Robin has been with the Andersonstown News and subsequently the Belfast Media Group for over 30 years. He began his career in journalism with the company writing cinema and TV reviews as a freelance before becoming a staff reporter and going on to be appointed editor of the Andersonstown News in 1993. He became Group Editor of the Belfast Media Group with responsibility for all titles in 2016. He's the author of The Road, a memoir about growing up in Belfast.
WHAT have the Romans ever done for us? You probably know the rest of the famous scene from Monty Python’s Life of Brian sketch, so I don’t propose to go over the People’s Front of Judea, roads, aquaducts, sanitation, wine and the rest of it. (Yes, since you wondered, I just watched the scene again; partly to recall the details and partly because god knows I need a laugh at the moment.)
AS I watched the Newtownmountkennedy Irregulars on manoeuvres in recent weeks, the question occurred to me that always occurs when the Free State Far-Right (henceforth FSFR) attempt to claim the mantle of Plunkett, Pearse and Tone: Where the hell are Belfast’s Tommy Robinson wannabes?
I’VE an apology to make to the Craigyhill Bonfire and Cultural Facebook Page. Like many people with little or no knowledge of bonfire culture, I thought that when a thousand pishy, mouldy mattresses were delivered to the Larne bonfire site by container ship and Chinook they were going to be... well... burnt.
BBC Ulster performed an interesting experiment on Thursday night’s The View in an attempt to test the contention of new Taoiseach Simon Harris that young people in Cork know Berlin and Paris better than they know Belfast and Derry.
THEY’RE going to play the English national anthem, God Save the King, at Windsor Park before the eagerly-anticipated Irish Cup Final clash between Linfield and Cliftonville. (Yes, Stewarty, it is the English anthem: the Jocks and Taffs have both booted it into Row Z.)
BUDGIES weren’t quite a red line for me – or even a yellow, green or blue one.
JIM Allister’s the Nigel Farage of local broadcasting That’s not to say that he resembles the toadish English firebrand whose face is never straight and who's never happier than when he’s whingeing and gurning about Brexit – although you may have your own thoughts on that. Rather, it’s to say that, like the Reform Party founder, the TUV leader is never off the airwaves.
THE RNLI has turned down a donation of £850 from a Scottish flute band that was meant to be leading an Orange parade that was banned because it had spread “anxiety” throughout the host town.
FORMER DUP Councillor David Clarke, who says he faced bullying of such severity within the party that he ended up in hospital, has finally found a place of serenity. He’s now sipping green tea in a political Zen garden where the only sound is bamboo chimes tapping playfully in a light breeze and the gentle distant hum of Buddhist mantras: He’s joined the TUV.
ONE minute you’re cock of the walk, next you’re a feather duster.
THE figures coming out of Gaza on the number of casualties are reliable – that’s according to the World Health Organisation. But how can they be reliable if the information is coming from Hamas? That's the barked demand coming from the IOF, the Daily Mail, the BBC, the Daily Telegraph, RTÉ, the Daily Express and GB News.
Robin Livingstone begins a new end-of-week column bringing another noisy five days gently to a close
THE Electoral Office says it was unaware that a South Belfast polling station was festooned with union jacks on election day.
CATHOLIC voters at a South Belfast polling station were forced to cast their votes yesterday in a room “decked out like an Orange hall”.
Robin Livingstone recalls a lesson from the early days