News from Mannin Branch of the Celtic League:
“In a few weeks it will be business as usual all this will be forgotten the corporate suits will be having their Xmas parties and anyone stealing a few sticks of firewood will need to watch out because that Jane Hughes will be on the rampage in the Courts like the villain in a Xmas pantomime.”
The best bit in the much trailed first episode of Panorama on the so called ‘Paradise Papers’ was when one of the Russian ‘bods’ asked the BBC reporter had he seen a psychiatrist. You have to hand it to ‘the Russkies’ even when they are in the ‘shite storm of the century’ they’re as cheeky as buggery. That’s the way to handle the BBC.
Up to now I find Appleby guilty as charged but the ‘charge’ is allowing some Germans to get their hands on 13 million documents that they could then pass around so we could all be bored to death.
So far the Queen’s been involved, Trump has got a mention and there have been some ramblings about the Premier League and some football club. Well if there’s one sport I hate it’s football (I’m a rugger man myself). I even hate it more that ‘another sport which shall remain nameless’ because any criticism of it around here seems to inflame some folk.
The Isle of Man got a mention but the only shot of Appleby was of their Bermuda Office and we had to content ourselves with pics of Victoria Street and that stupid statue of Queen Victoria – was this an allegorical link to the earlier ‘Queenie’ bit I wondered. When some guy who used to be with the Insurance and Pensions Authority got an airing I was hoping he might tell the BBC to go and see a psychiatrist as well but he said ‘no comment’. It makes you think that Manx Civil Servants and politicians should get media training from Russian oligarchs.
So far Panorama’s attempt to portray the Manx ‘golden mile’ as populated by slightly better spoken versions of Ray Winstone in one of his ‘villain’ roles is falling flat.
Of course part two could be better but you just know that if the Howard Quayle interview gets an airing he will be all obsequies and will not fix them with that scathing gaze he gave the local journos in Tynwald recently as he told them of. Our journos of course are dying to nail something on the denizens of the golden mile a species they loathe almost as much as they loathe politicians or indeed the public loath them. However for now they have to codify everything with quotes like ‘ Mr Mugabe of course denies any wrongdoing’ which is shorthand for ‘just wait until we get something good you bastards’.
In other parts of the world like Australia and Canada they are taking the Paradise Papers really seriously because it shows the need to get to grips with the ‘murky world of the offshore’.
However here it’s more difficult because we are part of ‘the murky world of the offshore’. It makes you think that although everyone denies wrongdoing, says no comment or refers investigative journalists to psychiatrists we should really examine our moral compass.
In a few weeks it will be business as usual all this will be forgotten the corporate suits will be having their Xmas parties and anyone stealing a few sticks of firewood will need to watch out because that Jane Hughes will be on the rampage in the Courts like the villain in a Xmas pantomime.
That’s what I like about the good old Isle of Man we have our priorities right. Anyway I’m off to see a psychiatrist I just can’t get my head around ‘this hole’!
Image: Thank goodness we keep tracks of the firewood!
Bernard Moffatt
pp Celtic League
06/11/17
