30 July 1998 Edition
Editor's desk
Hope rose in our breasts when we read that Robert Saulters, The Great Grand Wizard of the Bowler Hat Lodge of the Orange Universe, had suggested that he and his brethren should speak to residents' groups. Had he been reading An Phoblacht, we wondered? Had he read last week's paper and acted on our advice?
Perhaps, like so many of our readers, he had sat down with a wee cup of tea and a couple of chocolate digestives (or Club Oranges?), read it from cover to cover and found it full of razor sharp political advice and analysis. Alas, by Tuesday, his brethren - who read our great rival, The Daily Telegraph - pressed wee Bobby to shun our advice. And so he slipped quietly back into the 18th century...
Speaking of the Daily Telegraph, it is a never-ending source of invaluable news. For example, you may remember when Britain and the US were threatening to bomb Iraq to oblivion for manufacturing chemical weapons and we told you how the British had bombed Iraq with chemical weapons before the Second World War. Well, last Friday the Telegraph gave us an obituary for one of the pilots who carried out those bombings and others in the region.
Air Vice Marshal Dick Ubee was the chap in question. In a typical piece of Telegraphese, the following appeared in the obituary:
``[In 1937] Ubee was posted to No 60, a squadron based on the North-West Frontier... Periodically, Frontier tribes still defied Delhi and required punishing. The Fakir of Ipi, ever on the lookout for opportunities to make mischief, was a particular thorn in the side of the Raj. Promoted squadron leader, Ubee led attacks on dissident villages in mountainous country.''
Fine work. And it makes you think what some of the Telegraph's obituary writers would do the mischievous people of the Garvaghy Road if they had their way.
I'm not sure what the Telegraph made of Yitzhak Shamir, the former premier of Israel, whom they interviewed last Saturday. Shamir, the right-wing leader who had the support of the West, including Margaret Thatcher, and who fought the British in the 1940s as a member of the Stern Gang.
Shamir told the Telegraph that his inspiration was Michael Collins. What did he think of the post-1969 IRA campaign? ``I understood their decisions, their political aims.''
He was asked about the IRA's attempt to kill his ally, Margaret Thatcher, in Brighton. ``I would say neutral. It's a question of the battle for freedom,'' he said.
Perhaps, like so many of our readers, he had sat down with a wee cup of tea and a couple of chocolate digestives (or Club Oranges?), read it from cover to cover and found it full of razor sharp political advice and analysis. Alas, by Tuesday, his brethren - who read our great rival, The Daily Telegraph - pressed wee Bobby to shun our advice. And so he slipped quietly back into the 18th century...
Speaking of the Daily Telegraph, it is a never-ending source of invaluable news. For example, you may remember when Britain and the US were threatening to bomb Iraq to oblivion for manufacturing chemical weapons and we told you how the British had bombed Iraq with chemical weapons before the Second World War. Well, last Friday the Telegraph gave us an obituary for one of the pilots who carried out those bombings and others in the region.
Air Vice Marshal Dick Ubee was the chap in question. In a typical piece of Telegraphese, the following appeared in the obituary:
``[In 1937] Ubee was posted to No 60, a squadron based on the North-West Frontier... Periodically, Frontier tribes still defied Delhi and required punishing. The Fakir of Ipi, ever on the lookout for opportunities to make mischief, was a particular thorn in the side of the Raj. Promoted squadron leader, Ubee led attacks on dissident villages in mountainous country.''
Fine work. And it makes you think what some of the Telegraph's obituary writers would do the mischievous people of the Garvaghy Road if they had their way.
I'm not sure what the Telegraph made of Yitzhak Shamir, the former premier of Israel, whom they interviewed last Saturday. Shamir, the right-wing leader who had the support of the West, including Margaret Thatcher, and who fought the British in the 1940s as a member of the Stern Gang.
Shamir told the Telegraph that his inspiration was Michael Collins. What did he think of the post-1969 IRA campaign? ``I understood their decisions, their political aims.''
He was asked about the IRA's attempt to kill his ally, Margaret Thatcher, in Brighton. ``I would say neutral. It's a question of the battle for freedom,'' he said.