LONG Kesh escaper Dermot Finucane got the Sunday papers treatment at the weekend after he put up a picture of himself online holding an RPG7.
At this point Squinter wants to put on the register of interests that Squinter grew up in Lenadoon with Dermot and many’s the eight-hour games of soccer we had on Buncrana Green. And while it’s fair to say that our lives went in very different directions as we grew out of street football, Squinter’s very pleased to have resumed our friendship online – and just occasionally in person.
The tabloid report was full of the same kind of standard unionist “fury” that greeted Gerry Adams doing a tiocfaidh ár lá Christmas card for charity: “glorifying terrorism”, “Twitter storm”, “deeply offensive”, “absolute disgrace”. Alliance leader Naomi Long was so enraged by the news she took to Twitter on Monday to join the outrage.
“Completely disgraceful behaviour,” wrote Naomi, “likely to retraumatise those whose loved ones were slaughtered by the IRA using those kinds of weapons. Having read the article, what's even worse than the photo is those acting like it's all a big joke. Without empathy we are lost. Grotesque.”
And she’s entitled to her view, although Squinter sincerely hopes she doesn’t come across the picture of Squinter holding Michael Collins’ revolver at the front door of the Andersonstown News, otherwise the Sunday press pack might decide to turn their attention to Hannahstown.
Personally, Squinter doesn’t know many people who haven’t fooled about with a decommissioned gun, whether it’s from 1916 or 1976. At the entrance to the Somme museum in Naomi’s neck of the woods, East Belfast, there was – perhaps still is – a World War One machine gun that mowed god-knows-how-many, but it’s a very popular attraction with schoolkids and adults alike. The museum in the Roddy’s had a fascinating selection of decommissioned weapons from the conflict.
But the biggest gun show here by far is Armed Forces Day, when all sorts of firepower – from a Browning sidearm to a helicopter gunship – are put on display for the public not only to peruse, but to interact with. Squinter’s been to two Armed Forces Day events, the first in Bangor in 2017, the second in Lisburn in 2020.
Both were pretty similar: lots of stalls and exhibitions, lots of men and women in army uniform, lots of drilling, a tug-of-war, lots of people, mostly families on a day out, lots of firearms trainers willing to show kids the right way to fire a heavy machine gun or to let off a belt of ammo from the side door of a chopper. In Lisburn, among the weapons on show were plastic bullet guns. Strangely the accompanying info board on their deployment in the North was limited, to say the least.
Squinter took a picture at the Bangor event. It features a number of children playing with… a couple of RPG7s. Neither this nor any of the other pictures of children handling heavy weaponry that Squinter wrote about were deemed worthy of a shock-horror-fury piece in the papers and certainly none provoked the indignation of the Alliance Party. And why should they?, you cry.
Well, in 2020 the Alliance Party on Armagh City and Banbridge District Council voted to fund Armed Forces Day 2021 in Banbridge to the tune of sixty grand. Yep, 60k, sixty big ones. And because Alliance know as well as the rest of us that Armed Forces Day doesn’t feature soldiers helping kittens across the road and rescuing old ladies stuck up trees, that means Alliance signed up to the idea of ordinary people, including kids, not only playing with guns, but being shown how to use them.
So, what are we supposed to think about the idea of a rocket-propelled grenade as recreation? Is it grotesque only if a former republican prisoner handles one for a bit of craic?
Is it okay for adults to give children access to one at playtime because the British Army is legal? Are the relatives of slaughtered victims more likely to be offended by the ex-prisoner because he played a part in the conflict than they are about the children? Possibly. But how might the relatives of children murdered by British Army machine guns and plastic bullets think about those things being set out for other children to look at and enjoy.
Armed Forces Day is in Carrickfergus this summer since Banbridge missed its turn last year because of Covid restrictions. Maybe there’s another Sunday tabloid super soaraway exclusive to be written. Or another tweet to be tweeted.
A Spotify of bother involves the usual suspects
SO the result of the Neil Young/Joni Mitchell-Joe Rogan/Spotify fight has been announced and the loser is… Meghan Markle. Oh, and Harry Windsor.
Well, in England it is anyway. Around the world Spotify and Joe Rogan are seen to have come off rather worse with the Swedish streaming service taking the right-wing blogger aside and ordering him to clean his act up, while the veteran musicians basked in the warm light of their moral vindication.
A summary. Joe Rogan is the most popular blogger on the planet, not because he’s possessed of the looks and charisma of Cary Grant or the broadcasting genius of a Jon Stewart, but because he’s a right-wing nutcase. And right-wing nutcases – be they Ben Shapiro, Tucker Carlson or Sean Hannity – are the undisputed kings of global broadcasting platforms in the English-speaking world. Joe up to very recently was a hero of the ‘moon-landings-were-a-lie’ movement; he accused President Joe Biden of faking his Covid jab; he serially mocks and taunts the trans community. But his current obsession is the Covid vaccine roll-out and he regularly provides a platform for anti-vax moon-howlers to transmit some of the most unhinged commentary to be found on a mainstream platform. Spotify bought Joe and his regular audience of 18 million for $100 million.
Neil Young and Joni Mitchell are famously on the other side of the political aisle. In rapid order last week, first Neil and then Joni withdrew their catalogue from Spotify in protest over the lethally dangerous anti-vax garbage that Joe’s churning out on a daily basis. And in the blink of an eye, Joe emerged from the headmaster’s office to say sorry and promise to do better.
So how the hell, you may be asking with perfectly good reason, did Meghan and Harry get roped into this? Well, the royal couple got a shedload of money to provide content for Spotify too, and on Monday morning the tabloid lions of the English media, the S*n, the Mail and the Express decided it was all their fault. Respectively, the papers reported in print and online:
• ‘Prince Harry and Duchess won’t quit Spotify despite Covid fake news row.’
• ‘Harry and Meghan won’t hand back Spotify millions.’
• ‘Harry and Meghan face US fury as Sussexes dragged into censorship row.’
The truth is that there is no big story that doesn’t become immeasurably bigger for the Tory press if Harry and Meghan can be dragged into it. And when Neil Young kicked off the Spotify row, the Windsors’ link to the platform was a political penalty kick for the redtops and they blasted it down the middle.
That sparked the usual online hatefest from the same people who get into a similar lather at the very mention of Greta Thunberg, Gary Lineker, Jeremy Corbyn and Hugh Grant.
Needless to say, not one of them stopped to ask themselves why other Spotify British A-listers such as Elton John, the Rolling Stones, Adele or Ed Sheeran didn’t have their morality questioned by the same papers.
Should they ask that question, they would quickly find out that the reason no national treasures have been singled out for the same treatment is that none of them have had the temerity to take on the media.
Last year Meghan won her legal battle against the Mail, which had published a private letter she wrote to her father – an action that was ruled illegal by the High Court. The couple had fled the UK to avoid the kind of corrosive media attention that was impacting on their mental health, and if they’re in a sweat lodge in the Mojave Desert connecting with their inner spirits instead of a West End theatre for a premiere, how are the hacks supposed to do their jobs? Even before the couple legged it it to California the tabloids had it in for Meghan.
Why that might be, Squinter couldn’t possibly say, but he cordially invites you to consider the words ‘woman’, ‘foreign’, ‘strong’ and ‘mixed-race’. And their favoured method of doing her down was to compare her unfavourably with the ‘English Rose’, Kate Middleton, as was, who when she first took up with William was derided for the fact that she came from a relatively humble background. Now she’s a media darling because that means she can be used to cast Meghan in the worst light possible. Squinter’s favourites, in no particular order…
AVOCADOGATE. THE EXPRESS.
1. ‘Kate’s morning sickness cure? Prince William gifted with an avocado for pregnant Duchess.’
“Prince William was given one of the green fruit – wrapped up in a bow – by a little boy whose mother is suffering during her pregnancy too.”
2. ‘Meghan Markle’s beloved avocado linked to human rights abuse, drought and millennial shame.’
“The pregnant Duchess of Sussex and so-called ‘avocado on toast whisperer’ is wolfing down a fruit linked to water shortages, illegal deforestation and all round general environmental devastation.”
BUMPGATE. THE MAIL.
1. ‘Not long to go! Pregnant Kate tenderly cradles her baby bump while wrapping up her royal duties ahead of maternity leave.’
“Bumping along nicely, the Duchess was seen placing a protective hand on her tummy as she exited the event.”
2. ‘Why can’t Meghan Markle keep her hands off her bump? Experts tackle the question that’s got the nation talking: Is it pride, vanity, acting – or a new age bonding technique?’
“Personally, I find the cradling a bit like those signs in the back of cars: Baby on Board. Virtue signalling, as though the rest of us barren harridans deserve to burn alive in our cars.”
STINKGATE. THE MAIL.
1. ‘How Kate scented the Abbey’.
“It was reported that new Duchess of Cambridge requested her favourite scented candles and toiletries from luxury fragrance brand Jo Malone be delivered to scent the Abbey.”
2. ‘Kicking up a stink.’
“‘Dictatorial’ bride Meghan wanted air fresheners for ‘musty’ 15th-century St George’s chapel… but the Palace said no.”
FLOWERGATE. THE EXPRESS.
1. ‘Why you always say it with flowers.’
“A floral code popular in Victorian times is making a comeback thanks to our royal newlyweds, says author Vanessa Diffenbaugh.”
2. ‘Royal wedding: How Meghan Markle’s flowers may have put Princess Charlotte’s life at risk.’
“Meghan Markle married Prince Harry in a stunning ceremony watched by millions, but an element of their nuptials may have put the bridesmaids’, including Princess Charlotte, lives at risk.”
LIPGATE. THE SUN.
1. ‘Stiff upper lip flip.’
“William said: ‘There may be a time and a place for the stiff upper lip, but not at the expense of your mental health.”
2. ‘Prince Harry and Meghan ditched British stiff upper lip.’
“Sun parents and kids reveal what they think of the Duke and Duchess airing their emotions in public – and whether they have the right to moan in such positions of privilege.”
BRANDGATE. THE MAIL.
1. ‘Kate and Wills Inc: Duke and Duchess secretly set up companies to protect their brand – just like the Beckhams.’
“Creating their own companies will allow William and Kate to bring out, should they ever choose to, myriad items of officially-endorsed merchandise from tea towels to coffee cups… Kensington Palace officials said they were doing the ‘sensible thing’ in protecting the couple’s rights.”
2. ‘A right royal cash-in! How Prince Harry and Meghan Markle trademarked over 100 items from hoodies to socks SIX MONTHS before split with monarchy.’
“The Sussexes want to stamp their names on dozens of products including T-shirts, hoodies, journals and gloves. Experts said Harry and Meghan were actively preparing to quit the royal family months ago by filing trademark applications.”
Maybe Joe should do a podcast about that. Or maybe Neil and Joni could co-write a song.
