Skewster

Worthy of mention is the growing ‘apreciation society’ on Facebook for Iris Robinson’s former toyboy Kirk McCambley.

The 21 year-old, a Roman Catholic cafe owner, was named as the young lover of Mrs Robinson during a BBC documentary , which went on to make a series of allegations about her financial dealings.

Within hours of the documentary airing on the BBC, almost 2,000 people had joined a group, the Kirk McCambley Appreciation Society , on the social networking site.

via The Telegraph

More people gobsmacked that McCambley is apparently a Roman Catholic. A love lust that transcended age, the sanctity of marriage and the ginormous Northern Irish religious divide. Some wag quipped: she was reaching out to the Catholic community…

I’m going to break with a very long retirement to laugh out loud at Iris Robinson. Actually, I’m not really laughing out loud at her, it’s a pretty horrible situation to be stuck in the middle of… The silly old girl went and had an ‘innappropriate relationship‘ with a much younger man (read: ~40 years her junior), and cleverly managed to wrap up a whole lot of financial irregularity into the whole affair. More on the whole sordid scandal at Slugger O’Toole.

In the first instance – congratulations to Iris on having a rather sexually liberating affair, after living what must have been an awful sham of a repressed conservative Christian lifestyle. Sometimes a woman just needs to loosen up a little. And bravo on the efficiency of hitting the ‘sex scandal’ and ‘financial scandal’ targets with just one stone. That’s the kind of councillor you want in your area – someone who can pull strings and get our young folk set up in business. Even if it is just young folk we happen to be straddling

Note: If you’re not familiar with Iris Robinson, she’s the wife of Northern Ireland’s First Minister, Peter Robinson. Together, they form the ultimate Unionist power couple. Or did. They espoused a conservative Christian/hardline Unionist outlook that certain cliched corners of Northern Irish culture love (partly because they have no imagination, partly because most of ‘em are over 60). Until recently, she was most famous for telling the world that “gays are an abomination” and recommending a psychiatrist who”d talk them out of their filthy ways.

Wait 'til I get my hands on that b*****d...

Part of me feels a little sorry for her. She did try to kill herself. Her husband did just go on out to work as usual that day.

But then part of me thinks – why not? Let’s not try and wrap this up in outdated Christian blech about forgiveness and human frailty. This is a woman who publicly denounced gays as abominations. I don’t even wnat to know what her position on evolution is, or whether she’s a fully subscribed fan of Leviticus.

Or maybe the mental illness made her come out and make her anti-homosexual proclaimation? Maybe we should just ignore everything she’s ever said publically?

For me, this should be the final nail in the coffin of the DUP and those stupid, traditionalist Unionist movements. They’re corrupt to the core. This just proves it. How many scandals has Ian “walking liability” Paisley Jr been involved in? What about Sammy Wilson? Now Iris and Peter are up to their immaculately exfoliated necks in shit. It’s either endearingly human of them to err in this way, or it’s out-and-out corrupt. You decide.

The only thing to worry about is what effect destroying Peter Robinson’s political career will have on Northern Ireland. For all the Assembly’s ineffectiveness, handing it over to someone else within the DUP or the dusty old Ulster Unionists might be as big a mistake as sticking with Peter.

But at the end of the day, this is what you get when you elect a bunch of dusty, bible-bashing pricks into government: they feel they can lecture you ad-nauseum without having to adhere to their own chosen rule book. And don’t give me a lot of faff about forgiveness when your ‘party’ is a pseudo-religious movement well-known for holding everybody else’s sins to account.

This is why I’ve always had a problem with the established political order in Northern Ireland – they think they can get away with murder.

Yes, I know. The Levee Breaks has been dormant for a couple of years with only a handful of posts to prove that I’m still alive. Well, I am still alive, and blogging away in other places.

I thought I’d drop in just in time for Christmas, to say hello. If you still check in here from time to time, click the ‘reply’ link and let me know you’re still there!

This new design may make it easier to post things to the site, little snippets and things like that. We’ll see. Anyway, how are you?

I got sent this by an old work colleague – a Glaswegian Advent Calendar. A great idea, but let’s face it, you could never have just one!

There’s a lot you could say about the results of the European elections in Northern Ireland this week. My finger was well and truly off the pulse, to the point that we didn’t vote in our house. We forgot.

The big news was the biggest electoral loss for the DUP in something like 30 years. Maybe people just don’t like this ‘couples in politics’ thing that’s going on in the DUP – Peter and Iris, Nigel and Diane. Maybe people just don’t rate Diane Dodds. From what I’ve seen of her, there’s something distasteful that I can’t put my finger on. I thought Peter Robinson did a reasonable job of taking the defeat on the chin, even if his “we’re too busy running the country to campaign” line was a bit of a stretch.

Unionism was apparently divided and weakened, according to Jeffrey Donaldson. Jim Allister tried to spin his gain in votes as a trend toward traditional Unionism and a rejection of Unionist politicians going into government with terrorists. I find all this anti-agreement bullshit terribly yawnsome though – does Allister really suggest we go back to the old way of doing politics, freezing out Sinn Fein and marginalising communities all over again? I know what we’ve got at the moment isn’t perfect, but it’s leaps ahead of where we were at even a few years ago.

Besides, Bairbre De Brun’s results would suggest that there’s a substantial portion of Northern Ireland who are happy to have their favourite terrorists in government. I wonder how Jim Allister sees that in terms of his mandate. I also wonder if his definition of criminality will extend to Ian Paisley Jr’s ongoing efforts to keep a source under wraps?

Anyway, on to Nationalism. There’s not much to vote for if you’re of that persuasion, is there? You either vote for Gerry’s all-powerful cabal, or you vote for the tired old boys in the SDLP. And God love ‘em, I couldn’t stick with the SDLP while they tried to finish a sentence. They’ve been on the back foot for far too long, nobody has a good word to say about them.

The one thing that hasn’t changed in Northern Ireland since any other election is that I don’t identify with any of the parties. In fact, other than the handy colour-coded election posters, I haven’t got a clue what any of them stand for. I wonder how many people actually do?

(Apologies for the rambling and probably factually incorrect post…I’m a little rusty on the politics front. These are just some random thoughts from watching the news the other night. Do check out the wonderful Alan In Belfast for far better coverage. And Slugger. Obviously.)

…it’s been so long since I blogged about politics (or indeed paid any attention to politics) that I have no idea who the secretary of state for Northern Ireland is these days.

Is it still Peter Hain?

Hello.

It’s been a while, hasn’t it? Last update here was September 2007 and the last one before that was May 2007. So let’s call it a year all in, shall we?

Wow, I miss this blog. It was my first one, and although I’m present and correct on other parts of the Internet, The Levee Breaks was always a special place for me. We talked here. We pondered politics and the deeper issues of life. Sometimes we disagreed and bickered and other times we had a laugh.

But time moves on and we outgrow certain things.

Last June, I finally left the job that was causing me so much anguish. I won’t condemn the entire company, and even though I’d love to out them, I won’t. Northern Ireland’s such a small place, and I’d rather draw a line under that phase of my life and move on. This post is part of the process.

Oh, I could tell you all about it. Suffice to say it was a couple of years of drama that I’d rather forget. I had a friend/colleague whispering rumours and speculation in one ear, while I had a distinct feeling that the company wanted to outsource my job.

As my suspicions were raised, I wasn’t sure who to turn to. I decided to write down everything that was happening, as it happened. Reading over the log is eye opening – there’s evidence that the colleague I mentioned was a trouble-maker who had a history of causing discontent among staff. There’s also evidence that the company was planning to save money by dropping me and outsourcing my job.

This was backed up by the fact that when I finally handed in my notice, there was no attempt to retain my services. And yes, I would have expected that. So I finally had it out with my boss. Denials. And they were happy to crucify the colleague, except I wasn’t entirely convinced they were innocent.

Basically, I could have taken a formal route with the issue and had the situation drag on for ages after. Or I could draw a line in the sand and walk away. So I walked. Every so often I get a surge of resentment, and that’s when I’m tempted to name and shame the company who treated me so badly.

But I won’t. One therapeutic blog post later and I’m feeling so much better. I don’t know if I’ll post here again, but I’ve always loved the ability to post anonymously. There’s a tremendous freedom in that. Maybe.

Is there anyone still out there reading this?

I saw this and thought of you lot…

When you call yourself an Indian or a Muslim or a Christian or a European, or anything else, you are being violent. Do you see why it is violent? It is because you are separating yourself from the rest of mankind. When you separate yourself by belief, by nationality, by tradition, it breeds violence. So a man who is seeking to understand violence does not belong to any country, to any religion, to any political party or partial system; he is concerned with the total understanding of mankind.
~ J. Krishnamurthi

Well, I couldn’t let this week pass without some comment on the restoration of the Assembley.

Is this the beginning of a bright new future for Northern Ireland? That was the burning question yesterday. It’s really too early to tell, but surely the signs are hopeful?

I’m not sure what to make of Ian Paisley in the role of First Minister. Let’s face it, the man made his career out of opposing whoever held this (or equivalent) role in the past. In bringing down just about every ‘moderate’ attempt at peaceful governance, Paisley was the anarchist, the mixer, the organ grinder. He effortlessly roused the passions of paranoid Protestants in bigotted tirades against Catholics/Nationalist or anybody who looked at him squinty.

And now he’s the head honcho?

Over the last few years, The Reverend Paisley has had plenty to say about the IRA and Sinn Fein gaining the trust of the people. Today, Ian Paisley still has a long way to go before he has my trust. Too many stunts, posturing and double-speak from Paisley have left me rightly suspicious of his intentions for this Assembley.

My hope for the future is that Paisley decommissions his bigotted rhetoric the same way the IRA put their weapons away. Is it too vain to hope that he has seen the damage he has done to Northern Ireland and that in this late stage of his career (and life) he wants to finally be a force for change?

I hope so. Peace be with you, people…

I asked a few weeks back about new voices in the Northern Irish blogosphere, and got a less than stunning response. One blogger who left a comment was Hanson, who I’ve seen around comment threads on NI blogs for a while now.

Judging by his blog, Hanson appears to take the stance of an anti-Agreement Unionist, though I won’t hold that against him! His writing is very opinion-based, which I like, and he holds a healthy degree of scepticism for Unionists and Nationalists alike. Read the rest of this entry →