Virtual Methodist

This week Stormont has hosted 2 acts playing what is likely to be their last gig in Ireland this week… And I was proud to be there for one of them. The second one… the Police Concert on Friday night… spending an outrageous amount of money to stand in the open air trying hopelessly to recapture my youth, when I could have saved my cash and listened to the whole thing from a hundred yards away where my house is! Ah well, the foolishness of middle age! But I was not there for the first one, on Monday, when George W. Bush and his gas-guzzling, gun-toting entourage brought the whole of East Belfast to a grinding halt as he popped in to meet the Folks on the Hill… I couldn't be bothered walking the 5 minutes it would have taken me to get to the gates of Stormont, be it to cheer nor jeer. And, by the looks of the TV coverage, very few people, were there at all. There was a widespread feeling of “What’s he doing here?” And none of the euphoria which surrounded Bill Clinton’s visits, nor th...

Apparently, for members of the Bulgarian Orthodox Church, last Friday was St. Boris's Day. So I suppose it is appropriate that Friday was the day that Boris Johnson took over as Mayor of London for the next 4 years… Just the person you want representing your city when the Olympics come to town! But that is the democratic choice of the people of London… Mind you, with a choice between "Red Ken" and "Bumbling Boris" who would you choose? Certainly, one of the things that worked in Boris’s favour is the groundswell of opinion against Gordon Brown’s Labour Government… A combination of the 10p tax-band botch-up, the credit crunch and the colossal hike in petrol prices has conspired to make Gordon Brown the most unpopular Prime Minister since Neville Chamberlain… Some of that unpopularity may well be the product of media hype, but at least the British population have the opportunity to express their feelings at the ballot box. Think of the people of Zimbabwe… A full m...

While in the US recently with a group of church leaders from Northern Ireland we were driving through Pittsburgh when our mobile phones all started to indicate that we had each been sent a message... We each checked to discover that Dr. Ian Paisley had announced that he was standing down as First Minister of Northern Ireland and the Leader of the DUP in May. While in a meeting this morning with the same group of church leaders reflecting on our recent visit to the US, again messages started to come in, informing us this time of Bertie Ahern's intention to resign as Taoiseach in May. The column writers, satirists and cartoonists will have a field day with this conjunction of events. There will be pictures of the two of them walking hand in hand into the sunset... or jumping off a cliff... There will be reminders that in both cases their political demise was hastened by accusations of sleaze coming too close to home for comfort. And there will be much debate about their collective co...