Jeffrey Donaldson has been all over the radio this week, talking for Sinn
Fein, the Ulster Unionists and the SDLP as well as for his own party.
Sex and the City has a lot to answer for, and its leading lady Sarah Jessica
Parker more than all of the cast put together. I blame her quite
specifically for my disastrous track record with men in the last few years.
Dear Peter, as you prepare to become First Minister of Northern Ireland, can
I direct a couple of fairly important questions to you? Can you lead the
Stormont Executive to survive another year? And even if you manage that, can
you turn it into a decisive rather than a dithering government for Northern
Ireland?
This coming weekend's nuptials between Peter Phillips and Autumn Kelly have
given the tabloids - and the rest of us, too - a good excuse to cast an eye
over the current crop of royal girlfriends. Kelly, a former Catholic, has
converted to Anglicanism, presumably in a bid to keep her prospective royal
in-laws sweet, but even that's not enough for the more curtain-twitching
elements of the Press.
It must be hell to be Gordon Brown right now. Especially in the near
vicinity of any bookshop. Just about every recent release in the hardback
non-fiction section has been getting the boot into Brown. First John
Prescott, then Lord Levy and now Cherie Blair. Or to put it another way,
first the former New Labour deputy Prime Minister, then the former New
Labour fundraiser and now the wife of the former New Labour Prime Minister.
Sex and the City has a lot to answer for, and its leading lady Sarah Jessica
Parker more than all of the cast put together. I blame her quite
specifically for my disastrous track record with men in the last few years.
Being 'out of touch' must be one of the biggest mortal sins that any
politician can commit. Adultery, financial chicanery and many other vices
can all be forgiven by the electorate but being 'out of touch' is the one
thing to ensure that a politician gets a severe kick in the opinion polls.
The remarkable goings-on on the green grassy slopes of the Boyne had to be
seen to be believed! But we all saw them on the box, did we not? As
Santayana had it, the difficult we do at once; the impossible takes a little
longer. It was a day of high emotion, if accounts are to be believed.
Baroness Paisley's eloquence, it appears, had quite a few in her polyglot
audience in tears.
Now that the American visitors have left after last week's US:NI Investment
Conference, either filing away the glossy brochures or binning them, it's
time for us to take a long, hard look at ourselves and see if we measure up
to the blurb.
Someone once observed that you don't have a sense of humour. It has you. A
situation that sometimes can have you laughing at inappropriate moments.
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In Pictures:
China quake
More shcoking images in the aftermath of earthquake
Papal mystery
Did pope finance King Billy's invasion of England?
School is
out for order
Christian Brothers retreat from education
In Pictures:
Carnival of Culture
Berlin's four-day party to celebrate world cultures
In Pictures:
Crash scene
Police officers are injured as car fails to stop
In Pictures:
Bertie at the Boyne
Taoiseach's last day spent with Big Ian at Boyne centre
In Pictures & Video:
2008 Business Awards
Belfast Telegraph's glittering gala ceremony
In Pictures:
Undie-cover Agent
Agent Provocateur's revealing lingerie launch
Omagh blaze tragedy
 Special report on Northern Ireland's worst house fire
Belfast Telegraph
Property Awards
 Celebrating excellence at the inaugural awards gala
Best view in town
 Special multimedia report on Belfast Wheel
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Hi: 16°C / Lw: 10°C
Rangers fans clash with police after TV failure
Disease, hunger and thirst threatens survivors
Ship's Belfast beginnings celebrated in exhibition
Applauding Ulster's most exceptional women