I got an exclusive interview with Sinn Fein’s Martin McGuinness on Easter Sunday, the day the Real IRA threatened to kill him. The defiant Deputy First Minister blasted dissidents who threatened to murder him as “sad” and “ridiculous”.

The interview also made The Sun Newspaper…

e-mail: rodney@rodneyedwards.co.uk

Been a busy few months and I haven’t updated this blog too well. Still doing my column each week in the Sunday Life and still freelancing for various newspapers and radio stations. Will post more bits and bobs very soon - plus this website will be getting a bit of a makeover in the coming months.

Rodney

Rodney Edwards | Sunday Life Column | 8th February 2009 - Week 18

e-mail: rodney@rodneyedwards.co.uk

THIS IS SNOW WAY TO RUN A COUNTRY

IT’S OFFICIAL! The temperamental beast that is Planet Earth finally went stark-raving mad this week.

Iran was giving the Western World the jitters by managing to launch a rocket into Space using nothing more than a toilet roll holder, tin foil and sticky back plastic, in Austrailia an odd man was caught smuggling some pigeons on a plane, while Britain was getting itself into a right old tizzy over a bit of snow. In February.

The UK has spent years dealing with the peril of terrorism but the second its hit by the odd snowflake, it goes to pot and everything stops. Nobody has a notion what to do because everyone is dying to get out the back to make a snow angel by lying the lawn. And so the country stops functioning correctly. Pity help us then, should a penguin laden with explosives throw itself in front of a snow plough the next time there’s a slight blizzard.

Schools were closed down, flights were cancelled, buses were stopped and TV’s Phillip Schofield stayed at home building snowmen. Radio 1 DJ Chris Moyles put wacky jokes and comedy aside to pass on traffic and travel updates and ITN’s Mary Nightingale left her fancy studio to read the news from Trafalgar Square – under the backdrop of a couple of louts throwing snowballs at Nelson’s Column.

Meanwhile in Northern Ireland we looked on in resentment on Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday as more and more of our regional neighbours were left trapped inside their makeshift igloos. Many of whom, slipped on this mad bout of widespread ice, broke a couple of legs here and there and basically got off work. Now, I’ll be honest - I’ve thrown myself down the stairs to avoid work before and haven’t even managed to break as much as a nail. Where was all the snow UTV’s Frank Mitchell said (in so many words) was going to kill us? I put another duvet on the bed especially. Then it happened.

After hearing about it since last Sunday, Thursday was the moment Northern Ireland became well and truly doused in fluffy snowflakes and ice patches the width of Vanessa Feltz’s backside. Up to 10 centimetres of snow fell in parts of Northern Ireland and caused disruption pretty much everywhere, including Translink which warned of delays to services - which is a bit like having a coldsore because both aggravations will regularly occur anyway just to get on your nerves, even without a wintry snap.

And there was me thinking the closest thing I was getting to a big chill was scraping the frost off a box of the microwavable pizza box with a chisel. Instead I spent much of the day trying to stop my mate one-eyed Joe writing profanities with a tin of de-icer across my windscreen and throwing snow balls at my neighbour’s cat. A far cry from Wan Pablo, my Antrim based Spanish pen pal who spent over two hours in his van trying to get to work – a mere 12 miles away. He blames the Road Service, says his old twisty back road wasn’t salted. And he’s not the only one complaining.

Despite the obvious mild elation from school kids and skivers at the country becoming a picturesque winter wonderland, the fickle temperament of Mother Nature proves that when it comes to a bit of snow, Road Service is a wee bit rubbish at dealing with it.

OK – they do their bit but they still miss many lethal ice-infested roads. Fermanagh’s most rural zones never see the gritters because there aren’t enough people living in each isolated area to meet the criteria for a bit of salt. Try telling that to one-eyed Joe who went straight into a tree in Bellanaleck after skidding on black ice the length of Lough Erne on Friday.

This claptrap about only gritting “built-up areas” is putting lives at risk.

So just for the record, I’m compiling a list of all the places across Northern Ireland that NEVER get salted so I know to avoid them the next time it snows. E-mail in your suggestions and I’ll print the top five in next week’s column.

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CUPID’S BIG DAY IS JUST PLAIN STUPID

In these tight economic times, remember; if you lend someone £20, and you never see them again, it was probably worth it.

Valentine’s Day comes to disturb us once again, this Saturday. With shabby poetry, extortionate prices and lots of pink fluff in the coldest, dampest of months, it’s the time of the year when it’s reasonably acceptable to light candles and throw up in card shops (but obviously, not at the same time).

And with so much vomit-inducing gobbledygook on display, no one can really blame you for regurgitating your breakfast at the sight of a card with a sheep on the front complete with a nauseating awful verse that reads something like: “How we gain yearly, from the love we share dearly” – along with an equally as brain-rottenly ludicrous pun on the word ‘ewe’.

And what about the insufferable restaurants filled with smug morons sitting at their hoity-toity tables, with gallons of mature wine and laps weighed down with decorative napkins aplenty. The sort of individuals you just know booked their tables back in 1999 – whereas you couldn’t have been bothered. That’s why you’re spitting feathers as you make your way to KFC with the missus before they’re out of spicy chicken wings. The little lady meanwhile, begins growling - bearing all the hallmarks of a woman ready to fire Colonel Harland Sanders’ grub at your head. She’s not happy, you’re not happy and so this futile occurrence continues once more – and the only way for reconciliation and harmony before midnight is to buy some wilting flowers at the Texaco garage.

What a useless day of the year. I’m not a violent person but if I ever meet that little idiot Cupid, I’m going to ram his head in with a box of Thornton’s Chocolates and shove his pitchfork where novelty heart shaped cards can’t reach.

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GAZEBOED AS A SKUNK

Comedian Michael McIntyre says that substituting pretty much any word for “drunk” can effortlessly portray being under the influence – e.g: I was “caravaned” the other night or I was completely “deck-chaired”.

Which leads me to this bit of riotous guidance I overheard in the local chippy the other night. One of the girls shovelling chips behind the counter turned to her mate on the subject of drinking and said: “Do what I do - before I go out on the booze, I eat cheesy chips – it lines me stomach.”

I mean, who eats cheesy chips?

Anyway, I tried this suggestion and got utterly gazeboed.

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PARIS IS A SOLE TRADER

Paris Hilton, possibly the world’s most useless woman has claimed she’s going to singlehandedly save the economy by buying lots of shoes.

The £20 million airhead heiress of the Hilton Hotel Empire was in London this week when she pledged her shopping power to stimulate the global downturn.

“It’s really scary about the economy right now. So the way I’m playing my part in helping is doing a lot of shopping wherever I go.” said Hilton, who makes Orlaith McAlister look like a modern day Mother Theresa.

Hilton has promised to buy copious amounts of footwear which for the proprietors of recession hit Barratts and Priceless Shoes is too little too late.

Still, I hear flights out of the UK have soared since she arrived.

Rodney Edwards | Sunday Life Column | 25th January 2009 - Week 16

e-mail: rodney@rodneyedwards.co.uk

OUR PUBLIC TRANSPORT IS A REAL BUS-TED FLUSH
IT’S MORE COMFY, AND QUICKER, TO GET AROUND ON A DEAD DONKEY

The most momentous moment of our generation and I spent it looking at the back of somebody’s head.

I missed Barack Obama’s historic inauguration on Tuesday because I was imprisoned on a sizzling, overcrowded bus somewhere between Enniskillen and Belfast, courtesy of Translink – the most unpleasant and costly means of transportation since the black cab.

The donkey ride at my local fete last summer was not only more satisfying but speedier – and he was dead. In the two and half hours it took to do the 88-odd mile trip, I was sick in my mouth at least four times. Not because the driver insisted on furiously taking each corner with such haste that I repeatedly head butted the passenger next to me, but because each and every chair aboard the bus was coated in a stomach-churning multi-coloured fabric of swirly shapes, amid the odd profanity dubbed in permanent marker. With all the money pumped into Translink, who are to public transport, what Shane MacGowan is to orthodontists, surely they can afford a few pastel throwovers to improve ambience?

Apart from the seating looking like something the cat threw up on, the employees have the manners of a sedated elephant being woken up and then kicked in the trunk. I’ve been frequently wrongly informed of a time a bus was to leave the Europa Bus Centre by a moron at the desk. I’ve been screamed at for not having the right change (must remember to pay in pennies the next time) and I’ve played adjudicator when two bus drivers decided to have an argy-bargee in the Dungannon station.

A work colleague also bared the brunt of Translink’s woeful service recently when he tried to board a bus to a village in rural Co. Antrim. He turned up at Europa Bus Centre for 4.26pm and was there at the designated stand (as checked on Translink website) for the 4.30pm bus. Although, there was no sign of the actual bus which you’ll agree, is the fundamental part of the station’s prerequisite, as it appeared to have left early.

The next bus was at 5pm, and so this chap and a couple of school kids and a mum with shopping were waiting when at 5.02pm, they saw a bus leave from a stand several spaces away from where it was supposed to stop. Everyone missed the bus because it took off from the wrong platform.

At 5.10pm, the next bus pulled up as my mate and the other customers enquired about the disappearance of the last bus. It waited for literally 30 seconds, didn’t open its doors and then as quickly as it arrived, drove off, leaving everyone who had missed the previous bus stranded again. The next bus was not until 5.45 (which would have been almost an hour and 20 minutes after my chum arrived at Europa Bus Centre) so in despair, he walked out and ended up having to fork out £20 for a taxi. To make it all worse it was his birthday and he was hours late for a round of the bumps.

The transport system in and out of Belfast is shambolic. I mean, it costs £15.00 to get from Belfast to Enniskillen on a return ticket. A ticket that MUST be used on the same day or it’ll be £10 either way. In this recession, my pen pal Wan Pablo could feed his entire family walnuts for a month on that.

I thought public transport was about being economical? It’s also supposed to be effortless and wonderful for the environment but my bus journeys take so long with Translink and are that unbearable that I’ve never craved the leg of a polar bear more.

Next time, I’m driving.

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EUR’ EITHER WITH ME OR AGAINST ME

Me and the lads were sitting about sharing a tin of sprite (it’s the credit crunch, you see) discussing ways we can minimise the expenditure. Wee Paul who recently lost his job delivering leaflets had a cold sore, which of course, contaminated the can, he was adamant we held a séance to ask deceased rich folk their views on the cash flow problem. If Paul doesn’t find employment soon, his jaunt to Rossnowlagh in search of a Mrs Paul on Valentine’s Day won’t get past Cavan. One-eyed Joe, dog barber-turned-historian, refused my plea that Britain should convert to the euro – despite me arguing that it would effectively sort out the credit crunch, provide security and in turn, use up the cup of foreign currency that’s been on my desk for three years.

One-eyed Joe is a traditionalist, the sort of boy who’d feel out of place at a rave. Wee Paul didn’t have an opinion on the issue; he was in the next room talking to Elvis Presley about a two year capital bond. I on the other hand, feel ditching the sterling in favour of the euro would be a good idea.

But what do you think?

–

ONE HATES TO WINE, BUT I GOT INTO THE SPIRIT

The Flybe / Sunday Life Spirit of Northern Ireland awards the other night was an awe-inspiring occasion as the province’s unsung heroes were rewarded for their valour in helping others.

Winners and guests all looked very dapper, apart from featureless warbler Brian Kennedy who let the whole place down by wearing a black polo shirt. Come on Danny boy, even I bought a new suit for the occasion.

Ruth Lorenzo was unrivalled, Signature’s performance was flawless and UTV should give Julian Simmon’s his own chat show – if Pamela Ballantine can co-host.

But I have a confession to make to the gentleman that sat to the left of me at table eight.

I didn’t have the heart to explain to you that my wine glass actually had water in it – so I didn’t bother stopping you continually “topping up” my glass of water with white wine.

“Refill?”, “Certainly,” says I, as I sat there, getting more and more inebriated on watery wine that I had to be physically restrained each time I wanted to talk jingles with Cool FM’s Pete Snodden.

On swapping the glass with an empty one, I half-filled it with water and took a sip. I then turned to speak to my girlfriend Natalie, when a kind fellow to her right, leaned over and “refilled” my unblemished glass of water with… wine. Again.

What a situation to be in, I’d tell you what happened next but I’m trying to work out how I woke up in the Isle of Man with a traffic cone on my head.

–

QUOTE OF THE NIGHT:

“I read your column every week – and I fu**ing hate it.” (Said one disgruntled, drunken but dedicated reader).

–

Zoe Salmon is doing well on that Dancing on Ice thing.

Last Sunday she rose gracefully during her stint in the rink, spinning and gliding, before extending one slender leg behind her with a satisfied grin upon her face.

A bit like the springer spaniel that piddled against my back tyre yesterday.

Rodney Edwards | Sunday Life Column | 18th January 2009 - Week 15

e-mail: rodney@rodneyedwards.co.uk

MY OWN ROOM WITH A SPEW

HAVE you ever stayed in a hotel that hasn’t quite lived up to your expectations?

You know, when it just doesn’t match what you read in the brochure or on the website. You expected a beautiful Edwardian-style building with a pianist in the foyer. You were looking forward to being greeted by some sort of servant fluent in Swahili. But all you got was a rundown shack stinking of e-coli, with one window and a receptionist with a deep, throaty, laugh, like that sound a dog makes just before it throws up.

Then you go into your room dying to be laden with gifts - chocolates on the pillow, tea and coffee sachets by the side, those little bottles of shampoo in the bathroom that you’ll never use, but always take home with you – and there’s nothing. Nothing but pamphlets on Giving Blood and cigarette burns on the curtains. And a beetle in the bath. There’s always a beetle in the bath.

I once stayed in a hotel that looked more like a young offenders’ institution than the Taj Mahal.

The bedroom was a microscopic cesspit of dust and decay, so small, there was only room for a bed. That’s all it had, a bed - which doubled up as a wardrobe and a trouser press. I’d spend the night trying to sleep and roll around, flattening my shirt for work the next day at the same time. It was a single bed that took up so much room it blocked the bedroom door. Apart from the clear fire hazard had I inevitably burnt to death if the flammable potato sack for a bed sheet decided to go on fire, I had to physically break my way out of this shoe box every time I needed to use the communal bathroom down the hall.

And then I’d have to practically kick the door back in again when I wanted to return to my room. “It’s a security thing.” said the manager, who morphed more and more into Basil Fawtly each day. “Really? If you ask me, it looks like this room used to be a cupboard.” I replied as he ran outside and smacked his car with a branch in rage.

When it came to décor, this place had it in the bag. Instead of putting a gnome in the garden or a water feature like most establishments, they had imbedded something very different – an actual mini bus.

They had actually buried the top half of a mini bus into the ground between some hedges. This is a contraption for wheeling a few old women to bingo, it’s not something you need to nurture or water.

Now I’m sorry, but at what point in a hotel managerial meeting does the chief muse: “I’ve been watching Ground Force and you know what we need out the front? A Fort Transit mini bus planted in between the rhododendrons, it’s very chic, you know.” and everyone around him breaks out into a round of applause as if he’s some sort of new-rave Alan Titchmarsh.

What’s wrong with a pot plant or a hanging basket?

Although to be fair, the introduction of this distinctive ornament probably had something more to do with the vicinity than the feng sui. Some towns have old castles or monuments as places of interest, this area had the very first planted mini bus courtesy of some green-fingered yobs. And if you were quick, down the street by the traffic lights, there was a drunk urinating in a skip.

I recently stayed in the really brilliant Irish-owned Gore Hotel in London. Tucked away in Knightsbridge and around the corner from Buckingham Palace, it really wasn’t somewhere you were going to lose an arm despite its name. Guests included celebrities and a couple of well-known bands, which when you’ve stayed at the hotels I have, makes a change from European backpackers.

So let me give you a bit of advice. If the hotel you plan to stay in has ‘palace’ in the title then the chances are it’s anything but. Don’t make the same mistake I made of actually checking into a hostel for migrant workers. If it’s named something more beastly like ‘the bloodsucking vampire slaughterhouse’ then it’s probably grand and you won’t have to pack the gun.

Bath tub full of algae? Breakfast repeated on you for a month? Perhaps there was a corpse under the bed. Send your hotel horror stories to rodney@rodneyedwards.co.uk

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WOMEN STILL AIN’T GOT A CLUE WHEN IT COMES TO THE FLU

I’ve just about stopped spluttering asphalt following my bout of man flu last week.

The utmost of appreciation to everyone that sent best wishes and ‘Get Well Soon’ cards, someone even sent a fancy bouquet, but I gave it to the other half for the continuous supply of wet flannels she provided me with in my week of need. Well, man needs support from woman – said in a caveman’s voice.

I was also invited on the Stephen Nolan Show to debate man flu with comedienne Nuala McKeever but that never happened. Not because I was still stuck in my sick bed banging the floor with a slipper when my brow needed a mop but because Stephen was apparently *too busy* to talk after all. Come on big man, let’s bury the hatchet?

It seems Nuala had a bit of a dose herself but I can’t imagine that she’s been perspiring to quite the same levels as me because women just can’t get man flu like us chaps. If you’re reading this Nuala, get on the e-mail and tell me all about your wee sneeze, there’s a love.

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MADNESS OF KING GEORGE

When George Bush finally leaves his post as President of the United States on Tuesday, most folk will light a candle and rejoice. Others, mainly comics, will say a tearful goodbye to the pouting chimp and the way he gets his wee short sentences all jumbled up. Bush’s bloopers have provided some superb comical fodder over the last eight years and for that alone, I will miss him.

Here are six of my favourite Bushisms!

1. “If you say you’re going to do something and don’t do it, that’s trustworthiness.”

2. “I know how hard it is for you to put food on your family.”

3. “I remember meeting a mother of a child who was abducted by the North Koreans right here in the Oval Office.”

4. “Sometimes when you study history, you get stuck in the past.”

5. “The problem with the French is that they don’t have a word for entrepreneur.”

6. “They misunderestimated me.”

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OH, TO B UNDERSTOOD

Mel B says Americans don’t understand her. The former Spice Girl - who moved to Los Angeles six years ago - says her neighbours can’t understand her strong Leeds accent, but luckily she has a pal who translates for her. That’s nothing, try being in the US from Northern Ireland. You’d need a translator on standby.

What should be - Hello fellow human, I trust one is well. Just after a jolly stroll around the rather splendid surroundings of New York. My boots are soiled with dirt and I am simply famished. Oh golly miss molly, that is considerably steep for a baguette. I may have to get mad and rough you up, you whelp.

Is actually: Bout ye. Went fer a dander so I did, round the big apple, hi, I’m boggin and dying fer a bit ta ate. Getawaydat, $30 dollars for a Samitch? Do ye like yer bake, ya slabber.

Rodney Edwards | Sunday Life Column | 11th January 2009 - Week 14

WHY WOMEN JUST DON’T GET MAN FLU

e-mail: rodney@rodneyedwards.co.uk

No matter what anyone says - man flu is more deadly than the feeble bout of the sniffles females get.

I write as an affiliate of the masculine species and one that is presently experiencing this horrid male-only infirmity. The inside of my cranium feels like it’s hosting a Black Sabbath recital as a thunderous banging head (complete with runny nose) forces me to my sick bed. So I warn you now, if I don’t manage to finish this piece, then the chances are it’s because I have died.

Cooped up in rigid caterpillar-type duvet bundle, it’s tricky to type and watch Loose Women at the same time but I must struggle on regardless. And to make things worse, my dripping flannel dried up an hour ago. I did thump the bedroom floor with a slipper but nobody came to bathe the rag in lukewarm water for me. I will just wallow in self-pity on my own then and so will my blazing hot brow, currently scorching at 350 degrees-fahrenheit. I’d fry an egg on there if I wasn’t off solids.

What I need is moral support. I call Julian Thornton, my oldest comrade and fellow man to ask for his guidance.

“Men aren’t as great when it comes to the old aches. What you need is a woman at your side, for me, it’s handy to have my mother around to aid my every niggle. Failing that, you could just sweat it out, as they say.” Julian still lives at home.

Why must man suffer alone? Because no one but man understands how much being bunged up with this bug torments one’s body and mind – it really is a case of life or death, you know. I’ve got a headache, wooziness and authority to winge about it because I am a man - an ailing man whom plays the trumpet each time both nostrils are blown amid a mountain of squelchy rolled-up tissues.

“I think I’m coming down with something,” I faintly murmur to Nat, my girlfriend. “You’re fine, it’s just a cold.” she rather insensitively replies before asking: “Coming to look in that new shoe shop?” “No, love.” I cry. And then like a scene from Saving Private Ryan, I softly stutter: “You… go… on… without… me…” like the brave little soldier I am before collapsing in a pool of my own perspiration. I don’t want to be bored rigid looking at footwear - I want to be drip-fed tomato soup instead.

Women will never understand man flu or any other kind of ‘chap complaint’. My gills turned a shade of emerald during Coronation Street once and coincidently after I inadvertently drank five-day old milk - a true story (I don’t know how it lay about in the fridge unnoticed for so long). “You’ll live,” said Nat, as I squealed in agony, clutching my stomach and the number for Doctor-On-Call. ‘You’ll live?’ – Not if the two gulps of semi-skimmed I had kills me first. She shook her head in repulsion and walked off.

Man flu is a billion times worse than the common cold as it leaves the male’s immune system in bits, and no amount of steam sniffing or garlic and warm milk is going to cure it. Although, playing video games while downing gallons of freshly squeezed orange juice does help speed up the recovery process. If I’m not here next week you’ll know it’s because I am playing Mario Kart on the Xbox 360 and overdoing it on the Vitamin C in oompa-loompa-like proportions – in my bid to get better.

Sickness is just so tough for us lads, it hits us hard, you know? But we get through it without much of a… er… grumble because we are… enormously brawny and all that.

Now who’s going to plump my pillows?

Rodney Edwards | Sunday Life Column - 4th January 2009 | DITHERING, DOTTY AND DRIVING ME POTTY

THE last two weeks have been shocking for queues.

I am wasting so many precious moments of my life waiting in a variety of wearisome queues that I am now frequently questioning my existence on this earth.

Every single day my unyielding torso will inhabit some sort of backlog, a procedure that may require great personal strength and tolerance but instead receives lashings of hostility and contempt for other human beings. Is my purpose in life really to spend my days persistently praying that a shop assistant in Asda will open another check-out and I’ll not have to linger around for a month until the large family of 14 in front pays for their three trolley loads of ham? And when will that horrid traffic jam-educed spasm I’ve developed vacate my leg?

Man or indeed woman has never led such a chaotic and demanding existence as they do today ensuing that all of us wait until they are done with whatever it is they believe themselves to be doing before we are allowed to get on with our own futile lives. We stand back and we let these mere mortals possess our personal space for their own gluttonous gain.

Do I honk the horn when stuck behind miles of vehicles? No, better not, for that might be construed as road rage. Do I attack that chap with a fish in the delicatessen for paying in bottle tops in a sequence that took so long I grew a full facade of facial hair? No. That might be seen as unnecessary violence. Even though it leaves you as mad as a March hare who’s lost his winning lottery ticket the day after Mrs March hare ran off with a squirrel taking all fifteen of the March hare juniors with her and spray painting on the martial hutch: “To hell with you, bugs.”

The worst kind of waiting is at the local shop when the order of events goes a bit like this.

At 5.05pm - spectacle wearing woman in three-quarter length trousers and flip flops parks her foreign branded motor vehicle as closely to the door as possible, thus blocking the petrol pumps as pandemonium on the forecourt deepens.

5.50pm - spectacle wearing woman in three-quarter length trousers and flip flops changes into rain coat and slowing makes her way out of the car, leaving the engine running.

6.15pm - spectacle wearing woman in three-quarter length trousers, flip flops and rain coat goes into shop and meets Elsie from down the legion at the fruit and veg. The pair manage to obstruct the entire aisle as they recall the good old days of riding the penny farthing of an evening and sewing their own shoes.

7.15pm - spectacle wearing woman in three-quarter length trousers, flip flops and rain coat picks up some bread and pays for it using a cheque – except, she’s worn the wrong glasses out so it takes a while for the transaction to be completed.

9.55pm - spectacle wearing woman in three-quarter length trousers, flip flops and rain coat gets shop assistant to help her to her car with the bread as the entire store continues to wait to be seen.

10.40pm - spectacle wearing woman in three-quarter length trousers and flip flops takes off rain coat and attempts to put bread in the boot before realising because she’s taken so long in the shop, her light blue Skoda has been stolen.

This woman is what is known as a ‘ditherer’.

No matter where you go you will always come across a ditherer because he or she will be the one that manages to make you bubble at the mouth at such a force it’s like having a Whirlpool Foot Spa on your chin. On the roads, in the supermarket and especially in card shops - these people have become the bane of my life and are completely responsible for queues and should be repeatedly prodded with a razor-sharp stick - or just forbidden from civilisation.

—

Rodney Edwards | Sunday Life Column - 4th January 2009 | GIVE HUGO DUNCAN A KNIGHTHOOD

It’s a charade that my uncle Hugo Duncan has been harshly left out of the New Year’s honours list. Lewis Hamilton gets an MBE? Do me a favour. When did driving a car terribly speedy around a track become worthy of such a reward? I’m not having any of this mumbo jumbo.

If I was in charge of the swords and stuff then a knighthood would effortlessly find its way upon the diminutive shoulders of Hugo Duncan. The man has become a cult figure in rural areas and barn yards across Northern Ireland. When not bellowing out a merry rendition of ‘Horse It Into You Cynthia’ on his Radio Ulster show, Hugo is raising thousands of pounds for charity up and down the country because he yearns to help and not because he wants to feed his ego like other broadcasters. So, arise, Sir Hugo.

I would also hand a couple of MBE’s out to UTV’s Pamela Ballantine and Paul Clark for their services to local telly and for preventing me from having to suffer watching Ready Steady Cook on two. The eminent and coiled haired Ivan Little will also get the same honour for his illustrious journalism career during which he has covered some of the province’s most traumatic tales.

Another recipient of my honours is that burly gentleman dressed as a dog in that ‘it’s nicer to neuter’ advert but only because me and the girlfriend spotted him once at a hole in the wall in Belfast and couldn’t believe it was him. And we’ve met Gok Wan.

Which celebrities and politicians would you reward in your very own honours list and why? Email your list to rodney@rodneyedwards.co.uk and I’ll award the best suggestions with a splendid congratulatory email.

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Rodney Edwards | Sunday Life Column - 4th January 2009 | SILLY LILY’S NET FAD

MY nemesis Lily Allen has made social networking on the internet as contemporary as drawstring curtains on a skylight in an open plan apartment overlooking a marina.

Everyone including the springer spaniel it appears feels duty-bound to be in possession of a Mybook or a Faceache plus an unwavering fascination with sharing every second of their relatively mundane days with complete strangers.

If you’ve become so socially inadequate that you have more electronic friends than real ones amid mankind, then it’s time to get yourself a life. Or a girlfriend / boyfriend / hamster / employment.

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Rodney Edwards | Sunday Life Column - 4th January 2009 | TIL TOSSER WOULDN’T PACK MY BAGS

Note to the patterned faced hooligan that “served” me in the shop the other day, it might benefit the customer a great deal if you discontinue having forty winks at the till.

It might also be accommodating in future if you could manage to administer the bagging of the several items one has exchanged actual money for – instead of muttering “It’s not my job” when asked to do so.

Oh, I’m sorry, how inconsiderate of me. It’s obviously my job to bag the three rolls of wrapping paper, the pint of milk, the oranges, the set of four tumblers, the floor polish and the cheese I stupidly understood I just paid you to do for me.

http://www.twitter.com/rodneyedwards

The radio page on this site is terribly old and full of awful clips just thrown on when I had the website first made. To hear clips from the breakfast show I hosted on Vibe FM, visit: www.youtube.com/biggerbreakfastshow

Happy New Year! What a busy few months.

I’ve been writing a column in the Sunday Life for about 14 weeks now and things are going great. I have however, been far too lazy to put any of the pieces up online - until now. My site is due for an overhaul later this year so until then I will pop the odd column up on this blog through a process they call “copy and paste” - you can have a read if you wish, but it will take a while to add everything.

My Downtown Radio, Impartial Reporter and News of the World work will also go up soon too.