Andytown News diarist with an eye on the week just gone, or indeed the one just ahead
Belfast, Single Market
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We learn today the British head of state takes money from ambulances, cancer charities and fire stations because somebody won a battle 600 years ago.
There are grown, sentient adults who support this.
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Watching Stephen Fry trending on Twitter and losing his national treasure status in real time is an unexpected but compelling sign of how disastrously Israel is losing the battle for hearts and minds.
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With Katie Hopkins having pride of place at Tommy Robinson’s far-right demo-riot in London yesterday, it’s a good time to revisit the greatest clarification in the history of journalism.
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The PSNI have called Fiona Donohoe, the devastated mother of Noah, in for interview on Friday in relation to a possible lockdown breach. Boris Johnson partied like Peter Stringfellow during lockdown and the Met asked him to fill in a form. Think about that for a second.
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40 years.
God almighty.
Cheeky as.
Loved her name.
Wrote it everywhere.
I found it written in a drawer when she was gone.
Wanted to work with children.
In America.
Cross and Passion.
File locked by MoD for another 45 years.
Last words: I want to go home.
My wee sister.
Julie.
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So lacking in class; so spiteful. The BBC is being run by the very worst kind of people.
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One Jewish person was brutally murdered on Thursday. It still dominates the BBC this morning.
There were minutes of silence at Premier League matches.
For.
One.
Person.
Murdered.
The contempt in which Palestinian/Muslim lives are held was never clearer.
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The 'something that happened' was a young Irishman with a mental age of 10 'posing no threat' (HET) being shot in the back. The 'something that happened' was the death of John Pat Cunningham, 27. I am not in the least bit surprised you don't say his name. So I did it for you.
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The BBC has worked assiduously for a fortnight to keep Kneecap in the news. It blurred out this Rangers tifo on Sportscene because an entire stand was devoted to a threat to shotgun Catholics to death.
The BBC told viewers not a word about the tifo or why they blurred the screen.
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At the Twelfth in Belfast today and tuk a few pix. Come with me along the path the BBC never takes...
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Yes, he’s young and he’s going to jail. Yes, he will cry himself to sleep at night in his cell. Yes, his life chances are horribly damaged. But these blows are nothing compared to the bitter tears he wept when he found out those Greggs sausage rolls were vegan.
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Massive respect to Israel's newspaper of record, which rather than dropping stories that the IDF have censored, has decided to publish them redacted to let the world see what's going on.
(The US is waiting on the IDF report on the Rafah massacre before deciding what to do, btw.)
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The PSNI today handcuffed and arrested a man who was shot seven times during a massacre. He was part of a small group laying flowers at the spot, on the anniversary and exact moment the shooting started. Can't believe I just typed those words. I've seldom encountered such anger.
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Every so often I think about this from my childhood and wonder how tf this was considered normal and acceptable.
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What in the name of good fuck is wrong with this planet? I swear to god I think I'm going mad.
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Child victims #2.
The file on the Prince Andrew paedophile case has been closed until 2065. The file on the shooting dead of my sister Julie (14) by the British Army has been closed until 2064. Obscene, grotesque, standard.
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I don't and won't make any claims about the Noah Donohoe case. But I will say this: a mixed-race kid losing his life in such horrific and mysterious circumstances has not got a 100th of the media attention it deserves. And I do ask myself why.
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Again with the reminder that I don't know what happened to Noah Donohoe and I have no theory, what's going stinks like a week-old fish. A mixed-race child found dead in a drain and police want a Public Interest Immunity certificate to hide files? What the hell's going on here?
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Keir Starmer thinks it’s not appropriate for Kneecap to play Glastonbury while his planes are still finding targets for Israel in the pile of debris and bones that is Gaza.
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1/2 Dear @MichealMartinTD @fiannafailparty
We were burnt out of our home in August 1969 and fled the city to Co Down.
As a boy I watched crying as my mother carried my little sister up a ladder over the back wall and down a 30ft drop with the sky on fire.
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DUP signing the roll this morning to hoover up their dosh and expenses so they won't be affected by the cost of living crisis that they're refusing to do anything about. A jaw-dropping new low for politics.
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A candle in the window tonight. Thoughts with everyone of every nationality and faith robbed today of truth and justice by people who know nothing of their pain and loss and care less. The most nakedly cruel and cynical political act since the conflict began. #NeverGivingUp
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Sandra? Sandra? Listen to me, Sandra. You've given Ireland the biggest laugh it's had in years, but it's time to leave the keyboard, Sandra. Sit the rest of this one out, Champ. Seriously.
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The problem in Amsterdam last night was that the Tel Aviv Ultras found to their cost that - unlike dropping bombs on families from up high - acting like thugs in a strange city with adult males around is not a consequence-free activity.
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Hi @JaneTohill – open letter to you and BBCNI Sport department re your coverage today of James McClean. Long past time for a rethink at Ormeau Avenue. Please consider this a complaint (I've already called the complaints dept). If others agree with this, please Retweet and/or Like
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1/7 Sometimes I don't understand why people who come to work and live among us stay here when so many try to drive them away. I want to tell you how humanity and kindness and love are not learned – and can't be learned. I want to tell you about my brother Billy and his friend...
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Man shares warm memories of Sandy Row in the 70s and 80s before black and brown people arrived.
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So the BBC cancels a documentary on the medic heroes of Gaza because… Israel.
And they cut the live feed to Glastonbury to censor a band standing up for those medic heroes because… Israel.
The state broadcaster doing their job
The damage they’re doing to themselves is immense.
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Glastonbury is speaking loudly on Gaza and it’s inspirational to see and hear.
And it’s the voice of Britain, unfiltered by a pro-Israel media. Three-quarters of Brits want a ceasefire now - a simple reality that the BBC’s Glastonbury coverage confirms and its news conceals.
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Even in a remarkably crowded field, this comfortably gets the the Most Knuckle-Bitingly Thick Tweet of the Week award.
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FA Cup story.
•Chelsea owner Roman Abramovic got Israeli citizenship after pumping $100m into groups enabling illegal settlements in Palestine.
•The people of Leicester paid for a memorial to an Irish child killed by a plastic bullet.
•Hamzah Choudhury and Wesley Fofana.
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1/2 Thinking tonight of the Catholics no longer with us - parents and grandparents, including my own - who bore the brunt of 50 years of sectarian hate masquerading as government at Stormont pre-1972. A massive day today in a building built to oppress them - a day they never saw.
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Para flags going up in some areas of Derry for the 50th anniversary of Bloody Sunday. Just so depressing.
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A young MLA who's trying to juggle her life and job with supporting her husband after a devastating cancer diagnosis speaks from the heart – and her face tells the story.
She gets a reply.
I genuinely don't have the words to respond to this except to say it's ineffably vile.
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Hot on the heels of the queen plunging a knife into the back of Loyal Ulster, Lee 'Union Jack' Anderson takes the handle and twists it.
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7/7 She fussed and moved his sheets and touched his arms and chest with a gentleness we watched in tearful gratitude.
I wonder what we did to deserve her. And I wonder if she'd mind if I told her I'll always bless the day she came not only into my country, but into my family.
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A story about what three rappers said on a stage has stayed longer at the top of the local news than another story exactly a year ago – the DUP leader being charged with rape.
Go check it out. I have.
I don't know what you call this, but it's certainly not journalism.
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The Mayor of Lisburn had to call for calm in the chamber tonight after a councillor spoke Irish in a debate on Irish signage. The sheer hatred is so debilitating. What a putrid little backwater we live in. But sure tell me about the centenary celebrations.
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The DUP fears St Patrick's Day could be stretched beyond one day of celebration. The marching season lasts 10 months. The poppy season lasts a month. Neck like a rhino's ballbeg.
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Cameron's quite deliberate decision just to stop speaking and let Grandmaster Gammon stew in his own mess was just the most perfect decision. Bravo, young man.
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When the roll-call of courage eventually takes place, Michael D. will be the first Irish name called out.
My nationality doesn't usually mean much to me – it's a pure accident of birth, unlike humanity.
But this man makes me so proud to be Irish in this world.
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On the second day of her visit to the North, Heather Humphreys calls on Stormont to act now to end the Lough Neagh algae crisis.
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What’s the world coming to when a soldier from a genocide army whose boss is an ICC fugitive can’t have a nice dinner in peace in Dublin?
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2/2 The Provisional IRA didn't exist.
That child was later shot dead by the British army, aged 14.
Have a go at whatever side you want – God knows they deserve it.
But when you one-side the Troubles in an attempt to win cheap votes you bring disgrace on yourself.
Shame on you.
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The file on the killing of my sister Julie (14) is closed until 2064. I told SoS Karen Bradley at a meeting that the guns that killed Irish children were tested on pigs. I gave her a picture. She looked and handed it back. I said keep it and told her: 'My sister was not a pig.'
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The circumstances of Noah Donohoe's death - shocking.
The police using a tool to cover up info that's designed to hide state secrets and protect informers - shocking.
But I can't think of a word to describe the almost complete disinterest of the media.
* @trishdevlin exempted.
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Priti Patel, who’s of Indian lineage and is highly educated, knows the historical result of using food as a means of subjugation. Yet still she suggests threatening Ireland, of all countries, with food shortages as backstop leverage. Classically disinhibited psychopathy. Inhuman
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Just a reminder that the DUP is being led by the nose by a guy who:
• Got 167 votes in his only election.
• Was beaten in an online political fundraiser by a chimp-hating gorilla.
• Went on hunger strike for 90 minutes
• Thinks the election's on Friday.
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Jesus Christ. The reports and footage coming out of Syria are appalling. I take it we can all stop celebrating now.
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Do we know if the DUP are sending a delegation to meet the Chief Constable tomorrow? And if so, is it the same one that met him over police waving an Armagh flag?
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Morning @AnnTravers6
The plastic bullet fired at my sister Julie was ‘real’ enough to kill her.
My sister’s death is as ‘real’ to me as the bullet that killed her and her loss is as ‘real’ to me as your sister’s is to you.
Thank you.
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1/10 2020 strikes again. Took my fella for his last walk yesterday. Not in a sun-dappled meadow, but across an icy car park to the vet's table. Long talk with the vet and we agreed it was best all round. He's been on Twitter with me and all youse so I thought I'd let yiz know.
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I don't care if the Orange Order is happy to have a Shankill Butcher in its ranks. People should have a life after prison. But the rank hypocrisy of those unionists who walk with a Shankill Butcher while lecturing others on hurt and sensitivity is hard to stick.
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West Ham fans attacking German journalists and Rangers fans en masse pretending to be Lancaster bombers in Leipzig, a city devastated by an RAF firestorm. Brexit Britain, ladies and gentlemen. What a terribly ugly place.
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Karen Bradley not only refused to meet the Ballymurphy families, she didn't even bother her arse replying to their letters. Now she goes cap in hand looking for them to pull her out of the hole she's in. Where's your dignity, woman? You are a thundering disgrace
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Nolan is talking to a guy who was kneecapped 40 years ago for death-driving and the guy is disgusted that Kneecap are called Kneecap.
This has put the BelTel's magical 'Spoon bender Uri Geller wants Kneecap jailed' in second place in my 'Kneecap Classics' table.
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Can't cope with the images any more. If the slaughter is affecting my mental health - and it is - how the fuck is it affecting Gazans? I never knew there was this much hate in the world; I can't process the fact there are human beings seeing what I see who want it to continue.
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Why are Palestinians the only people in the world not allowed to fight back against an occupation that is illegal under international law? Discuss.
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You were asked to step aside while a financial scandal that you later admitted was "a matter of deep political and personal regret" to you was dealt with. You refused. You get away with this stuff on GBeebies, not here.
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This happened just after the Danish anthem was roundly booed. This England team is a good bunch of lads and Gareth Southgate is such a likeable and genuine bloke. But the fans, the media, the politicians – the package they come in is unbearable, frankly.
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Irish woman is the first person in England to get vaccine manufactured in Belgium and created by a company founded by the children of Turkish guest workers in Germany. Matt Hancock: "Makes you proud to be British."
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Paddystinian.
As Zio-insults go, it's a doozie.
Feel free to roundly abuse me with this term.
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I'll say it again. I've zero idea what happened to Noah Donohoe and speculation does his memory and his poor family no favours. But with 30-plus years in the media under my belt I will say that the disinterest of 'Official NI' in what is a massive story is... well, very strange.
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Seriously, this place is feckin medieval. This guy has been voted for by no-one and is top of the programme discussing the future solely because he's head of an organisation formed to oppose Catholicism. This is so deeply depressing. #BBCtalkback
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Alan Sugar mocked and abused Jeremy Corbyn countless times and faced not a word of BBC censure. He's doing the same now to Mick Lynch with no consequences. Gary Lineker has just been stood down. The BBC has been tottering under Tory control for some time, now it has fallen.
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Occasional reminder that in 2018 the then Foreign Secretary dumped his close security detail to party at the Perugian castle of a billionaire son of a former top KGB man. At the airport next day he was disorientated, unable to walk straight and retching. Whatever became of him?
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Dear loyal Ulster, Downing Street and Andrew Marr,
I live in Belfast and I couldn't point out to you a single way in which the Protocol has adversely affected my life. So please stop talking dangerous shite.
Yours,
Squinter.
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Simon Harris has been staring at Mary Lou McDonald like this for the best part of an hour. It’s a really, really awful look.
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•Rangers fans last night had a banner of Catholic-slasher 'Bill the Butcher'.
•The 'Surrender or you'll die' banner is a reference to Catholic-slashing razor gang 'The Billy Boys'.
I expect the many Loyal Ulster/Rangers accounts on here will be horrified. Won't they?
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Bono breaking his silence on the genocide in Gaza with a half-arsed call for Netanyahu to go comes when it is entirely safe for him to speak. It comes when a new consensus has emerged in the West that enough’s enough. Like Piers Morgan, he’s retrofitting his moral CV.
Sickening.
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A real estate guy with no connection to the US government apart from being Trump's son-in-law is announcing US policy.
Fun fact: Jared took over the Kushner firm after his father, Charles, was jailed for tax evasion and witness tampering.
Charlie was pardoned by Trump.
Lovely.
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Hey @JBuckleyMLA – criticising Nancy Pelosi for claiming there were tanks here, you told @williamcrawley "there have never been tanks in the NI Troubles". Here's a Centurion tank. Derry, 1972. I agree with you – it's "important to accurately record the facts".
Jonny 0 Nancy 1.
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As a participant in and close observer of the media for heading towards 40 years, the Amsterdam Maccabi Ultras story is one of the most widespread and egregious examples of deliberate misreporting and outright lying that I’ve encountered. It’s breathtaking in its shamelessness.
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My thoughts from May this year on the trans issue. I've been frankly gobsmacked by the amount of people I respect who have gone all-in on the most bogus of bogus culture war narratives. Let's focus on what matters in 2023 and let people who never harmed you live their lives.
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Filling out my shopping voucher application today. Just a thought: no-one knows their National Insurance number off by heart, do they? Please tell me you don't.
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The PSNI going to London to arrest retired people with placards when they complain endlessly about a lack of resources is a PR disaster.
A bigger PR disaster is the image of them arresting OAPs to be set alongside pictures of them escorting the UVF.
Like this.
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Please don’t forget that in February Speaker Lindsay Hoyle destroyed an SNP Gaza ceasefire motion. His unprecedented intervention came after a private meeting with Keir Starmer, who had just met Israel President Isaac Herzog. Herzog believes there are no innocents in Gaza.
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42 years gone today. As ever, thanks to the beautiful city and people of Leicester for Julie's monument. The grim truth about her death has been locked in her MoD file until 2064. On behalf of future innocent children we're stepping up the fight to open it, painful as it will be.
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I mean, Granny Diana trending? The palace sending out the child soldiers now in the desperate and brutal battle for control of PR Hill.
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Fiona Donohoe has shown massive strength and dignity throughout her agonising ordeal. I've not tweeted about it because that's what the family wanted. But now they've gone public they i) deserve our support and ii) need some answers. Something appears off. @MyNoah8 @ChiefConPSNI
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A socially distancing black woman in Derry. Fast forward a week and loyalist statue-protectors are left gloriously unbothered by police. I really think @ChiefConPSNI and @naomi_long need to say something about this.
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Israel shot 15 medics, one by one, as they came to tend victims. Buried them in a mass grave. Ambulances crushed, buried with them.
If you were asked to make up the worst war crime imaginable you'd struggle to come up with this obscenity.
Christ almighty.
apnews.com/article/gaza-medi…
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Call me crazy, but I think it's kinda trippy that we live in a place where an Irish language park sign causes more distress to unionists and unionist media outlets than the loyalist feud in Newtownards, where masked UDA men are guarding and attacking homes.
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Eurovision should be a celebration, not a cover-up of genocide. Please share and like if you want Israel banned from Eurovision.
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The Space Foundation has erased the name of the first man in space, Yuri Gagarin, because of "current events". He died in 1968. I have never experienced such unhinged hysteria.
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News at Ten. Christ on a bike. A Gaza mother 'lost' four children. She didn't lose her children, they were killed in indiscriminate Israeli air attacks on captive people you fucking ghouls. Along with 16 others. @bbcnews
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Taken from the front doors of Newtownards fire station where the heat guards will go up next weekend. What kind of a bloody country is this? Law and order me arse. @ChiefConPSNI
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My funny, brave and beautiful big brother Billy has died. Peacefully and comfortably thanks to the angels in aprons of City 6 North, his virtual home for some months now. What would we do without people like them?
The laughter you gave will never leave me, Bill.
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Tickets, please!
Has there ever been a more comically vile bunch than the Irish far right?
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On my sister's anniversary a pic of my son today jolted me back to this one. We knew they'd the same eyes and hair, but today their curls united them. My stolen child, my 6' 2" gent. Heartbreaking, renewing. Tears, laughter. We renew, remember and push on through. Peace, love.
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Who did this?
I thought things simply couldn’t get any more surreally funny than the Rangers VAR meltdown.
But the queen posthumously murdering the Orange Order is banter for the ages.
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Who saw Cruella Braverman throwing the Loyal Ulster brethren under the bus in her effort to discredit hate marches? What a time to be alive.
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I can't take any more images from Rafah – and the slaughter has only just begun. What the fuck is wrong with Israel? How can this continue? The sense of disorientation and powerlessness I feel is overwhelming.
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Meet Moore.
Moore has made an AI picture of Rory McIlroy in a loyalist band.
Moore's Red Hands have fingers missing and his Ulster fleg has no crown.
But Moore is still happy.
Just two pounds from you can give Moore the software update he needs to do the job right.
Please help.
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