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.