Expect plenty about N. Ireland identity issues in 2013, as Derry/Londonderry is the new UK City of Culture this year. William Crawley from my neck of the woods has made an interesting programme for Radio 4 on the rise of a specifically Northern Irish identity (vs solely British or solely Irish) in the 2011 census.Continue reading “A place where demographics are politics”
Tag Archives: ethnic identity
How We Took Control Over Our Stiff Upper Lips
Ian Hislop’s Stiff Upper Lip – An Emotional History of Britain I never tire of watching Peter Cook‘s WW2 officer announcing to valiant subordinate Jonathan Miller in Beyond The Fringe: Perkins, I want you to lay down your life. We need a futile gesture at this stage … Miller as Perkins accepts his fate withContinue reading “How We Took Control Over Our Stiff Upper Lips”
Olympic Britain: Substance 2012
So I’ve waved goodbye to this phenomenon that breezed into my life, swept me off my feet for two weeks and now leaves me pining at the airport, watching the vapour trail. No, I’m not having an affair with a wayward airline pilot, I meant the Olympics. (I hear the Olympic village usually turns intoContinue reading “Olympic Britain: Substance 2012”
Oscar for Best Live Action Short Film goes to … The Shore
Don’t worry, I’m not claiming credit for it. But great that a short film called The Shore, set and made in my native Northern Ireland, won an Oscar last night. I haven’t seen it yet, but I’m of course heavily into shore metaphors and a sucker for anything Ulster-ish, so I expect at the veryContinue reading “Oscar for Best Live Action Short Film goes to … The Shore”
Capello: single-minded success, social awareness failure
So Capello walks from the FA, in a serendipitous sequence of events in which Our ‘Arry, until a few hours earlier about to get banged up good and proper, rises majestically to become the people’s favourite to manage England to a glorious footballing summer expedition to the lands between the Baltic and Black Sea.Continue reading “Capello: single-minded success, social awareness failure”
Ancestry: taboos eroded by science
Branding gets into the tiniest nooks and crannies, doesn’t it? Including our own biology. For £340 you can buy the “Matriline and Y-Clan DNA Combo” pack from Oxford Ancestry Limited, run by Prof. Brian Sykes of Oxford University (whom you may remember from BBC’s Blood of the Vikings series). You send a DNA sample toContinue reading “Ancestry: taboos eroded by science”
A cliquey global village
The growing crisis in Abidjan, Ivory Coast (see the Oxfam link: Oxfam – Crisis in Ivory Coast on the refugee problem) is already turning into a humanitarian disaster and threatens to get much worse. As a fairly recent visitor to Abidjan – I managed some audience research there for the BBC World Service in 2009Continue reading “A cliquey global village”
Strangers on the Shore 