Newcomers

In recent weeks it has become very noticeable that various public bodies and figures have a new word for people not native to these lands. Newcomers! It comes up quite a lot where issues around schools and education are concerned and the provision of services to support "newcomer" children.

Now the word stirred a memory in me and I had a rustle about in the old brain pan for a while and what did I find only that it has been used before. Only then it was used to describe fictional aliens, by which I mean real live aliens from another planet! Who got drunk on sour milk and for whom sea water was like acid! And their lady folk could do interesting things to human males that we never quite found out about. It could just be me but I've not noticed too many kids with lumpy heads about the place. What lazy bones think tank came up with that name I wonder? What next are we going to start calling the opposition the Rebel Alliance? Or make references to a minister being of the Hutt persuasion... hang on I think that is already being done.

In related news, RTe had a report that a GAA club in Gort had managed to get a local lad of a Brazilian background to play hurling. Just an FYI for the GAA but I've had a slogan for an anti racism effort floating around in the back of the trunk for a few years now. What matters is not the colour of your skin, but the colour of your jersey.