Tuesday 18 June 2013
Maybe it's because the sun is out, the garden is looking lovely and my cat Gissing is purring contentedly under the summer seat but today I feel like saying, "Hurry on up, leaders of the G8, this isn't a bad wee place."
Perhaps it's time to come out and admit that Mike Read might have had a point all those years ago. You'll remember how Read made himself a national laughing stock when he tried to get Frankie Goes to Hollywood's Relax banned from the airwaves. Oh, how the sophisticates sniggered at the hapless DJ.
Just what has Pippa Middleton done to deserve the tidal wave of vitriol that washes towards her every time she is unwittingly papped in the street.
It really is very simple. If a paedophile with a criminal record (or without one) was appointed as a Special Adviser (or Spad) to a government minister, the difficulties of that would be easily visible.
For a woman whose defence was that she was easily cowed, double murderess Hazel Stewart certainly seems to have a neck of purest brass.
The Belfast-based crime series The Fall may be grabbing all the headlines, but another TV crime drama outstrips it for me.
It's every woman's worst nightmare – to be walking home late at night when Nick Ross leaps unprovoked out of the shadows and starts shouting his mouth off about rape.
It's one of those images that has changed our sensibilities for good. The footage of the Woolwich suspect – as we have now absurdly to refer to him – wielding a meat cleaver, hands red with blood, discoursing with the owner of the mobile phone filming him, is beyond anything we have seen on British TV.
It's sexism, Jim, and much as we know it ... While JJ Abrams' Star Trek Into Darkness has generally drawn positive reviews and even warp-speed box office returns, the film has had to put up a critical force field over the gratutitous scene of Alice Eve (yes, Trevor Eve's daughter) in her space undies – which look surprisingly like contemporary ones (push up bra and teeny tiny panties).
Sometimes life's just inexplicable. Take poor Ryan Dolan.
There used to be a phrase in Northern Ireland to characterise those who carried out non-political illegal activity. Remember "ordinary decent criminals"? They were burglars, car thieves, muggers, TV licence dodgers, double do-ers and spivs. Fair enough, it's a wide moral compass to the word "decent" but we got the point.
Sheryl Sandberg says that it's ok for women to cry in the office – "I cry at work" – adding that women are not "one type of person Monday through Friday" and "then a different person in the nights and weekend. I think we are all of us emotional beings and it's ok for us to share that emotion at work".
Stephen Hawking is either a hypocrite or a fool. How else can you explain his decision to boycott Israel?
So Rolf Harris had been arrested months before but it only came out a few weeks ago to a chorus of speculation but no charges yet. The release of his name to the press was never formally sanctioned but no one seemed overly bothered about the fact he hadn't been charged, the moment traditionally when two things happen – the suspect's identity enters the public domain and public comment ceases until the trial.
What is it about Olivia Colman? Everybody likes her. (And quite right too.)
By now you've probably watched the latest viral YouTube hit of the woman trying to parallel park in Fitzroy Avenue in Belfast. First things first, the lads responsible for it were incredibly winning. Their commentary (complete with charming north Antrim accents) was rather droll – "Get in ye girl ye!" indeed. They were chivalrous, too, even going so far as to offer to help the woman to park. We will forgive the odd sexist remark.
Viva Forever!? Viva Six Months!, more like. The closure of the Spice Girls musical followed a critical savaging and disappointing ticket sales.
One of the reasons Belfast ice skater Katie Scarbrough gave for deciding to write her blog was to keep family and friends "in the know" as she battled what tragically turned out to be terminal cancer.
One day. 24 hours. 1,440 minutes. Is that too much to ask? A single day without being reminded that life in Northern Ireland is Groundhog Day re-written as existential horror and certainly not as upmarket romcom.
There was much consternation on Sunday Sequins – Radio Ulster's right-on religious affairs show – when it came to the paper review and a story about a famous Northern Ireland radio personality deciding to leave the country for good.
Barack touches down in Belfast
Thousands turn out in the rain
Pubs, clubs and parties
Michelle Obama rounds off the family's whistle-stop trip to Ireland with a visit to one of the country's famous national parks.
Barack Obama has defended top secret National Security Agency spying programmes as legal and transparent - even though they are authorised in secret.
A list released by the US government has identified several dozen Guantanamo Bay prisoners who have been designated as too dangerous to release but who cannot be prosecuted.
Joe Kinnear risked alienating the Newcastle fans further by claiming to have "more intelligence than them".
Brad Barritt has dismissed any fears of potential jet lag and weariness being a factor when he makes his British and Irish Lions debut.
Team doctor James Robson has paid a glowing tribute to the professionalism of Warren Gatland's British and Irish Lions.
Thousands of fans brought Times Square to a standstill as they waited to catch a glimpse of Brad Pitt at his premiere for World War Z.
Katy Perry "goes there" with Vogue about two of her high-profile relationships, as the magazine's July cover story.
Barry Cryer has criticised today's sitcoms for lacking believable characters.
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