The Rusty Wire Service

What a year it’s been... Right out of the traps, 2011 was a humdinger which ever way you slice and dice it. For The Rusty Wire Service, this was a year of slipping masks.  All over the world, that fragile veneer of legitimacy that props up regimes from the Pacific Rim to the Arctic Circle was being called into question like never before. And this wasn’t just a phenomenon affecting tin-pot juntas or entrenched despots; to be fair, more than a couple of them found themselves deposed and some are even still alive to tell the tale. (you know who you are, Mr ex- President Laurent Gbagbo of Côte D’Ivoire ). The supposedly stable and ostensibly respectable administrations of the Old World found themselves under increasing pressure as they bowed to the demands of high finance and put the squeeze on their citizens from the bottom up. Consequently, this year saw protest and unrest spreading its contagion into the rich and safe European Home countries.  And let’s not ...

It's one of my most evocative memories of childhood Christmas Eve: the candles in the porch windows of every house on the way to Midnight mass. It is perhaps a hangover from a more Catholic Ireland but its significance was transformed by the Presidency of Mary Robinson. While the Church's certainties have long been eaten away, the inevitability of the boat and plane remain: poignant and ubiquitous; as if the Septic Tiger never happened. When she put a candle in the kitchen window at Áras an Uachtaráin, it was to remind the rest of the country of its diaspora; those who wouldn't be home for Christmas; those for whom it was their first in a foreign field; for those who never came home but never forgot. Now, perhaps more than at any time since Mary Robinson first mooted it, the candle in the window should be a reminder to those at home of those who've gone. Nollaig Shona dhíobh go léir . *'Dialann Deoraí': Gaelic: 'The diary of an exil...

Let me see if I’ve got this right. David Cameron exercised his veto in Europe in order to allow The City of London to escape the same tax regime as the rest of Europe... That would presumably be the same poorly regulated UK financial sector that, along with Wall Street, is largely responsible for the first Great Depression of the 21st century. This, my friends is the reason why David Cameron gambled with Britain’s international reputation: for the sake of bankers whose venal conduct and naked greed has wiped out the wealth and security of ordinary working people from Jarrow to Jakarta.  OK, apart from freedom of movement for people, goods and services, an improved Europe-wide infrastructure, a predictable and dependable market for food and several generations of continent-wide stability and socio-economic development. Apart from that, what has the EU ever done for us? The Eurosceptic right would have you believe that Cameron is an English hero of Churchillian ...

DotcomAgitprop.inc, putative and slightly fictitious publisher of The Rusty Wire Service, has launched two new daily services. In conjunction with Paper.li, The Daily Jacobean and The Croppy's Review will offer international news coverage, edited to the exacting standards  and eclectic tastes of the editor...make of that what you will. Should readers eschew Twitter, links for the new publications can also  be   found on the Rusty Wire Service toolbar. The Daily Jacobean also has its own Facebook page .  It is envisaged that a lunch time edition of The Daily Jacobean will bring together news, sport and business in a comprehensive and (hopefully comprehensible) package. The Croppy's Review is intended more as an evening round-up with analysis rather than a second edition but breaking stories will take priority. The paper.li is a  web app that turns your Twitter stream into a daily online newspaper. In fact, if you don't like what w...

On Saturday night, the Bolton lad lost both WBA and IBF light-welterweight titles after suffering a split-decision defeat to Lamont Peterson.  Khan reckons he was robbed, but then he would, wouldn’t he? (At least he didn’t have broken toes to blame lamely.) Khan was not happy about Cooper's decision to dock him two points in the bout - one each in the seventh and 12th round. A joint statement was released by Team Khan and Golden BoyPromotions ; "Following the decision in the fight, Team Khan and Golden Boy Promotions intends to make inquiries with the District of Columbia Boxing and Wrestling Commission, the IBF and the WBA regarding the performance of referee Joseph Cooper and will also be seeking clarification regarding certain ambiguities with respect to the scores of the fight." Khan’s trainer Freddie Roach – recently inducted into boxing's hall of fame – may have seen the writing on the wall. Before the Peterson fight, he predicted that it would b...

The Bureau of Investigative Journalism ’s recently published report on the activities of Global PR firm Bell Pottinger made for pretty grim reading. Particularly if you happened to be one of those people who is more than mildly surprised by the notion that PR executives, like journalists, lawyers and estate agents, could be anything other than a gaggle of venal and overpaid turd-polishers. And of course, I mean that in a good way.  There was perhaps something of the ‘Bear shits in woods and Pope is Catholic’ kind of certainty about a headline that told you spin doctors were amoral bottom feeders.  In fact, the whole affair could have been taken from an episode of Absolute Power shot in ‘ phone-cam verité ’ style. And that’s not in any way to detract from the sterling work being done by the guys and gals over at the Bureau. If nothing else, it invites one to question the judgment of anyone who’d hire a PR firm that found itself at the centre of a story this ludicr...

Misery loves company and the Eurozone isn’t the only place where the patrons are drinking in the last chance saloon. News that the European Central Bank was cutting interest rates for the second month in a row was received by ‘the markets’ with a 'meh', like it was their birthright.  And then, when it became clear that the ECB had no immediate plans for another costly foray into the debt market and they sure as hell had no plans for printing money Bank of England style, 'the markets',  in a manner not dissimilar to Veruca Salt,  threatened to scream and scream until they got really sick or had a tantrum and threw the economy out of the pram... I’m not sure, I stopped listening after a while. I must be suffering from Euro-crisis compassion fatigue.  Mario Draghi , president of the central bank (and former vice chairman and managing director at Goldman Sachs International) was happy to kick the problem back to the sovereign states. ‘The markets’ meanwh...

No, really Mommy, what the fuck is a Rubberbandit? Good question son, maybe we should start with an old Limerick anecdote; told to me many years ago by a native of that fine city: ‘There were these two fellas, Bill and Ger, and Bill and Ger were great mates, until one day, Bill kicked the fuck out of Ger and that was that....’ Now you could analyse the postmodern bejesus out of that bleak anti-joke and you might in the end, arrive at some kind of answer to that initial question; what exactly is a Rubberbandit? But it probably wouldn’t be right. Sure, you could always go and watch their merry japes on Youtube (and they’ve had a few down the years to be fair to them) but would that really get you any closer to the truth? I resolved to see their schtick for myself. Being a journalist of at least indifferent ability at one time in my life; I made it my business to snaffle a free pass to the Rubberbandits Shoreditch gig. And the Rubberbandits doing their thing on stage?...