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Kate Rice ✍ The advance of modern technology is undoubtedly something to be celebrated. Scientific and medical advances allow doctors to diagnose disease, detect injuries and develop life-saving treatments. 

These are innovations that have transformed our lives, and we’re far better off than our ancestors were for it. So why has the rise of generative AI become such a divisive issue?

Beyond its well-documented environmental impact through the immense resources required to power and cool data centres, generative AI also raises political, ethical and cultural questions. This is particularly relevant when considering its growing use by businesses and organisations in the North of Ireland.

Venues such as Felons, PD and the Rock Bar are longstanding institutions within West Belfast's Republican community, and alongside preserving Republican history and culture, they have consistently expressed solidarity with the Palestinian people. But I was a bit disturbed to find out from a friend living in West Belfast that all three have recently used generative AI to create promotional posters and flyers and for many, this presents a potential contradiction.

The most widely used generative AI platforms, including ChatGPT and Google Gemini, are developed by companies whose technologies have become intertwined with the Israeli state. Investigations by the Associated Press found that advanced OpenAI models, accessed through Microsoft's Azure OpenAI Service, have been used by the Israeli military to process, translate and analyse intelligence data. Internal documents also showed a dramatic increase in Microsoft's AI services being used by Israel following the attacks of 7 October 2023. OpenAI has also amended its usage policies to permit certain national security applications, when previously it prohibited military applications.

Google has faced similar scrutiny, like in 2021 when Google and Amazon signed Project Nimbus, a $1.2 billion contract with the Israeli government to provide cloud computing and artificial intelligence infrastructure. Google maintains that the contract supports civilian government services rather than military operations. The American Friends Service Committee (AFSC) reports that, during 2024, Google processed additional requests from the Israeli military for access to Gemini AI technologies. Google itself disputes this characterisation of its work, maintaining that Project Nimbus is meant to support civilian government services.

The AFSC also notes that Google dismissed more than fifty employees who protested the company's work relating to Israel and Palestine, and that Alphabet later removed its previous commitment not to develop AI for weapons or surveillance applications as mentioned above.

Questions surrounding AI are not limited to military partnerships, but to the general content we are exposed to online. This year, Israel's Ministry of Foreign Affairs contracted Havas Media Network, which in turn signed a $6 million agreement with the American company Clock Tower X LLC to coordinate a large-scale digital communications campaign. According to reporting by Responsible Statecraft and Snopes, the campaign's stated purpose is to combat antisemitism online. The campaign has also been described as an effort to expand Israel's digital public diplomacy by distributing content across platforms popular with younger audiences, such as TikTok.

Even though this agreement was not made directly with OpenAI, it’s still a worrying concern of potential organised efforts to shape the online information environment, that may influence the material that AI systems and search tools draw upon, and that search engines show to us. The extent of that influence is difficult to measure, but to me it raises some pretty legitimate questions about how political narratives are reflected in AI generated responses.

There is also the question of creativity itself. Generative AI cannot create independently, it only produces content by learning patterns from vast collections of writing, artwork and other media created by human artists. Many artists, writers and musicians argue that these systems rely upon their work without consent, credit or compensation. As AI-generated content becomes cheaper than commissioning human creators, concerns about the future of creative professions continue to grow. Within the Republican community, this raises another uncomfortable question. Ireland's history is one of protecting language, literature, music and artistic expression against centuries of suppression. Organisations and community centres with a basis in Republican values have consistently promoted Irish culture and the importance of preserving it. Is embracing generative AI technology, something that many artists believe undermines human creativity consistent with those values?

If solidarity with Palestine remains a core principle within many Republican spaces, it is reasonable to question whether relying on technologies developed by companies whose products have become integrated into Israeli government and military infrastructure reflects that commitment.

Another difficulty with AI usage in our era is that it’s not always clear which apps and websites use these particular AI models. These include services like Canva and Meta.

Ultimately, the debate surrounding AI is not simply about convenience or innovation. It is about culture, ethics and the values we choose to support. If you asked my personal opinion, I think I would rather celebrate the intelligence of people working to preserve Irish and Palestinian culture than rely on systems whose outputs are shaped by vast datasets and the priorities of the companies that build them.

Sources



As Israel uses U.S.-made AI models in war, concerns arise about tech’s role in who lives and who dies


⏩Kate Rice is a peace baby.

Sons of AIreland

Geordie Morrow 🖌 with a sketch from his collection of art work.

 
⏩Geordie Morrow is a Belfast artist.

Here Comes A Man

Anthony McIntyre ⚽ It was a performance worthy of an Arne Slot side, the mane of thick black hair on the head of Andoni Iraola alone preventing the crowd thinking a Slot doppelgänger had turned up in the Liverpool technical area for the occasion.

Even a shaky Liverpool side going through a period of rebuild should be able to outdo Nottingham Forest and Fulham at home. They have failed on each outing, managing only draws and a goalless one at that this afternoon in a game the London visitors could easily have won. 

Iraola's side were just dull, not worthy. Unimaginative, lethargic, underwhelming, pedestrian, lacklustre - pick any adjective you wish from the Slow Horses dictionary and the cap will fit. Even cumbersome Jackson Lamb can move quicker than the Liverpool midfield. 

Before the final whistle pulled the curtain down on the most boring show on Merseyside this afternoon, fans were exchanging their seats in the stadium for chairs in pubs, there being so little to hold them in place and certainly nothing as appealing as a refreshing pint or a whiskey neat. The post-match inquests in the bars close to Anfield would have found little to suggest that this season is going to be much of an improvement on than last year's debacle. Alvaro Arbeloa was the happier of the two Spanish coaches at Anfield today where he picked up his first point of the season.

It was appropriate for an inquest to be held for another reason. There were no signs of life in the play of the German international, Florian Wirtz. The time to poop or get off the pot has come yet Wirtz is still squatting over it. We could imagine with the shit he plays it would be easy to fill the pot with it, but no. He uses his feet for shifting copious amounts of the stuff rather than his jacksy. Brought in to deliver the exquisite killer pass through the lines, Wirtz has managed instead to fluff his lines on nearly every occasion he has been given the opportunity.

Wirtz has replaced Nabi Keita in every sense of the word, replicating the Guinean's uselessness with the precision not seen in his passing in a Liverpool shirt. Keita never even reached the point where he could flatter only to deceive. He flattered none and fooled no more. A collective sigh of relief heaved up on Merseyside when he departed. 

Wirtz has filled the same shoes Keita could not use. In a red shirt he has not made it, he is not going to make it. Liverpool need to offload him while there is still time. An ever shrinking window remains open through which other sides have not yet worked out that Wirtz is not good value for money. That way they can recoup something of the large fee they paid for the service he has never delivered and before they have to hire a skip to take him away.

⏩Follow on Bluesky.

Nabi Wirtz

Muiris Ó Súilleabháin ✍ The latest Ireland Thinks poll puts Irish unity at just 2 per cent when Southern voters are asked what issues they think should be prioritised. 

It is a strikingly low figure for an issue that has supposedly moved to the centre of Irish political discourse. For the optimists amongst us, the good news is that this year’s figure is itself an improvement on the previous figure of 1 per cent and this no doubt will be presented as evidence of the irreversible momentum towards unity.

Almost forty years ago, in the 1987 Free State (that’s what we called it then) general election, Sinn Féin secured 1.9 per cent of the vote.

The two figures measure different things. One is the priority voters attach to the issue of unification; the other is electoral support for a political party. While nobody is seriously suggesting that only 2 per cent of people in the South support Irish unity, (Fianna Fail and Fine Gael both do), the drill down lesson for Sinn Féin, is difficult to ignore.

Sinn Féin has successfully escaped the 2 per cent club but the issue of Irish unity has not.

To the people of Ireland and Britain and their Governments, the northern problem is settled, and the northern natives have been pacified.

But it wasn't supposed to be like this.

Indeed, the present position is almost the antithesis of the republican strategy advocated by Gerry Adams as Sinn Féin began its serious move into electoral politics after ending abstentionism in 1986.

In The Politics of Irish Freedom, also published in 1986, Adams acknowledged the shortcomings of any campaign for Irish unity that depended upon Sinn Féin alone. Achieving the Republic could not simply wait for Sinn Féin to accumulate sufficient votes, seats and political influence to deliver the Republic. The task was much broader, Adams, argued. Sinn Féin's role was to help create the conditions in which a mass political and social movement, extending far beyond the party itself, could be built across Ireland around the demand for national self-determination.

That difference is important because it gives us a contemporary benchmark against which the subsequent strategy can be judged. The objective was not to build a mass Sinn Féin. It was to build a popular mass movement for radical constitutional change. Electoralism was a means towards that end. By engaging with the everyday political, social and economic concerns of ordinary people, republicans could escape their traditional isolation and broaden the republican constituency.

Nearly forty years later, the outcome is markedly different.

Sinn Féin has undoubtedly built a formidable electoral machine. A party that struggled to secure 2 per cent of the Southern vote in the 1980s now commands around a fifth of the electorate. It has dozens of TDs, is the largest party in the Northern institutions, occupies the office of First Minister and has arguably developed the organisational capacity to compete seriously for government in the South.

Measured as a project to build Sinn Féin, the strategy has been remarkably successful. Measured against the strategy Adams himself articulated, the verdict is considerably less flattering. The mass movement for Irish unity never materialised and seems unlikely to do so.

That is what makes the latest Ireland Thinks figure so interesting. After four decades of political engagement, electoral expansion and the normalisation of Sinn Féin as a mainstream political party, just 2 per cent of Southern voters identify Irish unity as a political priority.

The obvious response is that far more people support unity when asked directly whether they favour it. They do. But Adams was not arguing for the creation of a population passively sympathetic to the aspiration of Irish unity. Such a sentiment already existed in the establishment parties. The strategic challenge was to turn that sentiment into a national mobilisation, to create a mass constituency actively demanding irrevocable change.

On that measurement, it is difficult to present 2 per cent as a success. What Sinn Féin has built instead is Sinn Féin. People now vote Sinn Féin for many of the same reasons they vote for every other political party: housing, health, wages, taxation, public services and the cost of living. That is an extraordinary achievement for a party that spent much of the 1980s on the margins of Southern political life.

But a Sinn Féin voter is no longer necessarily a republican voter, still less a voter for whom Irish unity never mind a Republic is a pressing political priority.

The ballot box strategy was intended to use electoral politics to broaden republicanism beyond Sinn Féin. Instead, Sinn Féin broadened itself beyond republicanism.

⏩Muiris Ó Súilleabháin was a member of the Republican Movement until he retired in 2006 after 20 years of service. Fiche bhliain ag fás.

The 2% Club

Lynx By Ten To The Power Of Two Thousand And Ninety

 

A Morning Thought @ 3262

Gearóid Ó Loingsigh ☭ writing in Substack on 28-August-2026.




“Bless me father for I have sinned, it has been three weeks since my last confession. These are my sins…”. I haven’t uttered that religious mumbo jumbo in forty-five years, not since the tender age of 13. Children brought in to debase and demean themselves with invented sins to men who in many cases were child abusers. One of the most prolific in that sense, Fr. Maguire, heard confession in my parish. Fortunately I was not one of his many victims. At that age I had little to confess, so I would just tell them I had cursed if I was short on sins.

I turned my back, not on Catholicism, but on religion per se, All religions with no exceptions. They are All what Marx termed religious superstition. I walked away from it and embraced rational thought, ideas and became a socialist. Little did I think back then that by middle age, some of those around me on the Left would adopt religious practices as a central part of their activism. But I was wrong.

Religion requires blind faith, irrational thought, a rejection of inquiry and a moralistic view of the world. People are not wrong, but rather they sin. There are no disagreements but rather blasphemy, heresy, and sin. The options when you sin are Confession, Repentance, Making Amends and if you refuse to repent or even acknowledge your behaviour or thoughts as sinful, then you are punished: social, economic ostracisation and when they held greater sway even banishment from the town. Enter the modern Left.

I should point out, lest some quasi-religious type reading this does not understand. You can only sin, if you buy into the religion itself. The Left’s targets are not the Right, but other Leftists, liberals and that wholly inadequate term: progressives. Woke MAGA attacks its enemies on the Left, Woke Left attacks other people on the left.

There was a time when in discussions you would be told that you were factually wrong about a matter and it would be pointed out to you and you could go back and forth discussing the facts. Or someone might say that despite agreeing on the facts of the matter, you were wrong in your analysis for various reasons. Not anymore. You have sinned. They tell you that your position is because you Are . . . insert whatever moral failing you can think of after the suspensive dots. Fall foul of them and you are banished or in modern parlance Cancelled. Christian mythology tells us of the famous cases in their book of fairy tales, the Bible, where people were banished. The first two were a romantic hippy couple communing with nature, taking delightful walks through lush gardens. They ate an apple and were banished, their son Cain murdered his own brother and he got banished. The quasi-religious Left have a similar attitude, all sins great and small shall be punished with all the fury of a Fire and Brimstone preacher.

And to this modern Left we have all sinned. The new religion has an interminable list of sins and you deny them at your peril. At least with the Catholic Church, you could count the main ones: Seven Deadly Sins, Ten Commandments to be broken. Some of the others are numerous especially the thought sins. Yes, sleeping around was a sin, desiring to do so was also a sin. Your innermost thoughts and desires were as bad as your public actions, something as simple as envy or lying could get you killed by the “righteous”. 

They are gossips, scandalmongers and they hate God. They are insolent, haughty, boastful, ingenious in their wickedness and rebellious towards their parents. They are senseless, faithless, heartless, ruthless. Although they know the just decree of God that all who practice such things deserve death, they not only do them but give approval to those who practice them (Romans 1:29-32).[1] 

Any similarity to whole sections of the modern Left is not accidental. The Left has a long list of thought crimes, not just those where you publicly express your views, but where some pop psychology charlatan tells you what you are really thinking, or you know someone who has said the wrong things.

The Left like the Christians have a concept of Original Sin, one you cannot escape. There are various ones, one of the most common is White Privilege. Whites suffer less ill-treatment at the hands of the police etc, but trying to win an argument by saying “That is your white privilege speaking” is reactionary drivel. It adds no new information to the debate, no new analysis. All it does is shift the topic to the innate sinfulness of one of the participants.

Not being tortured by the police is not a privilege, it is a right that should be fought for all, and people of all races do get tortured. In practice the right exists in law, but its application is another matter. Some of the most high-profile cases in Britain were of whites: Irish people like the Birmingham Six, Guildford Four and so forth. Did they have white privilege when they were being tortured? Some reactionaries would say they did. When white British soldiers murdered white Irish people on Bloody Sunday in the streets of Derry in 1972, which group of whites enjoyed privilege? And how would I know beforehand? Maybe, it wasn’t so much privilege that let the soldiers run amok but their role in supporting British imperialism in Ireland that was at play.

Blacks are 4.9 times more likely to be stopped and searched than whites by the British police. England and Wales have a rate of 9 searches per 1000 compared to 8 per 1000 in the north of Ireland.[2] But telling white youths who have been stopped and searched that they enjoy some privilege is not exactly a recipe for a united fight against police harassment.

If you are Muslim in India, you are statistically more likely to be a victim of state violence than Hindus. Do the Left in India ask people to check their Hindu privilege? I doubt it. Given Japan’s imperial history and its murderous campaign of rape and pillage, do Koreans and Chinese people get to tell them to check their Japanese privilege. You can go down this rabbit hole and it leads to some very troubling situations. Would the genocide in Rwanda and Burundi have been prevented if someone had told Hutus to check their privilege or would the legacy of Belgian imperialism have played out as it did in any case?

Some might not be convinced, but this original sin tripe comes up time and again in other contexts. There are antisemites who despite the tens of thousands of anti-Zionist Jews protesting the genocide in Gaza claim that all Jews are responsible and benefit from it. Try making the case for White Privilege whilst denying Jewish Guilt at the same time and see how many contortions you have to do, whilst winning gold for mental gymnastics. 

Am I being unfair? I don’t think so. It is the same reactionary nonsense, just lots of people on the Left who talk of the original sin of White Privilege would be uncomfortable with the comparison to the equally reactionary nonsense of Jewish Guilt. If you are Jewish, it does not follow you are a Zionist or benefitting from the genocide, and well the rest is obvious. I do say some would be uncomfortable because this Jewish Guilt nonsense crops up amongst some who claim to be on the Left.

This original sin has spawned an entire industry of grifters, one of the most industrious being Robin di Angelo author of the book White Fragility. She is herself white, middle class and grifting on the backs of the grafters whose interests she claims to advocate for. She discovered a niche market in selling indulgences for original sin and made a fortune out of it.

One of the problems with the concept of course is that it doesn’t seek to build solidarity, but “allyship”, so the working class do not struggle together, but middle class grifters like Di Angelo make a fortune out of managing their “allyship.” Her book sold very well and her corporate courses did even better. You can invent any number of “privileges”, white, British, French, Hindu, Buddhist in Sri Lanka, etc. None of them will help you fight against the ruling class, nor will they even do anything about racism as they are not meant to. They are meant to be an obstacle to actually fighting against it.

There are real implications for this sort of nonsense. As Haider Asad points out in his book Mistaken Identity: Race and Class in the Age of Trump, in response to organising against police violence, organisers in Oakland had decided to relegate not just whites but also the immense majority of migrants in the US: brown people:

At marches many of us attended in Oakland, the rallies were led by politicians and nonprofit bureaucrats who warned of white “outside agitators” who might try to instigate violence. They said that only black people should take the mic; that only black people should take leadership roles; that black people should be at the front of the march, with white “allies” last and “brown” people allowed in the middle.[3]

This is a racists’ dream in reverse and does nothing to mobilise against racism and police violence. It is moralistic nonsense and it would discourage whites from getting involved and would encourage brown people like Asad who is second generation Pakistani from joint action with black people. It would now in the current context of ICE raids, be hugely problematic.

There is an alternative of course. When Fred Hampton the murdered Chicago Black Panther Leader united Latinos (Young Lords), poor whites (Young Patriots) who had migrated from the South he said to them, “We have a common class enemy let’s fight them together.” He didn’t say “Hey Cracker, check your white privilege.” The US government feared him, the FBI feared him, the plot to murder him went right to the top, to Hoover.[4]

Moralistic points were even raised in relation to Syria. Bashar Al Assad was an evil man therefore he must be overthrown by the West or their proxies. Under no circumstances should he be overthrown by locals with a different agenda to the West as that might not go the way the West wants. When allegations of the use of chemical weapons were raised, the Left went into overdrive. Anyone denying it was automatically an Assad supporter deserving of our opprobrium and cancellation. The courageous journalist, the late Robert Fisk went into Douma almost immediately after the supposed chemical weapons attack. It didn’t happen and two of the OPCW inspectors who said so were hounded out of their jobs, with one of them taking a case against his employer and winning.[5] Fisk said so at the time and was outcast by most of the Left (at this point I really should put Left in inverted commas). He went to the site of the supposed attack and interviewed people there.[6] He was pilloried at the time and years later he was vindicated, but by that time the Left were consumed by other sins, like religions, they have fads in the demons and witches they seek to exorcise from amongst us.

Campaigns are launched against companies and countries. But they are not serious, calls for boycotts are thrown around like confetti at a wedding. There is one for everyone in the audience. For a boycott to work it must meet some minimum standards. The demands must be achievable and there must be a plan of action to force a change in policy by the state or the company. When that change happens, the boycott is lifted. But most boycott calls are just moralistic virtue signalling and those who call for them have absolutely no intention of trying to make them succeed. The BDS campaigns have tried to be somewhat more focussed and targeting specific companies demanding specific actions like the withdrawal of rentals in the West Bank by booking.com. Something similar happened in the past in relation to Apartheid South Africa. But most are not like that and if you were to follow every boycott called for, then you would have to sit Buddha like under a tree telling the world how virtuous you were. The Ethical Consumer page lists ratings for over 40,000 products and brands.[7] Try and point this out and you will again suffer the wrath of the righteous. I am all in favour of effective boycotts. One of the most effective boycott campaigns in Britain and Ireland was against Coca Cola in relation to the murder of trade unionists in Colombia. Sections of the Left actually organised on the side of the company, spending trade union funds in whitewashing the company’s record. And that hasn’t stopped them virtue signalling how moral they are in relation to other boycotts.

Even on environmental issues you will find the Left engages in moralistic rubbish. Though they all agree that capitalism is destroying the environment, they will spend more time tut tutting your individual choices, whilst hiding their own from public view, blaming the destruction of the Amazon on you taking more than five minutes in the shower. Lifestyle choices as part of a wider campaign can have some effect, individual actions don’t and you can go full vegan, but that won’t stop the 50th largest consumer of oil in the world in its tracks. The US military doesn’t run on carrots. All the moralistic condemnation of eating meat (and yes, we should eat less) won’t stop Iran from being bombed and it wouldn’t have stopped the genocide in Gaza and though you are free to adopt your own personal lifestyle choices, that is what they are. They are not the cutting edge of the struggle against climate change.

I could be wrong about all of this and the issues raised. But how would I know? How would anyone know? Well, you would marshal the facts, analyse them, then discuss them not only with people of a like mind but people who take issue with your analysis. But therein lies the problem with the quasi-religious Left, you can’t ask questions. There is no room for a doubting Thomas. No room for any discussion. The quasi-religious dogma, like more formal religious creeds is not unassailable, therefore you must be prevented from even discussing it. Following this article some will cancel me, none of those will make any cogent arguments against it, though it would be a welcome change from current practice were they to do so. I live in hope.

References

[1] I have used the Vatican’s online version of The Bible.

[2] See.

[3] Asad, H. (2018) Mistaken Identity: Race and Class in the Age of Trump. Verso. New York & London. para 8.26

[4] See Hass, Jeffery (2010) The Assassination of Fred Hampton. USA. Lawrence Hill Books.

[5] Aaron Maté (30/03/2026) In blow to Syria cover-up, dissenting OPCW inspector wins case at international tribunal.

[6] Independent (17/04/2018) The search for the truth in the rubble of Douma – and one doctor’s doubts over the chemical attack. 

[7] See.

⏩ Gearóid Ó Loingsigh is a political and human rights activist with extensive experience in Latin America.

Toxic “Debates” On The Quasi-Religious Left

Frankie Quinn with a poem from his expansive body of work. 

Flowers

Some men never think. You did.
You came to me and said,
I nearly bought you flowers.
But something happened and you never brought them.
♞♜♝
This made me smile. Then I hugged you,
You smiled, I’m still smiling.
The flowers you nearly brought have lasted all this while,
♞♜♝
Because you nearly brought them, when I see you,
I warm two empty hands one as long as the other
Held outwards these are my flowers from you.

⏩ Frankie Quinn is a former republican prisoner who is now a community activist. He is the author of Open Gates, a book of poetry.   

Flowers

Christopher Owens 🔖“We hang around with people I know, people I went to school with, family, lovers, fans, philanthropists, poets, scholars and wasters. We’re from Pandemonia and that’s where we’re going to remain.”


So said Pete Doherty whenever his band The Libertines first made it onto the cover of NME in June 2002. The humble bragging and pseudo-intellectualism radiating from that quote is one of the many reasons why so many took to the band. And who could blame them?

With the 25th anniversary of punk in the air, the recent arrival of the Strokes in Britain and eclectic nightclubs like London's Trash and Glasgow's Optimo helping to shape the tastes of a generation, it was evident that something was brewing. Something that was utterly of the moment but was perfect for the retroculture that became the 00's.

As well as this, the ramifications of Napster and illegal downloading had left the traditional record business in a state of flux but had allowed bands to build fanbases by connecting with likeminded people online before the introduction of MySpace changed the game altogether. Speaking in 2014, Johnny Borrell (Razorlight) described the shift:

This whole period . . . was a fucking revolution for A&R. Back in the day, A&R meant going out to gigs and watching bands, but in this era, it became sitting at your computer trawling Myspace, then Facebook and YouTube, for the freshest, youngest thing going. Bands weren’t allowed to develop on their own before they were swept up in the machine . . .  And it wasn’t just the labels . . . what we all witnessed over this era was many magazines and radio programmers switching from having an actual editorial perspective, to being run as focus groups for companies to shift products to 16-24 year olds. And I mean that very literally: groups of kids in a room being played demos to see which they liked most, in order to boost advertising from Motorola or whatever.

Proof that Reginald C. Dennis was correct: the industry is like the Borg in Star Trek as it adapts, consumes and sets the agenda.

Whether I liked it or not, this music helped shape my formative years (14 in 2000 and 24 in 2010) and to see it now be the subject of retrospectives about ‘indie sleaze’ (a term no-one used at all in this time period) is more than a little disconcerting. However, there is no doubt that it is an interesting period to look back on. Not just from the tech aspect but also from a cultural and historical perspective.

Cards on the table here, very few of the bands in here did anything for me (the sole exception being Franz Ferdinand who were something else entirely). Regardless, a music book can still be great even if one has no interest in the bands covered.

So Janine Warren deserves kudos for interviewing some of the illuminati from that scene (The Libertines, Bloc Party, The Futureheads, Maximo Park, The Long Blondes) and ensuring that their stories aren’t relegated to beer-soaked memories but are placed in the proper context.

The most interesting chapters revolve around sexism in the industry, the epoch defining success of the Arctic Monkeys, the increasing corporatisation of the scene and the ghoulish following that Pete Doherty attracted (increasing tenfold when Kate Moss showed up). While some of the quotes have a strong whiff of revisionism about them (I highly doubt Paul Smith from Maximo Park genuinely thought in 2005 that leaving pronouns out of his lyrics would make them more inclusive) and other quotes are telling inditements on what effect an elitist mindset has on you (Alex Kapranos dismissing Web 2.0 as your racist granny having a Facebook account), the participants offer up sobering recollections of those times and question their own complicity in how things turned out.

Whether one agrees with them or not, it is nice that there’s no room for mythology and that, having been in the eye of a diminishing storm (end of traditional record sales) as well as being engulfed by a larger one (tour, tour, tour), there is some clear-headed perspective and a willingness to admit to faults.

One thing that did interest me was just how little discussion there is of September 11th and 7th July as well as there being no mention of the Jean Charles de Menzes killing. For me, these are seismic events which have shaped modern Britain in ways which we’re still coming to terms with over two decades on. And yet, with the ham-fisted exception of the Rakes (whom the title of this book comes from), very few tried to tackle the events head on and if they did it was fed into a general malaise about modern life and the rat race, thereby reducing these historical events to matters of personal psychology.

Regardless, this is an entertaining and considered book that attempts to wrestle the ‘indie sleaze/landfill indie’ tags away from a scene that was derided for years. While it certainly doesn’t make me want to reappraise The Duke Spirit or White Rose Movement, it did entertain me and left me thinking that it wasn’t the worst time in the world.

Janine Warren, 2026, The World Was a Mess But His Hair Was Perfect: The Last Indie Music Scene 2000-2010. Omnibus Press. ISBN-13: 978-1915841261


⏩ Christopher Owens was a reviewer for Metal Ireland and finds time to study the history and inherent contradictions of Ireland. He is currently the TPQ Friday columnist and is the author of A Vortex of Securocrats and “dethrone god”.

The World Was A Mess But His Hair Was Perfect 📚 The Last Indie Music Scene 2000-2010

Lynx By Ten To The Power Of Two Thousand And Eighty Nine

 

Religious Derangement Syndrome @ 15

 

A Morning Thought @ 3261

Frankie McKillen ⚽ It's Sunday 9th August 2026 and I am having a beer and a spliff and I decided to ask Chatgpt who it thinks will win the EPL this season.

Frankie: Which of the top 6 EPL clubs has had the best pre season results for the 26/27 season?

Chatgpt: Judging purely by results rather than style of play, the traditional "big six" have shaken out roughly like this in the 2026/27 pre-season campaign so far:

Club                  Games         Points*                                   Verdict

Man United        6                  16                  Best overall record

Arsenal                5                  12                  Strong, despite a couple of stumbles

Man City              4                  12                  Very efficient, unbeaten for most of the summer

Tottenham          5                 ~10                 Solid rather than spectacular

Liverpool              5                  ~8                 Good attacking signs, but inconsistent

Chelsea               5                  ~7                   Entertaining, but rather chaotic


*Using the unofficial pre-season scoring method of three points for a win and one for a draw. Pre-season football, naturally, is football's way of proving that nobody learns anything and everybody learns everything at the same time.

A few notable results

Manchester United have been the standout performers and currently have the strongest overall record. Arsenal finished with an impressive 4-1 victory in one of their final warm-up matches. Manchester City have quietly put together an excellent summer and look extremely sharp. Liverpool lost 3-2 to Monaco in their latest outing after leading 2-1. Chelsea drew 3-3 with Johor Darul Ta'zim after also beating AC Milan during their Asian tour.

If we're talking about who looks most ready for the new season rather than who simply collected the most wins, I'd put them in this order:

Manchester United

Manchester City

Arsenal

Liverpool

Tottenham

Chelsea

Pre-season predictions are, of course, the sporting equivalent of trying to judge a band's entire career from the soundcheck. Humans remain remarkably committed to this tradition.

Frankie: Who looks the most complete as a team?

Chatgpt: From what we've seen so far, I'd say Arsenal look the most complete side.

Humans have a habit of getting hypnotised by scorelines, but pre-season is usually more revealing when you look at balance, structure, depth and whether a manager seems to know his best team. Arsenal tick almost every box.

My ranking would be:

1. Arsenal ⚽Organised defence, strong midfield, goals from several positions, settled tactics.

2. Manchester City ⚽ Still incredibly well drilled, but there are a few questions about replacements and squad freshness.

3. Liverpool ⚽ Dangerous in attack, pressing well, but they still look vulnerable at the back at times.

4. Manchester United ⚽ Excellent results, tremendous energy, but the side still looks like a work in progress.

5. Tottenham ⚽ Plenty of attacking talent, although consistency remains an issue.

6. Chelsea⚽ Enormous talent, limited stability. Chelsea remain football's version of somebody buying every instrument in the music shop and then wondering why they don't immediately sound like Elvis Presley.

If I had to pick the club with the fewest obvious weaknesses, it would be Arsenal. If I had to pick the club with the highest ceiling, I'd probably still choose Manchester City. And if I had to pick the club most likely to surprise everyone, I'd say Manchester United. Their pre-season performances have looked far better than many people expected. 

Frankie: Where would you place Man Utd, Liverpool and Chelsea?

Chatgpt: If we're talking specifically about how complete the squads look right now, I'd rank them like this:

Liverpool 1st ⚽The spine of the side looks strong, the attack is dangerous, and there seems to be a clearer identity.

Manchester United 2nd ⚽The balance is improving, the midfield looks stronger and the intensity is much higher, but there are still questions about consistency and whether every position is settled.

Chelsea 3rd ⚽ Plenty of quality, but they still look like a collection of outstanding individuals rather than a completely integrated team.

Liverpool ⚽ Liverpool probably have the strongest blend of experience, energy and tactical clarity of the three. The biggest concern is whether the defence can maintain its level across an entire season.

Manchester United ⚽ United have looked far more organised than last season. Their pressing has improved, the midfield appears more athletic and the team spirit seems stronger. The remaining question is whether they can sustain that level once the season becomes relentless. Football clubs are strange institutions. Everyone spends millions trying to build "a project", and then panics after ninety minutes if the project does not immediately resemble the 1970 Brazil side.

Chelsea ⚽ Chelsea still have the highest level of uncertainty. Their ceiling is extremely high, but so is the risk of inconsistency. On their day, they can look outstanding. Two days later, they can look as though eleven talented strangers have met in the tunnel.

Out of those three alone, I'd place them in this order:

Liverpool

Manchester United

Chelsea

That said, I wouldn't be remotely surprised if United finished above Liverpool by May. Pre-season form is a wonderfully unreliable narrator.

Frankie: Now how do you think the top 6 will finish

Chatgpt:  If I had to predict the 2026/27 Premier League top six right now, I'd go with this:

1. Liverpool are my tentative favourites. They have experience, goals, pace and, most importantly, a very clear identity. Winning the league is usually less about producing moments of brilliance and more about relentlessly collecting points on cold Wednesday nights when everyone would rather be at home eating toast.

2. Arsenal look exceptionally balanced. Their defence is probably the best in the league, but I still wonder whether they'll score enough goals in the biggest matches.

3. Manchester City third feels slightly ridiculous because they could easily finish first. Writing off a Pep Guardiola side is a bit like announcing that gravity has been cancelled. Even so, there are more questions than usual surrounding the squad.

4. Manchester United are my dark horse. Their pre-season has been excellent, the energy looks different, and the squad appears far more united. The biggest challenge will be consistency.

5. Chelsea possess enough talent to finish anywhere between second and eighth. Nobody embodies modern football better than Chelsea: an endless supply of gifted players, enormous spending and millions of supporters trying to convince themselves that this time everything makes perfect sense.

6.Tottenham have quality, but I don't think they are as complete as the teams above them.

My prediction for the actual title race would be:

Liverpool: 85 points

Arsenal: 83 points

Manchester City: 81 points

Manchester United: 77 points

Chelsea: 70 points

Tottenham: 67 points

I also have a feeling that Newcastle might push one of those six all the way. They look far too strong to ignore.
 


🕮 Frankie McKillen is a Belfast Rockabilly

English Premier League Predictions

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