DO YOU find watching the news depressing? I completely understand. What with Al Gore telling us that we face a “planetary emergency” and the British government claiming obesity presents an even bigger challenge, not to mention the serial warnings that we are all going to be blown up by Islamist terrorists, if cancer doesn’t kill us beforehand.

IF you have been to see Hollywood’s latest blockbuster, The Kingdom, and came away just a little bit confused, don’t worry, you’re not the only one. When was the last time you went to see a movie that portrays the Americans as the good guys, on the winning side?

In truth, the former chancellor’s depressed share price before he assumed the keys to No 10 was hugely to his advantage.

IN THE concluding sentence of his magisterial new history of Ireland from the French revolution to the present day, Professor Paul Bew wonders if, “as ethnic rage gives way to ethnic vanity, is it really possible that the enmities of Irish history are losing their power to hurt and destroy”?

PINK was the defining colour of the last week. The shocking fuchsia suit Margaret Thatcher wore to meet Gordon Brown wasn’t just the first thing to hand in the wardrobe. As a former British foreign secretary acidly put it, “she has a perfectly good blue dress at home”. She was seeking attention and she got it, dominating the headlines at the expense of Conservative leader David Cameron’s long-awaited ‘green’ report.

PROOF that something is rotten in the state of the North came at the weekend with the resignation of Ian Paisley as moderator of his own Free Presbyterian Church.

In 1936, the Berlin Olympics turned into a display of Nazi propaganda.

STUDENTS: don’t you just love them? Back in 1997 I was invited to UCC to debate that hoary old chestnut “This House wants a United Ireland”. After being noisily harangued by all the usual suspects for not wanting a million people coerced against their will, one young woman addressed me in the gentlest voice.