2008 review

I did BBC Radio Ulster’s Seven Days programme on Sunday. Looking back over 2008 there was plenty to talk about locally. You can listen back here.

For a genuinely satirical take on the year nobody beats the Jib-Jab crew.

Crossborder Christmas

O’Conall St is having a crossborder Christmas this year.

We wish all our visitors a happy time and look forward to continuing the conversation in 2009.

Another whole line of PR boobs

A year ago I wrote the post below about a line of PR boob. It’s become the most read post on O’Conall Street with over 15000 viewers. Who said the Internet is still not all about sex?

This year we have been treated another charity calender, this time of well known local models with very little on. The inspiration for this one comes from the Ulster Cancer Foundation and Pace Marker Press.  No more said….

Here is last year’s piece.

Some tit obviously thought it was a good idea to get six young Irish girls waxed within an inch of their lives to pose for the latest Christmas PR initiative. Page 3 of today’s Belfast Telegraph (picture above) is dedicated to a story about ’six young enterprising Ulster models’ who thought they would cheers up our Christmas and raise awareness about depression.

Does it work? Well as a publicity stunt for the models yes and fair play to Leanne (Co Antrim), Joanne (Co Down), Katie (Co Derry), Leanne (Co Armagh), Laurena (Co Fermanagh) and Lynda from Tyrone. Laurena tells us she is already a Playboy model and the whole thing is available on their Bebo site.

Depression, mental illness and teenage suicides are huge issues in Northern Ireland. The Assembly’s health committee is investigating suicide and the Programme for Government identifies mental health as a priority. I don’t dispute the girls’ best intentions and genuine desire to raise awareness of the issue but am afraid all this stunt will achieve is some profile for its posers.

Off to do some work now. Apparently I too work in PR!    

Obama goes green, wonderfully, beautifully, bravely green

As the Independent on Sunday puts it this morning, Barack Obama yesterday promised to end George Bush’s “twisting” of science to suit “politics or ideology” in an extraordinarily outspoken address to the nation, and announced that he was putting top climate scientists in key positions in his administration.

The move, which signals perhaps his sharpest break with the outgoing administration, makes it clear that he was going to put climate change and the environment among the most urgent priorities of his presidency.

I’ll leave the rest to the man himself:

GUBU is dead, long live GUBU!

Grotesque, unbelievevable, bizarre and unprecedented was coined by the late Conor Cruise O’Brien about events involving his nemisis, Charles J Haughey. In some ways the phrase also the sums up the end of his own complicated and very diverse life.

Belfast Gonzo on Slugger says.

Love him or loathe him, the life of Conor Cruise O’Brien is one that had a profound influence on Irish politics – north and south – over the past half century. From his ill-fated UN diplomatic service in the Congo, to becoming a Labour TD and a minister, to his vigorous censorship of Sinn Fein, his journalism and writing, sympathy for Zionism, hatred of Irish republican paramilitarism and Charles Haughey, and even membership of the now-defunct UK Unionist Party in Northern Ireland, his life was as diverse as it was controversial.

The political establishment has paid tribute to his convictions, intellect and commitment to the Irish State. The Irish Times describes him as a master of culture and controversy.

O’Brien’s political career in the Dáil and Seanad was in fact deeply marked by the burgeoning Northern conflict. He had opposed the sacking of the RTÉ authority over an interview with IRA figure Seán Mac Stíofáin, mounting a filibuster in the Dáil which made him the darling of the media.

As minister for posts and telegraphs in the 1973-1977 coalition, he had the controversial task of policing the government ban on Sinn Féin and the IRA in RTÉ, and his 1976 legislation although more precise (and therefore more workable) and more liberal in some respects than its Fianna Fáil predecessor, made him a whipping-boy not only for republicans but for civil libertarians and journalists generally.

Like his mentor, Owen Sheehy Skeffington, he combined strong liberal tendencies with an unremitting hostility to political violence (except, in later years, when it was carried out by Israeli-backed militia against Palestinians) and a profound commitment to the political legitimacy of the Irish State.

I met him on many occasions during his time at the All Party Talks in the run up the Good Friday Agreement here in Belfast. We had one conversation about southern politics which ended abruptly when I refused to agree that the Irish Labour Party and the SDLP were selling out to appease the republican movement. Watching him during the talks was not a pleasent experience. His blinding hatred of Sinn Fein got in the way of compelling argument. Most days Bob McCartney and he looked more like the Statler and Waldorf, the grumpy old men from the muppets, then serious players. At times it was all a bit GUBU, but then politics on this island seems destined to be so.

When Charles Haughey resigned as Taoiseach he famously quoted from Shakespeare’s Othello.

I have done the state some service, and they know’t.
No more of that. I pray you, in your letters,
When you shall these unlucky deeds relate,
Speak of me as I am; nothing extenuate,
Nor set down aught in malice:

Ironically it seems an equally fitting repose to the Cruiser.

May he rest in peace.

Ireland rolls half billion on innovation

Think what you may of Brian Cowen but his decision to invest €500 million in innovation is brave and many will argue farsighted.

Less then two months after the Matrix report in Northern Ireland identified the huge opportunity which innovation based enterprise presents to the local economy many northern entrepreneurs may now look south to realise the potential of their high tech business ideas.

The Southern Government is setting up a new venture fund to be known as Innovation Fund Ireland, which will support early stage research and development.

The announcement was made at the launch of what the Government calls ‘Building Ireland’s Smart Economy: A Framework for Sustainable Economic Renewal’ .

Under the renewal programme, the multinational community will also be encouraged to engage in ‘innovative high value activity and technological convergence’ which will provide quality jobs.

Speaking at Dublin Castle, Taoiseach Brian Cowen said the Government will be engaging intensively with the Social Partners in the coming weeks and that process would be informed by the end of year Exchequer Returns.

He said it was time that Ireland captured ideas and commercialised those ideas in this country.

You can read his full speech here.

Hallelujah v Hallelujah

It seems certain Hallelujah, Leonard Cohen’s classic song, will be number one this Christmas. But which version?

Alexandra Burke of X Factor Fame is narrowly ahead of Jeff Buckley in the charts. If Simon Cowell’s protege is pipped at the post it will be because of a spontaneous online campaign driven by ordinary people like me who just think you need to have lived some before you can tackle a song of the depth and quality of Hallelujah.

Buckley did this and his untimely death at just thirty adds to the mystique around his version which Cohen himself maintains in his favourite.

The story of how the song ended up on the XFactor is typically Simon Cowell. Apparently a contestant on American Idol, a programme he has a stake in, sung it during the open competition and the following week sales of Mr Buckley’s version went through the roof. Simon does not like missing out on any music sales associated with his programmes and so the decision was made, next time this song was on one of his shows he would have a slice of the action.

This story has further fueled the advocacy wave in support of Buckley’s version. The Facebook groupnow has 96,000 members, up 66,000 since the weekend. Other groups have popped up on myspace and the blogosphereis humming with outrage at Mr Cowell and his money empire. This in turn has sparked TV and radio coverage across Britain and Ireland with many quality stations playing the Buckley version over and over.

At the end of the day Mr Cohen stands to make his fair share from the royalties and Jeff gets to be heard again. And all because of the power of social networks and online communities who despite all the consumer hype and big money TV programmes still care for great songs and great artists.

Banks look after their own

The Deputy First Minister was diplomatic but firm about his encounter with our banking leaders yesterday. I am glad he left them in no doubt about the level of public and official anxiety about their behaviour.

Jaws dropped to a new low this morning when word of the Daily Mail’s story about bonuses at Goldman Sachs reached O’Conall Street. ‘Goldmine Sachs’ as the Telegraph has dubbed it is paying out £4.3 billion in bonuses only months after it accepted a £6.5billion bail out from the United States tax payer. This works out at an average bonus of £125,000 per head. If you meet one of these lucky boys and girls and you are American make sure they say thank you for having bailed them out in such a generous way.

The question now is what bonuses are being paid in the Ulster Bank, Bank of Ireland, Northern Bank and First Trust this Christmas. I am sure our friends in the press and the Assembly are on the case already.

Meantime in the ordinary economy things look bleak, very bleak. Unemployment has now topped 2 million in the UK. Although NI remains the least hit by this rise people are loosing their jobs all around us.

One thing for sure. Government will do its bit, ordinary business men and women will be thinking about their clients and the bank’s will be looking after their own.

12 year old told to remove turban at football game

Less then a month after the GAA in Newry found themselves caught in a row about racism, the FAI is now embroiled in a new one after a 12 year old was asked to remove his turban at a football match in Co Meath.

The Observer had the story on Sunday. Henry McDonald reported that:

Football authorities in Dublin are investigating allegations that a referee tried to force a Sikh boy to take off his turban during a schoolboy match.

The family of Karpreet Singh and anti-racist campaigners have contacted the Football Association of Ireland over the alleged incident at Ashbourne in Co Meath a fortnight ago, which ended with the 12-year-old refusing to play in the second half.

The FAI has told Sport Against Racism Ireland and the Singh family they will meet them in the new year to discuss claims that the referee ordered the boy to remove his turban, then refused to talk to Karpreet’s father after the game about his alleged remarks. Surinder Singh said that his anger over the alleged incident was compounded by what he claims was the referee’s insensitivity when the game was over.

‘Before the match the referee checked the two teams’ boots and strips and the game began. He said nothing about anyone wearing anything on their heads,’ he said. ‘Then, 10 minutes into the match, he went over to my son and told him to remove the “headgear”. Karpreet told the referee he couldn’t take his turban off, and again the ref said to him to take the “headgear” off.

‘The match went on and I could see that Karpreet was upset by the incident. When the team went in for half-time, Karpreet told his coach he didn’t want to play in the second half. I knew he wasn’t up for it. The whole thing had disturbed him and this is a boy who loves football.’

According to Surinder Singh, a previous coach of Hillcrest Soccer club, his son’s team, tried to speak to the referee about his remarks.

My colleague and friend, Rakhee Vithlani, who runs Weber Shandwick’s Multicultural Practice, MCC, pointed out on her own blog, Candid Culture, that:

The turban has been the subject of a number of stories this year, including the one about the BBC correspondent commenting that her daughter may get ‘freaked out’ if she saw a taxi driver wearing one.

What do people think the turban is actually going to do? Jump off a person’s head and stab someone? Uncover a set of explosives underneath? It’s only covering HAIR for crying out loud. Sometimes I wonder whether we’ve lost the bloomin plot.

I understand that people are naturally afraid of the unknown. But be scared of a spider or of being mugged at night. Not of someone who likes to wear their religious identity for others to see. Actually, come to think of it, it’s probably the people who don’t reveal their beliefs and opinions so easily that we should probably be afraid of. After all, what do they have to hide?

We have such a long way to go on our little island.

Executive failing womens sector

The womens sector which has played such an important process is being cast aside by the executive according to a number its leaders. They have warned that further job losses are imminent as a result of the Executives failure to release millions of pounds of Peace III funding approved for the women’s sector.

Delays in the full implementation of the Peace III programme have created a climate of uncertainty for many local groups who have been allocated funding under Peace III, with a number of organisations facing closure in the coming days as a direct result of the delays. Initially scheduled to come on stream in mid 2008 the Peace III programme was designed to fund organisations engaged in activity focused on reconciliation. Despite the full approval of £2.8m funding to the Womens Sector via a successful application made by the Training for Women Network (TWN), an indefinite delay in signing off the funding for release into the community by the Executive has now precipitated a situation whereby scores of direct job losses will occur in the coming days across Northern Ireland. These job losses will be further compounded by the subsequent loss of vital training and indirect job losses in some of the most economically disadvantaged communities

The effect of this delay is being particularly felt in the women’s training and education sector where a number of projects due to be funded under the Peace III programme are in a state of limbo, with no real indication of when or indeed if the approved funding will be made available to them. Speaking about the situation TWN Chief Executive Norma Shearer commented “The irony of the imminent job losses is not lost on those directly affected by this logjam in the Executive. In this time of great economic uncertainty within the local economy, with literally thousands of homes across NI losing their means of income due to job losses related directly to the global economic downturn  – here we have a situation where further jobs losses are happening not because of the economic slowdown but because of bureaucratic problems and a failure of the Executive to distribute much needed funding which has already been approved for use within the most economically vulnerable sections of our local community”