Stumped by Martin McGuinness

The latest revelation about Martin McGuinness has me stumped. The avid angler, GAA and Derry City FC fan has confessed to liking cricket! He even knows the England players' names!

"What I found really interesting about the Ashes series last year," McGuinness mused, "is how Freddie Flintoff and Kevin Pietersen came to the fore as world-class players.

"Flintoff is a brilliant sportsman and I was delighted to see him in Belfast a few months ago, practising his skills with the Antrim hurlers."

Comedian Robin Williams once said, "Cricket is basically baseball on valium." McGuinness apparently doesn't agree. If he hadn't been called out to the Basque Country when England's cricketers played Ireland at Stormont before 7,000 spectators in April, Sinn Féin's chief negotiator would have been one of them.

"I was looking forward to meeting the Ireland and England players at Stormont and I had been really looking forward to meeting Flintoff.

"But in the end, he wasn't there... and neither was I."

So has McGuinness been totally bowled over by the Englishness of googlies and afternoon tea in the pavilion?

No.

"I like Sri Lanka, having been there, but I'm also a fan of both New Zealand and Australia, although my favourite team now is South Africa.

"If Ireland weren't playing, I would like to see the South Africans win.

"Given that I'm an Irish republican, my approach to foreign games is simple: I don't mind them, as long as the foreign teams win."

Frazer freezer

Wee Willie Frazer, head of the Families Acting for Innocent Relatives (only unionist relatives need apply), came out against former UVF and UDA men attending last week's Coiste na nIarchimí summer school in South Armagh.

Republican ex-prisoners Séanna Walsh and Martina Anderson took part in a public discussion with loyalists Robert Niblock and Billy McQuiston as part of the three-day event in Mullaghbawn, 'Cherishing All the Children of the Nation Equally?' Niblock was in the UVF; McQuiston in the UDA.

But Frazer's reception was frosty.

"They needn't bother coming here and thinking that they're speaking for the unionist people in South Armagh. They're not speaking for us and they're the last thing we need in this community. They'd be better off going back and talking to their own communities which are being destroyed by loyalist paramilitaries."

Quite right, Willie. Just the sort of thing I'm sure you told UDA supremo Jackie McDonald when he was helping you unload newspapers in Larne recently for your FAIR/UDA/UVF/UUP 'Love Ulster' coalition.

I bet you gave the reigning boss of the UDA a piece of your mind too. Didn't you?

Not so Green

Tony Blair's father-in-law is leaving Ireland, citing "anti-English discrimination" as causing the departure, according to the Daily Telegraph.

Liverpool-born actor Tony Booth is probably most famous for playing the work-shy, socialist son of working-class bigot Alf Garnett in the 1970s hit BBC comedy, Till Death Us Do Part. His grandparents were Irish.

Booth and his wife, Steph, have been two years living in County Cavan. Now they're off.

Complaints range from when one moron painted a 'Brits Out' slogan on their Mercedes to alleged bias against Steph in job interviews.

An academic and British Labour Party ex-councillor, her job search included applications to "almost all of the main political parties in Dublin".

Only the Greens offered her an interview. She claimed the panel appeared more interested in Alastair Campbell's electioneering tactics and tricks than giving her a job.

"Once I realised that I wasn't going to get it, I decided not to give any trade secrets away."

'I couldn't believe it'

Tony Booth acknowledges that the anti-English acts were isolated incidents and the couple were touched by the support and gifts they had received from their neighbours around Blacklion.

But while revelling in the fact that having Tony Blair as his 'son' helped ease him through British Army checkpoints in the Six Counties, Booth found that playing the Downing Street card didn't always ensure a smooth passage.

When he went to Dublin Airport to send off his Christmas presents to England, he was asked by security who he was sending the parcels to. "They're for my grandchildren," Booth offered.

"They then asked me where they lived and I said they lived in London, off Whitehall.

"When they pressed me, I replied No. 10 Downing Street.

"They gave me a strip search. I couldn't believe it."

Neither can I.