Grin And Blair It

It’s official. The Brits are as bad as the Irish when it comes to sleaze. Plus, the delirious genius of And So I Watch You From Afar

Eamonn McCann, 14 Apr 2010

A degree of perplexity about the recent Channel 4 programme in which Gerry Adams travelled to Palestine hoping to find the real Jesus Christ. I think I have it sussed. Fella involved in a radical organisation, executed in gruesome circumstances, high-level tout believed involved, body never found despite many years searching.

I reckon Gerry wanted to be seen delivering on his promise to do all in his power to locate the remains of the Disappeared.

Skippy doesn’t know what way to turn. Tasmanian attorney general Lara Giddings laments, “Wallabies have been hopping around in circles after eating the plants.” Opium plants, that is.

It’s not only in Afghanistan that the red poppy blossoms wave their languid heads across meadows and field. Tasmania is the world’s leading legal producer of the plant, yielding morphine and heroin for medicinal purposes. But now the poppy is devastating local farming and native wildlife.

In Britain, 5,000 acres of arable land are devoted exclusively to the opium poppy. Producers are currently striving to increase harvests to meet the growing needs of the NHS.

Meanwhile, Western forces continue to incite the hostility of Afghan farmers through brutal, expensive and futile attempts to eradicate their only cash crop.

Here’s a scarcely original idea. Buy up the Afghan poppy crop at a fair price for medical purposes, providing the farmers with a reliable income, taking control away from warlords and Western criminals – and saving Skippy from addiction, disorientation and too-early death.

But hey, if everybody began thinking sensibly about drugs, Joe Duffy would be deprived of an opportunity to crank up hysteria. We couldn’t have that.

Bit of a barney in Britland last month with the unmasking of former cabinet members using their government contacts to tout for money from big business to manipulate ministers.

Incompetent Iraq-period Defence Minister Geoff Hoon, useless former Health Secretary Patricia Hewitt and bungling ex-transport supremo Stephen Byers were caught with their trousers down and their ethics up their arses flogging their services as hucksters to phoney consultants. Byers wanted between £3,000 and £5,000 per diem for his Del-boy assistance.

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Eamonn McCann

She was a chav icon and slapper pin-up, but, oh, how we will miss Corrie’s Becky McDonald.

2012-02-15 - Frontlines

What the London riot really tell us about the modern UK – and why the issue isn’t as black and white as we are led believe.

2012-01-06 - Frontlines

A Christmas parable. By the Rev. Eamonn McCann

2011-12-02 - Frontlines

A silly drinks promotion and two men to be reckoned with. It's all in a fortnight's reflections...

2011-10-12 - Frontlines

It’s time the London police answered hard questions over the death of UK reggae and rap figure Smiley Culture.

2011-08-30 - Frontlines

Why the wound left by Bloody Sunday will ache for as long as the State refuses to acknowledge the truth of what happened that fateful day.

2010-04-13 - Frontlines

A new organisation of musicians has written to Barack Obama protesting against the use of music to torture detainees. Also: a closer look at the individuals behind the recent An Bord Snip report, which recommends systematic fleecing of the poor in order to keep fat-cats in the style to which they’re accustomed.

2009-08-06 - Frontlines

2009-07-16 - REVIEW

In the aftermath of the horrific report into institutional child abuse, let us not forget that the higher echelons of the Catholic Church was perfectly aware of the evil being perpetrated in its name – and refused to do anything.

2009-07-09 - Reports

Our columnist continues to be inspired by the possibilities offered up by radical left-wing politics.

2009-06-26 - Reports

If George Best was football's Beatle, Robin Friday was its Rolling Stone.

2009-06-24 - Reports

Over 50 artists came together to pay their respects to Jimmy Faulkner in an unforgettable show of more than four hours of emotionally-charged performances.

2008-10-22 - REVIEW

We arrived just in time for Ham Sandwich – soft vibes, floating vocals, bass-player with the best rhythmic leg scratch in Ireland. It might have been the midges.

2008-08-26 - REVIEW

"We pile out to collude in exotic cigarettes along the fairy-lit Lagan and argue whether this was really the best gig ever-ever. Maybe."

2008-01-18 - REVIEW

So they say. And so too was David, who slew Goliath in the bible. In fact, there is ample reason to believe that key characters involved in two pillars of the DUP’s view of the world would be deeply offended at recent remarks by Ian Paisley Jnr in Hot Press.

2007-06-18 - Frontlines

Bomb materials made in Northern Ireland are killing people in the Middle East while the PSNI arrest protesters against the manufacturers, including this HotPress columnist.

2007-04-17 - Frontlines

When the Northern Ireland Secretary Peter Hain appointed two members of the Orange Order to the Parades Commission, he set himself up for a political bruising. But worse than that, he may have fatally undermined the ability of the organisation to function.

2006-06-30 - Frontlines

Bruce and his army of musicians made like this night in Dublin was the night of their lives – and maybe it was.

2006-05-19 - REVIEW

Annual article: A year in the world of justice reviewed.

2005-12-20 - Frontlines

Travellers have been barred from the town of Larne in Northern Ireland, in what amounts to one of the most extreme uses of an ASBO yet under UK law. Report by Eamonn McCann.

2005-06-21 - Frontlines

Police brutality in the Waterside, and getting the Sachs from the Dunphy Show

2005-05-30 - Frontlines

Anybody who came hoping for an extended howl of cathartic defiance will have come away unfulfilled. This was a subdued performance from the non-pareil mistress of politically-charged, polymorphous folk-funk.

2004-11-25 - REVIEW

This is a band bubbling and bristling with intelligent musical and literary references. Bowie, the Stripes, Cockney Rebel, Madness, D. H. Lawrence, the Wasp and Charlie and the Chocolate Factory.

2004-03-29 - REVIEW

The evidence of two British soldiers about the shooting of unarmed civilians, heard in public for the first time, but largely overlooked in coverage of the Saville inquiry, is a direct challenge to the “official” line on bloody sunday which has held for more than 30 years.

2003-09-25 - Frontlines

Oasis lacked energy, aggression, focus, freshness

2002-10-04 - REVIEW

Important questions of the Stevens inquiry team were left unasked by the recent Panorama investigation into collusion between loyalist paramilitaries and the security forces, and the murder of Pat Finucane

2002-07-23 - Frontlines

The ever-righteous, incorruptible folkstress brings her eloquent brain to bear on music, politics, 9/11 and America's corporate delinquency

2002-06-24 - Interview

What we need in Leinster House are representatives of discontent says Eamonn McCann

2002-05-10 - Frontlines

While they may disagree about context and certain details, the two new television documentaries about Bloody Sunday, far from being the "bloody fantasy" alleged by critics, offer accurate and powerful recreations of the events of that tragic and pivotal day. EAMONN McCANN, an eye-witness on Bloody Sunday, reports

2002-01-17 - Frontlines

EAMONN McCANN reports on detailed, eye-witness claims of the Catholic Church’s involvement in the Rwandan genocide of 1994 – and of the Vatican’s efforts to protect the guilty

2001-08-16 - Frontlines

Why hasn’t Henry Kissinger been banged up long ago?

2001-06-07 - Frontlines

EAMONN McCANN on the boardroom shenanigans at Telecom Eireann.

1999-09-29 - Interview

When Fr Friel called Sonia O Sullivan a slut he was simply following the logic of Catholic teaching, writes EAMONN McCANN.

1999-09-29 - Frontlines

RAYTHEON, the armament-technology firm which manufactured Patriot and Sidewinder missiles, is establishing a plant in Derry and the local politicians couldn t be happier. EAMONN McCANN reports.

1999-09-15 - Frontlines

Between the unattractive alternatives of the Belfast Agreement and a return to war, there has to be a new way forward for the Republican movement. So says former IRA man and respected Republican TOMMY McKEARNEY. Interview: EAMONN McCANN PICS: CATHAL DAWSON

1999-05-26 - Frontlines

The bombing of Serbia is not about the fate of Kosovar Albanians. Rather, the colossal NATO military machine has been unleashed to establish the right of the United States, as the sole remaining superpower, to impose its will on the world. By EAMONN McCANN. Pics Courtesy: The Star

1999-04-28 - Frontlines

New Labour s Project is an empty and cynical enterprise, says EAMONN McCANN

1999-02-03 - Frontlines

Even if the Peace Agreement is accepted it might not work and will almost certainly result in the alienation of many northern citizens. The politicians, however, will have us believe that a No vote would automatically mean a return to all-out war. Eamonn McCann thinks otherwise. Pics: PETER MATTHEWS

1998-04-29 - Frontlines

As the dust settles in the wake of the Stormont Settlement, eamonn Mccann assesses the situation and wonders just how much of their ideology Republicans are in the process of jettisoning.

1998-04-01 - Frontlines

Eamon McCann resists the urge to get sentimental about the life and death of Princess Diana

1997-09-03 - Frontlines

As Gerry Adams and friends bask in the glory of another public relations triumph, EAMONN McCANN analyses the historical context of the current ceasefire, and assesses the scepticism surrounding the IRA s motives in calling it.

1997-07-23 - Frontlines

MOVING HEARTS in the BAGGOT INN, three nights a week - EAMON MC CANN recalls the greatest residency ever.

1997-06-11 - REVIEW

PROFESSOR RICHARD LYNN of the University Of Ulster has produced a body of research designed to prove that ‘blacks’ are less intelligent than ‘whites’. A major influence on the authors of the controversial bible of the New Right The Bell Curve, Lynn now stands accused of “a truly venomous racism, combined with scandalous disregard for scientific objectivity.” Report: Eamonn McCann.

1995-02-22 - Frontlines

1994 was the year when paedophile priests were finally forced out of the closet. But the Church is still refusing to answer the vital questions. Report: Eamonn McCann.

1994-12-14 - Frontlines

Over the past decade in ‘The Hot Press Political Interview’ the subject of Northern Ireland has, not surprisingly, surfaced time and time again. What follows is but a small selection of these quotes, specifically those that look to the future rather than to the past.

1994-09-07 - Frontlines

Speaking as a holder of the Sam Maguire Cup, I can only concur in one GAA correspondent's description of the triumph by Henry Downey's heroes at Croke Park on September 19th as "the dawn of a new era".

1993-10-06 - Frontlines

Eamonn McCann explains how Féile '93 became a condom-free zone.

1993-07-28 - Frontlines

In all of Ireland s hydra-headed entertainment industry, no other act simultaneously inspires as much love and loathing as The Wolfe Tones, a band who, annually, attract huge support at Siamsa Cois Laoi, while, no less vociferously, their detractors continue to dismiss them as the musical wing of the IRA, and worse. On the occasion of The Wolfe Tones celebrating 25 years together as a group, Eamon McCann went to meet them.

1989-04-06 - Interview

Philip Chevron's career has been nothing if not varied. From the early days with the Radiators through his collaborations with people like Agnes Bernelle and right up to his current work with The Pogues, he has proved himself to be a consistently fine songwriter and performer. In the first part of a lengthy and intense interview, he talks to Eamonn McCann about his childhood, his love of Broadway musicals, the Horslips connection, the genesis of the Radiators and his fleeting career as a journalist.

1988-03-24 - Interview

Eamonn McCann accompanies The Pogues across the sea to Scotland s centre of Irishness, Glasgow, and enters a complex world of fiercely divided loyalties, joyous celebration and soccer madness.

1988-01-14 - Interview

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