Britain's Baby Bets

Britain's bookmakers are passionately betting on the soon-to-be royal child's name

In Britain, there is nothing more exciting than royal gossips. Recently, the attention has focused on Prince William and his wife Kate's baby, due in this month of July, which is to be a girl according to bookmakers. There is also a big fuss around her name, some betting it will be Alexandra.

William and Kate, officially known as the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge since their marriage in April 2011, are waiting their first child. Even though the baby's sex had not been yet revealed officially, the royal couple has dropped some hints in spite of themselves. Indeed, the duchess told a well-wisher who had given her a gift last month: "Thank you, I'll take this for my d..." before swiftly stopping herself.

But now the attention has drifted onto the baby's name. A spokeswoman from Coral bookmakers, who have cut the odds on Alexandra to 12-1 from 25-1, said that "it's the second biggest surge of bets we have witnessed since we were forced to suspend betting on the couple having a girl after Kate dropped a hint". It is indeed not the first time national bet made on the royal couple, and something tells us that it will not be the last.

How they are going to name their baby is a debate that has gone down to four names overall: Elizabeth still remains the punters' favourite with odds of 5-1, Diana being a close second with odds of 6-1, and the third position going to Victoria, at 7-1. Though, if some bookmakers have sharply cut the odds on Alexandra, it may be because a 76-year-old cousin of Queen Elizabeth is named so, and Queen Victoria's son Edward VII and his wife Alexandra were crowned in 1902. Therefore, the name does have a good pedigree, even though it seems less closely connected with British royalty as the former three names.

As always, the royal family seems to be a lightening feature of Britain's actuality, and has always triggered a singular love from British people. Whatever the baby's name may be, in the end, we are pretty sure the whole of Britain will love it as their own child.

This article was written for a university assignment.

Debate over abortion still raging

After the death of Savita Halappanavar due to miscarriage on October 2012, the Irish government is still uncertain about abortion, though people are angered

On November 17^th, 2012, around 5,000 people marched in O'Connell Street, Dublin, to the offices of Ireland's socially conservative prime minister to call for clearer guidelines on abortion following the death of a woman denied a termination. It was the largest of a wave of protests across Ireland in recent days. On the same day in Galway, where this women died, a candlelit vigil took place.

Savita Halappanavar died after
being denied an abortion

The case of the death of Savita Halappanavar is not unknown in Ireland now: this 31-year-old Indian dentist^st was admitted to hospital on October 21 in severe back pain. She was 17 weeks pregnant, and was found to be miscarrying. The doctors told her the baby would not survive, so she asked for a termination several times: but as the heart of the fetus still beat they wouldn't do it, in a country where this issue was still not legislated: “This is a Catholic country”, she was answered.

Days later, after the heart stopped beating, the fetus was surgically removed, but her family believes the delay contributed to the blood poisoning and E.coli infection that killed Halappanavar on October 28^th, a week after her demand of abortion.

The influence of the Catholic Church of Ireland over politics faded greatly since the 1980s; but now the problem also comes from the successive governments which have been loath to legislate on an issue they fear could alienate conservative voters. Indeed, Irish law does not specify exactly when the threat to the life or health of the mother is high enough to justify a termination, leaving
doctors to decide. Some say this allows doctors' personal beliefs to play a role
in the decision.

Mr Halappanavar, engineer, said “I hope they change the law and make it more people-friendly [rather] than on the basis of religious beliefs.”

The Irish health authority (HSE) has launched an inquiry into the death, reopening a decades-long debate over whether the government should legislate to explicitly allow abortion when the health of a mother is at risk. Indeed since 1992, a controversy had arisen over the issue of whether a suicidal minor who was pregnant from rape could leave Ireland for an abortion. Two amendments were passed that established the 'right to travel' and the 'right to information'. But since then the Irish law is still blur on the subject, so that already in 2010, the European Court of Human Rights had asked Ireland to clarify its law. This led to the commissioning of the experts' report well before the death of Halappanavar, a report emphasizing that a woman is still only lawfully entitled to an abortion in Ireland when there is a real and substantial risk to the life of the mother.

A protest for Savita in front of the Irish Parliament, Dublin,
on November 14th, 2012

But even after Savita's death, the Irish government is still not pronounced over this question: Prime Minister Enda Kenny, whose ruling Fine Gael party made an election pledge not to introduce new laws allowing abortion, said on November 16^th, 2012 that he would not be rushed into a decision.

However this issue is urgent: people from Ireland, and other countries such as England and India where protests spilled over, are very much angry at the government and its attitude of “wait and see”: “A vibrant, healthy woman starting her family life has died needlessly... because of the failure of successive governments to deal with this issue,” independent member of parliament Clare Daly told the crowd, which responded with chants of “shame.”

The victim's family and husband are still in a state of shock: “If it had happened in the UK or India, the thing would have been over in a few hours.”, said Mr Halappanavar. He also told the Irish Independent: “Basically everyone back home here [in India], her family and friends, everyone can’t believe it in the 21^st century in a country like Ireland.”

The following months will tell if the government is finally ready to give its opinion on the issue, which forced more than 4000 women, in 2011, to get a termination abroad.

This article was written for a university assignment.

Constable Kerr's murder suspect arrested

After the murder of Ronan Kerr, it may be the end of a nightmare of more than a year of researches

On the 26^th of November, in Britain, a man from Northern Ireland has been arrested regarding the tragedy of the 2^nd of April 2011, in which the Northen Ireland policeman Ronan Kerr was murdered.

The 22-year-old suspect was arrested by the North West Counter Terrorism Unit at the request of PSNI Serious Crime Branch detectives. His identity being kept anonymous to the public, all is known about him is that he comes from Omagh, in County Tyrone. But he was detained in Milton Keynes in England, as the police had widened their investigation to the northwest of England.

On the 27^th, another man has been arrested, a 39-year-old man from the same town as the first suspect. He is being questionned by the police about incidents related to the murder.

Ronan Kerr, 25 years old, had been killed by a bomb exploding under his car in front of his home, according to the Police Service of Northern Ireland. He was a young man from Beragh, a village 8 miles from Omagh. Roman Catholic, he had been recently recruited by the PSNI, which before the peace deal was predominantly made up of Protestants and viewed with scepticism by many Catholics. In the British-controlled province, Kerr was the first policeman killed for two years.

Speaking on BBC Radio Ulster on the Wednesday following the tragedy, the Irish prime minister Mr Enda Kenny had firmly condemned the attack: “To those who think they are doing something for Ireland, this is a warped mentality.”

“It is the mentality of the past, a very dark and violent past and it has no part in the future”, he had added.

Hard to forget are the decades of violence of Troubles in Ireland, which claimed over 3,600 lives. The Ulster issue is still at the heart of British and Irish political life today.

Indeed, international monitors confirmed in 2005 that the Provisional Irish Republican Army had given up all its weapons, however dissidents disenchanted with the peace process. Today, the so-called New IRA, which has claimed the death of constable Kerr, has increased violent activity in recent years. Earlier this year, militant nationalist groups in Northern Ireland united under their banner.

And the violence continues: in early November, the Northern Ireland prison officer David Black was shot dead in his car on his way to work. These actions were claimed by Irish nationalists. It is the first time in nearly 20 years that a member of the Northern Ireland Prison Service has been murdered. His family and friends were shocked.

Prime Minister David Cameron expressed his concern and his grief to the family:

“My heart goes out to them. These killers will not succeed in denying the people of Northern Ireland the peaceful, shared future they so desperately want.”

Only time will tell if this peaceful future will be reached.

This article was written for a university assignment.

A Ride not Worth Taking - The Ghost Rider (2007)

There are some movies in your life that you will always enjoy watching, no matter the circumstances. The Ghost Rider is not one of them. Its writer and director Mark Steven Johnson brought the Ghost to life on screen, after the Marvel comics of the same name, but it was a terrible idea. Not only is it harmful for the public, but for its actors too, and basically any living particle which happens to be in its contact.

It is the story of the famous stunt motorcycle rider Johnny Blaze (Nicolas Cage), who is haunted by his past. When he was a teenager, Blaze made a pact with the Devil (Peter Fonda) to save his sick father (Peter Brett Cullen), and since that day Blaze's soul is not free. Fifteen years later, in our present time, he starts changing into a blazing skeleton working for the dark forces at night-time: he becomes the Ghost Rider. But when his beloved Roxanne (Eva Mendes) is threatened, he decides to use his powers to counterattack his master.

The movie will thus take you on a painful journey through a tacky action movie with a few added westerns' features. The whole is set in a root beer-smelling middle America, on a background of heavy metal music at some points in accordance with the overall cheap level of the movie. When you hear the bad ready-made dialogues, your ears will bleed. When you watch the poor performance of the set of actors and the bad directing of it all, you will wish you were blind. And at the end of the movie, you'll wish you had made a pact with the Devil, as Hell must feel like Heaven compared to the agony of watching this film.

Though I admit I enjoyed most of the Marvel stories, I cannot stand for this unsound film adaptation. One of the causes might well be the director of the film, Mark Steven Johnson, since he had already made Daredevil in 2003, starring Ben Affleck – and already this one film was bad, with similarly cheesy dialogues that could have been written by a 10-year-old boy.

There was a time when Nicolas Cage had proven himself to be a good actor, potentially – like in movies such as Lord of War, for instance. But no one will argue that with The Ghost Rider he has sold his soul to the demoniac Hollywood big shot industry, regardless of the film's lack of potential. Here Cage is just as good as an eggplant: he does not inspire any fear, any awe, any true sympathy, or any laughs even when he tries to... Because when he does try to be original, he hams it up for the public which makes it even worse. The most excruciating scene of all must be the one where he is in front of his mirror, checking on his appearance after his big transformation of the previous night, and he makes all kinds of oh-so-useless faces which I am afraid were intended to be funny.

But, brace yourselves, because the fun does not stop there! A word on the neglected special effects in the film must be said. For starters, the first and biggest transformation of Blaze into the Ghost Rider misses a step at the end, giving us little transition between the human face and the skull, which is disappointing. What's more the final skull of the Ghost Rider is lifeless, as if out of a Playstation 1 MediEvil game – and the funny thing is that it can whistle to call his motorbike even though it doesn't have any lips: how good is that?

A part from that, Peter Fonda in his Devil's role (Mephistopheles in the film) is absolutely unimaginative; and actually he looks more like something out of Dallas than out of Hell. I had enjoyed Lucifer's unusual character much more, brilliantly played by Peter Stormare, in the excellent Constantine. The actress of the film, Eva Mendes, has a flat supporting role too, as the long-lost love of Blaze. The only thing to say in this respect is that the B-love story between the two is without flavor and feels like déjà-vu. In the end, the least disappointing of the actors might well be Wes Bentley, playing the Devil's son (Blackheart in the film). His performance is globally not that bad, and he really manages to own his character. Of course, compared to the others, he comes acrosse as quite a relief.

I have to admit that the presence of Sam Elliott in this western/action movie is a nice little nod to the shoot-em-ups in which he used to play. One particularly bad line nevertheless struck me at the opening of the movie. In the introduction Elliott stands in for the voice-over relating the myth of the Ghost Rider; and at the end of his speech, he says: “The thing about legends is... sometimes... they're true.” Owwww... is this for real? Who came up with that?
And need I mention the beautiful value-loaded speech by Cage a little before the payoff, where he dares say things like “He may have my soul, he doesn't have my spirit”? The movie is indeed full of predictable lines, which will give you the impression that your nephew could have done the same, if not better.

All in all, I would not be surprised if The Ghost Rider was on its way to winning a Razzie Award. If you are still curious of this baffling adventure, at least wait for the DVD or a TV broadcast... I'm giving you a piece of friendly advice here: save yourselves the ride.

Investigation on the Troubles

Patricia lives in Stepaside, a village 20 minutes away from Dublin City Centre. As I cross the iron gates of the main entrance, I see on my right a garden neatly tended, with beautiful flowers and small trees here and there; on the left, her huge house. I walk on cobblestone until I reach the graveled courtyard where a black car is parked, a small fountain in its centre.

I climb the three steps to the door and ring the bell. Two minutes later the door opens, and it is an average 60-year-old lady who greets me with a smile, her piercing blue eyes being the first thing I notice. Her two dogs, both white, one big and the other small, welcome me heartily.

The interior of the house is as huge as it looks from the outside, with 3 stories, all carpeted in a dark green. She leads me to a room on the right side, warm from an old and impressive stove, and where the TV is on. The dogs quickly find their own spots back on the couch near the window.

“Would you like a cup of tea?”

Once the tea is ready, accompanied by a personal tiny jug of milk, we sit at the table. She apologizes for the environment, as usually she receives guests in the bigger living-room; but the weather being so cold these past days, we might as well stay in the warmth near the stove.

Today, Patricia is dressed in a dark blue pullover, jeans and used snickers, as she is going for a walk with the dogs after our meeting. She wears a slight touch of make-up, and her shoulder-length blond hair is perfectly brushed.

Patricia is not originally from Ireland, but from Scotland -we can hear that she doesn't have quite an Irish accent. She came here when she married her first husband, Ronan, a man from Newry.

As a child, she lived a regular life in Scotland, with her parents and two big sisters. During her student life, she visited and lived in a few countries, such as Greece, Poland, Italy or France. In Paris she lived for two years, and this is where she would meet her future husband, a medicine student. She went back with him in 1966, and since then, never left Ireland. They married two years later in Belfast.

Their life was made a little hard by the Troubles, where the worst happened in the North, as everyone knows and remembers. When I ask her about Belfast, she becomes very serious, frowning.

“Well, today Belfast is good I think. But even ten years ago, soldiers were patrolling everywhere, there was a curfew, and when you took the chance to go out at night for a drink or to go the restaurant, you never knew if you would come back home alive.”

[...] From somewhere out beyond the breeze-block walls we get a broken rhythm
Of machine-gun fire. A ragged chorus. So the sentence of the night
Is punctuated through and through by rounds of drink, of bullets, of applause
(Ciaran Carson, Night Out)

She also talks about the check-points on both sides of the border separating Northern Ireland from Southern Ireland, where green cars were often arrested and searched by British soldiers, the green standing for the Irish colour.

But they were never sufficient reasons for her to flee the country: “Why should I have abandoned my husband for this? It was my home now, and I wanted to stand on the Irish side -because of course, I was against most of the British decisions.”

When in 1969 they had their first son, the married couple moved to Stepaside as it was a safer place. However, Ronan made regular trips between Dublin and Belfast or Newry, to check on his family and friends, and support the civil rights movement. She would stay at home to take care of their child, and rest while she was awaiting their second baby.

A mural in Derry/Londonderry
on the Civic Rights marches

In 1971, she didn't want to stand back from the general protest anymore, and wanted to express her support to the Irish cause:

“Once I went to the British embassy in Dublin -because that's where I had to go as I am from Scotland- and I went there to give back my passport, I didn't want it anymore, I didn't want to be associated with all this. You know, it was in sign of protest, I wanted to show them that I didn't agree with what they were doing, that was my small way of resisting. But the thing got bigger and bigger: people gathered to see what was happening -because of course the embassy didn't want to grant my request- and the media arrived, it was on the news the same day... And the following weeks, I had to get a close protection, because it had angered some people. I was a young mum at that time, and I remember that my kids had received razor blades by post; that was a dark time...”, she says quietly, a note of concern in her voice.

The year after, her husband was caught in the bombings of the Bloody Friday in Belfast, on the 21^st of July.

As for sharing this with me, Patricia is surprisingly calm and serene. She has dealt with so many things in her life, now living with her two dogs in a quiet town, that she looks at her life with serenity, with peace.

Patricia is far from the stereotypes of the bourgeois lady who has been spared all her life. When we don't know her, we could be tempted to have prejudices on her. But hidden behind her classy life-style and elegant looks, this woman owns an unknown strength, an unknown past. When I visited her again afterwards, it was always a pleasure to hear her stories.

She raised her two sons alone for several years, having the support of Ronan's family and her own, dealing with her grief to keep on living and resisting.

In 1977, she met her second husband-to-be, Patrick, working in the press. He was also a widower, and therefore a strong connection developed between them, as they were morally comforting each other.

He was also from Northern Ireland, not far from Derry; but since he was little, he had lived in the Republic of Ireland:

“When he was a child, his father was an activist against the British Crown. One day, some British soldiers broke into their house, and started setting it on fire. All his family had to flee in the South of Ireland after that: just because his father militated, [the British] got back at all the family.”

It was during the same period that Catholic pogroms occurred, where shops owned by Catholic Irishmen were destroyed in Northern Ireland, in the Catholic/Protestant and Republican/Loyalist conflict.

Another mural in Derry about peace

They had together two daughters, and lived happily for a long time until she lost her husband again, this time of disease, in 2002. Since then, she never remarried.

Today, Patricia has four grown adult children living all around the world: one son in China, another in the United-States, a daughter in France, and finally another one who stayed in Ireland, in Enniskery, a village a few minutes from Stepaside. Patricia has seen a lot in her life, and lives peacefully with it.

Patricia has recently sold her house. She will be moving next year into another smaller place in Greystones, a village along Dublin Bay. She will leave her home full of memories, some hard and others happy. She is glad to know that it is a family with four boys who will take it back: she wants this house to be full of life again, and to create new happy memories.

This article was written for a university assignment.