby Storey, both of whom died earlier this month. 

It was with great relief and joy that Boris and the lads in Downing Street welcomed the demise of England’s favourite flower, no not Phillip Schofield – the English rose, Dame Vera Lynn. A much needed fillip to distract from their dismal, incompetent and malfeasant leadership throughout the COVID-19 pandemic.

It was also with great relief and joy that Andrew Bailey in Threadneedle Street welcomed the news of the demise of one Irish Republican, Bobby Storey.

Vera, having sang her way through the war years brought comfort to many down in the air raid shelters during the Nazi blitz. Fondly remembered by ‘the Nation’, that is, those still alive which constitutes only Captain Tom, really, Vera passed away to join her fans and bring forth her prophesy of meeting them again - much to their delight I’m sure!

Bobby, having spent most of his war years incarcerated at Her Majesty’s pleasure, brought little comfort to many during the IRA’s blitz on Belfast and London. Grimly remembered by Vera’s nation, that is, those still alive, which constitutes the whole Nation actually, including Captain Tom, Bobby passed away not on the field of battle but ignominiously on a British NHS operating table.

Vera, whose portrait once adorned a postage stamp, while Bobby, whose portrait once adorned a post office wall, will both be lovingly laid to rest by their remaining friends and family.

Vera’s funeral service will be conducted with decorum, civility, and stately etiquette becoming of one so much admired and respected. Her final resting place may very well be that her ashes are decorously scattered over those White Cliffs of Dover, she lovingly once sang about, with Spitties doing a flyover.

While Bobby, will be buried with a final pretentious show of defiance against the Brits but not too ostentatious as to upset his new friends in the PSNI and who most likely will pay their own respects to the Big Man on the day by taking control of traffic duties.

As the cortege makes it way slowly towards Milltown cemetery, decorum, civility and stately etiquette will be replaced by a jostling of egos for positioning in the public eye. Laid to rest in the Republican plot in said cemetery, Bobby can explain to his pre-deceased comrades how in his later days he came to support Britain’s occupation of Ireland.

Both iconic in their own worlds:

Vera’s legacy of icon of the free and once reaching out to a whole Island nation but never further afield to the colonies, has long since been swallowed up by the affirmation of Britain’s tyrannical past.

While Bobby’s legacy of iconic freedom fighter - and once reaching out from the Park Centre to Kennedy Way - will be swallowed up in the internal turmoil to fill his much sought after post he held in his not so rebellious but more acquiescent later days.

And so it is with a mixture of both fond farewell and good riddance we take our leave of Vera Lynn and Bobby Storey. Both combatants in different wars. One who sang while the other bombed and shot, for hope and glory and yet both died on the same side of different freedoms!
 
Sean Mallory is a Tyrone republican and TPQ columnist.

White Cliffs And White Mountain

Sean Mallory casts his line and catches a few. 

Pack Up Your Troubles In Your Old Kit-Bag and Smile, Smile, Smile - World War 1 marching song. Published 1915.

Boris just back from the statuary battlefront and demanding that the distorted and altered history kids are taught at school continue as reality, lead the charge that over his dead body would Winnie’s statue be taken down, even though practically no-one actually called for him to take it down. 

A promise that carried as much weight as the promise he made over the third runway at Heathrow. 

Boris having resisted from joining in with the defenders revelry, what with the Nazi salutes or relieving himself on one of the statues, felt his narcissism beginning to flounder and craving a fix, or more precisely a serious boost, looked towards his official appointments diary for relief only finding it failing to deliver any cause for potential respite.

Otherwise condemning him to officially meet with that frog, French President Macron on the 80th anniversary of that other frog, De Gaulle’s speech to the French resistance.

A general, who Boris in his own wishful autobiography entitled The Churchill Factor, narcissism never wandering far from the pages of Boris’ world, is referred to as being a waste of space. Macron no doubt being fully versed with Boris’ genuine deceitfulness and racism, nonetheless smiled a diplomatic smile ...  with an assassins twinkle in his eye.

Where the fuck was that auld bastard Captain Tom when you needed him - note to self: Get Domo to wake the auld bastard up, get him out of bed and get him down here to No 10 for a photoshop. No, no, no, a photoshoot and get those damn Spitties back in the air too!

Meanwhile, Dominic Raab, sowed confusion among the populace by point blankly refusing to get down on the knee to the Lannisters.

He was the First Secretary of State and Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs and why would he be required to do that … silly notion and dismissed it outright! Black Live Matters attempted to point out the misunderstanding but Dominic was having none of it.

On June 18th, Matt Hancock appeared at a press conference to announce that the much internationally lauded British engineered app for track and trace of COVID-19 and central to the governmental plan of easing lockdown was not going to be ready for June 1st after all.

Not because there was further testing required on the Isle of Wight where it never worked to begin with, in fact it wasn’t going to be available anytime soon because it was crap: it didn’t work. But not to worry as Apple and Google Android, those once much shunned apps in favour of the government’s British engineered app, were available instead - and especially since they worked.

Priti ‘Vacant’ Patel continued to condemn those who protested in a non-lawful and violent manner and threatened to imprison them for up to 10 years for defacing public statues. A length of sentence generally more severe than rape sentences and all over what constitutes a public disorder offence too. Which tends to make Assad in the Levant and the other lads in the Persian Gulf more palatable and less tyrannical.

And so, just as life in Boris’ world was continuing to spiral downwards without any chance of averting his fall in popularity among the plebs, up pops Dame Vera Lynn to save the day. Well actually more supine as she was dead as a dodo. Nevertheless, huzzar…result!

The Battle of Britain was replayed over and over, again and again, in remembrance to Vera with her melodious voice singing in the background highlighting how such dulcet tones lifted the spirits of the Nation during such dark days in the battle for freedom and for democracy and as fought for by Captain Tom.

Although a freedom that Britain’s colonies were later violently denied even though the peoples of these colonies helped Captain Tom retain his freedom but that could all be photoshopped later.

Winnie’s legacy was restored and the altered history of Britain’s past could continue as part of the national education curriculum. No need to mention slavery, plunder, rape or systematic State sanctioned murder nor how Captain Tom and his mates established concentration camps in the 1950s/60s in Britannia’s colonies and subjected the incarcerated to brutal and bloody torture that even the Nazis would have found repulsive and barbaric. 

Anyway, Captain Tom couldn’t sing.

In the global hub that is norn iron, our wee country attempted to get back to normal by reducing the safe physical distance for kids down to 1m (not their parents mind you) and opening tourist information centres for non-existent tourists in the vain hope to get one over on Varadkar and the boys south of the British border.

Local pubs began to sell carry-outs of out of date beer, beer that had been lying in their cellars since lockdown began, for prices that were grossly extortionate to the normal extortionate prices people paid 3 months ago for sitting in the bar….the norn iron sheep bleated and paid anyway!

Bars would be officially opened again on July 3rd which is Arlene’s birthday. 50 she’ll be which lead a few to comment - behave yourself, 50 indeed, that was the number of her house!

But let us remember Vera.

We'll meet again, don't know where, don't know when

But I know we'll meet again some sunny day.

– hope to fuck it isn’t soon!


Sean Mallory is a Tyrone republican and TPQ columnist.

Pack Up Your Troubles

Sean Mallory caustically scans the landscape of hypocrisy. 
A tenement, a dirty street
Walked and worn by shoe less feet….. 

The days of Pearly Spencer
The race is almost run 

– written and performed 1967 by David McWilliams from Ballymena, hi! 

Boris Johnson, having a ‘few rotten apples’ in the Minneapolis Police Dept to thank for saving his politically plagued skin over the Dominic Cummings debacle, returned the favour by critically rounding on those in the UK protesting the death of George Floyd and not Anthony Grainger with references to COVID-19 and physical distancing - just as he did with Cummings! Priti Patel, not to be left out of the contrariety, followed in hot adulation of Boris by repeating his words in her tweet, originality being something Priti doesn’t suffer lightly.

Those who resorted to physical protestation when they dumped a statue of altruistic slave trader Edward Colston into the Bristol harbour were especially focused on as thugs and described by some, Peter Mandelson in particular, a man who’s very presence oozes living proof of moral and ethical etiquette, as mob rule.

Even Sir Keir Starmer, rounded on them and decried that their behaviour was wrong and that Colston’s statue should have been removed years ago after much discussion with tea and cake and possibly stored in a museum for historical reasons ... a man who after that remark is now destined to never enter 10 Downing Street!

Perhaps a ‘museum of historical cunts’ would be more suitable where those current cunts, mainly Bristol’s Society of Merchant Venturers, who previously and continuously supported its existence could go and worship him.

Actually destroying it and telling the historical truth of the man was never discussed ... a bit like Cromwell, Cecil Rhodes, Bomber Harris, Churchill or even Thatcher’s statue at Westminster and who all in their own individual way qualify for the museum of historical cunts. Just ask those on the receiving end of their actions!

Colston, a slave trader and Tory Member of Parliament, and no doubt an acquaintance of Oliver Cromwell, who used his fortune to justify his actions with philanthropic acts towards the good citizens of Bristol, just as all immoral and unethical murdering bastards do when seeking approval of their actions by the mob, now lies at the bottom of what constitutes part of the Bristol Channel.

Just as it has been estimated that up to 20,000 of his unwilling ‘shackled passengers’ on his transatlantic ships lie at the bottom of the Atlantic ocean due to food shortages or disease on board. Men women and children were shamefully dumped overboard to accommodate the survival of the rest of the cargo and guarantee profit. A moral compass that Britain retained throughout its history.

Slavery throughout the colonies was decreed immoral and unethical which apparently it wasn’t until then and abolished under the Abolishing of Slavery Act in 1833, even though trade in slavery was abolished in 1807. The descendants of those slaves now living in Britain were dutifully informed in 2015 by HRM Treasury that they had been paying of a debt in modern terms equivalent to £308 billion for the compensation to slave owners from the loss of earnings from their ancestors being declared free men and women ... they helped pay for it!

And in modern times the same duplicitous establishment attitude prevails with the Tory government policy of furlough. In 2008 the British government directly paid of the banking sectors debt to the tune of £137 billion. This time though the Tories came up with furlough. A pretentious government policy of kindness and consideration given to us by government to help us though this pandemic.

A policy that actually allows the government to ensure bank repayments are made while falsely endearing themselves to the people. 80% of wages, of which most of it goes on mortgages, car HP payments and credit card bills and thus staving off a run on the banks due to lack of payments – all routes of debt lead to the banks irrespective of the debt. Like the ancestors of the slaves, we’ve been duped.



And so:

Ring-a-ring o' roses, 

A pocket full of posies, 

A-tishoo! A-tishoo! 
We all fall down….. 


Some claim that the above nursery rhyme is in reference to the plague. But what specific pathogen it references has led to much debate on whether it is Bubonic or Black in nature. Bubonic being carried by the fleas of rats that jumped species to humans or Black (the Great Pestilence) that as yet is not fully understood but who’s wide disbursement and rapid spread is now widely believed to be down to something else rather than the usual suspects – rats.

Others believe it just a nonsense rhyme much like the daily briefing given by Conservative ministers on Covid-19 … although one is historical fact while the other is fiction.

Ring-a-ring o' roses, - normally references the red blotches on the skin…..government ministerial redners

A pocket full of posies, - normally references the sweet smelling flowers carried to ward of the plague….PPE or lack of it

A-tishoo! A-tishoo! – normally references the symptoms of the disease….Covid-19

We all fall down…..normally references those that succumb to its virulence, unfortunately the exception being Dominic Cummings!

But I will leave you with this,

Let us rejoice at the irony of Edward Coulston’s statue as it lies at the bottom of the dock in Bristol - just as many of his passengers ended their days in a watery grave.

And George Floyd, in my day a man who would have been classed as a ‘hood’ and who at some point in his criminal career would probably have been kneecapped, whose image is now painted on the walls on the Falls road and hailed by those who would have physically punished him as a symbol of resistance.

Fuck - how things twist and turn!

Sean Mallory is a Tyrone republican and TPQ columnist.


The Days Of Pearly Spencer

Sean Mallory shares his view of what makes for good TV viewing during the lockdown. 

Having read AM’s dilemma of frequently falling asleep during a TV programme after throwing a full glass of whiskey in to him ... fuck all to do with the programme ... I am in agreement that the choice of viewing during lockdown is quite stunted to put it bluntly.

As a person who is very particular of the programmes he watches - as like AM I hate losing time to something I would count as annoyingly wasteful - I prefer to decide to waste my own time on my own terms and have spent many days lounging in the garden, I also have a tendency to watch the more National Geographic or Attenborough themed programme rather than the mind numbing reality shows that are abundant on our screens today. If they really want to do a reality TV show then why don’t they set up camp in Wormwood Scrubs for six weeks? Now that’s reality!

Back in the day all we had were 5 TV stations, a supposed improvement upon the 3 UK stations we originally had plus of course the illegal RTE. And gone is the famous Test Card. I wonder if that wee girl is still alive?

Programmes like Lost or Twin Peaks were also off the menu for they tended to start off interesting and then it is as if the script writers very quickly are ‘lost’ for ideas and how to end the show. And now like Killing Eve (first series was brilliant) they tend to become a rehash of the same story line over and over again … mundane and time to switch off. Oh, I never watched a complete episode of Twin Peaks or Lost, never mind their series … just had an instinct that it was likely to lead complete confusion and infuriate at the same time…best avoided. Monkey Magic tended to be more entertaining with no thought required! Just like Danger Mouse, the 5 minute animation that was so loaded with adult humour that I’m convinced Pixar and the boys all took their cue from it.

But since the advent of Sky, Virgin Media, Netflix, Amazon Prime and now Disney+ our choice has been greatly enhanced and how we view completely changed. The old established channels are now referred to as ‘terrestrial channels’ which creates the impression that we have decamped earth and moved to the moon.

The compulsory TV license is no longer sufficient to cover your viewing costs. Now you must also subscribe to all those other options. It has become expensive to view with other life essentials now taking a back seat so as we can view essentials ... such as food.

No more squirming or fidgeting to avoid a toilet run before a break in a programme so as you didn’t miss anything, simply pause or catch up later ... viewing is so much easier today that we no longer miss out on anything. We simply have the choice as to when to watch and we can binge out on our favourite shows and the latest film releases. Conversations about having missed programmes are now centred around, I haven’t watched that yet but must watch it later.

Nevertheless, Sky and Virgin Media have weighed us down now with so much choice, but with such choice inevitably quality suffers.

Now we have hundreds of channels to choose from. With themes ranging from the paranormal which are usually about as paranormal as finding a set of scuba diving flippers in the grocery aisle at Lidl (which actually did happen to me … mad shop … once came across an ARC welder in a different aisle), buying bling jewellery, restoring cars that nobody wants, auctioning of granny’s auld junk and loads of channels on weapons of every type especially those that expound the virtues of having a weapon that gives you the upper hand on your neighbour should your relationship suddenly sour … literally on gently squeezing the trigger you are assured that the result will lead to your neighbour being shredded in to thousands of pieces …. job done and problem solved  … hurrah for Dixie!

As quality suffers so do we. After tedious times of surfing through the channels and finding nothing of interest we resort back to the days of 3 channels with the customary response of there’s nothing good to watch. Currently I would say that the number of channels I actually watch are limited to one or two fingers in numbers.

However, Netflix, Amazon Prime and Disney+ took viewing to a new level. Now we are freed completely from time restraints in viewing and can have total control as to when and what to watch … bingeing on box sets is the new norm ... we no longer need to wait 7 days to watch the next episode. But has the quality improved?

In my honest opinion, yes it has, as Netflix in particular have spent millions on their programmes in order to entice the viewer away from Sky or Virgin Media. Quality wins over quantity. But choosing a programme or film to watch is really down to personal taste so here are a few recommendations from Mallory:

Ozarks – We are into season 3 now but it is well worth watching. About laundering money for a Mexican cartel, living and dealing with red necks, corrupt politicians, marriage problems and the Mob. Great viewing by a group of talented actors … loved Laura Linney in the Big C.

Narcos – Mexico – one of best narcotic series ever written. They covered Escobar in Colombia too. Brilliant, absolutely brilliant. Subtitled and in English which gives it authentication. Characters are all real life figures.

Better Call Saul – the prequel to Breaking Bad. Breaking Bad was a series that I very nearly switched off after watching two episodes and then in the third the story line like a brick to the head it hit me … loved it immensely, the programme not the brick! But like it - this is brilliant and unusually so as prequels tend to be rubbish just as most spin offs from the main theme tend to be. The aspect of Better Call Saul and Breaking Bad that goes under the radar is just how violent they really are. The violence is subtly handled so as not to be a feature that sells the show, the story and characters do that.

Now you might think that Mallory loves his drug shows and you would be right but only particular ones: those that are well made and not totally reliant on violence to sell it. Oh, ‘She who must be Obeyed’ loved Mindhunter thought it was superb. I never watched it.

On a completely different theme to watch  … Stranger Things/ Watch this with the kids all the time … love it … there are so many old TV and film themes running through this that we play a game where we try to spot these. Brilliant show though.

Disney’s Marvel films are a must. I was never into that genre of film until lockdown and now with my youngest I have watched quite a few….thoroughly entertaining stuff with Ironman (always admired Downey Junior’s acting skills. Downey, mmm … I wonder if he ever played for Derry?) And Guardians of the Galaxy, like Danger Mouse quite witty and extremely entertaining. But our super heroes are quite destructive in saving the planet: the end justifies the means or the carnage along the way, I suppose!

And to finish: we since lockdown, as a family have what we call ‘Movie Night’ once a week …usually Thursday night. Everyone can have what they want, popcorn, crisps, Doritos, a drink (glass of whiskey included) … whatever, and each gets their turn at picking the film. Amazon have a lot of films that were supposed to be released in the cinema but instead are released on their platform … pay per view but a hell of a lot cheaper than going to the cinema! Plus, sometimes you can forget that you are part of a family.

Sean Mallory is a Tyrone republican and TPQ columnist.

TV And Lockdown