What is it with Christmas this year? Where is the magic and sparkle and anticipation? Instead many seem braced as it hurtles towards them, like a hollow husk of a thing, emptied out of all its promise and joy and hope.
No matter what new and innovative technology arrives, it seems Northern Ireland still applies the oldest practices in the book wipe it, lose it, dump it, wreck it. Stormont ministers and senior civil servants during the Covid crisis have since had their government-issued electronic devices wiped, thus erasing all official information amassed in discussions via WhatsApp a scandal exposed when the UK Covid Inquiry wanted to examine the data.
In the unfortunate event of you being murdered, it is likely that your face will be more recognisable to the general public than anybody convicted of killing you. That’s not how it is in other places, but it’s how it works in Northern Ireland.
The little item this week about how the congregation of Darkley Gospel Hall had raised a collection to help the Grimley family in south Armagh shone a light on the huge capacity among our people to reach out and across even when we are at our most damaged and our most hurt.
Earlier this week, Hamas terrorists supporter and Cuban dictatorship agent of influence Calla Walsh was arrested along with her comrades when they attacked an Israeli company in New Hampshire. The far-left extremist vandalized the building and apparently attempted to firebomb the facility with incendiary devices. After Calla Walsh was released on Thursday, the antisemitic leftist