It's a plain little cover, evocative of the 50's - so there put that in yer pipe and smoke it!

People, who ask questions, sometimes not really looking, or waiting for an answer asked “Why is the cover of Streets of Birdsong, plain and unexciting?

I don't tell them, just ask what they think it should have been. I never get suggestions. That's the problem with people they have views on everything in their own head, but will never speak out about what those views are. 

It's an Irish form of Paranoia: fear that people will overhear you, or form a view of you by hearing what you say or think.

The clue to the cover is in the time period depicted, and Ireland where Irish books were not widely available and those that were suffered from a lack of publishers' financial support. Don't judge the book by the cover was the mantra. So a really amateur type cover sometimes contained gems.

So the cover of Streets depicts the time, the history, the stories, the characters of Midland Ireland, and the poverty of not having a flash cover.

A few hours to go on the vote on Article 40.3.3 and I'm an Undecided!

I am referendummed out – maybe just numbed out.

Vote Yes: or mothers will die while pregnant.

Vote No: so that mothers won't be forced to die while pregnant.

The more exaggerations one side made the more exaggerations the other side made.

And now broadcasters and papers need to be silent on the issue until the polls close later tomorrow Friday 25th May.

And I still don't know what way I will vote!

I do know I have to make my X for Yes or my X for No, and I will: while remembering, I am not as usual, marking X to sign my name.

The Eight Amendment to the Irish Constitution - A View,

We will go the the polls on Friday next to decide if we want to remove the protection of the mother and child in pregnancy from out constitution and replace it with a bland paragraph that will allow the Oireachtas (Ireland's upper and lower house and the President) to legislate for abortion up to 12 weeks of life. Some say a loop hole in there allows abortion up to 24 weeks, which is strange because a stillborn baby of 24 weeks in Ireland can be issued with a Birth Cert and a state identity number (PPS Number).

Typical muddled ideas by Ireland's group of amateur shopkeepers, landlords, auctioneers and farmers that get elected to parliament in Ireland, on a proportional representational manner, which means a person with very few first preference votes can get elected by coat-tailing on others. Another Irish way to trick the people to put candidates that no one really wants in our parliament. Mostly head noders (either to agree with a proposal, or to show they're asleep and should not be disturbed) and Gombeen Men (Look it up Google “Gombeen Men Ireland”).

In 1929 Hitler said at the Nazi Party Conference in Nuremberg,"that an average annual removal of 700,000-800,000 of the weakest of a million babies meant an increase in the power of the nation and not a weakening".

In doing so, he was able to draw upon scientific argument that transferred the Darwinian theory of natural selection to human beings and, through the concept of racial hygiene, formulated the "Utopia" of "human selection" as propounded by Alfred Ploetz, the founder of German racial hygiene.

As early as 1895, he (Ploetz) demanded that human offspring should not:

be left to the chance encounter of a drunken moment. [...] If, nevertheless, it turns out that the newborn baby is a weak and misbegotten child, the medical council, which decides on citizenship for the community, should prepare a gentle death for it, say, using a little dose of morphine.

“6. (1) It shall be lawful to carry out a termination of pregnancy in accordance with this Head where 2 medical practitioners certify that, in their reasonable opinion, there is present a condition affecting the foetus that is likely to lead to the death of the foetus either before birth or shortly after.”

No the last bit was not Hitler or Ploetz, it's from the proposed abortion legislation id Ireland repeal the eight amendment to OUR ( The Peoples') constitution.

God Help Us All – Island of Saints and Scholars my backside.

The Bally Who Bugle, goes all political - over Referendum 2018

What's on my mind? The same thing, I imagine, is on everyone's mind: Referendum 2018. Do we repeal the eight or not?

From all the things I hear people saying, and what politicians are spouting about, and the amount of “Gibberish” being thrown around, I know for a fact that the fallout from this will be worse than the Brexit Vote.

“Wha' I can't get an abortion the day after we vote?”

“No. Lady you can't.”

We are being asked to replace article 40.3.3 which protects the life of the mother and child, and allows freedom of travel, and the right as well, to have access to the information needed to make a choice to go elsewhere for a termination.

We are being asked to insert this paragraph in its place.

“Provision may be made by law for the regulation of termination of pregnancy.”

That's it.

The Referendum Commission says in the literature....

Laws are made by the Oireachtas. You are not being asked in this referendum to vote on any particular law relating to the termination of pregnancy.

So if we repeal the eight we hand over the problem to the Dáil, Seanad and President.

This will give us all nightmare nights. The won't agree on a real solution.

I know the camel was supposed to be a horse, but it was designed by collegiate decisions.

At the moment they can't agree on the Shane Ross (Spite) bill on drink and driving. His latest twist is that he wants to take cars away from parents who let their kids drive unaccompanied while learning to drive with an L plate.

That's what the L means Minister Learning.

So does anyone really think this polyglot collection of elected representative, who may soon be facing an election, can really legislate for the termination of pregnancy?

Note: A Polyglot speaks several languages as in using Mattyisms, Healys-From Rae speak, Cork Boys' Whispers, and Fingallian, and Wicklaese, etc..

No way Jose (elected reps. It's pronounced Hose eh.) Pretty near to the spelling of horse. Or is that a camel?

Like Brexit – this process is another con, that will occupy successive Governments: but if the Dáil is dissolved doesn't proposed bills lapse.

Detective Shay Fanahan - had better watch out - Nora has her eye on him!

Nora, assistant chief in the force, wondered again who Fanahan had crossed, or who was afraid of him, or some information he had or could get.

Sometimes at night alone, in her lonely bed, empty since she had kicked her drunk of a partner out, she thought of Fanahan. Did she hate him, or did she fancy him. As the men in her life could attest – she liked a bit of rough, not rough sex, just a rake, that's what her mother would have said. Nora finds rakes in any dancehall in the countryside and tries to change them. Mother was right: the danger beckoned to her. Maybe that was why she choose a life in policing. God knows in her early career shd arrested enough thugs, had enough interaction with criminals to cure her. Maybe it did since it had been a long time since she found another rake attractive. Fanahan was a rake, no doubt about that. Would she bed him, younger and lower in rank than she was? Would he bed her? With enough drink in him he would bed anyone. But not her it seems. When they were younger and in the same station, but mostly when she was in the station and Fanahan was out doing his detective work; at a party one night another colleague asked Fanahan would he take Nora out. He laughed out loud and offered an opinion that not even the tide would take her out.

Was that why she tried to implicated him in the hacking? No! It was because she had to work hard as a woman in the force to get ahead, to a place where her ego and ambition thought she should be. Fanahan on the other hand did f-all real work, real police work, and kept landing on his feet. Imagine! Falling over a serial killer dressed in drag and solving the biggest serial killer case ever in Ireland..

Senior management wanted to promote him to Superintendent Rank and give him a large team of detectives to manage. While advancing up through the ranks Nora had buried a few skeletons, or knew where others buried their dirty cases, ones where the wrong criminal was in prison while police informers went free, to inform again. She threatened people and the newly promoted Inspector Fanahan was now doing a desk job. Now new procedures being considered would give his jobs to a civilian. Then he would be back on the streets.

But it might be that her interference and overstepping her instructions on the hacking debacle, might be against her. She was feeling a chill wind of a sideways move blowing.

The way to protect herself would be to discover who, in what position in the Department Of Justice or Government were pulling the strings. For that she might have to make serious peace with Fanahan and use him.

While climbing the ranks, Nora was never adverse, to a bit of coat-tailing. Taking credit for a subordinates' efforts.

At home one evening, alone, except for her companion John Jameson she hatched a plan to protect herself, her position. The attempt to smear Fanahan could find a route back to her, particularly if the senior Commission needed a scapegoat. Her friend Jameson after some time persuaded her she should find out why she was asked to get Shambles, she liked that Shamus, Shamie, Shambo, Shambles, back to his day job.

I Wonder, is there any way, I can get him reporting to me on a special project...