There is an amusing cartoon doing the rounds, where the characters speculate on the possibility of the Republic of Ireland rejoining the Commonwealth in the aftermath of last week’s State Visit by an t-Uachtarán, Michael D. I suspect that there are Georgian drawing rooms in Dublin where
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Another pupil had died from the meningitis outbreak. I watched Mr Shawa, the school caretaker, cleaning the white, pine boards and placing them carefully against the library building. He was making another coffin, the fourth in as many weeks. His task was carried out with quiet patience,
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I love the continuing commitment of French cinema to a quality and tasteful aesthetic. The camera lingers, allowing the viewer to imbibe landscape and beyond. BBC4 this week screened ‘You will be my son’ in its consistently excellent, Sunday night continental series . Set in a successful
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‘Don’t say that or they’ll know that we were out at the Loch.’ Our innocent, childhood fumblings at getting the story right, following unapproved swimming at Enagh Loch were invariably rumbled. In nearly forty years of teaching, a sensitivity to the truth about unfulfilled tasks and other
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A disturbing gallery of right-wingers, lead by Boris Johnson, paid tribute yesterday to the achievements of Bob Crow, the rail workers’ trade union leader, who had died suddenly the previous evening. The presence of the London Mayor is particularly perturbing to those of us who had
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International outrage has been reported at the killing of civilians by Government forces in Kiev. The shooting of citizens by agents of the State is not unprecedented; Kent State University in 1970, Tianamen Square in 1989, Homs in the recent past and most memorably for me
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In a letter to our local paper, an Alloa man writes that he will be voting ‘NO’ in the Referendum because that’s the view of Sir Alex Ferguson. I am not one of the 650 000 who have bought the former United manager’s ‘Autobiography’. I suspect
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Several journalists and social network sites have drawn attention to David Cameron’s membership of the Federation of Conservative Students and their notorious 80’s poster, calling for Mandela, the Terrorist, to be hanged. He had plenty of fellow travellers, including Nigel Farage, the UKIP Leader and Boris
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Much of the reporting of the Celtic Football Club AGM concentrated on the supposed mirth caused by references from the top table to the current plight of their erstwhile rivals across the City. For a few days afterwards, the ritual insults were exchanged in online
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