Squinter has been a regular feature of the Andersonstown News since the early 1970s. The diary column has been written by a number of people over the years and the present incumbent has been taking a sideways look at the week just gone – or indeed the one to come – for over 20 years now. The column has a wide remit, wandering from humorous items of local interest to local and national politics. See Squinter on Twitter for daily doses of the funny, the strange and the totally bonkers.
DUP COMMUNITIES Minister Gordon Lyons has apologised to Alliance South Belfast MLA Kate Nicholl after he twice told her to “Sit down” during a Stormont debate on Monday.
IF the country Squinter lived in (Which one’s that? Ed.) had killed 45,000 Arabs, 70 per cent of them women and children, he’s not sure he’d get on a plane to a European capital to highlight that dread statistic.
“A BANNER has been erected on Montgomery Road at the site of the divisive and controversial Irish Language school project. It reads, ‘Relocate Irish school to where it is needed, relocate Irish school to where it is wanted.’ Clear message on behalf of concerned local residents.”
TO Windsor Park on Saturday, not for the crunch clash between Linfield and Cliftonville, but to prove a point.
“THE assessment commissioned in 2015 by the then Secretary of State on Paramilitary Groups in Northern Ireland has not changed.”
SQUINTER loves a candle – who doesn’t? He especially loves a candle at Christmas – apple and cinnamon; ginger and pine needles; Bailey’s and Harp. (That last one not available until next year.)
WEDNESDAY A.M.
QUESTION: How the hell is Squinter supposed to make a living at this satire lark when Arlene Foster’s all over social media offering to give people advice on boilers for ten grand a day?
Editorial meeting, BBCNI, Monday, 5.45am.
If you’re in the UDA and you’re fighting for your people,And you’re shouting ‘No surrender!’ from every loyal steeple;If your name demands respect and a little fear to boot,Try not to get battered with a shiny Orange flute. When you’re listening to the bands and your old heart fills with pride,When you raise a glass to Ulster and you’re proud and teary-eyed,Always please remember as you puff on your cheroot,No UDA godfather should suffer GBH by flute. If things look bleak and hopeless and you’re well down on your luck,And you’re afraid to cross the road in case you get hit by a truck,Before your sense of hopelessness takes firm and permanent root,Remind yourself at least you didn’t get knocked out by a flute. For we’re proud that we’re all Protestants and we have each other’s back,And we’re standing firm together underneath our union Jack.Our devotion to the union is pure and absolute,Unless some shameless Lundy dirty-Joes us with a flute. The tattoo of the Lambeg drum beats out from land to sea,The accordion’s sweet and plaintive wheeze means the world to me;But the surest thing about the bands that no-one can refute,Is that no loyal son of Carson should get his clock cleaned with a flute. I’ve been shot at by the IRA and bombed out of my home,I’ve been hunted, jailed and beaten for standing up to Rome,But the sorest blow I ever felt, I say without dispute,Was the day that I fell out with the wrong end of a flute. The border’s in the Irish Sea and the government’s in the Ra,There’s Gaelic on the street signs and my Tranny ma’s my da;There’s two-tiers in policing and they took my traditional route,And my tattooed, loyal, baldy head’s got a dent shaped like a flute.
WE’VE all said it – and we’ve all heard the inevitable reply.
THE Belfast Telegraph on Monday brought us the shocking news that the Craigyhill bonfire is controlled by a UDA loan shark who’s made a fortune from cleaning windows.
THERE are many, many things in this little corner of Paradise which make Squinter chuckle like a chubby Benedictine monk who’s been at the fortified wine in Buckfast Abbey. Chief among them is the presumption by the Loyal Ulster media that they are the guardians of our collective morality.
NOTHING wrong with commentators – in fact, you could call Squinter a commentator, if we’re being completely technical about it. And as is the case the world over, newspaper and broadcast commentators have their supporters and their detractors. Squinter too gets his fair share of bouquets and brickbats for his daily online and weekly print musings on this little corner of Paradise.
JUST the five Tories caught up so far in Betgate, the political scandal that’s made us all forget that Rishi Sunak hates our D-Day troops.