15th July, 2012

On Twelfth Night, Belfast is hardly ever a midsummer night’s dream. Plenty of toil and trouble though.

It’s the kind of thing that would render a visiting committee from another planet speechless. One group of people celebrate culture by burning posters of Polish people and using Beach Boys tunes for evil outside a Church, while another group either get the hell out of Dodge or make an absolute hames of everything. And all for the love of having a good long walk, passing some shops and sitting in a field for a while.

That said according to the half hour highlights show I watched on the 12^th The Orange People had a ripping time doing Orangey stuff in most parts of Northern Ireland. But while in the fields with the ice cream van and flute bands were in all was dandy, up at the field where their preferred football team play – Ibrox – all was far from Roy of the Rovers. Yup, in a move that most Celtic fans recklessly playing a footballing manager game deliberately would struggle to engineer, Rangers will be playing in Scotland’s third division, where the standard of play is such that Fr Romeo Sensini could probably be top scorer. But not to worry though, because Gazza is well up for playing. Someone pass the beer and roast chicken.

In a big week for controversial football announcements, it turns John Terry is not in fact racist, as “black cunt” must be a term of endearment in his village. Thankfully now he’s not racist he could always join The Fugees, as lord knows “Four Times!” will be his new nickname following a bizarre misunderstanding of what counsel was asking him.

Liverpool fans were up in arms at the ruling, comparing Terry’s case with that of Luis Suarez, but most of the miscarriage of justice fury was funnelled toward Mauritius, as the Michaela McAreevy trial ended with acquittal for the two men charged with her murder. It’s been a wrenching 18 months for her family and the case at times verged on the ridiculous, but you’d hope that people would, despite the obvious high emotion of the case, appreciate that locking any two guys up in the name of getting a conviction is hardly justice. Apparently not.

Over in the States Mitt Romney, who has made garbled, disingenuous political philosophy and distorting the truth something of an artform recently, may finally be bang to rights. Romney’s Presidential narrative goes that after years of being a job-creating white knight at the totally not evil-sounding Bain Capital, he left in 1999 to take over the Winter Olympics, where he created even more jobs, established peace among nations and shot brilliant light from his hands to light beacons for all mankind. But as with everything about Romney, not everything was quite as it seemed.

Democrats had been hitting Romney about Bain’s conduct outsourcing jobs abroad and asset stripping, and Mitt claimed he had nothing to do with any of that, because he had left by then and had nothing to do with the enterprise after 1999. Apart from still being its CEO and sole shareholder until 2002 that is. And now because this slight enormous discrepancy and massive hedge maze of lies is filed in government financial returns, he may have committed a felony. Usually Republican Presidents wait til they get to The White House before breaking the law.

Romney’s chances of getting the biggest job in the world are now amoeba sized, but Canadian student Vanessa Hojda might have some tips from him in turning around a bit of a disaster into a personal plus. While going about her summer job hunting she sent a cover letter and CV to a prospective employer, but something was amiss. Because instead of sending her CV, she attached a picture of Nicolas Cage.

Doing an instant mea maxima culpa she posted the mistake on her Tumblr, and in no time flat became an internet sensation and even got offered some jobs. Now excuse me while I send the head of Radio 2 a picture of Marisa Tomei.