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.
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.
SQUINTER has no idea why when he rubbed the sleep from his eyes and blearily contemplated the local news on his phone on Monday morning the BBC Ulster website had exactly zero space for the biggest story of the weekend.
IT’S the decapitated Israeli kids from October 7th that still get Squinter the most as the slaughter in Gaza continues, with the latest scenes of Biblical devastation and suffering being played out in a ‘safe zone’ tent town in Rafah.
• GB NEWS is covering the Twelfth again this year. Yay!• They’ll only be dipping in and out of it over the course of the morning. Wha’?
IT was another Saturday to forget for the Donaghadee Dynamo after his beloved Rangers 2012 again went down like a blazing Spitfire at Celtic Park as they continued their bid to put a third piece of silverware in the Ibrox trophy room.
The Guinness Book of Records sent a team along to Larne,To see if there was any truth in an oft-told local yarn.It was said that in an open space a bonfire huge was hewn,That stretched from one street to the next and halfway to the moon. With clipboards, pens and measuring tapes, they went about their task,And when the sun began to set a man was heard to ask:‘Is this the biggest you’ve ever seen, is Larne the planet’s best?Is Craigyhill about to be with trophy and honour blessed?’
INDUSTRY legend has it that the Sunday Life once had Johnny ‘Mad Dog’ Adair on their front page for over a year without a break. That’s when Johnny was loyalist royalty in Belfast and not sitting in a bedsit in Troon watching his tattoos fade with his notoriety.
THE Loyal Ulster team for the next anti-Protocol fixture has been announced, and there’s sensational news about the star striker, Jeff.
THE entertainingly bizarre ‘Hold My Loyal Beer’ competition between the News Letter and the Belfast Telegraph ended in a draw this week as both estimable outlets decided that the biggest crime against the Precious Union© this week was the refusal by Dublin Airport to take down a lighthearted tweet about the British royal family.
‘WHICH should nationalists prioritise,’ asked the most recent edition of BBC Ulster’s The View, ‘unity or reconciliation?’
Letter from Washington to starving child in Gaza.