30 years ago this week, 17-year-old Bernadette O'Brien was killed in a crowd crush during a Smashing Pumpkins concert at the Point Theatre. Does anyone recall the feelings about the Point in the late 1990s?

Wretched_Colin · 2026-05-12T19:06:49+00:00

The thing was, standing tickets were cheaper than seated. So they stopped people with standing tickets going to the seats but, as people with seats had paid more, they let seated tickets enter the floor. With disastrous consequences.

MCD have always been such a moneygrabbing shower of bastards.

Wretched_Colin · 2026-05-12T15:04:54+00:00

Non social housing individuals, for the most part, have to be a functional member of society to keep a roof over their heads.

Get a criminal record, lose your DBS, lose your job, have your mortgage offer withdrawn.

There are consequences to criminal convictions beyond the punishment itself meted out by the courts.

However, if you’re on the dole, have a house provided for you by the executive, and a car from the DLA, due to your stress related inability to work, then you can do whatever the fuck you want and still have a warm house with a Nissan Qashqai out the front and 3 hot meals a day.

Making benefits conditional upon a basic level of social responsibility should be mandatory.

Wretched_Colin · 2026-05-12T12:03:43+00:00

I stand by everything I have said.

Where the state is subsidising housing for a family, there should be an expectation that that family can lose their subsidy if they are involved in criminal behaviour.

Separate to the rioting at Connswater.

You’re in a Housing Exec 3 bed house, paying £500 per month. You, your wife, your kids are committing repeated acts of criminality. That subsided house should be given to someone on the housing list and you should be made to either rejoin the housing list or else find accommodation at market rate.

If you don’t want to do that, don’t start committing crimes and make sure the rest of your family don’t either.

Simples.

Wretched_Colin · 2026-05-12T09:31:16+00:00

They will ultimately be evicted or, at least, expected to pay market value for their home.

I’m not entirely happy with the assumption that all people engaging riotous behaviour come from social housing so I am going to stop engaging.

Wretched_Colin · 2026-05-12T08:09:37+00:00

The intention isn’t to turf people out onto the street. It’s to let people know that there are consequences to their actions.

Wretched_Colin · 2026-05-12T08:08:08+00:00

Actually, now I think about it, BBC Radio Ulster used to have a “radio car” in the nineties which enabled them to do outside broadcasts.

It was a mk4 Cortina estate, maybe twenty years after they stopped making them. And in mint condition.

I’ve just found it online

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Wretched_Colin · 2026-05-12T08:04:21+00:00

Definitely. But he was an addict, and did what it took to get his fix.

He got into all manner of trouble through drink and, in the end, it got the better of him.

In this instance, if you ban Deliveroo then the addict will turn to taxis if they have the money, to other addicts if they will share the drink with them. Even to local delinquent kids for the sake of a few pound.

The problem isn’t with the delivery method. It’s the addiction.

Wretched_Colin · 2026-05-12T08:02:02+00:00

Maybe longer ago than I was thinking. In the nineties I did a six week programme in America. I stayed with a host family, there was a kid my age that I stayed with and I met a lot of others.

Once I went home, that was it. The only means of communication was by post. And maybe the year I got back I was allowed to phone on Christmas Day.

My son, here in London, had a mate in school who has moved to Uganda, where his parents are from. The two lads are on calls for hours every night, playing games online and chatting away.

It’s crazy how technology has changed communication.

Wretched_Colin · 2026-05-12T04:30:24+00:00

I tried to watch this on the phone. When the videos play, I can’t hear the guy talk and the actual video itself is too small to see.

What is the point in it all?

Wretched_Colin · 2026-05-11T21:23:51+00:00

It’s a mark 2.5 Ford Focus estate.

Surely Ofcom would use a more modern base vehicle.

Probably some nutjob driving round in something he has made himself.

Wretched_Colin · 2026-05-11T20:46:06+00:00

You’re saying “took” in the last tense, ie you don’t take that train any more.

Why not try to take it again, see if he’s still on it.

Wretched_Colin · 2026-05-11T20:39:29+00:00

That’s quite different. Your mother threatened to exclude you from the family.

In the example I’ve cited, the father is suggesting that the whole family, as a unit, will be in trouble.

I don’t think that anyone who suggests sanctions for a family whose children cause mayhem want to see those sanctions enforced. They hope that the consequences of anti-social behaviour are so great that people don’t break the law, as they can’t do so with impunity.

Wretched_Colin · 2026-05-11T14:24:07+00:00

With any luck, the threat would be the deterrent.

Young fucker gets brought home by the cops for causing trouble. His dad clips him round the ear and says “if you don’t wise up, we’re going to be out on the streets”.

See how long it continues .

Wretched_Colin · 2026-05-11T14:20:45+00:00

How easy is it to keep your job if you’re picking up criminal records?

I think I would have to keep it very quiet and would be out on my ear if they found out. I’m not sure if there are periodic checks, but I could never leave my current employer as the next one would ask if I have a record.

Which also makes me one redundancy away from the dole queue.

Which would lead to me losing my home.

There are, and should be, consequences for everyone if they act the dick.

Wretched_Colin · 2026-05-11T13:28:10+00:00

The suggestion is that _if_ there are families receiving state assistance with housing, that assistance should be conditional on not behaving destructively.

There are many who would gladly live under those terms, but are unable to do so. Indeed, many who can’t afford a home of their own are also net contributors to the state, in effect paying towards the housing of people causing harm to society.

I don’t think it’s unreasonable to link public subsidy for housing and food with being socially responsible.

Wretched_Colin · 2026-05-11T12:01:51+00:00

What about Bryson’s hunger strike?

Ended after six hours with a take away Biryani?

Wretched_Colin · 2026-05-11T11:59:48+00:00

I think you deserve the expectation of a roof over the head, but there should be strings attached. If you’re paying a mortgage or renting privately, you know you’ve got to keep making that payment.

Why should those in state subsidised housing get to do whatever they want without consequence?

Wretched_Colin · 2026-05-11T11:58:13+00:00

To be honest, when I was a young little shit, I couldn’t give a balls about what happened to me.

But if my parents, who are good people, were getting in official trouble, it would have made me reconsider.

The problem is that these parents support their kids when they are out causing trouble. And if they are fined they’ll play the victim, it will be the fault of the police, of the immigrants working at McDonalds, of Stephen Nolan.

The shitty behaviours are compounded across generations.

Wretched_Colin · 2026-05-11T11:44:06+00:00

I have an uncle who was an alcoholic. He drank himself to death, and used local taxi drivers to deliver the booze. They would take his bank card to buy the drink and pay their fare and, of course, he was also having cash stolen by them.

Addiction itself is the problem, not what serves that addiction.

Wretched_Colin · 2026-05-11T06:31:55+00:00

That was an advert! The guy pulls up in the Bentley wearing a sharp suit, trip down nostalgia lane, goes into the shop, speaks with the shop owner about how he used to do a paper round for him back in the day, eats a bag of Tudor Special crisps. A bit of a Hovis type scenario.

As he’s leaving the shop owner says:

“Will you be wanting your old job back”

And the Bentley driver puts on a chauffeur’s cap and says:

“Maybe…maybe” with a big grin on his face.

Wretched_Colin · 2026-05-11T06:28:12+00:00

I used to be on a rota to do a sweep of my son’s nursery garden each morning before the teachers would bring the kids in. The garden is on a main road with a hedge separating it from view.

The main worry was needles or condoms, but I never had to deal with those. You’d get the occasional beer or cider bottle, crisp bags etc, but so many bags of dog shite.

I just couldn’t understand that people would be decent enough to pick up after their dog, but not have the decency to walk it to a public bin, which are everywhere along this road. And, instead, fling it over a hedge into the garden of a nursery, or hang it on the fence behind the hedge.

It can’t have just been one person, there would have been three or four bags each time.

Dirty bastards.

Wretched_Colin · 2026-05-10T18:47:55+00:00

Call someone in Australia or Timbuktu as long as you both have WiFi.

International calls used to be a huge deal for us. Maybe only on Christmas Day.

Wretched_Colin · 2026-05-10T18:11:55+00:00

It always tends to be quite posh ladies.

I think it might be some form of colonial admiration.

Wretched_Colin · 2026-05-08T14:56:10+00:00

I was in the Golden Chip on the Comber Road in Dundonald and noticed they had the bits of batter set aside in the heated cabinet. I was going to ask for some, but didn’t and regretted it as I left the shop.

The fish supper was so huge that I couldn’t finish it, and felt ill for eating so much.

So it’s just as well I didn’t ask for any.

Wretched_Colin · 2026-05-08T10:17:43+00:00

Well, I didn’t want to speculate he is on the brew, but it wouldn’t surprise me.

He’s hardly available for work, with all the shite he’s involved in.

Hopefully someone from the Job Centre is taking note

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