IRA amp's at the max but the speaker's silent
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• Men In Black 3 London Premiere
By Eilis O'Hanlon
Sunday Aug 31 2008
Bet the IRA wish they hadn't got rid of all those weapons now. For weeks now, republicans have been threatening to collapse the power-sharing government up North if they don't get their own way about something or other. Who gets to sit on the comfiest cushion every second Tuesday at Stormont, perhaps. Problem is, nobody's taking the blindest bit of notice.
It was on such occasions in the past that a well-placed car bomb in the City of London used to make such a difference.
It certainly did to the innocent people who got blown to smithereens in the process, anyway. What can the Provos do these days if they don't get their way -- threaten to organise an interactive workshop on British infamy at the next West Belfast Festival? Ask the Wolfe Tones to write a new song about it? Sitting on the IRA Army Council post-decommissioning must be rather like being in a Thin Lizzy tribute band. It all looks and sounds vaguely familiar, but something just ain't right. The amp's still turned up to 11 but there's nothing coming out of the speaker.
Madonna no doubt feels the IRA's pain. Like them, she's nowhere near as "Semtexy" as she used to be, whatever she likes to think as she gyrates her way through another "shocking" stage show.
If only she'd get out while her dignity's intact, but all that Madge is giving up, reportedly, is food, as she sticks to an 800 calorie a day diet that's left her looking about as voluptuous as a pretzel on a body- building grasshopper's borrowed legs.
For the audience on the Material Girl's latest world tour, you could say it's not a case of Like A Virgin any more so much as Vergin' On The Ridiculous.
- Eilis O'Hanlon
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