Hegh Drama, Don't ye Know, Ulster Style

The Fall is a recent dramatic series set in scenic little Belfast and using a host of actors, both adult and children, with a variety of forms of that particular accent. It is quite picaresque to hear a mere babe come out with "Mammy, ers a nekkid liddy in mah upstares" or "I seen muh Daddy ticklin' na bibbysitter's ocksters."

The story is the convoluted tale of the NIPS trying to track down a serial killer who targets the kind on modern urban professional Ulster 'gels' who can knock off a faceful of cocktails at an upscale bar and still look photogenic enough to be posed nude for the post-murder record.

The murderer is a very well-controlled marriage or psychological counsellor who uses his obvious interpersonal skills to be a good daddy, a good husband, and a good worker (although the 24/7 aspects of his other callings must make his lady wife wonder 'what's up'). The Mrs. says she seen him in something else, I haven't.

The supporting cast is taken from a cross-section of 'interesting' Belfast protagonist - coppers and perps - from the bad old days of crime and terror fighting.

Overseeing it all is the calm, cool and well-collected Gillian Anderson, flown into 'the province' from Scotland Yard to reprise the éclat of a previous investigatory career that saw her boff most of the professional level of the 'wee town'. Neither her investigatory skills, nor her boffing prowess, are diminished in 'the Fall'.

Within minutes of her first appearance we find that she's a swimmer with a predilection for wandering the hotel with her wet hair in a towel, a black pencil skirt and rather towering spiked high heels. She also wears the same outfit, minus the wet hair, for 'trysting' and, of course, her 'profession'. She must have a closet-full of such similar outfits, or a darn good cleaner, as 'spots' might be problematic. It's incongruous that the consummate 'pro', who speaks a polished 'Britois' in mumbles and is so on-top of it all, leaves an unflushed toilet-full of those little rubber packages that lesser girls might throw behind the couch. Not only is she prodigiously sexual, she'd like the hotel maid, if not the constable she sent to 'get her stuff', to know it. We're supposed to think she's 'smart' because she doesn't leave the used condoms in bed?

The storyline has something for everybody - from neo-natal care and family tragedy, to the humour of out-of-town sex tourists punching-out a hooker 'by accident' while their police-related pimp worries about tidying-up the mess in the room. The school connections - repeated over and over to show the 'ordinariness' of killer-daddy, I imagine, are good.

"We think little Marigold has the willies, you see". Just look at how her art class products resemble the naughty pictures in daddy's little secret 'scribbler'."Wherever does she get such idears?"

Maybe his muddy footprints on the little girl's bed might be a give-away that something's lurking in the ceiling space above.

The program is essentially about murder most foul and no doubt the killer should predictably spiral out of control enough to let somebody notice and inform authorities. Or perhaps the star will, somehow, have qualifications - albeit well used - that the antagonist seeks and the denouement of the piece will be reached more consensually between the pair - he was healthy hung and horny, she was ready willing and able - they screwed. Sounds like a Tony nominee to me.

If you want an entertaining look around scenic Belfast, though, it's a winner.

And Now, in Braille for the Blind

Somebody's idiot nephew has let the side down again! 

Just when we should be celebrating a breeze of refreshment in the ranks of the Tory carcass, on outing of the old guard and an inning of the new, it comes to light that there is another incident of 'ovum on the puss' by way of, well, maybe just trying too  darn hard. You try to get the word out to people about all the good things being done unto them and golly-gee whillickers if it's not some ungrateful spending watchdog, or yer friends over at the Maine Railroad, it's somebody getting the word out to the blind by using a picture of braille script to do it. Not that the blind give a shit about make-work programs anyway.

In Tory circles it's what's called an "honest mistake", eh? Especially if the handouts are distributed by 'busy fellas' like the 'Big Mouth' Johnny Baird, or his fat friend Dean 'the wiener' Del Mastro, or by one of the newly-deputized cabinet like Shelly Glover. You can bet yer bippy there are a few million more bailed-up, ready for free postal delivery, by the lesser lights of Torydom, now presently sucking-up beverages at their cottages. Let's see how effective the machine is at stopping the distribution.

 Some summer vacation. That tool,(in retrospect), that Harpo the Great appointed to keep an eye on government spending (after he canned the old, outdated Liberal edition) has the moxie to go to court and the press and tell them he has to apply for government spending information they same way all the other idiots do, through freedom of information requests. There's some transparency for ya.

Meanwhile over at Megantic, the little 'sheener' who showed up to suck his teeth and wring his hands and 'promise' to 'be there' for the mess his railroad cars made when they exploded, has now taken his pension to suck-up some beverages at his cottage. This leaves the town of Megantic the object of a round of lawsuits between the railroad and its insurers who are both refusing to cover the costs of clean-up. That's starting to look like something the 'people of Canada', will be doing to 'bail-out' a couple of 'vital' services - and clean up an unsightly mess of course.

That's the least the Tories could do for their 'investing' pals,  having already agreed with them that running a one-man train full of volatiles was a reasonable, cost-saving idea.

Not to be outdone at covering a fat fanny, immigration minister Jay Kenney took some pains to remove his speaking notes for a talk he delivered  recently to a  Muslim group. Nobody told him what 'Allahu Akbar' meant - he thought he was saying, 'hello'. Maybe it wasn't that dumb, or up there with Bushco's 'Mission Accomplished' but, if he said it, why not leave it up for non-muslims to read. Where there's redacting, there's covering-up.

Summer's half over which means there are only another three months of the legislators' summer break left. The ship of state sails on, however, and the captain still mans the helm - even if he is sucking up some beverages at the government cottage, too.

We can all rest assured that somebody's idiot nephew/summer intern, won't be getting a hold of the tiller.

A Nice Day for a Pink Wedding

The 'Satanic division' of national association of  GLBITWIS and multi-colored' people of the United Sates of America has put the 'whammy' on the homophobic Westboro Baptist "church of what's happening tomorrow, to-day", by rewarding the founder's mother with an eternity of lesbian pleasure in whatever heaven, or hell, she finds herself. In the former the partners will all be tender-hearted twisters who look like  Ellen or Portia. In the latter 'dykes on bykes' with 500 HP pleasurin' machines could only be the upside.

And how did they pull this off? You might ask. Well with a 'pink mass' of course out at the old bint's grave. Using her tombstone as an altar the horny 'master of ceremonies' led a few humble imprecations and supervised the coupling of a couple of pairs of doughty sapphics and nimble mattachinists. Then finished up with a ritual wiping-of-the-dick upon the grave marker.

As a "temple spokesperson" put it - "We believe that Fred Phelps is obligated to believe that his mother is now gay in the afterlife. Further, if beliefs are inviolable rights, nobody has the right to challenge our right to believe that Fred Phelps believes that his mother is now gay."

The group enjoined the gay of all lands to attend upon the gravesite an impart their own warm fuzzies on the new celestial 'den mama'.

Yeppers, Gord is blessing America.

What's Up in the Rez?

Canada's failed residential schools system for aboriginal peoples is back in the news with a bullet. Just in time to kick start lagging truck sales, it has just been announced that, along with abusing native kids and committing cultural genocide, dooming hundreds of thousands of them and their 'rellies' to lives blighted by abuse and failures to thrive, the University of Guelph has just discovered the government of Canada was using some of them to perform diet experiments.

Right there along with the story was a photo of Elsa the Beast of Belsen, newly immigrated to Canada no doubt, drawing blood from some poor native lad.

Needless to say, there are the beginnings of the sallying forth of the abused, " I never did get enough of that gruel, Ollie."

Being starved is something that you might think was a topic for the 'truth and reconciliation' panel, eh? Like how can you have truth and reconciliation if the government is hiding the results of medical experiments using Indians as guinea pigs. Frank Fontaine and other native leaders weren't long off the mark with cries of genocide. One ex-inmate claimed, "They never did treat me like a human being."

I thought the cash settlement, official government apology and more money splashed into 'programs' to help people come to terms with this stuff, was supposed to have put the matter to rest. Obviously not.

Not if there's a chance to reopen the hearings and work out another deal. Those trucks from last time will be ancient by now. And the dealers have to have been thirsty after that long-ago banquet of gratuitous sales. "Drive 'er away to-day and we'll settle-up when the cheque gets cut. Better still why wait, I'll give ya three quarters of the value if you sign your cheque over to me to-day."

Why would Canada's Indians ever want the government to "give the place" back to them? The government keeps on buying and re-buying it. It's a gift that keeps on giving, a bottomless bank account that's done nobody much good.

Watch this issue being fought out between the 'new wave' and the 'old guard'  of  the aboriginal people. With a bit of luck, Harpo the Magnificent can split the difference and stay the course.

The 24/7 Noos

The day after Canada day which should have been restricted to the mundane back to work stuff - reports of weekend drownings, accidents, miracles and drunk-driving charges etc, was thoroughly upset when the BC division of the RCMP clomped into a press conference to announce they nabbed two 'self-radicalized' Al Qaeda-inspired terrorists who had planned to 'Boston Marathonize'  the Canada Day party in front of the BC legislature. Yeppers, Dudley and the Doowrights had nabbed the pair after they had planted three explosive pressure cookers lined with rusted nails and some inert explosive. Canada's proud domain was safe for all the fun and festivus.

Who were the dastards and how did the good guys know?  Well, it seems the male half of the terroristic duo had self-actualized himself into a rabid bout of muslimania. Somebody - probably somebody who was being paid to point out the bad guys- fingered him to CSIS who set the investigatory wheels in motion. That was back in  February.

 Using a "variety of surveillance techniques" the RCMP was able to infiltrate the operation. They found out about the discussion of explosive devices and all the research being done. It only took 6 short months for the plan to come together with a holiday whammy and bloodbath for the People of Victoria. The surveillance techniques included an interesting one that ensured the bomb was as much a dummy as the guy who was planting it. I wouldn't be surprised to find out a surveillance expert went with them to make sure they didn't get lost.

Commenting on it all was the paid informant who helped put the Toronto 16 behind bars. Apparently he feels safe enough from Toronto's peaceful Muslim community to be wandering around the city looking like he'd just come out of the mosque. I guess they don't have fatwas in Toronto. Any way he said it was highly unlikely that a no hope, devil-worshiping white supremacist would be affiliated with Al Qaeda, So that's all good.

And who was the perp? Well he was known to police. According to authorities, he was a lowlife, methadone user who lived in a welfare rental pigsty. Somebody who figured the world owed him a living or at least a career in anarchy rock. In other words, a hopeless loser ex-con with a mad-on about civilization, who liked to spout-off his crazed isms in public. He was aided and abetted by a girlfriend who, it can be hoped, will turn crown witness and tell all.

All that excitement lasted a couple of days to be blasted off the front pages by chapter 12 of the Senate trough scandal.

In counterpoint comes the tragedy of Megantic, a 'natural disaster' the good guys couldn't stop. Seems somebody parked a train with 100 cars loaded with 'volatile' crude oil (volatile?) at the top of a hill for the night. Seems the brakes let go, or were tampered with (terror!!!!). The train, unmanned, rolled downhill into the town of Megantic (in Quebec's eastern townships), derailed, exploded and burned-out the centre of the town.

Apparently railroads full of crude oil wending their way to 'the home of the brave land o' the free etc' are commonplace these days, what with us not building pipelines to safely move the 'prawduct' to its rightful market. This stuff is shipped on the same old railways a former Tory government was all set to scrap. I'm wondering why the guys who need our oil don't ship it across country themselves? That has to cost less than refining it, which they  seem to prefer to do. In actuality I'm wondering why they just don't get oil from where they've always gotten it, their 'real' friends. But then it wouldn't be cheap.

It will be interesting to see what comes out of this.

It is reported that one of the 4 locomotives driving the train had a fire extinguished earlier in the evening before the accident. Whether that was the one the engineer left running to power the brakes when he 'turned in' for the night is still undetermined. That he did 'turn-in', leaving the train unattended until the replacement engineer came on duty the next morning, seems to be standard operating procedure. Apparently one-man trains are a new 'norm' - saves money.