As fiscal Armageddon looms, the Irish Government is faced with tough choices. In considering its options, it would do well to remember the lessons to be learned from past experience – in particular the fact that the Poll Tax marked the beginning of the end for Margaret Thatcher
The author and former Conservative MP on clashing with Ian Paisley, shaking hands with Gerry Adams, sex and drugs in the house of commons, what Margaret Thatcher did and didn’t know about her closest aides and why kissing and telling on John Major is justified
OUT FROM BEHIND THE GREASE-PAINT THAT ADORNS HIS FACE ON THE COVER OF ‘SPIKE’, ELVIS COSTELLO EMERGES TO TALK ABOUT THE MUSIC THAT RUNS IN HIS FAMILY FROM BIG-BAND TO SPEED-METAL, HIS MUCH-TOUTED IRISH CONNECTION, WORKING WITH PAUL McCARTNEY, HIS CONTEMPT FOR MUCH OF TODAY’S POP MUSIC AND THE FEELINGS THAT INSPIRED HIS DEATH-WISH FOR MARGARET THATCHER.
Our columnist wasn’t exactly popping open the champagne at the news that Mark Thatcher had escaped with a suspended sentence for his part in the attempted coup in Equatorial Guinea. Plus: why Bono’s gushing endorsement at the Labour Party Conference has allowed Blair and Brown to continue to get away with murder.
Patrick Freyne interviews Julian Clary about his new autobiographical show, his status as a camp icon and his roots in the anti-Thatcher British comedy of the ‘80s.
The ace bass in the STONE ROSES and PRIMAL SCREAM, MANI is the living embodiment of the concept of largin it . In Ireland to dee-jay and hang out, he sinks a few beers and offers his uniquely colourful thoughts on music, Man U, drugs, Thatcher, Reagan, Blair and Bill Clinton s blow-jobs. Interview: EAMON SWEENEY.
In his latest book, the high profile psychiatrist addresses the idea of masculinity in crisis. But is it fact or fiction? And how have his own experiences as husband, father and professional informed his views? Joe Jackson asks the questions. And, oh, is size really important. Doc Shots: MYLES CLAFFEY
. . . Here’s T.P. McKenna, one of Ireland’s most eminent actors – and a punk at heart. In an outspoken interview he savages Marlon Brando, Joseph Strick, Ian Paisley and Margaret Thatcher – and talks about his desire to be held in the arms of young girls again . . .
Interview: JOE JACKSON
As ever with this maverick talent, Gemstones is predictable only in its sheer unpredictability. Whilst his musical style remains at least moderately categorizable (those ragged folk rhythms are still present and correct), lyrically, his approach is more laissez faire than the economic policies of Reagan and Thatcher combined.
Why Derry city fans can no longer stand up to be counted; why the rich are so disgusting; and why we haven’t heard much about the British-Al Qaida plot to kill Gadafi.
Millions announces its implausibility by situating itself in a UK on the verge of switching to the euro. For several minutes you wonder to yourself if Danny Boyle’s follow-up to 28 Days Later is about to present the reanimated corpses of Sir James Goldsmith and Dennis Thatcher leading an attack on Westminster, or related news stories, such as, ‘hell freezes over’. Happily, the film quickly proves far too charming to sustain such notions, though it must be said that Millions is not without its fair share of the deceased.
There hasn’t been a debut this ominous and arresting from sleepy Lincolnshire since a radiant young Margaret Thatcher first addressed the Tory conference, and we all know how that one ended up.
Consider both the facts and the odds. It would be more likely that a torrent of frogs would descent from the skies to land on the Palace of Westminster and then pass through six floors down to the Parliamentary chamber to squelch upon Margaret Thatcher’s head that that King Of America would be anything other than an excellent album.
Take one Super Furry Animal, one lap-top wizard and one disgraced motor industry executive and you get synth revivalists Neon Neon and the year's best concept album.
Every hip indie musician is namechecking (and soundchecking) Gang Of Four these days. But there’s more to the band than scratchy guitars and funky rhythms – as guitarist Andy Gill tells us, their unique sound was forged during a time of musical innovation and political radicalism.
In an exclusive interview, DeLorean executive Brian Beharrell talks about the $24 million cocaine bust that hastened the demise of the sports car manufacturer's Belfast base.
Comic book genius Alan Moore, who was also the original author of the big screen Jack the Ripper yarn, From Hell, has now turned his attention to fellow visionary/madman, William Blake. Peter Murphy reports
STUART BAILIE recalls some of the social and political movements that have occupied U2's hearts and minds down through the years... not least, the Springfield Garbage Dump campaign
Actor Peter Mullan first achieved mainstream success with his brilliant leading role in 1998’s My Name Is Joe, for which he received a best actor award at Cannes. His latest project concerns the abuse of young women by the Catholic Church in the Magdalen Sisters, which he wrote and directed
From obscure Australian character actor to fan-boy pin-up, it has been a long, strange trip for Hugo Weaving. His latest turn, as a masked anti-hero, could be his definitive role.
Back with another volume of Woody Guthrie songs, BILLY BRAGG talks to Siobhan Long about supersonic boogie, the act of collaboration and why Tony Blair s Labour Party still has his respect.
NEVER MIND share prices and gross national products. If you want to gauge how tigerish an economy is, take a look at what people are shoving up their noses.
He may be able to put more bums on stadium seats down under than INXS but elsewhere no one seems to give a XXXX about Jimmy Barnes. That could all be about to change though as Stuart Clark
discovers when he has his hand broken by Australia's best-kept secret.
In the middle of the present rather straitened times, it may seem a bit previous, as they say in Cavan, to be talking about the recession bottoming out. well, actually, in its own rather weary wary piddly way, it is.
As the major force in the "Club of '22", whose attempts to oust Charlie Haughey from the leadership of Fianna Fail finally resulted in Dessie O'Malley's departure to form the Progressive Democrats, Charlie McCreevy was long considered a thorn in the side of the Taoiseach by the party faithful. Ironically then, it was McCreevy himself who was to be instrumental in setting up the talks with the P.D.s following the recent election which would result in Charles J. Haughey continuing to stay in power in a new kind of coalition government.
Generally regarded as one of the most candid of Irish politicians, Charlie McCreevy here lives up to his reputation as he shoots from the hip on matters both political and personal.
In 1992, following seventeen years of dedicated research and having overcome seemingly insurmountable obstacles, George Smoot made what Stephen Hawking, author of A Brief History Of Time, described as “the scientific discovery of the century, if not of all time“ – ripples in the fabric of space-time that validate the theory of The Big Bang. GERRY McGOVERN meets GEORGE SMOOT on the publication of his new book, Wrinkles In Time
The Liverpool Comedy Festival 2002 saw a significant number of Irish acts - including Neil Delamere, Eddie Bannon and Dara
O'Briain - appearing alongside such notables as Johnny Vegas, Ross Noble and many others, all hoping to create an annual
comedy-fest to rival Kilkenny and Edinburgh
The Rossport Protestors have been released from prison, but Shell remains determined to press ahead with its controversial Corrib pipeline. Locals say the fight to save their community has just started.
In the wake of the IRA’s complete cessation of violence, the Unionist community must engage in a process of re-defintion – because while they have been clinging to the last vestiges of the British Empire, the world around them has been transformed. By Bill Graham.
Hot Press' answer to Russell Grant, Jackie Hayden, slips into his chunky-knit jumper, gazes at his crystal ball and comes up with more predictions that probably won't come true. Like last year.
Over the hills and far away, Chumbawamba come out to play! They get knocked down. But they get up again. They get dropped by Indie One Little Indian, and then get signed up by Capitalist major EMI. Then the Tub-Thumpers Anonymous go on to score the most unlikely hit single of 1997. So what now for Alice Nutter and her chums? ANDY DARLINGTON reports.
Over the hills and far away, Chumbawamba come out to play! They get knocked down. But they get up again. They get dropped by Indie One Little Indian, and then get signed up by Capitalist major EMI. Then the Tub-Thumpers Anonymous go on to score the most unlikely hit single of 1997. So what now for Alice Nutter and her chums? ANDY DARLINGTON reports.
Well, a trio of humans, to be precise. Confronted with the flesh and blood reality of Phil, Susanne and Joanne munching sandwiches right in front of his eyes, Nicholas G. Kelly accepts that we must come to terms with the fact that The Human League have indeed risen from the grave. But not, repeat not, the ’80s.
Over the past twenty-five years, attitudes and experiences in the North’s two biggest cities, Belfast and Derry, have been markedly and vitally different. To understand why may help us to define both the opportunities for and the obstacles to peaceful change. Report: BILL GRAHAM
Mary Bannoti, Ireland's goodwill ambassador for the United Nations population fund, visited Afghanistan in March. Here, she records some lasting impressions of a place at once brutal and beguiling, and describes her often moving encounters with men, women and children, many still in refugee camps in Pakistan, who are struggling to return home and rebuild their lives.
He may well be a prime target for the jibes of other Irish comedian-types, but right now brendan o carroll is
riding the crest of a wave of popularity of quite phenomenal proportions. With three best-selling books to his credit, a smash hit play and a movie already in the offing, he s back on the road with his sell-out one-man show The Story So Far. Here, in a startlingly honest interview, he talks about his addiction to gambling, his contempt for the theatrical establishment, the fear and paralysis that is endemic in RTE, Father Ted, the Catholic Church, groupies and (cue fanfare please) his plans to become an M.E.P. Tape recorder: liam fay.
Pix: MICK QUINN
Can you see the Forrest for the Gump? Can you explain the cultural phenomenon of Steven Seagal in English plain enough for Seagal himself to understand? Did you recognise any of the actors hiding beneath moustaches in Wyatt Earp, Tombstone and Gettysburg? Are you ready for the fourth annual X-mas rated Blow Up Movie Quiz?
Oh, well, give it a go anyway. Now we separate the movie buffs from the people who have got something more interesting to do than spend all day hanging around cinemas and reading Hot Press. Answers can be found on page 99 but anyone caught peeking will have to live with the knowledge that they are a dirty, rotten, good for nothing, low down cheat. Good luck. And remember, this quiz is just like a box of chocolates . . . you’ll feel sick when you’ve finished.
Michelin star man Dylan McGrath has brought something of a rock ‘n’ roll aesthetic to Irish cooking. In a slap-up feast of an interview, he talks about his West Belfast childhood, kitchen stabbings and why he’s no time for mumsy housewives' choice chefs.
Bloodied but unbowed by press smears, Scottish socialist firebrand George Galloway is one of the most vocal anti-war politicians in Britian. In a characteristically frank interview he discusses Iraq, Abu Ghraib, Resepect, and why Shannon could be considered a terrorist target.
The creator of Bowling For Columbine, this year’s most devastating big screen documentary, shoots from the hip on violence, gun control, Charlton Heston, George Bush, satire and the Canadian solution to an American problem
Ahead of his 50th birthday, Morrissey talks exclusively to Hot Press about the sexual nature of singing, letting go in the studio, being blacklisted by the UK's Radio One and how he approaches songwriting.
There is inescapable evidence that British security forces colluded in the murder of defence lawyer, Pat Finucane. But now Michael Finucane wants to know just how high the responsibilty for the crime really goes.
Paul Weller has a reputation as one of the most truculent men in pop, with a deep-seated dislike of the promotional process. But with the release of his latest solo album Illumination, the man who once led The Jam and the Style Council agreed to put himself in the firing line. Looking back over a career that's studded with success, he's reflective and forthright - but the anger that inspired much of The Jam's finest output still burns
Bum, bottom and crevice may be dirty words but pop certainly isn't as Stuart Clark discovers when he enters the fluffy pink bunny rabbit world of the Lightning Seeds.
The pen behind "My Beautiful Launderette" and "Sammy and Rosie Get Laid", HANIF KUREISHI has been treated as an outsider in his home, Britain, and as a traitor by some elements within his own race. But, he maintains, it's the job of the writer to "stir the shit" - and now he's got the fundamentalists in his sights. Interview: OLAF TYARANSEN
I was living fast, planning to die young and I was probably gonna take a few people with me, says Fatima Mansions firebrand Cathal Coughlan of his descent into a personal and creative nightmare. Now back stronger, healthier and with an acclaimed new album, Lost In The Former West, under his belt, he retraces the highs, lows and kicks in the teeth of the last few years with Liam Fay.
Mary Robinson's frustration with the obstacles placed in the path of the struggle for human rights reflects a deeper and wider world problem - the spread of a new inTolerance which places profit before people and is even prepared to go to war to defend its supremacy. here, Michael D. Higgins TD makes an impassioned plea for change
Robyn Hitchcock – wayward musical genius or fruitcake, depending on your point of view – is on the brink of even greater notoriety with the patronage of REM and the release of his strongest album to date. Andy Darlington does his best to uncover the man behind the mayhem.
“I was living fast, planning to die young and I was probably gonna take a few people with me,” says Fatima Mansions firebrand Cathal Coughlan of his descent into a personal and creative nightmare. Now back stronger, healthier and with an acclaimed new album, Lost In The Former West, under his belt, he retraces the highs, lows and kicks in the teeth of the last few years with Liam Fay.
CATHAL COUGHLAN has long been among the most articulate and angry of Irish songwriters. Here, he talks to JONATHAN O BRIEN about his new album, money problems and adapting to middle-age
To mark the occasion of the release of a near definitive punk compilation, GEORGE BYRNE fondly recalls the days when pogo was go-go and gabba gabba was hey.
Morrissey of The Smiths has taken the place of both Duran Duran and the Thompson Twins, single-handedly wiping them out, at least on my one increasingly [used] cassette. When I told him whose conversations we were taping over he said, "Good. I'll talk louder then." Not a man to be taken lightly.
When The Wind That Shakes The Barley, Ken Loach’s dramatisation of the Irish War of Independence, won the Palme D’Or at Cannes last month, it triggered a vociferously hostile response from right wing British pundits, who branded the director as a terrorist-sympathising Commie. Few of them, however, had actually seen the film.
Every year thousands of film fans make the trip to the southern capital for the feast of cinema that is the Cork Film Festival. Hot Press looks back over the history of one of Europe’s longest-running cinematic events and checks out what this year’s packed programme has to offer. Report: Patrick Brennan
What do you get when you lock indie gods Carter The Unstoppable Sex Machine and Dublin's up-and-coming Blink in a room with unlimited booze and a tape machine? Well, you're about to find out as Blink ask their tourmates Carter how many pairs of underpants to bring along, whether or not you can leave stage to prevent wetting them and who washes them if you can't. Pix: Leo Regan
What do you get when you lock indie gods Carter The Unstoppable Sex Machine and Dublin's up-and-coming Blink in a room with unlimited booze and a tape machine? Well, you're about to find out as Blink ask their tourmates Carter how many pairs of underpants to bring along, whether or not you can leave stage to prevent wetting them and who washes them if you can't. Pix: Leo Regan
PACK YOUR LEMSIP AND NIGHT NURSE AND PREPARE TO DO BATTLE WITH THE BEIJING FLU AS THE SAWDOCTORS TACKLE THE SOUTH OF ENGLAND ON THEIR LATEST TOUR. CURRENTLY BETWEEN LABELS THE BAND’S U.K. FANBASE IS INCREASING STEADILY, EVEN IF THE CONCEPT OF ‘DESIGNER BOGMEN’ HAS YET TO PENETRATE THE SHIRES
CHECKING THE TEMPERATURE: BILL GRAHAM.
Deep Throat was a smut blockbuster and pop-culture sensation. A new documentary, Inside Deep Throat, examines its impact on feminism, cinema and – oh yes – porn. It also sheds light on the tragic truth behind the movie, explains director Fenton Bailey.
It may have been billed as the last stand of CHARLES J. HAUGHEY, but no-one told the man himself. Last week at Dublin Castle, having been hauled before the McCracken payments-to-politicians tribunal in an attempt to get him to finally explain his business relationship with Ben Dunne, the former Taoiseach indulged in a faintly pathetic display of obfuscating, wheedling and stalling. LIAM FAY was one of those looking on eagerly from the public gallery. This is his report.
With State Of Play and Shameless, Paul Abbott has taken more risks than any other writer of TV drama – with spectacularly successful results. Now, Channel 4 have asked the BAFTA award winner to write a pantomime, that’s destined to be one of the highlights of the festive season.
Over the past decade or so, Will Self has remained one of the most fascinating, infuriating and downright provocative writers in contemporary literature. Now, following the publication of his typically inventive and challenging new book, Dr Mukti and other Tales of Woe, the perennially combative author gives Hot Press the low-down on the perils of psychiatry, his relationship with ultra-controversial artist Sebastian Horsley, and that memorable showdown with Paul Merton on Room 101.
PAUL BRADY has had an embattled career. In the course of it, he has made great music, won new fans and lost old friends. He has written powerful songs, locked horns with his record company, even contemplated quitting the business entirely. Now finally, he has come to new realisations about himself and about the enduring power of love. Interview: JOE JACKSON.
The Boomtown Rats came burning out of Dublin in the late ‘70s, railing against the Irish establishment to the audible gasps of the nation’s more conservative elements. With their remastered back catalogue having been recently reissued, Bob Geldof here looks back on a period of notoriety, controversy and personal angst, and also reflects on his ongoing efforts to highlight the issue of Fathers’ Rights. Interview by Peter Murphy. Photography by Mark Harrison.
Or should that be The Clash? Well no, actually, cos there's no Clash, Damned or Pistols in 1999. But there s still joe strummer, who was there when Shane got his ear bitten off and, 22 years later is back for his own second bite with THE MESCALEROS. I ve seen everything that it s possible to see go down and I ve survived it, he tells STUART CLARK who finds himself shanghaied on a ferry to Stranraer.
Main pix: MICHAEL QUINN.
Former London Mayor Ken Livingstone talks about toffs in politics, Tony versus Gordon and sheds light on his own intervention in the Troubles, at the height of the bloodshed.
Fourteen years on and people still come up to BRUCE ROBINSON and quote chunks of Withnail & I to his face. But if you don t know more about this talented, opinionated, chain-smoking, wine-guzzling writer/director, then that may be because, to put it at its mildest, he and Hollywood have never seen eye to eye. PETER MURPHY meets the angry older man
In a presidential nomination field virtually devoid of candidates of real calibre and charisma, the name of ex-Boomtown Rat and Live Aid hero BOB GELDOF has cropped up again and again. Despite his outright denial that he will run for office, the rumour refuses to die away. Here, in an interview with LIAM FAY, he gives his assessment of Mary Robinson s seven years in the job, and his hopes for the future occupants of Aras an Uachtarain.
After a lengthy silence, TRICKY is back with an impressively upbeat new album. But the man himself still insists on going against the grain. Here he talks about his aversion to celebrityhood, his dislike of the music biz, his fondness for Bryan Adams and Bono, and how he copes with the terrible burden of having hundreds of women who want to have sex with him. Interview: OLAF TYARANSEN
Martin McGuinness was one of the key figures in the troubles in Northern Ireland . Many unionists believe that the one-time IRA man was at the heart of much that was wrong and divisive in Irish life. But ultimately the quiet Derryman has taken on the role of peacemaker – and he is now the Deputy First Minister in the new power-sharing administration at Stormont.
He may unashamedly refer to himself as an artist and others may caricature him as a cold fish, but even if he suspects he has spent too much time writing and not enough living, john banville bears scant resemblance to the pompous boffin of popular prejudice. With the publication of his latest novel, The Untouchable, the acclaimed author gets his round in with liam fay. Pix: Cathal Dawson.
With a new ‘Best Of’ bringing the band’s story up to date, U2’s guitar man steps forward to riff on good times and bad, the private life of a public figure, discovering the secrets of the universe on mushrooms, and why, after all these years, few things match the high of being a member of U2
As the punk revolution took hold in the UK, Manchester was notable for the bleak, industrial soundtrack even its most successful bands were making. But that all changed with the explosion there of a new and hedonistic culture, centred in and around The Hacienda, a club run by the city's most influential music biz entrepreneur, the boss of Factory Records, TONY WILSON. The story of the transformation of the city into the centre of rock'n'roll's emerging drug and club culture – of the change from Manchester to Madchester – is told in 24 Hour Party People. With the Happy Mondays as it primary musical focus, there's no shortage of on-screen drugs and fighting – but this is really the extraordinary saga of one of the great rock'n'roll towns, in all its gory glory… Tara Brady reports
There’s no pipe of peace – in fact no pipe at all from the non-smoking sinn féin leader – as Olaf Tyaransen asks if, given Osama Bin Laden’s use of terror as a political weapon, Gerry Adams might not have some sympathy for the world’s most wanted man. that question and other contentious queries relating to the IRA, Jean McConville and the murder of Garda Jerry McCabe are dealt with in an interview which also takes in Eoghan Harris, George Bush and Bono, and ends with the interviewee humming a familiar Monty Python tune.
WITH ITS RESOUNDING ECHOES OF THE TROUBLES, THE WAR BETWEEN THE BASQUE SEPARATIST GROUP ETA AND THE SPANISH STATE REMAINS BLOODY AND SEEMINGLY INTRACTABLE. WITH HIS FIRST BOOK, DIRTY WAR, CLEAN HANDS, IRISH JOURNALIST PADDY WOODWORTH PRESENTS A COMPELLING BUT OFTEN HARROWING ACCOUNT OF HOW VIOLENCE DEFEATS POLITICS AND TERROR BEGETS TERROR. AND, REFLECTING ALSO ON HIS OWN PAST POLITICAL INVOLVEMENT WITH SINN FÉIN, HE TELLS JOE JACKSON HOW HE HAS COME AROUND TO THE VIEW THAT TALKING IS ALWAYS BETTER THAN WAR. AUTHOR PORTRAITS: CATHAL DAWSON.
Liam Fay calls on Shane MacGowan at home, where over mugs of brandy, the singer cheerfully rationalises his notorious alcohol-intake in the face of widespread concern that he might be drinking himself to an early grave. The premier Pogue disagrees, predicting instead a happy fulfilling life away from the stage, in which he would own and run a fully-licensed restaurant in London and face extended vacations in Thailand.
In the first part of a two-part interview, Michael D. Higgins, Minister for Arts, Culture and the Gaeltacht, talks about his philosophy of art, about his own poetry and, more controversially, about RTE, the IRTC, the future of commercial radio - and the sustained and slanderous campaign against him in the Sunday Independent.
MIKE SCOTT once fronted the greatest rock n roll band in the world, but before the world got a chance to wake up to the fact he had gone west and invented raggle taggle. Now with a new Waterboys album, A Rock In The Weary Place, just released, Scott takes time out to reflect on his strange but true adventure. By PETER MURPHY
CORONATION STREET. It s an
institution. So who wants to live in an institution? Well - there s Ken Barlow, Vera Duckworth, Deirdre, Fiona . . . you know them all, don t you? Be
honest! ANDY DARLINGTON visits
the Street of Dreams, and finds out that it s real!
U2 are about to unleash their new album How To Dismantle An Atomic Bomb. The world’s media are descending on Dublin. And Bono is back at the punch-bag, getting into fighting shape before the shit storm really explodes. The gloves are off. He’s got work to do. And he’s going to do it. Words Stuart Clark, additional reporting by Niall Stokes.
With a new 'best of' bringing the band's story up to date U2's guitar man steps forward to riff on good times and bad, the private life of a public figure, discovering the secrets of the universe on mushrooms and why, after all these years, few things match the high of being a member of U2.
Special hotpress.com members edition: "director's cut" featuring interview sections unavailable anywhere else.
TRAPPED IN a slow motion nightmare, I listen transfixed to the daily reports from a courtroom in Preston in Lancashire. Each day, a few more minutes are added to our knowledge of the last hours of Jamie Bolger's life, the five-year-old who was abducted and killed by boys who are still children themselves.
Adapted from Alan Moore’s graphic novel by the brothers Wachowski, V For Vendetta is a heavily flawed affair. That said, this is fascinating, challenging cinema.
As with most films from the region, there’s a downright Sirkian melodramatic undercurrent beneath all the hyper-kinetic, ass-kicking action, though it’s not quite up there with the divas-in-love denoument of The Killer.
Reputed to have been the IRA's Chief of Intelligence, Bobby Storey talks for the first time about his role in the struggle, his organising role in the Maze prison break, and his feelings on IRA violence.
YOU MAY have already forgotten the name of Nick Leeson, whose fifteen minutes of fame should by rights have ended with his six-year incarceration in a Singapore prison.
It is normally my responsibility, as a film critic, to communicate to you some inkling of what the film under review is actually about. Unfortunately, in the case of Saltwater, this is utterly impossible
For a man who generally guards his privacy with considerable zeal, this six CD box set is a generous entree into the private realm and thoughts of a man who has chronicled Ireland’s place in the modern world with all the passion, courage and clarity of a homegrown Woody Guthrie.
In a mediocre year, there was one album which offered a complete vindication of our continuing belief in the power of rock’n’roll. Just one – but that one is enough.
OK, it's about midnight as I start this, and God knows when I'll finish it. I want to write about money, and its importance in my life, which is why I've left it to the last possible minute
And the prize for most unexpected cover star goes to.... Margaret Thatcher. No, really! And we've got The Pogues, Rory Gallagher, Nanci Griffith, Keith Richards, Fleetwood Mac and Zig and Zag, interviewed by Mr Graham Linehan!
Though the tendency of western governments towards corruption and warmongering can induce despair in even the most optimistic of people, it is important to remember that change can be achieved – albeit incrementally.
In 2000, Bertie Ahern condemned rich countries who contribute too little to Overseas Development Aid. Now, we have taken our place among the guilty parties.
I VE been in Vivienne Westwood s shop in the King s Road in London a few times. There s a very striking architectural feature to the place. It s a simple idea but genuinely original and somewhat startling. The floor is pitched at an angle, as if you re on board a ship that s about to go down, or the building you re in is beginning to implode. The shop is called World s End.
Silent Grace, the new movie about the hunger strikes and dirty protests by women in armagh prison, brilliantly confounds expectations. Tara Brady meets its director Maeve Murphy
The conflict in the North is commonly analysed in terms of the kind of people involved in the violence. Paramilitaries, for example, are frequently explained, or explained away, as psychopaths or racketeers.
The time has come when we can no longer pretend that we’re in control. An incipient sense of cosmic disorder, for the past year gnawing away at the fringes of our collective consciousness, has suddenly become devastatingly palpable.
You pick up your newspaper or switch on the television these days and there's a good chance you'll encounter an attack on political correctness - or "PC".
Should the illegal arms be handed over? The Northern Ireland Secretary, Sir Patrick Mayhew, was, understandably, very anxious about the answer to that question. And he’s probably even more anxious now as he awaits publication of the report of the Scott Inquiry into arms-related sales to Iraq.
‘That’s entertainment’ was the message of the year but not as Paul Weller intended it, for in 1986 popular music was closer to mass entertainment as Declan McManus’ pater knew it than any year since Elvis Presley swivelled his hips on the Ed Sullivan show.
It took some old duffer in the House of Lords last week to bring back to mind one of the great crimes of recent years – the deaths of more than nine hundred people when the roll-on roll-off car ferry Estonia went down in the Baltic at the beginning of October.
Peer through the murk keenly and you can see the general shape of the settlement promised by the “peace process” that nobody, on pain of being perceived as a bigoted violent bastard, is permitted to oppose. You can even, I think, plot the rough course of the negotiations which might bring it about.
They say that he was among the most powerful – and the most ruthless – Republican activists of them all. Here the legendary Bobby Storey, reputed to have been Director of Intelligence for the IRA, talks for the first time about his role in the struggle, and about some of the critical events that led to the IRA ceasefire and the Peace Process.
To make it in the rock 'n' roll business you need a dream, a vision, a sparkle in your eye . . . and tons and tons of equipment. STUART CAROLAN guides you to the best bargains and damnedest deals in this Hot Press Equipment Special.
While the rest of you were off stuffing your faces with turkey, here at HotPress we were busily polishing our crystal balls in readiness for our annual gaze into the future. S
Blessed with total recall, Craig Fitzsimons relieves the most glorious Irish sporting achievements of the past 30 years – and some that we’d all rather forget.
