Harry Potter lives (in Athlone)

Whatever happens at the end of JK Rowling’s seventh (and last?) magical novel, it looks like Harry Potter lives in Athlone of all places, according to the Irish tabloids.
The mass hysteria surrounding the release of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows had the Muggles in the media paying homage to no less an eminent figure than the Sinn Féin Mayor of Athlone, Paul Hogan, as a Harry Potter lookalike.
The Sun omits all mention of the mystical mayor’s membership of Sinn Féin, a cloak of invisibility to Sun scribe Gary ‘Muggles’ Meneely, who works for the Dark Lord, Rupert Murdoch.
Other papers weren’t afraid of the effect of saying “Sinn Féin”.
Paul (24) says he can’t really see the resemblance.
“I’m not Harry Potter, trust me,” Paul laughs. “I’m just a politician trying to do the best for my town.”
He hasn’t seen any of the films, let alone read any of the books, but he is taking all the fantasy fun in his stride.
“Ironically, I socialise in a bar called Potter’s here in Athlone and there are pictures of Harry Potter and me side-by-side on the wall there.”
No doubt, in return for all the publicity, the keepers of the Leaky Cauldron pub will reward young Hogan with vast quantities of blood-replenishing and wit-sharpening potions from the Wizard School at St James’s Gate.
That’s one dark art yours truly is a definite disciple of.

Crime call

Three top Peelers who refuse point-blank to co-operate with Police Ombudsman Nuala O’Loan in investigations into allegations of collusion between the RUC and unionist death squads claim that a statement by the NIO vindicates their stance.
Retired senior RUC men Chris Albiston, Raymond White and Freddie Hall stand accused of failing to co-operate with the Ombudsman’s investigation into claims of RUC Special Branch arming, controlling or otherwise working with UDA and UVF gangs killing nationalists and republicans.
According to DUP MP Jeffrey Donaldson, though, a statement by NIO Minister Paul Goggins last week has effectively cleared them. Goggins said:
“I am happy to put on record that these officers, in common with many colleagues, served with commitment and distinction in very demanding police roles in Northern Ireland.”
He added that the three “were not formally interviewed in connection with any alleged offence in the course of the Police Ombudman’s investigation”.
But if they have nothing to hide, why didn’t these very senior police officers just co-operate with the investigation? After all, aren’t we always being told by top cops and Downing Street that it is the duty of everyone to help the police with their enquiries?

One law for us...

If that wasn’t enough of a bad example for the police to be setting for us ordinary folk, the former head of the RUC Police Federation says that RUC officers will not co-operate with EU calls for new probes to see if there were summary executions of republicans in the 1980s by RUC units.
Again, if they have nothing to hide and the killings were lawful, what do DUP Assembly member and veteran RUC man Jimmy Spratt and the RUC have to fear?

Carrickfergus

The headline in the London Independent for the report on the shooting of a PSNI officer during the UDA mob feud stand-off in Carrickfergus last Saturday night read: “Retaliation fear after policeman shooting.”
The Peelers shooting a UDA man instead of getting the UDA to shoot nationalists? Now that would be news.

BNP ring

The British wing of the youth chastity campaign, the Silver Ring Thing (SRT), drew huge publicity when a 16-year-old past pupil went to the High Court to defend her right to wear a ‘purity ring’ at school. But the case also drew attention to the colourful history of one of the SRT’s co-founders, Denise Pfeiffer, part-time model and TV extra in Emmerdale and Crossroads.
Apart from suggestions that this is the same Denise Pfeiffer and Michael Jackson fanatic deported from the USA after being charged with making obscene phone calls to the father of the boy who accused the plastic pop star of molesting him, Pfeiffer’s live-in boyfriend is one Clive Potter, a senior figure in the British National Party in Leicester, a BNP parliamentary candidate and (up until last year) head of the boneheads’ trade union front, Solidarity, and the BNP’s own religious outfit, the Christian Council of Britain.
The CCB says it is “a front-line ministry for men only and not for women nor for the effeminate or sodomites” which “especially” welcomes white British Christians.
So that’s what they mean by purity.

Not lovin’ it

Police in the City of London – the corporate heart of international capitalism – swooped on a woman last week because she was wearing a T-shirt with a picture of an Uzi sub-machine gun and the slogan “Could someone point me to the nearest McDonald’s?”
Ever vigilant for agents of the satirical wing of Al Qaeda, Old Bill dragged the young lady down to the local nick for several hours during which her T-shirt was removed before she was kicked out.
If the miscreant had been wearing a T-shirt with an Uzi and the slogan “Could somebody point me to the nearest Iraqi village?” then they surely would have been escorted to the nearest British Army recruiting office.

Sweet justice

One would-be drug dealer in Malmo, Sweden, thought he had his business head on when he tried to fleece two customers by trying to flog them a family-size bar of chocolate for €940, instead of the slab of cannabis he had promised.
The swizzled Swedes later showed their disappointment by shooting the candy man in the foot and hitting him over the nut with an axe.
The disappointed duo have now been charged for axing their supplier. And when the duplicitous dealer recovers from his smack on the head, he might come over all dizzy again when he finds out that he’s facing more than the double blow of being shot and chopped. Now the local DPP is thinking about prosecuting him for fraud, even though drug dealing is illegal.
Ouch.