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8 July 1999 Edition

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Television: Orange Disorder

Questions & Answers, Monday night.
Prime Time, Tuesday night.
Previewed:

Engine Earth, Wednesday, 14 July 8.30pm, RTÉ 1.
Gypsies, Tinkers and Travellers, Radio 1, Wednesday 21 July, 7.05pm.
Tom McGurk of the Sunday Business Post was a sane voice on Monday night's Questions & Answers, countering the incessant evasion and ranting of the bould Chris McGimpsey. ``They'll have to be excluded'' certified Chris, who claimed to sit comfortably on the `liberal' wing of the UUP, along with his `make love not war' brother Michael. McGurk got bluntly to the point: ``I suspect that you're hiding behind decommissioning because you're so split'', he said, adding that sooner or later, a British Prime Minister with a sufficient mandate would call unionism's bluff. This current situation, he believed, has the potential to mirror the fall of 1974's Power Sharing Executive. ``The whole world is waiting for your Nobel Peace Prize-winning leader to bring about peace.''

McGimpsey stuttered nervously as the panel turned on him one by one. Journalist Susan McKay saw also the pandering hands of Tony Blair as having confused unionism with ``assurances which were not part of the Good Friday Agreement.

``Slippage going to the DUP and anti-Agreement camp'', she said, was not to be underestimated. Following further waffle from McGimpsey, who squirmed bent-backed and belligerent in his seat, on the necessity to have everything in writing from the IRA (note: no longer `Sinn Féin/IRA'), the conversation's tone intensified as the issue of Posh Spice's marriage to Becks caused great consternation. McGurk seemed unaware of what the hell this conversation was all about and was probably the better for it. When queried about the ideological differences between this nuptual ceremony and the ``I will obey'' of Sophie Rhys Jones, McGimpsey loftily asserted that it is not wording, but sentiments that cement a relationship. ``Ah,'' said John Bowman, ``I thought the Ulster Unionists always wanted it in writing.''

Prime Time on Tuesday went amongst the Billy Boy brethren, whose grasp of PR parallels a Scandanavian Lemming's sixth sense for nautical navigation. ``Tek yer bags an' g'over thar with them durt'' was the cordial advice offered by a bespectacled, red-faced veteran of Orangeism, urged on by mumblings and groans from the assembled brethren. Another, reminiscent of Rip Van Winkle (apologies to Washington Irving) avec sash, enthused, if not with eloquence, certainly with clarity, the virtues of a tried and tested tactic: ``Bourn tham out!'' Dennis Watson, Grand Master of the Armagh Orange Lodge, shrouded similar sentiments with more sensitive euphemisms, while presiding over the postmortem. ``The Agreement is dead,'' he determined. However, this attitude cannot only be attributed to the clod-hopping pensioners on Drumcree Hill. A pram-wheeling loyalist woman, seething with hatred and spouting vitriol, told the RTÉ crew of ``us Protestant people... being trampled into the ground''. Seeming to expect a considered analysis underlying that theory, her interviewer queried the alternative. ``Civil war'' said she. Historian Dr Eamon Phoenix explained the rationale, or lack thereof, tearing unionism apart: ``I think they're in a state of total shock''. How quaint.

PREVIEWS


One to watch out for next week will be Duncan Stewart's Engine Earth, which explores new methods of generating energy as alternatives to fossil fuels and outdated environmentally perilous energies are gaining in popularity and importance. Stewart, who brilliantly presented the Our House series, has an inimitable effervescence and enthusiasm that merits an environmental phenomenon all of its own. Solar panels, wind energy and renewable resource generation will be analysed by the mad-professor-like guru, whose intricate knowledge of anything and everything will astonish and amaze. In the post ozone-panic era of the late 1990s, environmental concerns, particularly energy conservation and diversification of production, seem to be resurging. Conservationism is no longer perceived as the sole possession of erratic eco-warriors, but has been realised as the only pragmatic alternative to geological disaster. This programme will undoubtedly provide food for thought.

On the wireless, a Network Europe production entitled Gypsies, Tinkers and Travellers is a collaboration between radio services in Ireland, Scotland and the Nertherlands. The nomadic tradition, which has often been undermined by establishment racism in Europe, has a history and culture which is as rich and intriguing as any. Rather than trying to forcefully integrate Travellers with the settled community, hopefully such informative programmes as this will turn policies and attitudes from merely futile attempts to induce conformity.

By Michael Pierse

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