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If
You Ask Me
with Alex
Kane
It's
that time of year again, when cinema screens are choc-a-bloc with blockbusters
and sequels. Just when you thought that every variation of the theme had
been explored and exhausted, the writers come along with increasingly
absurd additions. And Northern Ireland is no exception.
In Spideyman 3, the
shrill and hand-bagging Margaret Ritchie follows in the footsteps of the
IMC and Peter Hain, as she tries to get loyalist paramilitaries to swap
guns for bungs. What she should do, instead, is take the counterfeit cash
seized by the PSNI and then send her staff to every car-boot sale they
can find, to buy up the equally counterfeit DVDs, perfumes and designer
clothing available from the UDA's "Bling-R-Us" stalls. That
will soon put them out of business!
In Ocean's 13, the
sewers of Belfast and further afield prove, yet again, that they can't
cope with more than a sprinkler's worth of rain at any one time. As the
buzz of flies and whiff of excrement hovers across our fair land, 13 departmental
and agency bosses come up with a cunning scheme to do--- well, absolutely
nothing, as it happens. Never mind: the cheque's in the post and the raw
sewage is in the oven.
Shrek 3 follows the
continuing fortunes of a large green monster that once lived in the shadows,
terrifying by reputation, before finding semi-redemption and a home in
the castle. Sound familiar?
Sinn Fein wasn't created
upon the back of a mission statement to endorse and prop-up a partitionist
settlement. The Provisional IRA wasn't formed with the purpose of bombing
republicans more firmly into the United Kingdom.
And I'm sure that
Shrek Adams never imagined that he was clearing the way for former IRA
volunteers to serve as ministers in a Northern Ireland government.
But in this never-never
land that we have created, Sinn Fein is now chained by the wrist to British
institutions and joined at the hip to the DUP.
And talking about
the DUP: they have become a combination of the Fantastic 4 and Transformers.
Once upon a time they were bright orange and pretty cantankerous.
But then they were
taken away to a mysterious research lab in Scotland and bombarded with
gamma rays, returning as turquoise shaded Stepford Wives, programmed to
laugh and nod as everything they once held sacred was uprooted and replaced.
And wasn't it nice
to see Gerry Kelly and Ian Paisley Jnr launch their Super Six brochure;
in which they tried to convince children that their future was safe because
their interests were being promoted by cartoon characters like Donna-Does-A-Lot
and Emer the Eco Girl. Oddly enough, Gay Gordon, Evangelical Edward and
Unity Ulrick don't appear to have made it past the drawing board.
To be honest, I'm
already having difficulty telling the difference between the cartoon creations
and the flesh and blood MLAs. In a fantasy world in which the watchwords
are defer, review, consult and beg, it's hard to believe that reality
will ever break through. Mind you, bad though this is, it's infinitely
preferable to any sequel.
If
You Ask Me Archive
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