Saturday 18 May 2013
We are like a family in the early part of the twentieth century. We've just been given a new-fangled motor car. It's shiny, it can go fast, it is progress. But we are insisting on using our horses to pull the car along, as if it were just another old-fashioned carriage.
Sometimes it's good to be an ordinary Joe or Josephine Bloggs. If someone takes a bad photo of you, it might go up on Facebook and a few people might see it, but generally, that's the height of it.
Feel sick. Sore. Coughing til I retch. Hot and sweaty. Cold and sweaty. Miserable. Take tablets. Sweat more. Decide to stop fighting the discomfort and just stew under the blankets. Try to sleep but here's a new thing... can't switch brain off.
But Perkin's programme made out that Maria was a control freak who lied about her past and ruined her children's lives, leaving them incapable for the most part of normal relationships.
If Dickens were alive I imagine he’d be writing about the horrendous modern day equivalent of Scrooge and Gradgrind — individuals building their lives on the misery of others. I imagine he’d be targeting the latest incarnation of Old Nick — payday loan companies.
That social media has a lot to answer for. Just when you thought it was acceptable to spend the "lull" days between Boxing Day and New Year in an indolent slump, you are assaulted on all sides by images and postings of people climbing mountains, going cycling in the mud, swimming in freezing water and generally being fit and energetic instead of slobs.
One Fleg-protester's Twelve Days of Christmas: On the first day of Christmas I wuz sent a Partridge in a Pear Tree. Sent it back, cos it shoulda been a Union Fleg up a Fleg Pole and they know it!
Good luck to the new government campaign to stop people smoking.
Reasons to be Cheerful: talk of the Fiscal Cliff in American politics has pushed the real Cliff off our screens and radios for a while, so that's good. Give me the fiscal one anytime, at least it doesn't do a silly pointy finger in the air dance every time it sings.
Loved, loved, loved the story of the Queen sitting in at a Cabinet meeting last week, the first monarch to do so in hundreds of years.
Don't imagine there'll be too many road blocks tomorrow. Nobody'll be out, so there's no point. And anyway, even protest-ants (maybe the clue to why they do it is in the name?) like to rest on Christmas Day and focus on warm, fluffy things like presents, family and the Queen's speech. I don't suppose Her Majesty will have a special message for her most loyal of all subjects, partly because her speech was recorded before the flag shennanigans (or should it be shen-not-igans) began and partly because she probably doesn't give a flyin' corgi about them.
The high-heeled secretary on Mad Men starts the day by removing the cover from her typewriter, settling behind her desk and getting stuck in.
Isn't the Kevin Bacon ad for some new form of electronic connection too depressing for words?
Sometimes maybe we just know too much. With instant information comes brain overload. We know what's going on in Syria, Egypt, China and Ballyclare almost as soon as it happens. But can we do anything about it? Probably not. Even if you're in one of those places, you probably can't stop the madness.
All the fuss over the flag flying has rather glossed over the actual decision that was taken in the council chamber. The flag is to be flown on 18 designated days.
Watching recent news, it's easy to think that it's "uneducated" people who are scary here. But there are scarier things going on that sometimes don't get exposed in the newspapers and on the TV news.
Someone with an eye to a making a fast buck would have the City Hall "No Surrenderrrrrrr!!!" woman's face on T-shirts by now and be selling them like hot cakes (well, hot once they'd been sprayed with hairspray and set on fire) at every pro-flag, anti-flag-being-taken-down-to-be-put-up-again demo for the next two weeks.
The British Council says Northern Irealnd is weak when it comes to producing workers with more than one language.
I'm kinda glad we're into December now. Because November has become a bit of a worrying time, since men in this part of the world started getting into the spirit of Movember.
Apparently we throw away a third of all the bread we buy. (Could you imagine what size we'd be if we ate it all?)
The outgoing governor of the Bank of England has warned that George Osborne's plan to boost the housing market is "too close for comfort" to a general state guarantee for mortgages.
Former foreign secretary Lord Geoffrey Howe has claimed David Cameron is losing control of his party as the Conservatives' "long, nervous breakdown" over Europe continues.
One of Northern Ireland's grandest stately homes has been badly damaged in a fire.
Gael Clichy has signed a new four-year deal at Manchester City.
Substitute Craig Doyle came off the bench to fire in a spectacular hat-trick as Carlow powered to a 4-17 to 2-13 victory over London in the Leinster SHC at Dr Cullen Park.
Stoke striker Kenwyne Jones has apologised to team-mate Glenn Whelan after smashing his car windscreen in a mistaken act of retribution for a training-ground prank which went wrong.
Coronation Street has dominated the British Soap Awards, scooping eight out of 16 awards including Best Soap.
John Hurt has been unveiled as an incarnation of The Doctor as the latest series of Doctor Who reached its climax.
A-lister Kate Winslet has ramped up the glitz and glam to address the "heartbreaking" situation of youngsters living rough.
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