20 November 2025
Our government continues to prevaricate on the Occupied Territories bill, contrary to the wishes of most. The usual “legal issues”is dragged out as an excuse. Deference to Trump is the real reason.
Picture of the Week
Those who know Colin Davidson for his iconic portraits of Brien Friel, Angela Merkel (on the cover of Time magazine), and Queen Elizabeth will be surprised indeed by his latest exhibition: Stranger at the RHA. You may see the work as large sculptures but Davidson refers to them as “3D paintings”. He creates these works using thickened oil paint, maquettes, and some 3D printing. The results are these strange, eerie, flayed figures. Mute signifiers of our tragic times perhaps.
The Moronic Inferno
Trump’s remarks during the visit of MBS, that smirking Saudi butcher, is yet another new low. An extract from the always pertinent Robert Reich’s Substack:
“When Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman (MBS) arrived at the White House yesterday, he was met by a Marine band, officers on horseback carrying the Saudi and American flags, and fighter jets flying over the White House in a V formation.
It was far more pomp than visiting foreign leaders normally receive.
What had the crown prince done to merit such honor from the United States?
He has helped broker a tentative peace between Hamas and Israel. But so have Egypt, Qatar, Jordan, and the United Arab Emirates.
The real reason for the honor is that MBS and the Saudis are doing lots of business with Trump’s family — and this visit is part of the payoff.
It’s MBS’s effort to rehabilitate his reputation after Saudi operatives murdered Washington Post columnist Jamal Khashoggi and chopped his body into pieces with a bone saw — a killing that U.S. intelligence determined was greenlit by MBS.
But in yesterday’s joint Oval Office appearance — freighted with flattery between Trump and MBS — Trump brushed off a reporter’s question about MBS and the murder.
“A lot of people didn’t like that gentleman that you’re talking about, whether you like him or didn’t like him, things happen,” said Trump, referring to Khashoggi.
Things happen?“
A Musical Interlude
This piece of music has a special resonance for me. Many years ago (the Fifties and Sixties at least) this was played on the old Radio Eireann station before the programmes started. Lying in bed before school, I knew this was a harbinger of impending doom, the dreaded signal that I needed to get up and get ready for school. Homework again undone. I hated school most of the time - and was a surly and indolent boy much given to pissing off my teachers, and not particularly popular with my peers. I’m fond of opera generally (Verdi and Mozart especially) as long as I don’t have to go and see it, I find the overblown acting ludicrous.
Sporting Highlights
I was working in Stuttgart when Ireland had that famous win over England so I saw Houghton put the ball in the English net and celebrated wildly with the large German crowd. I was also in the Giant’s Stadium in New York when we deservedly beat Italy via a goal by the same player. Ireland and Troy Parrot’s heroics in Budapest were sadly missed by me - I was hoovering the bedroom with the radio on in the background when I suddenly became aware of hysteria coming through the air waves. Watching it later I saw that the winning goal involved three separate pieces of skill: Kelleher’s perfectly flighted ball into the penalty area, Liam Scales timely jump and measured flick across goal and Parrot’s poacher’s prod beyond the keeper. Immortality ensured for all three.
Poetry Corner
Sylvia Plath’s Ariel poems were chronicles of her death foretold. She’d had two previous suicide attempts but the third one killed her at thirty. It has always sat badly with me that she didn’t make better provision for her two children as gas filled the room - but they survived and who can second guess a mind so tormented.
I have done it again.
One year in every ten
I manage it——
A sort of walking miracle, my skin
Bright as a Nazi lampshade,
My right foot
A paperweight,
My face a featureless, fine
Jew linen.
Peel off the napkin
0 my enemy.
Do I terrify?——
The nose, the eye pits, the full set of teeth?
The sour breath
Will vanish in a day.
Soon, soon the flesh
The grave cave ate will be
At home on me
And I a smiling woman.
I am only thirty.
A Morsel of Memoir
There Was a Boy
I had early and valuable training in the isolation and self-sufficiency demanded by our experiences with Covid-19. My father’s career had a lot to do with it. He was an army officer and early in his career we moved regularly: Clonmel, Knockalisheen near Limerick, the Curragh, the Campfield in Cork, and finally and fatally, McKee Barracks in Dublin. Any fledgling friendships were abruptly terminated by the next move. Also, in the enclosed and hierarchical world of the Curragh military camp, where I spent most of my early childhood, I could never mix with the many boys of my own age because they were soldiers’ sons. That was just not an option in that strictly partitioned world. There was a dearth of officers’ sons of my own age. The army cadet school was the most significant institution in the Curragh and all those aspiring officers were of necessity unmarried. My parents were preoccupied. My father with his growing career and his golfing commitments and my mother with the demands of an ever-growing family. Entertaining their children was never on the agenda - benign indifference to their activities was the norm, and continued to be throughout their lives. The four siblings nearest me in age were girls and so no good to me for recreational purposes. I learned to entertain myself mainly through meandering around the extensive plains that surrounded the Curragh Camp. Donnelly’s Hollow was a particular attraction as I liked to retrace the famed boxer’s steps carved into the turf as he walked away after his epic fight. The Curragh racecourse was a longer walk but my mother was a racing enthusiast and she introduced me to joys of the turf - a pleasure I still enjoy.