And He’s Been Shown the Red Card!

WITH all the tension of waiting for some referee in the premiership to decide whether it really was a two-footed challenge, Speaker of the Assembly William Hay gave TUV leader and anti-power sharing cheer leader Jim Allister a yellow card warning before, as the crowd bayed, showed the North Antrim Assembly man the red card…

Defiantly striding from the chamber, publicity mission accomplished, Mr Allister readied to serve out his extension.

Yes the suspension will restrain Mr Allister from being called to speak however we are worried about the sanity of officials in government departments.

The suspension will give Mr Allister more time to scribble some more written questions, of which he is quickly proving to be the master, with more than 200 in his name slapped down to answer since his election in May.

This could be the work of a man determined to assess whether the laws of pedantry have stepped into the realm of legislative and constitutional juxtaposition, or he is aiming for an Asian job creation scheme whereby answering his questions can be out-sourced to a call centre on the sub-continent.

We, of course, believe that all MLAs only ever ask questions for two reasons: to establish facts; and, to ensure transparent democracy. No MLA would ever ask a question to score political points.

Marching to the 'Field'

R&B ARTIST and possessor of fine assets Rhianna caused Norn Iron to hit global headlines after DUP councillor Alderman Alan Graham told her to cover up those assets and leave the field.

Some of you may suspect that Rhianna got confused about the date when a proportion of Norn Iron’s population march to the ‘field’. Others will suspect a masterstroke of PR by the Tourist Board, yet others have claimed it shows we’re just as backward as a Bible-belt, end of times evangelical from the southern states of the US.

Whatever way you want to look at it (and there were plenty trying to look at it across the aforementioned field) Rhianna’s bare-chested cheek at exposing herself put Norn Iron on to global news pages instead of our traditional summer ‘glories’ (winning golf majors and recreational rioting).

Condemnation and congratulations are a successful Norn Iron participatory sports, reserved for athletes lithe enough to dial a radio phone-in. Rhianna’s welcome into Norn Iron’s bosom (Editor’s Note: Stop those chest references right away!) meant that we exported our call-in condemnation/congratulation merry-go-round across the world.

Rumours that a major Hollywood porn studio is trying to book up fields here to get some shock PR were proved false when it was revealed [Editor’s 2nd Note – now really stop that!] that Norn Iron’s climate is normally dank, damp and mildly miserable.

What it did prove to the world is that Norn Iron can now collectively turn its hand to video, TV and film production for top studios, producers and directors from across the world.

But we wonder, was this an unexpected side consequence of Peter Robinson and Martin McGuinness talking up our production facilities in the US. If it was we hope that the pair have not made tits of themselves. And now we really must draw a modest curtain across this story…