There's no escaping the "big news" of the day, and yet there weren't many big surprises in the IMC's report (summary and full text at the BBC), nor in the reactions of the various political people. The least surprising of all the day's news is:

• Loyalist terrorists are still killing people
• The IRA is still engaged in criminal activity
• Sinn Fein deny the above and accuse anyone who dares challenge the angelic image of the IRA that Sinn Fein are trying so hard to paint, as "politically biased"

What the Report Says

"The organisation continues to accumulate information about individuals and groups, including members of the security forces..."

"... [Ongoing IRA activity] involves among other things the continuation of efforts to penetrate public and other institutions with the intention of illegally obtaining or handling sensitive information."

"...members and former members of PIRA continue to be heavily involved in serious organised crime, including counterfeiting and the smuggling of fuel and tobacco."

"... PIRA continues to raise funds..."

"... The practice of exiling continues with all groups, in some instances apparently unabated..."

8th Report of the Independent Monitoring Commission

So everybody's favourite cuddly killers are still forcing people from their homes, gathering intelligence, raising funds (like this?) and generally getting up to their necks in self-serving crime.

Sinn Fein's response?

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Brilliant quote from Sinn Fein's education spokesman today. Bare in mind that his party colleague Martin McGuinness was largely responsible for the demolition of Ulster's grammar schools with his last act as Education Minister. Bare also in mind that same party colleague's bigotry in giving scarce education budget cash to underattended and unnecessary Irish-medium schools in west Belfast thus both endangering rural schools that the cash was diverted from and also ignoring the integrated sector (one thing that might help normalise life here more than anything). While baring all that in mind, recoil in shock (or roll on the floor laughing) at Sinn Fein blaming the British government (there's a first!) for the standards of schools here (see the bottom few paragraphs).

"Falling rolls offers the Department of Education great opportunities to improve the school provision that we offer but instead the British Government have used it to erode the educational entitlement of our children and young people and redirect investment to schools in England and Wales."
Michael Ferguson, Sinn Fein education spokesman

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Last week the GAA Tyrone County Board Chairman Pat Darcy, while playing down the significance of his organisation's practice of naming clubs and trophies after terrorist murderers, let slip a simple prejudice all to common among the GAA fraternity and often the wider population in general.

"Gaelic clubs were founded in Irish traditions. Both cultures have names that are associated with their traditions. That's the reality and we should all get on with it. We should accept it and stop making an issue of it.

... [snip]

Windsor Park is named after the British Royal Family, as is the Royal Victoria Hospital. We all have to tolerate these names."

Pat Darcy, Tyrone County GAA Board Chairman

Windsor Park - categorically NOT named after the British Royal Family

It's a pity Mr Darcy allowed his prejudice to overrule the general principle of finding out if something is true before stating it as fact. Windsor Park, which would go on to play host to Ireland and later Northern Ireland's national sides, opened in 1905, named after the area in which it was built - an area which currently contains Windsor Avenue, Lower Windsor Avenue, Windsor Drive and, yes, even a street called Windsor Park. Off Windsor Park (which connects the Malone Road to the Lisburn Road) you'll also find the presumably newer streets of Windsor Mews and Windsor Court.

Oh - and the Royal Family didn't adopt the name Windsor until 1917 - just the 12 years after Windsor Park was opened. Oops!

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After levying a 52% price increase on their customers in the space of 4 months, Phoenix Gas are due to lose their monopoly on gas supply in the Belfast area, it was announced today. At the same time, numerous oil companies (notbaly Esso) are apparently pulling out of the Northern Ireland market due to reduced demand, blamed on smuggling from and cheaper prices in the Irish Republic, and supermarkets using petrol as a loss-leader.

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Arrived back in Belfast from Prague last night to the news of the European Championships 2008 qualifying draw, with a mixture of anticipation and dread. Northern Ireland drew Spain, Sweden, Denmark, Iceland, Latvia and Lichtenstein, which could be interesting.

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Beano's off to Czechia for a few days post-exam break

It's like I'm just back and I'm off again. Prague this time, just until Saturday. I'll try and get some decent photos and stuff, but no promises (my phone's crap). EasyJet to Gatwick and easyJet again to Prague, and the same on the way home. I'm already looking forward to "highs" of -7°C. It'll be just like Canadian winter all over again!

Don't miss me too much.

The other day I listed a number of areas where public money in Northern Ireland was wasted, contributing to the over taxation situation we find ourselves in at present. As if he knew exactly what I'd been thinking, Nigel Williams was kind enough to illustrate another area that I'd neglected to mention.

Calling for a total ban on smacking, Williams, Northern Ireland's "Children's Commissioner" has come out whinging about the fact that parents are allowed to carry out "reasonable chastisement" of their children by smacking them. He claimed that children were hurt physically and emotionally when they were hit by their parents.

Let me tell you Mr Williams, 230 volts from an electric socket will hurt "physically and emtionally" a lot more.

Pointless dogoodery funded by an already stretched state. When pensioners are getting beat up in their homes, schools are crumbling and hospitals failing, not to mention taxes rising steadily, can we really afford to be subsidising the fantasies of deranged people like this so they can tell parents how (not) to raise their children?

According a report published last week in the Observer, the tax burden in the UK is set to exceed that of Germany this year, putting paid to the notion that since we're not in a major recession Gordon Brown must really be doing a good job.

Germany is often seen as the worst example of European-style big government, with corresponding high levels of unemployment. However, while Gordon Brown has been lecturing Europe on the need to change, he will have presided over an increase in the tax burden of the UK to 45.7% by the end of the year, while Germany's will have fallen to 45%. The EC actually criticised Gordon Brown recently for running too big a defecit!

You don't need to look too far for an explanation of where all the money's going either. Let's take a look at the enormous wastes of money we've seen and will see in Northern Ireland alone:

• £100m+ for a sports stadium none of the 3 major sports really wants
• £400k for sacking a university employee
• £155m on an enquiry to answer questions everyone had made their minds up on anyway
• £100m on a suspended Assembly including £40m+ in salaries to MLAs who aren't doing their jobs

I could go on but I won't. All the while schools and hospitals continue to under-perform.

Is this just what happens under Labour governments? I'm too young to remember the last one but it seems that bureacracy and general government-funded waste increases, taxes increase to pay for it all and the net benefit to Joe Q Taxpayer would look small next to the Olsen Twins' lunches.

Despite last nights peaceful picket outside the Irish FA headquarters, the organisation's executive committee sat inside and proceeded to take a decision that may just have been another nail in the coffin of football in Northern Ireland.

The IFA have agreed, "in principle" to up and move Northern Ireland football matches and cup finals out of Belfast down the road to a big field somewhere near Lisburn. Great news. Tony Blair and Peter Hain get their photo opportunity with a caption about them 'beating prison bars into goal posts', Sinn Fein get their hunger strikers museum, Ulster rugby get to continue playing at Ravenhill as if nothing has happened and attendance at Northern Ireland matches slowly but steadily dwindles towards nothing as people realise how soulless a 75% empty 42,500 stadium can be.

Taxi for Wells!

A small, last-minute picket has been called by the Amalgamation of Northern Ireland Supporters' Clubs to take place at Irish FA HQ on Windsor Avenue tomorrow (Thursday 19th January), just before the executive committee is due to vote on whether or not to give their backing to the Sands Siro white elephant Maze Stadium proposals.

A call was made this afternoon, on the OurWeeCountry supporters' forum, for any fans interested and available to turn up at 5:45 PM at the IFA headquarters just off the Lisburn Road.

The call comes two days after the Amalgamation released a paper detailing (and I mean detailing) its position on the stadium and why wants the IFA to reject the current blackmail tactics of the government and push for a stadium in Belfast. The paper, also published on the OurWeeCountry website, and hopefully soon to appear at StadiumForBelfast.com, has a total of 10 sections and argues against the Maze location. It contains detailed arguments ranging from economics to transport, the location and its contentious past, right down to the design of the stadium itself. Most importantly it details what the fans have said and refutes the lies and propaganda being put about by the government and other Maze backers (most notably politicians from the Lagan Valley/Lisburn areas).

One of the things I hadn't realised before was that while the stadium, as we all know, is being designed primarily for the GAA with other sports expected to fit in around them, there are currently plans to upgrade St Tiernach's Park in Clones (that's the GAA ground over the border in Monaghan) to a 50,000 capacity at a cost of some €12 million. Since the GAA don't pay VAT on ticket sales there, are they likely to use a 42,500 seater stadium in the backend of beyond, or are they more likely to alternate between Casement Park in west Belfast (30,000 seater) and the redeveloped Clones ground?

For the record, the GAA aren't the problem, the government are! You can't blame the GAA for looking after their own sport - that's their job. The government should know the score. That's their job!

The more I learn about the Maze shambles, the more I dislike it - and I've disliked it a lot for a long time.

The suggested Ormeau stadium is in an ideal site. It's central and in as mixed an area as Belfast can deliver. What it doesn't have is a potential terrorist shrine to allow Tony Blair to get all misty-eyed and symbolic about beating prison bars into goalposts.
Linda Gilby, Belfast Telegraph, 18th January 2006