Occasional Scribbles

So what on earth does the word 'fulsome' mean? Republican Governor of New Jersey was fulsome in his praise for Barack Obama, so sa...

From 02.00 today Ireland and the UK are now an hour further away from Moscow. There are now four hours between us. Last year Russia deci...

No trains, no buses tonight in the city that never sleeps. All's quite in New York tonight as it awaits Sandy.

An interesting discovery. With the current controversy in Germany over the neo-nazis, the term V Leute has popped up. V Leute are V People...

Did anything dawn on Eamon Gilmore while in Berlin yesterday? German Foreign Minister Guido Westerwelle and SPD chancellor candidate Peer ...

Murdoch, Savile, might the Vatican have a thing or two to learn?

Hans Michael Strepp, press adviser with the German CSU party has resigned. He is accused of trying to influence the ZDF television station...

Lord Patten, Chairman of the BBC Trust, said this evening that people in positions of authority tend to live in silos. He was talking abou...

BBC Director-General George Entwistle gave evidence in the House of Commons today. The similarities between the behaviour of Mr Entwistle ...

According to the German Federal Statistics Office, one in four Germans consider themselves poor. That's over 16 million people living in...

There has to be, there must be. Surely there is a link in the Catholic priesthood between arch conservative, zealous right wing behaviour an...

 This will be the 31st time that we have been asked to change the Constitution.  This week's INM regional column By Mich...

"The corporates are losing and the journalists are winning." Professor Stewart Purvis. A quote on this evening's BBC Newsnig...

History was made in Germany today. For the first time, a member of the Green Party was elected mayor in the capital city of a federal stat...

Absolut Vodka is currently running an ad campaign on Dublin buses. It should be banned. The ad runs, '... absolut unique'. Is it p...

The story of Roberto Formigonis, who was forced to dissolve the Lombary/Milan government this week, is intriguing, to say the least. Formi...

This evening on German television there was a discussion on the role the German Army is playing in Afghanistan. It was sensational. In a f...

The tiger-iguana synthesis. According to VW information 'the people' wanted Tiguan, a blend of the German words for tiger (Tiger) ...

The column below appears in this week's INM Irish regional newspapers. There are 14 INM Irish regionals and this column is carried in 1...

"A pair of hands last a year a pair of legs two years." As brutal and as stark as that. The former Director General of the GAA...

Below is the Thinking Anew column in today's Irish Times, which appears on page 15 of the newspaper. By Michael Commane In this news...

It really is impossible not to say these two names; Jimmy Savile and Fr Y. Just that. No more.

BBC's Newsnight discussed the Jimmy Savile affair this evening. One of the panelists, broadcaster Vanessa Feltz, said that 'back t...

Three former members of the Marist Congregation gave an account of their journey towards non-belief in God on the John Murray Show on RTE Ra...

Today the Church of Ireland community in the church of Ballymacelligott celebrated harvest liturgy. I had the privilege to preach at their...

Anyone who saw US President Barack Obama on last night's television debate will surely have noticed that there was something greatly wor...

Today is Germany's national holiday. The Germans celebrate the Day of Germany Unity, which happened on October 3, 1990. Every year a...

Rumour doing the rounds that a group of men, wearing Dominican habits, were stopped by a garda, asking them if they were going to a stag. ...

The piece below is from the blog, Italian Politics with Walston . The trial of Paolo Gabriele began today. He was the Pope’s manservant who...

This week former German Chancellor Helmut Schmidt and the current Federal German President, Joachim Gauck, spent 90 minutes talking to Mayb...

At a press conference in Berlin this afternoon SPD's Sigmar Gabriel has announced that Peer Steinbrück will be the SPD's candidate i...