The
Portadown News has come to the end of its
shelf life. Perhaps it was time to draw the curtain
as suggested in the Observer given the difficulty
in keeping momentum. Nevertheless, I derived enjoyment
from it right up until its last gasp. It was a rich
vein of witty material and there was always enough
in it to give offence to those perennial practitioners
of victimology from whatever quarter who seem to
take perverse pleasure in being offended.
One
of its more memorable moments referred to the 2002
PSNI raid on the offices of Stormont Sinn Fein,
where it was claimed the police went in search of
IRA intelligence and only found Gerry Kelly. Kelly
is not stupid, can be very witty, and probably laughed
at the humour even if he was on the receiving end
of it. SF in general may not have appreciated it
all that much. It wants to be treated with the gravitas
reserved for the serious and the sombre even while
Jim Gibney week in week out seeks to prove in his
Irish News column that the law of gravity
as established by Isaac Newton was in fact wrong.
Jim has found, courtesy of the peace process, that
apples actually float upwards when they fall from
trees. Suggestions to the contrary are securocrat-inspired
for the specific purpose of undermining the world's
greatest ever experience in bridge building.
On
one occasion I found myself scraped by the Newtonian
scalpel when Emerson penned a piece on similarities
between myself and Bob McCartney. Fine. Humour that
is irreverent and finds nothing sacred is a great
leveller. At no point was I tempted to lift the
phone and inform someone in authority on the author.
Nor presumably was Gerry Kelly. People who have
been at the coal face are not naturally inclined
towards touting.
Newton
Emerson combined wit and intellect in abundance.
Although, that in itself does not always cut the
mustard in the land where mustard cutting may not
be helpful to the peace process.
What
is your agenda, mo chara? You must be opposed to
the great historic peace process or you wouldn't
be facetious about it. Humour is not helpful to
the wonderful historic peace process. Only rejectionists
who are not courageous and imaginative, unable to
confront the greatest crisis ever, make fun at the
expense of the truly historic peace process, mo
chara.
Faced
with the sour faced devotees of the world's premier
peace process, ability alone is seldom enough to
surmount the barriers of prejudice. The unexpected
break from the most unlikely of quarters may be
what it takes to burst the dam and allow creativity
to gush forth. Despite Emerson's talent, how many
people really knew of him or the Portadown News
until the immensely untalented Robin Livingstone
decided to pit his lack of wits against the then
emerging Portadown News website?
It
would be a truism to claim on Emerson's behalf that
he is brighter than Livingstone. Who isn't? Or that
he is a better writer. Pudsy Ryan manages that.
Truth is, Emerson so destroyed the Sinn Fein cheerleader
that the latter came in with the dirty tackle from
behind and informed the management in Emerson's
then place of employment that the Portadown News
was being updated during working hours. Emerson
accordingly lost his job.
Informing
might come naturally to Robin Livingstone who appears
relaxed in the company of much more nefarious Brussels
as Freddie Scappaticci. His decision to lift the
phone and squeal on Newton Emerson placed him firmly
in the company of the broo touts, the envious vindictive
type that spies their neighbour down the street
doing the double and then rats to the DHSS. In my
mind it was all the more invidious as I had call
to listen to Livingstone whinge on the phone to
myself and Tommy Gorman in October 2000 about the
possible impact of a libel action being taken against
the Andersonstown News by a journalist the
paper had lied about and exposed to danger. It was
a snivelling appeal to try have me influence the
maligned journalist not to press his case; a whingefest
about 'my career, my mortgage, my family.' All soon
forgotten about when Livingstone - adhering to his
own professed outlook that 'if you absolutely, positively
have to kick a man, then when he's down is an excellent
time to do it' - found the chance to boot somebody
else into the gutter.
His
crass behaviour on that occasion simultaneously
won Livingstone widespread contempt and Emerson
unprecedented recognition. In a sense it transformed
the fortunes of the Portadown News boss.
Livingstone belatedly realised it and went on to
complain that both the BBC and Sunday People
only employed Emerson to spite him. Seems the Irish
Times, Irish News and now the Daily
Mirror are intent on upsetting him also. The
words of Frank Leahy seem appropriate: 'egotism
is the anaesthetic that dulls the pain of stupidity.'
Before
he was murdered in Amsterdam last year, Theo Van
Gogh was accused of picking the thickest opponents
from the theocratic community to publicly debate
matters with. Their crazed rants made them all the
more easy to bait and subsequently heap ridicule
on, ensuring they always lost the exchange. A similar
accusation is frequently levelled at those who rib
Robin Livingstone. The refrain to this is simply
that Robin elects himself; otherwise everybody would
ignore him. Admittedly it can be irresistible. Each
time the Blanket takes ten or fifteen minutes
out to wind up Robin, the phone goes incessantly
with people ringing up to laugh. In pubs, the response
is the same. Granted, he is a figure of fun, which
makes him an easy target and ridiculing him hardly
requires much energy, but the response indicates
a certain diffuse spread of Blanket readers.
There may not be much that unites widely diverse
elements within Northern Irish society, but laughing
at the editor of the Andersonstown News is
certainly one of them.
For
Newton Emerson, the world of writing is his oyster.
Opportunities abound. For the ungainly Robin Livingstone,
who started at the bottom and worked his way down,
he is now at the pinnacle of his career. Once the
Brit funding dries up there is nowhere to go but
the dole office which would at least be commensurate
with his ability. Once there he may hope nobody
follows his example by lifting the phone to squeal
on him.
