Paying their dues

Most of this piece was written before the recent death of Amy Winehouse. Though the points it makes may seem to have some relevance to her career, their suggestions are as a result of a sad coincidence of timing. I wasn’t a fan of Amy Winehouse, and apart from what I caught sight of in

Closer than you’d think

On Tuesday night my son and I went to the Falkirk Community Stadium to watch Hibs play a pre-season friendly. It was fairly typical, lots of players used by each side, bucketing rain, a good first half by Falkirk, with Hibs pulling the fat out of the fire with a late equaliser. I have to

Tell the truth and shame the Devil

There can be no higher law in journalism than to tell the truth and to shame the devil. Walter Lippman Apart from the fact that it’s a matter of crucial importance, why should I add to the millions of words being written on the current situation involving phone hacking and the News of the World?

Loving Lovely Leitrim

On Saturday, my son and I will take an early flight to Belfast, jump in a hire car, drive down to Newry, Co Down, watch 70 minutes of Gaelic Football, return to Belfast, and fly home. A long journey for a short match you might say – especially as there are very strong odds that

The Semantics of Separation

To be honest, linguistics was never the favourite part of my English degree course, but, for all that, the way in which words are used by folk has remained a fascination to me. Take the words ‘separation’ or ‘separate’. A friend once told me that the easiest way to remember their spelling was to recall