Well-come once more where I invite you to peer at my preposterous, ponderous ponderings and prejudices and plamas where I proceed to pontificate and procrastinate at a great rate altogether.

Last desperate act
Most people reading this will know that there is a British/UK general election been going on. That has significance in Norn Iron as a snapshot of where political power lies between 'yes' and 'no' unionists, and for other reasons. But I put 'British/UK' because in governmental power terms it isessentially an island-of-Britain affair (except when there's a 'balance of power' between parties) insofar as the political parties there don't contest seats in Norn Iron with one exception, the Conservative Party - which doesn't even have a snowball in hell's chance of getting anyone elected and has seen its miserable share of the vote decline. Now what did we get through the letterbox? A 4-page colour tabloid called "News for Churches" produced by the 'Conservative Christian Fellowship' (sick). Only 3 photos of William Hague but surely the desperate act of a drowning leader and party that they should go for the 'Christian' vote at all (not even the 'faith' vote), and especially distributing it somewhere they have zero chance of getting someone elected (Norn Iron). Maybe they felt Tony Bullair had tried to corner that ('Christian') market and they had to get some of the action for themselves.

But I was fascinated by this concept of 'Tory Christianity'. I pondered deeply and made another of my lists (I'm going to have to keep a list of your lists! - Ed). I wondered is this the same 'Christianity' as that founded by, and named after, Jesus Christ, who in his lifetime said and did some interesting things;

Advised a rich man to sell all that he had.

Became a refugee very early on in life when his parents had to flee with him to Egypt.

Hung out with all sorts of 'undesirables' (i.e. people so considered).

Was seen clearly to reject violence, as did his followers for a couple of centuries.

Was considered dangerous by the religious and state leaders of the time.

Did not have a cosy ideal of 'the family' (e.g. said his message could divide families)

Specified love of enemies as essential

In short was about a whole, new radical way of living all aspects of life, physical and spiritual.

Anyhow, I have pondered long and hard on the above characteristics of the Christianity that I know. On all the above points the British Conservative Party would be somehow at odds with Jesus' experience and teaching and by these yard/metresticks (got to avoid a prosecution for using so-called 'Imperial' measurements) Tory 'Christianity' is a complete contradiction in terms. The explanation is, I have definitely decided, the Conservative Christian Fellowship must be thinking about a different 'Christianity' altogether. I wonder where their 'Christianity' comes from? 'The law and the profits'?

We're monitoring the situation
Ah, the summer, the time in Ireland when the rain gets warmer, when exotic species with yellow fronts fly in from different parts of the world for a brief period before migrating home again. The yellow fronts are, of course, the bibs or tabards (I thought tabards were pub poets - Ed) of the species concerned, Monitorus, mainly Monitorus Internationalus and Monitorus Domesticus. They come in many different plumages, shapes and sizes, here to observe the Northern Ireland marching season (the fifth season of the year, in Colum Sands' words 'right in the middle of where summer should be'). Kinds of monitors include legal, Parades Commission, pro-residents, other independents, mediation-type monitors etc. So far as I'm concerned, the more the merrier and the presence of monitors can help to keep things cool - and if things are getting out of hand, well, there's sometimes very little there and then (as opposed to now, then, and many other times again) that anyone can do to bring down the temperature.

INNATE was involved in the early development of monitoring in Norn Iron in the later 1980s and it was clear it could have an effect; in one case a policeman and a citizen were busy threatening each other, and a colleague of the policeman noticed the presence of an armbanded INNATE monitor and quickly told his colleague to calm it. The Belfast 'Newsletter' one year published a letter which we sent on behalf of the observers present regarding the paper's dangerously inaccurate report on the parade concerned; this letter was quite clearly headed 'Not for publication' - and they published it (we had to go the Press Council before getting even an unsatisfactory private apology - and they never published an apology). This also led to a reader's reply being published in the 'Newsletter', referring (deliberately!) in the 'INANE' organisation (for INNATE)!

So good luck to all those who will be standing around street, and road, corners this summer, I hope you need the sun cream, that you don't get too desperate in need of a toilet, and that you're saved the necessity of writing a lengthy report by the fact that everything will be sweetness and light (oh yeah - Ed). Northern Ireland - one of those places in the world where "We're monitoring the situation" can be a statement concerning an action and not a statement of inaction indicating a desire to continue inaction. Northern Ireland, if it didn't exist no one would be imaginative enough in their desperation to invent it.

Doing a line
Many people beyond the realms of the Free Presbyterian Church agree wholeheartedly with the Rev Ian Paisley that line dancing is the road to hell - but not necessarily in tune with his belief that "It aids and abets fleshly lusts which war against the soul.". Most people in the known unireverse now seem to have heard about this edict but I wanted to have my spake. On this matter we must be serious. So I invited my sister, Billie Jeanne, to come and act as agony aunt on the matter;

Line Dancing Questionnaire - Choose one or more of these 5 options -

You feel line dancing is a sure fire road to hell.

You feel line dancing is hell.

You don't care what the hell people do.

Hell is what you make it.

The Free Presbyterian denunciation is actually a scam engineered by the Line Dancing Association to make people think it's sexy.

1. Yea, sisters and brothers, I have walked in the shadow of the line dancers but I have survived to testify;

how can something which involves little physical contact and be undertaken a) as an alternative to aerobics b) as a bit of smaltzy crack, and c) as a tonic for the middle aged, be considered wicked? If you ticked this answer, I suggest you get out more, take up a hobby, I think line dancing is very good, both socially and physically.

2. I know what you mean. Those Yanqui cowboy boots and jeans, not to mention the toons involved. But for that ultimate existentialist experience you have to go with the flow, so book your line dancing course now.

3. This classic liberal response shows the desperate straights which society has sunk to. Apathy has taken over. People don't care and frankly I don't give a scarlet damn. You might as well take up line dancing as not.

4. People create their own hells by avoiding the issues that matter and by putting things off until 'another day'. Line dancing sounds perfect for you.

5. Oops, how did that get in, I was only elected to be public relations officer of the Line Dancing Association a few months ago.

A biblical scholar writes: Galatians 5, vs 19 -23, referred to in the Free Presbyterian statement, nowhere specifically mentions line dancing though it does condemn a number of other things which are nothing to do with line dancing. It looks like in this case we are being fed a line, dancing to a peculiar interpretation of Christian scripture.

Margate, Stargate
Brave of anyone in English seaside resort Margate to allow it to be used for the asylum seeker-focused film, The Last Resort (directed by Pawel Pawlikowski, with Dina Korzun, Paddy Considine, Artiom Streinkov). A relatively young Russian woman and her almost-adolescent but streetwise son come to England; her English boyfriend/fiance leaves her in the lurch and she claims 'political asylum' as a means of staying to try to get things sorted. Just as the film and series Stargate is about passing through to another dimension, so Margate for asylum seekers ('Stonehaven' in the film), as portrayed, is about passing into a terrible no-person's land of state bureaucracy. Arriving in their grim seaside tower block they look down to see the amusement arcade message 'Welcome to Dreamland'. In your dreams.

The main protagonists are not typical asylum seekers but they go through the experience, and basically she is saved by an amusements manager who fancies her (the film isn't as trite as this might sound). But the message, for me, is that the whole 'conveyor belt' approach to refugees and asylum seekers is wrong. While I think the refugee experience in England can be quite grim (and in Norn Iron people have been put in jail unnecessarily simply for being one), the somewhat shambolic but sometimes better situation In the Republic is also getting worse with the government moving towards direct state provision in bigger units. These are run on 'security' principles and make interaction with the local community, and any sense of humanity, much more difficult. At the moment the situation is very varied with some good situations and some bad. What is easy for the state is not what is good for people but these people have very few rights and no votes.

So, a tribute here to all the people from civil society, including a significant number of religious, all around the country who are providing services for, and fighting for the rights of asylum seekers. It is a significant movement all over - that is not to say everywhere is adequately covered - and I would like to say 'Congratulations, you're doing a great job, and all the best for the long haul and getting better systems sorted out'. When it was Irish illegals going to the USA then the state fought on their behalf; when it's asylum seekers coming to Ireland with new prosperity, well "that's a different thing entirely".

Jeremiah
All best wishes to Jerry Tyrrell in the City That Dare Not Speak Its Name on the Foyle for a speedy recovery from illness. Jerry has been such a feature of the peace education scene in Norn Iron now for such a long time that its if difficult to remember that there was a time BJ. When he came to Derry (there, you’ve named it – Ed) in the early 70s he was a member of an FOR-related peace community comprised primarily of people from another western European island; it was a measure of the times that one day they returned to find the British army rifling (that’s what armies do) through the community’s files. Explanation? ‘One of the squad was leaning against the front door and it opened so we decided to have a look around’, or words to that effect!

Jerry Tyrrell has been the moving force behind Holiday Projects West, the Quaker Peace Education Project, and is director of its successor, the EMU Promoting School Project (notice the project names getting longer all the time!) (do you mean odder? – Ed). Jerry, the jentle jiant of the scene is a well known figure here, there and yonder, at 6 feet and 4 inches or thereabouts (never been able to reach up to measure) he is definitely a man out standing in his own field (so a bit like a farmer really), or maybe it just makes him good at tall tales.

It is a little known fact that he has been immortalised in a great dramatic work (which runs for fifteen or twenty minutes) which has been performed to international acclaim; ‘A day in the life of a western nonviolence trainer’. The relevant part happens during a workshop run by ‘Norman Trainor’ and is based on a true incident during a workshop which Jerry ran at the inaugural conference of NICMA, the Northern Ireland Conflict and Mediation Association (what developed into the Mediation Network) back in 1987. Jerry had carefully explained what ground the workshop would cover, but more than half way through the workshop up pipes a voice - "Exactly what are we meant to be doing here this afternoon?". Human nature, you can’t beat it. So anyhow, greetings Jerry, we look forward to you being fit as a fiddle again soon (though why fiddles are meant to be fit, we don’t know, maybe it’s to be able to run away when the fiddle is discovered….).

London-dare-I (England, not northwest Ireland)Dare I write about a recent trip to England (what next - a day trip to Bangor, Co Down, or Ballybunion? - Ed) and not make it mundane. Well, here goes. Over for nonviolent business, a spare day allowed me view the Tate Modern (or Tete Moderne as the nearby hairdressers advertised) and the Dali exhibition, also on the South bank of the Sweet Thames Flowing Brownly (all natural the notice said). Being London, I dillied at the Dali exhibition and came away more impressed by his technical capabilities than I had been; plenty of kitsch but also plenty more than bent watches and Spanish beans and a surprising variety over the years.

The Tate Modern had the population of Ireland visiting last year - not literally - over 5 million people - but it can take it and its massive escalators seemed highly appropriate for a former industrial/power generating plant. There was lots impressed me (also plenty that didn't). On the topic of violence, Andre Fougeron's Massacre at Sakiet III, from 1958, took up the topic of French massacres in Algeria; it transcended socialist realism by its arrangement of heads and coverings on same - and by the gaitered soldiers' boots which become visible behind. For subversive (of normal thinking) humour, you couldn't beat The Great Bear which took the London Underground map, itself a relational/conceptual map, and replaced actual names with series of names of philosophers, film stars, politicians, French kings etc; 'Wittgenstein' tube station, change for 'Oliver Reed' main line (the latter a good English actor and drunken boor who made his home in Co Cork in his last years). Its serious point is indicated by the title - humanity's attempts to make sense of what we see by attaching labels or names.

Other jokes from my trip up? Following on from the comments on anarchism the last time here's one pun I picked up;

Q. Why do anarchists drink herbal tea?

A. Because property is theft. (The latter is a quote from Proudhon, a proud hon-cho if ever I saw one).

Departing Londing at Stanstead airport, a slightly halting non-native speaker on the public address system, advertising the start of boarding for the Ryanair flight to Edinburgh, advised passengers to have their passports ready, then stopped for some seconds before continuing to advise them to have their boarding cards ready. I never knew Scottish nationalism had come so far.

Honesty is the best policy
Call me old-fashioned it you like (you're old-fashioned - Ed), but I was brought up to believe that honesty is the best policy - which perturbs me about many practices today. I am, of course, talking about gardening and not about Charles Haughey or morality (the ethics of the little white lie are probably beyond me but I could pronounce on whoppers). Honesty is the best policy, and so are poppies, candytuft, foxgloves (digitalis to you - something to prove you're got a 'green digit'?) and so on which seed themselves. Serendipity-doo-dah. Where you're happy for them to stay, you leave them. And if not then they're easy to pull out. It's leaving a bit to chance and Parent Nature (so what happened to Mother Nature? - Ed) rather than the modernist fashionable trend for over-organisation in the garden, all decking and designer flowers and shrubs. So, a bit of a walk on the wilder side. And of course a willingness to accept some imports from your neighbours - look out for the positives along with the blow-ins like dandelions and that creep convolvulus. (Ed - No, there's no intention to start a gardening column, it's just Billy trying to call a spade a horticultural implement for manipulating the earth and digging himself into a hole) (Billy - Just be careful Ed or I'll give you the German pronunciation of 'hanging ladies') (Ed - Just do that and it's you that'll be hanging by your digitalis) (Mediator - Any more insults and I'm resigning and handing in the trowel).