Buncrana and San Francisco should be twin towns, with the number of people from Budgin that have lived there over the years or that are still there. Good few Derry wans as well, I'd say.
But while putting together tomorrow's entertainment pages I've just come across another connection I was unaware of in a Wikipedia entry -
Dan White Suicide
Dan White, who assassinated San Francisco Mayor George Moscone and Supervisor Harvey Milk, committed suicide by carbon monoxide poisoning in his garage by running a garden hose from the exhaust pipe to the inside of his car. "The Town I Loved So Well" was found playing on a continual loop on the car's cassette player, an apparent reference to the city of San Francisco and White's Irish heritage.
Thursday, 29 October 2009
Monday, 26 October 2009
Wednesday, 21 October 2009
Derry, City of Culture
Time to find out something about Derry's bid to become City of Culture.
'Cheltenham and Gloucester' are among the 30 bids in for the 2013 UK City of Culture title, and of course council officials are 'excited' about the development, as is revealed on the 'This is Gloucestershire' website http://www.thisisgloucestershire.co.uk/gloucestershireheadlines/Gloucester-Cheltenham-launch-culture-bid/article-1435683-detail/article.html
Problem is harnessing the enthusiasm of those members of the public posting on the subject, like Mr/Ms A, Gloucester -
I agree that Gloucester should be the next City of Culture - they can put visitors up at our brand spanking (pun intended) new sex hotel, feed them in the downstairs restaurant, ferry them around the new Docks development (mostly composed of hideous retro 60's architecture IMO), show them where the Queen stepped ashore to wave at the populace before leaving as quickly as possible and then ship them back out again via our state of the art railway station with its plastic flowers.
Somehow can't see that contribution making the final bid document.
Wonder what's on the Derry City Council website . . .
Gloucester docks by night - looks quite nice really . . (not a patch on ours, obviously)
The post
Yes, some things still come by post, as many people will no doubt be reminded if all the postal workers go on strike in coming days.
Today, for instance, arrived this letter -
As you can see, it says 'What Historical Records Reveal', and 'See back for details'.
Inside is the torn out front page from the Daily Telegraph of Friday Oct 2. However, in spite of evident abundance of highlighters, there's no indication of which article is of interest. Could it be 'Action Man back from dead' or, from the inside page, 'Lollipop lady foils bald avenger'? Or even 'A problem with wind? You need a digester'.
Sadly the answer will probably never been known, and may have been quite elusive in the first place . . . (however I do now notice some strange marks on the paper which are probably left unmentioned and in the bin).
Also in the post is a book which could be of interest to two boys I know - 'The Lightning Key' by Jon Berkeley, 'the witty finale to this magical trilogy' for children aged eight and upwards.
A letter from a regular correspondent from the city, Neil O'Donnell, disapproves of the views of another reader on the city's famous Halloween celebrations -
" . . the fireworks display she talks about is part of a festival that, not too many years ago, and even today, was and is still celebrated by witches and Satanists . . "
The DPP news, the quarterly magazine of NI's District Policing Partnership, has a screamer 'Introducing the New Chief Constable'. Sadly a gripping personal portrait of Matt Baggott is missing from the pages inside. However by way of compensation we do get the shocking tale, 'New Chief Constable Commends Work of DPPs'.
The best laugh comes from a letter from the Institute of Trade Mark Attorneys which is headed - "What's in a name? - Find out in Londonderry on Thursday 5th November 2009."
There are other letters, but perhaps we'll finish with a startling revelation - another regular correspondent has moved on to yellow paper.
Some would say - 'Roll on the postal strike'. Here, of course, we wouldn't miss the post for all the world . . .
Tuesday, 20 October 2009
Back from Canada to find . . .
Catching up on what's been happening here during the week and a half I've been away in Canada and more particularly Cape Breton, where the Celtic Colours festival was a major success. The festival focused this year on the Irish links, and the contingent from the North West included Jimmy McBride and Keenan Barrett from Buncrana (Jimmy's originally from Gweedore and Keenan from Derry) as well as Mairead Mooney from Altan, Manus Lunny, the lads from Fidil and more.
The first person I met when we arrived for the first concert in the big ice hockey venue in Port Hawkesbury was a Derry man born in Letterkenny, Declan O'Doherty. He's been living in Canada for the past 30 years and is a well-known musician and producer. He was stage-managing this big production, which played to more than 1,500 people including the Canadian Minister for Defence. I see from his MySpace page http://www.myspace.com/declanod that he's worked as an engineer, arranger or producer with the likes of Paul McCartney & Wings, Cat Stevens and Gerry Rafferty.
He was one of a number of people with North West connections encountered on the trip, including a Strabane-born MC who's had a radio show in Canada for almost 30 years and the Derry-born wife of another Celtic music radio DJ.
The redoubtable Joella Foulds, who heads up the pretty massive operation that is the Celtic Colours festival in Cape Breton these days. She visited Buncrana's Dr Liz Doherty and the North West a few months back.
Cape Breton has the same population as County Donegal, around 147k, but is about twice the size and seems to be coming down with fiddlers, piano players and dancers. Remarkably there are still a few elderly people whose first language is Scots Gaelic. The Scots in particular have had a major impact on the culture of the island, arising mostly from the arrival of tens of thousands of them on Cape Breton at the time of the Highland Clearances from the 1750s to the 1850s (estimates seem to vary from 25,000 to 50,000).
The Irish also had an impact, as you might expect, and a trip around the graveyard at Port Hawkesbury saw a good few Irish names come into view. Some villages are known as 'Irish' areas.
We weren't long on Canadian soil before Cape Breton's major story came up - the local Catholic bishop has been charged with having images of child porn after being stopped at an airport. You can imagine the sensation that has caused on the island.
Back in Derry it's been sad to hear of the death of local girl Orla O'Kane from complications arising from swine flu, and of the controversy surrounding the fact that her family weren't told she had the condition until last Friday, two days after her funeral. The health minister Michael McGimpsey has apologised to the family, and said Orla's death has also highlight the particular vulnerability of children in special schools to the complications of swine flu.
Our Sunday Journal team was first to cover this story.
Anyway, must go - a mountain of emails awaiting discovery!
The first person I met when we arrived for the first concert in the big ice hockey venue in Port Hawkesbury was a Derry man born in Letterkenny, Declan O'Doherty. He's been living in Canada for the past 30 years and is a well-known musician and producer. He was stage-managing this big production, which played to more than 1,500 people including the Canadian Minister for Defence. I see from his MySpace page http://www.myspace.com/declanod that he's worked as an engineer, arranger or producer with the likes of Paul McCartney & Wings, Cat Stevens and Gerry Rafferty.
He was one of a number of people with North West connections encountered on the trip, including a Strabane-born MC who's had a radio show in Canada for almost 30 years and the Derry-born wife of another Celtic music radio DJ.
The redoubtable Joella Foulds, who heads up the pretty massive operation that is the Celtic Colours festival in Cape Breton these days. She visited Buncrana's Dr Liz Doherty and the North West a few months back.
Cape Breton has the same population as County Donegal, around 147k, but is about twice the size and seems to be coming down with fiddlers, piano players and dancers. Remarkably there are still a few elderly people whose first language is Scots Gaelic. The Scots in particular have had a major impact on the culture of the island, arising mostly from the arrival of tens of thousands of them on Cape Breton at the time of the Highland Clearances from the 1750s to the 1850s (estimates seem to vary from 25,000 to 50,000).
The Irish also had an impact, as you might expect, and a trip around the graveyard at Port Hawkesbury saw a good few Irish names come into view. Some villages are known as 'Irish' areas.
We weren't long on Canadian soil before Cape Breton's major story came up - the local Catholic bishop has been charged with having images of child porn after being stopped at an airport. You can imagine the sensation that has caused on the island.
Back in Derry it's been sad to hear of the death of local girl Orla O'Kane from complications arising from swine flu, and of the controversy surrounding the fact that her family weren't told she had the condition until last Friday, two days after her funeral. The health minister Michael McGimpsey has apologised to the family, and said Orla's death has also highlight the particular vulnerability of children in special schools to the complications of swine flu.
Our Sunday Journal team was first to cover this story.
Anyway, must go - a mountain of emails awaiting discovery!
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