Jude Collins

JUDE COLLINS: Derry people need no lessons in history

TAKE a walk or drive round the centre of Belfast and you’ll find the place transformed. The Waterfront Hall and the Titanic building and the costly hotels and apartments soar skyward. In the downtown Ulster University there are 650,000 bricks, 22,000 square metres of glass and 606 kilometres of data cables that’d stretch between Belfast and Derry six times over. Oh, and they expect the buildings to last 300 years.

JUDE COLLINS: Lack of information lies at the heart of policing mess

IT'S hard not to think of that old slapstick duo Stan Laurel and Oliver Hardy (“This is another fine mess you’ve gotten me into!”) when reading about the present disarray within the PSNI. The Chief Constable resigns, the Police Federation representing rank-and-file officers passes a vote of no confident in the Assistant Chief Constable, another of no-confidence in the chief operating officer, and another of no-confidence in the assistant chief officer.

JUDE COLLINS: Sunak's crystal-ball politics have a fatal flaw

OKAY – crystal ball time. Remember the three witches in Shakespeare’s Macbeth, doing their toil-and-trouble thing and giving Macbeth some very accurate forecasts which at the same time were very misleading?

JUDE COLLINS: You can't eat a flag – but you can talk about it

JOHN Hume’s father probably wasn’t the first father to give his son advice, in this case that he should avoid trying to eat a flag. Yet it’s odd how many people go green around the gills when it’s mentioned that in any new Ireland negotiations, the national flag (and anthem) might be changed.

TV REVIEW: A lot changes in 60 years – and a lot doesn't

AS images of President Joe Biden flashed on our screens last week, I checked out some old black-and-white footage of John F Kennedy’s address to the Oireachtas in 1963.

JUDE COLLINS: We can learn a valuable lesson from SNP's troubles

YOU'VE probably noticed over the past few weeks that the Scottish National Party has been drawing a lot of attention. Self-disembowelling in full view can be messy but it does tend to catch the public gaze.

JUDE COLLINS: Joe and Gary: A tale of two TV stations

GARY Lineker is a national treasure and the British public don’t take kindly to having their national treasures muzzled. You might argue that the BBC has the right to decide who they have as presenter or pundit and what that presenter/pundit is allowed to say. In this case, the BBC didn’t like Lineker being critical of the kind of language used by the Tories.

TV REVIEW: Fry a gentle guide to a harrowing tale

MY abiding image of Stephen Fry on TV is when he played Jeeves to Hugh Laurie’s Bertie Wooster – smooth, unruffled, vastly more intelligent than the pop-eyed Bertie.

JUDE COLLINS: Alliance still sitting on that old union fence

THE Alliance Party, which appears to be rising in popularity, had its annual conference last weekend. Naomi Long gave her usual articulate address to the assembled delegates and the number of yellow ties on display threatened an outbreak of jaundice.

TV REVIEW: Miriam takes the limelight on a journey to the past

THE TV programme was called ‘Lady Gregory: Ireland’s First Social Influencer’ (RTÉ ONE), but it wasn’t exclusively about her work and influence on the Anglo-Irish revival. The programme’s two presenters – Senator Lynn Ruane and Miriam Margolis – were the focus of attention as much as Lady Gregory. Margolis especially elbowed her way into the limelight.

JUDE COLLINS: Will the British trapdoor be opened beneath us again?

SOMETIMES you wonder if the clever British are playing a game the rest of us don’t get. We think the ground on which we stand is rock-solid, then the British pull the trapdoor beneath our feet and we’re left swinging in the wind.

JUDE COLLINS: We all love awards but problems arise

ANY awards system risks ambushes at every turn. This year Ireland has a serious stake in the Oscars, with people in a range of roles and films. One catch: the Oscars have a hilarious reputation for not rewarding great movies.

TV REVIEW: Irish book clubs and their gender divide

PAGE Turner (RTÉ ONE) is the latest effort to take a book-club meeting and translate it on to the TV screen. Compared to a real-life book-club, the television version is at one remove from reality; on the other hand TV allows you to sit on the sidelines and watch/listen, without the worry that you’ll be expected to come up with an insightful comment.

TV REVIEW: Harry feeds the media predators he's fleeing from

IS Prince Harry a slow learner? In the interminable television interview with Tom Bradby on ITV last Sunday, his core gripe against some members of the Royals was that they were racist. Did he never talk to his grandpapa, the man who joked with English students in China that they’d need to avoid staying there too long or they’d become ‘slitty-eyed’?

JUDE COLLINS: Pain – like guilt – doesn’t vanish with the years

WELL, here we are, in a spanking New Year. Time to consign the past to the dustbin of history, time to focus on the future. Right? Well, actually, No.

Gallery: Hannahstown a hive of fun and energy

Boxing: Quinn to fight for Commonwealth honours on the June 28 'Belfast Brawl'

Gaelic Games: Vital fixtures for clubs as hurling heads towards the split

Gaelic Games: Gleeson to take time before deciding his future with Antrim

THE WEEK IN VIEW: Lies, damned lies and stupidity

SQUINTER: Live and dangerous! Not any more as GB News pull the plug

DÚLRA: We’re going raven bonkers in the city centre

HEALTHWISE: Spread it around: Margarine gets the nod over butter

Jude Collins

Most Read