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.
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