Miscellany

On what is, to us, an un-blog worthy day, we refer you to other items of interest. We mentioned a little while ago the ill-advised libel case concerning the murder of French woman Sophie Toscan du Plantier in west Cork; the police "like" Ian Bailey for it but he says he didn't do it, while many newspapers implied that he did. Bailey sued for libel and has now lost, which basically makes him the OJ Simpson of west Cork. It does leave a residue of embarrassment for the Republic's legal system, given its inability to make a criminal case against someone who effectively implicated himself.

But perhaps the resources of the Irish legal system are occupied with truly important matters, such as those described on the blog GUBU, in which the blogatrix herself is being hauled before a tribunal tomorrow to explain her puppetmaster-like control of Ireland's mobile phone licenses in the mid-1990s.

And on a completely different note, here's a bizarre flying story: what are the odds of being a flight where TWO passengers die, apparently of natural causes, and apparently in unconnected incidents? That was the experience of passengers on BA 208 from Miami to Heathrow on Sunday. No-one is working on any conspiracy theories about this one...yet.

Update: another item for the reading list: A New York Times review of the latest Gerry Adams book. The review is by the NYT's Irish correspondent, Brian Lavery. Warning: uses the equation Northern Ireland = Ulster.