The News

There's always something new happening. With all the trouble in the north and the lack of any leadership to address it from the unionist side we could be back to square one if we're not careful, so new news but old news there I suppose. The massive number of casualties in Iraq today just becomes hard to comprehend. We still hear about and experience the fall out of the fourteen who were killed by the paras on Bloody Sunday over thirty years ago, though grantedly that was all the more shocking as it was state violence, but how must people living in Baghdad even get through the day? Jon Snow says that the United Nations get together in New York is another fudge, so the news there is no new beginning for that institution again. And most news becomes old by this time next week, and then the analysts come out. It is hard to be able to justify keeping a sense of contentment and a sense of humour about life generally through all this, but the alternative is worse, so long as the serious is not downplayed. So hopefully my next installment of this much-awaited regular slot will be a bit gayer, in the old-fashioned sense.