Frank Mitchell

If you have never been on a mystery tour you should give it some consideration. No one knowing where they are going apart from the driver and the organiser.

I was in the right place at the right time last Sunday to see the Air Ambulance take off from the roof of the Royal Victoria Hospital. I was intrigued to see it reverse in a line high above the Falls Road. I should use the proper term and say it was flying backwards but quite a few people on the street were saying the same thing: “Didn’t know it could reverse.”

I never passed many remarks on Ronald Reagan when he was the President of the United States. Maybe I was too young to really appreciate his power, and as I hadn’t been a fan of his Hollywood movies he just seemed to pass me by.

When will we see a concerted effort to clamp down on illegal use of electric mopeds and home-made e-bikes?

Sir Edward Carson is the only hurler in Ulster to have a statue erected in his honour. His permanent presence at Stormont may have nothing to do with his sporting ability, but there is no doubting he was a dab hand with hurl and sliotar during his studies at Trinity College, Dublin.

I expect in a few hundred years from now humans will communicate with grunts and glances while our heads will have evolved to a new natural position, looking downwards as the gadget we hold delivers texts at the speed of thought.

My task was simple. Welcome five women to the stage and invite them to speak. I knew they were going to pay tribute to their mentor but I had no idea how difficult and harrowing their lives had been.

Let’s hear it for the local shop owners and shop workers. It’s important to make this a bumper festive time for them. I say this with a sense of guilt. The last four gifts I ordered for Christmas will arrive in a van, be dropped in the porch and then wrapped at home.

The breeding community lost a friend and asset last week. Annette Covault died Friday, Dec. 13, from complications of ill health that she had dealt with for several years.

Christmas Day TV 1970 and Christmas Day TV 1987 remain special for me.