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Frank Mitchell Opinion GAA emotions easy to understand, my Man City cartwheeling not so much – I blame cousin Peter  

I know I won’t sleep very well on Saturday night.

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Frank Mitchell Opinion There must be something very satisfying in knowing you can be identified so easily

So Edwin’s in charge. You know at once who I’m talking about. I don’t need to give his full name or make a reference to the DUP. He is one of those people who most of us recognise just by hearing his Christian name. For Edwin of course, it is a Christian name as opposed to a forename. There are others where it’s the surname that has the power.

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Frank Mitchell Opinion By staying in Belfast, I'm making life easier for both seagull and Swann

I should be in Donegal today but I'm not. The green light was given for inter county travel on Monday past. The Irish Minister of State for European Affairs Thomas Byrne made it clear the permission was granted on a 32 not 26 county basis. As Donegal is in his jurisdiction the welcome is on the mat.

Frank Mitchell Opinion The smell of gravy, RUC checkpoints and the surprising fortunes of four childhood friends

It's the smell of hot gravy that brings it back. I'm recalling a time when things seemed better than they turned out to be. I arrived late into the St Colman's College canteen. All the tables were taken. The supervisor offered to set a smaller table for myself and four other late arrivals. We weren't all close mates, but we all knew each other and piled in at the extra table.

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Frank Mitchell Opinion The reality is when I was a teenager in Dundalk, unionist employers were thin on the ground

You may not know this but I have two surnames. Sometimes I think everyone should allow themselves more of a choice. Those of us who alternate between our family name and a pseudonym have an advantage when it comes to privacy.

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Frank Mitchell Opinion I'll miss viewers giving their feedback - from the witty to the downright hilarious

Do you miss it? I've been asked that a lot since I left UTV. Of course I miss it. An amazing bunch of people, from the old hands to the fresh faces. This year as you know we've all learned to miss so much.

The day I felt the proudest and saddest person on earth

ARRIVING late at the packed church I eased my way into the pew trying not to trip over the legs of a rotund lady who was greeting me with a grinning set of false teeth.

If there is a poet slumbering in my soul, I am about to kick him out of bed

APPARENTLY the latest craze that's set to loom large on TV's horizon is a poet's version of Stars in Their Eyes. Some stations are set to show this as head to head competition against The Election coverage elsewhere. "What a choice," I can hear you say.

Arnie, Sly and a portion of chips

THE paint was barely dry on Charlie's new chip van when he reversed into position close to the parish hall. I sat on the low stone pillar checking the coins in my pockets, longing for the flaps to open and trading to start.

Paisley, Flanagan, Hitler, Parkinson ... this is my 'vocal' dream team ...

I'm now convinced my favourite hobby is listening to the sound of the spoken voice. Last night in an effort to cushion my ears from the drone of the lawnmower I had Terry Wogan reading his autobiography on my walkman.

It's not a bundle of laughs making a living as a comic

VALERIE Butler and Kerry Gooding are hardly names on the tip of every comedy fan's tongue but the contribution they make to the success of Ulster's first lady of laughs is immeasurable.

Buster hit the ball and the ball hit me

IT should have been the best school day of the year. The sun was shining and the teacher was saying exactly what we wanted to hear. The bus, which would take us to the Frontier Cinema in Newry, would be arriving in about an hour, and as it was such a bright and cheery morning the entire class should play outside and enjoy the fresh country air before we would set off to see Julie Andrews in The Sound Of Music.

Talk may be cheap but clever, entertaining talk is worth as much as any singer or any song

TALK'S cheap and no- one knows that better than the bosses at the rapidly growing number of radio stations that specialise in churning out chat.

The continued locking out of soccer and rugby from gaelic grounds is a shameful act

HAVE a Nice Day With the GAA - that was the big sales slogan for the Gaelic Athletic Association in the 1970s and judging by how quickly the organisation moves with the times, it's probably still churning out the same old line.

After the shock I experienced as an innocent child on that lively night in Warrenpoint, I have never tasted alcohol ...

MY eyes were fixed on the whiskey glistening in the glass. Paddy ran his finger around the rim as he stared across the bar at the singer in the corner. The music was loud and the football celebrations were set to last long into the night.

Sixty guests had just seen me walk into a wardrobe with a scantily clad woman

THE headed notepaper was richly coloured and almost regal in its appeal. I read it, felt it, sniffed it and read it again. How I wished there had been an audience when I opened that envelope. Like a town crier I held the page, and adding the phrase, "hear ye, hear ye", read it in a loud voice to the neighbour's dog.

Every time the Bisto bubbles I remember four friends and how their futures unfolded...

THERE'S nothing like a lapful of hot gravy to help you remember every detail of an unusual school lunch break.

The media is tough ... if you want an easier life I suggest you join the police

A shaft of winter sunlight forces its way through the narrow office window. Her blonde hair catches the warm rays and her eyes sparkle like dewdrops in a summer meadow. She could be a Thomas Hardy heroine. In reality she's a media manager busily establishing herself as the champion for a future generation of young broadcasting staff.

The media is tough ... if you want an easier life I suggest you join the police <> Media is tough

A shaft of winter sunlight forces its way through the narrow office window. Her blonde hair catches the warm rays and her eyes sparkle like dewdrops in a summer meadow. She could be a Thomas Hardy heroine. In reality she's a media manager busily establishing herself as the champion for a future generation of young broadcasting staff.

Could James Peake be a Eurovision successor to Johnny Logan and Dana? He has my vote

IT'S not an easy admission to make but I must confess that most years I watch the Eurovision Song Contest. There are many great aspects to this entertainment extravaganza. Terry Wogan's commentary lures me in and before I know it I'm hooked on odd looking Spaniards wailing in their native tongue as if to remind me how bad cabaret nights are on the Costa Del Sol.

I'm still 'ga-ga' about Downtown 25 years after it took to airwaves

WE'VE had the naked civil servant, the naked chef and now it's the turn of the naked DJ.

'Get me home in twenty minutes and you're on,' she said. Her eyes sparkled in the darkness and I felt a tingle of fear...

IS she really going out with him? Is she really going to take him home tonight? It was not said but sung and the singer seemed to be wasting his time as a British soldier. He should have been a top of the bill cabaret act.

Fifteen minutes had passed and I still hadn't answered a question.

I KNEW I was in trouble when I looked down to pick up one of the two pens I had placed on the desk, only to discover four lying in front of me. The boy in the next desk seemed to have an extra head. It was glowing in the morning sunlight and I was enveloped in a sickly heat that glued the tongue to the roof of my mouth.

After Graham ... it's time to draw the line

99 CHANNELS and nothing on.It's a line from a song or at least it's very similar to something that is. It was written as a predictable pot-shot at cable TV at a time when having more than five channels was deemed a luxury.

Cash-strapped GAA stars in need of their own Irish Spice Girl

I WAS amazed yesterday to meet a man who didn't know there was a debate raging about how much should be stuffed into David Beckham's pay packet.

Weekending

AH, it brings me back. It's a long time since a TV programme prompted that response, or at least that was up until last week when by chance I came across Hugo Duncan and Friends on the BBC. With an audience surely related to the descendents of a quick fling between Calamity Jane and Billy The Kid, the Grand Opera House swayed like the cabaret room in a Wild West saloon.

Weekending

IT'S amazing how quickly changes occur in professional football. One moment David Healy's heading the ball against the bar from a David Beckham Premiership cross and the next he's lining out as one of 22 in a first division dogfight. I was delighted when he scored in that debut game for Preston North End.

Carving a career from a hobby backed by two tape recorders and faith

When I was seventeen I must have seemed like a proper odd-ball. If I still seem like that, believe me, it's for a host of different reasons than when I was a country boy in Burren in Co Down.

Watch Bob the Builder and me but remember to keep his secret safe

TOMORROW afternoon at ten past four I will be the Christmas Eve envy of every five-year-old bricklayer, plumber, painter and joiner in the country. After a week of intensive rehearsals I'll be given the opportunity to dance, sing, hammer, saw, plane, measure and mix with BOB THE BUILDER.

Parties, parties, parties - it's only once a year!

IS it my imagination or are there more Christmas parties this year than ever before? Maybe it's because of the odd nature of my job, but the invitations are dropping onto the desk, three or four at a time, with both posts every day. You'd be amazed at the range of people and organisations that seem to have spent the last month organising their own festive bash. When it comes to parties I tend to give consideration to them all and go to a few. I have friends, however, who give consideration to none but go them to all.