Gerry Adams had (Jean) McConville disappeared.

Click on image to read.

This is a truly shocking story on the background of Gerry Adams. It is a serialisation from the Sunday Times of a book to be published this week. Voices from the Grave by Ed Moloney is due out within days.

Gerry's new provo birdie.

In todays Irish News it is reported that Gerry Adams hired a helicopter to travel to and from his commitments all over the island of Ireland.

Click on image to enlarge

The cost of hiring the helicopter is two grand per day.  I wonder if Sinn Fein ever stop to think that while Gerry Adams' constituents look on at the helicopter descending into Casement park for him to board, they may not have the price of a black taxi into town?  I find it strange that a socialist party like Sinn Fein would go for this sort of extravagance when everyone else is tightening their belts due to job losses and low wages?

The paper is highlighting the fact that the grounds are meant to be politically neutral, and therefore the helicopter should not have landed there, but in my opinion the extravagence is much worse than the symbolism of a helicopter descending into Casement park.

Paisley asked what would be your epitaph?

There is an excellent interview on the BBC with Ian Paisley. Paisley is reminded of how he said Catholics 'breed like rabbits', and wasn't exactly RC friendly, but  his memory appaers to be faulty. He's an old man, eighty four next month, so the interviewer went easy on him.  He was actually asked did you pray with Martin McGuinness?  Indeed I did, he replied.  Paisley certainly isn't the man he once was, and he seems to forget the man he once was, the interviewer asked him, 'why didn't God change you earlier?'  At this Paisley laughs, 'well you'd better ask Him'.  It's a nice little interview, and shows how things have changed, and I for one am glad they changed, but we cannot forget the past, lest we repeat it.

Meeting Jack Reacher.

Last Wednesday evening my husband and I went to the movie house to see Lee Child the author and creator of  Jack Reacher.  A cinema was an unusual venue for it, but they did the place up well, putting some low tables together to make a platform with chairs and a table on there to elevate the panel so that those at the back could see.Although behind the speaker and Lee Childs were some spot lights that were much too bright, looking at the panel for too long hurt the eyes, but the effort put in by the staff at the movie house was good.

It was a decent interview by one of Northern Irelands newest authors and first up was the story going around that Jack Reachers name came from Child's wife. The story goes that after he got fired from his job in the media Childs was at home and went to the supermarket with his wife and the women he encountered there kept asking him to reach up to get them stuff of the higher shelves.  When eventually Childs told his wife that he was going to write a book, she said to him, well you can call one of your characters 'Reacher', and thats how our Jack was born.

There were many interesting little stories like that. Another was that Childs likes to drink his coffee from a white plain china mug, and in 61 Hours when he is offered a cup of coffee by Mrs Salter she gives it to him in exactly that.  Childs talked about his characters and who he named them after, some of the more nasty characters were called after former work colleagues that Childs wasn't so fond off, and he claims that they probably know which was a source of amusement to us all.  All the little quirks of this author were told and it made him not only seem so human but gave a rather good insight into how he wrote his books, and produced his story for his publishers.

He took questions from the floor and the question I asked was why did he chose an MP for Reacher instead of special ops which would have made things much more easier for the character considering the nature of what he did, and Childs replied because it  had been done so many times so well before that he wanted to do it a little different.  Styles of writing were discussed, as well as the rivalry between genre writers and literary writers, but in terms of popularity Childs believes that genre writers beat the literary scribes hands down in terms of popularity.

A tall thin man whose father had been born in Belfast and whose cousin was in the audience, he gave an entertaining talk for almost two hours.  The event was run by 'no alibis' book store in south Belfast and it was altogether an event worth attending. 

A nice mural from East Belfast.

I love this mural, the sentiments in it, and the poem is so apt. Click on image to enlarge and read the poem written on the wall. I also like it with the crane in view.

James Larkin with arms outstreched on a Sunday evening.

Is this your living room?

A designer living room near Dunbar link in Belfast.  I like the fireplace made out of wood and beer cans....

A dietless Mothers day

Today I simply ate and ate and all of it the wrong stuff. Roast potatoes, pavalova, chocolate chick easter eggs (two of them), sugary coffee - and I ate so much I couldn't even go out for a walk afterwards. We'd been to the Beechlawns hotel for mothers day lunch. It was relaxed, sitting in the sun looking out at the gardens and stuffing my face with food. I really need to watch what I eat, I'm slipping at meals and eating too much. My portions are too big, and I haven't the will God help me, to resist the goodies.

Tomorrow is another day I guess, and as Kate Moss once said 'no food tastes as good as skinny'. It's time to get back on track, curb my appetite for goodies and reduce my portion sizes.

Mothers Day

The day always starts and ends with a nice cup of tea.

A truly lovely day.

Blogger now gives you profile images for embedded posts

Today I realised for the first time that images are now available for embedded posts on slugger.  I tried it out and this is what I have found,

If your blog does not automatically have this feature simply go to settings then comments and enable profile images.  That is how easy it is!

Divis mountain on fire.

Strictly come dancing in Glasgow’s SECC.

Last month my family and I went to Glasgow to see the popular BBC show ‘Strictly Come Dancing’.  After trying to get cheap flights and not being able to we went by boat and road into Glasgow and stayed at one of the hotels there for two nights.  I’d booked the tickets for the show on line before we went, and it was just as well as there was no seats available for that particular performance.  It was an afternoon show, totally packed out and some of the audience must have thought they were actually dancing for the BBC so poshly dressed were they.  Although not allowed to take pictures during the performance,
we did manage to take some photographs,   before the show as the usual announcement was made that no photos or recording could be done during the performance. 
As the show was on a Saturday we didn’t get into town until the Sunday to do a little shopping, but even on a Sunday the centre of Glasgow was buzzing, I haven’t seen Belfast that busy even on a Saturday afternoon.
Of course there was the customary Bagpipe player,
blasting out his melodious tunes, Scotland the Brave being the one we heard there.  This is a vibrant city, friendly inhabitants and well worth a visit.

St Patricks day

Karen over at the Graphics Fairy has been giving away some fine St Patricks' day clip art.

Since I haven’t blogged in a while..

Since I haven’t blogged in a while I thought I’d write something on this blog now that I’ve updated the style of it to something I like, and to something that resembles an actual diary.

I really tried hard to get the word press theme but couldn’t so this one will have to do instead.  I need to start writing again, I’ve lots of notes from the world literature class that I go to each Wednesday, and from the Revolution in the 1960’s Ireland – which have been hugely interesting and have taken up a lot of my time.  I’ll be posting them soon, once I find the time.