That’s how it is on this bitch of a fridge

I was in the National Gallery yesterday, and had a look in its bookshop. They had Samuel Beckett fridge magnets on sale.

What Happened To U?

For someone of my vintage, UTV is Ulster Television, ‘Ulster’ meaning Ulster minus Donegal, Cavan and Monaghan. So when I read a report on its site saying that the Republic of Ireland has one of the lowest government spends on healthcare of any developed country, I get confused when it comments that:

The total spend here is just 7.1% of GDP, while the OECD average stands at 8.9%

The key word in the above is ‘here’, as the person who wrote the report is clearly in the Republic, not in Northern Ireland, and she/he refers to it as ‘Ireland’, which is the sort of thing that gets frowned upon by unionist sticklers for detail.

Ulster Television. I spent many hours of my childhood watching that spinning silver television with your logo on it, which looked for all the world like the remains of a shish kebab wrapped in tin-foil, waiting for television programmes like Orm and Cheep and Button Moon to start. Back in those days, I knew where I was, and that was in Ulster.

Now, well you’re just all over the shop. And the health system I pay for is shit.

Welcome to Northern Ireland. Be sure to leave at the earliest opportunity.

The time-honoured tradition of burning people out of their homes continues in Northern Ireland. So too does beating people with baseball bats. Racial incidents went up 15.1% during 2005/06, according to PSNI figures.

Kid Stuff

I fear I am developing an obsession with alliteration. The Independent on Sunday runs an alliterative headline today: Prozac for paedophiles.

There is even an alternative alliterative treatment: ‘chemical castration’.

Well, it could have been worse. ‘Ketamine for Kiddie Fiddlers’. ‘Neurontin for Nonces’. That sort of thing.

You can read a transcript of Brass Eye’s paedophilia special here.