The Rusty Wire Service

As the crisis in Egypt continued to deepen, news came through in the early evening that the army had made a statement in support of the protesters. Egyptian woman makes her feelings felt According to Reuters,   [The army's statement] said "freedom of expression" was guaranteed to all protesters using peaceful means. While this is undoubtedly good news, there are some ominous undertones. The mood music for an army coup is more than a muted chorus in the following assertions: "Your armed forces, who are aware of the legitimacy of your demands and are keen to assume their responsibility in protecting the nation and the citizens, affirms that freedom of expression through peaceful means is guaranteed to everybody." The army also warned protesters against acts of sabotage or criminal damage. "The presence of the army in the streets is for your sake and to ensure your safety and wellbeing. The armed forces will not resort to use of force against our great peop...

Bernard McGuigan John (Jackie) Duddy (17) . Shot in the chest in the car park of Rossville flats Patrick Joseph Doherty (31) . Shot from behind while attempting to crawl to safety in the forecourt of Rossville flats. Bernard McGuigan (41) . Shot in the back of the head when he went to help Patrick Doherty. He had been waving a white handkerchief at the soldiers to indicate his peaceful intentions. Hugh Pious Gilmour (17) . Shot through his right elbow, the bullet then entering his chest as he ran from the paratroopers on Rossville Street. Kevin McElhinney (17) . Shot from behind while attempting to crawl to safety at the front entrance of the Rossville Flats. Two witnesses stated McElhinney was unarmed. Michael Gerald Kelly (17) . Shot in the stomach while standing near the rubble barricade in front of Rossville Flats. John Pius Young (17) . Shot in the head while standing at the rubble barricade. Two witnesses stated Young was unarmed. William Noel Nash (19) . Shot in the chest nea...

The British Constitution; you just gotta love it. The next Crown Steward and Bailiff  of the Chiltern Hundreds? Take the case of the Right Honourable Gerry Adams, member for West Belfast. Despite having fastidiously abstained from attending the Commons throughout the duration of his 23-year Westminster career, it seems that the mother of all parliaments is loathe to let Adams go; at least not without bestowing upon him an honorary title. According to parliamentary procedure , “under a Resolution of the House of 2 March 1624, Members of Parliament cannot directly resign their seat.” The ordnance goes on to stipulate that; “death, disqualification and expulsion are the only means by which a Member's seat may be vacated during the lifetime of a Parliament.” It would clearly be in nobody’s interests to try and impose an involuntary disqualification or expulsion on Adams; on what grounds could it be achieved in any event? Even as an abstentionist, he clearly represente...

It’s been another tumultuous week in Irish political life. In this shot, you can actually  see Galloway's credibilty draining away... Brian Cowen’s animal impressions certainly kept us guessing: was he a donkey, a pig in a suit, a lame duck or just a dog in the manger?   Meanwhile, the barnyard metaphors just kept coming; the Green Party and the Fenian Failure front bench made a bid for the moral high ground by kicking Biffo once it was abundantly clear that he was down and out; closing the stable door long after the horses of public opinion had bolted. But if it’s animal impressions you’re after, then Belfast might be the best bet.  According to Sinn Féin’s former director of communications, Danny Morrison, Celebrity Big Brother contestant George Galloway would make a suitable successor to MP Gerry Adams in West Belfast.   During his interview, Morrison asked the Andersonstown News reporter: "In West Belfast, we can think outside the box, and,...

What a tiny truncheon... Social and sexual inadequates (who form the majority of the Police force in Britmanistan) are to be issued with performance-enhancing drugs; particularly in undercover units and those working on close protection for politicians, TRWS has learned. Abysmal   performance and chronic under-endowment has long been a problem for the police force of Britmanistan (a small corrupt Kingdom on the European periphery). It appears that under the covers, undercover officers have been consistently coming up short. “I signed up for undercover work because I knew that it was the only way I would ever get my short stubby little end away,” admitted one police man. “But of course, the deep-seated psychological flaws in my personality that made me want to be a policeman in the first place meant that even if I did convince women with bad eyesight and low self-esteem to sleep with me,   it was bit like trying to play snooker with a piece of rope. But now, thanks to t...

The Fenian Failure Junta currently running South Paddistan has announced 11 March as the date of the country’s general election. Gobsheen: Fenian Failure's glorious leader The move was welcomed by opposition dissidents who have waited many years in the wilderness for their chance to participate in the democratic entitlements of government, namely;   graft, nepotism and vanity. South Paddistan (a small corrupt regime on the European periphery) seems to have been largely run by a succession of Fenian Failure’s glorious leaders, each known as ‘an Taoiseach’, since achieving very limited independence from Britmanistan (a small corrupt Kingdom...etc...) in the 1920s. Fenian Failure activists are being encouraged to vote early and vote often but even so, the junta could not guarantee that they would relinquish power in the event of the ballot going against them. In his address to the plain people of Paddistan, ‘An Taoiseach’ said: “Democracy is all about giving the people their say s...

Let the word go forth... The US Presidential inauguration speech of 20 January 1961 remains, 50 years on, one of the finest examples of mass political oratory anywhere and anytime. Veteran reporter Alistair Cooke covering the event said that John Fitzgerald Kennedy delivered "the simple, rolling cadences of what is certainly one of the simplest and most eloquent of inaugural speeches". "Rarely has the anthem of courage been sounded so resonantly or so bravely in recent years," said another. Sadly, in the intervening years, this address has come to be viewed not so much as a crucible of humanity’s highest aspirations but rather as a rhetorical template for successive generations of charlatans who would seek to dupe us with the language of principle and the appearance of clean-cut wholesomeness. One could argue that Kennedy himself was the very acme of such hypocrisy. Certainly, there is ample evidence to back this up; from accounts of both his personal and polit...

+++Proprius!+++ Courtesy of: Ad Publicitus Retinaculum Robiginosus   (‘Maleficium ab Rebellatrix Sequestris Novum’) * Rome 44 BC After the sensational failure of his attempt on Caesar, Martinus has fled to his Southern villa in the rebellious Bruttium region where it is learned, he will continue to plot against the Emperor even as the decadent and profligate reign of Biffus Maximus lurches to its inevitable conclusion. This was confirmed when Brutus Martinus (Praetor Ministerium Barbaricus in Gubernatio Biffum) told scribes outside the Forum that “Caesar continues to have my support and as long he leads our Phalanx Fatalis I will actively support him,” Brutus however stressed that Phalanx Fatalis (Caesar’s political power base) has been seriously damaged by the constant allegations of incompetence and debauchery against its leader.   It was recently revealed that Caesar’s government had consistently been implicated in major corruption in road and aquaduct building sch...

It was 30 years ago yesterday that civil rights activist and socialist republican  Bernadette McAliskey and her husband survived an Ulster Freedom Fighters assassination attempt. It called to mind a long-forgotten encounter for this writer... During the Thirsty Years; when the Deptford Croppy really thought he was Charles Bukowski, Ernest Hemingway and Hunter S Thompson all rolled into one, he worked as a roofer in London.   From being a highly improbable sex-symbol for a captive audience (while slating a women’s prison wing), to putting a finish on the roof of the HSBC tower one fateful morning in September 2001; the roofing game has not been without its memorable moments. On any given morning, I could be sent to landscape an investment bank’s roof, watching the dawn spread between the dome of St Paul’s and the Old Bailey’s blind justice or just as easily, I could be dressing lead or Westmoreland slate up on the spire of the Liberal Club in Whitehall, liste...

Charm offensive:'Brigadier' McDonald  meets foreign head of state... The sense of abandonment within working class Loyalism is now apparently so acute that voters, even   in staunch heartlands such as the Shankill Road, are opting for Sinn Féin at the ballot box, according to the analysis of a UDA ‘Brigadier’ and his ‘brigade staff’. In an interview with the Belfast Newsletter , Jackie McDonald, the South Belfast ‘Brigadier’ attacked the abject failure of the mainstream Unionist parties to address the concerns of their working class constituents. "It's a terrible indictment on the DUP and the voters from West Belfast, on the loyalist side, that five MLAs are Sinn Fein and the other one's SDLP. There's not a unionist/loyalist representative," said McDonald. The interview, ostensibly given with the intention of underlining the UDA’s commitment to eradicating the organisation of its overactive criminal element, was also used by ‘Brigade staff’...

Calling all creative types: your country needs you... Courtesy of UpStart Economic depression and political turmoil create great art; so runs the theory and if it proves to be correct, UpStart could well be in on the ground floor of a new Irish renaissance... UpStart, a non-profit arts collective that wants to put creativity at the centre of public consciousness during the Irish General Election Campaign in 2011, says it aims to “encourage a debate on the role of the arts in this state.” To that end, the collective intends to reinterpret the spaces commonly used for displaying election campaign posters in Dublin City and is calling on all artists to submit work for this exhibition. They’ve also made a Stephen Rea voice-overed animated video setting out their stall ( click here to see it ). Oscar Wilde apparently once said that all art is quite useless but of course (clever Irish man that he was) he was actually implying the opposite.   One of the benchmarks of an evolved societ...

Sport in Ireland has rarely been confined to back-page coverage but this week, it all is over the front pages and for all sorts of reasons... i gcuimhne Michaela Harte  Michaela Harte, daughter of respected Tyrone Gaelic football manager Mickey Harte, was found dead in her honeymoon hotel room in the island paradise of Mauritius, the media reported on 11 January. At the time of writing, three Mauritian citizens were in custody, charged with the 27-year old’s murder which seems to have occurred as a result of her disturbing thieves when she returned to her room in the afternoon. The human tragedy that has befallen the McAreavey and Harte families is being felt acutely by Irish people far beyond the confines of O’Neill country. TRWS can only offer the same heartfelt sympathy to the bereaved families that Irish people everywhere are feeling... ******  It was also the week that the Ulster Council of the Gaelic Athletic Association (GAA) met with the Presbyterian Mo...

It was revealed this week that an undercover police officer in the UK had acted as an agent provocateur at a power station protest last year. PC Mark Kennedy had apparently spent a total of seven years infiltrating peaceful environmental protest groups in an operation which was to have culminated in his giving evidence on behalf the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) against six protesters accused of conspiring to take over Ratcliffe-on-Soar power station in Nottinghamshire in April, 2010. In a sensational volte face however, Kennedy offered to testify for the defence instead, thereby causing the collapse of the Crown's case. The liberal end of the UK’s domestic press has been in foment about the propriety of how such undercover operations are conducted.  And rightly, there have been concerns about how Kennedy personally conducted himself throughout this period of deep cover. Not least, questions are being asked about the sexual relationships Kennedy conducted with ...

Stop her, she's got my loyalty card... Britmanistan’s High Chancellor Tarquin ‘Call me Dave’ Poncenby-Smythe has unveiled new plans to help the differently-abled to earn their disability payments. The new initiative, unveiled in conjunction with Tat-co, the country’s biggest retailer, will see mobility scooter-users employed as interactive shopping trolleys nationwide. The pilot scheme has been running successfully at an undisclosed safe and leafy borough and will now be 'rolled out' to Tat-co shops nationwide. Britmanistan, a small corrupt kingdom on the European periphery, is currently being ruled in a coalition of National unity between the ‘On your bike’ (OYB) and the ‘Terribly nice’(TN) parties. High Chancellor: Tarquin ‘Call me Dave’ Poncenby-Smythe The OYB has long been an advocate of greater efficiency and choice within the disability sector. “The disabled have consistently underperformed as a consumer demographic and their position as net consumers of resou...

How quickly people forget... Emigration memorial in Erris, Co. Mayo   And who can blame the plain people of Ireland for wanting to excise the memories of those bad old days evoked by Paul Brady in his ode to a lost generation; ‘ Nothing but the same old story ’? Who would ever again want to contemplate those days when it was commonplace to witness families being sundered in bus and railway stations up and down the country? Mothers looking on with helpless resignation  as sons and daughters started the lonely journey back to England or America while younger siblings got a sneak preview of what fate had in store for them... But then, the Croppy grew up in Erris where, even during the Tiger years, the likelihood of the boat or the plane was always high. It was depressing but rather inevitable therefore that predictions of mass emigration were in the air as 2010 limped to a close. Irish emigration is expected to increase by up 120,000 during 2010 and 2011, ...

‘I’m all lost in the Supermarket, I can no longer shop happily. I came in here for a special offer, guaranteed personality’ (Strummer & Jones, 1979) In Britain (and most of the Western World), you really are less of a person if you can’t spend conspicuously. One’s value as a citizen seems to be indexed-linked to spending power. Overpriced tat that makes you a better person That point has been driven home forcibly to the Deptford Croppy this year.   Back in full-time education since September, earning power in the Croppy household has necessarily taken a 50% nosedive and if it wasn’t for the relentless industry of Mrs Croppy, we’d be well and truly sunk. Ask any household which has lost an income during the current depression and it will be a similar story. Most won’t starve and should ultimately prevail (inchallah) but there is something deeper at play here; a force that can’t be overcome by mere belt-tightening. In a society which values consumption as an adjunct of person...