THE North’s cash-for-ash scandal seems one straight out of the playbook so energetically celebrated by our mohair politicians from some decades ago.

REACTION in Britain to the resignation of the UK’s permanent representative at the European Union has been tediously predictable. 

ARGUMENTS for and against continuing a ban on the publication of Mein Kampf are somewhat theoretical, since the book in which Adolf Hitler snivelled about his early years in Austria before setting out unambiguously his vision for a 1,000-year “Jew-free” empire has never been subjected to a legal ban in Germany. It has been more nuanced than that.

GAA president Aogán Ó Fearghail’s suggestion, one echoed by Tyrone’s Mickey Harte, that the organisation might consider not playing the national anthem or flying the Tricolour at its games in the event of a “political realignment on the island” has provoked an entirely predictable and pointless response.

ONCE upon a time, in a more naive world, we accepted there were two certainties: Death and taxes.