[spoonman]

This has now gone beyond a joke now. A bunch of malcontent's (loyalists this time, could be republicans at another point in the past or future) holding democracy and the day to day business of nearly everyone else to ransom. It almost turns me into a rabid Tory-like right winger in disgust.
And the sad thing is I can't see this ending any time soon.

Plenty of theories about the what is the motivation of these riots continuing at present. In public anyway, the self-appointed protest leaders in Jamie Bryson and Willie Frazer are showing up themselves as fish in a barrel for journalists on TV and radio.

[new puritan]

Have you seen all this 'Loyalists against Democracy' bollocks that's doing the rounds? Anyone would think they were losing their numerical advantage.

[oboogie]

I've got to ask...is the spelling mistake in the thread title simply that, or a deliberate attempt at a phonetic rendering of a Norn Iron accent?

[MisterMuncher]

A little of both, sprinkled with a jibe at the general quality of spelling/grammar displayed on signs at the protests. It's become common parlance, the Twitter hashtag #flegs has been going since this all kicked off.

Willie, though, poor Willie. He's off to Dublin on Saturday fortnight to protest outside the Oireachteas and demand they take their flag down as well. Except, of course, there's no flag flying there on a Saturday. Mind you, Dublin Pizza joints are a little worried...

[oboogie]

Willie is very special indeed. It's a fact that a school is training terrorists and he knows that because they are flying a flag totally unrelated to terrorism. That's a level of stupid worthy of the EDL. He also seems to be under the impression that the IRA fly flags over their secret training camps ...... if that were the case they'd have been wiped out by the Back and Tans 90 years ago.

The 51-year-old founder of Families Acting for Innocent Relatives also claimed the school was "the junior headquarters of SF/IRA youth, or it may as well be".
I wounder do they also train the children in how to use weapons, for it seems they can do what they wont. [sic]

Willie Frazer

[spoonman]

I've got to ask...is the spelling mistake in the thread title simply that, or a deliberate attempt at a phonetic rendering of a Norn Iron accent?

It's the latter. Deliberate. And as MM points out, has been used by nearly everyone informally since all of this started.



As for the spelling, well it does tend to be that those who fancy themselves as a Superprod or Supertaig don't tend to be the sharpest...



There's quite a few slogans daubed as graffiti on walls on both sides over the decades that haven't been put through a spell checker, or grammar check for that matter. Certainly enough to give our Malcom here a heart attack! "Toots Will Be Shoot" and "All Tags Out" being two off the top of my head.

Also there's this East Belfast spelling fail, but the photo is quite large so I'll just link it.

[oboogie]

Ok thanks MisterMuncher & Spoonman, I guess these fleg riots aren't getting as much coverage this side of the water and the misspellings had passed me by.

[spoonman]

Ok thanks MisterMuncher & Spoonman, I guess these fleg riots aren't getting as much coverage this side of the water and the misspellings had passed me by.

For those with long-ish memories, I had a whinge about this back in August 2011 when I mentioned that press and media kept covering the riots as "happening across Britain" or "happening across the UK" when I pointed out that they were only happening in England, so should be "riots across England", that Scotland, Wales and NI (for a change) weren't having such outbreaks and didn't deserve to be tarnished by association, and made the point that if rioting only happened in Northern Ireland, it wouldn't be described as "happening across the UK". London-centric media as is often the case...</snarky>

Though to be fair, most people in Britain I'd reckon couldn't care less about the "fleg" issue. In fact I'm surprised anyone outside Belfast would care about it as it was a decision voted on by Belfast City Council.

I suppose with the misspellings there would be some crossover with the EDL in that area.

SPORT R FLEG!

[oboogie]

Wouldn't the Norn Iron phonetic be Spart R Fleg?
Believe me, irritation at our London-centric media is not restricted to Scotland, Wales and NI.

[The Weeping Angel]

I can't stand the london-centric nature of the media either. The West Midlands in particular suffers from this approach

[The Weeping Angel]

I have a real worry that Northern Ireland is slipping back towards the dark ages of the Troubles

[Tubby Isaacs]

Nah, the real Loyalist hardmen have shot each other.

[spoonman]

Wouldn't the Norn Iron phonetic be Spart R Fleg?
Believe me, irritation at our London-centric media is not restricted to Scotland, Wales and NI.

Probably closer to Shw'pawt ar fleg!
Oh and I'd well believe the irritation at a London-centric media at the expense of elsewhere in England. I remember during the digital switch over last year when London had its analogue TV switched off for good that some lazy journalists were talking about it being the end of Ceefax despite it still carrying on in NI and some parts of England for a few months more. Indeed such irritation can carry on to a more regional level, Liverpudlians feeling overshadowed by Manchester, North Wales not feeling they get the attention they deserve from their southern based counterparts, claims of Scottish media being fixated on Glasgow at the expense of elsewhere and so on. Until the late 90's in NI a lot of Belfast based media struggled to believe that unless it was associated with the troubles that anything happened much west of the River Bann, which was of particular annoyance to those in Derry city. All the area seemed to be good for a lot of them was for a weekend at a hotel or B&B next to Lough Erne. An influx of young, educated people into Belfast from these areas whom worked in the city during the week but went back home for the weekend penetrated important media circles and so the Belfast-only bias is not as bad as it used to be. Something similar again in the south, most Dublin based media (RTE being notorious) struggle to cover much of what happens outside the D4 bubble.

[spoonman]

I have a real worry that Northern Ireland is slipping back towards the dark ages of the Troubles

It's nowhere near that. At the moment it's more of a power struggle within unionism & loyalists that has spilled over, mainly in East Belfast. Without getting into too much detail, had Peter Robinson spent more time dealing with issues in the area as an MP rather than get involved in dodgy property development deals, perhaps along with his wife not going about as a sex-starved cougar, then the current demonstrations would likely be a heck of a lot more peaceful.

[oboogie]

I've been practising saying Shw'pawt in my best Belfast accent - it would fool nobody at all, but it's quite a satisfactory chicken noise.