District
Judge Barney McElholm, sitting at Derry Magistrates Court in Derry
Londonderry (54 degrees North, 7 degrees West), in the trial of a man
facing a number of drugs charges committed in May and August 2012,
said he could not commit to a bail application on Monday because he
was
involved
in this other farrago.
farrago
noun (farragos or farragoes) a confused mixture; a hotchpotch.
Etymology:
17c:
Latin, meaning 'mixed fodder'.
The
Chambers Dictionary; 12th
Edition; 2011
The
farrago
he referred to is the G8 Summit, set for a golf resort in County
Fermanagh, near Enniskillen (54 degrees North, 7 degrees West) on
Monday and following days.
People
in Enniskillen today -
Bloomsday!
What would James Joyce make of the Judge's farrago?
-
- for
the Ulster Senior Gaelic Football Championship Quarter Final between
Cavan and Fermanagh will find their travel plans disrupted by what the District Judge referred to as
a
travelling Eurovision song contest, which has completely disrupted
the criminal justice system in Northern Ireland.
Football
fans sent on long detours, airport security heightened; schools
closed, public examinations disrupted; farmers asked not to spread
slurry because of the smell; a temporary morgue put in place; police
officers and equipment flown in from Britain; temporary holding
cells, the criminal justice system disrupted; business compromised,
working patterns
changed: no wonder the Judge, like many other people, wonders about
the benefits of having the meeting in Fermanagh.
If
it means
Putting
everything else on the back burner. I hope its worth it.
As
well as the content and networking involved in such a meeting, the
fact of the meeting itself is a symbolic representation of
the
current social order. It
is a
manifestation of power on the ground. The intense, almost hysterical,
preparations for the event indicate how out of kilter the social
(dis) order is.
Aerial
photographs of the venue
for the G8 summit,
a
cluster of buildings on lawns beside a lake,
situate it anywhere north of Spain in Europe and anywhere along a
whole stretch of the North American coast. The photographs do not scream
'Fermanagh'.
The
Judge reckons
It
would be better held in the middle of the desert somewhere for all
the good it does anybody.
One
location for future meetings could be anywhere east of Nyala (12
degrees North, 24 degrees East), near the border between Sudan and
Chad, in any of the refugee camps located in that region. The
refugees probably have enough to deal with, without the Judge's
farrago
showing up, disrupting everything and leaving a mess behind.
Like
a gang of rowdy teenage boys and their hangers-on, taking over a
beach on a sunny day, bothering everybody else with their noise and
their ostentatious, inflated language, before leaving stacks of cans,
pizza boxes, bottles and other garbage behind, when they speed off in
their souped-up vehicles.
Video-conferencing
anybody?
Come on Fermanagh!
The
Derry Journal:
newspaper; Derry; 14th
June 2013
http://ulster.gaa.ie
www.facebook.com/DaveDugganWriter
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