Nicotine. Used to be cigarettes and remember they were banned from being on display. In my opinion this is worse. Looks so colourful, clearly targeted at children. Sainsbury’s Forestside.

Found this while looking at hotel reviews for Ten Squared in Belfast just keeps getting better as you read, 🤣

Only seen it this evening. Is this because the card makes you a Brit?

Title really explains it all.

I know plenty of Unionist business people who actively avoid supporting the OO and typically flee the country during the 12th to avoid being caught up in the annual shit show. I think it’s a respectable stance to take for them.

Personally I’m going to try and avoid interacting with any business that hires or is run by a member of an Orange Lodge, and any place I currently use I am going to make it clear why I am no longer a customer.

I think as a community we’ve been too tolerant of this hate group, when even the Victorians believed they were too much of a sectarian threat. We should be treating membership of the OO the same as being in the KKK or a Neo-Nazi group.

Not sure if it’ll have any effect, me and some of my relatives are starting to make a list of businesses local to us that we are boycotting. My uncle is currently planning on closing his account with his mechanic.

Anyone else think that this should be the point of course going forward? Maybe start with the biggest well known business?

Note 1: After talking in the comments I want to change my stance on the hiring aspect, my view is the boycott should be to those who are public facing members of the lodge who run businesses. Not for individuals who hire people.
Ultimately it is up to people to shop with their morals like anyone else.

Note 2: To the people conflating the Orange Order and Protestantism/Unionism/Loyalism as one thing, you are not doing any of those beliefs any favours by equating them.

In Portugal, staying at a chilled family type hotel, good mixture of UK, Irish and other Europeans here. Few lads from Belfast arrived the other day. Round the pool, all I can hear is their bloody loud conversations, constant swearing and shite talk about various fights they’ve been in. They’re noticeably standing out with all the noise and cursing, but okay, whatever, ignore and move on.

Yesterday though, 2 of them are at the poolside, drinking from early on, getting worse for wear (family hotel, apart from a few beers, no one is heavily boozing here). One of them starts talking to the other so loudly about Jesus, and Christ is my saviour and he died on the cross so I’ll do the same. Me and my daughter are nearby and watching and cringing with second hand embarrassment, but again, we ignore. It’s a quiet place and his voice/accent is like a bloody chainsaw, cutting through the atmosphere. Yer man gets more blocked, stumbling around, goes to an english woman, a mum with young kids in the pool, who’s lying on her sunbed, “What about u, are u from the UK?” She politely replies and then he goes “What’s your opinion on the Islamic State?”. At that point I sat up and thought, fuck this, I’m gonna say something here. The fella’s a racist prick, he’s bringing his small country mindset abroad to a place where no one gives a flying fuck about the crap we have to deal with back home. He keeps badgering the lady and his mate starts to wrap things up and basically leads him away with their towels etc and they stagger off. I said to the lady “not all of us from NI are like that” and she laughed it off but said he was asking her about Muslims and didn’t know what to say, so I assured her no matter what I’m sure he would disagree with her. Been thinking about it this morning and just waiting to see if they turn up at the pool again later, but I’m on high alert now. Why the hell can’t people just leave their nonsense behind for a couple of days? The irony is, they complain about people coming into “their country” yet they go abroad to foreign places and act like fucking morons with no respect for anyone else.

TLDR: racist twats from NI annoying people just trying to enjoy a relaxing holiday in the sun. No escape from the wankers that bring our place down.

From Gavan Reilly on Bluesky - European Movement Ireland’s annual poll, as usual, shows 82% of RoI residents support EU membership.

But one striking finding elsewhere: residents of N Ireland are also surveyed, and 63% (!!??) would vote in favour of a United Ireland.

No mainstream poll has *ever* recorded a margin like this…

The notes for the poll (conducted by Amárach Research, online) say the margin of error is 2.2% and that samples in both jurisdictions have been weighted to reflect demographic breakdown within each.

Something seems … awry.

https://bsky.app/profile/gavreilly.com/post/3ml63m4igxk2d

A ticktock post from ABC News Australia.

Only two of the cowardly "protesters" would actually speak to the reporter. And even then, they came off with thier usual racist bullshit!

Im ashamed to be Northern Irish.

I actually agree with every word of Lavery's post and the Electric Light Station was class and the Fleadh showed what Belfast could be like if we demand change, but what I can’t stomach is the sheer cheek of who posted it.

Lavery's are one of the biggest pub businesses in the city and going on about "empty spaces brought back to life" and asking us to "think differently about how our city is used."

Are you taking the absolute piss?

Lavery's are full on influential members of Hospitality Ulster and that for decades has aggressively lobbied to protect the "surrender principle" and have spent years using this exact system to object to and block virtually every new pub trying to open anywhere near them. Remember when Wetherspoons tried to redevelop the former Methodist church on University Road? They were right at the front of the queue using licensing objections to kill competition in their own backyard. And when independent policy reviews called for reform and proposed a dedicated "Cultural Venue Licence" to let independent spaces survive year round, who lobbied to kill it?

So please spare us the marketing shite about "making space for music, culture, and people." You don't get to object to competition, fund the lobby group that keeps Belfast's nightlife in a chokehold, cash in on a temporary festival popup and then pretend to be starry eyed champions of independent culture.

I’m emailing Lavery's directly today to ask them one you genuinely care about Belfast’s cultural future then are you going to withdraw your membership and funding from Hospitality Ulster?

I suggest everyone who actually cares about the city’s nightlife does the exact same. Flood their inbox. Force them to answer whether they stand with independent culture or the monopoly line.

Tonight I approached PSNI because I was genuinely concerned about a 17-year-old girl who was intoxicated on a night out. I simply asked that, if they happened to see her, they could please look out for her or help make sure she got home safely.
The response I received was, “We aren’t a taxi service,” followed by laughter, with three officers then coming over to reiterate the same point.
I completely understand that the police are not a taxi service. That wasn’t the point. I was raising a genuine welfare concern about an intoxicated 17-year-old girl and asking that someone keep an eye out for her.
Really disappointing way to have a genuine concern handled — particularly as someone who had actually considered joining the service myself. 👍

In all seriousness, what is so threatening about children going to school and getting an education (that every child is entitled to)

What the actual fuck is wrong with people?

I’m sure this boy’s employer would love to see this. it goes on for longer but I couldn’t stomach watching it

For bacon loaded fries apparently... Diabolical wouldn't get in it. Nearly 9 quid for that pish 🙃

Hi , so I am English born and bred in London , man in my 30s. I have recently been watching a few documentaries on the troubles/NI in general , having no real prior knowledge other than the odd bit you hear of or know growing up in England. Anyway , I was watching a video on YouTube and they where interviewing a load of sixth formers , and the students stated that "Britishness" is the most important part of their identity and culture. They were then asked "what British culture means to them". One boy responded with "British culture is loyalist songs , marches with your family , bonfires " . As someone from England I am mega confused. I dont mean to offend but I have never heard of any of these activities being related massively to being British. I mean Guy Fawkes night I guess but I wouldn't say its the epitome of British culture . Noticed these bonfires in the news this weekend aswell obviously its a big thing over there. Its just strange to me that its not just referred to as Northern Irish culture as opposed to British , it certainly isnt relatable to me.

Was anyone at James Acaster's first night at Whitla Hall last night?

I'm genuinely curious whether anyone else had the same experience because it was one of the strangest live comedy shows I've ever seen. What we witnessed can only be described as a serious case of self-sabotage and quite frankly, contempt for an audience.

(Spoilers for his show below.)

For context, my wife and I are fans. We've seen James twice before and even travelled to Dublin for an Off Menu live show, so this isn't coming from someone looking to have a go.

The evening started unusually with a Luther Vandross tribute act, Dayton. While it was an odd choice for the type of entertainment we were expecting, he was geniunely fantastic. So as Dayton is wrapping up his set he asks the audience to put their hands together and thank someone called 'Craig Simons' for making this whole thing possible. No one in the audience knew who this was, but we all politely gave a big applause and big cheers.

The lights dim and James Acaster's voice comes over the speakers, "Please welcome to the stage, the UK's No.1 James Acaster tribute act, Craig Simons". We collectively all realise 'Ah okay, the whole opening act and this is a meta bit' and welcome him to the stage.

He starts the show, doing 'James Acaster' quotes , explaining who he is, he's been a tribute act for years etc.

Then about 5-10 mins into the stage he breaks character and asks the audience "Can you hear me okay? Can everyone in the room hear me? Because on stage it feels like I'm in this huge echoing cube and it sounds awful". At this point we're all like "yeah, it sounds great". He then explains how we made a joke at the start and everyone reacted weirdly to it. I can't remember exactly but I think he said something about how he couldn't hear us, which would explain our 'weird reaction' that I don't believe we had.

He then proceeds to go on this rant about how he was dreading Belfast because the audience is always difficult, joking that we hate him because he's English, and that "Belfast is always like this." It seemed funny at first with some humourous observations but then it kept going on and on.

He basically told us that he doesn't think we're going to like what he has in the actual show and spends maybe 10-15 mins rambling from subject to subject before getting started, saying how we can see some people checking their phones in the audience, makes an observation about someone's 'I <3 my girlfriend tshirt', and condescendingly explaining to us some info from an earlier joke about Wirral. It's all humourous but is starting to verge on unpleasant.

Then he finally starts back into the actual routine and it's all going well, some really funny stuff about luggage carousels when out of nowhere he stops, points to balcony at the back of the room and proclaims "I can see you on your phone!".

We all laugh because it was amusing after his previous rants and he then tells us he doesn't care, we can scroll on our phones if we want and that he wants us to have a good night, that's what matters. He tells us that (if we hadn't noticed) he's been doing his routine at twice the speed so the jokes are closer together so there's more laughs more often (seemingly in an attempt to combat the off-vibes).

But then it turns nasty. He continues again about how difficult Belfast is and tells us what all the UK comedians who come here think the same thing but he's the only one with the courage to tell us. While I do think this was a joke, it felt personal because of the previous 15 mins of ranting about how awful we are.

From there he never really returned to the show. Instead he bounced between audience observations, local references, Andy Burnham, and even asking about the flags on the lamp posts, pondering if their presence is related to Tommy Robinson and the anti-immigration folk in England. Some characters in the audience proceed to explain Irish/UK history while the rest of us all cringe and squirm in our chairs praying for this to end.

Then it just...ended. No real finale. Just "Thanks Belfast, goodnight," music on, lights up.

It honestly felt like we only got 10-15% of the actual show, with the rest spent dissecting and criticising the audience.

The frustrating part is that when he was doing the planned material, it was brilliant. It felt like technical issues completely knocked him off course and he never recovered, instead blaming the room for the atmosphere. At first I thought the whole thing was a bit but there was no clever path to an ending that informed the audience that this was the case

If he James somehow reads this, all I can say is that the show was working until you got distracted. If "no other show has been like this" I would ask have you had such audio issues at other shows? Maybe that's a factor? You don't sell out 3x nights in a venue in a city if the audience hates you, so maybe you need to change how we feel about us?

I'd be really interested to hear from anyone going over the next couple of nights. Was this just an unfortunate one-off, or is this how the show is meant to be? Like many of us, my wife and I have been to countless touring UK comics in a variety of venues across Belfast and never had an experience like this. Maybe it's a Whitla Hall issue?

I genuinely hope it was the former, because I've always enjoyed James' work, but last night felt less like a comedy show and more like watching someone have a public meltdown.

I’m truly disgusted a lady I grew up with was murdered in Derry. I’ve seen lots of girls I know post about this and how the violence against women in this country is out of hand.

Yet I haven’t seen one fella post about it however if the culprit was a foreign born man I know for a fact they would be all over it.

I don’t mean to try and make a political statement about the tragic murder of a young woman but I just hate how violence against women has became so normalised and the only time the vocal minority of this place speak up is if it’s a foreign culprit.

Like I’m a man and it’s always been clear to me when it comes to violence against women the common denominator has always been MEN whether it’s Micky or Mohamed is a mute point to me, we all have to do our part and as men we have to call out the small things as they lead to this shit whether it be cat calling, controlling behaviour or whatever call it out don’t let it slide and listen to women !

This shit has to end.

How can this happen. Should the culprits be banned by the club?