My recent trip to Belfast triggered the song Suspect Device by Stiff Little Fingers in my head. It came out of nowhere, sparked by a mural on the Shankill Road celebrating loyalist paramilitaries — the sort of imagery that still looms over parts of the city like a ghost from the past. As I stood there, one line from the song came flooding back into my head: “They’ll take away your freedom in the name of liberty.” It’s a line that is ...
A visit to Belfast isn’t complete without confronting its past. One of the most raw, revealing, and essential ways to do that is by taking a Troubles Taxi Tour through West Belfast — a journey into the very heart of a conflict that still casts a long shadow.
A Journey Through West Belfast
Your guide is typically a local, someone who lived through The Troubles, and what they offer is more than a history lesson. They drive you through ...
Nigel Farage has made a career out of shouting simple answers to complicated problems while holding a pint like it’s a crucifix and puffing a cigarette thinking he’s Churchill reincarnated—if Churchill had been sponsored by GB News and a dodgy hedge fund. But here’s the question: does he actually believe in the far-right populist nonsense he spouts, or is this just the most profitable midlife crisis in British history?
Ideologue or ...
Picture the scene. You’re an angler. You’ve lovingly and regularly caught a 50lb carp named Barry for half a decade. Barry’s more than a fish—he’s a legend, a slippery mirror carp with a fan base and a gut a barstool bullshitter would envy. Then, one frosty morning, you find poor Barry half-eaten on the bank, looking like he's been on the wrong end of a knife fight with a furry torpedo.
Enter the otter, Britain’s aquatic comeback ...
Social media. That great modern courtroom where facts go to die and everyone’s an expert in counter-terrorism law, forensic psychology, and apparently, vehicle dynamics.
Following yesterday’s incident in Liverpool—where a man under the influence of drugs drove into pedestrians—social platforms lit up with a familiar cry: “Call it what it is—terrorism!”
Except… it isn’t.
Let’s Consult Actual Law for a Moment
Acc...
