“Full coverage Pages 2,3,4,5,6,7,” the Irish News proclaimed on the front page (all of it) on the morning after the MTV European Music Awards bash in Belfast.

The only story on page seven told that a representative of MTV had visited a shop on the Ormeau Road and bought a locally-designed pendant, which host Selena Gomez later wore on stage! Apparently, thousands watching on a big screen outside “erupted at the site”. Aye.
The paper aimed at the other half of town, the oldest extant newspaper in the world, the Newsletter, shrilled that, “Belfast and Northern Ireland is waking up today to the promise of untold potential benefits, spin-offs and prosperity, after last night’s star-studded MTV EMAs ceremony was beamed around the world to more than a billion viewers.” The promise of untold prosperity! A billion viewers!
Cheapskate Fermanagh DUP tourism minister Arlene Foster had claimed a mere 600 million.
The normally sane Ed Curran of the Belfast Telegraph babbled: “A very big thank you to Lady Gaga and all the many international artists who... made a significant contribution to peace and to prosperity for people here… Each and every one of those who appeared in Belfast has played a part in the remarkable renaissance of what was once one of the world’s most infamous trouble-spots.” 
Bollocks. Prosperity? Northern Ireland is suffering soaring job losses and spending cuts that bite ever deeper. Living standards are going down, not up. Such peace as we have has sweet FA to do with the likes of Lady Gaga. It’s down to the settled unwillingness of the people who bore the brunt to countenance killing for causes seen as futile or unworthy or both.
To thank Lady Gaga for the bounty of peace is profoundly insulting to the plain people up here.
The approach of the BBC and UTV to the event was on all fours. News bulletins led with the imminent arrival of Katy Perry, the actual arrival of Anthony Kiedis, the rumoured arrival of Irina Shayk. (“Russian model and girlfriend of Real Madrid footballer Cristiano Ronaldo,” if you must know.) Newsreaders had been ordered under pain of redundancy if not death, to freeze their features into daft grins for the duration.
Was the provincial nature of Northern Ireland ever put on such embarrassingly public display?
The mindless vulgarity of the occasion was clear from the organisers’ announcement of the contents of the Greedy Bag handed to every presenter, nominee and performer. Stick with me on this. And keep in mind that the recipients are super-rich celebrities visiting a working-class town in a period of austerity: “The new Swatch Touch 2011, with big-screen LCD dials and a touch-sensitive zone; limited edition Replay package containing shirt and bandana from the Capsule Collection; a Rimowa suitcase; complimentary stay at 45 Park Lane; Bushmills Irish whiskey; South Park figurines by Kidrobot; Fatman MKII iTube Amplifier and Speakers; Sonos wireless multi-room music system; Xbox 360 console with Kinect sensor and game; Jamaica Blue Mountain Coffee from Sea Island Coffee; WOWee Speaker; Evita Peroni fashion accessories; He-Shi tanning products; Goody Spin Pin; Nando’s PERi PERi gift basket; MAC make-up boxes; MiPow Power Tubes; Charlotte Sparre pure silk scarves; Moroccanoil limited edition gift bag that includes products and a bathrobe; £500 voucher redeemable at SereneOrder.com; ACS Pro Series custom-moulded earplugs; limited edition signed artwork by Tyler Shields; and cufflinks; Deamond mobile phone cases and accessories; Nialaya jewellery; Kangol headwear.”
And I could go on. Believe me, I could go on. For the full roll-call of shamelessness, try sluggerotoole.com/2011/11/04/austerity-what-austerity-the-mtv-ema-goodie-bag-i-mean-goodie-suitcase.
I texted the tag to ace Enchiladas vocalist Diane Greer. “Sweet Jesus – I’m ready to boke!!” came the rapid response. More squeamish than the MTV sorts, Diane, being a rock ‘n’ rolling biker girl just back from a tour of Bill Bragg’s jeans.
Did you pick up on the Moroccanoil limited-edition gift bag that includes products and a bathrobe? Hey. A gift bag in a Goody Bag! There’s times you’d nearly yearn for the gritty integrity of U2.
Nearly.

Check it out, if only for fuck’s sake.
youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=Sdn3O6aaMNc.

Everybody agrees that golf caddy Steve Williams isn’t racist. He’s the New Zealander who told an awards dinner in Shanghai that a wild celebration of his employer Adam Scott winning a tournament last August had been intended “to shove it right up that black arsehole.” The arsehole was his previous employer Tiger Woods.
Woods said later that he’d spoken with his ex-bagman and that Williams had “expressed remorse... Steve is certainly not a racist.”
World number eight Scott agreed. “Everybody knows Williams isn’t racist, but there will always be people who want to turn something into a controversy for whatever reasons they have.”
Relieved to have been cleared, Williams told an Auckland radio station: “I didn’t give it a second thought, to be honest with you. Just because I made comments about my former employer, it gets blown way out of proportion. Anything that’s linked to [Woods], any controversy they can make up, that’s what they love to do.”
Graeme McDowell chipped in, “I don’t think it was a racial comment.”
Rory McIlroy reckoned, “Stevie has apologised for his comments and I think now that everyone can just move on.”
Williams isn’t a racist because he can’t be a racist, being a member of the club. Not just a golfing phenomenon, that.