It has struck me that some Unionists have acquired an Orwellian
habit of using words to mean their exact opposite. For example,
take that wonderfully misnamed party, the Democratic Unionist
Party. But the best must be the United Unionists, who fought for
a No vote in the referendum in the Six Counties. United the
Unionists certainly ain't.
That big hitter from the United Unionists, Ian Paisley, gave me
the chuckle of the campaign when he was being interviewed by the
BBC last Saturday. It was a tough interview by Noel Thompson who
stopped just short of asking big Ian what it felt like to be a
big loser.
In the studio Jeremy Paxman, academic Paul Bew and journalist
Fionnuala O'Connor looked on. Then, at the end of the interview
Paisley was out of his seat as if a bee had stung him. As he
tried to run away his microphone got tangled and he was trapped.
It was a great picture of a politician under pressure.
d as he made valiant attempts to escape, from the studio came a
gleeful female voice. ``Oh, brilliant!'' she shouted. And so did I.
other dinosaur wheeled on to give their views was Lord Gerry
Fitt. (Isn't it funny how, like South Africa where now you can
find no-one who supported apartheid, you can now find no-one who
opposed the peace process?) And what was Gerry's wisdom? He
praised Billy Hutchinson and said that if he had been around when
Gerry was around they might have got somewhere in his time. But,
Gerry, Billy was around. He was murdering Catholics.
The Spanish government is turning somersaults trying to explain
why there are no lessons in the Irish peace process for the
Basque conflict. ``Absolutely no comparison,'' they are saying,
because to admit a connection is to admit that there should be
dialogue with the Basque independentists. They are being
supported in this by Tony Blair, who took a holiday in Spain
following the Stormont talks. There he gave media interviews
backing up the Spanish government line.
d now the Northern Ireland Office has turned down a request
from a Basque all-party parliamentary commission to visit the Six
Counties. The official reason for the refusal is that all the
parties would be too busy to meet the Basques. It seems that the
British still have a way to go in the business of conflict
resolution.
Oscar-winning Hollywood actor Robert Duvall is making a film
about Scottish football. I kid you not. And, more bizarrely, the
first soccer game he ever went to was this year's Scottish Cup
Final between Rangers and Hearts, which was played at Parkhead.
To prove his credentials he posed outside the ground with this
Rangers scarf. He claims he didn't know its significance. So why
does he feel he can make a film about Scottish football? Beats
me. But he describes soccer as ``like basketball played with your
feet instead of your hands''. Strange man.
![[An Phoblacht]](http://republican-news.org/graphics/title_gifs/aprn.gif)