Cathedral Quarter Arts Festival

I had the pleasure of getting along to three events at his year's CQAF festival. The Cathedral Quarter festival has always had a habit of bringing over emerging and established artists and offering a very broad range of events, concerts and exhibitions. The Festival of Fools seemed to have become incorporated into CQAF in some shape or form, and it's regrettable to hear that this particular piece of street performance has had it's funding axed. The Festival of Fools is multi-cultural, cross-community. family-friendly and attracts really respectable crowds, many of whom are tourists. I think it is a little gem in the crown of Belfast's city centre. In the same week, our minister for finacne decided he was going to spend £10,000 on erecting five union flags over government buildings, a divisive and pointless act if ever there was one. I did suggest to anyone who would listen that he could use that £10,000 to fund the Festival of Fools which appears to already have been named in his honour.

Anyway, here's a selection of shots from the Festival of Fools, the Fawlty Towers Dining Experience, Amadou and Mariam and Mary Gauthier/Ben Glover.

Mary Gauthier and Ben Glover, St George's Church

Festival of Fools

Amadou and Mariam

The Fawlty Towers Dinner Experience

Flags

Anyone who has been keeping an eye on the news here in Belfast will be aware that the subject of flags has been a bit of a hot topic over the last two weeks. The city council's (democratic) decision to remove the union flag and only fly it on designated days throughout the year led to protests, violence, death threats against politicians, road closures and a great deal of bad feeling all round. The flying of the union flag is contentious because half the population see it as confirmation of their Britishness while the other half view it as triumphalism and are offended by it. Today we had around 1500 people gather at city hall to call for peace; yesterday people turned up to pray and hold hands in a ring around City Hall.

I stay away from politics generally and don't feel like using this post as a vehicle for my own views. My own thoughts on the whole matter are more to do with my nagging feeling that there are much more important things people could be protesting about such as benefit cuts, cuts in public services, pay freezes for those in work, rising prices and rising taxes, increases in the numbers of people living in poverty and that these things have more of an immediate and direct impact on everyone who lives in Northern Ireland.

Hence, the wee men were brought out.