Interrupted Service
I want to apologise to everyone for this week's rather interrupted service. It's not been because of any lack of material - today's withdrawal of the Victims Commission Bill from its consideration stage in the Assembly, for example, provides plenty of food for thought.
Instead I have found myself squeezed for time because a report on the alleged back channel between the DUP and Sinn Fein which I put together for tonight's ³ÉÈËÂÛ̳ Newsline took up all my attention. It included a clip of Bertie Ahern heaping praise on an unnamed journalist for assisting the process.
Now it's nearly eleven o'clock at night and I am due up ridiculously early to catch a transatlantic flight. I have a rendezvous with Ian Paisley planned for Washington D.C. So there will be another enforced interruption, but I shall try to locate a keyboard somewhere in the US capital, in order to recommence normal service as soon as possible.
I'm 
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My heart bleeds for all you poor hacks! Now that we have the phoney normalisation, you are forced to traipse around the world with our "provincial councillors". "Back channel" seems to be the fashionable buzz word!
If we ever do achieve anything approaching normality then there will surely be some "downsizing" in the news room.
Mark
VICTIMS’ COMMISSIONERS: OH DEAR! OH DEAR! OH DEAR! OH DEAR!
Everyone agrees that the DUP/Sinn Féin Fascist Coalition have made a complete a**e of the appointments of the Victims’ Commissioners. Criticism is being hurled at the Coalition from every side. No doubt their best minds are hard at work trying to find a way out of the mess. As I see it, there is a simple solution to the whole imbroglio. Abolish the Victims’ Commission and leave the Victims to their own devices. That would probably cause them less pain than the current shambles.
Susie
Carryduff
10 April, 2008