Ian Paisley Retires And Smites The Bookies

Ian Paisley must surely be happy that one of the last moves of his political career has been to hit the gambling industry in the pocket. According to today's Belfast Telegraph Paddy Powers bookmakers lost £20,000 last night when Ian Paisley announced that he was retiring in May this year at the age of 82.

Prompted by the resignation of his son, Ian Junior, Paddy Powers opened the book on February 20 offering odds of 4/5 that Paisley Senior would be gone by the end of 2008. So many people took the bet that the odds were driven to 1/5 and finally Paddy Powers stopped taking bets. It was too late for them though and last nights announcement was a final farewell to the bookies from the Protestant fundamentalist preacher who has been leading his own church since the 1950s and been involved in politics since the 1960s. He also stepped down from the leadership of his church last month.

The selection of a replacement for the leadership of the Free Presbyterian Church had to be postponed temporarily due to freak weather conditions. We wonder what God will try to do to stop Ian stepping down as First Minister this May!

Paisleys announcement is as good a time as any to review some of his best, and most infamous quotes:

"No, I wouldn't" - his response to John Hume from the SDLP who said that if the word "no" were removed from the English language, Paisley would be speechless.

"They breed like rabbits and multiply like vermin" - talking about Catholics at a loyalist rally in 1969.

"This Romish man of sin is now in hell! - on the death of Pope John XXIII.

"I denounce you, Anti-Christ! I refuse you as Christ's enemy and Antichrist with all your false doctrine" - addressing Pope John Paul II on a visit to the European Parliament October 1988.

"Line dancing is as sinful as any other type of dancing, with its sexual gestures and touching. It is an incitement to lust."

"I will never sit down with Gerry Adams ... he'd sit with anyone. He'd sit down with the devil. In fact, Adams does sit down with the devil" - on Adams in February 1997.

"I am not going to sit down with bloodthirsty monsters who have been killing and terrifying my people" - opposing demands to sit down and talk with Sinn Fein.

"Let me smell your breath first, son" - Paisley's regular request to reporters, whom he suspected of drinking, before he would allow them to interview him.

"Never, never, never, never..." - outside Belfast City Hall as he addressed tens of thousands of loyalists protesting against the signing of the November 1985 Anglo-Irish Agreement.

"The Devils Buttermilk." = Guinness