Its later than you think

Browsing thro the news, I find this http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/northern_ireland/4925290.stm - a proposal to build a nuclear power plant in Derry.

Pros and cons of nuclear power aside, who'd have thought even a few years ago, anyone would have considered building one in N.I. ?

We must be getting somewhere! Very very slowly. But we're getting there.
Look how happy Gerry is about it ;p


ION Had a lovely easter break, with much fun, sleeping, champagne and hairy nun porn. Now back at work trying to figure out what it is I'm supposed to be doing. Other than t'interneting of course.

AARRRGGHHH

So. At least 4 weeks to clear the backlog. But they could be BACK ON STRIKE within 3.

*sobs*

I
WANT
MY
LETTERS!

ION this really is nice champagne (even without added vodka ;p). Must buy more next time am thro heathrow.

Ah Mondays. So far - forgot traintimes changed, missed train because it is now earlier while *next* train is now later, and thus too late to get me to work on time. Took car.
Got to work to find workmen dismantling metal bookshelves with hammers in Big Echoey Room. It actually used to be a warehouse so basically, it's a big high-ceilinged barn. It gets noisey, cold and very echoey. It's going to be a LOT of fun when there's 12 of us in here...

( the weekend )

ION Still. No. Post. How the hoards of impressionable teenagers will cope tomorrow without being able to compare who got the most cards I have no idea. I JUST WANT MY LETTERS. Also those little things, like the visa bill and so on...
The Paul Berry thing continues to cause hilarity, with peole now insisting that since DUP no.s are down, they would be entitled to less seats in the Assembly. If the Assembly was running of course. Or likely to run at anytime in the near future. Or... ah sod it, just sit back and enjoy the farce that is NI politics ;p

So, after tyrell's post on LJ Rabbit Day, I was pondering something suitably silly to write (well it is Friday). But I looked at the news first and I can't really top it.

Only In Ireland

Lock up your donkeys! The Donkey Rustlers are coming!
Yes, organised gangs of Donkey Stealers are roaming the country stealing donkeys. Particularly pregnant donkeys (which is actually quite worrying). They're so organised they only do it towards payday - the donkeys always seem to go missing towards the end of the month.

They seem to turn up in Limerick, so its not impossible it's some bizarre bartering system where people still expect to be paid in donkeys, presumably for tarmacking your drive or something.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/northern_ireland/4653400.stm

Only In Ireland, Northern

Ah the heady taste of peace and reconcilliation. Learning to love each other and live side by side in harmony. Not fighting at all over very stupid pointless things after centuries of bitter wrangling over the self-same stupid and pointless things. Like what the place you live is actually called.
Except of course in Derry. And Londonderry (when I was little I thought these were indeed 2 seperate places).
Wars of Words are raging yet AGAIN over what to call the city and the OS have managed to offend just about everyone by calling it one thing on the cover of a map and the other on the inside. Alas that they couldn't, like everyone else, employ one of the cunning alternatives.
Did you know you can't get a 'derry/londonderry' bus? You get the Maiden City Flyer. You shop in Foyleside and if your lorry falls off the bridge, you contact the Foyle Road Saftey Committee, despite the fact that Foyle is of course, a river not a road.
I'd have thought, given the media practice of alternating, this would have please them, but no, everyone hates it. And then wonder why no-one either wants to visit or takes any of NI politics very seriously at all.

I vote we give up altogether and just call it Muff. Muff is a much happier place.

http://www.belfasttelegraph.co.uk/news/story.jsp?story=677143

I had a big rant about this a while back - http://www.livejournal.com/users/hellison/127133.html but now it appears that since even SF aren't interested in it anymore, it is being dropped, hurrah! Though it's a shame it wasn't dropped through government actually realising it was a travesty and would do no real good at all.


http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/northern_ireland/4602314.stm

It will probably resurface in some form or other - but at least for now it's gone.
Of course it'll be used as something to hold up progress yet again, but then they'd use just about anything to do that.

ETA - http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/northern_ireland/4602514.stm - reactions from politicians, all what you'd expect really, tho my favourite so far is 'Lord KilcLOONey' with his
"these things broke trust between republicans and the loyalist community." . Yeah, JT, all that trust. There was so MUCH of it, and now it's gone. They broke your little Unionist hearts, those fickle republicans. DAMN THEM.

First, Good news - http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/northern_ireland/4628497.stm
Smoking bans in public places are coming closer here. ATM there's still debate over whether to make them partial bans, eg in places that serve food, or complete bans as in the republic. The ban in the south seems to have worked well - and it is very refreshing to leave a pub without stinging eyes and hair & clothes stinking. On the other hand its a real pain if you're with smokers because they're in and out all the time.
Tho from asking friends of mine the smokers are for it too - for one thing they find they smoke less because they can't just automatically light up, they have to make the decision to get up and go out. Of course during the summer everyone sits outside anyway, but then Irish summers only last about 3 days ;p
Even a partial ban would be a good step. No more getting swamped with smoke when you eat.
What do the smokers among you think of bans?

Then bad news - extreme christians using the Parades Commission to get try to get this year's Pride parade banned - http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/northern_ireland/4629881.stm.

The Parades Commission was set up to oversee contentious parades, mostly by the Orange Order which has many members who would hold these extreme views (note, not all) and who get Outraged about the Denial of Their Civil Liberties and Rights to Walk Where They Choose when they get rerouted or banned. Now they want to use it to stop other people marching, because obviously only people they approve of should have Civil Liberties.
Yes I am over-generalising, it's not the OO protesting this parade, but the hypocrisy is galling. Very like the Christain Voice claim that while Co-op were MEAN to discriminate against them, it was ok for *them* to discrimiate because God Said So.

Besides which, Belfast's Pride march isn't exactly the Sydney Mardi-Gras :p It barely holds up the traffic and adds a bit of colour and fun to otherwise very dull streets.

Is it just me or has the anti-gay movement got a lot more vocal and fundamentalist and... American style in the UK lately? Are we importing our bigotry now as well as everything else?